Commons Sitting of 17 December 1980

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS
BEARSDEN AND MILNGAVIE DISTRICT COUNCIL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
CUMNOCK AND DOON VALLEY DISTRICT COUNCIL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
DUNFERMLINE DISTRICT COUNCIL ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
CHURCHES AND UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) WIDOWS' AND ORPHANS' FUND (AMENDMENT) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
PETERHEAD HARBOURS ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL.
Read the Third time and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions
  Environment

    Partnership Committees
    Sir William Elliottasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is satisfied that the work of the partnership committees is being effective in helping to revitalise the inner areas of the older industrial cities.
    The Minister for Local Government and Environmental Services (Mr. Tom King): I am satisfied that the partnership committees are making an effective contribution, but I am continuing to seek ways in which this may be improved.
    Sir William Elliott: While my right hon. Friend is satisfied, may I ask whether he would agree that the revitalisation of inner cities depends to an advanced degree upon private enterprise and private investment? Does he therefore agree that it would be a good thing if private business were represented on these inner city committees, in the shape of banks, building societies and chambers of commerce?
    Mr. King: As my hon. Friend will be aware, while such organisations are not represented on the actual committees, we have taken an initiative to set up monitoring committees for the partnerships, on which local and private enterprise is very much represented. We have already established this for Liverpool and for Manchester-Salford, and we hope shortly to establish one for Newcastle-Gateshead as well.
    Mr. Eastham: Would the Minister care to indicate clearly to cities such as Manchester, which are included in the partnership programme, what the allocations will really be? Will they be subject to cuts? Will he give some clear indication whether they are to continue as was originally intended several years ago?
    Mr. King: I hope to advise the partnership very shortly on the allocation for Manchester-Salford. I understand the partnership's concern to know its figures for the next year as soon as possible. I hope that we shall be able to provide that information very shortly.
    Mr. Thornton: Will the Minister agree to look at the arrangements for the Liverpool partnership committee, with particular regard to the allocation to the voluntary sector? Is he aware that there is considerable feeling there that, unless this review is undertaken, some of the projects that have been started will have to terminate through lack of finance? Does he appreciate that that would certainly not be in keeping with the spirit which I know the Minister wishes to see coming out of the partnership committee?
    Mr. King: We are most anxious to encourage the voluntary sector, as my hon. Friend will be aware, and we have this consideration very much in mind in the allocation proposals that we hope to announce shortly.
    Mr. Guy Barnett: Will the Minister say to what degree he has been successful in bending the main programmes of Government expenditure towards the areas in which inner city partnerships are responsible, and can he say anything about the degree to which the rate support grant has been used in that respect?
    Mr. King: I think that the hon. Member will be aware, from the statement made yesterday and from the very comprehensive documents that we have published, of the way in which the rate support grant allocation is being determined in future to try to take account of the relative needs of different areas. He will see, in that respect, that there are certain aspects in which the sort of characteristics that characterise inner city areas are reflected in the allocation arrangements. As regards the bending proposals, he will see from the announcements that we shall make shortly the extent to which this is being continued.

    House Completions
    Mr. Stoddartasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will state the likely number of house completions in the public and private sectors in 1980 and 1981.
    The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. John Stanley): I cannot estimate future rates of completions, but between January and October this year there were 75,000 completions in the public sector in England and 90,000 in the private sector.
    Mr. Stoddart: Is not that a most unsatisfactory answer? Does it not show a disgraceful neglect of duty in that the Minister is not evaluating the effects of the Government's savage housing cuts? Is it not a wilful disregard of the interests of the people on housing waiting lists, both present and future, who will have to wait years longer for a house, as well as the interests of the 280,000 unemployed building industry workers? Is it not a fact that only 190,000 houses in both sectors will be completed this

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    year and even fewer next year? The Minister and his right hon. Friend are a malignant cancer on the body of housing, and they ought to be removed.
    Mr. Stanley: The hon. Gentleman will recall that in the five years of the Labour Administration housing capital was reduced by nearly half in real terms. He should also bear in mind that local authorities have discretion as to whether they use their available capital for new build or for improvements to existing dwellings. The pattern of expenditure in the public sector over the last six successive years has shown that by their own choice local authorities have chosen to increase the proportion that they are spending on improving the existing stock rather than undertaking new build. Despite all the gloom and doom which the hon. Gentleman is perpetrating, I remind him that the number of council dwellings which have been improved this year is higher than in any year since 1973.
    Mr. Hill: Does not my hon. Friend agree that one of the main problems is that local authorities have been operating a land bank within the cities and have not released land to the private sector even when it was surplus to requirements? When shall we see some results from the lists which my hon. Friend is asking the local authorities to draw up?
    Mr. Stanley: My hon. Friend is quite right. He will know that the first authorities which have been asked to draw up registers of land have already been designated by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and Environmental Services. He will also be aware that it is not merely vacant land which is being held on to by certain local authorities but empty housing as well. The latest HIP returns show that seven authorities have had more than 1,000 houses empty for more than a year. The House should be aware that those authorities are as follows—Camden, with 1,080 empty houses; Lambeth, with 1,189; Southwark, with 1,196; Hackney, with 1,267; Knowsley, with 1,400; Islington, with 1,401; and Manchester, with 1,869.
    Mrs. Ann Taylor: As housing figures in the public sector are determined by the HIP allocation, can the Minister say what proportion of the housing investment programme, which was announced on Monday, is likely to lead to new building? Is it not a fact that much of that money is already committed and that one authority in Coventry which put in a bid for £25 million received only £7·8 million whereas it is already committed to £8·9 million? How many local authorities has the Minister placed in that position, and what does he intend to do about them?
    Mr. Stanley: I congratulate the hon. lady on her move to the housing front. The answer to her question is that this year all local authorities have not merely their allocation but also the ability to add to their allocation by the capital receipts which they get in from the sale of land, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill) has referred. That will be a significant factor in regard to the amount which they spend on new build or improvements.

    New Projects (Assessment)
    Mr. Michael McNair Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what specialist advice is available to him for assessing the aesthetic quality of new projects under consideration by his Department.
    The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine): A range of advice is available to me depending on the nature of the particular project—for example, from the Royal Fine Art Commission and the Historic Buildings Council.
    Mr. McNair-Wilson: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that far too many country towns and villages are being spoilt by housing projects, the design of which owes far more to the suburbs than it does to the countryside? When planning consents are allowed on appeal, to what extent is the Department able to monitor the rural quality of the housing that is intended?
    Mr. Heseltine: I understand my hon. Friend's concern to ensure that there is the most exciting and innovative standard of design and also that, where traditional architecture is deployed, it should be of a high quality. However, I question whether it is in the broad sweep of policy that local planning committees or my inspectors should be involved in trying to arbitrate public taste as a superior factor to individual taste.
    Mr. Chapman: I declare an interest as an architect, albeit a non-practising one. What criteria does my right hon. Friend use in judging the aesthetic qualities of a new building?
    Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend will understand the difficulty of answering that question in precise terms. It is because I am anxious that we should not try to enshrine a standard of taste in public documents that I issued my recent circular. I believe that there is a responsibility on the Secretary of State, where major national projects are being developed, to ensure that there has been an opportunity for matters such as the quality of those buildings to be discussed widely. I have expressed my view that, in order to enhance the architectural quality of what we are building today—much of which in recent decades has, frankly, been abysmal—we should use public competitions so that there is a much greater incidence of appreciation of the need for extra quality.

    London Docklands
    Mr. Marlowasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he will seek to establish a new Regents Park in docklands.
    Mr. King: It is for the proposed London Docklands development corporation and for the local authorities to consider what provision should be made for parks in the area.
    Mr. Marlow: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is fitting that each generation should leave a architectural monument to the British heritage? If he were to designate a Prince of Wales park for private development within the London UDC, that would be both a tribute to his foresight and imagination and a testament to all that is best in Britain in the 1980s.
    Mr. King: My hon. Friend will be aware that Royal parks are part of the Sovereign's hereditary property and

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    managed as public parks for the Crown by the Department of the Environment. There are no Crown holdings of potential parkland in the docklands area. Of course, there is the Beckton district park, which has been supported by substantial sums of public money, and there is proximity to Grenwich Royal park as well. I know that the need for open space in this area—perhaps not on the scale that my hon. Friend's imagination suggests—is recognised in the plans and proposals for the docklands area.
    Mr. Spearing: Does the Minister agree that when Beckton district park—which is at present being laid out so excellently by the London borough of Newham—is fully completed, the costs of maintaining that park should be in the hands of the borough? Is it not a fact that allowable expenses from the Secretary of State for that authority will be reduced because there is a diversion of funds to counties and provinces in general and to Northampton in particular?
    Mr. King: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman has considered the grant distribution proposals which were put forward yesterday. However, I am sure that he will have noticed that the borough of Newham is not unfavourably treated.
    Mr. Cockeram: Is it not the case that where a developer is prepared to redevelop London's moribund docklands, and has already had to face two planning inquiries, it is further bureaucracy for the Minister to institute a third planning inquiiry for the same development?
    Mr. King: My hon. Friend is tempting me on to ground which comes under my right hon. Friend's quasi-judicial responsibilities, and it would be wiser if I did not trespass upon it.
    Mr. Graham: Does the Minister agree that however desirable projects of this kind may be, they must take a low priority in docklands in comparison with the need for housing, roads and other elements of the infrastructure?
    Mr. King: That is precisely why we have proposed, and the House has acepted in the Act, subject to the approval of the orders, the creation of an urban development corporation for London docklands. We have done this precisely because of the Government's conviction and determination to get action and improvement in an area which for far too long has been allowed to deteriorate.

    Development Control Statistics
    Mr. Bendallasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many London boroughs have contributed to his Department's development control statistics requested in form PS1 and PS2.
    The Under Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Marcus Fox): Twenty-nine of the 33 London authorities have contributed to the quarterly statistics since they were introduced in May 1979. Of these, 23 now regularly complete both forms. Four have not completed any.
    Mr. Bendall: What plans does my hon. Friend have, if any, to seek the co-operation of the remaining London boroughs that have not been involved? Is there any way
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    in which he can review the process by which the figures are brought forward by his Department, as it seems to be taking rather a long time?
    Mr. Fox: We are concerned that all local authorities should submit these figures. We see them as an important part of our package to speed up the planning system and make it more efficient. We would hesitate to use the statutory powers that are available to us. We are certain that, through encouragement and persuasion, we can get the remaining four London boroughs to conform.
    We are in contact with local authority associations to reduce, if possible, the amount of statistical information that is requested I am happy to say that we are already getting authorities to send in their returns much quicker than initially.
    Mr. Mellor: Will my hon. Friend say slightly more about the extent of the reductions in statistics sought from London authorities in view of the fairly dramatic reductions in Government money available to certain inner London boroughs?
    Mr. Fox: We gave these matters careful thought before we drew up the forms. We were supported by the Expenditure Committee in its eighth report and by George Dobry. I assure my hon. Friend that we are fully aware of the need to limit any extra burdens on local authorities. We bear that in mind always.

    Development Control Policy
    Mr. David Huntasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has to redraft the development control policy notes issued by his Department.
    Mr. Anthony Grantasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what proposals he has to redraft the development control policy notes of his Department.
    Mr. King: A number of the development control policy notes have been overtaken by our development control circular 22/80. I have therefore started a review of the existing series. The local authority associations and developers are being consulted on their usefulness and the format of any replacement.
    Mr. Hunt: Is my right hon. Friend aware that several local authorities, including Wirral, are concerned at the new rules on enforcement procedures, especially the burden placed on the local authority first to find an alternative site for the illegal business if possible? Is he further aware that there are worries that this will lead to a serious increase in the administrative burden on local authorities? Will he please look at this again?
    Mr. King: My hon. Friend may be referring to the draft circular. We modified the enforcement requirements before issuing the circular. The general welcome that the circular has received reflects the better balance. I think that the House will recognise that when there is such concern about employment we must consider the problems of small businesses and give them all the help that we can.
    Mr. Grant: I welcome the relaxations already made by the Government in planning restrictions. However, does my right hon. Friend agree that change of user permission should more readily be given by planning authorities,

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    especially to small firms that need to develop and grow? Will he consider that need if and when redrafting takes place?
    Mr. King: We are giving that matter consideration. As my hon. Friend will know, we hope shortly to bring forward further amendments to the general development order, which will exempt certain minor developments from planning controls in an effort further to help all areas in the move to assist small businesses.
    Mr. Steen: Will my right hon. Friend consider extending the freedom from planning considerations applying in the enterprise zones to the whole of the urban areas surrounding them? Such an extension would allow private enterprise to do the very things that the Government are asking it to do.
    Mr. King: We have made clear that our proposals for the enterprise zones are for a limited number of experimental projects to ascertain whether it is an effective approach. We shall look for a constructive and positive approach from planning authorities throughout the country. I hope that that will go some way to meeting the point that my hon. Friend fairly raises.
    Mr. Cryer: Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the house that planning relaxation will not reach the stage when the means by which people are protected from abuse—for example, the setting up of a tannery next door to them—are withered away? Planning control is designed to help the community as well as providing a means of control of small businesses.
    Mr. King: I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman has had a chance to read our planning circular. It starts with a clear reaffirmation of the importance of planning and the value that it has for society. We are concerned that planning should be respected but that it should not be over-bureaucratic and restrictive in unnecessary aspects. Protection must remain for the community from obnoxious developments.

    Inner City Areas (Expenditure)
    Mr. Dubsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what will be the effect of his present policies on the balance of local government expenditure between inner city areas and the rest of the country.
    Mr. Heseltine: Local authorities are responsible for deciding on their own level of expenditure, and it is ultimately their decisions which will determine the balance between urban and rural areas.
    Many Government policies—for example, rate support grant, capital allocations and the urban programme—have some influence on this balance, and in all of them we pay due regard to the differing needs of urban and rural areas.
    Mr. Dubs: Is it not a fact that the Secretary of State made the decision to transfer resources to shire counties and away from cities—especially away from inner London—before he finalised the block grant formula? Does not that suggest that his motives were political rather than springing from a genuine consideration of disadvantaged inner city communities?
    Mr. Heseltine: I think that the hon. Gentleman will realise that there are many inner cities outside London which receive many of the major local services provided
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    by the shire counties. Such counties provide about 80 per cent. of the total expenditure of local government outside London. When the House has had a full opportunity to consider the grant-related expenditure factors that we issued yesterday, I think that it will realise that I was trying to measure on a more independent basis the real needs of individual authorities. Having done that, and having taken into account the various levels of expenditure, I came to realise, as I had often suspected, that the shift of about £300 million from the provinces to London over the past five years was not warranted by the calculations.
    Mr. John Townend: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a view among county councils that they were victimised by the Labour Government? May I assure him that they will welcome his start to reduce that wrong? Will he be good enough to tell Labour Members that all the problems in local government are not restricted to inner cities and that there is such a thing as rural deprivation?
    Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend has a real knowledge of the workings of local government and, therefore, produces an informed comment on what has happened. We have now produced a series of factors that indicate how we think local government entitlement under the rate support grant should be broken down. If there is a wish to be involved in the debate on how the factors should be altered, adjusted or improved, we shall offer the first opportunity ever for politicians, the national press and experts in every area to become involved in the widest and most profound debate about local government that Britain has ever seen.
    Mr. Dobson: When the right hon. Gentleman is taking part in the academic exercise of considering all these factors, will he bear in mind that the people of inner London will be suffering, despite the fraudulent figures that he circulated yesterday, because the target figures for expenditure for the Inner London Education Authority and the inner London boroughs will be £320 million less than is being spent this year?
    Mr. Heseltine: I only hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to persuade the majority of his colleagues that my figures are fraudulent and that there is no justification for reversing the drift to London of recent years. If his right hon. and hon. Friends come to the conclusion that the factors that I have introduced are wrong, they will doubtless advise me where I should change them. The hon. Gentleman will understand that every time the factors are changed one authority will gain and another authority will lose. All that I am doing within the block grant scheme is to readjust the distribution. Those in the provinces are as entitled to say that they have need as are those who live in London.

    Cesspool Emptying
    Mr. Madelasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether, following his letter to the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South of 7 July, the Government are now planning to make any legislative, administrative or financial changes in the present system of charging for cesspool emptying; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Fox: I am now receiving replies from local authorities to a questionnaire about numbers of properties without mains drainage, arrangements for removing

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    effluent, and cost. When all the replies have been received, we shall consider whether any changes as my hon. Friend mentions are required.
    Mr. Madel: As well as looking at the cost to owners of unconnected properties of disposing of their drainage, will my hon. Friend also look at the cost that the water authority levies on the local authority for disposing of the collected drainage? Many people feel that the water authorities are charging too much.
    Mr. Fox: This is a complex question. Some hon. Members have suggested that this duty should be performed by water authorities rather than by local authorities, in which case the situation would be even worse. But included in our survey will be the whole question of costs incurred between local authorities and water authorities.
    Mr. Hardy: Does the Minister now agree, however, that the previous Conservative Government's Water Act 1973 is clearly seen as a particularly foolish piece of legislation, not least because of the harmful effect upon over 1 million rural residents dependent upon cesspools? Does he now regret the fact that the Conservative Opposition of a couple of years ago blocked the previous Labour Government's attempt to relieve this problem? When can we expect him to take action on behalf of those whom he purports to represent?
    Mr. Fox: I think that, with hindsight, all Governments regret certain policies. Concerning the reorganisation of water, sensible people realised that something had to be done about the situation that existed then. In terms of cesspools and the hardship that has been created, we are looking very carefully at this matter. It was under a Labour Government that a decision was taken in the High Court—in Daymond versus South-West water authority—that brought all this to light. However, we shall make certain that we do the best we can for those about whom the hon. Member is concerned.

    Freight Waterways (Report)
    Mr. Neubertasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what study he has made of the report "British Freight Waterways: Today and Tomorrow", and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. King: The study, which the Inland Waterways Association published last month, is being examined at the moment. It raises questions which I shall need to discuss with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport, and I shall then consider whether a statement would be appropriate.
    Mr. Neubert: Will the Minister explain why virtually all Government documents assume that the only waterways in commercial use are owned by the British Waterways Board, why, as a result, two-thirds of Britain's commercial waterways are omitted from official statistics, and why the Government continue to neglect the wasting asset of an under-used, non-pollutant, commercial waterway freight network?
    Mr. King: My hon. Friend will be aware that there is a significant Government investment in the South Yorkshire canal, specifically as a flag bearer for what British Waterways hopes will be a development of freight potential. He will be aware that the bulk of our canal
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    system was designed in the eighteenth century and is not of a scale that is likely to prove a commercial proposition for freight. However, I should like to look into the point that my hon. Friend raises in the first part of his question.
    Mr. Sever: Does the Minister accept that far too little attention is given to the state of British waterways, both with regard to their maintenance and certainly with regard to the way in which they can be exploited for further freight traffic? Will he urge upon his ministerial colleagues the need for developing freightage on the waterways and the need for the extension of that service in the larger industrial areas, where energy cost savings can be a very reckonable feature?
    Mr. King: I know that there are many hon. Members on both sides of the House who would like to see a revival of our waterways. We must face some fairly tough facts. There is very substantial Government support for the waterways, merely to retain the fabric of what is, as I have said, in many parts a late eighteenth—century structure. This is raising major problems for us, but certainly, even within the very difficult economic situation with which we are faced, we are doing our best to maintain the support for the essential repair work that is needed if we are to maintain the fabric of the canal system.
    Mr. Durant: Will my right hon. Friend study carefully the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Romford (Mr. Neubert), who made a valuable point about statistics? Is he aware that the report is a valuable document and it gives the whole scene, so that the Department can look at the value of the commercial waterways and how they should be exploited?
    Mr. King: I am well aware of my hon. Friend's close interest in this subject. We shall be looking at this document very carefully.
    Mr. Spearing: Has the Minister noticed that in the Armitage report on lorries there is a recommendation that more traffic should be transferred to the waterways? In relation to transferring or changing the criteria for statistics, is the Minister aware that the Government can, virtually overnight, increase the amount of traffic on the waterways and fulfil that recommendation with no cost apart from changing the statistics? Will he look at this matter immediately with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport?
    Mr. King: We are giving very close consideration to the Armitage report. I have no statement to make on that today.

    Rate Support Grant Order
    Mr. John Evansasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what discussions he has had with local authority associations about next year's rate support grant order.
    Mr. Heseltine: I have had frequent discussions on this subject in the consultative council on local government finance, the latest of which was on 4 December, prior to my final announcement of the settlement on 16 December.
    Mr. Evans: During the discussions, did the Secretary of State tell the local authorities what the cut in real terms in this year's RSG is compared with last year's settlement? Will he now tell us what those figures are? Did some of

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    the local authorities tell him that next year many local authorities will be faced with reducing their staff, reducing their services and considerably increasing their rates?
    Mr. Heseltine: I think that the hon. Gentleman will remember that yesterday I gave the House all these figures, and, of course, I also gave them to the local government consultative council, so I think that they are well established in the public mind.
    Mr. Christopher Price: As the right hon. Gentleman travels back to his modest Oxfordshire homestead for Christmas, will he have a look at the front page of today's edition of the Financial Times and see the list of those areas of the country that will benefit from his announcement yesterday and the list of the areas that will suffer? Will he reflect on the fact that among the areas that will suffer are some of the most impoverished areas of Britain? How many people does he expect to be sacked by the ILEA and the London boroughs, and how much unemployment does he intend to create in London, in order to comply with his announced target that ILEA must spend 14 per cent. less next year?
    Mr. Heseltine: The economies that are made by any authority must be a matter for the authority. It is my responsibility to allocate on a national basis and according to general rules. But what the hon. Member will, perhaps, want to remember is that if authorities do not make the economies that we request, they will have to raise the rates, and raising the rates destroys far more jobs than authorities create in local government by maintaining their existing pay rises.
    Mr. Colin Shepherd: Is my right hon. Friend aware that his RSG settlement will be welcomed in my part of the world because it will go to reverse the ever-increasing rural deprivation that was experienced as a result of the steady removal of RSG over the last five years of Labour Government?
    Mr. Heseltine: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. I realise that by introducing for the first time factors which all right hon. and hon. Members can understand, I am making a readjustment. [Interruption.] If I thought that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell) understood the RSG that his Government produced, it would be one of the more surprising things that I have heard in the House. The fact is that I am providing facts to indicate how the sums are distributed on a basis that can be understood for the first time.
    I make one point in addition to what my hon. Friend said. It is not just a question of deprivation that we are dealing with in the distribution of the RSG. There are many expanding areas to which people who are leaving some of our cities are moving. It is just as important to recognise the need for the provision of new services, such as social services and education, in those areas as it is to deal with the problems of poverty that remain in the areas from which people are moving. Therefore, one has to have a fair balance in the distribution of the RSG. As I have said before, what the House can now do is to examine the factors in detail. If hon. Members see the arguments for changing those factors, we shall have begun a debate about local government that I want to encourage.
    Mr. Alton: Was the right hon. Gentleman thinking about his relationship with local government when he recently spoke to the CBI saying that he felt like Wellington before the battle of Waterloo?
    Instead of fighting these imaginary battles and living out his childhood fantasies, the right hon. Gentleman ought to be doing something about the battles being fought in many of our urban communities as a result of his rate support grant settlement. Will the Secretary of State say—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is making a very long preamble and I am a historian—or at least I used to be.
    Mr. Alton: Will the Secretary of State say whether he is now satisfied that he has complied with section 56(10) of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act in holding a statutory meeting with the local government associations before agreeing to this year's rate support grant settlement?
    Mr. Heseltine: Yes, Sir.

    Housing Investment Programmes
    Mr. Allan Robertsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to announce the housing investment programmes for the financial year 1981–82.
    Mr. Stanley: My right hon. Friend announced the housing investment programme capital allocations on 15 December.
    Mr. Roberts: Is the Minister aware that now we are sorry that he did? Will he confirm that the real cut in Government capital expenditure on the housing investment programme is 30 per cent, not 15 per cent. as the Secretary of State announced? That is because 15 per cent. has been allowed for speculative capital receipts from sales of council houses, and these are not selling to the extent that the Minister expected, although he will not give the figures. Will he confirm that there is a 16·5 per cent. allowance in the housing investment programmes for increases in building costs and that that compares with only 11 per cent. for increased costs in the rate support grant settlement? Which is correct?
    Mr. Stanley: The hon. Member can be assured that the reduction that my right hon. Friend announced was correct. The total permitted spend for local housing authorities next year is £2·201 million. That includes £430 million of capital receipts, and those are not speculative items. They relate, certainly, to sales of council houses and sales of land, but also, to a considerable extent, to mortgage repayments on debt incurred in previous years. We welcome the ability of local authorities to benefit directly when they are pursuing policies of home ownership in their areas.
    Mr. Steen: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the sum going to the Housing Corporation this year for housing associations is the same as last year? Is he aware that the housing associations in Liverpool are continuing to spread slanderous statements to the effect that the Government are cutting money to the associations?
    Mr. Stanley: My hon. Friend is correct. In the allocation that we have made to the Housing Corporation next year, we have maintained the real value of the £420 million that we provided this year.
    Mr. Joseph Dean: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his right hon. Friend's statement on council house rents the other day, in view of information given to me in a written answer from the Department of Health and Social Security, will cost that Department between £300 million and £400 million a year? What will be the total cost to the public purse of these rent increases, bearing in mind the part of rent rebates that will be borne by the Government? How will these massive increases in rent help housing?
    Mr. Stanley: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the increase in rents announced by my right hon. Friend will produce a net saving in public expenditure. The hon. Gentleman's question, however, demonstrates that about 45 per cent. of all local authority tenants have the protection of the rent rebate and supplementary benefit systems. That is one of the major justifications for the level of gross rents that my right hon. Friend announced.

    Street Repairs (St. Helens)
    Mr. Spriggsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will now take into consideration the backlog of street repairs which include footpaths and roadways in the metropolitan borough of St. Helens when making up his rate support grant for the borough.
    Mr. King: Block grant is distributed in accordance with a formula of general application to all local authorities. The distribution is based on an analysis of the costs and spending needs of all local authorities for all of their services, including road maintenance. I refer the hon. Member to the document on grant-related expenditure published yesterday with the rate support grant settlement for an account of how this analysis was done.
    Mr. Spriggs: Is the Minister aware that his right hon. Friend misled me yesterday when he replied about St. Helens, saying that he had visited St. Helens twice and he knew the town well? Will he permit me to escort him to parts of the town where roads and footpaths have not been repaired for many years and which consequently constitute a danger to pedestrians and traffic? Is he aware that many of the derelict sites cannot be reclaimed because of financial controls? What does he plan to do about that?
    Mr. King: I am flabbergasted. The hon. Member is more concerned with the account that my right hon. Friend gave of his visits than with recognising that in this settlement St. Helens will receive a fairer allocation than it did under the previous settlement. I would have imagined that, with his responsibility as Member of Parliament, he would have been most vociferous then in his complaints at the treatment of St. Helens. At least, he should recognise that the objective analysis in our proposals acknowledges the problems of individual areas.

    Sports Council
    Mr. John Carlisleasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will review the work of the Sports Council.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Hector Monro): The Sports Council is an independent body constituted by Royal charter which sets it clear objectives. I am satisfied that these objectives are being met, and a review is, therefore, unnecessary. I keep in close touch with the work of the council through my
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    regular informal meetings with its chairman and principals, by attending some of the council's meetings, and by the regular contact of my officials with those of the council.
    Mr. Carlisle: At his next meeting, will my hon. Friend consider recommending that the council requests local authorities to provide reduced entry fees to leisure and sporting facilities for unemployed youth? Will he further recommend that it encourages sporting personalities such as Kevin Keegan, Sebastian Coe and Mohammed Ali—who has been but is now no longer watching our proceedings—to meet these unfortunate young people?
    Mr. Monro: I agree that sport and recreation can play a valuable part in meeting the needs of the unemployed, particularly the young. The Sports Council fully recognises that and is anxious to help. Finance is difficult, but the Sports Council is planning to earmark some £100,000 to be spent on one or two pilot schemes for young people who are out of work. In this way it can see how best it can help within the resources at its disposal.
    Mr. Denis Howell: Will the Minister confirm the grant for the Sports Council to continue this excellent work? Will it be 7 per cent. as reported? If so, how does he square that with the 14 per cent. increase for the arts, which is an increase of £10 million, which none of us begrudges? Does he recognise that in these days of great youth unemployment the work of the Sports Council is more necessary than ever and that it needs funds at least equivalent to those being granted to the arts to carry out its work? Why are the Government discriminating against sport in this way?
    Mr. Monro: I have not announced the Sports Council grant and do not intend to do so this week, because it has not been decided. The Department of the Environment has many major decisions to make, and the right hon. Gentleman well knows that we have made reductions overall. These figures have to be carefully worked out relative to all the environmental services. When I am ready to make an announcement, I shall do so.

    Shorthold
    Mr. Lennox-Boydasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many inquiries his Department has received since the date of Royal Assent about the new shorthold provisions of the Housing Act.
    Mr. Stanley: No figures are available in the form requested. However, since the commencement of the shorthold provisions of the Housing Act on 28 November, the Department has received more than 9,500 requests for copies of its booklet "Shorthold Tenancies".
    Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Does my hon. Friend agree that his reply indicates that there is already a substantial amount of interest in the provisions of the Housing Act by those who are in a position to help to alleviate the housing problem? Will he further agree that that interest contrasts strangely with the policy of Labour Members who seek to frighten those would-be landlords, thereby, one can only conclude, delaying even further the housing of some people who are presently without homes?
    Mr. Stanley: My hon. Friend is right. There is a considerable demand for the use of our shorthold

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    provisions under the Housing Act 1980, and it is clear that it would be greater still were it not for the totally irresponsible commitment of the Labour Party to repeal it.
    Mr. Dobson: Has the Minister taken the opportunity to read the predictions of the Tory-controlled London Boroughs Association to the effect that the introduction of shorthold in the London area will at best produce about 800 to 3,000 dwellings in shorthold use?
    Mr. Stanley: I assure the hon. Gentleman that shorthold is a form of tenure that is available nationally, and I believe that there will be a significant national response.
    Mr. Heddle: Will my hon. Friend acknowledge that while the shorthold provisions of the Housing Act will help to provide the right to rent for homeless families this Christmas, and perhaps next year, they also hold the key to job mobility? Will he intensify his Department's campaign to make the shorthold provisions more readily available to landlords and tenants alike?
    Mr. Stanley: I assure my hon. Friend that the shorthold provisions will make a major contribution towards mobility, as will the new provisions making it easier for owner-occupiers to let part of their houses. The House may be interested to know that since 28 November we have separately, and in addition, received over 900 applications for our Department of Environment booklet which gives guidance to resident landlords wishing to let part of their houses.
    Mr. Winnick: Bearing in mind the fact that there is a private landlords' lobby on the Tory Benches, does the Minister believe that the shorthold provision will be as popular and successful as the Conservative's Rent Act of 1957?
    Mr. Stanley: I cannot think why the hon. Gentleman, who from time to time expresses concern about housing need, finds that there is something odious about meeting that need in the private sector. At present, it is highly desirable to make the best possible use of available accommodation, whether it is in the private or the public sector.

    Housing Investment
    Mr. Hardyasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will estimate the total number of jobs which have been lost and the total cost incurred by local authorities as a consequence of his moratorium on housing investment.
    Mr. Heseltine: The decision to halt the letting of new local authority housing contracts was taken to prevent expenditure exceeding the cash limit for the current financial year. That cash limit, and, therefore, the employment and work load that it may have been expected to generate, remains unchanged.
    Mr. Hardy: Does not the Secretary of State perceive that there is a staggering increase in building industry bankruptcies? Does he not realise that the rate of unemployment is increasing to the point where the cost is now £450 million more each month? In view of that, does not the moratorium appear to be socially absurd or economically extravagant in many parts of the North of England?
    Mr. Heseltine: I realise that the fact that we have had to impose a moratorium on a capital programme to keep within the cash limits presents short-term difficulties for some authorities. But the hon. Gentleman has been in the House long enough to know the consequences of not maintaining proper control over the national economy. During the period of the Labour Government, the whole of local government capital expenditure was halved.
    Mr. Squire: Does not my right hon. Friend accept that while many hon. Members welcome any determination by Governments to keep within their budgets, one of the continuing problems in housing is the failure to distinguish between investment and revenue expenditure? Is he aware that many hon. Members would welcome greater attention being given by the Government to that aspect, which, in isolation, would do more to assist the construction industry than many other measures?
    Mr. Heseltine: I agree with my hon. Friend. He will have noticed from my announcement this week that the further cuts that I was requested to make by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in respect of housing bore almost exclusively on current account. The House will recognise from my statement about council house rents that it was very much in recognition of the thoughts of my hon. Friend that we switched the emphasis in public expenditure reductions to current, not capital, expenditure.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: Does not the Secretary of State recognise that the gloom and doom referred to earlier by the Minister for Housing and Construction results from the Government's cuts? Does he intend the moratorium that he announced in October to continue until April? If so, does not that mean halving this year's housing starts, which are already the lowest on record, not simply since the 1930s but since the 1920s?
    Mr. Heseltine: I think that the hon. Gentleman has failed to understand that the imposition of the moratorium did not reduce the cash limit. We have already fully used, to within a small percentage point, the available cash limit for this year. The hon. Gentleman is asking about the use that local authorities make of that available resource. The local authorities are switching more and more to other purposes rather than to new build. If we give local authorities the power of discretion, they have the power to do that, and if they do so it must be because it reflects the needs in their areas.

    Liverpool Inner City Partnership Committee
    Mr. Parryasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he next plans to chair a meeting of the Liverpool inner city partnership committee; and what subjects are likely to be on the agenda.
    Mr. Heseltine: On 12 January. The main item will be the partnership's programme for 1981–82. In addition, there will be a review of progress this year and discussion of the independent review team's report.
    Mr. Parry: When the Secretary of State visits Liverpool in January, will he meet the representatives of the housing associations and co-operatives, who are complaining bitterly about the massive reduction of the HIP in Liverpool? Is he aware that all hon. Members representing Liverpool constituencies have been inundated

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    by representations from the housing associations regarding that problem? Will he also have the guts to meet leaders of the tenants' associations to explain the proposed massive increases in council house rents? Is he aware that in many cases in Liverpool the increase will be more than 20 per cent.? How can he or the Government expect public employees or people on low incomes to accept a 6 per cent. wage increase?
    Mr. Heseltine: The short answer to the question why they should accept a 6 per cent. increase is very much the explanation that the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) gave to the House when he was trying to deal with the same problems. He made it clear that if moderation did not prevail there would be more unemployment. The issues are the same today as they were then. The more that we pay ourselves higher inflationary wage increases without creating extra wealth, the more the wealth-creating sector will bear the burden and the number of jobs in the country at large will be reduced. The hon. Gentleman knows that as well as I do.
    Mr. Alton: When the Secretary of State meets the partnership committee, will he consider making an announcement on the future of small businesses on Merseyside, bearing in mind the effect of the moratorium on small builders? Will he particularly bear in mind the effect of massive rate increases this year and consider deferring those rate increases by transferring money that will otherwise be spent on the Liverpool inner ring road?
    Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman will be able to anticipate my visit to Liverpool by telling the small builders that we have released from the moratorium the improvement grants in the private sector for all under-spending authorities. He will also be able to spread the encouraging news that the urban development corporation, which I hope will come into existence shortly, will bring an enhanced level of public commitment to the regeneration of that important area.
    Mr. Steen: Will my right hon. Friend ensure that under the agenda item "any other business" the committee discusses the need to use partnership money to lever private money? Is he further aware that the revitalisation of an area such as Liverpool will depend upon the amount of private investment and private money that the partnership can bring back to old industrial areas of this kind?
    Mr. Heseltine: My only qualification in agreeing with my hon. Friend is that I should not wish to wait for the "any other business" item for that thought to dominate our attitudes. That thought has led to the recasting of the expenditure pattern of the programme money in Liverpool since I have been responsible for the chairmanship there.

    Empty Homes
    Mr. Brightasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what are his latest estimates of the number of empty homes in the private sector.
    Mr. Stanley: Local authorities' estimates of the number of private sector empty dwellings as at 1 April 1980 were about 500,000.
    Mr. Bright: Does not my hon. Friend agree that the majority of these homes could be let under the shorthold provisions of the Housing Act 1980? What does he propose to do to try to counter the dogmatic opposition of the Labour Party, and in particular the threat to repeal this provision by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman)?
    Mr. Stanley: The figure that I have just given, which has remained fairly constant for the past three or four years, represents a variety of dwellings that are empty for various reasons in the private sector. I agree with my hon. Friend that a proportion of those dwellings are available for shorthold. When there is this clear evidence of the potential for shorthold, it is irresponsible of Labour Members to continue with their repeal commitment.
    Mr. Newens: In view of the fact that so many houses are empty in the private sector, many of which are awaiting a buyer, does the hon. Gentleman approve the policy of many Conservative councils of keeping empty those houses which could be let until a buyer can be found for them?
    Mr. Stanley: That is a matter for decision by each and every authority, but if the hon. Member was in the Chamber a little earlier he will be aware that I read out the names of seven authorities, all of which have had more than 1,000 dwellings empty for more than a year—and none of those was a Conservative authority.
    Mr. Parry: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply given to my question. I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Rate Support Grant (Scotland)
The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement. My right hon. Friend—
Mr. Dennis Canavan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister say why the Secretary of State for Scotland is not making the statement?
Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order for me, because I do not decide who makes the statements.
Mr. Rifkind: If the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) had exercised his customary patience in these matters, he would have found out.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is this afternoon informing the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities that the 1981–82 rate support grant for Scottish local authorities will be derived from total relevant expenditure of £2,458·5 million—at November 1980 prices. The relevant expenditure figure is 2·7 per cent. less than the figure on which grant for 1980–81 was based. That reflects my right hon. Friend's allocation of priorities within the Scottish block of expenditure in the light of the Government's public expenditure decisions announced to the House by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 24 November.
The new grant percentage represents an actual reduction—compared with 1980–81—of 1 per cent. A further 0·8 per cent. adjustment replaces an ad hoc abatement made since 1978 in respect of rates on local authority properties and will have no net effect on the cash received by local authorities. That results in a grant percentage of 66·7. Aggregate grants for 1981–82, on expenditure at November 1980 prices, will be £1,639·8 million, of which rate support grant will be £1,503·1 million.
There will be a cash limit of £94 million on additional grant for 1981–82 towards pay and price increases beyond November 1980. It includes provision for increases of no more than 6 per cent. on average in pay settlements in this round and provisionally for the next. It contains provision for price increases of no more than an average of 11 per cent. between 1980–81 and 1981–82. Total grant payable in increase orders may be above or below the cash limit to take account of variations in expenditure due to changes in interest rates, which are not subject to cash limits. My right hon. Friend intends to make additional grants in respect of increased costs of £24·5 million for 1979–80 and £203·1 million for 1980–81. Grants for 1980–81 may be increased again in a second increase order next year.
The main object of the grant distribution formula will be stability, as recommended by the convention. Within this general objective, my right hon. Friend will reduce the ratio of resources element to needs element from 1:7, as in 1980–81, to 1:9 in order to restrict the additional resources element payable to authorities striking comparatively high rate poundages. My right hon. Friend will lay the necessary orders for the approval of the House as soon as possible, together with a report of the considerations underlying his proposals.
Mr. Bruce Milan (Glasgow, Craigton): There are one or two figures in the statement that are not clear. I should
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be grateful if the Under-Secretary would clarify in particular the additional grants for 1980–81 in relation to the cash limit for this year. What is clear, however, is that the effect of today's proposals will mean further savage increases in rates in Scotland.
Is the Under-Secretary aware that in the current year average rate increases in Scotland have been more than 30 per cent., which is more than twice the figure in the last year of the Labour Government and five times what it was the year before that? This year we are faced with further massive increases on something like the same scale, 30 per cent., as the unfortunate Scottish ratepayers, whether they be domestic ratepayers, industrial or commercial ratepayers, have already suffered in the current year.
The responsibility for these huge rate increases is firmly on the shoulders of the Government, however much they may try to wriggle out of it. The reasons for these increases will be, first, the cut in the percentage grant, which the Minister has just announced, and, secondly, the unrealistic spending limits for next year, which will represent a cut not of 2·7 per cent. but a good deal more than even 5 per cent., compared with what the local authorities are budgeting for and are likely to spend in the current year. It will also arise from the unrealistic inflation levels that are assumed in this grant, and in particular the ludicrous 6 per cent. figure.
How does that figure, for example, relate to the settlement that has already been achieved for the police or for the firemen? Are the police and the firemen to be faced with 6 per cent. limits next year? If they are not, where is the additional money to come from? The additional money will undoubtedly come from the rates.
These are the reasons why we are to face next year the huge increases in rates that we have already faced in the current year. As well as increased rates, we shall have poorer services and the 40 per cent. higher rents recommended by the Government. The proposal today simply adds to the catalogue of disaster—the industrial closures, the bankruptcies, the increasing unemployment and the dereliction which are a consequence of the Government's policies for Scotland.
Mr. Rifkind: The right hon. Gentleman is, if nothing else, predictable in his response to statements of this kind, but I shall deal with the specific questions that he raised.
The right hon. Gentleman asked for extra details about the £203 million additional sum paid for 1980–81. The full amount of the cash limit for that year was £194 million, which will be paid, except for a small abatement of £900,000 which is a technical adjustment to offset a revaluation error, plus the additional grant on loan charges, amounting to £10 million, thereby giving the total that I indicated in my statement.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the recent settlements for the police and the firemen. These are included in the 6 per cent. I think the right hon. Gentleman will agree that, certainly in the case of the firemen, the local authorities were well aware of the percentage that would be provided by the Government and clearly took that into account in any settlement that was made.
The right hon. Gentleman made some rather dramatic statements about rate increases as a consequence of this statement. Rate increases obviously will depend on the budgets determined by local authorities, but if they respond in a reasonable way to the sums being provided

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in rate support grant there is no reason to believe that any rate increases will he substantially more than the level of rate increases last year.
Mr. Michael Ancram: Will my hon. Friend accept that his statement will be warmly welcomed by those in Scotland who are seeking a return to the principle of good housekeeping in local government, and should not be regarded as an excuse to raise rates but rather as an incentive to make necessary savings? However, in the light of increasing unemployment, and particularly the increase in youth unemployment, will he tell the House whether there are any provisions within the rate support grant allocations to deal with this problem?
Mr. Rifkind: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the general welcome that he has given to the statement. Unemployment in general is a very wide issue, but I can tell him that in the realms of further education, which is of importance to youngsters leaving school, there will overall be an enablement for slightly increased numbers of students to attend further education colleges in Scotland.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. If hon. Members co-operate and are as brief as possible, I shall try to call those hon. Members who have already risen.
Mr. Russell Johnston: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the 1 per cent. reduction that he mentioned is seriously misleading because it does not take account of the squeeze effect of wage settlements and interest rates on services? Is he making any allowance for those authorities which had to renew their debt burdens at exceptionally high interest rates? Earlier, the hon. Gentleman said that the figure of 6 per cent. allowed for policemen and firemen. Does that assume a 6 per cent. settlement for teachers?
Mr. Rifkind: The 6 per cent. figure represents an average increase that local authorities should take into account when determining pay settlements during the year. The hon. Gentleman will be delighted to know that interest rates are not covered by cash limits. Any increased loan charges that fall on local authorities as a result of increases in interest rates are met by the Secretary of State.
Mr. Donald Stewart: Given this attack on Scottish local authorities and on the living standards of people in Scotland, will the Minister comment on the Glasgow university study which pointed out that expenditure cuts in Scotland were being determined by English Ministers and that the influence of the Scottish Office had been seriously diminished? Will he put an end to our position as scavengers at the tables of English Ministers?
Mr. Rifkind: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the formula to which he referred was introduced under the Labour Government and is being continued by the present Administration. I have no reason to believe—nor did the gentleman who wrote the article suggest—that the system works to the disadvantage of the people of Scotland.
Mr. Barry Henderson: As some local authorities have attacked the living standards of ratepayers and the competitiveness of small businesses, is my hon. Friend satisfied that the rate support grant formula and the
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Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Bill will enable him to protect the legitimate interests of prudent authorities, particularly those that have a good record in that respect? Will he ensure that high-spending authorities do not get away with it?
Mr. Rifkind: This year my right hon. Friend has chosen not to have a general abatement, which would have affected all local authorities in Scotland, but to concentrate on the individual local authorities responsible for the problem. This rate support grant settlement makes a further change in the needs-to-resources ratio, and that will particularly benefit prudent authorities.
Mr. Harry Gourlay: Is the Minister aware that I used to regard him as a man who lived in a practical world? However, his statement shows that he is living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Is he aware that the Fife regional authority has boasted that it is one of the lowest rated authorities in Scotland? Because of cutbacks, and because the authority has kept down rates, there is a street in Kirkcaldy that has so many ripples that if one goes down it at a normal speed it feels like crossing the Atlantic in the middle of a storm. As a result of the hon. Gentleman's statement, the Fife authority will have to make massive rate increases. What will the hon. Gentleman do to ensure that that does not happen?
Mr. Rifkind: There is nothing in the statement that will require a local authority to make massive rate increases. For example, the reduction in the distribution percentage of 1 per cent. is equivalent to 2p in the pound. If local authorities reduce their expenditure to the levels provided for relevant expenditure for rate support grant purposes, it will lead to a reduction in the amount that would otherwise fall on the rates.
Mr. Iain Sproat: Will my hon. Friend confirm that some 70 per cent. of local authority revenue spending goes on staff wages? Is it not shocking that over the past year or so Scotland has increased its manpower whilst there has been a manpower cut of about 20,000 people in England and Wales? Can my hon. Friend give the latest figures for that increase, which places a monstrous burden on Scottish ratepayers?
Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is correct. It puts the inevitable protestations and objections of Scottish local authorities into perspective. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment announced that over the past 12 months there had been a reduction of between 35,000 and 40,000 in local authority manpower in England and Wales. However, during the same period local authority manpower in Scotland increased by some 2,000. Local authorities cannot say that the Government are providing inadequate resources when, at the same time, they are recruiting staff and putting an additional burden on local communities.
Mr. David Lambie: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this further attack on the living standards of the people of Scotland, particularly council tenants, will not be accepted lightly and is a recipe for further revolution in Scotland? Given that unemployment in my constituency is reaching 18·7 per cent., and given that the Secretary of State has asked Cunninghame district council for rent increases that will total more than £3 a week, how does the hon. Gentleman expect people not to fight and create civil disobedience?
Mr. Rifkind: I shall not comment on the hon. Gentleman's earlier thoroughly irresponsible remark. If he is genuinely interested in responding to the problems of unemployment, he will do all in his power to ensure that massive rate increases, caused by the refusal of local authorities to reduce expenditure, do not take place. Nothing would be more likely to destroy businesses and jobs in Scotland and in the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
Mr. Peter Fraser: Will my hon. Friend note that on occasions such as these the Opposition show no regard for the private wealth-producing sector and that they find it astonishing that local authorities should enjoy at least a 6 per cent. increase in wages when those in the engineering and textiles industry will have to settle for next to nothing? Will my hon. Friend visit Dundee district council and ask it why it has promised to increase rates by up to 200 per cent. if there is to be a reduction of only 2·7 per cent.?
Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is correct to say that if an irresponsible authority is determined to impose unacceptable burdens on its ratepayers, that has nothing to do with the statement that I have made or with this year's rate support grant. Scottish local authorities have been responsible, over the past 12 months, for an increase in manpower. Therefore, they cannot suggest that it is impossible to make savings on expenditure. When the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) was Secretary of State, he was extremely successful in ensuring a major reduction in local authority manpower. It is a pity that in Opposition he cannot support the policies that he practised in Government.
Mr. William Hamilton: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this statement must be considered against the fact that 5,000 people have been added to the dole queues in Scotland for every month that the Government have been in power? How does the hon. Gentleman think local authorities can keep rates stable and retain the existing standard of services? It is impossible. Does not the hon. Gentleman accept that this will affect the old, the sick, the infirm and the poor? How does he defend the Government's increasingly evil social policies of vandalism?
Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman should have prefaced his remarks by reminding the House that unemployment doubled when the Labour Government were in office. The hon. Gentleman spoke about the old, the sick and the poor. He will be interested to know that the rate support grant settlement allows for an increase in real terms in the provision for social work.
Mr. Bill Walker: Will my hon. Friend confirm that at least 50 per cent. of council tenants in Scotland receive substantial support from the Government and that many of them pay no rent because the Government pay it for them? My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that council house sales in Perth and Kinross are going well. This week, the first high rise flat has been sold and many more are on the books. Will my hon. Friend confirm that Perth and Kinross district and Tayside region can look to the Government for support, because they have been successful in their housekeeping?
Mr. Rifkind: In Scotland, as elsewhere in the United Kingdom, one-quarter of council tenants pay no rent and
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a further quarter receive a rent rebate as a result of their low incomes. That must be taken into account in any consideration of an appropriate rent increase.
Mr. John Home Robertson: The Minister's statement is a masterpiece of obscurity. Will he tell us in plain English and in real terms what rate increases and cuts in services will be experienced by both his constituents and mine and, in particular, by those of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton), who is a constituent of mine and who lives in North Berwick?
Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman might find that even plain figures result in total obscurity from his point of view. The effect of any rate settlement will depend on the response of individual local authorities. If local authorities respond in a sensible way, as many have done during the current year, they will find that they can provide vital services for their communities without massive rate increases.
The effect of last year's rate support grant settlement and all the various factors which were taken into account led to rate increases which ranged from a reduction of 15 per cent. in one authority to the highest increase of more than 50 per cent. in another. There is a broad variation. If Opposition Members and local authorities look to their own specific requirements and to their obligations towards ratepayers, a sensible outcome can be assured.
Mr. John MacKay: Will my hon. Friend confirm that this small decrease in the taxpayer's input to local authorities should not mean a massive increase in the ratepayer's input, as the Opposition are suggesting, unless local authorities continue to increase their staffing, make no effort to cut their costs and do not attempt to keep within the 6 per cent. staff salary increases that the Government have laid down for this year?
Mr. Rifkind: Yes. I can illustrate that this is a reasonable settlement. In education, local authorities will find that pupil-teacher ratios will be marginally improved at primary level and will not be affected at secondary level. Because of falling pupil numbers, more money per child will be spent on education next year than in the current year. That is primarily because of falling pupil numbers, but it illustrates how reasonable and fair the settlement is to local authorities.
Mr. Jim Craigen: How many people does the Minister expect local authorities to sack during the coming year to comply with this unrealistic settlement, given the pressure on local authorities of inflation and high interest charges? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Secretary of State for Scotland should do his own dirty work by taking over the running of the whole of local government in Scotland so that he will have to sack the people when it comes to the point?
Mr. Rifkind: The rate support grant settlement will give more to Scottish local authorities in real terms than they had in 1977–78. If local authorities are able to reduce their manpower to the new figure that they achieved then, after pressure from the then Secretary of State for Scotland, the Government will be content.
Mr. Allan Stewart: Further to the outrageous question asked by the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie), does my hon. Friend

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agree that the only revolting thing in Scotland is the hypocrisy and irresponsibility of Opposition Members in failing to face economic reality?
Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is correct. Opposition Members might find that, if their words are not put forward in a more careful fashion, their prophecies will be self-fulfilling. I am sure that the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie) would not wish that to happen. However, he should reflect on what persons in his position can do to influence people in Scotland or anywhere else.
Mr. John Maxton: Is the Minister aware that if the Glasgow district council and the Strathclyde regional council follow his so-called reasonable course—not to put up rates but to cut services—in areas such as Castlemilk, where unemployment is already more than 20 per cent., it will mean yet further deprivation in terms of cutbacks in social services and in education, higher rents and fewer repairs to houses? In such circumstances, is it surprising that people should become desperate? It is not irresponsible of us to suggest that some action may be taken by these people, but it is irresponsible of the Government to carry out this sort of action.
Mr. Rifkind: If the level of local authority expenditure in 1977–78 was acceptable to the hon. Gentleman and his right hon. and hon. Friends, it is grossly irresponsible to suggest that the amount that will be available to local authorities next year, which will be greater in real terms than was available at that time, is unacceptable. It suggests that the Opposition are refusing to face economic reality and to live up to the policies they put forward when they were in Government.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call hon. Members representing Scottish constituencies first, because when we had statements on England and Wales I called only hon. Members from those countries. I shall come to other hon. Members at the end.
Mr. Norman HoggIn view of the Minister's response to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) and subsequent comments on manpower, in consequence of this settlement how many school teachers and local government officers will lose their jobs and how many local authority manual workers can expect to be made redundant?
Mr. Rifkind: I have already pointed out that the pupil-teacher ratio will be either maintained in secondary education or improved in primary education. If we are able to do that, it is not unreasonable to assume that falling pupil numbers will lead to some reduction in the need for teachers. I cannot believe that the hon. Gentleman, who is usually fair and reasonable in these matters, would seriously suggest otherwise.
Mr. Robert Hughes: Has not the Minister yet grasped the essential fact that the reason why there are high-spending authorities compared with others is that many authorities have severe and deep problems with which to deal and that they have begun to tackle them, whereas authorities which have not kept up with expenditure have not been supplying proper services for generations? The most niggardly authorities of all are those like the Grampian region, which is shutting 10 infant schools in the city of Aberdeen.
Mr. Sproat: Shocking.
Mr. Hughes: Yes. I hope that we shall get the support of the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat). Is it not clear from the statement that there is a threefold attack on local authorities: first, by reducing the Government's proportion going into services; secondly, by cutting back on cash limits; and, thirdly, by switching the balance away from authorities which have faced the tremendous responsibilities with which they have to deal?
Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that many authorities have greater needs than others. The distribution formula in the rate support grant, with its emphasis on the needs element, is based on providing for local authorities in the way that the hon. Gentleman would like to see. I should have thought that as the Government have continued the extraordinary expenses portion which local authorities in his area receive, because of the extra burden caused by oil-related expenditure, he would have been the first to congratulate the Government on their action.
Mr. David Myles: The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) cast an awful slur on the Grampian region. Will my hon. Friend congratulate the Grampian region on the way that it has managed to cope so well with the infrastructure necessary for North Sea oil?
Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is correct in saying that the Grampian region has coped extremely well with all the major changes and problems that oil development has produced for the region during the past few years. That must be one reason why the Conservative Party retains its substantial majority in that region.
Mr. David Marshall: The Minister has often reaffirmed the Government's support for the GEAR project in the east end of Glasgow, which arguably is the most deprived area in Europe. How does he reconcile that support with this statement on the rate support grant? Is he prepared to make special provision for the GEAR project?
Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman will recollect that the Labour Government did not make any special provision for the GEAR project. Nor have this Government. Like the Labour Government, we have said that we hope that local authorities will continue to give the same degree of priority to the needs of that part of Glasgow.
Mr. Canavan: Will the Minister come clean and admit that this is yet another Tory attempt to force Scottish local authorities to cut essential services, such as housing and education, and even the social work services for the elderly, the sick and the disabled? Is he aware that many of us will give maximum support to Labour-controlled local authorities to fight the Government on this matter with every means at their disposal because they have a better mandate and an absentee Secretary of State who does not have the guts to come to the Dispatch Box but sends one of his junior lackeys to present this Scrooge-type package to the people of Scotland eight days before Christmas?
Mr. Rifkind: If the hon. Gentleman had done even an elementary amount of homework on this subject, he would have realised that there has to be a statutory meeting with the local authorities at which the Secretary of State is

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required to announce the decisions on the rate support grant. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) would not disagree with that observation.
As regards what I might kindly call the substance of the hon. Gentleman's question, he should remember my earlier remark about there having been an increase in real terms in the provision for social work. Housing does not come under the Scottish rate support grant, so it is not relevant to the statement that I have made today.
Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Without wanting to embarrass my hon. Friend as a representative of an English constituency, may I ask him to confirm that, while it is right for Scottish Members to fight for their constituents, in relative terms of Government support from the Exchequer Scotland was doing better than England before the announcement and will still be doing better after it?
Mr. Rifkind: There is nothing in the rate support grant settlement that I have indicated to the House that would in any way change the position of Scotland relative to other parts of the United Kingdom. I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks.
Mr. Arthur Lewis: As another English Member, may I ask the Minister whether he agrees that Scotland is in great difficulties over unemployment, deprivation and so on? We talk of cuts and restrictions, but will he bear in mind that on the very day that he makes his announcement the Prime Minister has stated that she is appointing a professor at £50,000 a year—£1,000 a week—to advise her on monetarism? [Interruption.] It is not a laughing matter. It is a disgrace when old-age pensioners, the sick and the disabled in Scotland will have to pay that man £50,000 a year.
Mr. Rifkind: Without knowing whether the hon. Gentleman's observation is correct, I can assure him that any salary that may be paid to the gentleman to whom he refers will not have to be found out of the Scottish rate support grant.
Mr. Millan: The Minister said in answer to my original question that he saw no reason why rate increases next year should be any greater than in the current year. Is he really saying that the Government would consider it a triumph if rates increased next year by the 32 per cent. that we are suffering in the current year? If the increase next year is not to be 32 per cent., what will it be?
Mr. Rifkind: The right hon. Gentleman misheard what I said. I shall repeat it and hope that it is understood on this occasion. If local authorities respond reasonably in their expenditure to what the Government have provided, there is no reason why rate increases next year should not be substantially less than in the current year.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR FRIDAY 23 JANUARY
Members successful in the ballot were:

Mr. John Browne

Mr. Leslie Spriggs

Mr. Hal Miller

Adjournment (Christmas)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House at its rising on Friday do adjourn till Monday 12 January.—[Mr. Wakeham.]
Mr. Speaker: I gave careful thought to the amendment standing on the Order Paper and decided that I ought not to select it. That conforms with decisions in the past on other amendments in comparable form, which would have the effect, if selected, of narrowing the debate, thereby restricting the rights of Back-Bench Members to call attention to a whole range of subjects. However, I shall accept a manuscript amendment dealing with the date, if the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) has one.
Mr. John Silkin (Deptford): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will you accept a manuscript amendment to leave out "Friday" and insert "Wednesday 24 December" and to leave out "12" and insert "5"?
Mr. Speaker: Yes, I am prepared to accept that manuscript amendment. It is in line with amendments that I have accepted on previous occasions dealing with the date, but it in no way restricts the scope of the debate, in which all hon. Members can participate.
Mr. Kenneth Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If that amendment with those dates is passed tonight, young Members of Parliament with children will arrive home after Santa Clause.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am aware of that. I understand the significance of the date. However, as the hon. Gentleman knows, that is a debating point.
4.5 pm
Mr. John Silkin: I beg to move, as a manuscript amendment, to leave out "Friday" and insert "Wednesday 24 December" and to leave out "12" and insert "5".
Before I deal with the amendment, may I crave your indulgence, Mr. Speaker, this being Christmas time, to ask the Leader of the House a specific question relating to the time of the House? It appears from the tape that the fishery negotiations in Brussels have broken down. I hope that in due course the right hon. Gentleman will be able to reassure the House that there will be a statement from the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food at the earliest opportunity.
The amendment is designed to enable the House to sit for a further week from today in order to deal with a variety of subjects that still affect the House and the country and for another week from 5 January to 12 January. It will be in the recollection of most hon. Members that my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) said on a number of occasions that a week in politics was a long time. I tabled the amendment on the basis that two weeks of a Tory Government is a disaster.
Two additional weeks in the House of Commons would enable us to cover a certain amount of business that is vital to the interests of the country. Purely procedurally, we shall be able to get the Leader of the House out of one difficulty in which he has been placed in recent weeks—what I call the written answer syndrome, the practice of giving important information to the House by written answer at a time when no one sees it and can therefore not deal with it. In order to plan the right hon. Gentleman's life and make his work that much easier, as

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well as helping the House, we should be able to have a number of oral statements on which there would be sufficient debate to elicit from the Ministers concerned exactly what they have in mind.
In the period between 19 December and 12 January, an enormous number of figures could be assumed from Government Departments on which normally one would expect the Minister concerned to comment and to give himself up to cross-examination. There are quite a few, incidentally, in the Department of the Environment.
We had yesterday, unusually, an oral statement on the rate support grant, as we have had on the rate support grant in Scotland this afternoon. That arises—I blame no one—from the fact that the debate on the rate support grant will not take place until after the recess. The amendment would enable us to debate the rate support grant much earlier, with the additional two weeks for our business. That in itself would be of enormous advantage to local authorities in England, Wales and Scotland. They have had the details of the rate support grant, but they have not had the benefit of a discussion in the House, which would have enabled them to put those details into perspective. I think that most hon. Members would be interested in further questioning the Secretary of State for the Environment on the rate support grant philosophy.
I listened as an observer to the rate support grant statement concerning Scotland. It is interesting that a large number of Conservative Members mentioned the desirability of limiting an increase in rates. I take that to be their philosophy. The Conservative manifesto of May 1979 followed the philosophy of the Conservative manifesto of October 1974. In that manifesto the present Prime Minister gave us, as the fourth or fifth point in the policy to be adopted in respect of the environment, the proposal that the domestic rate should be abolished. That was slightly altered in the Conservative manifesto of May 1979. I shall remind the House of the words, because they are important. The manifesto says, on page 14:
"Cutting income tax down must take priority for the time being over abolition of the domestic rating system".
Yet one of the first actions taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was to bring down direct taxation—income tax. So the way is now clear for the abolition of the domestic rating system.
Perhaps the Secretary of State for the Environment, a man of quick decisions and quick moves, would be able, in the additional fortnight that I propose, to tell us exactly how he proposes to abolish the domestic rating system. That might get over some of the difficulties expressed by my right hon. and hon. Friends in yesterday's and today's debates on the rate support grant.
I said that the Department of the Environment would be issuing a number of statistics. For example, on 8 January it will announce the housing starts and completions. Those are important figures—figures that the Secretary of State for the Environment, with uncharacteristic modesty, did not wish to disclose yesterday. I and, I am sure most Members of the House, would like to know those figures and to have the opportunity of cross-examining the Secretary of State in that regard. I am sorry that he was so reluctant to give those figures. I realise, if I understand his philosophy correctly, that house building by councils is not to be encouraged but that private housing is to be encouraged. Even on those terms it would be fascinating to know to what extent the present Government, with the right hon. Gentleman as Secretary
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of State for the Environment, have been able to improve the position, so that more private houses are built than, say, at the moment when the Conservatives took office.
Of course, private housing is very much tied up with what people can afford to pay and the size of mortgages that they can get. I notice with interest that the Conservative manifesto says on page 23—it was a criticism not of things to come but of the Labour Government in the preceding years:
"The prospect"—
I rather like that word "prospect"; it was a shadow of things to come —
"of very high interest rates deters some people from buying their homes" —
the Conservatives can say that again —
"and the reality can cause acute difficulties to those who have done so".
That is perfectly true. The manifesto goes on:
"Our plans for cutting government spending and borrowing will lower"
the mortgage rates.
Up to very recently the mortgage rate was 15 per cent., the highest in our history, and it is still 14 per cent., which is the second highest. It would be interesting to know whether the Secretary of State for the Environment thought that his period in office had been successful or that it had had one or two false starts—and false completions, if I can talk about the figures that will be given on 8 January.
Unfortunately, if the House rises on 19 December and does not return until 12 January, we shall not be able to question him on the date in question. The figures that I have mentioned will be issued and we shall not be here to discuss them. There are other figures to come from the Department on 22 December. That is a very good reason for the House's sitting until Christmas Eve, despite the objections of the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis) that he might find himself inconvenienced, as may other hon. Members.
Mr. Kenneth Lewis: It was not I. Hon. Members who live in distant constituencies and have young families will not get home until after the children have already opened their presents from Santa Claus.
As I am on my feet, may I say a word about the right hon. Gentleman's proposal to return on 5 January? I know that a number of his hon. Friends will be abroad. They have already made arrangements. Has the right hon. Gentleman asked them whether they are prepared to come back?
Mr. Silkin: I referred deliberately to the hon. Gentleman because, having known him for 18 years, I realise that he is one of the most altruistic Members of the House. I knew that he was speaking not on his own behalf but on behalf of hon. Members who are fathers of families or mothers of families or who are without families but have relatives and who would be disadvantaged by the amendment. I had rather hoped that he would raise the point, and also the point about 5 January. Many people would like to have homes to move into and to put their families into at Christmas. They are the people who are really disadvantaged.
On 22 December we shall have more figures from the Department of the Environment. We shall have the new orders for the construction industry and we should like to be able to examine those statistics and see what the right hon. Gentleman has done with the industry since the last figures were issued.

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The cuts in public expenditure have bitten deeply into the construction industry as a whole. Now there are hundreds of thousands of people unemployed. As a result, many hundreds of firms are suffering badly, and many have closed down. That is undeniable. Yet the Prime Minister often says—she has said it at Question Time on about half a dozen occasions—that we cut public expenditure in order to release resources for the private sector. She seems to be unaware of two important statistics. First, a little more than one-third of public expenditure goes to the public sector in the form of grants, aids and orders. If public expenditure is cut in that manner, it means that the public sector also suffers. That goes a long way towards explaining some of the present unemployment.
The right hon. Lady does not understand—I am afraid that here she is assisted by the Secretary of State for the Environment, who, I suspect, does understand but does not want her to know—that about 7½ per cent. of all public expenditure is on capital works. The £1,900 million that has been slashed off public expenditure on the construction industry falls in that very area of capital works. The inevitable result is large-scale unemployment, the closure of businesses and—sadly, for the future-reducing the possibility of recovering and making an advance when there is an upturn after the present slump. So much for the statistics from the Department of the Environment that would be available to us during the period of the Christmas adjournment.
I turn to the Department of Education and Science. I am afraid that the Secretary of State has already broken the moral precept of the written answer syndrome. During yesterday's debate on the rate support grant, one of my hon. Friends asked the Secretary of State for the Environment a question about education, to which he rightly replied that it was a matter not for him but for the Secretary of State for Education and Science. Unfortunately, the Secretary of State for Education and Science has not had an opportunity to make an oral statement. He had to give the information in a written answer.
We are back to the written answer syndrome. It would be attractive to be able to challenge the education cuts announced in the written answer yesterday, but unless the House is prepared to continue for much of the proposed recess we shall have to wait until 12 January, and that will be a difficult period of waiting.
Once again, I have as my authority the Conservative manifesto for 1979. I have read a great deal of it. I am sure that the Leader of the House agrees that its literary style is superb. In some cases even its content is not too bad—though in others it is dreadful— but it is the realisation of what is in the manifesto that is worrying. The Leader of the House said recently that 75 per cent. of the manifesto had already been achieved. The trouble is that it is the wrong 75 per cent.
Mr. Robert Atkins: What does the right hon. Gentleman think about the other 75 per cent.?
Mr. Silkin: I have been instructed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. Morris) with such a good reply that I must give it: that is Tory economics for you.
The Tory manifesto said:
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"Much of our higher education has a world-wide reputation for its quality. We shall seek to ensure that this excellence is maintained."
Yesterday's written answer stated that higher education was to be cut by £37 million. A small matter of £70 million was also cut off the budget for schools, but let us deal with higher education for a moment. The following sentence appeared in the Gracious Speech that followed the Conservative manifesto of 1979:
"The quality of education will be maintained and improved."
How wise and foreseeing it was of Conservative Members not to repeat that sentence in the 1980 Gracious Speech. They knew that within a few weeks the quality of education would be neither maintained nor improved. I am not alone in my criticisms. We cannot debate the matter in the House, but the committee of vice-chancellors and principals has already gone into print with its view:
"This must endanger the country's higher education and research effort."
One could not get a much greater condemnation. Surely it is a matter that we should be debating, but if the Prime Minister's motion is approved we shall not get an opportunity to discuss the subject until 12 January, and heaven knows what we may have to discuss by then.
It would be interesting to know whether the Secretary of State for Education believes in what he is supposed to be doing. I get the impression from time to time that the right hon. and learned Gentleman's heart is not in what he is doing, but we are not able to question him and to try to move him or the Government. It is a tragedy.
The next Department that I should like to deal with is the Ministry of Transport. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has on a number of occasions asked for a statement on British Rail. The Minister of Transport has not approved British Rail's investment policies. Indeed, he has not even commented on them since May—an extraordinary period of total silence from the right hon. Gentleman. It is important that we should deal with that subject. We are interested in what employment, or unemployment, may flow from the possible cuts in British Rail's financing.
British Rail wants to increase the amount of its signalling equipment. That would provide a lot of work for British firms and a lot of employment for Britons. British Rail also wants to increase the amount of its electrical transmission equipment. Again, that would provide much work for British firms and people. In addition, British Rail wants to proceed with the jumbo ferries. That would result in a lot of work for British shipyards, which, despite the objections of some Conservative Members, are still owned by the nation. However Tory Members may regard that, British Rail's plans could provide work for our people and our shipyards. It is important that we should be able to get the Minister to outline his plans and cross-examine him on them.
British Rail is not the only form of transport for which the Minister is responsible. In the Conservative manifesto play was made about rural transport, and the Minister added to that in a press statement from Conservative Central Office on 29 April 1979:
"We should be clear about the bus crisis in many rural areas today. Services are either inadequate or non-existent. The next Conservative Government will make it a priority to improve the position."
We should like to know whether that priority will come within the next two or three weeks, or when it will come.

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Everything that the Minister is doing in connection with road transport is destroying rural bus services. The effect of delicensing and the cut in the transport supplementary grant announced yesterday is to deal a lethal blow to such services. The time is fast approaching when many people in rural areas will be as unable to have the mobility that their parents or grandparents had as were inhabitants of villages in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. That is the sort of basis to which we are returning. We should like to question the Minister on that, and I am sure that we would have the support of some Conservative Members with rural constituencies who may have the interests of their constituents in mind from time to time.
Mr. Anthony Fell: In giving way, the right hon. Gentleman is as kind and courteous as usual. Does he really intend to carry on trying hard to be so kind to the Government as to win the vote? Does he realise that in putting his case so kindly, sweetly and gently, the amendment no longer has any bite? It is nonsense anyway, but does the right hon. Gentleman really want to win the vote? We might help him. Has he considered what that would mean?
Mr. Silkin: I hate to think of the reputation that I would get, certainly in my own constituency, if I said that I had the support of the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell). I want to win the vote. If the hon. Gentleman cares to come into the Lobby with us and to bring all his hon. Friends with him—I would not like him to come by himself—that will achieve the puropse of the amendment. I am sorry that he thinks that the amendment does not have much bite, but I never much liked the Conservative manifesto, anyway.
Sir Ronald Bell: When the right hon. Gentleman was preparing his speech, how could he be so sure that Mr. Speaker would not accept his amendment?
Mr. Silkin: I was certain that Mr. Speaker could have accepted an amendment to shorten the period of the recess and that if the actual dates were given precedents would show that he must accept it. I hope that I shall have the attention of the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Sir R. Bell) when I deal with the question of unemployment, because he will then perhaps be able to see the link.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Leader of the House of Commons and Minister for the Arts (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): Following the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell), the right hon. Gentleman said that he would welcome Conservative Members joining him in the Lobby. I must say that he is being so persuasive, reasonable and courteous that my resolve is weakening. I am on the point of suffering a major conversion. If the right hon. Gentleman continues in this manner, he will succeed.
Mr. Silkin: That would be one of the great parliamentary achievements of all time. It would be the first time in the history of this Government that anyone has managed to get the Government to keep to their responsbilities and to understand what they are doing to the people of this country.
Mr. Kevin McNamara: Does my right hon. Friend realise that if the right hon.
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Gentleman suffers a conversion it will be the only grant that has been got out of the Secretary of State for the Environment this year?
Mr. Silkin: I had not thought about that. It is quite true.
I wish to deal with the question of employment. As you will recall, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that was mentioned in the amendment that I hoped first to move. The hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield has also referred to it. It is, however, germane to the amendment that we are discussing. With the House in recess, hon. Members will be unable to consider the figures normally issued on the last Tuesday of the month. The figures will be issued on23 December, two days before Christmes. I hope that I shall have the attention of Conservative Members. This is a basic issue. It would be interesting to hear their observations after I have put the point.
The additional number of unemployed on the register has been rising since October at the rate of 31,500 a week. That is an enormous number. It means that 90, or perhaps 100, people will have become unemployed during the time that I have been speaking in this debate. That is the nature of the crisis.
It means that about 150 companies are going bust every week. In the two extra weeks that I am suggesting that the House should be sitting, over 60,000 people will be made redundant and sacked, and about 300 companies will go bust. It will not be all that good a Christmas for them. The travel problems of the constituents of the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford pale into insignificance in comparison with that situation.
I shall give one illustration that worries me more deeply than most. It was always stated that new towns had an unfair advantage over older towns because the populations were young and active and because such towns, as an obvious magnet to industry, attracted money. If, however, one looks at what is happening in the new towns today, one begins to see the real measure of unemployment and the fall in production that is occurring. Unemployment is higher than in any other OECD country. Output is falling at a greater rate than in any other OECD country.
I take as my example the second-generation town of Telford—well situated, with a vigorous chairman and development board. Hon. Members should take very much to heart what is happening to those aged between 16 and 18, whether school leavers or not, in that new town. Thirty-six per cent. of young people in that age group are still in school. Of the remainder, only 31 per cent. are at work. Thirty-three per cent. in this new dynamic town are out of work. Is that not a matter that should concern all hon. Members? Is it not an issue that we should be discussing?
Mr. Robert Atkins: The right hon. Gentleman is being a little selective in his choice of new towns. If he took as his example the Central Lancashire new town development corporation, he would find a different picture. Despite the closure of Preston docks next year, there is to be development, in terms of homes and recreational and industrial facilities, which will provide many more jobs. With the success of British Aerospace in Preston also taken into account, this shows what one new town can do. Why is the right hon. Gentleman selective in picking Telford? Why does he not pick other towns?
Mr. Silkin: I believe that Telford is a good illustration. The percentages that I give are mirrored, or are worse, in many of the older towns. Telford seems to me a good example. It is virtually a new basis of a town, not one made up of existing towns or existing parts of a town, which is true in the case of the Central Lancashire new town. There are others. Telford, on the other hand, is effectively a new town in the sense of being a new town ab initio.
Between 150 and 200 years ago Telford was, of course, the industrial heartland of Britain. I believe that hon. Members will accept that it is now effectively a new town and one developed in the second generation. It has been going for only about 15 years. I could no doubt have produced figures for older towns that would have made the percentages even worse. I think that the House will agree that they are frightening enough.
I have given what I believe to be reasons why the House should not adjourn for as long a period as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has stated. [Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Yarmouth wishes to speak later, I am sure that the House will, unusually, be able to hear from him. It will be a great treat for everyone. In the meantime, I hope that he will allow me to finish my speech. I have no doubt, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that after I have sat down he will be the first to try and catch your eye.
The basis on which I have sought to move the amendment is that the House still has a great deal of unfinished business. There is a great deal of difficult business and much policy that is totally wrong and is destroying the whole basis and prosperity of the country. It is in that sense that I move the amendment.
4.38 pm
Mr. Teddy Taylor: As a firm supporter of compromise and consensus, I should like to suggest to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that the answer may lie halfway between his motion and the proposal of the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin). We should not have a further two weeks holiday, but one day should be taken off the recess so that the House can consider one of my hobby-horses. I believe that the key issue in 1981 will not be monetarism or even unemployment. It could well be the issue of local rates. It would be wrong for the Government to underestimate the concern and alarm over the size of local rates and the impact of the increase that is to take place. There is a growing feeling that the situation is intolerable.
Hon. Members are aware that the Government's intention is to control public spending. How long can they continue with such a policy when Ministers have no direct control over about one-third of public revenue spending which is carried out by local authorities? The Government have direct control over capital spending. We have seen the honest endeavours of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to try to bring about a reduction. If, however, every local council in Britain decided tomorrow to double its revenue spending and to double the rates, there is nothing that the Government could do.
There is also a growing realisation that rates are an unfair and unjust form of taxation. Hon. Members are aware of traditional stories from constituents of two identical houses, one containing five wage earners and the other a person on a fixed income. There is, however, a
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growing appreciation that for commerce—shops, factories and offices—rates are becoming an unfair and intolerable form of taxation.
There is a growing appreciation that some substantial increases could occur in 1981, partly because of inflation, partly because of overspending and partly because of the rate support grant settlement announced yesterday. I cannot complain about Southend. Many authorities are to have a substantial reduction, but Southend's rate support grant will rise from £2·9 million to £4·7 million—an increase of over 50 per cent. It is the result of a fair appreciation that Southend council has consistently pursued a policy of financial prudence and has protected the interests of its ratepayers at all times. I am glad that at last we have a Government who appreciate a council which consistently has looked after ratepayers' cash wisely.
There is no doubt that substantial rate rises will take place in many parts of the United Kingdom. All parties have toyed with rating reform. A Royal Commission, study groups and other bodies have made many proposals. The time has come to rethink the proposals, because nothing seems to be the answer. The right hon. Member for Deptford was right. In the 1974 manifesto Conservatives made a commitment to abolish domestic rates. In 1979, that was downgraded to take second place to a reduction in income tax.
There is a growing feeling that, although there is a real desire for reform in the Conservative Party, the abolition of domestic rates is probably not the best answer. It would be ludicrous if councils had to decide every year what local tax to charge industry and commerce, which have no votes, so that services can be provided for domestic ratepayers who have votes. To abolish domestic rates alone is not the answer.
The search for a new domestic tax has been unsuccessful. The Layfield commission examined local income tax. When one studies its report, one realises that that is not the answer. A local income tax would be costly and bureaucratic. How on earth could a firm apply a PAYE system if there were a different rate of tax for all its employees depending on how they lived? How would marginal problems be dealt with? What would happen if a youngster from Southend, studying at Birmingham university, obtained a summer job at London Zoo? What local tax would be applied? How would we deal with the question of changing residences? A sales tax is not the answer although it can work in America, where there are large distances and large states. It would not work in a small country such as the United Kingdom.
The House should debate for at least one day the possibility not only of abolishing rates but of the withdrawal of the right of local authorities to tax in any form. It would be fair and reasonable to deprive all local councils of the right to charge rates or any form of taxation and for all the cash to be provided from the centre through national taxation. Local authorities could be given the cash in a block grant.
In cash terms, that is not such a revolutionary proposal as it might appear. Already about 60 per cent. of local council spending comes from national taxation. In Scotland the percentage is higher. There would be immense advantages in such a change. Everyone would pay instead of only householders. The cash would be raised in a fairer way. There would be no regional or local variations. We would save the cost of collection.

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Let us examine the disadvantages. It would mean an increase in national taxation. The calculation is that if all the domestic rate were put on to income tax there would be an increase of 4p in the pound and that if it were put on to VAT it would increase by 4 per cent. If the charge were spread over a wider range, the effect would be much less. The money is already being paid.
Some will say that such a proposal would kill local government and that people would no longer be interested in taking part in local government and council elections. I doubt that. There is little enough interest at present. If councils were told that they had a block sum to spend according to the needs of the area and which could be supplemented marginally by charges for services, there would be more local interest.
People who believe that we can control council spending by angry ratepayers throwing out bad councils have been shown that that does not work. The Leader of the House, who is one of our great campaigners in local and national elections, will remember when posters appeared throughout the country depicting a London borough street where one side was controlled by a "spendthrift Labour council" and the other by "a good, solid Conservative council". The swing throughout the country was almost identical. Although people tend to support individual councillors because of their activities, only a few people participate in local elections and they tend to express their view of the Government at Westminster.
In spite of the immense efforts, we cannot rely on the present state of the law. Nobody could have tried harder to control council spending than the Labour Secretary of State for the Environment and the current Secretary of State. They have threatened the councils with grant cuts and done everything that they can, but that has not worked.
In spite of what has been achieved, it is difficult to see how we can have a consistent economic policy based on the control of public spending as long as the Government have no effective control over local council spending. I appreciate that my suggestion may involve great difficulties. I am sure that my proposal contains obstacles. However, surely the Leader of the House will accept that we should debate the suggestion. We should not generalise and say that rates are terrible and that something must be done. We must begin talking about specific proposals.
We have been through all the suggestions. A local income tax would be a frightening weapon to put into the hands of some local councillors. The search for an alternative local tax has failed. I do not believe that there is such an alternative. The time has come to examine seriously transferring the burden of collecting local authority revenue to national taxation. If we examined the proposal seriously, we would find more advantages than are immediately apparent. My suggestion would help the ratepayers and the Government. The abolition of a property tax could be a great boost to the nation.
4.47 pm
Mr. David Young: I wish to speak about the unemployment figures. The House should sit for longer than proposed so that we can discuss those figures. The people in Bolton, for whom I speak, are not statistics but 11,500 human tragedies. For many years Bolton has faced recession. It has faced the decline of old-established industries, such as textiles. By the natural resource of the people, old industries have diversified into engineering,
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electronics, paper-making, battery-making and television manufacture. Each of the new industries has been hit by redundancy after redundancy since 1979. Redundancies follow thick and fast. Union organisers believe that each ring of their telephone means another set of redundancies. Firms that form the base of Bolton's economy are being removed from the area to areas outside. That is a contraction of the basis of industry on which the future of Bolton depends.
It is no good arguing that sooner or later we shall emerge from the trauma. If the industrial base of a town such as that which I have the honour to represent is completely liquidated, there will be no place from which the upturn can come. Most worrying is that only one firm in my area is taking on the number of apprentices that it did a year ago. By cutting apprentices, the Government are cutting the future of the very industries that the nation requires to survive. I am basically concerned about that. Once the apprentices go, the future of British industry goes. We shall be left with a contracting base that will not have the strength to take advantage of an upturn, if one comes. That is happening throughout my constituency, week after week and month after month.
The number of unemployed in Bolton has doubled in the past year. The number of young unemployed has doubled in the past year. The number of school leavers unemployed has doubled in the past year. When the last set of unemployment statistics was released, there were 11,500 unemployed with only 268 job vacancies. I am well aware that the Government recently indicated that they would make additional finance available to help job opportunity programmes. We welcome that in the current circumstances. But youth opportunities, with all the good will in the world, are artificially created jobs. If no meaningful job is available for those youngsters at the end of the day, all that is happening is a postponement of the returns on the unemployment statistics. That is my worry and my concern. If we contrast the help being given by the Government with the nature of the problem, we realise that they are applying sticking plaster to a dying man.
When the Government came to power in the summer of last year, they removed the assisted area status from Bolton. When that status was first given in 1972, the unemployment rate was 4·7 per cent. When it was removed, the rate was 5·9 per cent. Currently, one year later, the unemployment rate is 10·3 per cent. When that point was put to the Minister in a recent late-night debate, he said that although he was sympathetic there was little that he could do about it. As we move towards the Christmas Recess, those matters concern my constituents. They are worried not only about the dramatic rise in unemployment but that the base on which any future industrial expansion will come is being denuded week by week. We shall be left with an industrial wasteland in that part of Lancashire.
I ask the Government to accept the amendment so that we can have more time to consider the facts. All that we seem to have from the Government is indications that if there is unemployment in one area the people should move elsewhere. Where should they move to—to Liverpool with a 15 per cent. unemployment rate or to the West Midlands? I visit my jobcentre and say that the Government tell us that people should move. I ask them to tell me where the people can find jobs. The answer is

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"Nowhere". One or two jobs are available, but what about the unemployed kids who are now thinking not of months of unemployment but of years of unemployment?
The Government have said that there is a danger of overmanning in British industry. The greatest danger to British industry comes from the overmanning of the Conservative Benches. If the Government feel that their policy is right, let them put that to the electorate, and put it soon, so that the electorate may decide.
4.55 pm
Mr. David Gilroy Bevan: It is a pre-surmised position that the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin), who moved the amendment, feels that there is unemployment in the House. My experience as I have sat into the early hours of the morning and listened to debates is that the position is the reverse. There is no unemployment in the House. The amendment pre-surmises not only that is there unemployment but that the only way to deal with it is by debate. We are now having a debate to have a debate just after having had a debate on unemployment, which is one of the main factors that has been alluded to.
Of course, I am worried about unemployment. I agree
with the hon. Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Young) that it is no good moving to the West Midlands, which is my area, where unemployment is higher than it has ever been. My constituents in Yardley are extremely worried about it, dependent as they are on the car trade and the proximity of British Leyland.
I wish to quote Minnie Louise Haskins, who said:
"And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown'. And he replied: 'Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.'"
I realise that that makes certain Opposition Members chuckle. Their attitudes are well known. That was last quoted by the late King George VI on his Christmas broadcast in 1939, when this country was embarking upon one of the most frightening periods of its history. Those words gave comfort and endurance to many people.
Because of the inheritance of unemployed numbers that was passed on to us by the Labour Administration, the developing numbers in the face of an international and national recession and the onward frying of the silicon chip—which is bound to be labour-intensive and employment-defeating—we are facing a crisis as great as that faced in 1939, which we came through. The man who stands
"at the gate of the year"
is every man who stands at every factory gate, every shop gate, at the gate of every public undertaking and at the gate of every place of work. The gate itself is the gate to those factories, those places of work, those shops and those public and private enterprises. It is to be hoped that that gate can be opened. We must ensure that it is opened. We hope that the gate is not an insurmountable stile that cannot be climbed. We must dedicate ourselves to opening that gate.
I suggest that the method of opening is not by a debate about a debate after a debate but by delegating to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment the task of starting an immediate, in-depth investigation into the means that can be used to revert to a position of high
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employment and to create all those things that will give Britain the courage and the satisfaction to go forward. The time to debate it is not in the recess but when we have my right hon. Friend's report before us.
We understand the difficulties that face industry at the moment. We understand that industry is depleted and that firms are going out of business. That gives us no joy. But there are many reasons for that. One has been the necessity, regrettably, for various nationalised and non-nationalised industries to carry for decades an over-heavy payroll and too large a work force. The opportunity has now come about, in a most regrettable way, for rationalised labour scales to be adopted.
We must change our thinking, not just our addresses or our geographical arrangements and dedications. We must change our thoughts about the new technology. At this seasonal period, we must bear in mind the ghosts of Christmas past and the ghosts of Christmas present—the ghosts of the dole queue in the past, and in the present the soulless handout of State benefits, which merely encourages laziness and frustration and inclines the youth of today not to want to work but simply to wait.
Mr. James Hamilton: I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman, like many of us in the House, watched a television programme last Sunday. In that programme was a lad who had said the self-same thing as the hon. Gentleman has said tonight about ne'er-do-wells and people who would not work. For the first time in his life, he found himself unemployed, and he now retracts all that he thought and said previously. Bearing in mind that the Government cannot redeem the situation, is the hon. Gentleman now prepared to bring in the Holy Spirit? I am sure that all of us would accept that.
Mr. Bevan: I have heard what has been said, and, indeed, I saw part of the programme. But I am speaking of the school leaver who has not had a job, not about the young or middle-aged person who has had a job and has become unemployed. I am talking about the person who has not had the benefit of employment. We know that unemployment is rife among school leavers far more, and to a greater degree than it is in other sections of the population.
The proposals that are asked of the Government must be in the form of a Christmas future—and a happier Christmas future. There must be an in-depth study, not the kind of fiddling, ill-conceived, badly-thought-out, costly schemes, of a temporary nature, which were introduced one after one by the previous Administration and which, in the main, failed one after one. There must be planning to mop up unemployment among the middle-aged and the old. That must involve earlier voluntary retirement, shorter working hours and shift working.
What must it involve for the young? It must involve a form of national service and national dedication. What should that national service be? It must be service by every young person in this country, both nationally and internationally, helping on schemes and projects throughout the country—the clearing of canals, perhaps, or the clearing of railways—on jobs which do not involve automatic opposition from the unions. There must be great works which can be done. Certainly, internationally there are great works to be done. There are villages to be rebuilt and roads to be constructed. There needs to be dedication to ethnic groups in the Third world. Labour Members may

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laugh and scoff. What, then, is their sincerity in calling for this debate? I ask the Government to consider the matter and to give us a detailed report in order to help those least able to help themselves.
Public opinion is fickle. It is like the guns of a battleship. My analogies are deliberately military, based on what I said at the beginning. Those guns range on the most difficult situations that we face. Theyranged on inflation. Taken in a six months context, it is clear that inflation is now falling. Those guns have ranged on various other matters, such as high interest rates. Interest rates, too, have begun to fall, and we trust that they will come down further. But those guns will swing and will form a new trajectory. The trajectory to which public opinion is now swinging is unemployment, but the way to deal with unemployment is not to have a debate on a debate after a debate. I ask my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and his colleagues to consider long-term methods of dealing with unemployment which can only benefit the young.
Finally, with great respect to the scribe who possibly writes better iambic pentameters than I in the House magazine, may I interpolate and slightly alter the words I quoted from Louise Haskins:
"I say to the youth who stands at the factory gate
'There has to be hope that you can enter soon therein'
And he replied, 'I've got no hope, I've only learnt to hate,
I put my hand to vote, now it finds no lathe to turn for me to live'."
5.7 pm
Mr. David Winnick: Listening to the hon. member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Bevan), I thought that we were listening to one of the usual speeches by the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes). It seems that the two hon. Gentleman now speak in the same kind of language.
Listening to the disgraceful slurs upon people claiming unemployment and other benefits, I must say how deeply offensive it is for some people in the House, who earn quite a lot of money and who probably have assets outside, to make remarks of that kind towards people who have no income of any kind except what they can claim because they unemployed, sick or disabled, in supplementary benefit. I have always found such an approach deeply offensive. Indeed, I am sure that there are Conservative Members, too, who would not go along with the previous speech and who would wish, privately at least, to dissociate themselves from some of the remarks that we have just heard.
I wish first to express my regret that the Prime Minister has not yet made a statement on the Dublin talks. I raised the matter last week. It seems very puzzling to have a situation in which what took place in Dublin has, understandably, been the subject of a great deal of comment in the press and in the media generally and has led to a debate in the Irish Parliament. There continue to be comments on what happened or did not happen at the summit meeting between the two Prime Ministers. Yet there has not been any kind of statement or report to this House.
When the matter was raised at business questions last week, the Leader of the House justified what had happened by saying that on previous occasions when such talks took place no statement was made to the House. But my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition asked on what other occasion, when such talks took place, those talks actually led to a debate in the Dublin Parliament.
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Of course, interpretations are being made of what happened in Dublin. I make this comment to the Leader of the House and his colleagues. When we are not given information, when we are not satisfied with the position, and when we rightly believe that information is being withheld from us, we do not give up. We continue to seek that information. It would be much easier if the Prime Minister had come back, recognised the importance of the Dublin talks and reported to the House of Commons. I shall continue to press for a statement.
I wish to make only this comment about the tragedy that is now being enacted in Northern Ireland. I choose my words with the greatest of care. Like all other hon. Members, I condemn without hesitation or reservation all forms of terrorism in Ireland. I do not believe that there is any possible justification for what the Provisionals have done—such as the killings and injuries—and I would not wish—
Mr. Fell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I wonder whether this has anything to do with the amendment that we are discussing.
Mr. Winnick: What is now happening in Northern Ireland has every relevance to whether we decide to go into recess. It is of great importance. If the hon. Gentleman reflects on the matter, he will perhaps recognise how important and urgent it is.
I believe that every possible effort should be made to end the hunger strike and that, without granting political status to the hunger strikers, we should try to find some formula by which the hunger strike can come to an end.
I am sure that I am not alone in saying that there have been enough martyrs in Irish history. Many years ago, there were those, too, who went on hunger strike until they died. If those who are now on hunger strike were to die, it would not make the situation in Northern Ireland any better. It would only lead to more violence, deaths and tragedies. Therefore, I take the view that some way should be found to save the lives of those who are involved.
I agree entirely with the comment made by The Guardian columnist, Peter Jenkins, with whom I do not normally agree, who wrote in today's issue:
"They may deserve to be so treated"—
he was referring to those on hunger strike—
"but what we are having to do in order to uphold the point that they are common criminals and not, as they would have it, prisoners of war, is so degrading to ourselves, so disgusting to behold and difficult to explain to others, that we may well wonder whether it is wise or prudent to persist."
Understandably, like ourselves, he made the point that he has no wish to apologise for the terrorists. He added:
"It cannot be good policy to allow our prisoners to be gaolers and inflict such degradation and shame upon us."
I believe that that is the right point of view. The Government should respond to the appeal which the Roman Catholic Primate of All Ireland has made directly to the Prime Minister. The bishops and the Primate himself have already appealed to the hunger strikers to give up their fast. I am sure that the Primate has no more time for terrorism than the rest of us, but he has attempted to resolve the tragedy that is now occurring in the Maze prison.
Perhaps the Leader of the House will tell us whether the reports are true that the prisoners are willing to abandon their demand for political status in favour of some reforms inside the prison. We now know that the question of

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reforms inside the prison was the subject of discussion at the Dublin summit. Had there been a statement at the beginning, this matter could perhaps have been resolved last week. That is all that I wish to say about the situation in Northern Ireland.
I turn to the point made by the hon. Member for Yardley and one of my hon. Friends about unemployment. I echo everything said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) when he initiated the debate.
I should like to concentrate on the position in the West Midlands. As the hon. Member for Yardley said, the situation has considerably worsened in the last year. I should like to give the latest figures, because they represent another reason why we should give careful consideration about going into recess on the dates proposed. From 1 October to 30 November, there were 13,329 redundancies in the region, and in the Black Country districts the number made jobless was 4,790. Last year in the borough of Walsall, unemployment stood at 5·9 per cent. The latest figures show that 20,000 people are now unemployed, which represents 11·4 per cent. That has occurred within a 12-month period.
I have looked at the list of redundancies and closures, and it is very depressing. Among the firms in Walsall which have decided to close are T.I. Sunhouse, with the loss of 380 jobs; Aluminium Bronze, with the loss of 290 jobs, and Musgrove and Green, with the loss of 95 jobs. That bleak, depressing picture is the same throughout the Black Country and the West Midlands.
Since those figures were sent to me, there has been further news of redundancies and closures. Dunlop has announced that it wishes to end about 1,500 jobs, mainly in Birmingham. Midland Motor Cylinder will probably close its works in Smethwick, near my constituency, and 700 jobs will go. GKN is making more than 700 workers redundant at its factories in Darlaston and Bromsgrove. Harris and Sheldon, a local firm in my own constituency, has just announced that it wishes to close, and that will involve 300 workers being made redundant.
One can well understand the feelings that exist in the Black Country at present. The picture is bleak. Apart from the fact that so many are unemployed, many others—certainly many of my own constituents—are on short-time working. In some cases, they are working only one or two days a week. Many of them go to work each day not knowing whther they will be made redundant. One can well understand the fear and insecurity that has emerged in the West Midlands since the Government have been in office.
When one compares the promises that were made by the Tories in May 1979 with what has happened on the ground in our own constituencies—unemployment, short-time working, fear and insecurity, not knowing what will happen and the undermining of one's family responsibilities—one has every right to condemn the Government and to wish for the earliest opportunity of a general election.
The hon. Member for Yardley referred to the young unemployed. That is indeed a tragedy, but, as I have said before, I am also concerned, as we all must be, about the family man in his late forties or early fifties who is made redundant. What is worse, if after 12 months he has been unable to find a job and his unemployment benefit has been exhausted, he will not get a penny of supplementary
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benefit if he has savings of more than £2,000. How can Conservative Members justify that? They should bear in mind that some people who are made redundant will receive redundancy money. That will enable them to save up for their old age. But they will find that those savings will go by the board if they are unable to find a job within 12 months.
It will be a bleak and cheerless Christmas for many of my constituents. They may not have suffered as much as the constituents of other hon. Members, but they have suffered as a result of the Government's policies. First and foremost, we want a change in economic policy and a recognition by the Government that what they are doing at present is to undermine job security and industry itself up and down the country, and certainly in the West Midlands.
5.20 pm
Mr. Dudley Smith: I am tempted to take up some of the large-scale arguments that have been advanced, but I wish to be brief. I address the House on a small but vital matter that will concern every hon. Member. The Government are rightly concerned about small businesses, and they have taken many steps and measures to help them at a time of great economic difficulty. In the past two months the electricity board in the area that I represent—I believe that this applies to the boards that cover the rest of the country—has introduced a new policy whereby non-domestic users receive monthly bills compulsorily, as opposed to quarterly bills.
It does not need much imagination to realise that the cash flow problems of small businesses are immense at a time of severe economic difficulty. Electricity boards may have their difficulties, too, and I do not underestimate them, but they are in a far better position than is the ordinary small business.
The introduction of monthly bills for non-domestic users is a serious blow to small businesses. As a result of many complaints that I have received—I am sure that a number of other hon. Members have received similar complaints—I tabled a written question, which was answered earlier this week by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Energy. In his reply he stated that the matter was not really for his Department but was for the electricity boards and that he would ask the chairman of the Electricity Council to write to me.
That is not good enough. Nor is it good enough to receive the sort of reply that I had from the chairman of the East Midlands electricity board, Mr. J. C. Smith, who wrote.
"The board is continually reviewing its operating procedures in order to minimise costs. A significant part of these costs consists of interest charges on external borrowing required to finance its activities. One of the major factors affecting this borrowing requirement is the period of credit allowed between usage of electricity and payment by customers. For quarterly bill customers up to three months can elapse between usage and billing."
It might be possible to make a case for monthly billing for larger organisations, although such organisations are suffering cash flow problems, but it is surely unfair that small businesses of all types are being penalised by the electricity boards in the way that I have described. From time immemorial, for both domestic and non-domestic users, electricty accounts have been submitted quarterly. I have never before heard the suggestion that electricity was being provided on credit and that payment should be

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made as one went along. There are many who are facing considerable bills on a monthly basis, which they are ill equipped to meet.
A typical example came to my notice through the visit of a lady to my surgery last Saturday. She lives in my constituency and owns a small hotel with fewer than a dozen bedrooms. Her yearly turnover is £6,000 or £7,000. Her electricity bill for the last winter quarter was about £300. She is now being asked to pay that on a monthly basis by the East Midlands electricity board. This is wrong, and it is also wrong that we should sustain and underwrite a change in a long-standing practice.
I know as well as does any other hon. Member that nationalised industries and outside organisations have day-to-day autonomy, but in this instance it is important for the Government and the Minister, in the shape of the Secretary of State for Energy, to use their influence and understanding to negotiate with the various chairmen of the electricity boards to change this reprehensible practice and revert to quarterly billing. We shall be failing in our duty as a Government and Parliament unless we give help to small businesses. One of the most material ways of so doing is to allow them to pay electricity bills, especially those for the winter quarters, on a quarterly basis as hitherto.
5.25 pm
Mr. Peter Hardy: The hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Smith) is making a serious error in seeking to place responsibility for the problems of energy users on the shoulders of the energy supply industries, which are burdened by the Government's requirement that they shall not merely break even but shall make substantial profits. Thus, they have to impose burdens upon users, especially upon industrial users. That is one of the causes of great anxiety in my constituency.
There are many other anxieties in my constituency. Not the least of these is the appalling problem that will be faced as a result of the rate support allocation that was announced yesterday. The hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) told us about the burden of rates. He informed us that support from the Government for his area had been much increased. It has not been increased in the industrial areas of Britain, and South Yorkshire faces extreme difficulty. It is obvious that the basis of the Government's calculation for the distribution of rates is to take from those who have not and give to those who have. There is a clear correlation between the distribution of a higher grant to areas with low unemployment and the removal of part of the grant from areas with high unemployment.
Earlier in the year I referred to two coking plants in my constituency—Brookhouse and Orgreave—that were controlled by the chemical division of the British Steel Corporation. I was concerned by press rumours of a hiving-off operation. In September the coking part of the two plants—the entire works at Brookhouse and part of the works at Orgreave—were taken back from the chemical division to the main board of the BSC, and in Mr. MacGregor's statement on Friday I read that both Brookhouse and Orgreave are to close as soon as possible.
I have made representations, and I have discovered, as I have said, that the Brookhouse plant is to close as soon as possible. It is in an area with unemployment approaching 20 per cent. I understand that the Orgreave
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plant is to stay open for a while so that the BSC will be able to establish whether a cheaper form of energy will be available. I doubt whether it will be able to do that. The fact remains that there has been a sudden development only a short time after the corporation took the coking operation back from its chemical subsidiary.
I am deeply concerned about the development, for a number of reasons. First, unemployment is appalling in the area that I represent. I spoke yesterday to the headmaster of a good school in my constituency. He told me that there are still 85 school leavers from earlier this year without work. Those are school leavers from one school for part of one year. The implications for employment are serious.
Secondly, it seems a shortsighted decision. It is geared to the present levels of steel production and special steel production activity. If we take an average over many years, we see that both plants have operated profitably. There are other serious implications that might appeal to Conservative Members. Half of the Orgreave works consists of a coking plant, while the other half is a chemical works. If the coking plant is closed, the raw material for the chemical works, which are extremely profitable, will not be available.
The National Coal Board has invested heavily in the area to ensure that coal from the South Yorkshire pits is of coking quality. At several collieries in my constituency, there has been enormous investment in washeries and coal preparation to achieve that purpose. That money may well have been spent in vain if the coking plant is closed.
The national implication is perhaps even more serious. In the past year or two we have seen several important coking plants close. There was one in my constituency three years ago and one in the neighbouring constituency of Dearne Valley only two or three weeks ago. There has been a rapid contraction of coking plant.
Conservative Members have frequently recognised that the coal industry will be important and that during the 1990s it will have to provide our oil, our gas and our feedstock. Before the 1980s are over, there will be no coking industry in Britain if we continue to proceed at the present rate, and our capacity to transform our coal into modern uses will have disappeared. It seems to me that the Minister should ensure that the Department of Industry and the Department of Energy recognise that if we are to benefit from the investment in coal, which the Labour Government incurred and which the present Government have boasted they are maintaining, we must also ensure that we have a capacity to make use of that coal, which we recognise is essential.
Therefore, apart from the burden of extra unemployment in my constituency and apart from the threat and risk to an important chemical industry as a result of any further closures in this direction, and in view of the discouragement that the present situation places upon those who are seeking to maintain environmental improvements in relation to these plants—which can be offensive—the Government should look very closely at the BSC's involvement in coking activities.

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I wish that the BSC would pass the coking operation back to its chemical subsidiary. I do not believe that in three months the BSC has had a proper opportunity to recognise and identify the realities. Certainly the major reality is that if this country is to have the benefits of its enormous coal reserves within the next 10 or 20 years it cannot afford this profligate and reckless destruction of a whole section of vital industry.
If the Government would consider this matter, that would be some evidence that they recognised the reality of life in Britain's industrial areas. The evidence that we had yesterday from the Secretary of State for the Environment was shabby enough. If the present policy on industry is maintained, we can say that not merely should the Secretary of State for the Environment be dismissed but that the rest of the Government should be dismissed with him. I believe that we ought not to go into the Christmas Recess until matters as serious as this have been properly considered by Ministers and the House.
5.31 pm
Mr. Anthony Fell: There is a bit of hypocrisy in the air this afternoon. Neither side wants for one minute to be debating here on Christmas Eve. All of us know that. It is sheer hypocrisy for anyone to pretend that he wants that.
I am hoping that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will persuade himself—he was very nearly persuaded a little while ago by the kindly and gentle speech of the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin)—and will be able to shake some of his hon. Friends into adopting the course to which he was nearly persuaded—to go into the Lobby with the Opposition and to support the amendment.
I hope that it will not be taken amiss if I comment on the amendment. I realise that the amendment has been changed. However, the Opposition have made their hand perfectly clear. They wanted to discuss the two items which they thought might have the most effect on the public. They thought "This is a God-given chance to make great publicity. We shall hold the nation standing ready for us to talk about employment on Christmas Eve. It has never been done before." Never, I think, has there been a three-line Whip issued on this subject. So the Opposition wanted to have a nice, cosy little three-line Whip to discuss unemployment on Christmas Eve. Then the idea was to have a further one to discuss on 5 January the industrial crisis caused by Government policy.
I have been a Member of the House for quite a long while. Some people would say "Too long."
Mr. Bob Cryer: Too long.
Mr. Fell: I said it for the hon. Gentleman, who is always so kind. At least, he says things with a smile, whereas to listen to Opposition Members today one would honestly believe that the present Government were a load of crooks—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—who were attempting to destroy the nation by trying to bring about unemployment and trying to destroy the nation's industrial ethics.
Opposition Members know, as well as they know the hypocrisy of the amendment, that the last thing in the world they want is for the amendment to be passed. They know that it is claptrap. They know perfectly well that the
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present Government are trying as hard, but more sensibly, as they tried when they got into power—and they managed to double unemployment in a period of one and a half years. They know perfectly well that the policy of curbing inflation and curbing public expenditure that was indulged in by them at the behest of the IMF—which was not supported by all Opposition Members by any means—was not liked, but they supported it. Now, we have the same policy but more genuinely carried out and more strongly and more determinedly carried out than they ever managed.
Now, Opposition Members are running like rabbits from their own policy—[Interruption.]Someone suggests "rats", but I would not be so unkind. They are pursued by their own nightmares of the sort of trouble they were creating and getting into when they ran out on their own policy.
I promised you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I would speak for only a short moment. [Interruption.]The right hon. Member for Deptford, who, I hope, is a friend of mine and about whose speech I said nothing rude at all, may, from a sedentary position, say anything he likes about me.
Mr. John Silkin: I did not say anything.
Mr. Fell: If it was his right hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Concannon), perhaps the right hon. Gentleman could restrain him or persuade him to rise to his feet, when I should be delighted to deal with him.
I genuinely hope that Conservative Members will have the courage to call the bluff of the right hon. Member for Deptford and his party, for bluff it is. It is nothing else. Opposition Members would be horrified, from the Deputy Chief Whip of the Opposition to the Chief Whip, down through their leader—I notice that he has gone long ago—and the right hon. Gentleman, if they had to stay here and come back to debate things on Christmas Eve. Everyone knows that.
My only plea in this debate and the only reason why I have risen to speak is to ask my hon. Friends, now that the amendment has perforce been watered down because the Opposition were so unfortunate as to transgress the rules—so that the amendment means nothing except that we come back on Christmas Eve and again on 5 January—seeing that there is nothing any longer to worry about in the amendment, whether they will go through the Lobby in strength tonight and support it.
5.38 pm
Mr. Kevin McNamara: I am looking forward to the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell) joining us in the Lobby later this evening. I hope that he will persuade many of his hon. Friends to join us, because there are many subjects which we should like to have an opportunity of debating, not the least of which is the matter referred to earlier—the question of the H blocks and the H block prisoners.
On that point, all sides seem to be heading towards a tragedy, which could, perhaps, be averted by good will and by a sensible approach to something which poses enormous difficulties for the House. As I have explained to the Prime Minister, by no stretch of the imagination can we accept that killing, murder and maiming are sufficient reasons for calling people politicians. The whole basis of our society, and that of the Republic, is persuasion and

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argument, not violence. It is against that background that we must consider these prisoners, who are convicted of some of the most terrible crimes imaginable. We must also remember that they were convicted, not by jury trial—not under the rules of evidence that would be applied in our courts and not, in many cases, on the evidence of witnesses, but by their own uncorroborated statements.
Perforce these procedures were passed by this House—I opposed them—because of the cruelly unhappy situation of 10 years ago. Although the situation is still grim and unhappy, I hope that we have learnt something in 10 years. As my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland suggested, it should be possible for Her Majesty's Government to accept that the time has come to review procedures, the scheduling of offences and the way these people are treated. A positive statement of that nature would go a long way in present conditions to show that there is understanding that, regrettably, the position in Northern Ireland is peculiar within Her Majesty's dominions and that it needs constantly to be examined and re-examined to find better methods and procedures.
The alleged demands are freely conceded in many prison systems in Europe and the United States. They are such as one would hope to see in any sensible penal system. It should not be beyond the wit of the Government, or particularly the Home Secretary, who knows intimately from his distinguished career in Northern Ireland the problems associated with granting and withdrawing political status, to find a general scheme of prison reform in which most of these demands could be met on proper humanitarian grounds as being the way in which we should treat people who are incarcerated. Many would argue that they deserve to be treated more harshly because of the evilness of their deeds. We regard the deprivation of liberty as the important factor. If we insist on maintaining our dignity as a society, no matter how evil people are we should also try to treat them, although they are in prison, with dignity. It is possible to find a way of meeting the problem. We should welcome an opportunity to discuss this in detail and also to discuss what happened in Dublin between the Prime Minister of the Republic and our Prime Minister.
I have been away from the House for the past fortnight, but as I have read and listened to reports I believe that the Government have played the matter very foolishly. If there has been an important development, and if suspicions are not to be created—whether they be of the extreme kind, as are harboured by the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley), or those of the Unionist Members who normally sit on the Opposition Benches—progress will be made only on the basis of the Opposition's being taken along with the Government in their policies. The Government are failing to do that.
What is more at stake is that the Government, by the way they have handled the Dublin communiqué risk quickly turning the Opposition's critical support and examination into opposition for opposition's sake, because it is action by a Tory Government that will automatically be opposed. That is one of the things that in the past Oppositions have attempted to avoid, rightly or wrongly—that is a matter for judgment. However, the Prime Minister has broken away completely from past precedents on this issue. That is causing grave difficulty—as grave almost as the problems being caused by the men in the H-block. The House has a right to know what was discussd and suggested.
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Tomorrow, the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food may be making a statement on the breakdown of the fishing negotiations. My right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) has asked for such a statement, and I hope that the Leader of the House will say that it will be made. It is of the utmost importance. I have watched the negotiations on the common fisheries policy for many years. We have now reached a position in which what is left of our deep sea industry, based upon the port of Hull, is being sold out to try to preserve the interests of the inshore fisherman.
In many ways that was to be expected of the Government. It is the way that thoughts and ideas have gone. But there has been no realisation by the Government that if they sell out the deep sea fleet there must be some form of compensation to the people employed by the deep sea fishing industry and the areas in which it is based. Much has been said about compensation to trawler owners. But I want compensation for fishermen, to provide job creation, new factories and training, with large capital sums being put into Humberside—into Hull in particular—to replace what has been lost, not by the introduction of new techniques or the disappearance of archaic industries but by the arbitrary actions of Governments in extending limits to 200 miles and of our Government in being prepared to accept that. That has nothing to do with the economic recession, new skills or microchips. It is the result of a straight political decision, and that is why we are entitled to ask for help.
The strange factor to emerge from Brussels, with the selling out of what is left of the deep water fleet, has been compensation for the inshore fleet. That may involve a 12-mile limit, although it seems that talks have broken down on that.
The Government have made no real attempt to deal with the problems of the young unemployed. We have had promises of work experience schemes, but it will be in the experience of every hon. Member that children of 15 and 16 years old are leaving school, some with good qualifications but others often without any, and are unable to obtain any form of employment, whereas in the past it was available.
The hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Bevan) spoke about the benefits of unemployment. That word is etched upon my soul. Vandalism, having nothing to do and losing all desire to work are the alleged benefits of unemployment. The hon. Gentleman spoke about the fortnightly dole, as though that was something great. Unless we can find employment for our young people, they will turn themselves away from and protest against the society that, before they are even allowed to try to work, puts them on the scrap heap. The particular problems of the 16- to 18-year-olds should indeed be a subject of debate.
The hon. Member for Yarmouth felt that this debate was a load of tripe and that Labour Members did not really wish to postpone the Christmas Recess. Let me assure the hon. Gentleman that we could find subject after subject to fill a catalogue, not up to Christmas Eve but beyond that to Ash Wednesday, and never have a recess. We could debate the problems of unemployment that are facing our constituents, and the many other problems that are associated with it.
Mr. Fell: I understand that. Of course, it is true that Labour Members could find subjects about which to talk.

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I was not arguing about that. What I was and am arguing about—and I repeat it because the hon. Gentleman obviously did not understand it—is that no Labour or Conservative Member truly wants to be here discussing anything on Christmas Eve.
Mr. McNamara: If the hon. Gentleman believes that, let him call our bluff and come with us into the Lobby tonight.
5.52 pm
Mr. Cranley Onslow: If I may go back to the beginning, I should like to tell the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin), who opened the debate and who is now leaving, that his arguments might have carried more conviction if his tongue had not been so obviously sticking through his teeth during his speech. However persuasive some of my colleagues may have found him, I am not persuaded by what he said or by what has been said by other Labour Members that the Opposition have the least heart in what they are seeking to do. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell). I know that there are many subjects about which we could speak, but nothing that Labour Members have said, either singularly or collectively—no matter how many speeches they may make—gives me any belief that it would be of the slightest advantage to the country as a whole. We might as well save money by turning out the lights on the appointed day and letting everyone go home.
There are one or two things that I should like Ministers to do while the rest of us are not here, and on those conditions I shall support the Government in the Lobby later tonight.
I hope that the Home Secretary will not long deny the House an opportunity to debate the tidal wave of drugs that appears to be coming into this country. The answer that I received to a question about seizures of cannabis by the Customs in the last 10 years is horrifying. The figures show that such seizures in the current year were worth £47 million—twice last year's figure and more than four times the figure for 1978. That may mean that the Customs authorities are being more efficient and successful than in the past, but I do not believe that the figure of £47 million represents 100 per cent. of the illegal drugs coming into this country. I doubt whether it represents 15 per cent. If there is an influx of that sort, it surely must be time for the House to discuss it and to hear, even over the voices of the Opposition Whips, what steps the Government are taking to counter this dangerous menace to our society.
I turn now to two other matters, both of which have a bearing on unemployment and both of which I hope are slightly more constructive than the mere recitation of closure figures that we had to suffer earlier.
Mr. Geoffrey Johnson Smith: My hon. Friend mentioned the alarming rise in drugs coming into this country. Can he say where they are mainly found?
Mr. Onslow: I could make a speech to the House on this subject, but they appear to be found at Heathrow, they are washed up on the beaches and they appear to fall out of diplomats' luggage. They appear to be found everywhere that the Customs people look for them. This is a matter on which we could spend more time, but I do not wish to do so now.
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I turn now to a question that was touched upon by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister during her speech on the Loyal Address—the unhappy embargo that seems to exist on trade between this country and Indonesia. For the sake of a frustrated import of Indonesian textiles worth under £10 million, manufacturers in this country have already lost exports to Indonesia to the value of £150 million. Engineering exports and products of British Steel have suffered. British Aerospace has lost an order for HS 748 aircraft, which I have seen quoted as being worth £40 million. The order has gone to the Dutch. Some of the other orders have gone to the Germans. Jobs are threatened in a thriving and potentially expanding sector of our industry because we are stuck with an imaginary need to protect another corner of our industry—the textiles corner. I hope that during the recess the Ministers involved, who have been looking at the situation for the last six months, will speed up the process and will be able to report that they have found a resolution to the problem.
If it involves taking £10 million off the budget for overseas aid and spending that amount to cushion the impact of foreign competition on our textile industry, I should welcome it and I should regard it as a proper response to the changing international circumstances. It would be more welcome generally than the sort of responses that the authors of the Brandt report keep ramming down our throats. I hope that when we return after the recess we shall not need to debate the Brandt report yet again. It has become a tremendous ego trip for the aid lobby.
Mr. Robert Hughes: The hon. Gentleman said that the Brandt report was an ego trip for someone. Presumably he means his right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath). The remarks of the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) are an absolute disgrace.
Mr. Onslow: I am glad to be able to associate the hon. Gentleman with my remark. No doubt it is an ego trip for him, too. The Brandt report is a waste of time and the most dreadful dodging of realities. It is about time that that was said.
My next point concerns defence expenditure. Some hon. Members—I hope some hon. Members on both sides of the House—have been concerned by reports in the press this week of the danger that pressure on the defence budget may lead to cancellation of some advanced projects which have been designed to provide high-grade new equipment for our Armed Forces. I do not argue that there is no room for savings on the defence budget. There are times—I do not doubt that this is one of them—when it makes sense to cut down on training and transport expenditure, and perhaps to cut down some of the civilian manpower that the Property Services Agency seems to employ. I realise that that must be an uphill struggle. To cut anything that the PSA does must be difficult. We have only to look around and see the new carpets rolling in here. If we cannot get a grip on the PSA, it is a little unfair to expect the Department of Defence to do so.
What concerns me most about the rumoured cuts is the damage that they will do to capital expenditure on defence and the harm that must spread from savings on defence expenditure right across our space industry. I have heard one project—the "Sea Eagle" project—described as being

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at the leading edge of our technology. Labour Members laugh, but for some hon. Members this a serious matter, and we should like it to be taken seriously
The consequences of cuts of this kind, if they mean cancellations at the leading edge, are very familiar to us, and they are not welcome. It means that we make a gift to the United States; that we disqualify ourselves as potential partners in high technology areas; that we break up design teams; that we may have to close factories; that we put people out of work; and that we increase overheads. None of these things in this case needs to be done, because one of the reasons for the current pressure on the defence budget is nothing more nor less than a bookkeeping problem.
There is no question about the equipment being needed, or about the capability of British industry to make it or its willingness to make it at a fixed cost. But, because of some arcane dispute between the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence about the way in which defence funds are spent year on year and the way they are accounted for to this House, we appear to have got ourselves into a catch–22 situation, where we are being disarmed by accountants.
Thinking back to the Conservative manifesto, I cannot believe that any of my hon. Friends thought or intended that this would be brought about by the incoming Conservative Government. I cannot believe that the Government would have wished to bring it about. I therefore urge my right hon. Friend and his colleagues to address themselves very urgently to finding a solution to this bookkeeping problem, which appears to be a major obstacle and a major threat to high technology British industry.
I hope that the House will also show some understanding of the problem. Looking back to the time of the Lang report and the changes that it brought about in accounting procedures in the Ministry of Defence, one knows that it is the insistence of every civil servant on being able to protect himself against the Public Accounts Committee that is largely responsible for an antiquated and unrealistic system of costing defence expenditure that acts to the detriment of us all. So there is work to be done by that Committee, even if, as I recognise, my right hon. Friend cannot very well ask it to address itself to that question during the Christmas Recess.
I am sure that Labour Members will agree with the aphorism that war is too serious a business to be left to generals. If I may modify it slightly, I suggest that defence expenditure is too serious a matter to be decided by bookkeepers. I hope that my right hon. Friend will convey that message in the strongest possible terms to those who are to take the decisions in this area.
6.2 pm
Mr. Stephen Ross: Following the concluding remarks of the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow), I hope that, as a result of the review of expenditure that is taking place in the Ministry of Defence, methods will be found to provide some of our defence equipment at a rather cheaper price than we are paying at the moment.
One has only to look at what it costs to build a new frigate in this country—over £100 million—to realise why former members of the Commonwealth now seem to have all their shipbuilding done in the United States or elsewhere. This is a matter that we should be looking at. I am sure that it is possible to defend ourselves at a much
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cheaper rate. The cost of a new torpedo—£950 million— is astronomical, and there are questions that should be asked in that respect. The way in which the component parts manufacturers have been dealt with under the moratorium is outrageous. They have been put into a terrible position, and it should not have been allowed to happen.
We have heard comments on why the House should not adjourn on Friday. I do not support the official Opposition's manuscript amendment because, without being big-headed, I think that I can do rather more in my constituency for some of the unemployed there than I can by sounding off in this House. It does not seem to have much effect when we talk here about unemployment. There are certain things that one can do now to help small business men and others by indicating the sort of finance that can be made available to them from companies such as Shell and the various enterprise agencies. I believe that the role of a Member of Parliament over the next few months and years will be much more in that area than it has been in the past. It will probably mean having to spend rather more time in one's constituency instead of taking part in debates in the House and uttering platitudes that do not mean very much.
Mention has already been made of the increase in electricity prices as a matter requiring some investigation. The House and the Minister concerned ought to investigate also what is happening about telex charges. A firm in my constituency has just been told that the annual rent is to go up from £500 to £1,000. It used to cost the firm £25 to move a particular machine; it is now to cost over £200—an increase of 800 per cent. Gas charges are going up by 34 per cent. in the new year. How industry is to cope with these charges, I do not know. It is certain that they will add to the number of unemployed.
When I heard the remarks about young school leavers who did not want to go to work, I immediately thought of my 24-year-old son, who has been going to an employment agency in Earls Court called Extraman Limited. He has to be there at 7 am to wait in a smoke-filled room. By 9 am, if they are lucky, there might be a couple of jobs going for the 20 or so people waiting there. The sort of job that is available is to scrub out a Honda showroom in Clapham. I remember that when I was in the Navy I used to tell the Japanese prisoners of war to chip the cable. We have come a long way since then. My son left that agency feeling very disappointed on three consecutive occasions. That is the sort of experience that our young people are going through at the moment. They want work, and it is untrue to accuse them of wanting to be on the dole. From my own personal knowledge, I resent that sort of allegation very strongly.
I wanted very much to speak in the debate last Wednesday on Northern Ireland. I apologise if perhaps I showed my disappointment too much when I left the Chamber. It is a great shame that we have not had the chance to debate the statement on the Prime Minister's visit to Dublin. I support the initiative that was taken, and I cannot understand why the Government are so coy about it. As with the initiative in Rhodesia, it is something that we on the Liberal Benches greatly welcome, but we should have liked the opportunity to say so at greater length and a chance also to investigate what is on offer.
I felt that the Leader of the House was rather less than fair when I put a question to him last Thursday. He claimed that we had had adequate time to debate the matter on the previous day. He will recall that on the previous day

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it was made clear to those who wished to raise the subject that they would be largely out of order in so doing. The appropriation orders are really the occasion for debates in which Back-Bench Members from Northern Ireland can raise matters concerning their own constituencies.
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I was not really saying that there was adequate time to raise the matter in that debate, because I know the difficulties about keeping remarks in order and so on. What I was saying was that over the period immediately following the Prime Minister's visit to Dublin there was adequate time, taking into account Prime Minister's Question Time and the various other opportunities, to raise the matter, including the one that the hon. Gentleman is now using.
Mr. Ross: I accept that I have the opportunity now, and I am grateful for that, but I think that the only opportunity to raise the matter was in the debate on the extension of the emergency provisions in Northern Ireland. That debate lasted for one and a half hours, and only seven hon. Members were able to take part in it. I do not think, therefore, that we have had adequate time to discuss the subject. It is a pity because, as I said earlier, it is an initiative that I strongly support.
I should like to say one other thing about Northern Ireland. I do not think that we should take too much to heart the protestations of the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley). I do not believe that anything that has been agreed upon in Dublin or that has been discussed there will detract in any way from the rights of the people who live in Northern Ireland. I do not think that they have anything to fear from such discussions. I am sure that most of them are bitterly dismayed that there has been yet another breakdown in the talks on the power-sharing Executive. They desperately want to see a political solution. That has been shown by recent opinion polls. They want to see a solution that will give the minority in the North a share in the administration of the Province.
That, strangely enough, is a view that comes also from working-class Protestants. Andy Tyree was reported in the press as having taken that view only two days ago, thereby totally dissociating himself from the hon. Member for Antrim, North, who seems to want a referendum in England, Scotland and Wales. They want the majority to have the right to remain within the Union if that is their wish.
I have sympathy for Ministers, particularly those who now have responsibility for the Province. They have a thankless task. They face a particularly depressing Christmas, which may be fraught with danger. I do not know what more can be done about those nearing their end in the H-blocks. I have visited the Maze prison twice. I was there as recently as last July. It is a modern prison with superb facilities. I have three prisons in my constituency, and the Maze prison knocks them all into a cocked hat.
Certain ideas have been put to those on hunger strike. Representatives of the Department have made visits to the prison. I am sure that every attempt has been made to get sense to prevail. I do not know what more can be done. I hope that the Leader of the House will pass on my message that we shall back Ministers all the way in their determination not to give way on that which cannot be yielded, namely, political status. I hope that Ministers will
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face better times after the recess, and I hope to God that common sense will prevail before the unthinkable happens.
6.10 pm
Mr. James Kilfedder: It is a scandal beyond belief that three dangerous men, who were held in custody in the maximum security wing of Brixton gaol, should have been allowed to escape with impunity. It makes nonsense of the Government's claim about law and order. They pride themselves on being stronger on that subject than are the official Opposition.
I deliberately charge the authorities, from the Home Secretary down, with, at the least, amazing incompetence and indifference. It is not sufficient for the Home Secretary to appoint the deputy director-general of the prison service to carry out an immediate investigation. The House should not adjourn until we have received answers to certain questions and until people have received some satisfaction. At present, there is grave doubt about the handling of prisoners in Brixton. We need the full facts. Those responsible, through carelessness or as a result of a deliberate act, should be identified and punished.
There could be a terrible aftermath in London. One of the escapees—Tuite—was awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to cause explosions during the Christmas period two years ago. As a result of his escape, there may be another bombing during this year's Christmas rush in London. It could have been avoided. After many inquiries, the police were successful and captured Tuite. Now, he has escaped and may have already absconded across the sea to the Irish Republic. The House must be given full answers to certain questions. Why was an adequate search not made regularly—a number of times each day—of the cells of category A prisoners in Brixton? Why did not even the daily search—unless it was perfunctory—reveal the removal of bricks and mortar from three walls over a period of days? One of the walls was 15 in. thick. Why were the men not missed from the three cells until either the scaffolding was discovered at the wall in the morning or until the 5 am cell check, which took place seven hours after those three dangerous men were last seen by prison warders?
Are not such dangerous category A remand prisoners supposed to be under constant surveillance? Someone such as Tuite, who was recognised as a violent man who would try to escape and who had been charged with assisting in an earlier escape of an IRA terrorist, should have been under constant surveillance by warders. Why did not the closed circuit television cameras reveal the movements of three men leaving their prison cells, going down a wall and crossing a yard, even if prison warders were deaf to the noise of bricks and mortar being cut out? According to some reports, the police believe that Tuite is in a safe house in one of the so-called Irish areas of London. Wherever he is, he remains a threat to the security of innocent and decent people.
The three men are cruel, ruthless and violent. They are total strangers to decency and humanity. Their counterparts, who are on hunger strike in the Maze prison, demand special privileges on humanitarian grounds. However, they are devoid of any natural feelings. Last Saturday I helped to carry the coffin of a young factory worker aged 20. He was slaughtered by four gunmen as he left the factory. He was murdered in cold blood and in

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a cowardly way by IRA gunmen, who wish to destroy the economic life of Northern Ireland and who are a threat to all decent working people in the Province.
I understand the behaviour of IRA gunmen, because the IRA is a Fascist, totalitarian organisation that wishes to create something akin to the totalitarian organisation that has given it support—namely, Russia. I understand that Pravda and Tass have come out in full support of the hunger strikers. They have attacked the British for torturing Provisional IRA prisoners and for not allowing them political status. There are no political prisoners in Russia. Anyone who demands civil rights ends up in an asylum. They may not get out of such asylums with their lives and are mercilessly ill-treated. The Russians do not allow much dissent. Anyone who opposes law and order in Russia ends up in Siberia. The Russians are strange companions for those such as Cardinal O'Fiaich, who has also spoken in favour of humanitarian treatment for the IRA hunger strikers.
The young factory worker of 20 who was murdered was a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment. To use a colloquial expression, he was probably "fingered" by someone who knew him and who knew that he served in the UDR. Many accusations are made against the UDR by Republicans. They are superb masters of the propaganda machine and have many friends in the media in the United Kingdom and all over the world. The young factory worker's girl friend was a Roman Catholic. I attended the funeral and I saw the family beforehand. His distraught mother, father, brothers and sisters did not demand vengeance. They prayed that their son's murderers would repent of their evil deed. That shows the attitudes held by ordinary decent Ulster people. Such attitudes are not always conveyed to the public, because the media pays too much attention to some of the more dominant politicians, who convey a certain impression of the average Ulster man.
The IRA has no interest in being merciful to its victims. As I have said before in the House, my cousin's wife was murdered just because she bore the same name as I. A bomb was planted outside the bedroom window of her bungalow, near the border. The murderers are now in the Irish Republic, where they can laugh with contempt at the British authorities. The IRA found that a soft target. The terrorists did not show any mercy to that mother. They did not wish to show any mercy to her, or to the many hundreds who have died at the IRA's evil hands.
One should compare the treatment meted out by the Provisional IRA to its victims and the demands that the Provisional IRA makes. The IRA is only too ready to scream for special category status and for all sorts of privileges when its members are arrested and properly convicted. The hon. member for Belfast, West (Mr. Fitt) said that without the non-jury trial system in Northern Ireland convictions could not be achieved, because the IRA would intimidate witnesses. Indeed, it has already done so.
If Cardinal O'Fiaich and other clergy spent as much time and effort on the victims of IRA terrorism as they have been doing in support of privileges for these fiends from hell, the campaign of sectarian murder of Protestants and others, violence and destruction would be sooner brought to an end.
Another telegram has been sent to the Prime Minister by the cardinal. If he and all clergy were to state to all terrorists, irrespective of their religion, that they would be
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excommunicated from their Churches, it would help bring about an end to terrorism. Terrorists have believed for 11 years that they have the sympathy of certain clergy. That may be a misconception. Cardinal O'Fiaich has declared that he seeks a united Ireland.
I appeal to the Government to bear in mind the people of Northern Ireland during the Christmas Recess. The hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) sympathised with Ministers in the Northern Ireland Office over what they will have to face over the Christmas period. The House and the Government should think of what the Ulster people will be exposed to during that period. It is certain that people will die in Northern Ireland at the hands of the Provisional IRA, some murdered in an appalling way and others mutilated, leaving grief-stricken families behind.
I ask the Government to stand firm and to show the world that the Provisional IRA is composed of obscene, evil men, who must be destroyed, as evil terrorists must be destroyed wherever they appear.
6.22 pm
Mr. William Hamilton: At the outset of the debate, Mr. Speaker sought as best he could to protect the traditional interests of Back Benchers. I hope that I have the support of all the Back Benchers for my remarks.
I cannot recollect a time when a similar debate has been opened with a lengthy speech by a Front Bench spokesman. Traditionally, in such debates hon. Members have rightly focused attention on particular problens that they think ought to be ventilated in the House. When an attack is made on that right of Back Benchers, we had better beware.
This debate was opened with a half-hour speech by my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin). Inevitably, that will cut out some Back Benchers from the debate. If they are not cut out from the debate, they will be cut out from the debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill. Either way, the Back Bencher will lose because of the initiative of the Front Bench.
I hope that there will not be an Opposition Front Bench winding-up speech, because that would add insult to injury. Front Bench Members have had their say. The rest of the debate ought to be left to the Back Benchers and the winding-up speech of the Leader of the House.
Sir Derek Walker-Smith: In my recollection, which, unhappily, goes back even further than that of the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton), it is unique to have this debate opened by a Front Bench spokesman.
Mr. Hamilton: The right hon. and learned Member has underlined my point. His experience is a little greater than mine, but we are both quite long-toothed hon. Members.
I hope that both Front Benches will take note of my remarks. Back Benchers should make it clear that they will not tolerate that sort of abuse, because the time ought to be left to them. Front Bench spokesmen have many opportunities to say what they want to say.
There is no doubt that unemployment is exercising the minds of many people throughout the country. I shall give one example of the social and mental disorder that is being created by this problem. Only a few days ago I received a letter from a friend of mine in the North-East, recalling

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to me that her husband had died a few months ago. She related the circumstances in which he had died. He had been working for a private firm for more than 20 years. One Thursday evening, he received notice that he would be sacked the following Tuesday or Wednesday and would be given three months' pay as his emolument for 22 years' loyal service. Within two or three months that man died from a heart attack. It is difficult to ascertain whether that was due to his being declared redundant in in middle age or to his advancing years. A man who loses his job at the age of 45 or 50 has little or no hope of getting another job.
Much has been said about youth unemployment, which is a serious problem, but it is no more serious than the unemployment and redundancy of the middle-aged man who might or might not have got rid of his family responsibilities.
In that context, I find extremely offensive the words of the Prime Minister on the radio that we should keep taking the medicine. The right hon. Lady adopted the role of the compassionate nurse, but to me she sounded more like Sweeney Todd. There have been hundreds of bankruptcies every month during the past 18 months. In Scotland, 5,000 more people have joined the dole queue every month of the Government's period in office. That is more than 150 extra on the dole every day since the right hon. Lady became Prime Minister, yet to the unemployed she says "Keep taking the medicine". There is no light at the end of the tunnel. Unemployment will become worse rather than better, but the right hon. Lady keeps saying that we ought to keep taking her medicine.
The policies being pursued by the right hon. Lady and the Government are being assailed from every quarter of the political spectrum. In the history of parliamentary democracy in this country, I have never come across attacks such as those of two Tory ex-Prime Ministers, the chairman of the influential Tory 1922 Committee, a former Minister, ex-senior Tory Ministers, Sir Terence Beckett, the director general of the CBI, Sir Michael Edwardes—the Prime Minister's own appointment and pin-up boy in British Leyland—and, not least, Sir Brian Hopkin, the former chief economic adviser to the Treasury, who said in the The Times of 15 April:
"The Government is blundering about in the dark, for all its stance of firm and informed purpose."
Only last Sunday The Sunday Times, staid and ailing, talked about the
"economics of Alice in Wonderland."This is not from any Labour broadsheet or handout; it is from people who normally not only support but generously pay into the Tory Party's election coffers. All that and Nicholas Winterton, too! We are scraping the barrel now, are we not?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Order. It is a long tradition in this place that we do not call each other by name, save in certain circumstances.
Mr. Hamilton: All this and the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), too! But still the Prime Minister stands on her burning deck ordering chief engineer Geoff "Full speed ahead", he knows not where, and all that a few of the crew can do is to spit on the flames. That is the situation that we are now in, and it is not a pretty sight.
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I should like to put some facts on the record concerning not only Scotland but my native North-East of England, the North-West, Merseyside and large parts of other depressed areas of urban deprivation. Throughout the United Kingdom there are enormous unsatisfied demands for thousands of new houses, hospitals, schools, a modernised transport system, such as British Rail, and roads. At the same time, there are thousands of unemployed skilled and unskilled building trade and other workers who would give their right arms to be able to build the houses, schools and hospitals and to modernise the railways. It is the economics of the madhouse that this absurd dilemma should be tolerated. Those thousands of workers are not only not able to build those desirable social facilities but are kicking their heels on the dole and consuming hundreds of millions of pounds of social security benefits.
One Conservative Member, who has now left the Chamber, said "Put them all in National Service. Let them help the Africans and the Indians." There is much to be said for that, but there is a good argument for saying that charity begins at home. We could do with many new houses in Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool and elsewhere. We need not send these people abroad. We ought to get them to work here, instead of spending the thousands of millions of pounds that we are getting from North Sea oil on keeping them on the dole.
The Prime Minister is now beginning to see the folly of her ways, because she is now talking about constructive intervention, whatever that means. We hope that it is an indication that she is beginning to see that she is making Attila the Hun look like a philanthropist. The right hon. Lady is deindustrialising the United Kingdom at a rate that has not been witnessed since the first Industrial Revolution. Conservative Members know that that is happening.
I should like to pinpoint the problem of the school leaver in Scotland. I am glad to see present a Scottish Minister, the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Fairgrieve). The hon. Gentleman has responsibility for health matters, but I hope that he will be a Post Office boy and convey this message to his superiors.
The number of unemployed school leavers in Scotland has almost doubled in the past 12 months. There will be a greater increase this month as 17,600 school leavers come on to the labour market. There are 12,917 summer school leavers without jobs six months later. There are horrifying prospects for those leaving school this weekend. There is little prospect of their getting jobs. According to the Edinburgh Evening News, there are 4,154 unemployed in the 16- to 18-year-old group in the Lothian, Fife, Central and Borders regions. That is double what the figure was 12 months ago.
The Government are creating not only unemployment but additional hardship, because, as a result of the social security legislation that took effect last month, school leavers, instead of being able to claim social security benefit from the day after leaving school, will not now become eligible until the first Monday in January–5 January. That means that they will have no money for at least two weeks. They will have to rely on parents, who themselves might be unemployed. That problem will be even worse in the summer, because those leaving school at that time will not be allowed to claim benefits until the end of the summer holidays. Those youngsters will have no help at all from anybody for seven weeks. I have made

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representations on this matter to the Scottish Office. I hope that the Minister will understand the insult that is being added to injury by this kind of legislation.
The measures announced a few weeks ago by the Secretary of State for Employment were welcome, in that they were better than nothing, but only just. In fact, they contradict many of the Government's policies elsewhere. For example, the measures to alleviate youth unemployment are vitiated by the savage cuts in education both north and south of the border. It is no use giving additional training to youngsters after they have left school if at the same time the Government are seeking savagely to cut the quality of education services.
Although emphasis was laid by the Secretary of State for Employment on youth unemployment, long-term unemployment is increasing, especially among older people. The forecast for the United Kingdom as a whole is that there will be about 500,000 long-term unemployed. The measures proposed a few weeks ago envisage only 25,000 places for the long-term unemployed in 1982, but we already have more than half a million long-term unemployed.
The Prime Minister is enemy No. 1 in these matters. The Daily Mirror today refers to a broadcast by the right hon. Lady on 4 May 1977, when she was Leader of the Opposition. This matter should have more widespread publicity than that newspaper gives it. At that time, under the Labour Government, there were 1,269,000 on the dole. The right hon. Lady is reported as having said:
"I think it's terrible if a person who wants to work can't find a job. You have no self-respect, you haven't got the respect of your family, if, somehow, you can't earn yourself a living and them a living too.
Sometimes I've heard it said that Conservatives have been associated with unemployment. That's absolutely wrong.
We'd have been drummed out of office if we'd had this level of unemployment."
That statement was made when 1¼ million people were unemployed. The right hon. Lady was right to condemn and attack the Labour Government for that figure. We have always said that it was intolerable and unacceptable. However, it is now not 1¼ million but well over 2 million. This time next year it may well be 3 million and still increasing. I say to the right hon. Lady that the sooner she gets out of office, the better it will be for the country.
6.40 pm
Mr. John Stokes: I seldom find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton), but I wholly endorse his opening words about the speech of the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin). I have nothing whatever against the right hon. Gentleman personally. He spoke with his usual charm, but it is wrong that Back Benchers should be deprived of the opportunity of this most important occasion to raise all kinds of subjects.
Mr. John Silkin: It must be within the hon. Gentleman's recollection that in every debate the Front Bench speaks from both sides. I carefully regulated my speech to the normal time. The hon. Gentleman will perhaps also recall that it is a little unusual to move an amendment at the end of the day instead of at the beginning of proceedings.
Mr. Stokes: I shall not pursue the matter. The point has been made.
I oppose the amendment. The House sits too much. No one in the United Kingdom will be one whit less happy
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because the House will be in recess for three and a half weeks. The amendment is a legitimate political device, but it is too partisan and insincere to carry much weight in the country. Mere debating in this House will not solve the fundamental problems of our nation. I wish that it would.
One subject that is not often mentioned in the House is immigration. We should not adjourn for Christmas until we have had at least a half day's debate on the subject, first, because of its inherent importance and, secondly, because of the forthcoming nationality Bill. Immigration is a subject of public debate that is generally brushed under the carpet. Even the press is nervous of mentioning it. When it does mention the discrimation laws, it seldom dares to say that they are unfair to British people. It is considered in rather bad taste to raise the subject.
Immigration is of supreme importance to the nation. Unless it is checked, and checked soon, it will alter the composition of our country beyond all recognition. Some people want that. They want to destroy our sense of identity as a nation State, but such a fundamental change is abhorred by the vast majority of our people, who have never been asked about the subject and have certainly never had the chance to vote on it.
The worrying facts about immigration are constantly played down by Governments of both parties and by others. The large and growing number of immigrant births in London and certain other cities will mean that in time one-third, one-half or in some cases a majority of their inhabitants will be black. I know that thousands of miles of our countryside will remain untouched, but a revolutionary change will have taken place in our towns, with the indigenous English forming in some cases a minority of the population. That is the legacy that we are leaving to our children, even if we stop all immigration tomorrow.
The loophole in so-called immigration control lies in allowing dependants of immigrants into this country, coupled with the absolute discretion of the Home Secretary, which can be used in a boundless way.
Mr. Dennis Canavan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Stokes: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I have waited a long time and so has he. I shall continue.
Net immigration into this country is still continuing at about 50,000 a year, which is an alarming figure. The problem has been with us for only about 25 years, but immigration in the past 25 years will be found to have changed our destiny as a nation and the composition of the nation more than any other event in our long history since the Norman conquest. The problem is hushed up and seldom ventilated. Those who raise the subject are denounced as evil people, yet the House has a right and a duty to warn the nation of the dangers ahead.
Mr. Canavan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Stokes: No.
On our present course of allowing in such large numbers, we are engaged as a nation in an act of self-immolation unparalleled in world history.
Mr. Canavan: Disgusting.
Mr. Stokes: These new people whom we have allowed in to share our heritage differ from us profoundly in religion, morals, habits and customs. The unskilled immigrants are hardly needed here, particularly now, with

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unemployment as it is, and surely the skilled among them would serve the world far better—if we like, would serve the overpraised Brandt report far better—if they made their contribution in their own homelands, where it is so badly needed.
Fortunately, some immigrants, such as the West Indians, show signs of wishing to return home. Active encouragement and help should be given to all immigrants who wish to return to their homelands.
If we allow immigration to continue on anything like the present scale, this island and its people will become unrecognisable. If we continue diluting our national stock, we shall become a different people. The very name of England and all that it stands for will vanish. [Interruption.] No wonder Labour Members laugh. Some may like to see it.
Finally, no one who reveres our history and achievements and who loves our nation can contemplate such a future. We must act now. I appeal to the Home Secretary and the Home Office to heed my words.
Mr. Canavan: Disgusting.
6.48 pm
Mr. Bob Cryer: The speech of the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) was repulsive, racist and incipiently Fascist.
I wish to deal with the question of the level of unemployment in my constituency and the whole of West Yorkshire. The Conservative Government achievement in my constituency is an increase in unemployment since May 1979 of 110 per cent. That has nothing to do with the Labour Government. It is this Government's achievement. They have more than doubled the level of unemployment in the Keighley travel-to-work area. They cannot argue that it increased under the Labour Government. I am allocating to them their share of the onerous burden that the people of Keighley are having to bear as a result of their policies.
The rate support grant cuts will certainly increase the level of unemployment. There are two large factories in my constituency that produce doors, frames and windows for houses, and the decline in public sector building will almost certainly mean a decline in demand and, therefore, a decline in jobs. It is daft economics to cut public expenditure in order to create longer dole queues, which then create a demand on public expenditure for the payment of unemployment benefit. The priorities are topsyturvy.
We should have a debate as soon as possible on the situation facing the wool textile industry in West Yorkshire. There have been an enormous number of redundancies. I have here a document "newsflash" from the Wool Textile and Clothing Industry Action Committee, which consists of representatives of management and trade unions and Members of Parliament and Members of the European Parliament, together with representatives of local authorities, in West Yorkshire, including Conservative-controlled authorities, such as the West Yorkshire county council. When they point out the serious position of the textile industry, the Leader of the House may take it that they are not making merely partisan points.
Redundancies in the wool textile and clothing industry in 1980 totalled 10,676. That is at the end of a decline in
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the industry since 1972 from 895,000 employees to 659,000. In eight years there has been a drain of jobs in textiles and clothing of nearly ¼ million. For 10,000 jobs, 8,000 in wool textiles, to be lost in one region is obviously an important, significant and saddening blow.
I hope that we shall have a debate as soon as possible, but before that the Government's policies to staunch the bleeding to death of an important industry must be spelt out. For example, what do they intend to do about outward processing, by which part of the textile process is carried out outside the United Kingdom? The European Commission has proposed for outward processing Malta, Morocco and Portugal, which are all used for outward processing at the moment, but it also suggests that Algeria, Cyprus, Spain, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt should be added to the list of outward processing countries that are acceptable to the EEC. What is the present position and what will the Government do about it? It has been suggested that if outward processing is extended still further there might be a job loss of about 60,000 throughout the United Kingdom. I need hardly point out that such a job loss would be a serious blow to the already crippled textile and clothing industry.
What do the Government intend to do about labelling? There is false labelling by countries such as Taiwan. As evidence to an all-party committee has shown, manufacturers there are prepared to stick on clothes labels that purport to show that they have been made in Huddersfield. What action are the Government taking on that?
The Government have produced a draft order to tighten up the labelling of garments in this country. How long will the consultation process take? Such a move is well overdue, and I hope that the Government will assure us that they will curtail the consultation process as much as possible. Consult by all means, but do not drag out the process. The tightening up of labelling regulations must be concluded as quickly as possible.
High interest rates are causing enormous problems and job losses throughout manufacturing industry. That is mentioned in the action committee's document, but I get the same cry from other industries in my constituency. It is a matter of grave concern that the Government are taking virtually no action.
The high cost of energy, both gas and electricity, is also causing considerable concern to industry in my constituency. It is a heavy burden for industry, just as it is for ordinary consumers. The high cost stems from the high interest rates imposed by the Government and the fact that they are forcing the public sector to borrow less and to finance investment through higher profits achieved by higher charges.
A combination of Government policies is causing massive job losses in every sector of manufacturing industry. As my hon. Friends have pointed out, manufacturing industry is being so badly hit that if the upturn ever comes—which seems unlikely under this Government—we shall not have a manufacturing industry to take advantage of it and to meet demand. We must have action.
Finally, what will the Government do about the multi-fibre arrangement? Will the Secretary of State for Trade initiate a debate in the House about import controls and import quota protection for the industry and spell out how he intends to develop the MFA, which is so vital to the continued preservation of the textile industry?

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The Government are in an increasingly desperate situation with their economic policies. They are failing continually and it is about time that some of the much heralded U-turns were embarked upon, at least so that over Christmas and in the new year some of our people have the prospect of a job—a prospect which, at the moment, is very dim for many of them.
6.57 pm
Mr. Bowen Wells (Hertford and Stevenage): One of the interesting aspects of the debate is the cross-party concern, particularly about unemployment. I was nearly seduced by the quiet, seductive manner of the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin), because I, too, believe that there are important matters that the House should be in session to discuss during the coming weeks.
I shall concentrate on the difficult decisions that have to be taken by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence concerning the acquisition of new weapons for the Navy and the Army. The problem is the possible cancellation of the guided weapons Skyflash II and Sea Eagle, which is an air-to-ship missile and the most technologically advanced missile under development. Those weapons are being seriously considered as cuts in the defence programme. We need to debate that matter before such cuts take place. I fear that decisions may be taken while the House is in recess.
Let me spell out the potential effects of such cuts. Unemployment has increased under both Labour and Conservative Governments. We have to find a solution. I wish that there were more cross-party determination to find that solution. One solution undoubtedly lies in encouraging success among our people. We should encourage people with high technological ability to put that ability to work and to create products of advanced design and technology that can defeat any in the world.
The Sea Eagle guided missile is one of those products. If that guided weapon is cut, the design team in British Aerospace offices in my constituency will be broken up. We shall not be able to maintain those people for the service of this country in the defence industry or any other industry, They will go overseas to develop similar high technological products in the United States, Canada and elsewhere. We shall in turn have to buy back the products. This will have its effect on the advanced industrial base that must be developed in Britain, to replace old, worn-out industries that are creating fewer jobs and continuously losing money.
British Aerospace must have new and challenging design work. Otherwise, there will be loss of employment at the present time and the final demise of British Aerospace in about 10 years. Research and development on the Sea Eagle guided weapon will herald a whole new generation of missiles, together with new technology that can be used in the industrial sphere. If the technology is not developed in Britain we shall not be able to develop the new industries that we need. To cut this weapon would be tantamount to cutting the seed corn that we need to develop the new industries that this country requires.
British Aerospace cannot be left as a one-product factory. At the moment, our missiles benefit from past research and development. We have produced the Rapier missile, which is the finest of its class. It is selling well in export markets. It is British Aerospace's proud record that over 60 per cent. of its products are sold overseas, bringing jobs to this country and enormous benefits to our
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balance of payments. If the Sea Eagle is cut, British Aerospace will lose credibility as a guided weapon manufacturer. We shall not be able to enter into partnership with the United States to produce the short-range missile now being discussed, because the research and development will not have been carried out in this country. We shall again have to depend on the Americans to supply the weapons for our defence.
The United States, if challenged in defence terms, will face that challenge not only on the Atlantic side but on the Pacific side. This means that the United States will not have the ability to supply the European theatre. There must, therefore, be an alternative manufacturer of missiles in defence terms alone.
The research and development also benefits Britain industrially. The risk is that we shall lose industrial spin off. There have been benefits in the United States. They occur all the time in my constituency, at British Aerospace and other high technology factories. New factories and new small businesses have been started. They make money and within a matter of years have won the Queen's Award for exports. This happens when research and development of the type and quality now taking place in British Aerospace is available.
Unfortunately, we do not seem to be very good at negotiating set-off arrangements when supplying weapons to other countries. The most recent example is the welcome contract with Switzerland for the supply of the Rapier. I hope that the House will congratulate British Aerospace on that achievement. On the issue of Trident, however, no attempt has been made to enable that missile, or parts of it, to be developed and manufactured in this country. This is a great loss to British Aerospace and the country as a whole.
To cut the missile programme would jeopardise the ambitions of the Government and myself to sell off British Aerospace into the private sector to enable it to form a dynamic part of British industry. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has stated that in this financial year the Government will have spent £3,000 million on subsidising steel, the railways, coal mining, British Airways, British Leyland and shipbuilding. The figures involved in the missile area are tiny by comparison. They amount to a little under £200 million, to be spent over a period of four to five years. To cut back at this stage would be cutting our own throats. The effect would be felt not only in my constituency but throughout Britain. I beg the Government not to take such a crazy decision, especially at a time when the House would not be sitting and hon. Members would be unable to turn them from a foolish decision.
There are many defence reasons for not relying entirely on the supply of weaponry from the United States in order to support the United States on this side of the Atlantic. Russia has introduced nine new missiles into service in its forces over the last five years. We have introduced only two. This adds to the urgency of the necessity for the Western Alliance to develop guided weapons that can deter the Russians from using their missiles, which, in some cases, are undoubtedly superior to those available to our forces.
I beg the Government not to make any hasty decision while the House is in recess. The Government should consider the matter carefully before announcing to the House the welcome news that they realise that they must support successful industries and successful research and

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development, and that they must begin to get this country out of the slough of unemployment and rebuild the country that we all wish to see.
7.7 pm
Mr. Dennis Canavan: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) in expressing the strongest possible protest at what can only be described as one of the most disgusting and most racialist speeches I have heard in the House, made by the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes). If the hon. Gentleman is intent on a witch-hunt for undesirable immigrants, he need look no further than the other end of the corridor in this building. I refer to those such as the Duke of Montrose, who deserted his native land, left his large estates in my constituency in the charge of his son, went away to Rhodesia and collaborated with Ian Smith in treasonable activities and rebellion against the Crown. I know that the hon. Gentleman has great respect for the Crown. Yet this House and the other place passed retrospective legislation allowing people—
Mr. Victor Goodhew: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Gentleman to make such remarks about a Member of the other honourable place?
Mr. Cryer: Of course, when it is traitorous conduct.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is in order for the hon. Gentleman to criticise another Member's speech. It is not in order for the hon. Gentleman to cast aspersions on that Member's integrity.
Mr. Canavan: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was merely stating the facts of a well-known situation. A Member of the other place left this country, indulged in treasonable activities and was let off the hook by retrospective legislation passed by this House and the House at the other end of the corridor. That man is now back in this country and is a Member of that so-called legislative assembly. If that is British democracy, it is about time that the hon. Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge started looking at that kind of undesirable immigration back into this country.
Mr. Goodhew: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is the hon. Gentleman entitled to call the other place a "so-called" legislative Chamber? Until somebody changes it, the House of Lords is a legislative Chamber of this Parliament. Surely, the hon. Gentleman has no right to speak of it or any Members of that House in such terms.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Strictly, that should be done on a motion. The hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) must confine his speech to why we should not adjourn.
Mr. Canavan: We should not adjourn because we must discuss the future of the colleges of education in Scotland. I am glad that the Leader of the House is to reply, because I want to address my remarks to him personally. Last Thursday he promised me and the Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland that he would discuss the matter with the Secretary of State for Scotland. We were hoping that the Secretary of State for Scotland would make a statement about this important matter before the House adjourns.
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An unprecedented incident took place in the Scottish Grand Committee on Tuesday last week, when the Government were defeated by 40 votes to nil. The Government were humiliated. Not one Minister or Tory Member had the gumption to support the Government's proposals to close three Scottish colleges of education. The Committee failed to report its deliberations back to the House. Therefore, it is incumbent on the Leader of the House, who is supposed to look after the interests of hon. Members on both sides of the House and to secure parliamentary democracy and accountability, to explain what the Secretary of State for Scotland is going to do after being hammered in that Committee and as a result of which the Committee has failed to report to the House. We have not heard a squeak from him at the Dispatch Box.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: The hon. Gentleman is talking absolute rubbish when he says that the incident is unprecedented. Does he not recall that a short time ago the Labour Government's plans to close Scottish colleges of education were defeated in the Scottish Grand Committee? Does that not show the hon. Gentleman's hypocrisy? His Government went ahead with plans for college closures, and yet he now complains of that happening again.
Mr. Canavan: The hon. Gentleman is wrong twice. He is wrong to say that the event was not unprecedented. On the previous occasion, the result of the vote was not 40 to nil and Ministers supported the motion although they later changed their minds and the colleges were saved. The hon. Gentleman is also wrong to say that I am hypocritical. I had the guts to vote against the Labour Government because I thought that they were wrong, just as I think that the Tory Government are wrong. It is a pity that some Tory Back Benchers or even Ministers do not have the same consistency as I had in 1977. In order to achieve victory in the Scottish Grand Committee, we did not have to stoop to the tactics that were used in 1977 when Members representing English constituencies were drafted in.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must not indulge in self-justification. May we return to the subject of why we should not adjourn on Friday?
Mr. Canavan: Talking of justification, the Secretary of State for Scotland and Ministers have failed to provide any educational justification for the closure of the Scottish colleges of education.
I address my remarks to the Leader of the House because formerly he had some responsibility for education. He should have sympathy for education, whether it is in England and Wales or north of the border. The Government are using a former temporary fall in the birth rate and a temporary drop in the school population as an excuse to cut teacher supply. Perhaps the Leader of the House will back my effort to stress to the Government that this is an ideal opportunity to improve the pupil-teacher ratio in our schools instead of using it as an excuse to contract teacher supply.
Both Hamilton and Callendar Park colleges of education are in growth areas. The catchment area of Callendar Park includes my constituency. According to the Government's projection, the growth in population will be 15·3 per cent. between 1978 and 1996. Between 1978 and 1991, the population of under-four-year-olds is expected to increase by over 37 per cent. Yet the Government propose to close the college of education in that growth

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area. They are, therefore, proposing to cut educational opportunities for today's children and children who will be born in the next 10 years.
Just as there is no educational justification, neither is there a financial justification for the contraction of the college system. In the Scottish Grand Committee last week, the Secretary of State for Scotland said that eventually the Government hoped to save the running costs of Hamilton, Callendar Park and Craiglockhart colleges, which cost £3·75 million a year to run. That might sound a lot of money. However, later in the same week the Secretary of State, who says that he cannot afford £3¾ million to run these three important colleges, managed to find £3½ million for an assisted places scheme for private fee-paying schools in Scotland which cater for less than 5 per cent. of children. His priority seems to be to do a hatchet job on the State system of education while giving public money to private fee-paying schools.
The Secretary of State also announced the spending of an extra £300,000 of public money on extra publicity for the school admission scheme. What are the Government playing at? They are trying to close two colleges of education and to submerge another—Craiglockhart—while proposing to spend more than the running costs of the three colleges on an assisted places scheme and a bureaucratic red-tape system to publicise admission arrangements. That does not make educational sense. Not only the education and economic policies of this Government are at stake but, more important, the credibility of politicians, especially the credibility of this Government and the personal credibility of Ministers, including the Prime Minister.
I know that the Leader of the House is a reasonably honest man. I do not often agree with his political pronouncements, but I have always considered him to be a man of his word. That is more than I can say about the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland who has responsibility for education in Scotland. In February he met me, my hon. Friends the Members for Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth (Mr. Ewing) and for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. O'Neill) and representatives from Callendar Park college. He promised that he would issue a consultative document before introducing any proposals to restructure the college of eduction system in Scotland. He has broken that promise. He is not a man of his word. Mr. Speaker objected to me and people in Scotland calling the Minister a liar. That is not allowed under parliamentary protocol, but I can say that he is not a man of his word. The Leader of the House is a man of his word. I hope that he will tell the Minister that it is about time that he began to deliver some of his promises.
The Minister followed the meeting with a letter. He put his promise in writing. It was not simply an off-the-cuff comment at a closed meeting at St. Andrew's House with the Civil Service, myself and others. He wrote to Mr. Tom Rae, the principal of Callendar Park college, on 25 February. He said:
"I repeat the assurance that, at this point in time, we have no porposals before us for the closure of colleges. If, in the light of the information to be examined, we conclude that there is a case for some restructuring, our findings will be incorporated in a consultative document and we shall consult all concerned before any final decisions are reached."
We have waited in vain for that consultative document. Eventually, on 6 August—at the fag end of the parliamentary Session—the Secretary of State for Scotland sneaked through a written parliamentary reply stating that
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he was not only proposing but had decided to close Hamilton college of education, and Callendar Park college of education and to merge Craiglockhart college of education, without so much as adequate consultations with the college authorities.
I realise that often politicians, especially Ministers in this Government, have difficulty in living up to their promises. But in six years in the House, that is the worst example that I have seen of sheer deceit by a Government Minister. It is one of the worst examples of shabby treatment by a Government Minister, not only of fellow Members of Parliament but, even worse, of people who have dedicated their lives to education in Scotland.
I made a remark earlier about the issue reflecting not only on the personal credibility of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland—who joined in a picket line in 1977 to protect the colleges of education that he is now destroying—but also on the credibility of the Prime Minister. I noted in press reports at the weekend that the Leader of the House was reported as having given up his pet name for the Prime Minister of "The blessed Margaret". He changed it to "TINA" because it stands for "There is no alternative".
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I know that the hon. Gentleman does not wish to prejudice my future. I admit responsibility for the term "The blessed Margaret", but "TINA" has nothing to do with me. I read it for the first time in The Guardian. Someone else can have the glory for having invented that.
Mr. Canavan: I do not know whether one could call it glory. I am sorry to hear that the Leader of the House thinks that the Prime Minister is a candidate for beatification or canonisation. Whether he calls her "The blessed Margaret" or "TINA", I hope that he tells her that there is an alternative—namely, to stick by the commitment that she gave in 1977 when the colleges were under threat from the previous Labour Administration.
The Prime Minister appeared on television in a party broadcast in 1977. I have obtained a transcript from the BBC. I shall read it as I do not wish to misquote people, especially the Prime Minister. The interviewer is a man called George Birrell, who must be Scotland's answer to Robin Day. He said:
"Our conversation covered a wide range of topics affecting Scotland. Towards the end I asked Mrs. Thatcher specifically about the threat to axe up to four of Scotland's teacher training colleges."
The Prime Minister replied:
"I am not arguing that for the time being we have to cut down the number of teachers—I know we have. Cut down the number of new teachers in training. We accept that for the time being that has to be done, but the argument is about how do you go about it. The scheme that looks best on paper because it's tidy and neat, isn't always the best one in practice. It takes a long time to build up the reputation of a college—it can be destroyed easily. Again where those colleges are doing a very good job, let's keep them in being. I think sometimes it's better not to merge or to destroy colleges, but to say all right we'll keep them all going, because the more widely they are distributed, the more chance people who live near them have to go and train at them and still live at home. So it makes better human sense the way we're going about it than I believe the government scheme does."
I ask the Leader of the House to remind the Prime Minister of her fine words in 1977 and to ensure that she stands by those fine words in 1980. What is at stake is not only jobs for teachers but the educational future and educational opportunities for this generation and for future generations of Scottish schoolchildren.
7.28 pm
Mr. Robert Hughes: There are a number of reasons why the House should not adjourn on Friday. First, we understand that a state of disarray has arisen in the fishing negotiations. The news service said that the proposed offer was 36 per cent. of the fishing quotas available within what we now call the EEC pool, or within waters of EEC countries. We understand that the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has accepted that share. I hope that the Leader of the House—or, indeed, someone—is listening so that he can answer the debate. Perhaps I should wait for the Leader of the House to finish talking, if that is what he prefers.
We were told that there were further discussions about access. We always understood that the Government would stand firm behind the policy of the Labour Government—namely, that there should be no access for vessels from any other countries within a 12-mile limit. The story that appeared on the news service was that the Minister was willing to reduce that and demand only that the first six miles should be exclusive to British fishermen, and that there should be some negotiation on access between six and 12 miles. In my view, both of those concessions are unacceptable and would be unacceptable to the fishing industry. If the House will forgive the mixed metaphor, the bacon of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has been saved by the French, who, we understand, vetoed the whole package, enormous concessions having been made.
The Leader of the House might say that he will try to arrange for a statement to be made by his right hon. Friend tomorrow. I hope that we shall have a statement, but that is not good enough. Month after month since the Government took office, the Minister and his Minister of State have made statements. They have been asked what they will do if negotiations fail. They have replied "They will not fail" or "We cannot tell you". They return the following month, and the same process is repeated. We have pressed them repeatedly to tell us what will happen.
There is an agreement within the EEC that the deadline of the end of the year should be met. Some of us believe that we shall not get the rebate that the Prime Minister negotiated, as there is now no agreement on fishing. However, as the Government have been willing to concede so much, it is not satisfactory for the Minister to tell us that he is willing to go so far and that the proposition has been vetoed. We must have a proper debate so that the Minister can tell us what he intends to do. He can no longer hide behind the fig leaf—it always was a fig leaf—that his conciliatory, friendly and less robust approach will pay dividends. Every time we have reached a single issue, he has conceded and has—I was about to say "become boxed in", but that might be taken amiss—found himself narrowed down until he has given virtually everything away, without getting an agreement. We must know from the Government what they are going to do.
I turn to the second reason why we need to have a debate before the House adjourns. When we debated the Gracious Speech, we spent one day discussing foreign affairs. It was incredible that the Lord Privy Seal made no mention of the problems of Namibia. I hope that the Leader of the House will listen to this pan of my speech and refrain from consulting the Whips. It is an important
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issue. I think, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that Back Benchers need some protection when they introduce serious matters and the Leader of the House—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The important thing is that I am listening.
Mr. McNamara: The Leader of the House should take an interest in these matters.
Mr. St. John-Stevas: I was listening, and I was talking. It is possible to do two things at the same time. I was talking about the reply to the debate.
Mr. Hughes: The Leader of the House has unsuspected talents. We never knew that he could both listen and talk at the same time.
It was incredible that the Lord Privy Seal made no mention of Namibia when he introduced the debate on foreign affairs. For about four years, British Governments—both Labour and Conservative—have been members of the so-called Contact Group of Five, which has been having discussions and conducting negotiations with South Africa in parallel with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
We have had no opportunity to discuss with the Government exactly what will happen over Namibia. Foreign affairs have been dealt with at Question Time on only one occasion since we were told of the negotiations last month. There has been only one question and one supplementary question. However, we learnt a couple of weeks ago that there was an agreement with the South African Government and with SWAPO that there should be a pre-implementation conference, to begin on 7 January, and that the discussions would be on resolution 435, which, broadly speaking, is the United Nations resolution on the implementation of the Secretary-General's plan for United Nations supervised and controlled elections.
There have been many negotiations and discussions between SWAPO and the United Nations. I should say that SWAPO is the South West Africa People's Organisation of Namibia. There have been negotiations between SWAPO and the United Nations, and between the South African Government and the United Nations, on what should be on the agenda and who should attend the negotiations. It was agreed under the Secretary-General's report that two parties were involved in the discussions—namely, first, the South African Government, who hold all the cards and the purse strings, and who are the illegally occupying Power of the territory that we now know as Namibia, and, secondly, SWAPO, which has conducted a liberation struggle for some years and has engaged in direct conflict with South African forces.
Part of the agreement to have a pre-implementation conference was that the conference would take place in Maputo. The Government of Mozambique issued an official invitation to both parties to negotiate in Maputo. We now find that the South Africans have objected to Maputo. According to today's newspapers, it is now agreed that the conference will take place in Geneva from 7 to 14 January.
We still do not know how the negotiations will take place. SWAPO has good grounds for believing that the South African Government, having said that they will accept the pre-implementation idea, will go to the

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conference purely as observers. They say that the main bodies with which the negotiations should take place are the internal parties—the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance, led by Dirk Mudge, and various other organisations. It is interesting to note that in elections for the white voters' rule recently held in Namibia the DTA emerged as a loser. I therefore do not know how that body can now be regarded as speaking for the people of Namibia.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree with me that it is important to get on the record that one of the parties that won some of the second tier elections was the Namibia National Front, and that so far there has been no sign of the United Nations calling it to any of the meetings.
Mr. Hughes: I accept that. I accept, also, as I believe SWAPO would accept—I believe that there are 13 political parties of any size and that many others claim some existence, with practically no membership—that the main parties should be South Africa and SWAPO. If South Africa wishes to include the other parties, which are creations of the South African Government, either under the auspices of the Administrator-General of Namibia or under their own auspices, that is all right. However, in no circumstances would I be willing to accept, and nor should the Government, that any of the so-called internal parties should arrive at the conference table to claim a seat in its own right. The internal parties have no rights outside the patronage of the South African Government.
I am as anxious as anyone to see that we have a negotiated settlement as quickly as possible. I have said repeatedly to the Government—I have said it in private meetings with the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs who deals with African affairs—that they must not wait until we reach the position that was reached in Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe, when the Government had to give way because they were being defeated by the liberation forces.
The Government are one of the Contact Group of Five. They have never made a proper statement since taking office on how they see the issue proceeding. They accept resolution 385 of the United Nations, which says that there should be United Nations supervised elections, and they accept resolution 435, which is the effective implementation of resolution 385. However, they have never told us how that will work.
Under resolution 385, there will be an elected constituent assembly that will work out the constitution for Namibia. The South Africans are trying to inject into the proceedings, under the heading of the agenda for the conference, "Resolution 435" and "other practical matters". They are trying to inject a discussion on the future constitution of Namibia. They are now making private demands that there should be reserved seats for the whites, on the Zimbabwe model.
It is not for me to decide whether that is a matter for discussion, but the Government must tell us whether that is their intention. I do not think that we can get people to a conference in Geneva under false pretences and under pressure, under whatever private threats may be made on either side, and then face an impossible situation so that the conference breaks up.
A lot of work has been done to try to get this conference off the ground. Immense concessions have been made by SWAPO in order to come to the conference table. If
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anyone has given way on this issue, it is SWAPO. Very often people say that it is SWAPO that is intransigent and that it is the South Africans who are the good guys. If one looks at the situation, one finds that it is clear that South Africa has always tried to prevaricate and to put off the evil day. Some of us suspect that the South Africans have once again traded on the good nature of the Government, and some would say—perhaps I would say it myself in matters of greater passion—that the Government have once again been conned by the South Africans, who are looking to break this conference and are not really seeking peaceful solution.
Given that we have had a short but reasonable term of this Session, for it to have reached this stage with no statement of Government policy and intentions is appalling and disgraceful. That is why we should have a proper and thorough debate before we rise for the Christmas Recess.
I come to a domestic matter. Government supporters must not charge us with hypocrisy over the unemployment issue. We are desperately concerned about it. I should like simply to put on record, perhaps once again, that every 10 minutes of every day of the 565 days of the present Government's existence, in Scotland alone one person has lost his or her job. The Government claim, and they are right to some extent to do so, that it is not fair to blame them for everything that has happened every day since they took office in May 1979—it seems longer than that. Looking at the last six months, one finds that the Government are claiming that their policies are working, and the Prime Minister boasts that inflation is coming down. But if she is claiming that as a credit, she must also accept the other half of the Government's policy, which involves increasing unemployment.
In the last six months in Scotland, instead of one job being lost every 10 minutes it has been one every 8¼ minutes. That means that in the month since we last had the unemployment figures another 5,200 people have lost their jobs. In the United Kingdom as a whole, for every minute of every day of the 565 days of the present Government, one person has lost his job. If one takes the last six months, one sees that it is two persons a minute. This will mean an increase of over 83,000 in the month since we last had the figures, and as the rate is accelerating it will probably rise by 100,000 this month alone.
We desperately need answers, and we desperately need the opportunity to debate these serious issues. I hope that the Government will take those points into account.
7.43 p.m.
Mr. Victor Goodhew: I shall detain the House for as little time as possible. I recognise that hon. Members want to get away.
I support the views of my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stevenage (Mr. Wells) concerning matters such as Sea Eagle and Sky Flash II missiles, which are vital to our defence programme. At this stage of the evening, I merely ask for an assurance from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that no decisions will be taken on these matters whilst the House is in recess. On that basis, I am content with the recess into which we go.
I ask my right hon. Friend to remember that there is no reason why it should be said that because there have to be Government cuts across the whole range of Departments they should apply to the Ministry of Defence. If I am in financial difficulties and find that I have a home that is too

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expensive, I can move downmarket—and I shall move downmarket and I am trying to do so. If I wish also to cut down, then I can go out less to eat in restaurants which are expensive and eat at home instead. When I have done that, I shall also, if necessary, cut down on the drink that I have at home. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] It is all very funny for Opposition Members, but I tell them that the one thing that I will not do is to cut down on my insurance. That is the one thing that I keep.
In the present situation, the Government must remember that they must act as any normal householder would do. They must see that those things that are not essential are cut down and that the things that are essential, such as insurance for the security of this country, are not run down. I beg of my right hon. Friend to give me an assurance that the missiles and other weapons that are proposed for the Armed Forces will not be cut down whilst we are in recess. I should be very happy to go into the recess with such an undertaking.
7.45 pm
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Leader of the House of Commons and Minister for the Arts (Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas): This is a traditional debate. It has been preserved by the will of the House against the recommendations of the Procedure Committee. We voted on this matter, and this is a debate of great importance. It had its afficionados, or its stage army or whatever one likes to call them, who are regular attenders, enriched by an occasional windfall from the Smoking Room.
I should like to welcome the right hon. Member for Deptford (Mr. Silkin) to the club—not to the Garrick, of which he is such a distinguished member and whose tie he is wearing. I share membership of that club with him. At any rate, the Garrick Mafia is better than the Gang of Three. I think that he would agree with that.
I should like to make one point of reservation. I have some sympathy with the words of the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton). I sometimes agree with him—as long as he keeps away from the Royal Family. I would be sad to see this debate too politicised. I am not so much thinking of the order of speeches, because the right hon. Member for Deptford spoke at the beginning rather than at the end. But it is rather politicising the whole thing to table somewhat absurd amendments, such as we have had today. The first amendment was not called because it was doubtfully in order, and the second was called but has hardly been debated.
The amendment that has been tabled by the official Opposition is a transparent political device. Is it seriously suggested that the House should sit until 24 December—Christmas Eve—and then come back again on 5 January? Every hon. Member knows how unacceptable that would be to the majority of the House. I say to the right hon. Member for Deptford that if the amendment is carried his run as Shadow Leader of the House is likely to be the shortest on record—and the most expensive, when one thinks of all the packets and packages that would have to be unravelled at short notice and at great cost to the subscribers. There would be an absurd scene if the House were still sitting on Christmas Eve—possibly even on Christmas Day—with the staff all here, the Serjeant at
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Arms here, the Leader of the House here and Mr. Speaker here, in his wig—with perhaps only a sprig of holly to mark the season.
It is a grotesque picture. It is not a serious picture. I accept that the Leader of the Opposition believes in what he calls the theatre of politics, but this is not even legitimate theatre; it is pantomime. I do not believe that anyone outside the House will take this amendment in any way seriously. It was exposed at the beginning of the debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis) and subsequently in a very powerful speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell), who spoke with such verve and force. He gave me a faint idea of what Sir Henry Irving must have been like in his prime.
Only less absurd is the idea that we should come back on the eve of the Epiphany. When I went out for refreshment during the debate, I found a wave of panic engulfing Labour Members in the Tea Room because rumour was going around that the Tories would abstain and that the motion would therefore be carried. Let us therefore have no more of this hypocritical nonsense. I say to the new Shadow Leader of the House, whose appointment I warmly welcome, that these manoeuvres are unworthy of such a sophisticated operator.
I cannot give full replies to all the points that were raised in the debate but I shall try to deal with them. I shall see that a fisheries statement, about which the right hon. Gentleman asked me, is made as soon as possible, and I shall communicate with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food about it. The right hon. Gentleman said that there could by more oral statements if we sat longer. The use of the written answer is essential to the dispatch of parliamentary business. If we did not use it, the business would become so clogged that the House could hardly function. However, it is right and proper that we should avoid excessive or inapporopriate use of the written answer. It should be the servant of the House, not its master, and I will certainly examine on its merits every case that comes to my attention. Precedents are a useful guide here.
The right hon. Gentleman said that there would be more opportunties for questions on the rate support grant were we to sit on. I can promise him a debate on the rate support grant orders as soon as we return after the recess; so there is no substance in that aspect of his speech. There will also be further opportunities to discuss housing. There is a division of principle about the provision of housing. All hon. Members want to see people decently and adequately housed. The difference between us lies in how that is achieved. Clearly, the ideal of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman), now one of the most glittering ornaments of the Opposition Front Bench, is that every person should be some kind of council tenant. That is not the Conservative view. We believe in variety and that there is room for private tenants, council tenants and owner-occupiers.
The right hon. Member for Deptford wanted a further debate on education. No doubt there will be an opportunity for that when we return. He asked about finance and education. Let us not fall into the error of equating expenditure on education with high standards. One does not necessarily, alas, follow from the other. That, apparently, is the belief also of the hon. Member for

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Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock), whom I heard on the wireless early this morning—not an experience that I recommend. He was making the same point.
The most important factor in education is the quality of the people engaged in it. One does not need a skyscraper to construct a formula. To be a good teacher, one requires a teaching nature—a desire to communicate, a zeal to share knowledge and sympathy with the young. That has nothing to do with money. If those qualities are absent, the teacher will not be a good teacher, irrespective of how much he is paid. If they are present he will be a good teacher, regardless of how little he is paid.
The right hon. Member for Deptford raised the question of employment, but since that was raised by a great number of hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Young), I shall deal with it at the end of my remarks.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) made a thoughtful, stimulating and constructive speech about rates. I agree that they are an unfair and discriminatory form of taxation. It cannot seriously be argued that a form of taxation that is paid by the few while the benefits of it are enjoyed by the many is equitable. The difficulty lies in determining what to replace it with. My hon. Friend found great difficulty in suggesting a suitable alternative. Our attitude was made clear in the election manifesto that was referred to in the debate. It is that we will investigate the matter further, but we said at the election that we would not give it the priority that we are giving to other taxation matters.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Mr. Bevan) on a speech that exhibited concern and hope. Sometimes we concentrate so much on the bad features that we forget the many redeeming features and signs of hope.
The hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) asked about Ireland and about the meeting between the Taoiseach and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. That issue was raised by a number of other hon. Members, including the hon. Members for Kingston upon Hull, Central (Mr. McNamara), Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) and Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder). While there was no oral statement in the House, a communiqué was issued after the meeting. The absence of a statement here was in accord with precedent. I do not want to get embroiled in that rather threadbare argument yet again, because the substance, not the shadow, is important. The important aspect of the Irish visit was that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister greatly improved the relationship between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. That is a great gain. That is the important aspect—the substantial, not the procedural side of the visit.
For good or ill, we are bound with the Republic of Ireland by common ties of history and geography, and we cannot get away from them. Rather than making prejudiced remarks about the Republic, I hope that we can approach the matter in the spirit of Newman, who always referred to Ireland as "our sister island". That is what Ireland is. It was in that context that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister sought to improve matters in Northern Ireland—by improving relationships between the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.
Those are distinctive issues, however. The relationship between the Republic and the United Kingdom is not the same as that between the North and the South of Ireland.
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However, if relations between them are to improve, a condition precedent is that there should be good relations between the Republic and the United Kingdom.
I add to those that have gone before my plea to the prisoners on hunger strike to give up the strike. They have been requested to do so by the Archbishop of Armagh, Cardinal O'Fiaich, by Cardinal Hume, the Archbishop of Westminster, and by the Government.
By making a general change in the rule about clothing for the prison population in Northern Ireland, we have done our best to ameliorate the situation. However, I must make it plain that the Government's position is unchanged, and I fully support the comment of the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight that we cannot concede political status to those prisoners. Murder is murder, whatever the motives. Our position is unchanged. We shall not concede political status to any of the sentenced prisoners in Northern Ireland, but we remain willing to discuss with anyone who shares our concern about it the humanitarian aspects of prison administration affecting all prisoners in the Province. In that connection, my right hon. Friend has arranged for a letter to he sent to the families of all protesting prisoners, containing a copy of his statement of 4 December, which described the present regime in relation to the demands of the protestors.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland said, it is no satisfaction to any member of the Government or to any Member of the House to see the human suffering and the risks of violence to others that are involved in the present situation. But we cannot appease on this point. We have made such concessions as are possible, and the position of the Government remains unchanged and unalterable on the question of political status.
With regard to the question of the escape of prisoners in Britain, I shall draw the remarks that have been made to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. The whole situation is being fully investigated.
I turn now to the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Smith) on the electricity boards and the quarterly and monthly bills that are paid. Strictly speaking, this is not a matter for my right hon. Friend; it is a matter for the electricity boards. However, I recognise the depth of feeling that has been expressed on that point and I shall leave it with my right hon. Friend to see whether anything can be done.
I say to the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) that, of course, we are concerned about the situation in South Yorkshire. The Government have received the BSC's plan, and we shall examine it in detail. That will take several weeks, and the Government do not expect to announce their response to the plan until about the end of January.
My hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) spoke first about drugs. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary shares the concern about any indication of an increase in drug trafficking, but the Government support the police and the Customs and congratulate them on their efforts, which have resulted in some notable successes. In my constituency of Chelmsford the police have scored considerable successes, and we can have confidence in their efforts to control and suppress a vile trade.
Questions on defence were raised by a number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Woking, for Hertford and Stevenage (Mr. Wells) and for

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St. Albans (Mr. Goodhew). The Government acknowledge that the Ministry of Defence is exposed to movements in the economy at large in a way that is not shared by most Government Departments. In current circumstances, it faces particular difficulty in managing within its annual cash limits. Nevertheless, control of public spending is essential to good economic management, and cash limits have to be observed. That has meant short-term adjustments in the defence programme and a three-month moratorium, which has had an impact on defence industries.
For some time now we have been in close consultation with industry as to how best to manage the Department's cash flow. It is important to recognise that the Ministry of Defence will be spending more with industry in real terms this year than last and that the Government are committed to further increases in the future.
I give my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans the assurance that no decision will be announced on Sky Flash or Sea Eagle during the recess.
My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Stourbridge (Mr. Stokes) raised the question of immigration, which he is certainly entitled to do. The Government's policy on this matter remains unchanged. We believe in strict control into this country and equality of treatment for everyone settled here. It is essential that I should stress equally both parts and both principles. I know that my hon. Friend feels deeply about these matters, but so do the people about whom he is talking. It is deeply hurtful to people to cast any doubt about the contribution that they make to society. After all, particularly during this season of the year, the unity of the human race and the equality of every human being must be uppermost in our minds.
I turn now to the remarks of the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer), our most sedulous and faithful attender at these debates, about textiles. The Government have said, and they repeat tonight, that they consider it essential that there should be a successor arrangement to the current multi-fibre arrangement and that the new arrangement should be the best deal that it is possible to obtain for the British textile and clothing industries, taking into account British interests as a whole. Negotiations will not begin in earnest until the latter part of next year, and it is too early to say what might prove to be negotiable. The Government are consulting all interested parties about the specific terms that they should seek. Meanwhile, we fully appreciate the gravity of the situation facing the textile and clothing industries, and we view the continuing closures and redundancies seriously. Within the framework of international agreements, we shall continue to do all we can to promote the welfare of those industries.
The hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) raised the important question of colleges of education in Scotland. I promised that I would see my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland about the matter. I have written to him and I have discussed it with him by letter, but I shall see him tomorrow morning to discuss the matter personally and orally, thereby living up to the unsolicited reference about me by the hon. Gentleman as a person who keeps his word. I am grateful to him for that tribute.
With regard to the colleges, the point is that for economic, educational and organisational reasons the continuation of 10 colleges of education in Scotland
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cannot be justified. But, within the parameters of the policy, I shall do my best to see whether the views of the hon. Gentleman and me—mine are somewhat different from those of the hon. Gentleman—are both communicated to my right hon. Friend for the good of Scottish education.
I have answered some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes). He also raised a specific point about Namibia. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State told the House on 3 November, there will be a meeting, under United Nations auspices, of the parties to the negotiations, starting on 7 January. We hope for confirmation of the conditionally agreed target date of March 1981 for the implementation of the United Nations plan for Namibia. In view of that promising development, I do not think that there is need for a debate. Namibian independence is a priority for the Government in overseas affairs, and together with our Western partners we continue to assist Mr. Waldheim in negotiations to secure implementation of the United Nations plan.
The main reason for the amendment put forward by the right hon. Gentleman and other Labour Members to delay the Christmas Recess is the continuing rise in unemployment. Hon. Members have said that they want a further debate on this subject, or on related subjects, covering some of those industries, such as steel and textiles, which are facing particularly serious problems, and they want it before the House rises. But, of course, it is impossible to do that.
I recognise that hon. Members are motivated by legitimate worries about the position in their constituencies. All that I ask them to do is to recognise that Conservative Members are equally concerned about the unemployment figures. No one can view the steep rise in unemployment without the deepest concern, but the interests of those who have lost their jobs, or whose jobs are threatened, would be better served if we were to concentrate on a practical and realistic discussion about the underlying problems of the British economy and how those can be overcome.
It is the worst sort of adversary politics for some hon. Members to claim that on the Conservative Benches we are blind—which we are not—to the individual family and community problems that are associated with unemployment. It is politically fraudulent to pretend that there are easy or painless answers to our economic difficulties. Hon. Members should remember that for two decades unemployment has risen to new and unattractive record levels in each succeeding recession.
I make this as a point for the record, not as a debating point and not in relation to the discharge of peashooters, to which the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) referred in the debate on the Gracious Speech. Unemployment was much higher under the previous Labour Government than it was under the previous Conservative Administration, and it was higher—and higher for longer—under the Labour Government that was formed in the middle and late 1960s by the right hon. Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson) than it had ever been in the preceding 13 years.
The present Leader of the Opposition has a cavalier way with history, and has sometimes an eccentric view of the past, but I remind him
to put this in a wider context—of his own record, and the Employment Gazette is there to remind us of the record of the Leader of the Opposition in

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Government. Of course, if he had a cure for unemployment we would all be glad to hear about it. If he had had a cure for unemployment at that time, we would have been delighted if he had put it into operation. But from the time when he had responsibility it is far from clear what, precisely, his cure was.
I welcome the right hon. Member for Deptford to these debates. When he was Patronage Secretary in the 1964 Labour Government he must have been concerned with these problems—he afterwards held even higher office—but there were no miracles from the right hon. Gentleman's Administration. Indeed, unemployment became substantially worse.
The point that I want to make is that unemployment has increased and has soared under Government after Government. This is a national problem; it is not a party political problem. There is not one member of the Shadow Administration, with or without portfolio, who does not share in the responsibility for what the Labour Government did. They cannot now tell the House that all we need to do is to follow the policies—to double up in spades—that they pursued in 1974–75 and that everything will then be all right. That would be a recipe not for curing unemployment but for increasing it drastically and for moving towards disaster.
Where would the money come from for the expansion that we hear of? Of course, there is still the myth that we hear from Labour Members that there is a mysterious group of rich people who can be soaked—the dukes and the marquesses, the yachts and the fur coats. One would need shelves of "Burke's Peerage", armadas of luxury cruisers and larger herds of mink than exist even in the fervid imagination of the Tribune group to find that amount of money. I remind Labour Members that higher taxes—which would be the only way that this could be paid for—have their effect on demand, and their effect on inflation, too.
In the debate we have been attacked for being indifferent over the question of unemployment and what we are spending on employment and training measures. Let me give a Cabinet leak here, on the Floor of the House. It is the only safe place to give a leak, because we can be assured that it will not be reported anywhere. The leak is that this decision was agreed unanimously by the Cabinet; by everyone, dry, wet, washed-up—the whole lot.
We shall be spending £570 million in 1981–82 on special employment measures—an increase of £250 million. We shall be providing 440,000 places under the youth opportunities programme. That is an increase of 180,000 over the current year and double the number available in 1979–80. Next year, the Manpower Services Commission plans to offer suitable places to all unemployed school leavers by Christmas 1981 instead of Easter 1982.
We aim to provide every unemployed 16-year-old or 17-year-old with vocational preparation up to his or her eighteenth birthday. We are doubling the number of places under the special temporary employment programme. We have lengthened to nine months the time limit for the short-term working compensation scheme. We are increasing the scope of community industry. Those are not the proposals of a Government who are callous about unemployment or indifferent to the future of the youth of our country.
It is not only untrue but offensive to this House of Commons to claim that any part of the House has a
352
monopoly of compassion. Everyone in the House feels concern about this matter. What good is compassion, I ask the right hon. Gentleman, if we construct an economic system that really can do nothing to help those in need?
The problem is not that we are making too much social provision but that we have an economy which cannot support the social provision that we need. That is the right way to face the problem, and until we get a more flourishing economy we cannot have the social improvements and carry out the social measures that we seek.
In conclusion—[Interruption.] I have been doing my duty; I have been replying to the points raised in the debate. There would by another noise if I did not do that. Some hon. Members have spoken about the Christmas Recess as though it were a holiday. It is not; it is a counterpoint. A recess is as essential to a parliamentary Session as is the Session itself. In a recess one has an opportunity to catch up on work. One has an opportunity to visit constituents. One has an opportunity—if one is so inclined—to think. May I recommend that course to the members of the Labour Front Bench?
It is no good ranting and raving and demonstrating. That is not a substitute for thought. We look to the Opposition to provide alternative policies which would make the economy work better. If they have anything to say that would improve things, let them say it. But demonstrations alone—even if they go back to the Pilgrimage of Grace, which is not a particularly successful example of a demonstration—will not be enough. May I say to members of the recess motion club that it is pleasant to see so many faithful to their old loyalties? I wish them a happy new year and a happy Christmas. I hope that all hon. Members will come back restored and refreshed and ready for the long haul to come.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
The House divided: Ayes 219, Noes 276.

Division No. 35]

[8.20 pm

AYES

Abse, Leo

Craigen, J. M.

Alton, David

Cryer, Bob

Anderson, Donald

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Cunningham, G. (lslington S)

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Cunningham, Dr J. (W'h'n)

Ashton, Joe

Dalyell, Tam

Atkinson, N. (H'gey,)

Davidson, Arthur

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)

Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

Davies, Ifor (Gower)

Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (H'wd)

Davis Clinton (Hackney C)

Benn, Rt Hon A. Wedgwood

Davis, T. (B'ham, stechf'd)

Bennett, Andrew (St'Kp't N)

Deakins, Eric

Bidwell, Sydney

Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

Booth, Rt Hon Albert

Dewar, Donald

Boothroyd, Miss Betty

Dixon, Donald

Bradley, Tom

Dormand, Jack

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Douglas, Dick

Brown, Ronald W. (H' ckn' yS)

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

Buchan, Norman

Dubs, Alfred

Callaghan, Rt Hon J

Duffy, A. E. P

Callaghan, Jim (Midd't'n & P)

Dunlop, John

Campbell, Ian

Dunnett, Jack

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G

Canavan, Dennis

Eadie, Alex

Cant, R. B.

Eastham, Ken

Carmichael, Neil

Edwards. R. (W'hampt'n S E)

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Ellis, R. (NE D'bysh're)

Cartwright, John

Ellis, Tom (Wrexham)

Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'stol S)

English, Michael

Coleman, Donald

Evans, loan (Aberdare)

Conncannon, Rt Hon J. D.

Evans, John (Newton)

Cowans, Harry

Ewing, Harry

353

Faulds, Andrew

Mikardo, Ion

Fell, Anthony

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Field, Frank

Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

Fitch, Alan

Mitchell, R. C. (Soton Itchen)

Flannery, Martin

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

Morris, Rt Hon C. (O' shaw)

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Ford, Ben

Morton, George

Forrester, John

Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

Foster, Derek

Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick

Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

Ogden, Eric

Garrett, John (Norwich S)

O'Neill, Martin

George, Bruce

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

Gourlay, Harry

Palmer, Arthur

Graham, Ted

Park, George

Grant, George (Morpeth)

Parry Robert

Grant, W. W. (C'tral Fife)

Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

Hardy, Peter

Price, C. (Lewisham W)

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

Radice, Giles

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Rees, Rt Hon M (Leeds S)

Haynes, Frank

Richardson, Jo

Healey, Rt Hon Denis

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Heffer, Eric S.

Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

Hogg, N. (E Dunb't'nshire)

Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

Holland, S. (L'b'th, Vauxh'll)

Robertson, George

Home Robertson, John

Robinson, G (Coventry NW)

Homewood, William

Rodgers, Rt Hon William

Hooley, Frank

Rooker, J. W.

Horam, John

Roper, John

Howell, Rt Hon D.

Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

Huckfield, Les

Rowlands, Ted

Hudson Davies, Gwilym E

Sandelson, Neville

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Sever, John

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Short, Mrs Renée

Janner, Hon Greville

Silkin, Rt Hon J. (Deptford)

Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

John, Brynmor

Silverman, Julius

Johnson, James (Hull West)

Smith, Rt Hon J. (N Lanark)

Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

Snape, Peter

Jones, Barry (East Flint)

Soley, Clive

Jones Dan (Burnley)

Spearing, Nigel

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Spriggs, Leslie

Kerr, Russell

Stallard, A. W.

Kilfedder, James A.

Stoddart, David

Kilroy-Silk, Robert

Stott, Roger

Kinnock, Neil

Strang, Gavin

Lambie, David

Straw, Jack

Lamborn, harry

Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

Leadbitter, Ted

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

Leighton, Ronald

Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

Lewis, Arthur (N'ham NW)

Thomas Dr R. (Carmarthen)

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Tilley, John

Litherland, Robert

Torney, Tom

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

Lyons, Edward (Bradf' d W)

Walker, Rt Hon H. (D'caster)

McCartney, Hugh

Watkins, David

McDonald, Dr Oonagh

Welsh, Michael

McElhone, Frank

White, Frank R.

McKay, Allen (penistone)

Whitehead, Phillip

Maclennan, Robert

Wigley, Dafydd

McNally, Thomas

Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

McNamara, Kevin

William, Rt Hon A. (S'sea W)

McWilliam, John

Wilson, Rt Hon Sir H. (H'ton)

Magee, Bryan

Wilson, William (C'try SE)

Marks, Kenneth

Winnick, David

Marshall, D(G'gow S'ton)

Woodall, Alec

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Wrigglesworth, Ian

Martin, M (G'gow S'burn)

Young, David (Bolton E)

Mason, Rt Hon Roy

Maxton, John

Tellers for the Ayes:

Maynard, Miss John

Mr. James Hamilton and

Meacher, Michael

Mr. James Tim

Mellish, Rt Robert

354

NOES

Adley, Robert

Fookes, Miss Janet

Aitken, Jonathan

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Alexander, Richard

Fox, Marcus

Ancram, Michael

Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hough

Arnold, Tom

Fraser, Peter (south Angus)

Aspinwall, Jack

Fry, Peter

Atkins, Robert (Preston N)

Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

Baker, Kenneth (St, M'bone)

Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Banks, Robert

Gilmour, Rt Hon sir Ian

Beith, A. J.

Glyn, Dr Alan

Bell, Sir Ronald

Goodhart, Philip

Bendall, Vivian

Goodhew, Victor

Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

Gorst, John

Best, Keith

Gow, Ian

Bevan, David Gilroy

Gower, Sir Raymond

Biggs-Davison, John

Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

Blackburn, John

Gray, Hamish

Blaker, Peter

Greenway, Harry

Body, Richard

Grieve, percy

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Griffiths, Peter Portsm'th N)

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Grist, Ian

Bottomley, Peter (W'wich W)

Grylls, Michael

Bowden, Andrew

Gummer, John Selwyn

Boyson, Dr Rhodes

Hamilton, Hon A.

Briaine, Sir Bernard

Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

Bright, Graham

Hampson, Dr Keith

Brinton, Tim

Hannam, John

Brittan, Leon

Haselhurst, Alan

Brocklebank-Fowler, C.

Hastings, Stephen

Brotherton, Michael

Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

Brown, M. (Brigg and Scun)

Hawksley, Warren

Browne, John (Winchester)

Hayhoe, Barney

Bruce-Gardyne, John

Heddle, John

Buck, Anthony

Henderson, Barry

Budgen, Nick

Hicks, Robert

Bulmer, Esmond

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Butcher, John

Hill, James

Butler, Hon Adam

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Cadbury, Jocelyn

Holland Philip (Carlton)

Carlisle, John (Luton West)

Hooson, tom

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Hordern, Peter

Carlisle, Rt Hon M. (R'c'n)

Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldf'd)

Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)

Channon, Rt. Hon. Paul

Howells, Geraint

Chapman, Sydney

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Churchill, W. S.

Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

Clark, Hon A. (plym'th,S'n)

Johnson Smith, Geffrey

Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Joesph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

Cockeram, Eric

Kaberry, Sir Donald

Colvin, Michael

Kershaw, Anthony

Cope, John

King, Rt Hon Tom

Cormack, Patrick

Lamont, Norman

Corrie, John

Latham, Michael

Costain, Sir Albert

Lawrence, Ivan

Cranborne, Viscount

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Critchley, Julian

Lester Jim (Beeston)

Crouch, David

Lloyd, Ian (Havant & W'loo)

Dean, paul (North Somerset)

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Dickens, Geoffrey

Loveridge, John

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

Luce, Richard

Dovor, Denshore

Lyell, Nicholas

du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

McCrindle, Robert

Dunn, James A.

Macfarlane, John

Dykes, Hugh

Mackey, John (Argyll)

Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

Macmillan, Rt Hon M.

Elliott, Sir William

McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

Eyre, Reginald

McNair-Wilson, P. (New F'st)

Fairgrieve, Russell

McQuarrie, Albert

Faith, Mrs Sheila

Madel, David

Farr, John

Major, John

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

Marland, Paul

Finsberg, Geoffrey

Marlow, Tony

Fisher, Sir Nigel

Marshall Michael (Arundel)

Fletcher, A. (Ed'nb'gh N)

Marten, Neil (Banbury)

Fletcher-Cooke, Sir Cgarles

Mather, Carol

355

Maude, Rt Hon Sir Angus

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Mawby, Ray

Shepherd, Richard

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Shersby, Michael

Mayhew, Patrick

Silvester, Fred

Mellor, David

Sims, Roger

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Skeet, T. H. H.

Miller, Hal (B' grove)

Smith, Dudley

Mills, lain (Meriden)

Speller, Tony

Mills, Peter (West Devon)

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Miscampbell, Norman

Sproat, Ian

Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

Squire, Robin

Monro, Hector

Stainton, Keith

Montgomery, Fergus

Stanbrook, Ivor

Moore, John

Steel, Rt Hon David

Morris, M (N'hamptom S)

Steen, Anthony

Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

Stevens, Martin

Mudd, David

Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

Murphy, Christopher

Stewart, a(E Renfrewshire)

Myles, David

Stokes, John

Neale, gerrard

Stradling Thomas, J,

Needham, Richard

Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

Nelson, Anthony

Taylor, Teddy (S' end E)

Neubert, Michael

Temple-Morris, Peter

Nott, Rt Hon Mrs. S.

Thompson, Donald

Page, Rt Hon Sir G (Crosby)

Thone, Neil (llford South)

Page, Richard (SW Herts)

Thornton, Malcolm

Parkinson, Cecil

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Parris, Matthew

Townsend, Cyril D, (B'heath)

Patten, Christopher (Bath)

Trippier, David

Patten, John (Oxford)

Van Straubenzee, W. R.

Pattie, Geoffrey

Vaughan, Dr Gerard

Pawsey, James

Viggers, peter

Percivial, Sir Ian

Waddington, David

Pink, R. Bonner

Wakeham, John

Porter, Barry

Walker, B. (Perth)

Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir D.

Price, Sir David (Eastleigh)

Wall. Patrick

Prior, Rt Hon James

Ward, John

Rathbone, Tim

Warren, Kenneth

Renton, Tim

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Rhodes James, Robert

Wells, bowe

Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

Wheeler, John

Ridley, Hon Nicholas

Whithlaw, Rt Hon William

Ridsdale. Julian

Wickenden, Keith

Rifkind, Malcolm

Wiggin, Jerry

Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Wilkinson, John

Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)

Williams, D (Montgomery)

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Winterton, Nicholas

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Wolfson, Mark

Rost, Peter

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Royle, sir Anthony

Younger, Rt Hon George

Sainsbury, HonTimothy

St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N

Tellers for the Noes:Scott, Nicholas

Scott, Nicholas

Mr. Peter Brooke and

Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

Mr. Tony Newton.

Shelton, William (Streatham)

Question accordingly negatived
Main Question put and agreed to
resolved,
That this House at its rising on Friday do adjourn till Monday 12 January

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, notwithstanding the practice of the House relating to the interval between the various stages of Bills of aids and supplies, more than one stage of the Consolidated Fund Bill may be proceeded with at this day's sitting.— [Mr. MacGregor.]

Orders of the Day

  Consolidated Fund Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Royal Ordnance Factories
8.32 pm
Mr. A. E. P. Duffy: I am glad to have the opportunity of opening the debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill and especially of introducing the topic of the Royal ordnance factories. Some of my right hon. and hon. Friends have deep constituency interests in the ROFs and they are concerned that those interests may be prejudiced by a possible change in Government policy.
If, in the light of my acquaintance with the ROFs through my tenure in the Ministry of Defence, I can provide a framework within which my right hon. and hon. Friends can more effectively deploy their constituency anxieties, I shall feel that I have made a worthwhile contribution.
My hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) is especially troubled about the future of the defence establishment in his constituency. He is not the only one. There are 13 factories in Britain that fall within the ROF category and they employ over 20,000 people.
The ROFs, which represent one of the biggest industrial establishments within the Government, manufacture weapons and ammunition for armies both at home and abroad. The organisation has been successful in that.
Over the past three years the organisation's sales have more than doubled to £284 million, and the surplus on operations after interest has risen from £11 million to £36·7 million. Over half its production is exported. In certain products, such as its 105 mm light gun, it is the acknowledged world leader. Over the past six years, it has paid about £40 million in dividends to the Government and reinvested about £100 million in its business.
The organisation suffered a setback in 1979 with the cancellation of an Iranian order for 1,200 tanks. In addition, a long strike at ROF Bishopton, the United Kingdom's largest producer of propellants for ammunition and rockets, has affected the group's performance, which is reflected in the 1979–80 results. Nevertheless, in the year ending 31 March 1979 it earned a surplus of £38,211,000, comprising a surplus in operations of £31,199,000.
I could say more about the financial results of the organisation in the past year on the information available. However, in order to be brief, I merely refer the House to the trading fund accounts. Despite the difficulties in the last full trading year, in which, incidentally, it has been forced to cut its work force by 1,200, the success story continues. It is confident that the downturn in the past year in its business is temporary.
In 1978–79, the group had average funds employed of £150 million. It made a surplus on funds employed of 20·8 per cent. and earned an 11 per cent. return on sales. Even if we take into consideration the downturn of 1979–80, the return is over 10 per cent.

357
We are not talking of an organisation that is experiencing the difficulties of, unhappily, the majority of the British economy, especially the private sector. My hon. Friends will doubtless wish to take up that point. The ROFs are a successful part of the British economy. However, the Government are seriously considering introducing private capital to the organisation. A special study group has been formed under the chairmanship of Lord Strathcona, the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence, which consists of representatives of private enterprise, as well as the Ministry of Defence, the Treasury, the Department of Industry and the ROFs. It is expected to review a number of options. Hon. Gentlemen, and particularly the Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army, will understand why the Opposition are profoundly suspicious of the intentions of that study group. It will consider a number of options. It will consider the continued accountability of the organisation on the basis of a trading fund. It is just remotely possible that it will allow the organisation to progress to the status of a fully fledged public corporation.
On the other hand, we fear that the study group will look for grounds on which to sell off parts to private enterprise. Two factories are already managed by private industry. We know that the ROF could be turned into a limited company under the Companies Act, thus enabling the Government to sell shares in the company, as is planned for British Aerospace.
Why, when we are dealing with a success story, are those latter options being considered? After all, there is no embarrassment in relation to the PSBR. There is no wish to distance the ROF from the PSBR, because the ROF makes no claim on that requirement. Is the Minister prepared to say, in all seriousness—this is the only credible alternative aim—that the Government are genuinely concerned to find a more cost-effective way of providing material for the ROFs? Is he prepared to say that that is the Government's intention?
Let us consider the major components of cost effectiveness. First, let us consider security. Will security be enhanced by changes in the ROFs, especially if such changes involved hiving off in the direction of privatisation? Will security be enhanced?
Mr. Giles Radice: No.
Mr. Duffy: Hardly, as my hon. Friend acknowledges. There appears to be no case for furthering security through privatisation. Privatisation smacks more of ideology.
So are the Government trying to promote private interests? I do not know on what grounds that could be done. That is more likely to promote the cause of private advantage. Indeed, it is difficult to rid oneself of the suspicion that the Government are seeking the reward of private industry. But will it work on the ground of security? What of new designs? Where private industry is involved, security problems obviously arise.
What of research and development, the second major component of cost effectiveness? How far can the requisite levels of investment in research and development be provided by private industry? Much of private industry, including some companies that contract for the defence capacity of this country, already cannot provide the required levels of investment. Will they be able to provide even higher levels for the Royal ordnance factories?
358
What about the effect on other sectors of private industry which for many years have shared the fruits of research and development at little, if any, cost to themselves? What of the accumulated expertise that has been developed over many years to the cost of the public purse? Will these simply be overlooked as of little consequence? Do not the public have rights when an investment is involved which cannot easily be set aside?
Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones: Will my hon. Friend develop a theme that many of us who have experience of Royal ordnance factories feel is apposite—that there may be within the Royal ordnance factories a degree of expertise which is required by people outside ROFs who are trying to obtain advanced technology on the cheap?
Mr. Duffy: I shall gladly respond to my hon. Friend's plea.
I come to another major component of cost effectiveness—the State as an employer. Do the Government wish to reduce the number of civil servants? We know that that is one of the Government's aims. Do they see this as an area that is likely to prove especially productive of that policy objective? The ROFs and similar establishments have an excellent record of industrial relations. They are good employers and have an unmatched record in the promotion of apprenticeships and industrial training generally. They are capable of generating loyalty and dedication to a degree that is unknown in private industry.
When I was at the Ministry of Defence I was not responsible for the ROFs. They were the responsibility of one of my colleagues, but I was invited to look closely at the dockyards, which were my immediate responsibility, and establishments that undertook research and development on behalf of all three Services, with a view to achieving greater cost effectiveness. The pursuit of cost effectiveness must go on within the defence sector, irrespective of which party is in Government.
I reported to the Defence Council that I could not see where any important savings could be made in our research and development establishments. Their record was remarkably good and compared favourably with any establishments that I could find elsewhere, either at home or abroad.
I mentioned the dedication of the men employed in the defence sector. I was referring not merely to the research and development establishments but to the dockyards as well. I felt it necessary to pay tribute to the quality of the men and to their expertise, loyalty and dedication.
I hope that the House will not mind if I relate a story that I heard at one defence establishment, where a worker had asked that after his death his ashes should be scattered in the grounds of the establishment. I do not know where that has happened in the private sector. It is an example of the degree of loyalty and dedication that defence establishments, including ROFs, can generate among their workers. I know the Minister well enough to appreciate that he will set considerable store by that. He cannot operate—any more than could my fellow Ministers and I when we were at the Ministry of Defence—unless he can call on a high level of dedication and loyalty from personnel.
Does the hon. Gentleman think that changes in the direction of privatisation will not be at the expense of that

359
loyalty and dedication—the employer-worker relationship, which is almost unique and which, as far as I am aware, is not repeated in the private sector?
I remind the Minister of the last time that the Ministry looked at the sort of issue that we are considering—the most cost-effective way of deploying establishments such as the ROFs. Only 10 years ago, the Mallabar committee issued a report, and it was open to that committee to make recommendations in the direction of privatisation. But it did not do so. It went no further than to recommend that the future accountability of ROFs should be placed on the basis of a trading fund. If the Mallabar committee was not prepared to go beyond a trading fund, why are the Government considering going further?
In case there are some hon. Members who are not familiar with the Mallabar report, I should say that it was published in 1971 as Cmnd. 4713. Its findings well deserve the study of those who are interested in the future of ROFs. It recommended a trading fund as a basis for accountability. It did not recommend any of the departures that the Government have in mind.
The Minister will know that the Royal Navy in recent months has also looked at more cost-effective ways of meeting the needs of the fleet in the Royal dockyards. I shall not say much more about its findings. These have yet to be debated by the House. I would only say, as I have already intimated, that I am familiar with the problems of the dockyards. Those problems have been considerable in recent years. They have had the effect of inflicting serious penalties on the fleet and on the availability of ships.
My remarks are not intended to be a criticism of the men involved. On the contrary, I consider that I have been paying high tributes to worker response within the defence sector. Such difficulties as penalised the fleet occurred outside management-employee relationships. They were largely a function of traditional structural arrangements and relationships.
Nevertheless, the recent study of the dockyards, like the Mallabar report in 1971, has come up with a recommendation that goes no further than Mallabar and merely asks for consideration to be given to putting the dockyards on an accountability basis that does not run beyond the trading fund. Why are the Government prepared to go further in the case of ROFs?
I wish to remind the Minister of the attitude of the trade unions. My own trade union, the General and Municipal Workers Union, has a great interest and stake in the subject we are discussing. I have discussed the matter with the union. I had a close relationship with it while serving in the Navy Department. I recognise that the Minister and his colleagues are equally concerned to continue the contacts. I think, however, that I can fairly claim that I took new steps within the Navy Department to bring not merely GMWU colleagues into my office to establish close working relationships but also other unions within the defence sector. This was welcomed on all sides, especially by the professional side of the Services and by my ministerial colleagues. I have no doubt that such practice is still continued.
The Minister will be interested to know that the GMWU believes that privatisation would undoubtedly lead to rationalisation followed by unemployment. The union believes that defence work is best performed within the public sector. It has experience that is probably unmatched
360
within the defence sector. It is wholly convinced that ROF should stay as an entity and within the realm of public ownership.
8.53 pm
Mr. Giles Radice: I wish to declare my interest as a member of the General and Municipal Workers Union. I also have a constituency interest. There is an ROF at Birtley in my constituency to which I shall be referring, because I wish to ask the Minister about redundancies that have recently announced there.
I should like to underline the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy), in his very good speech, when he pointed out that we are talking about a success story. We are not talking about something that has failed. We are talking of something that has been doing well in difficult conditions. A recent article in the Financial Times pointed out that ROF sales had doubled to £284 million in the past three years, that over half of ROF output goes in exports—they may be slightly lower this year, but they have, nevertheless, been at a high level for the last three of four years—and that the surplus on operations has risen considerably since 1975.
We are talking about a success story that has operated under a trading fund, as proposed by the Mallabar committee in 1971. The case for such a trading fund, or some modification of the arrangement, is strong if one examines the conditions and restraints under which the ROFs operate. As the Mallabar committee said in its conclusion, the ROFs cannot refuse an order from the Armed Forces. They cannot determine design or quality. They are under a major constraint. When looking for markets abroad, the ROFs must take into account and seek Government approval for obvious reasons. The ROFs are the main national capacity for producing weapons. They are an important asset which must be taken care of.
The solution for the dockyards is almost exactly the same as that for the ROFs. There might be a case for a reappraisal of what has happened. Indeed, the Civil Service unions say that there is a case for examining research and development and procurement. That does not mean that we must go through the type of fundamental exercise that the Government have set up under the chairmanship of Lord Strathcona. The truth is that the idea comes not from the Defence Department but from the Department of Industry and the Treasury. It is an ideological idea. The real motive is to see whether it is possible to sell Royal ordnance assets and factories to private interests.
That would be disastrous. Not only is privatisation a horrible and ugly word, but it is a bad idea for the ROFs. Indeed, it is usually a bad idea. It is a thoroughly bad idea because it goes against the national interest, which is a well-known Conservative concept. The proper Conservative course is to keep the ROFs under the trading fund arrangements.
Redundancies have taken place at Birtley in my constituency. The ROF there is facing serious problems, including the cancellation of the Iranian order, the drop in overseas sales and the world recession. It is disturbing when, a few days before Christmas, 200 redundancies are announced at a factory that has a good reputation for industrial relations and productivity and against a background of high unemployment. We are talking of a constituency where the unemployment level is about 15 per cent. It is serious when 200 people are thrown on to

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the labour market and into the dole queues. The Minister should tell the House more about the background to the decisions. Will he explain to my constituents, to the General and Municipal Workers Union and to other trade unions at Birtley why the Government have chosen Birtley and two others from among all the Royal ordnance factories?
In conclusion, the Government's approach to the ROFs is either a largely cosmetic exercise in reducing the number of civil servants by hiving off—which is a bogus exercise and has unnecessarily alarmed not only trade unions and employers but management—or it amounts to the selling of assets and factories to private interests, a highly damaging move which will have been taken for purely ideological reasons and which will be against the national interest. Either way, it cannot be claimed that this fundamental study will have done anything positive to ensure that the ROF organisation improves its performance, productivity, research and development and sales operation and that it better fulfils its defence obligations.
I hope that the Minister will reassure us tonight that the Government have come to their senses and that they will stick to the present arrangements.
9.2 pm
Mr. Jack Straw: I declare an interest as a member for the General and Municipal Workers Union and a parliamentary adviser to the Society of Civil Servants. I hear that my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) will declare a non-interest in the General and Municipal Workers Union. We all deprecate that.
I speak this evening as the Member for Blackburn. The Royal ordnance factory in Blackburn is the largest single employer there. Its workers come not only from my constituency but from Darwen and Accrington. I am glad to see my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. Davidson) on the Front Bench as a defence spokesman. He wishes to be associated with my remarks.
We hear a great deal in the House about the present policies of the Government as compared with those followed in the 1930s. During the 1930s, my constituency became the unemployment black spot of the North-West. In the early 1930s, unemployment rose to 45 per cent. Unlike other areas where there was a gradual recovery in output and employment towards the end of the 1930s, unemployment in Blackburn remained high. Even in 1938 there were 17,000 on the dole, compared with today's figure, high though it is, of 7,000. It remained high until the town decided to pull itself up by its boot straps and went out to sell the attractions of the town—a large supply of labour, a labour force that showed unrivalled co-operation with employers, and unrivalled industrial relations. As a result, it attracted two major firms to the town—namely, Philips, which established what became the largest valve-making factory in the world and once employed 6,000, and the munitions factory, which became the Royal ordnance factory and which now employs just under 3,000. Mullard and the ROF remain the two largest employers in the town.
World factors and, above all, the Government's economic policy have led to a reduction in manfacturing output back to the levels of 1967. As a result, the whole
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area of North-East Lancashire has been hit extremely badly during the past 12 months. The textile industry has been hit, but there is still substantial employment in textiles. The textile engineering industry in Accrington has been hit. General engineering has been hit, and so has electronics. The result is that unemployment across North-East Lancashire has at least doubled in the last 12 months. It was 5·2 per cent. in Blackburn 12 months ago. Today it is 10·6 per cent. In the constituency of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Accrington it has risen even higher and in places like Bacup it has actually trebled in 12 months.
We expected that that devastation would occur under this Government, following the manic monetarist policies pursued by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Industry. We thought that because we had read the Conservative Party's manifesto.
Also in that manifesto, however, was a clear and categorical pledge to increase defence spending. We may argue about whether that was justified. Many of us feel that it was not. Nevertheless, that pledge to increase defence spending was there. Time after time, the Prime Minister has defended at the Dispatch Box the increase in defence spending, even though at the same time she has cut back on spending in every other area, including the real level of unemployment benefit.
Given that other pledge in the Conservative manifesto to increase defence spending, we in North-East Lancashire thought that every cloud had a silver lining and that at the very least employment in defence-related industries would be protected. Indeed, it was at the beginning. Earlier this summer, in anticipation of that increase in spending, the Royal ordnance factory in Blackburn took on between 60 and 70 extra staff to meet the expected increase in orders arising from the increase in spending.
Then, as a bolt from the blue, on 8 August this year the Government announced a wholly unprecedented moratorium on the work of the defence industries, including the Royal ordnance factories. That moratorium was to last for three months. It lasted until 3 November, but even then, when it was lifted, the Government announced that further stringency would continue. Lord Strathcona wrote in a letter to me:
"We recognise that many companies who have been expecting further orders may, therefore, be disappointed and that for some the consequences could be serious."
Lord Strathcona was right when he said that the consequences could be serious. Yesterday, in Blackburn, the first slice—I regret to say that it is only the first slice—of redundancies was announced at the Royal ordnance factory:200 industrial workers and 14 non-industrial workers to be declared redundant by next April. On top of that, it is the belief of the trade union representatives in Blackburn that due to natural wastage the ordnance factory will in fact secure a job loss of 300 by next April, because there will be no filling of existing vacancies in the meantime. They calculate—and I should be delighted to hear the Minister contradict this—that that will add a further 100 lost jobs.
The Government's strategy of apparently pouring extra money into defence spending while at the same time creating greater chaos and a greater crisis in the defence industries than at any time since the war has caused concern not just to Labour Members who represent constituencies with defence industries but also to the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, which, I

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fancy, was an erstwhile supporter of the Government, although that support evaporated some time ago. In a paper published just a month ago, entitled "Sense in Defence", the association said:
"This paper criticises the Government's current approach to defence procurement on two grounds: first that the defence of the realm is being jeopardised by ill-conceived decisions; second, that theoretical considerations are being given priority over industrial reality."
The Association of British Chambers of Commerce—not of trade councils, but of chambers of commerce—went on to say that the present Government were
"not adopting a coherent and properly thought out policy towards the defence industries."
That is exactly right, because, I am sad to say, the 200 redundancies that have been declared are only the first of what I see as a continuing contraction of employment in those industries.
I say that because when Lord Strathcona wrote to me about the redundancies at ROF Blackburn he said:
"It is also possible, I am afraid, that further substantial reductions may be necessary in the latter half of next year. We are not yet able to forecast the factory's workload at that time but the position will be reviewed in April or before."
The trade union representatives in Blackburn have consistently acted responsibly in order to secure good industrial relations. They are not scaremongers, but their serious estimate is that a further 600 jobs at the ROF Blackburn are at risk. If that is so, employment will have been cut by well over 25 per cent. in one year.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Radice) spoke of the drop in orders from abroad, particularly those from Iran. The ROF in his constituency does different work from that in Blackburn. While we accept that the increase in the value of the pound and the Iranian problems have caused difficulties for the Royal ordnance factories and their order books, my understanding is that in Blackburn—I speak only for Blackburn—the fundamental cause of those redundancies is not the export situation but the moratorium on orders from the home defence and the Master-General of the Ordnance. The possibility of additional redundancies also arises not because of the export situation but because of the cutbacks that have been made by the Master-General of the Ordnance, which have been forced on him as a result of the most extraordinary incompetence and mismanagement by the Government, who have a rising defence budget but at the same time can plunge the ordnance factories into the most serious employment and economic crisis which they have ever faced.
That mismanagement in itself has created enough uncertainty among the ordnance foactories. But on top of it, instead of trying to secure certainty for the employees in terms of the future of the ROFs as an organisation, the Government have thrown the whole works of the ROFs into the air by a second piece of astonishing irresponsibility.
Many hon. Members will accept—I personally do not—that there could be a case for having some kind of nationalised corporation that is subject to the requirements of the Ministry of Defence. We can discuss that across the Floor of the House. But that is not what the study group has been asked to consider. Among other things, it has been asked to look at the possibility of selling off the ROFs as a going concern in their entirety or split into two groups and, even worse, selling the assets piecemeal to interested industrial purchasers. It is that which above all has caused the greatest anxiety to my constituents and to the
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constituents of all my hon. Friends who represent Royal ordnance factories. They fear that those who put money into the Conservative Party are now seeking a return on it. The fear is that such people wish to take over the ROFs bit by bit. If they do so in the name of so-called rationalisation in order to eat up a competitor, the fear is that the labour will be shed greatest in the parts that are taken over.
Lord Strathcona explained to us that the study group would not report until January. However, can the Minister say whether Lord Strathcona has already decided that it would be irresponsible and against the interests of the nation and its defences even to contemplate selling off the ROFs either piecemeal or as going concerns?
Although we can have arguments across the Floor about the nationalisation of other companies, never before has there been any suggestion whatever but that the ordnance suppliers to the Army, which is an essential part of our military machine, should be within the Ministry of Defence. I understand that the Royal dockyards have been within the Ministry of Defence and its predecessors for four centuries. Even in the eighteenth century, when many other aspects of ordnance were put out to private enterprise, when, as Boswell's diaries record, the Master-General of the Ordnance made hundreds of thousands of pounds out of bribes that he received for favours in the placing of contracts and when the kind of manic monetarism of the present Government was running riot, the Royal dockyards were within the Government estate. Since 1938, when the ordnance factory at Blackburn was set up, there has never been a suggestion that that factory should be sold to private enterprise. Not even a Conservative Government had the audacity to place the interests of their own narrow ideology above the interests of the nation. That applied until the present Government took office. We face a Government who are willing to abandon the interests of the nation in the pursuit of a narrow monetarist and now failing creed.
I ask for undertakings and information from the Minister about, first, employment in the ordnance factories. Why is it that the ordnance factories face the most serious employment crisis since the war? Why is it that the Royal ordnance factory at Blackburn is having to shed 200 jobs and faces the possibility of shedding many more when defence expenditure, as we are told, has risen? How are the Government creating this sorry pass?
Secondly, I ask the Minister to inform the House of the progress of the Strathcona study group. I know that the group has not yet reported, but, bearing in mind all the uncertainty that the Government's policies have created in the ordnance factories, the Minister owes it to all the dedicated men and women in those factories throughout the country to say that the one thing that the Government will not do is sell important national assets piecemeal to private companies and create further uncertainty and distress where already they have created a great deal.
9.17 pm
Mr. Den Dover: There is a large Royal ordnance factory in my constituency, which employs about 3,500 workers. Over the past few months 50 of those workers have written to me about the Strathcona study group. They have put their views carefully and considerately to me. I am one of the strongest supporters of the Government's policies for privatisation, but I have replied to the effect that I should like to see a company set

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up along the lines of British Petroleum, with 51 per cent. Government ownership and 49 per cent. ownership in the private sector. By those means the Government could guarantee a continued supply of armaments and at the same time ensure that export orders were carefully controlled.
Last Friday I met 50 of the white and blue-collar staff, including the director of the establishment. I listened carefully through a one-and-a-quarter-hour meeting to their views. My views have shaded a great deal, and I find myself in great sympathy, much to my surprise, with Labour Members. I should like to see the trading fund continue, but with important changes made to it.
We have heard Labour Members speak of the good track record of the Royal ordnance factories. That is a major factor in my thinking. We should not make any changes to an organisation that has been a success story over the past few years, especially at a time of mounting unemployment. What is the point of making major changes? Surely it is better to give a degree of continuity to the organisation and to make changes that will lead to greater efficiency. If that means bringing in the best brains in the Government or outside management consultants to recommend what should be done, let us follow that road.
The main view that came across during the meeting that I had with 50 white and blue-collar staff was the need for wider scope for recruitment of staff at all grades, instead of its being within rigid Civil Service confines. The need was expressed for a research and development organisation within the ROF organization, as outlined by some Labour Members, and the need to establish a marketing organisation.
I have the greatest confidence in the ability of the ROF organisation to do more than merely compete in world markets, but we must make sure that the maximum available market is open to it. If that means the ROF setting up its own marketing group, so be it. I should welcome that move, because it could then the better adapt to world markets, making sure that its production runs were efficient.
Therefore, this evening I am speaking in support of a continuance of the trading fund. By all means let there be some improvements, but I feel that the Government should bend their mind towards that point of view and dismiss the scare stories which were circulating before the general election about what we would do to the Royal ordnance factories and which have increased over the last few months in view of the recent study group announcement.
9.20 pm
Mr. Joseph Dean: About a fortnight ago I had the opportunity of speaking in a Supply day debate on the engineering industry. In some respects, this debate has a relationship to that debate. In that debate, the Secretary of State for Industry, with the usual clichés, was saying that the success of business and manufacturing industries was based on a stable labour record, wages that were not too high and adequate production performances. When we are talking about the Royal ordnance factories, I suggest that they have conformed with those criteria.
In that previous debate I said that I was not a pacifist and that I had always believed that any Government of this
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country had a right and responsibility to provide, within the global sum of money available, an adequate defence for the people of the country.
I spent my time during the last war as an apprentice producing armaments of various kinds to stop the Nazi attack. The new terminology used by the generals and other officers today when they talk about maintaining adequate supplies is "logistics". That is the "in" name. But they have to have the logistics available to carry out the function which this Parliament and those whom we represent expect them to do on our behalf.
Upwards of 70,000 people are involved in the Royal ordnance factories. They have a track record of very good industrial relations, very good productive performances and reasonable wage levels. There is no reason why they should be subjected to examination by political ideology based merely on that.
I have been in correspondence with Lord Strathcona on this subject. It surprised me to see the make-up of the people involved in the study group. I expect that Conservative Members and I differ, because we are of two different political philosophies, but I think that responsible Conservative Members, even now, though they may support the Government's general policies towards industry, accept that a major component of any industry is its work force. When I wrote to Lord Strathcona and asked him about the people who were on the study group, I found it odd to learn that no one who was either a full-time officer in the trade union movement or a person representing the grass roots at the shop floor level had been invited or requested to be part of the group or had been appointed as a member of the group, to represent over 70,000 workers.
As a former shop steward with a record of responsible negotation, I find that whole approach completely illogical. By it, the Government have injected into those who in the event of an emergency in Europe would be called upon to prime the pump, work overtime and provide the logistics a feeling of uncertainty and mistrust where previously it did not exist.
My hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) referred to tank production and the cancellation of the Iranian order which threw that production into jeopardy. I believe that that position has now been somewhat resolved. However, there is one aspect, not connected with the ROFs, with which I ask the Minister to deal. It concerns a comment by one of my hon. Friends—not in this debate—with which I disagreed. I was one of those who went to watch Exercise Crusader. I was disturbed to hear my hon. Friend say that the performance of our tanks was not up to standard. That was not my impression. Will the Minister deal with that?
The cancellation of the Iranian order meant a massive loss of export production that would have kept that side of the ROFs completely occupied. I understand that the slack has now been taken up and that those who work in the factories have reacted accordingly.
We come back to the scale of wages. During a visit by me to Army establishments last year, after the Minister's visit to the garrison in Berlin and to BAOR, I heard criticism from some in the Army of engineering workers who were engaged in a peripheral strike. They went on strike for one day one week, one day the next, and two days the week after that, but then it ended. It was suggested that their action was of critical importance. For years those engineers had not been involved in industrial

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action, and when they took it it was at a minimum level. Yet they were said to be jeopardising the capacity of the factories to do the job that the politicians were demanding. The people in the Army said that if they were called upon to defend the country they would not have the tools to do the job.
The Government have dealt handsomely with pay for the Armed Services. No one could cavil at that. It was suggested that the strike by civilians who serviced the nuclear strike force at Lossiemouth affected our capacity to involve ourselves in a nuclear strike. When I told the sergeants who were manning the tanks and guns in West Germany that these men were taking home just £50 a week, they agreed that that was a ridiculous sum. If the Government are not careful in their handling of the matter, they will erode a major foundation stone of the capacity to provide the logistics for our Army to be able to defend us. There is no point in saying that we can entrust it to market forces. Defence is not a market force.
Last year, an all-party team was shown the Harrier strike jet force. We were told by the air vice-marshal in charge of that strike force that it was being jeopardised because of the engineers' action and because of the possible non-provision of a particular pump that was used in the Harrier jets to lower temperatures and to allow that plane to do the job for which it was designed. I asked the air vice-marshal which companies supplied the pump. To my amazement, he said that there was only one supplier—an American company. If that American company decided that it was no longer an economic proposition to produce that pump, we would have no capacity to put the Harrier jets in the air. At the same time, there was no criticism of the way in which we organised our defence—I make no particular criticism of the present Minister or his colleagues, because the problem has obviously been there for some time. I believe that the defence of this country should be in the control of hon. Members on both sides of the House.
I do not place my trust in the private market to provide the defence of this country, based on patronage or patriotism. In 1973, the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath), was in difficulty over the question of energy supplies. One of the greatest parliamentarians of all times, Sir Winston Churchill, having decided that the defence of this country was of supreme importance, instructed 51 per cent. of BP shares to be bought on behalf of the nation to provide the logistics to prime the war machine if necessary. But what happened to the right hon. Member for Sidcup? He was told by the chairman of BP that, although the Government held 51 per cent. of the shares on behalf of the taxpayers, they would have to be treated like any other commercial customer. That is an odd approach to the defence of the realm. That is what the argument is about. I do not believe that the private sector has shown its capacity to prove its patriotism and place the well-being of the nation above profit and personal greed.
Some of the people employed in these factories are grandfather, father and son. They move into these industries because they are immutable, and they are identified in the area. The sons are recruited when they leave school, and to them it is a secure future. But it has not been a rewarding one financially because the disciplines within the wage negotiations are far too rigid, although perhaps in some respects correct.
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I had left school when the last war broke out, and I was old enough to see the appalling consequences of armed conflict at that time. If we are ever in such a position again, that conflict will be made to look like the Wars of the Roses by comparison because of the way in which the capacity of one nation to inflict damage on another has progressed. But it is a ball game that we cannot run away from; we have to be in it.
Whenever I have visited defence establishments, I have done so on the basis that I am not a pacifist. I was not sent here to support a policy that would render this country defenceless. We are talking in the main about factories that have been developed to the point at which their technological achievements are as good as those of similar establishments in any country in the world. I am not too happy about the fact that they have to have an export capacity, but that is one aspect of the world in which we live. These establishments, which employ about 70,000 people, have been an insurance policy against any sudden attack upon this country. We have been able to rely upon them to provide the minimum logistics to give our lads—and the generals commanding them—a chance to respond.
If the Government intend to monkey about with those establishments and are talking in terms of selling them to multinational companies, they will be reneging on the job that they were sent here to do. If they carry out such a policy, it may be that nothing adverse will happen, but if something does happen the Government will have done something for which they will be damned for evermore by the people of this country.
9.38 pm
Mr. Brynmor John: The whole House is grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy) and to my other hon. Friends who initiated the debate on the Royal ordnance factories. That the subject commands fairly widespread interest in the House is shown by the fact that, in addition to my hon. Friends on the Back Benches, my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan), who is on the Government Front Bench, has been present during the debate.
It is appropriate that I should resume my responsibilities in defence matters in this debate, because it stresses the interdependence of defence where military and civil employees co-operate to provide essential components in the total defence package. That is essential.
I should like to refer to two paragraphs in this year's defence White Paper that pay tribute to the staff concerned. Paragraph 629 pays tribute not only to the loyalty of the staff but to the high skills that are to be found in the Royal ordnance factories. In paragraph 631, praise is given to the commitment of the civilian staffs and to the closeness of identity with the Armed Forces that is found in those factories. If that degree of commitment and that closeness of identity with the Armed Forces exist, those employed there are entitled to look to the Government to minimise the uncertainties and worries to which they are being subjected.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Radice) mentioned recent redundancies in his local factory. That is in addition to the fact that over the years the work force has been shed, largely with its cooperation. I criticise the Government, because it is a pity—to put it no more harshly—that completely

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gratuitously, and in pursuit of ideological purity, they have added to the uncertainties felt by the staff by the announcement of the study group that considered the future organisation of ROFs. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) made clear, the real reason for the review is consideration of the doctrine of privatisation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterle-Street said, that doctrine is as ugly in name as it is in conception. I speak from the Front Bench when I say that in the case of defence that doctrine meets with thorough disapproval, just as it meets with disapproval in other areas.
I criticise this exercise because of its worrying effect on the staff at a time of high unemployment. The staff's devotion to duty and efficiency is exemplary. Although this measure may make sense to eccentric economists and may be a manifestation of their ideology, it does not make sense in real economic or defence terms. The ROFs are subject to the trading account principle, which was first introduced by the Conservative Government of 1970–74. It was developed by my right hon. Friends when the Labour Party was in office.
As the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Dover) said, some slight modification may be needed. However, we are in danger of throwing out the baby with the bath water. For want of bringing the accounting system up to date, the Government will destroy all that is good in ROFs. I shall quote from the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General, which is in the trading fund accounts for 1978–79. Those accounts were the last accounts to be laid before the House. The report states that the accounts
"For the year ended 31 March 1979 show a surplus of nearly £37 million after interest, on sales of £284 million."
The trading fund is a means of indexing efficiency. On any measure of efficiency, that would seem to pass the test.
The hon. Member for Chorley made an initial suggestion, although he later moved away from that argument. He suggested that arms exports were bound up with this issue and mentioned the possibility of greater exports if private capital were used. Often, the volume of exports is controlled by what we conceive to be our national interest. It is not a completely free market. There is strong national control, which cannot respond merely to market forces.
It is paradoxical that the Government should cut the defence budget with one hand and—if we are right to assume that they are looking longingly at privatisation—try to introduce private enterprise into the defence budget with the other. That feat has probably not been equalled since Thomas Cook and Sons managed Army transport in the Crimean war.
The proposal does not make military sense. The objects of the ROFs are set out in paragraph 1 of the accounts. It states:
"The Royal Ordnance Factories' task is to meet the munitions requirements of the Services and undertake approved work of a defence nature for Commonwealth and other friendly Governments."
Clearly, the military establishment must feel it necessary to have a strong degree of influence and direct control over what is produced and what quality of work is being done. I believe that it must be worrying to the Defence Staff that the control over this area, which is one of the most sensitive in defence matters, is likely to be diluted if the Government's scheme goes through.
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Is the Minister able to assure us that the Chiefs of Staff are satisfied that privatisation is compatible with our defence requirements, or may we see yet another delegation from that august body going to No. 10 Downing Street at a later date to express its doubts on that score? Logic and sound economic and military sense dictate that whilst there might be room for improvement—there always is in a dynamic organisation—there should be fundamental change in the concept of the way in which the ROFs are organised. If there is, it will be to the detriment of our defence effort.
The Minister and I have from time to time read the same briefs. I expect that he will say that this speculation is premature, that the report is not yet completed and that even when it is it will have to be considered by the Government. Will the hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that when the report has been completed it will be published and debated in the House before the Government make their final decision on the matter? The concern of hon. Members on both sides of the House must be taken as completely genuine. If the Government are sincere in the plaudits that they have lavished on the staff of the ROFs, they owe it to those loyal staff to enable their parliamentary voice to be heard before their decisions are taken irrevocably and above their heads.
9.47 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Defence for the Army (Mr. Barney Hayhoe): I welcome the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) as Opposition spokesman on defence. I suspect that the case he had to deploy was one that he could have done without looking over his shoulder. I am not certain whether on the defence issues that will come forward he will speak so wholeheartedly on behalf of the Labour Party as he did tonight. No doubt days of controversy lie ahead.
I regret the departure from the Front Bench of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Attercliffe (Mr. Duffy), whose contributions to debates on matters concerning the Royal Navy have been respected and listened to with care by hon. Members on both sides of the House. I have no doubt that we shall hear from him from the Back Benches on a wider range of defence issues.
A number of ROFs have been referred to tonight by hon. Members who have indicated their personal interest in them. I think that I have a claim that predates many of those hon. Members. More than 30 years ago, as a young draughtsman and then a junior engineer, I went from the Ministry of Supply to the Blackburn ROF and to the Royal ordnance filling factory at Chorley. Tributes were paid tonight to the work done by the ROFs. From my experience over many years as an engineer and now as a Minister in the Ministry of Defence, I can wholeheartedly and sincerely emphasise and reiterate the tributes which have been paid to the work done in the ROFs. I knew the present managing director at a much less senior level. It was interesting to find when visiting Blackburn that that factory is still making something which I designed. I am not sure whether that is in line with the tribute that I was paying. Alternatively, perhaps I was lucky in the piece of mechanism with which I was involved at that time.
However, in paying tribute to the industrial and non-industrial workers in the ROF organisation, I recognise the anxieties, which were reflected in many of the speeches, about the uncerainty. I accept the comment about the personal problems that flow from the announcement of

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redundancies at Blackburn and Radway Green. The timing was decided by the management of the factories. One understands the difficulties that such announcements just before Christmas cause for those who may be involved and for their families and friends.
The ROFs have had a traumatic time in the past couple of years. They have lost a massive order worth over £1,200 million, which is about four times the annual turnover of the entire organisation. It is a remarkable tribute to the factories that they have been able to carry on business without the loss having too great an adverse effect. A reduction in staff resulted at the Leeds factory from the loss of the Iranian order. To some extent, the present redundancies are a knock-on effect of the loss of the ammunition orders that would have accompanied that major tank order.
That is not the only difficulty with which the ordnance factories have been faced recently. Frankly, industrial relations in recent years have been less harmonious than the steady and extremely good relations that they had over a long period. I do not say that critically. I merely note it as another problem. About 20,000 working days were lost in 1977–78, 50,000 in 1978–79 and between 80,000 and 90,000 in 1979–80. but already in 1980–81 well over 120,000 days have been lost. However, nearly all the days lost were at one factory—Bishopton. Apart from that one dispute, this year has probably been the best ever for industrial relations in the ROFs. It was a significant dispute, which led to shortages of ammunition at home and may have had an effect on orders overseas.
Times have changed since the years between 1975 and 1978, when we had a rising work load, a buoyant market and profitable business being done by the factories. In 1976 and 1978 the ROFs gained the Queen's award for exports. That buoyant market has been replaced by a loss of orders, less harmonious industrial relations, a decline in profit and a decline in overseas orders.
The hon. Member for Attercliffe said that for many years the factories have been exporting more than half their output. Alas, that has not been true in the past year, and I fear that it will not be true this year either. There has been a marked change in prospects.
Mr. Joseph Dean: The Minister referred to industrial relations. Is it not a fact that under both the previous and the present Governments industrial civil servants have lost ground compared with others employed in Government establishments and those in the private sector and that therein lie the seeds of the industrial unrest?
Mr. Hayhoe: The hon. Gentleman does not understand the position. Among the great difficulties have been militancy and strikes and the days lost as a result of action by non-industrial staff. At Bishopton, that was at the root of the difficulties. I do not wish to re-run the problems. I measured my words with care. I did not seek to impart blame but merely to draw attentiion to the fact that the overall environment in which the ROFs are operating is nowhere near as favourable as it was some years ago.
There has been a fall of 1,300 in the work force in the past 18 months, largely as a result or the loss of the tank order at Leeds. A second major reduction in the work force, with some additional redundancies, seemed inevitable. Negotiations will take place with the trade unions in the new year. The established procedures and
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agreements in redundancies will be implemented and the normal compensation and superannuation payments will be made.
Regrettably, the prospects for future orders for the ROFs do not look particularly good. It was against the background not of the buoyant, profitable, easy-to-get-business atmosphere of the 1975–78 period, but of the much less agreeable atmosphere in which work is hard to find and there has been a sharp fall in the proportion of export work that the Government thought it right to review the whole situation. A study group under my noble Friend the Minister of State is considering the future development of the ROFs. Several options are being assessed objectively to determine where the balance of advantage lies.
It would have been possible for the study group to rule out certain options at the beginning, but it would not then have been an objective study group. It would have been shot at for not looking at all the possibilities. It is right that the group should consider all possible options. Matters have been discussed with the trade unions and staff associations concerned and their evidence is being considered carefully.
The hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Dean) said that there was no trade union representation on the study group. Perhaps he is not aware that my noble Friend the Minister of State discussed the matter with the national officers of the trade unions and staff associations concerned on 15 October, when it was mutually agreed that it would not be appropriate for them to be represented on the study group, though they accepted my hon. Friend's invitation to submit written evidence.
The study group is expected to complete its task soon. Its report will have to be considered by the Government and the House will be informed of the outcome as soon as possible. Subject to the nature of the report and the views of colleagues, the next step will probably be the issue of a consultative document, as has been the case with similar studies. The hon. Member for Pontypridd will know only too well that I am not in a position to say whether there will be a debate in the House. The hon. Gentleman knows equally well that, if there is a widespread demand for a debate, a debate will be held. I would not shrink from being prepared to debate these issues at any future time.
Opposition Members have expressed their suspicions. I think that sometimes they let their suspicions run away to an extent that may have generated unjustified anxieties among people working in the ROFs. This must be a matter for them. They can riposte that the fact that the study is being held is the basic cause. I understand that view. I am appealing, in speaking in these terms, for total moderation in what we now say about the study until it comes out. It will come soon. At that time, we shall be able to debate the reality of the position rather than fears and worries about it.
Mr. John: I cannot allow the hon. Gentleman's account of the cause to pass. His hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Dover) had matters in the opposite sequence. That is my hon. Friends' understanding of the situation. It is the anxiety of people working in the ROFs that has galvanised hon. Members to raise the matter in such terms and not in the opposite direction.
Mr. Hayhoe: I hope that I was not expressing myself in any emotive sense. I have stated during the debate that

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the genuine anxieties of people working in the ROFs had been reflected in the speeches heard from both sides of the House. I understand those anxieties. I hope that hon. Members will not exacerbate them by predicating and seeking to prejudge and arouse alarm about what may or may not be recommended. Is it not wiser, when we are approaching the end of the matter—the study group report will be completed fairly soon—to await the report and then debate it?
I can assure the House that it is a genuine study that looks at the changed environment in which ROFs are now having to operate. We shall be looking to see whether greater freedom is necessary and whether there should be fewer restraints on the ROFs, which are inhibited about going out and getting business for themselves and a share of the market, and making commercial arrangements with people in the private sector. I want all these matters to be examined.
I believe that the purpose is to try to ensure that the end result, however it turns out, will provide a more certain future for the ordnance factories and for those who work in them. We should not seek to prejudge the report, as I have been asked to do today. One is asked to say that the products of the ROF—the munitions, the tanks and vehicles and things of that kind—can come only from a Government-run and Government-owned factory. That is blatantly not the case. The factory I know best at Blackburn makes fuses. During the war, fuses were made by firms in the private sector. There is no certainty that the best solution is that stores and equipment should be made by a firm in the Government circle. What about communications? We get communications from private industry. What about aircraft? What about guided weapons? Often it is a blend of publicly owned and publicly run and private enterprise companies.
There should be no prejudging of the matter. I hope that an atmosphere of gloom will not be created about future prospects. There has been a good recovery this year following the terrible shock of the loss of the Iranian order. The Jordanian order for ammunition and tanks is welcome. Without that order, the redundancy position would be much worse at Leeds and elsewhere. The Government made a commitment to the Challenger programme, which must have given heart and comfort to workers.
My noble Friend will study all that has been said in this useful debate. I shall ensure that the Hansard report of the debate is circulated to all members of the study group so that they can take full account of the views expressed tonight.

Paper and Board Industry
10.5 pm
Mr. Frank R. White: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise once again the problems of the paper and board industry. I offer no apology for repeating many of the arguments that my hon. Friends and Conservative Members have made on a number of occasions. This is the fourth time since the summer that the industry's problems have been brought to the attention of the House.
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I am chairman of the all-party paper group, and I congratulate hon. Members upon their continued support and perseverance, which, in spite of the late hour, is demonstrated tonight by their presence.
We all regret that, irrespective of where we sit in the House, our arguments have failed to bring about a positive response from the Government—a response that we would expect from any British Government. We would expect a positive response in particular from a Government the Prime Minister of which has declared that compassion for the unemployed and concern for the loss of manufacturing industry is not the prerogative of one party. Would that deeds matched those words.
In the last year, many mills closed and thousands of workers in the industry were made redundant. However, we still lack an effective reaction from the Government to protect the remaining industrial capacity. Knowingly or unknowingly, the Government give the impression that the paper and board industry is expendable. They give the impression that only the weak and inefficient go to the wall. The impression gains ground when Government spokesmen throughout the country heap the blame for our industrial demise on to the backs of workers and trade unions by asserting that our problems would vanish overnight if wage demands were lower, demarcation lines were abolished, new technology was allowed to operate and we became more productive.
I do not claim that everything in our industrial garden is rosy. I accept that problems exist. However, I reject the general attitude adopted to all and sundry. Even where that attitude is applicable there is a backlog of mistrust and conflict, which neither side has taken initiatives to solve. Such accusations are unjust and unfairly apportioned.
The charge made by Government spokesmen throughout the country cannot be levelled at the British paper and board industry. The Under-Secretary of State for Industry, when winding up a similar debate, said of the industry:
"It has a good labour relations record and its record as an industry entitles it to respect. I salute it."—[Official Report, 4 August 1980; Vol. 990, c. 401.]
Those words were welcomed by the House at that time. The industry was grateful for those comments. But the ensuing lack of action to support the Government's respect for this great industry left it with a feeling of "What good is a captain's salute when the ship is sinking?" I refer the Minister to the "Titanic", if he wants a reference. I take the Minister's words to mean that he accepts that the industry's problems are not self-inflicted—that they have been created by outside forces. He and I may differ on the cause of those outside forces and how they can be remedied.
Earlier this year, many hon. Members from both sides of the House received from the Paper and Board Industry Federation and SOGAT—the major union in the industry—a brief joint statement, which urged that the Government should impose temporary import controls and that interest rates and the price of energy should be reduced for industry. Those forces are outside the control of the British paper and board industry. It is right that the Government should be approached for action in those matters. At the outset, many hon. Members on the Labour Benches accepted that some of the requests were not attainable, especially because of the views of the Secretary of State for Industry on monetary policy. We saw no hope of positive action on exchange rates or interest rates

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because those aspects of economic policy were central to the Government's strategy. The request for import controls was even more remote, as the Government had nailed their flag to the mast of free trade, irrespective of the most compelling arguments.
However, we did see the possibility of a Government initiative to take action on energy costs. It is to that end that many of my hon. Friends and Conservative Members have directed their attention for the past few weeks. I wish to complement the work and contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours). No doubt he will direct the attention of the House to the issue should he catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I shall not dwell for too long on the detailed argument. Surely there must be a case for the Government to answer when faced with the overwhelming evidence of energy subsidies enjoyed by our foreign competitors. Since 1971, energy costs for paper mills in Britain have doubled, as a percentage of the unit costs of production, from 12 per cent. to 24 per cent. As a comparison, labour costs have increased by only 2 per cent., from 18 per cent. to 20 per cent. of production costs, during the same period. No doubt my hon. Friends will give more specific examples. I believe that time and time again in the House the case has been proved. We seek only what our competitors already enjoy, namely, Government support.
I read in The Guardian today that there is a strong lobby of wets within the Cabinet in favour of energy subsidies for British industry. I am sure that I speak for all my right hon. and hon. Friends in wishing them every success. As we face the industrial issues of Britain, and as the Cabinet face those industrial issues, the ranks and the volume of the wets in the Cabinet grow and grow. I do not know what the Cabinet Office is like at the present time. It is a long time since I was in there. By now the Cabinet Room must be positively awash with wets. Let us hope that there is enough water flowing around to float British industry.
I would welcome the Minister's comments on this issue and his assurance that the Department of Industry is supporting such attempts in the Cabinet as will place our industry's energy costs on an equal footing with those of our main competitors.
I wish to put before the House two arguments that I believe that the Minister and the Government must face—and face quickly. The Government must reassess their industrial strategy. First, there is the Government's attitude to intervention in industry. I well remember, during the general election, as do my hon. Friends, our opponents dismissing the Labour Government's industrial strategy and, in particular, the aid that was available for industrial regeneration. My own opponent claimed that it was cruel to prolong the life of dying industries and that it was much better to let them fade away and allow new industries to grow in their place. He painted a great picture. Industry was about to be released from the Government. The Conservative Party would restore to it freedom of action without Government interference. Free market forces would prevail, and prosperity would be assured for all.
All those claims were argued again on the hustings. It is not my intention to reduce this debate to a mere repetition of the hustings, but during that campaign the question was asked "What if the rest of the world does not play your free market game of industrial Monopoly? What happens to British industry if our foreign
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competitors receive help from their own Governments? Will you leave them naked in the market place, or will you match the terms of trade? Will you let British industry be sacrificed on the altar of free marketism—a policy that none but the British accept—or will you act to protect our industries, our jobs and our livelihood?"
The answers to those questions were not forthcoming during the election campaign, and they remain unanswered now. They are unanswered in one sense, but they are fully answered by the fact that the Government are standing back and letting our industrial competitors and their Governments get away with the rape and murder of British industry, the paper industry in particular.
There is no free market philosophy except in the mind of the Secretary of State for Industry. Until he sorts out that confusion, we shall continue to be picked off mill by mill by our competitors. It may be that the Government are not convinced by the past evidence. But recently evidence has come to light, which no doubt the Paper and Board Industry Federation has supplied to the Minister. If not, that omission will be rectified. I must tell the Minister that if his Department fails to act upon that evidence, or fails to influence his hon. Friends in other Departments, he will become an accessory to the crime.
For the purpose of my argument. I should like to give two examples. For obvious reasons, I shall not quote the names of the British companies involved, but they can he supplied to the Minister or to any hon. Member who wishes to see me afterwards. A paper converter operating in the Midlands was supplied with envelope paper from a British mill and also imported a similar type of paper from a Dutch company, Van Gelder. In October 1979, the British mill charged £475 per tonne. Van Gelder charged £450 per tonne. A year later, in October 1980, the British mill was charging £490 a tonne. In the meantime, Van Gelder, far from increasing its price, had dropped it to £400 per tonne. This month, it has further reduced the price to £345 per tonne. As exchange rates cannot account for reductions of that magnitude, that is an example of unfair trading by a State-subsidised company against which no United Kingdom mill can compete.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: That is an important point, because the Van Gelder company is 20 per cent. owned by the Government and it relies on public money in the form of subsidies. That is a real advantage existing in the hands of overseas producers. The Minister should direct his reply to that point, because we need an answer.
Mr. White: My hon. Friend complements the point that I was about to make. That Government support is the main factor that led to the subsequent closure of the British mill, which had been operating for more than 200 years. As my hon. Friend said, the situation is even more stark, and is more demanding of Government action and ministerial reply, when one considers that Van Gelder became insolvent in 1979 and was bailed out to the tune of £14 million by the Dutch banks. I therefore support the views expressed by my hon. Friend.
Van Gelder has also operated quite a nice sleight of hand in the supply of copier sheets. The British company that is in opposition to it prices a full lorry load of copier sheets at £2·20 per 1,000 sheets. The A4 bond is slightly dearer, at £2·30 per 1,000 sheets. Van Gelder prices are

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£1·60 per 1,000 sheets for a bond which it says is suitable for copying and £1·86 per 1,000 sheets for its branded copier, which is supplied under plain wrapping.
Since April the British company has systematically reduced its prices, until today it sells at £1·87 per 1,000 sheets—a decrease of 18 per cent. With a fair utilisation of the plant, no breakdowns, no down times, no additional import penetration and no other aspects that could stop production, that company may be able to compete. But that is a nice, rosy world, which does not exist in industrial reality. That mill is now losing money. A reduction to Van Gelder's lowest price would represent a 30 per cent. drop in prices. The only way that that level of pricing policy is maintained by the Dutch is by subsidies in one form or another, and my hon. Friend the Member for Workington indicated where they came from.
The October 1980 edition of the magazine Pulp and Paper International made the following comment:
"The Intermills Group which was sold to Belgian interests for one Belgian franc"—
I stress that—
"by Champion in 1977 is Belgium's leading producer of special printing papers and copy papers. In recent years it has been plagued by financial troubles which have led to the closure of several mills."
The Belgian Government paid off the debt of Intermills, which amounted roughly to 1,500 million Belgian francs, or $50 million. Furthermore, they decided to inject $30 million as working capital into a reorganised group. In addition, they guaranteed new debts of over $30 million. The implications of this action in Belgium mean, for the British industry, that a major British paper company is now in direct competition with the Belgian group, which is backed by Government money despite a track record that indicates that it had not been able to produce viably even in periods of high demand.
The British company will have to fight in its own market and in the export market against a Government backed foreign competitor that has seemingly unlimited resources. Surely the Minister cannot be satisfied by these expressions of free marketism. Will he now undertake a complete review of his Department's attitude towards Government intervention and industrial assistance? If it helps him, we shall agree to use the Prime Minister's words "constructive intervention". That is what we need now. We need constructive help when so many foreign competitors are intent on destructive intervention in British industry.
Then there is the Government's attitude to public purchasing. Earlier this year the Prime Minister indicated that she supported the concept of assisting British industry by a positive purchasing policy to buy British.
The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. David Mitchell): The hon. Gentleman says that he is seeking Government intervention. Will he be rather more precise? Is he referring to energy costs and import controls, to which he referred earlier, or is he asking for financial assistance when he uses the blanket term "intervention"?
Mr. White: As I said earlier—I hope that my hon. Friends will develop the argument and that the Minister has read the reports of previous debates—the all-party paper group is urging the Government to review their energy pricing policies for industry. That is one form of
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positive Government intervention. The Minister will also be aware of the Labour Government's support for the paper industry. There was the £23 million support scheme that enabled the industry to regenerate in capital investment a total of £93 million. That made British paper manufacturers better able to match foreign competition, and it had a continuing effect in machinery manufacture and engineering and machine tool manufacture. Measures of that sort are the ones that I wish the Minister to consider. Any measure that is now enjoyed by our foreign competitors will, I hope, be matched by the British Government. I trust that they will act and will not hide behind the door.
Mr. John Wells: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but he has gone on for a long time. I apologise for stirring him up and perhaps causing him to go on even longer, especially as I hope to make my own contribution later. The hon. Gentleman has referred to the all-party paper group and what that group is urging on the Government. I do not see many Liberals or Scottish nationalists—
Mr. Robert Litherland (Manchester, Central): I do not see many Conservatives in the Chamber.
Mr. Wells: I am coming to that. There are no hon. Members representing the other fringe groups in the Chamber. None of my hon. Friends is in the Chamber save the Minister. As the chairman of the all-party paper group is well aware, I disapprove of his group.
Mr. White: The hon. Gentleman turns up on some occasions when the all-party paper group meets and he makes his views well known. Most Conservative Members—this applies to the Scottish nationalists, the Welsh nationalists and other parties, including my own—who attend the all-party group have a positive point of view of support for the paper industry. The hon. Gentleman may have a chip on his shoulder about all-party groups, which I understand, but I am sure that he wants to join the other members of the group in giving every possible assistance to the paper and board industry, in which his constituency has an interest.
My next point concerns the attitude of the Government to the question of public spending. Earlier this year the Prime Minister indicated that she supported the concept of assisting British industry by a positive purchasing policy to buy British. What steps have been taken to implement that policy through Government Departments? What guide has been given to the Departments of Government regarding the purchase of British paper products? Does the Department of Industry buy wholly British-manufactured paper products? Does Her Majesty's Stationery Office extend a buy-British policy beyond the purchase of the individual items of stationery, and does it specify that it has to be British-manufactured paper?
Earlier this year I had correspondence with the Prime Minister on behalf of a mill in my constituency that supplied paper to HMSO in competition with a German paper mill. I was not very happy with the reply. I hope that the Minister will indicate tonight a more positive Government attitude in this regard.
Is the Minister aware that at present HMSO is putting pressure on the United Kingdom mills that hold contracts with it to accept either a reduction of 30 per cent. in tonnage or a 10 per cent. reduction in price? Those are not

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figures of fiction. I have a letter, which I shall show to the Minister, from a chairman of a mill in my area. The chairman tells me that there has been no suggestion that orders will be placed abroad if there is no agreement, but it appears that HMSO is taking advantage of weak market conditions to force prices down to an even more uneconomic level.
Of course, another answer may be that Government spending cuts are manifesting themselves in this kind of action. If that is so, surely it must be the economics of the madhouse, for any savings gained by the Treasury in this respect will be lost if mills are forced out of business and the consequential costs of unemployment are felt by the Government and the whole community. I trust that the Minister will give reassurance on this disturbing development.
I recognise, as does the all-party group—notwithstanding the comments of the hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. Wells)—that the problems that exist in the paper industry are not problems that lend themselves to single solutions. The all-party group recently met representatives of the paper merchants. The needs of that sector of the industry are very different from those of the paper manufacturers, and, correspondingly, the needs of these two differ greatly from the needs of the printing sector of the industry. It has been my responsibility to bring to the attention of the two groups the fact that we have met the example of the textile industry, where the failure of the spinning, weaving, dyeing and bleaching and clothing industry sectors to agree a broad textile policy has led these to be hived off and individually picked off, to the destruction of the industry. It has led them to be subject to import penetration and to the capacity levels that we see now, with the consequential loss of jobs.
I hope that in the new year—in this I have the support of the hon. Members who attend the all-party group—we can initiate discussions between the printing industries, the paper merchants and the Paper and Board Industry Federation to try to develop a broad policy for the paper industry that will meet the needs of the three vital sectors—the manufacturers, the merchants and the printers. In presenting that policy. I hope that we can look forward to a positive Government response.
Last week the Government increased the quotas for imports of Scandinavian paper and board. There can be no justification of that 15,000 tonnes a year increase, given what has happened in the past 12 months, with 18 mills closing and 10,000 mill operatives being put out of work. Many of my hon. Friends and Conservative Members have tabled a prayer against the order. We shall seek to detail the arguments on another occasion. In allowing that increase, when the market is 14 per cent. below the 1974 figures when the quotas were allowed, and when the Scandinavian manufacturers expected no increase because they appreciate the market conditions, the Government have not inspired much confidence among the industry in their will or ability to protect British interests.
I conclude on a personal note. My constituency contains more paper mills than any other area of the country. The entire community of Bury and Radcliffe prospers or fails by the success of that industry. I speak on behalf of the mayor, of the members of the council on both sides of the political spectrum, of management, of commerce and of trade unions when I urge the Government to review their policy on the British paper and board industry. I urge them to make a statement of intent
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that they fully accept the contribution that the industry makes to our economy and undertake to take all necessary measures to protect it from unfair competition and trading policies.
Anything less than that open declaration will leave my constituents and my town with the feeling that the Government do not care and that the industry is expendable. I ask the Minister to state clearly tonight that the Government will protect my constituents against the industrial piracy that is threatening their jobs, their livelihoods and their security. Will he state that he and his Department will take every measure to protect us from foreign competition—indeed, to take the sort of measures that other Governments take in respect of their paper workers?
Judging from the Minister's past comments, which I have quoted, he needs no reminding that my constituents and every employee of the British paper and board industry have given every possible assistance to maintain the viability of the industry. They have a right to expect what I am seeking from the Government. If the Minister cannot make that declaration tonight, will he at least agree to come to my constituency and meet the representatives from both sides of the industry to learn at first hand of the extent of their contribution and how that is mutually valued?
I thank the House for its patience with me this evening. This issue is of deep concern to my constituency, and I trust that we can all work together for the future of a viable paper industry in this country. I hope that the ensuing contributions and the Minister's reply will be the start of that ideal.
10.40 pm
Mr. John Wells: The hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. White) has ranged widely and, in some small detail, wisely. But he has also indicated to me that he does not live in the real world. The paper-making industry is nearly as important to my constituency as it is to his. Therefore, I hold it in great affection and I am well aware of its problems. In so far as I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, I hope that he will respect my view as much as I respect him and his. In our different ways, we are both seeking to do our best for paper-making in our constituencies.
My people live in the real world. They are aware that paper in all its forms is used as world prosperity increases. If there is world recession, the uptake of paper products of all sorts declines. My constituency has a second great interest—horticulture. Apples come to market packed in cardboard boxes and with cardboard divisions separating them. Therefore, paper is important to my people in all respects.
The fact remains that if there is a smaller uptake of finished goods there is a smaller uptake of kraft paper. The world recession is affecting us all, and therefore we have to face the fact that machines, and in some cases—as the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe rightly said—whole mills are closing. The hon. Member used an emotive phrase in describing their being picked off one by one. I have enormous sympathy with that point of view, because although I have no mill closures as yet I have had and will have increasing machine closures.

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Until we can see an upturn in world and British prosperity, our industry cannot expect a greater uptake of its products. No one will stock paper if he has no use for it. The hon. Gentleman made two particular points.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: Although I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's point, I accept the spirit in which he puts it. If the capacity on the world market is being increased by 15 per cent. in the current year, there must be a market for that capacity, because some countries refuse to close mills. Where does the hon. Gentleman expect those products to go? If they are being dropped on to the British market, putting British people out of work, is there not a duty on the Government to introduce measures to protect the home producer?
Mr. Wells: I was foolish to give way to the hon. Gentleman. I should have left him to make his own speech in his own time. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question."] It is for my hon. Friend the Minister to answer, but I shall answer the hon. Gentleman in due course, although I had sought to be brief.
The hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe made two telling points, to which I hope my hon. Friend will reply. First, he sought a greater assurance about the uptake of British paper from the British Government. I have recently had cause to write to one of my hon. Friend's colleagues complaining that the Customs and Excise Department not only has its printing done abroad but uses foreign paper in some cases. It is deplorable that the Customs and Excise Department, of all Departments, should use foreign paper and foreign print. I wrote not to my hon. Friend but to one of his colleagues, so he probably does not have the answer at his fingertips, and I do not ask for it at this late hour tonight. However, I ask him to look at the matter after Christmas and to write to me. The hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe raised the point in general, but I raise it in particular, with regard to Customs and Excise.
The hon. Member made a second valid point when he grumbled about the great upsurge in the duty-free input from Scandinavia. Although he has teased me about my views on all-party groups, he will be glad to know that this evening I was re-elected to the chair of the Anglo-Finnish group. The point about being a member of the Anglo-Finnish group is simply that Finland is one of the great paper-making countries, and it is therefore important that hon. Members who have paper-making constituencies should be aware of what is going on in Scandinavia. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will give us a realistic explanation of this increase in the duty-free quota, because it is very important.
I also say to my hon. Friend that at a time when Her Majesty's Government are looking for wage restraint without imposing wage restraint, people in the paper-making industry are some of the most modestly paid in the industrial scene. These are not rich men. They are not, like public lavatory caretakers, getting vast overtime payments for cleansing in the middle of the night. [Interruption.] No, this is a serious point; it is not a frivolous one. In the paper-making industry many people work night shifts and are working long and unsocial hours, but not for the vast pay that, one gathers, school caretakers get under the ILEA.
Mr. George Grant: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Wells: I think not. I have burnt my fingers once already. The hon. Member will have his chance if he is lucky enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
I put it to the Minister that this is a modestly paid industry and that it comprises people who are loyal not only to their mill but to the whole trade in which they have been brought up. Although I disagree with the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe in almost everything that he said, I was attracted by his remark, in closing his speech, that he spoke on behalf of his mayor and corporation and Bob's-your-uncle. He was speaking as a community member, and that is very much the spirit that we have throughout the country in the paper industry. The people in it are community-minded people.
I am not so naive as to be unaware that Dutch energy is cheaper than British energy, because Dutch gas bubbles up a great deal nearer to the place where it is to be used than British North Sea oil does to the place where it is used. British North Sea oil is not specifically useful in the paper industry. Therefore, the energy input to the industry is, by natural causes, more expensive than the Dutch energy input. The figures that the hon. Member quoted prove the exact truth of the energy position. There is nothing that Ministers can do about this; it is an international fact of life. The costs of putting energy into a Dutch paper mill are less than the costs of putting energy into a British paper mill, unless it is subsidised.
The hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe was extremely woolly about what he wanted done. Did he want the paper mills to go bankrupt? Did he want English banks to bail them out? Or did he want the British Government to put in 20 per cent., I think he said, as in the case of Van Gelder? Does he want the British Government to put 20 per cent. into British paper mills and to have all the ills of nationalised industries? Does he want to have a little British Leyland in his constituency? I certainly do not want it in mine.
I implore the Minister, therefore, to give us concise answers to the reasonable questions that have been put concerning Government aid to the industry, but I hope that he will stand quite firm in pointing out to the industry the truths of which it is already well aware—that this is a great international problem and that there is very little that we can do unilaterally as Britain is a great trading nation, trading in the markets of the world.
10.49 pm
Mr. Robert Litherland: This debate is an unashamed plea for assistance—financial or otherwise—to ensure the survival of a vital industry and its allied industries of printing, publishing and packing. The industry is fundamentally sound. There is a demand for its products. The expertise and skills needed are there in abundance. There have always been good labour relations. Indeed, that is a feature of an industry that was extremely viable until about 15 years ago. Problems set in because of the elimination of tariffs with EFTA and as a result of the subsequent duty-free quotas settled with our former partners when we joined the EEC.
Today, the industry finds it impossible to compete against overseas competition. It is trying to survive in a climate of high-value sterling, high interest rates and high-cost energy. The combination of those factors not only causes unemployment; it will destroy the industry unless the Government listen to the pleas of the trade unions and the employers' federations.

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Government assistance is essential in such a predicament. Assistance must be immediate, because the crisis is gaining in momentum. Hon. Members should consider the speed with which disaster befell Bowater. Last August, I met one of the senior representatives of Bowater. I specifically asked him when he thought things would reach a crisis in the paper industry and in his firm. He said that that was a hypothetical question but that the crisis might come in the first six months or the last six months of next year. Within a week, the Bowater mill in Ellesmere Port had closed down and made 1,600 people redundant.
Unemployment has escalated at a frightening rate. Mills are closing, never to be reopened, because those mills and jobs will have been lost for ever. The general secretary of the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades, Mr. Bill Keys, said:
"the illness now besetting this industry can be terminal in many of its sectors"
That puts the situation facing the industry into perspective.
The industry faces disastrous prospects unless we can get the Government to listen. That appears to be a formidable task both for the trade unions and for the employers' federations. Those bodies have met the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Industry and other Ministers. Articles have appeared in the press, and there have been mentions on television and radio and in other media. Now, an effort has been made, mainly from the all-party group, to create an awareness of the industry's problems.
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. White) on his initiative in achieving this debate. During discussions with the Prime Minister, members of the Cabinet and junior Ministers, a request was made for some flexibility in Government policy in order to help the industry. To date, nothing has been forthcoming. The pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Like the textile industry, the paper and board industry will suffer further contraction until it collapses or becomes a mere service industry, supplying small specialist items; in other words, until it becomes a corner shop for the printing industry.
The biggest threat to the paper and board industry is the impact of imports. As imports have increased, production in the United Kingdom has fallen. Import penetration is now 50 per cent. of the United Kingdom market—an increase of 15 per cent. since 1970.
Competition comes from countries that have a ready supply of raw materials. North America, Canada and Scandinavia have natural resources to supply wood pulp and, with their own processing industries, they can exploit the market on two fronts, by increasing the price of wood pulp without increasing the price of paper. How can United Kingdom producers remain competitive in that situation?
Investment is required to restructure small and outdated machinery. We appeal to the Government, management and the trade unions to work together to solve the problems, to increase productivity and investment, to increase domestic raw material supplies and, if employment is to be secured, to reduce import penetration.
How can we compete with North America, which now produces 40 per cent. of the total capacity? The United States of America is the lowest-cost producer of many
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grades of paper. It enjoys cheap wood and cheap power and, because of the size of its market, it is able to invest and install plant on the largest possible scale.
The Scandinavian countries have incorporated paper manufacturing into their wood pulp industries. This development has derived from duty-free access to the United Kingdom market which was made available under the EFTA agreement in the 1960s.
As tariffs were reduced, prices came under pressure, and the United Kingdom was caught in a vice-like squeeze of high-priced wood pulp and cheaper imported paper. The squeeze and the import penetration have already had their effect. That is borne out by the number of mill closures and the unemployment now being experienced by the paper and board industry. The Scandinavian countries enjoy substantial duty-free quotas and the United Kingdom remains an attractive market.
We cannot wait until we are trading on so-called equal terms by 1984. By then, the industry will not be in a positon to compete, because of the battering that it has received from the lack of investment.
British industry in general is suffering from economic factors. A strong pound encourages imports and makes exporting diffcult. A strong pound, high interest rates and inflation are creating a situation in the paper-making industry which will become irretrievable.
The great fear is that customer industries, such as printing, publishing and packing, will be encouraged to import the finished product. That is why I emphasise that immediate action is necessary to protect the industry from financial pressures beyond its control. A strong pound assists imports of paper and board from overseas competitors, puts pressures on allied industries and encourages imports of consumer articles, which are the finished products. At the same time, high domestic rates discourage investment.
Another aspect causing immense difficulty is energy costs. Such costs have, on average, risen to 15 per cent. of total manufacturing costs. The cost of energy now approaches 50 per cent. of labour costs. The Government must take a more sympathetic and understanding approach towards energy costs and the part that they play in aggravating the problems of the industry.
Paper-making is the sixth largest energy-consuming industry in the United Kingdom. Overseas competitors enjoy far better prices for energy than the United Kingdom industry. In the United Kingdom, oil prices are significantly higher and more than double those of the United States of America, and even in the most efficient mills we cannot compete. France can produce at £4 to £5 a tonne cheaper than the United Kingdom merely because of the energy factor.
Our coal is, in the main, higher priced and, if not the highest priced, is more than three times the cost of coal in the United States. Because of the Government's policy of imposing financial targets, gas in the United Kingdom costs one and a half times more than in France. Our cost of electricity is higher than in any other country and one and a half times higher than in West Germany. There is a strong belief that low energy costs are a deliberate and direct policy to subsidise manufacturing industries to compete in world markets. Energy costs are not the only issue, but they are a key factor in making the paper and board industry competitive and viable.
I now come to the most important effect—unemployment and closures. For the past 10 years there

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has been a steady decline, the number of workers having fallen by about 26 per cent. since 1969. Thousands more face redundancy or short-time working. Before long, that trend will be evident in all the associated industries. Again, those jobs will be lost for ever. Few people will return to an industry with shift work, with its inherent social problems. However, there again the industries may not be there for the workers to return to.
The paper-making industry has outlined its difficulties and has implored the Government to reconsider and not to leave the matter too late, when the industry will be decimated. It has asked for consideration of import penetration, finance, energy and afforestation. The debate is about finance. The present economic climate has exaggerated the problems, accelerated the lays-offs and closures and highlighted the failure of the industry and the Government to invest in its future. Unless the Government take note of what is being said to them, I repeat that, like the textile industry, the paper-making industry will be on a downward slope, until we are solely reliant on and at the mercy of overseas traders.
The Prime Minister, in her letter of congratulation to Paper, recognised the industry's importance, when she wrote:
"The pulp and paper industry which the Paper magazine serves are essential to the communications industry and thus to international understanding. They are part of the economy."
The industry calls on the Prime Minister to act positively to save the industry and the jobs. It calls for no more closures and no more redundancies. The communications to which the Prime Minister referred are a sign of a standard of civilisation, whether through library books, paperbacks, stationery, leaflets, newspapers, magazines or Hansard, which reports what we are debating tonight. Communication is always needed.
General recommendations have come from my union, SOGAT, on the four main points. First, on import penetration, it asks the Government to adopt a more aggressive policy; to consider some types of selective import control, such as quotas, surcharges or minimum prices; to ensure strict enforcement of all existing duty-free quotas at their present levels; to apply tariffs on all other imports; and to impose import restrictions to check excessive competition, including that which does not come under anti-dumping rules.
Secondly, on finance, SOGAT asks the Government to provide financial assistance and subsidies similar to those provided by other Western European Governments; to redirect some oil revenues into those industries essential to the future of the economy; to lower interest rates; to take measures to reduce the effect of oil revenue on current exchange rates; to make a determined attack on inflation; to introduce appropriate investment incentives; immediately to increase regional development grants; and to introduce a selective grant scheme to assist with the necessary reinvestment in new improved plant.
Thirdly, on energy, SOGAT asks the Government to support the industry by concessionary tariffs that would bring prices to the industry as low as the fuel prices of its main competitors. It asks that recognition of the advantage of volume and base load provided by the industry should be given by suitable discounts. It asks the Government to remove the tax on fuel oil for the paper and board industry or to give temporary relief by way of a rebate, to improve
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energy-saving investment incentives in the light of the special requirements of the paper industry and to introduce measures to lighten the cost of water and water purification equipment.
On afforestation, the proposals are for stepping up the planting and conversion of forest output, giving direct assistance with contract supply terms, encouraging the establishment of new pulping capacity and playing a full part in the formation of any future EEC policy on afforestation. Those are recommendations from SOGAT. My own recommendation is that the next Labour Government should take the paper industry into public ownership.
The paper and board industry provides an important service to the community and to the economy. There is a demand for the product. The industry has the skills, and labour relations are good. The essential ingredients are present. All that is required is the finance and the policies to enable it to compete in a realistic atmosphere.
11.5 pm
Mr. William Hamilton: The paper and board industry is a powerful lobby in the House. It vies almost with the NFU. It has its own effective all-party group, to which I belong. There is nothing wrong with a lobby or an all-party group if one can get it, so long as those involved are not bought and so long as they do not take everything as it is fed to them. I have one or two reservations about remarks that have been made in the debate.
My relations with the paper mills in my constituency—Tullis Russell, Smith Anderson and Dickinson—are on a personal friendship basis with the management. Those companies are under no illusion about where I stand politically. I am under no illusion about where they stand politically. I smiled wryly to myself when Tullis Russell presented me with a document during the Summer Recess stating that, in general, it agreed wholeheartedly with the overall economic strategy of the Government but that it should be excused from the painful consequences of that strategy. I told the company, frankly, "You cannot have it both ways. You cannot support the Government in destroying industry while saying 'Please leave us out of the general destruction.'" That is its dilemma.
I have a personal vested political interest in seeking to preserve the industry. I have to protect it from the depredations of the Government. This is the problem of my hon. Friend the Minister for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. White). He does a good job. His public relations exercise is excellent. There is no doubt that he will save his marginal seat as a consequence of his efforts on behalf of the paper industry. I am under no such difficulty. I am a little older than my hon. Friend and I do not have a marginal seat. I can be a little more free in what I say about the industry and about the Government's policies generally.
The Prime Minister chastises industries that are closing down because wages are too high, productivity too low and the industry generally inefficient. Those accusations cannot be laid at the door of the paper industry. If the Minister goes to Tullis Russell at Markinch, Fife, he will find that its capital investment programme since the war has been excellent. Its labour relations are first-class. The mill is run by die-hard Tories, but it is an extremely good example of a private enterprise industry. It is the biggest

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independent and privately owned paper-making company in the United Kingdom. It is declaring workers redundant and has to close machines—one is closed on alternate weeks—and the company is worried.
The firm presented papers to me, which I sent on to the Department of Industry, about energy prices and the high exchange rate and the difficulties that those problems created for the firm. I got the predictable brush-off from the Department. I sent the reply to the firm and it said "Sympathy costs nothing, but the Government do not seem to be willing to do anything for us."
The paper industry in Scotland is 400 years old. In 1860 there were 54 mills in Scotland. This year there are 23. Under successive Governments, the industry has been up and down like a yo-yo. In 1965 there were 16,000 workers in Scottish paper mills. By October 1979, the number had gone down to 8,100 and there has been a steady decline since then, despite the good investment record and good labour relations. Translated into a United Kingdom context, the figures are even more disturbing. It is worth putting them in terms that might register with the ordinary citizen. Redundancies this year have been at the rate of 170 a week—in a highly efficient industry. A total of 15 mills have closed and 43 machines have been shut down—almost one machine a week.
The Minister knows that when there have been such closures it is extremely difficult to reopen the mills. People who think that one can close a coal mine and reopen it six months later do not kow what they are talking about. It is the same in the paper industry.
On energy prices, I want to enter one or two caveats about the case that is being put. Massive evidence has been handed to the Government by the paper industry, independently and via the CBI, about alleged unfair competition that the United Kingdom industry is facing from overseas. When I had my exchanges with Tullis Russell in the summer, the company presented factual examples of unfair competition and I expressed the view that I thought the average layman would express.
The United Kingdom has invaluable resources of coal and invaluable and almost limitless resources of natural gas and oil from the North Sea—not all of it yet tapped—yet our industries, not only the paper industry but chemicals, steel and other industries, all complain that their energy prices are 15 per cent. or 20 per cent higher than those of our overseas competitors who do not have those enegy resources.
There must be something wrong somewhere. The answer lies with Government polices, which seek deliberately to force up energy prices. For example, the Government have said that gas prices for domestic consumers—the position is even worse for industry—shall be—by edict of the Government, not British Gas—10 per cent. higher than the going inflation rate. That is deliberate Government policy. They have set targets for the nationalised fuel industries that compel the prices to rise. The consumer then blames the failure of nationalised industries to keep down their prices. They are compelled to raise them by Government policy.
Having said that about the absurdity of the position, I wish to quote from an article that appears in The Times today under the heading
"Joseph plea on energy pricing."
I want the Minister to reply in detail, becasue he must know whether these things are happening, will happen or have happened. The article states:
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"Sir Keith Joseph, secretary of State for Industry"
—the Minister's master—
"has called on Cabinet colleagues to find ways of cutting the burden of rising oil, gas and electricity prices on business."
That is a step in the right direction. The Secretary of State at least concedes that there might be some hardship in various industries because of rising energy prices. The article continues:
"One possibility is for domestic gas prices to rise faster than planned to subsidise industrial users."
In orther words, that would shift the burden on to the domestic consumer to subsidise the paper trade, the chemical industry and others making the case. That idea was put forward by the Secretary of State for Industry to the Secretary of State for Energy. The article continues:
"Although such a move would raise no immediate objections from the Treasury, because it would leave British Gas's financial requirements unchanged, it is regarded as politically inadvisable by many ministers."
It can say that again. If the Government seek to alleviate the burden of energy prices on paper, chemicals, steel or any other industry at the expense of old-age pensioners or others who already have great difficulty in meeting their energy costs, there will be a great deal of opposition from the Labour side of the House, from the gas consumer councils and other consumer councils in Britain. Domestic consumers must not be asked to shoulder further burdens in that area.
The Times article states that other proposals have been put to the Department of Energy by the Department of Industry—for example:
"the possibility of reducing, if not actually abolishing, the £8 a tonne excise duty on heavy fuel oil."
The article continues:
"However, as MPs were quick to point out last week when the Select Committee on Energy took evidence from the CBI, the duty raises some £385m a year in revenue."
I wonder what the First Lord of the Treasury—the Prime Minister—has to say about that. She will not lose without a struggle £385 million revenue from that source. Neither the Government nor the members of the Select Committee seem to be impressed by the CBI argument about energy prices. The members of the Select Committee described the CBI's evidence as contradictory and skating round the problem.
I gather that the Department of Energy has asked suppliers of energy to examine closely individual cases of alleged hardship. That is not their function. The gas industry, the electricity industry and the suppliers of oil do not ask their consumers how hard up they are and what price they can pay. They are under instructions from the Government to charge economic prices and to get a return on their capital that is laid down by the Government. It is not their responsibility to assess hardship and subsequently to assess the prices that they call on their consumers to pay.
I gather that various groups are continuing to hold discussions with the Department of Energy on comparable figures for EEC fuel costs. I mention those facts and figures to present what I think is a reasonably fair case for the need for some intervention by the Government to help the industry. The phrase used by the Prime Minister was "constructive intervention", but that intervention cannot stop at the paper industry. It must continue. Once we accept the principle of Government intervention, the Government's philosophy fails.
The Government have said continually that they must stop intervening and allow industry to get on with the job.

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That policy is becoming increasingly unstuck. They have had to revoke that policy on steel, and no doubt in a few months British Leyland will come along for another £1,000 million. The Government will not refuse it. They dare not refuse it. The same applies to British Rail. Unless there is a massively increased Government investment in British Rail, we shall not have railways. They are falling to pieces. Unless the Prime Minister quickly translates "constructive intervention" into reality as it applies not only to paper but to British Rail, the car industry, steel and the infrastructure generally, we shall have no industrial base come the end of the recession.
The debate is about not only the paper industry but the philosophy on which the Government's strategy is based. That is why I think that the Government are anxious not to appear to be intervening too effectively in paper. They know that once the principle is established of intervening on a massive scale in that industry, it will not stop there.
11.23 pm
Dr. Oonagh McDonald: I wish to draw attention to the board and packaging section of the paper industry. I note that it is Labour Members, with one exception, who are speaking on behalf of the paper and board industry. There are now no Conservative Members in the Chamber, apart from the Minister, who is about to reply. No Conservative Members are prepared to defend the industry in their constituencies. That is surprising, because 36 per cent. of the mills and, consequently, 36 per cent. of the employment in the industry is to be found in the South-East, where the constituencies are at present, unfortunately, mostly Tory-represented. Given the efforts of Conservative Members to defend the interests of their constituents, that position will probably not last much longer.
The concentration of employment in the industry in the South-East relates to another feature from which the industry suffers—namely, that it receives less direct Government assistance in the form of regional grants or even inner urban aid than some other industries do.
The industry has suffered from the recession, but the effects have been made far worse by the Government's policies. In my constituency, production in Thames Case and Thames Board Mills is running below capacity. We have already heard about the good industrial relations in the industry. In Thames Case in particular, the fact that production is running below capacity, and has been for some time, cannot be blamed on industrial disputes. The work force is stable, well-established and streamlined, and procedures for consultation exist at every level of production. No difficulties arise from overmanning or poor industrial relations.
Some new investment has taken place, in Thames Case in particular, in an effort to boost production and improve the product offered. But domestic orders are falling fast. What we fear in Thurrock is a sharp drop in demand after Christmas, traditionally the time of the year when the demand for packaging products drops sharply. We expect that drop to be much worse after this Christmas.
The industry as a whole has been operating at less than full capacity since 1975. It needs to operate at 85 per cent. of capacity to meet its costs, particularly in the production of corrugated case material. Production throughout the country is now 20–25 per cent. below capacity, and in
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some cases even below that. The present level of demand is below that of 1974 and only slightly higher than that of 1970. Demand for some products has fallen by up to 30 per cent. in the past few months.
To try to preserve their share of the market, companies such as Thames Case have cut prices sharply in their endeavour to maintain price competitiveness. Price constraint of this sort cannot continue indefinitely. If the industry is forced into that position, jobs will disappear, and disappear for ever; they will not be replaced.
Even this part of the industry faces the threat of competition from imports, especially imports of kraft liner from America. The hon. Member for Maidstone (Mr. Wells) referred to the fall in demand for kraft liner and stressed that it was only to be expected in a time of recession. That is not the only reason. The American product is currently more attractive because of the relative strength of sterling, and manufacturers now turn to the American product rather than the more expensive British product. In other words, the fall in demand for kraft liner is also a result of Government policies: the still relatively high exchange rate means that the industry begins to suffer from imports. This is borne out by last year's figures—467,915 tonnes imported—and this year's figures will probably show a further increase.
At present the United Kingdom market amounts to 1 million tonnes of corrugated case materials a year. If there are further closures, imports of kraft liner from America and high-grade packaging products from Western Europe and Scandinavia will increase. This will contribute to the balance of payments constraints on growth when oil output begins to level off in about two years.
Apart from employing about 11,000 people in 28 mills, United Kingdom production of corrugated case materials saves the country about £100 million on the balance of payments. If the Government continue their present policies, those jobs will be lost and the balance of payments advantage will also be lost. In turn, the imported products will be more expensive, because imported corrugated case materials are derived from wood pulp rather than waste paper, as in this country.
This part of the British industry has been particularly successful. It has so far supplied 75 per cent. of the domestic market. But the pressure from imports is growing, because Western European countries can now sell duty-free all grades of board following the removal of EFTA tariffs in 1967 and EEC tariffs in 1977. So this section of the industry faces greater competition from abroad, but the Government are prepared just to sit back and let it happen, with imports flooding in to affect the general economy and, yet again, to destroy jobs here.
My hon. Friends have spelt out the number of disadvantages that the paper and board manufacturing industry has compared with the main foreign competing companies. It has been hit by a high level of interest rates—they are at a higher level now than during the last recession in the industry, when they stood at 11 per cent. in 1974–75. Once again the Government have no excuse. They cannot simply point to the recession and say "That is why the industry is slowly being destroyed." The situation of the industry is an aspect of the Government's own policy in maintaining high interest rates—and they are still high despite the recent 2 per cent. reduction in minimum lending rate. The Government are simply ignoring the devastating effect of their own policies on industry.

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In her speech at the Lord Mayor's banquet, the Prime Minister said:
"If our own industries do not become more efficient and produce the products that people want, other nations' industries will. They will get our business and our jobs."
That is certainly true, but the point that we are making is that the Government, through their policies, are putting one obstacle after another in the way of the attempts of the British paper and board industry to continue to supply the domestic market—and I am referring to a particularly successful section of that industry, which has consistently supplied 75 per cent. of the domestic market.
The Government's actions are at every turn making it more and more difficult for the industry to maintain this kind of provision. One can see from the figures what has been happening to the industry. Thirteen mills have announced closure this year—more than twice the number closed last year; machine shutdowns have increased from 26 in 1979 to 35 so far this year, a 35 per cent. increase in one year. Last year, 2,866 jobs in the industry disappeared, a 249 per cent. increase over the previous year. This year, 7,220 jobs have been lost so far, an increase of 152 per cent. over 1979. Eleven per cent. of the labour force has gone this year, and both unions and the manufacturers suggest that between 7,000 and 10,000 jobs are likely to vanish from the industry as a whole over the next 18 months.
The reasons for this situation have been spelt out by my hon. Friends—for example, the effects of high energy costs, high interest rates and high exchange rates—and we have suggested what the alternative should be. If the board and packaging sections of the industry disappear, unemployment in my constituency, which has reached an unprecedentedly high level in Thurrock, will shoot up once again. It is now over 10 per cent. higher than the national average.
Many employees in the industry in my constituency are process workers, grades 1 to 3, and skilled workers, maintenance engineers and craft fitters. The latter group may find less difficulty in getting new jobs, though that is doubtful now. But the former group—the process workers—will find it much harder to get new jobs. Many of them have specific job skills, and they will be especially hard hit by unemployment in an area where industry is collapsing as a direct result of Government policies.
We have talked this evening about what has been happening to the industry and we have painted a truly depressing picture, which is caused by Government policies. We have also suggested alternatives—a proper policy on energy prices and a reorientation of the whole of the Government's industrial strategy. We want to see the Government directly and constructively intervening in the industry with an aid scheme for further investment to make the industry more efficient, bearing in mind that the costs of investment in some sections of the industry are exceptionally high. We want to see Government subsidies properly and sparingly used so that the industry can compete with the subsidised industries in Holland, America and elsewhere, which have been described in detail by my hon. Friends.
If the Government continue on their path, this whole section of British industry could simply disappear and we should have to depend on foreign products to supply all our domestic needs The Government must surely pause now and look at the rate at which jobs are disappearing and at which mills are closing down. Do they really want to see
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a whole industry just disappear? Do they want more and more expensive imports flooding into the country? Do they want to destroy jobs—jobs that cannot be replaced in the near future? We demand that the Government change the whole direction of their policy and take care that they support this industry before it disappears altogether.
11.38 pm.
Mr. D.N. Campbell-Savours: It falls to me to sweep up after a very wide-ranging and effective debate among Opposition Members. My hon. Friends have carefully and effectively covered all the major areas of conflict between Opposition Members—and Government supporters—and the Government.
Mr. John Home Robertson: Are there any Government supporters?
Mr. Campbell-Savours: As my hon. Friend points out, it is most significant that the Tory Benches have been virtually empty. The only hon. Members to have spent any time in the Chamber during this debate are those who are waiting for the next debate, on London. I do not think that that is a fair and reasonable way for hon. Members with mills in their constituencies to represent their constituents who have been losing jobs in the past 12 months as a result of the policies being pursued by this Government.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: If the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) hangs round for the next debate, which I doubt, he will discover that I remain silent during that one as well, because I am involved in the debate after that.
Mr. Home Robertson: It serves my hon. Friend right for giving way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: As my hon. Friend says, I deserved that. I shall not give way again.
We have been very lucky, because in the last 24 hours we have had two major debates in the House on the paper and board and newsprint industries. Last night's newsprint debate was enjoyable and perhaps memorable, since the Government were shown up clearly to be failing to take action to resolve the problems afflicting that industry.
If there are problems afflicting the paper and board industry generally, they were outlined very adequately in a submission made by the chairman or director-general of the Paper and Board Industry Federation, Mr. Adams, to the Secretary of State for Industry in July of this year, in which he laid down three areas in which he thought that the Government should take action to resolve the problems of the industry. One concerned interest rates and the need for the Government to respond to industry's inability to afford the high interest rates which they are required to pay.
The second matter on which Mr. Adams commented was energy prices, an area that has drawn little response from the Government to date. The third area on which he commented was the need to introduce some form of import controls and restrictions on the high level of imports being allowed into this country. In the document entitled "The Serious Situation in the Paper and Board Industry", he outlined the problems that the industry saw and which it was seeking the support of the Government to resolve.
The interesting thing about the debate that takes place on the paper and board industry is that common views exist between the management and the unions. At the same time as the industry was producing its report, the unions were

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producing theirs, entitled "Action Now" that was the report of the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades, in which it drew precisely the same conclusions. Since those reports were published—the first in July, that being but 24 weeks ago—there have been 10 more major mill closures and 4,979 more people have lost their jobs. It can therefore be seen that, from mid-year to date, by failing to intervene to protect it, the Government have led the industry into the situation that it has dispensed with the services of a further 5,000 people.
I should draw the attention of the House to the comments of the Secretary of State for Industry in reply to the submission that was made by the Paper and Board Industry Federation. He said to John Adams:
"For the present, high interest rates must continue to play a crucial role in the Government's strategy for conquering inflation."
Thus, in the crurcial area in which the industry was demanding action the right hon. Gentleman was saying "No". That is the kind of response that my hon. Friends and hon. Gentlemen on the Conservative Benches have increasingly come to expect from the Government during these particularly difficult periods.
In that letter, the right hon. Gentleman dealt also with the reduction of energy prices. He said:
"It was agreed that the factual position about energy costs here and on the Continent needs to be more fully established and duly disseminated. The CBI undertook to examine the available evidence and report back to the Council. The Department of Industry will be closely involved in this exercise."
I should like the Minister to tell us the extent to which the Department was involved in that exercise. Some of us are beginning to sense that the various Government Departments—certainly the Department of Energy—having listened to the questions that were to put to the Secretary of State for Energy during Question Time last week, are beginning to dissociate themselves from much of the evidence that is being put forward by the industry.
Perhaps I should outline the areas in which the CBI thought that changes should be made and the response that it was seeking from the Government. The CBI thought that excise duty on fuel oil should be abolished immediately; that the Government needed to recognise the impact on prices of onerous financial targets for the nationalised fuel and power industries; and that the Government should ease the rate of price increases to industrial gas consumers. The CBI also thought that discussions should be held between the electricity supply industry and large industrial electricity users to ensure that the local characteristics of those industries were fully reflected in the price. The CBI was demanding action from the Government on energy prices.
I know that the Minister is assiduous in carrying out his duties. He and his hon. Friends should have attended energy Question Time last week. Had they done so, they would have heard hon. Members asking questions during what I regarded as the most important Question Time since the House reassembled in mid-November. Time and again during energy questions, hon. Members on both sides of the House have pressed the Government on this vital area. They do it knowing that they carry the support of all the political parties in this country, the TUC and the trade unions, the CBI and most of the manufacturing federations that exist as representative bodies of the great majority of sectors of British industry. In other words, in the country
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there is general acceptance of the need for the Government to intervene in the area of energy prices. For many of us, it is quite incomprehensible why the Government are refusing to respond in the way necessary to help to resolve the problems.
During questions to the Secretary of State for Energy on 8 December, my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, North-East (Mr. Park) was indicating to the House that in Italy and Spain 18½p and 20p per therm respectively are paid for gas. I do not wish to misquote the Secretary of State; I am taking the latter part of his answer so as to avoid delaying the House.
Mr. J. F. Pawsey: Hear, hear.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: If the hon. Gentleman does not like it, he can always leave the Chamber.
The Secretary of State said:
"I do not dispute that unfavourable disadvantages for Britain exist in some cases, but, in general, the pattern is less unfavourable—and, indeed, moderately favourable—for British industry. That is what we wish."—[Official Report, 8 December 1980; Vol. 995, c. 598.]
What is implied in that answer is a feeling in the Government that perhaps British manufacturing industry is over-reacting to the problem of energy and energy prices. Hon. Members on both sides of the House will reject that because they know that it is wrong. They know that manufacturing industry is demanding action in this sector. The Government say that the pattern is favourable. Industry says that it is unfavourable. If we are to resolve this problem, it may be that a national energy forum—if that be the term—should be set up, involving members of the TUC, the CBI, consumers and all sorts of interests, with the Government, to analyse what is happening across the board internationally in terms of energy prices, so that no longer can the Government dispute the figures being put up by hon. Members. There are clearly people in the Government who feel that by disputing the figures that are put to them on the Floor of the House they effectively divide and rule the debate that exists on the whole question of reform of energy prices.
I hope that the Minister takes that point on board, because if such a forum is set up it can come forward with recommendations. It may well be that it has to come forward with recommendations that have a public expenditure commitment, but then it would be for the House to make recommendations, I hope, to the Government on whether those levels of public expenditure commitment were acceptable to the people, because they are now of vital importance.
I turn to the last question that was raised by the Paper and Board Industry Federation and the union involved—SOGAT—in their submissions: the imposition of controls and restrictions on imports and general protection for home producers. I again quote the letter from the Secretary of State for Industry to John Adams, director-general of the British Paper and Board Industry Federation. On that point he said:
"Import controls would treat the symptom and not the disease and they would do so in a way that is likely to make the real problems worse."
He went on:
"For the paper industry you have suggested import controls against countries such as the EFTA nations, North America and perhaps even our European Community partners also with whom we do over 75 per cent. of our trade. The implications for commercial policy would thus be considerable."

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We all accept that there are implications for international trade, but we do not accept that a blanket argument of that nature can be used to rule out any suggestion of protection when a great industry, which is important to the economy, is being placed at risk.
When the Government make such assumptions, we have to consider what happens in other countries that have had the guts to introduce forms of restraint, direct protection and public purchasing arrangements to assist their industries. Let me list just a few. In France all newsprint is purchased by a co-operative and resold to the press at a uniform price. The price paid to domestic suppliers is decided by a committee consisting of representatives of newsprint producers, publishers and the Government and is based on an addition to that paid by Scandinavian suppliers. In addition, there is a direct Government subsidy, based on the level of investment by the mills. That subsidy is currently 4·5 per cent. That is a direct aid to the industry.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. White) referred very effectively to Belgium and produced examples. I propose to approach my hon. Friend after the debate to discover his source of information. It is obviously better than mine. I am sure that we can gain from that source much material that we can use in subsequent debates on the industry.
In Belgium there is a complex agreement by which the press is understood to pay approximately 3½ per cent. more for domestic newsprint compared to the imported variety. I cannot believe that the press in those countries openly volunteers to pay 3½ per cent. more. We must assume that the Belgian Government came to an agreement with the newsprint purchasers by which they would be willing to pay that extra amount. We all know that in the world of hard commercial reality people do not volunteer to pay more. There must have been a catalyst, and we can only assume that the Government played that part in those negotiations.
In Holland there is no direct subsidy on newsprint production, but the Government hold a 20 per cent. stake in a newsprint plant run by a subsidiary of the Van Gelder company, which itself is kept alive only by Government-sponsored loans. In Germany there is no subsidy, but there is an unofficial agreement that the domestic mills should receive a higher price from the press than is paid to importers.
Can the Under-Secretary understand what we are trying to say? Those Governments, in ways that perhaps we do not understand, are somehow involved in negotiations that result in protection and retention of their industries. Our Government, however, are refusing to intervene in these precious areas, and they are responsible in many ways for the dilemma that currently faces the industry.
In Sweden, we are informed, timber is being subsidised in one form or another. In this country the reverse is about to happen. The timber industry is about to be sold off. We can assume, since the sale is opposed by the British Paper and Board Industry Federation, that when private enterprise gets its hands on the Forestry Commission's extensive afforestation it will raise the price of the timber it sells. We were also informed informally at the dinner organised by the federation—it was a very enjoyable dinner—that the Italians and the French have now introduced a parafiscal tax on paper of 1 per cent. We must assume that that is only the beginning.
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Agriculture within the European Community exists under the umbrella of what is called a common agricultural policy. Without risk of appearing amusing, I may say that it may be that in many other sectors of industry we should increasingly be looking towards the principles of common industrial policies. Perhaps one day we shall have to buy and sell paper and board and newsprint into intervention, but if that is what we have to do to protect the industry at some stage in the future and protect jobs at home in a period of recession, let it be. But it is incumbent on the Government to take action to protect the industry.
I turn to the question of capacity internationally. The fourth annual survey of the paper and pulp industry capital expansion notes that 450 current projects will raise the international capacity of the paper and board and newsprint industry by 15 per cent. It reveals a rapid growth in production in the United States and Latin America and assumes that over the next four years there will be a 20 million tonne increase in the international capacity of paper and board and a 13 million tonne increase in the international capacity of pulp, making a total of a 33 million tonne increase in international capacity in this sector.
I do not wish to detain the House by listing all the individual countries that have caused that increase, but if there is to be over-capacity in the industry internationally, if we are in a recession and if extensive pressure is imposed by overseas producers on international markets, so much so that British consumers will be pressed to take paper imports from our international competitors at low prices, it is incumbent upon the Government to take action in the form of quotas and import restrictions in order to protect the domestic producers.
11.58 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Industry (Mr. David Mitchell): I congratulate the hon. Members for Bury and Radcliffe (Mr. White), for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) and for Manchester, Central (Mr. Litherland) and my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Mr. Wells) on their constancy on behalf of the paper and board industry in securing yet a further opportunity for debating it and its problems.
I had the pleasure of replying to the Adjournment debate about the industry that was introduced by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, East (Mr. Strang) at the end of October, and only last night the House was discussing newsprint.
I said in October that the Government were continuing to keep in close touch with the paper and board industry. Since then senior representatives of the industry have met my noble Friend the Minister of State, and most recently my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland explained how companies in Scotland are managing. The Government have been very ready to meet the industry and to discuss its problems. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House who are concerned with the industry, as the Government are, will acknowledge the tireless work of the British Paper and Board Industry Federation in keeping the problems and the position of the industry before us.
The hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe, wearing his all-party paper group hat, made a series of comments—with only the dissident voice of my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstome—about the position in the industry. As the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr.

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Hamilton) said, the paper and board lobby is second only to that of the National Farmers Union, and he suggested that his hon. Friend was doing a very good public relations job. Public relations has many aspects. What can be said is that whether or not the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe is doing a good PR job, this industry has serious problems and it is right that the House should give serious consideration to them.
The hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe rejected blanket attributions of blame for the present position. I have to agree with him that there is something else that one should also reject, and that is a blanket assumption that the whole of the industry is in exactly the same state. There has been a deterioration—I shall come to that in a moment—but there are areas in which the position is brighter than in other parts of the industry.
Mr. Dennis Canavan: Where?
Mr. Mitchell: For instance, in the tissues side of the business. When I spoke on the subject on the last occasion, I praised the industry, and the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe noted that. I do not disagree with the analysis that has been made by many hon. Members—Members who have sat through the whole of the debate—concerning the seriousness of the position facing the industry, but I query the practical terms of what can be done. It is not sufficient merely to have one's heart in the right place; it is also necessary to look in practical ways at what is within our ability to achieve.
Several hon. Members mentioned energy prices. This is an industry that is very much concerned with the high proportion of its costs related to energy. It is energy-intensive, and in this industry worries over rising energy costs are compounded by the fact that the industry's main competitors are in North America and Scandinavia, where energy prices are cheaper. Some of this is due to natural advantage in coal and hydro-electricity which we cannot expect to match. [Interruption.] The National Coal Board, faced with losing a large customer at Ellesmere Port, was willing to offer Bowater better terms on a commercial basis.
With regard to the price controls currently in operation in the United States and Canada, we shall continue to do all we can to press those countries to raise their prices to world levels as soon as possible. It is they, after all, who will suffer in the end from a policy of over-rapid depletion of their resources. We, in the longer run, will benefit from the policies that we have pursued.
Mr. Canavan rose—
Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman has not been here throughout the debate. His hon. Friends have been here and have raised many serious points. There are other hon. Members who want to participate in the next debate. [Interruption.]In fairness to them, the hon. Gentleman, who has only just come into the Chamber, should not preempt the discussion to which hon. Members have asked me to reply.
The Government's policy is based on the economic pricing of energy, a principle that has been accepted by the summit nations—[Interruption] —and by the European Community member States. [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): Order.
Mr. Mitchell: That means relating energy prices to the longer-term costs of production and the market conditions prevailing in the country concerned. I know that British industry—not just the paper and board industry—is concerned about the difference in energy prices from country to country. [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
Mr. Mitchell: The Government are anxious to establish the true competitive—[Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order.
Mr. Mitchell: The Government are anxious to establish the true competitive position of our energy-intensive industries and welcome the CBI's study and other comparative asessments, which are being examined carefully. [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is the fourth time that the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) has defied the Chair. I warn him that he must obey the rules of the House.
Mr. Canavan: Am I right, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to say that it is against Standing Orders for any hon. Member, including a Minister, to read—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has been here long enough to know that Ministers always read from their briefs.
Mr. Mitchell: As hon. Members know, it is not permitted to read during Question Time, but Ministers often read when replying to debates. I happen to have thrown away the speech that the Department prepared for me. On certain subjects, I wish to ensure that I use the appropriate words. There is a wider audience than this Chamber. Industry wants to know where the Government stand. It is right, therefore, that I should be careful in the words that I use. That is why I used those words when I spoke on energy.
The CBI was invited to produce a report and to give evidence to the Government. That evidence is in the hands of the Government. It took a long time to come. It is being assessed. The matter will come up at the meeting of the National Economic Development Council on 7 January. We shall have the opportunity to examine fully the evidence submitted.
Hon. Members have consistently asked for import controls. The Government do not consider that such controls offer a solution to our wider economic problems. It should not be overlooked that the imposition of import controls would be a matter for decision by the EEC and not by the United Kingdom in isolation. Those hon, Members who want Britain to leave the EEC may say that that is a price that they are prepared to pay.
The reality is that this country is overwhelmingly dependent on access to markets in Europe. Access must work both ways. We cannot isolate ourselves and impose import controls on goods from Europe when we want access to its markets for a multitude of our products. Interest rates have come down by 2 per cent. since our last debate. However, on its own, that is not an adequate answer, and I shall elaborate later.
Several hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Workington, mentioned the Van Gelder company. It was brought to our attention a few days ago. I have recently received the details of the case from the British Paper and

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Board Industry Federation. It is being looked at by the Departments of Trade and Industry, in co-operation with the industry, in order to see how best this might be raised with the EEC Commission.
I understand that the case of Intermills was also raised in this connection. The United Kingdom has recently formally asked the EEC Commission to consider that case.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: From what position will it look into the case? According to EEC law, everything is perfectly acceptable. It is allocating loans to the company. The Government have a stake in the company. What is being looked at?
Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He cannot complain that this is a form of unfair competition and then argue that it is not right for us to raise the threat of unfair competition with the Commission.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I did not say that it was unfair.
Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman may not have said that it was unfair, but one of his hon. Friends said that it was unfair. If that cheaper selling is because of an unfair advantage, there may be a prima facie case of there being a contravention of the rules of the Common Market.
The hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe sought intervention by the Government, particularly with investment assistance. The hon. Gentleman must appreciate that substantial investment finance is available from the Government in the form of regional development grants and assistance under sections 7 and 8 of the Industry Act 1972, but it is related to investment in more modern equipment, job preserving or creating, re-equipment or buildings. What he is seeking is somewhat different. The tenor of his argument was for assistance with the industry's running costs. That is an entirely different matter. The Government would not wish to hold out any hope of such assistance being a sensible use of taxpayers' money. A sensible use of taxpayers' money is to look for ways to encourage the industry to invest in its own viable and profitable future.
Mr. William Hamilton: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that one of the principal complaints made to me by Tullis Russell and others was the delay in the payment of regional grants? I understand that that is deliberate Government policy. Will the hon. Gentleman make representations to the Treasury or other appropriate Departments to shorten the delay in the payment of such grants?
Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to the delay. It is in two parts. One part is administrative. The other part is the four-month period of delayed payment, which is part of the economy measures taken by the Department of Industry in its savings last year.
On the administrative delay, I should point out that there was a bunching of claims as people sought to get their claims in under the previous terms before the summer. As a result, there was substantial overloading of the offices that had to deal with them.
In addition, we have had an inquiry by Sir Derek Rayner. That resulted in recommendations which I think will lead to a considerable speeding up in the processing of claims for regional development grants. I hope that that will in some way reassure the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Frank R. White: Mills in my constituency have taken advantage of these grants. Multi-million pound developments are going on. There has been investment in the industry. But the industry has been undermined on operating costs because foreign Governments have been giving their industries an operating cost advantage. I accept the Minister's point about the use of the taxpayer's money. I suggest that it would be a good use of the taxpayer's money to give assistance in that way. However, it would be wrong to allow mills to go to the wall and to make people redundant and join the unemployment queue and add to the numbers drawing DHSS benefits, with the resulting on-cost to the Exchequer.
Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman is opening a somewhat wider subject.
Mr. Canavan: It is a good point.
Mr. Mitchell: I should be happy to debate that matter with the hon. Gentleman at length on some other occasion.
Mr. Canavan: Why not now?
Mr. Mitchell: The essence of what the hon. Gentleman said could easily lead to a massive amount of expenditure. I assure him that I am keenly aware that industries other than the paper and board industry are under pressure. The number of cases in which one could put forward the hon. Gentleman's argument for assistance with running expenses would, if accepted, involve massive expenditure.
Every time we gave that assistance, we should be taking money from another part of the business system and so losing jobs somewhere else, until we ended up with everybody being bailed out by everybody. It is not in the realms of reality to work in that way.
The hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe went on to raise certain specific points. He asked about HMSO and the Department of Industry buying British. Normal business practice is to seek a printing quotation and leave the decision about British printing machinery or British-made paper to the contractor. However, we are reviewing the purchasing policy of HMSO and the Department of Industry in relation to paper. I readily give that assurance to the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Gentleman then raised a much more technical point. He sought an explanation of what he said had been a 10 per cent. cut in prices by HMSO. I do not have the full story, but in the short time available I can give him the broad picture. HMSO found that there was a widening disparity between prices under its running contract arrangements with United Kingdom mills for general purpose printing and printings of multi-purpose bonds and the prices quoted by United Kingdom mills for ad hoc contracts. That indicated to HMSO a lowering of market prices. It therefore approached its United Kingdom suppliers and offered them the choice of an agreed reduction of about 10 per cent. on prices on running contracts, with the alternative of a reduction of 30 per cent. in the nominal tonnage bought by HMSO under the running contracts, that portion to be bought under ad hoc contracts, for which United Kingdom mills would tender.
Nearly all the United Kingdom mills have opted for an agreed price reduction on their running contracts. HMSO recognises that price reductions have been unwelcome to United Kingdom mills, but HMSO and Government Departments are having to be increasingly cost-conscious in order to minimise public expenditure.

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The hon. Gentleman invited me to visit his constituency. I am grateful to him for his kindness, but my noble Friend the Minister of State has already accepted an invitation from the mayor of Bury to visit and meet representatives of the paper and board industry. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be present. A date for the visit is in the course of being arranged. The hon. Member asked for a junior Minister, and he will have the Minister of State. I hope that he will be pleased to accept that as a little Christmas present on the eve of the House rising.
My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone is much respected for his independence of view and the forthright way in which he expresses it. He brought home to us in a homely way the extent to which the paper and board industry is geared and related to the general level of economic activity. He talked of the packing of apples in cardboard cartons and wines and spirits being delivered at this season of the year in cardboard cartons and the direct relationship between the demand for products and the resulting demand for paper and board. Indeed, when I was in Opposition and anxious to know the likely trend of trade in the months ahead, because I did not have an immense respect for the Treasury computer I asked my friends in the paper and board trade what demand was like. From the orders that they had coming through, they were most likely to know what the expectations of industry generally were in the months ahead.
It is not for me, in my present position, to speculate on whether that is a better guide than the Treasury computer. My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone is right in saying that in a time of recession, when there is less demand and less production, one will inevitably see a consequence for both the United Kingdom industry and world industry. My hon. Friend accepted the validity of the Government's need for a purchasing policy. He alleged that the Customs and Excise Department prints abroad on foreign paper. I shall look into that matter.
My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Bury and Radcliffe asked for an explanation of the duty-free quotas from EFTA. The duty-free quotas for paper and board from EFTA sources arose from the proposals for the 1981 duty-free quota levels. The Government took the current state of the United Kingdom industry fully into account. Careful consideration was given to the views of the British Paper and Board Industry Federation, which made representations to officials and Ministers in the Departments of Industry and Trade. The conclusions reached by the Government reflected the problems currently being experienced in the industry while also taking account of the interest of United Kingdom user industries and our wider bilateral obligations to the EFTA countries.
An order proposing the 1981 levels was laid before the House on 9 December. The total overall increase proposed is 15,000 tonnes, an average increase of 1·06 per cent. of the total. Three-quarters has been granted in grades that are non-sensitive to the United Kingdom paper and board industry. The matter was thoroughly discussed with the industry. We have taken its advice fully into account.
My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone talked about the lower cost of gas in Holland. He pointed out that gas supplies are nearer inshore than those of the United Kingdom and that this gives a natural cost advantage.
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The hon. Member for Manchester, Central was worried about imports, to which I have already referred. The hon. Gentleman asked how this country could compete with the United States, which has cheaper wood, cheaper power and large integrated plants. I do not deny that the United States has those advantages. There are natural advantages for a country such as the United States with the vast integrated plants that can operate there. There is no power in the Government's hands to take away those natural advantages. We cannot take away the hydro-electric power of Scandinavian countries.
Almost all speakers in the debate have referred to the need of the industry to see changes in the areas of inflation, high interest rates and the strong pound. The hon. Member for Thurrock (Dr. McDonald) argued that the Government were maintaining too high a level of the pound. I remind the House that inflation was not invented by this Government. More than anything else, it was inherited from the previous Government.
Mr. Canavan: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Mitchell: We all know—
Mr. Canavan: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows full well that if the Minister does not give way he must resume his seat.
Mr. Canavan: Will the Minister say what was the rate of inflation when the Conservatives came to power?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must warn the hon. Gentleman once again that he is defying the Chair. Mr. Mitchell.
Mr. Mitchell: The level of inflation at the time the Government took office is irrelevant. There is an 18 to 24-month time lag between a change in monetary management and increased prices in the shops, and what matters is what was in the pipeline when the Government came to power. In the pipeline was a massive increase in the money supply, due to the pre-election mini-boom stoked up by the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer. That came through in its full flood tide in May this year, when inflation reached 21·9 per cent. Since then the effects of the present Government's policies have come through and the inflation rate has fallen steadily and has been in single figures for the past three months.
A reduction of inflation can be achieved only by a policy of restricting the money supply. It has worked, but when the supply of anything is restricted its price is inevitably increased. The price of money is interest rates, and we inevitably have to go through a period of high interest rates if we are to bring inflation under control. The policy is working. Everyone can see that inflation has come down substantially. It did not go up to 26 per cent., as it did under the previous Government, and we have already seen interest rates beginning to fall. There was a 2 per cent. reduction only a few weeks ago.
The hon. Member for Thurrock said that the Government were maintaining too high a level of the pound. It is not the Government who settle the level of the pound; it is an internationally traded currency. The Chancellor of the Exchequer of a small, far-off country or the treasurer of an international company who wants to put money somewhere will choose this country because we have a stable society and an oil well in our back garden.

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There are high interest rates, but the combination of oil and a stable society has given the pound its great strength of recent months.
Of course, high interest rates are an inevitable price of squeezing out the inflation that we inherited. They mean that we have had an enhancement of the value of the pound, but we are beginning to see interest rates falling in this country and rising even higher in the United States. We may hope to see the international pressures that drove the pound so high beginning to ease. I do not prophesy that they will, but the hon. Member for Thurrock assumes that it is in the gift of the Government to determine the value of the pound. I only wish that it were as easy as she suggests.
The hon. Member for Fife, Central spoke of the mutual respect between himself and the management of the industry. He has passed on views on energy prices to the Department. These matters are still under review. The hon. Gentleman asked me to speculate on speculative reports on interdepartmental representations of the Secretary of State and the Department. I know that the hon. Gentleman will not expect me to join in the speculations.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned gas prices. He must be keenly aware that we have had low-cost gas from nearby gas fields, but we shall come on to high-cost gas from fields far into the North Sea. If we continued to keep gas prices artificially below the level for alternative fuels, we should have a rapid depletion of the near-in gas supplies and dramatic price increases to industry that would be far more destructive than gradual increases up to prices that we shall have to bear anyway when we get on to the distant gas fields.
Mr. William Hamilton: Will the Minister place on record whether he approves of the idea to transfer the cost to domestic consumers so that industrial consumers might benefit?
Mr. Mitchell: I have already said that I shall not speculate on speculative reports. I am afraid that I stand on that. The hon. Member for Fife, Central asked me to defend the fact that the whole philosophy of the Government was interventionist. I am greatly tempted to do so, but I do not feel that the House would wish me to embark upon that at this hour of the night.
The hon. Member for Thurrock regretted that her area was not eligible for assisted area status. I beg her to accept that assisted area status is not a virility symbol that should be sought after for its own end.
The hon. Member for Workington spoke of sweeping up at the end of the debate. That implies rubbish. It has not been a case of rubbish in the debate tonight. It has been a serious debate about a serious matter, with a shrewd and correct judgment about the problems that face the industry. The difficulty is that in the real world no solutions are on offer that are as easily available as it is easy to analyse the problems. The hon. Member specifically raised the question of interest rates. Progress has been made. There has been a 2 per cent. reduction between the earlier debate and this debate. I trust that there will be further reductions before we debate the issue again.
The question of energy prices is on the agenda for the National Economic Development Council meeting on 7 January. That is precisely what the hon. Gentleman asked for. He asked for a multi-based forum in which it could
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be discussed. That is a multi-based forum, and the issue will be discussed as soon as 7 January. He asked for protection. Protection from whom? Is it protection from Europe, from the very places to which we need access for our manufactures to sell? Protection cannot be one-way. It would be a sad day for Britain if we were to erect barriers between us and markets to which we need access in Europe. The hon. Gentleman raised a number of specific points about subsidies in Europe. If he wishes to bring those cases to my attention, I shall examine them individually to determine whether they can be raised with the Commission.
We have had a lengthy debate on—
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I asked the Minister to say to what extent the Department of Industry was involved in the exercise of establishing the real costs of energy to manufacturing industry on the Continent and the dissemination of that information. Perhaps he will answer my question directly. To what extent was the Department of Industry involved in the reports that have been produced?
Mr. Mitchell: The Department of Industry has played its part in assembling information that has come to it. We have a sponsoring role throughout much of industry. We keep closely in touch with trade associations and many firms in industry. We have assembled some information that has been fed in. The task performed by the CBI has also been fed in. The Department of Energy has carried out its own inquiries and reviews. That forms a basis for the discussion at the NEDC meeting on 7 January.
We have had a lengthy debate about the problems of a troubled industry. I have endeavoured to reply to each hon. Member, apart from the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan), who has been promoted to the Opposition Front Bench. I hope that by the time that we debate the problems of the industry on future occasions we shall see some improvement in the major problems that face our economy, and with it this industry.

Greater London (Government Assistance)
12.35 am
Mr. Clive Soley: In the interests of humanity, taking into account the speech of the Under-Secretary of State for Industry and the lateness of the hour, I shall not keep the House too long on the issues that I want to raise. However, I raise two important issues that affect London in a major way. The first issue on which I wish to comment is race relations in London and the second is housing associations.
Race relations is one of the problems that tick away under the surface but which we rarely discuss until it impinges upon our consciences as a result of some explosion in society. Part of the art of politics is to be able to spot a problem in advance, to discuss it, find a solution to it and to head off the worst of the clashes that can otherwise develop. It is clear that we have a race problem in London as well as in the country generally.
Language can be a trap. Serious errors can be made that are offensive to ethnic minorities unless statements are thought through. For example, it is said that there is a problem of young unemployed blacks. That is the wrong

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way of stating the problem. There is not a problem of unemployed blacks; there is a problem of racialism and unemployment. Those who do not hold that view find themselves trapped and having to agree that the Germans pre-war in the early Nazi period had a Jewish problem when they did not. They had a problem of racialism. That is the problem that we have in London and elsewhere.
Race relations tend to deteriorate as economic conditions worsen. The two conditions that are most important are unemployment and inflation, with which housing is closely linked. One could talk for a long time on housing and employment alone, but I do not intend to do so. I shall comment on the general strategy and the general problems and perhaps expand on them at some other time.
I turn to the problem of the police in a multi-racial society. The police are aware of the problem, but we must accept that it has not been tackled effectively. We are told in the Official Report of 2 April that the annual intake of recruits to the Metropolitan Police from various ethnic groups is varied. In 1971 it suddenly shot up from one a year to 22. In 1972 it was four. In 1977 it was 16 compared with a total of other recruits of 1,782. In 1978 it fell to nine, out of a total of 1,456 other recruits. In 1979 it was 14, with a total of 2,065 recruits. It is variable and, of course, extremely small.
In the Official Report of 31 January, the Metropolitan Police force was shown to have 32 officers who had their origins in the West Indies, 21 who were born in the United Kingdom from ethnic minorities, nine from India, seven from Kenya and a smaller number from a variety of countries ranging from Uganda through to Malaysia, Mauritius and even Germany. We are nowhere near as successful as we should be in recruiting into the police. This is one of the most important areas on which to concentrate, because if we are to talk about law and order meaningfully to the ethnic minority groups we must have them represented not only in the ranks of the police force but in the officer ranks. Of the figures that I have given, I think that I am right in saying that until about a year ago there was only one at sergeant level. There were to my knowledge no officers, although I have not been able to check that out so as to be sure that that is correct. I should like to think that there are senior officers from the ethnic minorities, but I doubt it.
If we are to discuss the strategy, we need first to accept certain basic facts and get the public to accept them. Government, central and local, and large organisations, public and private, have a responsibility to get across these facts. The first is that we live in a multi-racial society and that there is no way of changing that. I welcome it. I find it a much more interesting, much more varied society. I often envy some of the children at our schools, despite the many problems, when I see the variety of cultural experience that they get, which was denied to me and others of my generation and to those of earlier generations. We had only one or two people from the colonies, as they were then. In my area, which is multi-racial, I am impressed by the way in which the variety of ethnic groups contributes to the standard of culture.
We also need to distinguish between prejudice and discrimination. Prejudice is basically a psychological problem—a feeling that someone from another ethnic
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group is in some way inherently inferior. It is a largely irrational feeling—one that is difficult but not impossible to change.
Discrimination is a much more difficult and profound problem. It is social and economic, and we can all engage in it without being aware of it. In many respects, people from ethnic minority groups can accept and deal with prejudice, because they can recognise that some people are of such an emotive type that they will have these irrational feelings. What is much more difficult to deal with is discrimination, when a person knows that—in housing, employment or whatever—he is, for whatever reason, getting less than a fair deal, for no clear reason.
Both those important concepts represent a poverty of morality, culture and civilisation. Above all, in Britain it is a poverty of historical knowledge. We all owe a great debt to the many ethnic minority groups and the countries from which they come. It is a great tragedy that the contribution of the slave trade to the early stage of our development is not better known in the country at large. If it were, we should have a better understanding not only of West Indian culture but of the West Indians' needs.
It is not going too far to say that the Industrial Revolution might never have happened, or not to the extent that it did, without the slave trade financing it. As a deliberate act of policy at that time, we broke up the families of the Africans that we transported to the West Indies. We see some of the hang-over of the problems. We often talk of young blacks who do not have close family ties. That is partly because many years ago we deliberately changed the family structure of the people that we took from Africa to the West Indies and North America. A greater awareness of that might lead people to a better understanding of the problem.
The Minister's Department and the other Departments involved need to lead concerted action before the problem becomes more severe and before we are forced into action by other troubles. One of the obvious places to start is the schools. We must recognise that schools in certain areas—not always areas of large ethnic minority groups, but sometimes on the fringe—produce feelings of prejudice in some of the children. Those feelings are not engendered by the teachers, but people on the fringe of an ethnic minority area can feel threatened in jobs and housing, and if there is not an attempt to counteract that feeling at school and at other levels we shall reap the whirlwind.
I should also like the Minister to consider what we could do through some of the large organisations, both public and private. For example, local authorities, other large concerns such as private companies and certainly the nationalised industries ought to have some way of looking at racial equality problems in their organisations. One trade union that I know has recommended, and I believe is setting up, an advisory committee on racial equality. Monitoring has, indeed, already been done successfully by such organisations as the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations. It has monitored a number of organisations on the effectiveness of their racial policies. That sort of thing should be much more widely done and encouraged. The Government could take a lead and could encourage local authorities and the nationalised industries to do so as well. Some private organisations do quite well.
Mr. Martin Stevens: I am sympathetic to the hon. Gentleman's point of view. I think that he would

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accept that if monitoring of any kind is to take place, whether by the Tavistock Institute or anybody else, it will be necessary for public records—in housing, education, the census or whatever—to provide information about the ethnic origin of the individuals to whom they refer. But when a growing majority—as it is now—of people of different ethnic bakgrounds from those of hon. Members have actually been born in this country, that is much harder to do than it sounds.
Mr. Soley: I commented on that aspect when we discussed the subject about 12 months ago. It has been my view for some years—I was converted to it by a number of the ethnic minority groups—that it would have been a good idea to put an ethnic origin question in the census. But that, as we know, is too late now, and therefore we have to rely on monitoring of some type. Although I would prefer it to he done on the basis of the census, I think that there are some organisations that could do it quite acceptably to the ethnic minority groups, which are willing to co-operate in most areas.
I turn now to an aspect that should be of particular importance to all hon. Members—the involvement of the ethnic minorities in the political process. To those interested, I recommend the votes and policies booklet issued by the Commission for Racial Equality, which is basically an analysis of the ethnic minorities in the 1979 general election. It is full of facts and very useful.
One finds that about 7 per cent. of whites are not registered to vote; the proportion among non-whites is 22 per cent. Within the figures there are curious factors. For example, the Asians registered are not only much more likely to vote than are other coloureds; they are much more likely to vote than are whites. So there is a willingness to be involved, and I suspect that again we could do much more work on the language problem and on advertising to the ethnic minority groups the importance of registering in order to get them to participate in that way.
The booklet suggests that ethnic minority groups are less likely to attend political meetings but are looking for ways of participating. I am a member of the Greater London regional council of the Labour Party and we have an anti-racist sub-committee, of which I am also a member. We are there trying actively to work out ways of getting the ethnic minority groups to participate.
Every hon. Member should be aware of the importance of this aspect, and perhaps we should emphasise to the ethnic minority groups themselves the fact that there are about 41 constituencies in the United Kingdom, slightly over half of which are in London, where the voters from the New Commonwealth have sufficient votes to decide the outcome of an election. That has been true of the last three general elections. It is a significant number, and it may well have increased.
It is interesting to consider the attitude of whites towards encouraging the ethnic minority groups to participate. We can never he satisfied by this, but 83 per cent. of Tory voters 98 per cent. of Labour voters and 92 per cent. of Liberal voters thought that ethnic minority groups should be encouraged to participate. On the other side, of those who said that they should not be encouraged, 6 per cent. were Conservative voters, there were no Labour voters and 2 per cent. were Liberals. Although those latter percentages are small in all three parties, we
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should not be fully satisfied, because to say that ethnic minority groups should not participate is an act of discrimination of a real and forceful type.
It was encouraging to find that 77 per cent. of candidates in elections were in favour of more involvement. However, there were only two ethnic minority candidates in London for the last general election and only five in the whole of the United Kingdom. Again, we cannot be satisfied about those figures.
I move on to a particularly disturbing issue, in view of what I have said about the deteriorating economic conditions, unemployment and inflation. I refer to the support that exists for Fascist-type organisations—the National Front, the British Movement and so on. The highest support for the National Front in the general election was in London. Five constituencies had candidates who polled 5 per cent. or more, and all of them were in East London. That is a sobering thought and one that should cause us all to be extremely disturbed. To my mind, it emphasises the importance of education.
We see a belt running from the Southwark area through to Hackney with a disturbingly high level of attachment to Fascist ideals. Thinking back to the 1930s, we remember some of the origins of Fascism amd many hon. Members will remember them. I am concerned that at times we dismiss this state of affairs too lightly, by talking of "mindless young thugs". We see 16, 17 and 18-year-olds giving Fascist salutes and wearing swastikas, with no idea of the origin of the symbol.
It is too easy to dismiss such people as mindless young thugs. There is a job to be done. In a way, they represent our failing, and it is important that an extra effort should be made, especially in East and South-East London, to head this off. I appeal to the Minister to use his good offices in this connection. I am not sure what his view is on toughening up the Race Relations Act, but that is really what is needed.
If we are to deal effectively with marches through ethnic areas, the way to do it is to toughen up on incitement to racial hatred. It is no good saying that we must allow marches to go through areas where there are large ethnic minority groups. That is not only offensive; it is, above all, threatening. It is a good idea to look at such a march as a form of threatening behaviour. If we took tougher action, we should not have to worry so much about the need to ban marches. In other words, the power to arrest is important, and the courts must be empowered to impose effective sentences.
Mr. Clinton Davis: Does not my hon. Friend feel that there have been too many incidents in which breaches of the present law have been committed by people of this character and in which, seemingly, the police authorities have been very reticent about taking action?
Mr. Soley: I agree, and it is important to point out that we put the police in an impossible position unless we spell out clearly that we want tougher action. We end up with the police marching side by side with groups giving Fascist salutes and wearing swastikas. What does that do for the police image in the eyes of anyone who fought in the last war, let alone a member of an ethnic minority group? We cannot allow that to go on. But the answer is not just to ban all marches of any kind. We have to recognise that when such people march through an area where there is an

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ethnic minority group of some significance, that in itself is a form of threatening behaviour and the only way to deal with it is by means of a toughened-up Race Relations Act.
Racism is perhaps the most insidious and destructive of political forces. Although groups on the Right or on the Left are often criticised for being anti-democratic, we have to recognise that conventional political discussions allow people to change their views.
A person cannot change his racial identity. Once he is identified, that is how he is identified and there is no getting out of it. He cannot change the colour of his skin or the shape of his nose—or not easily, anyway—and so on. That is what identifies people, and that is what can so easily and readily turn them into scapegoats for groups that have problems of their own. That is an important issue. It is one that we should debate more often. Perhaps we can find time to debate it in more detail on another occasion.
I deal next with housing associations. I do this because they are getting into a difficult situation, and I want to put a number of questions to the Minister. Although housing associations take up a relatively small part of the total housing market, they are crucial, particularly in inner city areas. They meet an unmet need, and they do so with a degree of flexibility and response to vulnerable groups that local authorities and the private market cannot meet.
Let me perhaps kill one thing stone dead. There is no way in which the private rented sector can provide for this group. Apart from anything else, many of the people for whom the housing associations cater are not up to paying the rents that are expected in the private market. Secondly, the evidence is that since the turn of the century the private rented sector has been declining, and although a little more housing might be brought in by changes to council regulations, and so on, basically it will not be a significant amount. Above all, in inner city areas where it does bring it in, it will be at rents higher than many people can afford. Certainly many people in my area cannot get bed-sitters for much less than £15, and often it is very much more than that. I cannot see the private sector catering for this group, and when it does it is often at substandard levels, because since the turn of the century it has not been economic to let rented housing. It has been a declining market for a long time.
The Housing Corporation's capital expenditure limit for 1980–81 was set at £420 million. Then, the Minister said that the high levels of approvals given in previous years meant that the corporation would exceed expenditure and, therefore, the Government had to ask the corporation to reduce the levels of tender and loan approvals. I think that this has become known as the temporary moratorium, or it was then.
Last Monday, the Secretary of State for the Environment said that the Housing Corporation would receive £491 million. The first thing that we have to ask ourselves is what that means in terms of actual housing in inner city areas. I want to quote a few cases, because they put the meat on the bone of my argument. A number of housing associations in my area have written to me, or have come to see me or have asked me to visit them to see these situations. I have seen a number, and they are very disturbing.
One property is riddled with dry rot and the front bay has already collapsed. There is an elderly tenant in the ground-floor flat who currently has to live in the back
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room of the ground-floor flat and the back room of the first-floor flat. The front room is uninhabitable. The cost of capital repairs would be £7,000. The local authority moratorium is preventing this work from being done, and the housing association concerned is losing a rent of £14·38 per week and has the equivalent of one empty flat.
Another property was severely damaged by the heavy frost in the winter of 1978–79. The stucco on the property began to fall off and created a danger to passers-by. Scaffolding has been erected and emergency action taken to hack off the stucco and remove dangerous parts. There is no outside cladding on the brickwork. The estimated cost of replacing the stucco, hiring the scaffolding and dealing with dry rot is about £15,000. There are four tenants who are unable to use part of their flats. Because of the moratorium, there is no money to carry out the necessary repairs. The condition of the property will worsen, the rental income of the association will decrease and the tenants will continue to suffer.
In another property there has been an outbreak of dry rot in the ground floor. This is a property with three flats above. The dry rot must be eradicated immediately to prevent it growing through the building and affecting other flats and possibly neighbouring properties. The moratorium is preventing capital repair work from being carried out. The association has had to pay, out of its maintenance budget, which is already too tight, for the removal of defective timbers and the hacking out of defective plaster. The tenant is moving temporarily but wishes to return to her flat. She does not know how long this will be. Because of the moratorium, the association is unable to replace the floor and renew the plaster and redecorate, but is having to leave the flat empty once the spread of the dry rot has been prevented.
Finally, I quote another example:
"A property with an old lady in where the water is coming through the roof. Because of the moratorium there is no capital repair money to pay for the renewal of the roof. Patching up is just no longer sufficient to prevent the rain coming in. It is far too expensive to keep patching. Consequently buckets and bowls have to be used in heavy rain and the roof timbers will continue to deteriorate, thus causing increased expenditure at the end of the day."
Will extra money be available for capital repairs in the future? That is an important question. I shall return to it shortly.
I quote a much shorter comment from a small housing association—the Women's Pioneer housing association. It very fairly says:
"Since 1974 we have been actively expanding and have increased our number of units from about 480 to 730 in an effort to meet the demand for accommodation … However, the cuts in housing expenditure seem likely to mean that we shall be unable to maintain even the present inadequate levels of production, for example, our application to purchase houses to provide a further 60 units, 43 of which are a sheltered scheme for the elderly, now seems in jeopardy … During the 1970s the Housing Association movement has enjoyed the fullest support from the Government of the day irrespective of its political persuasion. We cannot believe that there is now a change of heart."
The association asks me to do all that I can to help housing associations to continue their vital work. I do not think that the housing associations could put it in fairer political terms than that.
Will extra money be available for capital repairs in the future? If not, all that will happen is that houses will be

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left empty and they will decay. In doing so, they will drag down neighbouring properties as well as leaving people living in appalling conditions.
Another significant factor is that for the first time ever in my experience former self-employed or small builders are telling me that they have gone bankrupt and are having difficulty in getting social security. A number of builders are suffering in this way, and we all know the effect on the building industry generally.
There is a further very insidious danger that in areas such as Hammersmith, where the buildings are old, the buildings will decay unless something is done in the reasonably near future. Often one is talking about the next five years. If we let them get beyond a certain point we shall end up by going back to the old clearances of the 1950s and 1960s, which produced so many of today's housing problems.
I want to comment on the very good effect that the housing associations can have in an area. I have had comments from the police, the council, social workers and others to indicate that in one area of Shepherds Bush not only have they produced less overcrowding by improving the housing; there are less crime and fewer social problems generally.
It is the flexibility of housing associations, their ability to marry different needs, to involve the private sector at times in terms of keeping alive shops that would otherwise be closed down and their ability to bring nurseries into schemes and to help vulnerable groups that is so important.
I ask the Minister specifically to reply on one point. It has been put to me by a number of housing associations that they cannot survive for long with the present financial restrictions. They tell me that they will go bankrupt in the fairly near future unless they get help in terms of revenue deficit grants. Will the Minister help on this matter? There is no way out for these housing associations, unlike private industry, in a sense, which can change and stretch things, and so on. They are suddenly faced with an axe or a line coming down, saying "This is your limit."
Even if housing associations dismiss staff straight away—as some are doing—this cannot make up the difference. They cannot sell the houses. Why not? A new house cannot be sold at a profit, and an old house will have occupants. Under the Housing Act 1980, it would be wrong in principle and in many cases, I suspect, wrong in law to move the tenant out, as has been done in order to renovate the property, and then, instead of moving the person back in, or into an alternative property, to sell the property. The associations rightly would be open to charges of neglecting the needs of the tenant in such cases.
They cannot do it by those methods, therefore. They cannot do it by merging, either. They would be merging similar problems, and although that might work in one or two cases, generally they would go to the wall unless they got help by means of revenue deficit grants.
The overall message from the housing associations to the Government is that they must have some guidance on the Government's strategy. What do they want from the associations? Will they give them some idea of the Government's long-term plans, and are they prepared to indicate that they will guarantee the survival of this crucially important part of the housing market?
1.6 am
Mr. John Wheeler: I am glad to speak after the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley). He introduced a number of important and interesting subjects of concern to all London Members.
The Metropolitan Police is 3,000 under strength. Curiously, the force would willingly recruit suitable persons from any background, including the ethnic minorities, but, sadly, they do not seem to come forward. Perhaps it should be our concern to establish why. I am glad to be able to say that there is now an inspector from the ethnic minority community. I am sure we all welcome that and want to see more such people achieving that rank.
An enormous burden of rates is being placed on London business. An illustration of the problem is provided by my authority, the Westminster city council. In 1980–81, commercial business will contribute more than £180 million to the City of Westminster. That is more than five times the expected domestic contribution of £35 million, even though two-thirds of properties in Westminster are domestic. That rates bill continues to increase each year. Between 1979–80 and 1980–81 the rate for each pound of rateable value will increase from 78·30p to 94·30p, an increase of 20·43 per cent.
The contribution from the Government to the City of Westminster's rates remains relatively small. Even after allowing for police and transport grants paid directly to the Metropolitan Police and the Greater London Council, the level of Government assistance to Westminster is well below half the national average of 61 per cent. A major reason for this is that the Westminster council receives no grant in respect of the resources element of the rate support grant because rateable values are so high in Westminster. Business does not, of course, enjoy the 23·4p in the pound subsidy given to the domestic ratepayer.
These high rates have inevitably become a material factor in management decisions, not only in terms of their effect on cash flow and of the way they bite into profits. Businesses now have to reduce the numbers that they employ in order to pay the rates. Every £5,000 increase in rates charges to London businesses can result in another job lost. The cost cannot be passed on to the customer under current trading conditions. That applies particularly to small firms that are operating in highly competitive markets. More and more busineses are having to move out of central London, and it is not surprising that the Location of Offices Bureau became redundant in 1977. Rates bills were doing its job for it.
Business frustration is further exacerbated by a total lack of control over the way in which the money that is paid in rates is spent by local authorities. This is a classic case of taxation without representation. Those who elect the Westminster city council—the domestic ratepayers—foot only a small fraction of the bills incurred by the council. They are cushioned by such schemes as the rate rebates and domestic relief schemes that were introduced in 1967 and 1968 respectively by the then Labour Government. London commerce has to foot the major part of the rates bill. Therefore, voters are inadequately aware of the financial and economic consequences of supporting spendthrift councils. Perhaps the idea of reintroducing the business vote should not he rejected out of hand. There are precedents for block voting in British politics.

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The GLC elections next May will be crucial from the point of view of London business and long-term employment in our capital. Nevertheless, even if business had a vote in the Westminster city council elections, it would have a say only in the way that 16 per cent. of the councils's revenue was spent. More than 50 per cent. of the council's expenditure is precepted by the Inner London Education Authority. The ILEA is a cumbersome and inefficient educational giant. Its members are not directly elected, and it has no fewer than 17 co-opted members.
Mr. Nigel Spearing: It is true that some of the members of the authority are appointed by the boroughs, including the City of London and Westminster, but can the hon. Gentleman deny that the other members—the representation is coterminous with the constituencies represented in this House—are directly elected by the electors to that authority?
Mr. Wheeler: They are not. As I was about to say, its members are not directly elected, and it has no fewer than 17 co-opted members and 13 representatives of the inner London boroughs. In practice, the decisions of the non-elected members determine the level of expenditure on education. That expenditure is then passed on to the London councils, which have to cover it by raising rates. London business is forced to sign the cheques, while the Inner London Education Authority fills in whatever figures it likes. That lack of democratic and financial accountability has the usual inevitable consequences.
Almost anyone connected with the ILEA can give many examples of unwise and inefficient expenditure—for example, the need to spend £500,000 on repairing a modern school block because someone had used ordinary plywood instead of marine plywood for infill panels, so that water inundated the building. Another decision was taken to provide classrooms with fitted carpets at £13 a square metre, in the belief that it would reduce vandalism and bad behaviour.
Mr. Stuart Holland: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a contradiction in his argument, inasmuch as when plywood is used for filling a wall for a school it will be supplied not by the direct labour department of a council but by a private enterprise contractor? There is no public enterprise in this country that supplies carpet. The hon. Gentleman sees only the direct tax cost of, for example, ILEA's expenditure but fails to see that cutting ILEA expenditure cuts demand for private sector goods. That is a fundamental contradiction in the Government's policy, which the hon. Gentleman is faithfully echoing.
Mr. Wheeler: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but, as I have made clear, if the rates are spent in the way in which they have been spent in the last few years we shall lose business and jobs in London.
I am encouraged by some of the steps that the Government have taken to alleviate the burden of rates on the wealth-creating section of our economy. I welcome the decision to reduce the maximum level of rates on empty commercial property to 50 per cent. of what would be charged if the property were occupied. That is obviously fair in view of the reduced ability of the owner to pay and the lesser demand that such property makes on local authority services.
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I welcome also the provisions in the Local Government, Planning and Land (No. 2) Act to extend domestic rate relief to a wider range of mixed business and domestic properties. This should help to relieve the rates burden on small businesses. However, the Government have yet to tackle the rest of the rates problem faced by London business.
Under section 53 of the new Act, the Inner London Education Authority will receive grant entitlement from the Government, but if the ILEA chooses to spend above the level prescribed by the Government and the Government then pay a reduced level of grant support there is nothing to stop the ILEA from precepting additional funds from London councils. In the case of the City of Westminster particularly, this means even higher rate charges for businesses.
I suggest to the House that the rates burden of London business is enormously high and that if we want commerce to remain in our capital some way must be found of controlling the rates that business is forced to pay.
1.16 am
Mr. John Fraser: I propose to talk about my own inner London borough of Lambeth. I make no apologies for doing that, and I hope that I shall be able to keep my speech reasonably brief.
I suppose that it would not be appropriate at this time of year to have an end-of-year audit and assessment of the effect of Government policies on a borough such as Lambeth. I can summarise the position very quickly. The effect of Conservative Government policies has been to put Lambeth, and probably other London inner city boroughs, into at least a triple crisis. There is a crisis of council business and individual finance, a crisis in housing and a crisis in unemployment. Each, in turn, acts upon the other.
The epidemic nature of national Government policy might be evil enough in itself. I refer, for example, to high interest rates, which are crippling to individuals, to business, to local authorities and to home buyers. There are the epidemic proportions of the Government's deliberate creation of unemployment as a method of reducing inflation. There are also the Government's epidemic revulsion for public spending on social needs and their disastrous inflation policy. Those national policies in themselves would be bad enough, but to them we have had added a particular malignancy that is directed towards inner London boroughs and to London in general.
Indeed, if one wanted evidence not just of the disinterest that the Government have now about London but of their malice, that can be found in the rate support grant settlement that was declared to the House yesterday, together with the housing figures announced earlier. Some boroughs have more committed in actual expenditure for 1981–82 than the Government have allocated. My own borough is not in that position, but that is the position of many boroughs. Added to this, there is a malice towards London that shows itself quite clearly in the recent announcements.
What will the consequences be in my borough for the winter of 1980–81 and for the time that follows? First, we have in Lambeth an immediate financial crisis that is a direct result of high interest rates, of inflation and of the Government's failing to finance the reasonable pay settlements that were reached with local authority

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workers, together with the penal nature of the transitional provisions of the Local Government, Planning and Land (No. 2) Act of this year.
As a result of those four things, Lambeth might be faced with bankruptcy—and I do not use the word lightly. On the other hand, it might have to abdicate its responsibilities to its electorate or impose a supplementary rate increase of 20p in the pound, payable over a period of 10 weeks. That means an average burden on individual families of about £4 per week. In turn, the burden will fall on industry and on shops. Indeed, shops are major employers in our area. The burden will also fall on small firms and individuals.
The hon. Member for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler) spoke about the effect of high rates on small businesses and about the knock-on effect on unemployment.
Mr. Stevens: The hon. Gentleman has related the dolorous tale of the misfortunes of the London borough of Lambeth. Would he care to comment on the district auditor's report—which I brought to light in the House this time last year—which condemned the financial irresponsibility of the council both philosophically and in the day-to-day mechanical and functional conduct of its affairs?
Mr. Fraser: The district auditor reported only two or three days ago. He found nothing against the council in respect of rent arrears or the level of rents or in respect of one other matter that I cannot immediately recall. However, the district auditor told the local authority that it would have to impose a supplementary rate as a result of inflation and as a result of those other matters. The district auditor is still investigating one small matter, but when the report was published it did not go against Lambeth borough council. I think that that disposes of that intervention.
I am sure that my colleagues in Lambeth will confirm that during the past few months the housing crisis has become more acute than it has been for many years. The financial policies have had their effect on the borough council and on the Tories at the GLC. In my borough, there are about 18,000 families on the housing waiting list. Every Friday I leave my advice bureau in despair. Until a few months ago a family that stood no chance of receiving help from Lambeth borough council, because of the length of its waiting list, faced other options. I could tell such a family to go to a housing association. That option has been cut off by the most cruel round of cuts against the organisations that provide some flexibility in housing.
I used to be able to tell people that I could find them somewhere outside London. However, the Government have authorised the GLC to get rid of its outside London estates, and no hope can be obtained from that source. I used to tell people to go to a new town, but the change in the structure of financing new towns and the degree of unemployment found in some new towns has cut out that avenue. I used to suggest that they should try to buy something somewhere. However, as a result of cuts in housing finance to the GLC and Lambeth, no home ownership schemes are available to them. That has been cut as well.
Every time I meet constituents with housing problems, I am faced with a feeling of impotence and despair. That is the direct result of the financial policies that are being pursued. The other day, a family came to see me. Their
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case illustrates the sort of rackets that are creeping in. They said that they wanted to be rehoused and asked me to help them form a company. I asked them whether they wanted me to form a property company. They said that it did not matter what type of company it was. They said that they were caught in the corporate letting racket. They said they had seen a potential landlord and that he had told them that he did not care about shortholds, and so on, and that he would not let to an individual. He told them that if they beat their way, up to Companies House, in City Road, and stumped up about £200 and formed their own limited company, he would be prepared to let a flat to the company. In turn, he said, the company would let them reside there as the licensee. As they would control the company, they would have no problems.
In that way the landlord can avoid any form of security of tenure and rent control. That is the new corporate lettings racket that is creeping in. Apart from tramping up to Companies House and forming a company and finding a landlord who is willing to let, there appears to be little immediate hope for those who come to my advice bureau.
Mr. Spearing: That is the property-owning democracy.
Mr. Fraser: That crisis in housing has been compounded by the cuts in housing allocations this week—a cut of 50 per cent. to the GLC and a cut of 37 per cent. to Lambeth—on top of the cuts that took place last year.
I come to the third aspect of the crisis—unemployment —which completes the vortex that is dragging people deeper and deeper—
Mr. Ronald W. Brown: Does my hon. Friend accept that the Government's strategy is designed to make the shorthold principle work? If they cannot shut off all the other avenues, no one will be daft enough to go for shorthold, but if they are driven to it the Government may hope to make it work.
Mr. Fraser: I have grave doubts about shorthold working at all. Landlords know the vagaries of housing and letting law. They have been caught, so to speak, by one Administration or the other so often and for so long that they are not prepared to put their properties on the market. They know that they cannot expect to have a Conservative Government for the next five or 10 years. Landlords have made a proper assessment. They know that the Government's days are numbered. Therefore, they will not take the risk of letting properties on shorthold. That is no answer.
I turn to the last crisis point in Lambeth—unemployment. That has been brought about by general Government policies. Unemployment has been exacerbated by cuts in public expenditure, particularly on housing. I am talking not of revenue but of capital expenditure. The immediate effect of cutting back on house construction and improvement programmes, and of having a moratorium for local authorities and housing associations, is to cut employment in the building industry, which is already severely affected by the recession and Government policies. One policy begins to bear on another. Cutting back on direct works departments has the effect of cutting down on apprenticeships and training.

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Young people, well qualified and anxious to work, are tramping from firm to firm seeking jobs. One young man told me that yesterday that he had telephoned 30 firms in an attempt to get a job but was unsuccessful. The degree of unemployment among young people has been unprecedented in my experience as a public representative.
The situation has been further exacerbated because the Government have shifted more municipal expenditure on to the shoulders of the individual and the business man. There is a limit to the rate burden that businesses can bear. Thus, the vortex spins faster and recedes deeper.
Mr. Spearing: Is not this the answer to the hon. Member for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler), who said that rates were driving businesses out? The proportion of proper local government expenditure borne by central Government should be higher than it is to maintain services and to lessen the strain upon businesses. If the Government do not do that, are they not guilty of providing service shortfall and driving out the business man at the same time?
Mr. Fraser: Thatis right. The phenomenon is that businesses and individuals are bearing a higher financial burden with less demand in their local economies.
Mr. David Mellor: As the hon. Gentleman will later hear, I do not defend everything that the Government have done in relation to the rate support grant, but he cannot continue to talk about the financial burden on businesses. Does he appreciate that in 1978 the business rate in Lambeth was lower than that in Wandsworth and that it is now double? Has that not had any effect on employment prospects in his constituency?
Mr. Fraser: Ido not dispute for one moment that the burden of rates has an effect on the viability of businesses and that that in turn has an effect on employment prospects. However, that effect is being exacerbated by Government policies, which are shifting the burden of expenditure away from the Government on to businesses and individuals. It is wrong, whether it is shifted on to businesses or on to individuals. It is particularly wrong when it is shifted on to small businesses, which are likely to be the growth points inside the economies of places like Lambeth. However, it is even worse when that increased financial burden is combined with a lowering of available money inside the local economy—when the spending power of the local population diminishes at the same time as the financial burden increases. The vortex then gets deeper and spins faster.
Mr. Stuart Holland: We heard a great deal—this applied during the last general election, when we were shown a road one side of which was in Lambeth and the other in Wandsworth—about rates being higher in Lambeth. That is also stated in Conservative political propaganda on television. However, it is not pointed out that rents in Wandsworth are significantly higher than in Lambeth and that there is not a net social gain for the resident population as a whole. What is not included in the rates is lumped on to the rents.
Mr. Fraser: I believe that that is right, but I shall not pursue the point in greater detail. Many hon. Members wish to take part in the debate and I shall leave them to make their own speeches.
At the time of the last general election I warned my constituents and the people of Lambeth about the effects of a Conservative Government. I wondered at times whether I was guilty of exaggeration. I was not. I was guilty of flattery. I felt that we might have a period of standstill, but we are having a period of regression. I am not a prophet of gloom, but I see very serious consequences if the Government continue to pursue the policies that they are applying with malice towards the inner city areas of London and towards Lambeth in particular.
1.32 am
Mr. David Mellor: I am interested to follow the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) but sorry to see that throughout his observations—the party political diatribe to which we have been treated—there was not a word of criticism of the local authority and the way that it is being run by "Red Ted" Knight. If there is one classic reason why the Labour Party is in the state that it is in, it is that people like the hon. Gentleman, who had some sort of reputation for reasonableness, are quite unable to stand out against what is happening with the likes of Knight and in the London Labour Party and are merely allowing themselves to become catspaws and mouthpieces, seeking to justify with lawyerish tricks what is happening in Lambeth. We all know that Lambeth is one of the worst-run local authorities that one could ever conceive of. It is a byword for financial profligacy.
Mr. Stuart Holland: Specify.
Mr. Mellor: If the hon. Gentleman wishes me to specify—
Mr. Harry Greenway: Will my hon. Friend give way?
Mr. Mellor: When I have finished this point. My hon. Friend seems to feel that I need help at this time of night.
If the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) really wants to know about financial profligacy, I shall repeat the telling statistic that I gave to his hon. Friend the Member for Norwood. In 1978, rates in Lambeth were lower than in the comparable borough of Wandsworth. They are now double the rates in Wandsworth. I believe that if one cuts through the nonsense and hogwash that is spoken about services being cut in Wandsworth, money is being thrown around hand over fist in Lambeth and one will find no difference in quality of the basic services. One is merely enormously more expensive than the other. The hon. Member for Vauxhall may shake his head. I should be interested to see how he could refute that statement on any factual basis.
I do not want to curb my hon. Friend's enthusiasm any longer.
Mr. Greenway: I merely want to draw attention to the £29 million or so being spent on the town hall in Lambeth. Is not that a gross waste of money?
Mr. Mellor: One could go on multiplying examples. There is never much point in earning a reputation for being able to hit a barn door at 10 paces.
Mr. John Fraser: I want to put "Absolute rubbish" on the record.
Mr. Mellor: The hon. Gentleman can put rubbish on the record. He will find that the street cleansing department of Lambeth is every bit as inefficient as practically the whole of the rest of the enterprise. I am not in the business of shooting barn doors from 10 paces. I shall leave the matter of Lambeth borough council. I feel sure that others less perceptive than I can make the case against it.
A matter that concerns me more and one on which I have to become a little less partisan is the rate support grant settlement. I do not believe in pursuing the matter from a narrow and parochial viewpoint. I accept fully that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, when making his dispensations, has to take account of the interests of the whole nation. This is a difficult balancing act and an unenviable one. I accept that my right hon. Friend felt that the present system of rate support grant was unsatisfactory, especially for the way it builds in increased assistance for the big spending councils.
I also accept that my right hon. Friend was under enormous pressure to channel aid back to the counties which had suffered so badly under the previous Government. I shall not question the motivations of the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) and the resons why he chose to channel so much aid to London. There are various interpretations that one could apply.
One has to accept that London received, as a percentage of the total rate support grant settlement, an increase from 13·7 per cent. to 17 per cent. in the span of four years. One accepts that the increase was bought at quite a high price when efficient local authorities in the counties were obliged to go to their ratepayers for high rate increases, not because they were joining the ranks of "Red Ted" Knight and his crew but because they found, however great their efficiency, that the supply of funds from the Government was cut back.
I accept the basic pressure upon the Secretary of State to make some adjustment. That is not to say that I can support fully what he has chosen to do, especially in the case of Wandsworth. One is not seeking to defend the continuing spendthrift activities of certain Labour councils which should have learnt the ultimate importance, at this time in our country's affairs, of exercising some restraint in spending. I make the case for a borough which, when run by the Labour. Party, almost rivalled Lambeth in its rate of expenditure but which, for the last two years, has been moderately and sensibly run with financial prudence of a kind that I do not think any member of the Government, if serving on Wandsworth council, could have improved upon. The council has certainly been run according to the principles accepted by the Government.
The problem is that Wandsworth does not come well out of the settlement. The Government need to ask themselves whether this is fair and whether they are not placing an intolerable burden on the councillors of Wandsworth in discharging their duties according to the principles that they follow. A dramatic change has been made in one year.
Mr. John Fraser: I should like to get the matter straight. Is not Wandsworth the second most severely treated borough in the whole of London?
Mr. Mellor: I do not think that the situation is quite as bad as the hon. Gentleman describes. It is certainly one of the top six. [Interruption.] I am sorry that trying to answer the question honestly should lead to ribaldry from the Opposition Benches. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman would prefer that I had invented an answer. I am prepared to take the question again and perhaps try to give a more appropriate answer.
Mr. Stuart Holland: I stated while the hon. Gentleman was speaking that the casual empiricism of the debate is staggering, and in his case it is. If he sets out to make an argument on a factual basis and combines it with sweeping generalisations that have no factual support for them, his argument is weak and is seen by the House to be weak.
Mr. Mellor: The hon. Gentleman's lectures on casual empiricism will do better at university than they do here. I prefer to deal with the facts as I see them and the problems confronted by my local authority. No doubt the hon. Gentleman's eloquence will be the tool of Lambeth borough council and he will delight us later with his thoughts.
When looking at what the Secretary of State is trying to do, I find it difficult to understand how the needs of local authorities have been planned by the Department. There is a suggestion of omniscience of a sort that I do not find particularly persuasive. It rolls off the tongue to say "We have looked at the needs of all 400 or so authorities and we have decided exactly what they should have", but a limited number of civil servants will have to do that and I suspect that they will not find the task any easier than did those who were supposed to be doing sophisticated comparisons between what people should earn, what they did earn, and so on.
I am a little worried that we may be dogmatic about the issue. I hope that the Minister will tell us that there will be second thoughts if it appears that unfairness has resulted for individual authorities and that the Government will listen with care to the various points that are being made. The process is necessary—someone has to make the decisions—but it is highly fallible and it is important that the Government also recognise it as fallible.
Wandsworth will have lost the product of a lop rate by the time that all the various assessments are taken account of. The council is placed in a particularly difficult situation. It is difficult to see an alternative, having regard to the history of what certain inner London boroughs did when the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar was so liberally making funds available to London.
For example, the needs element from the Government to Wandsworth was about £21 million in 1975. By 1978 that had leapt to £35 million—far in excess of the rise in the cost of living—but the Labour-run council still felt it necessary to go to the domestic ratepayer for a rate increase from 41p to 66p in the pound. The constant demand on ratepayers and the receipt of increased aid from the Government have placed the present council in difficulty, leading to the syndrome, which the hon. Member for Norwood has set out, of businesses leaving the borough, further eroding the rate base, declining employment and a system of municipal inefficiency of a sort that was criticised so much at the 1978 local elections.
Since then, a determined and successful effort has been made to change the position. Manpower has been pruned

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and, where necessary, charges have been increased realistically. It will still be possible in the new year for a pensioner in Wandsworth to get an excellent three-course lunch and coffee for 40p. In the context of pensions at their present level, that cannot be called excessive. It was certainly nonsense that two years ago those lunches were available for 6½p. Looked at from the point of view of the limited number of pensioners who availed themselves of lunches, one might say that they were a public service but little thought was given to the rest of the community, many of whom were not particularly well off themselves, who were having to fund those meals. A high proportion of those taking up Wandsworth lunches did not even reside in the borough, so attractive was the prospect of getting on a bus and going to Wandsworth for lunch.
The social services department has been reduced, but it still costs ratepayers £84 per head. It is staffed 19 per cent. above the average of a sample of nine other London boroughs. The services compare well with those on offer in any other borough. All that does not disguise the real efforts that the council has made to curb expenditure and to charge realistic sums.
The council has dealt with the difficult matter, which nobody takes lightly, of making increases in the rents for local authority tenants. It has not taken the easy way out of pork-barrel politics of the sort practised in Lambeth, where council rents are kept artificially low so that the council can rely on a steady supply of voters. That is not an agreeable way to conduct politics. Instead, Wandsworth has made an attempt to balance the books so that the rent account actually balances the money required for administration and maintenance. It did not even do that under the previous council, leaving aside the question of paying off the debts incurred in building the properties.
It is important that my hon. Friend the Minister should realise that Wandsworth council has raised its rents in my constituency by £3 per week in each of the past two years. Against that background, it will have to confront the problems imposed by the withdrawal of several millions of pounds of funds. Wandsworth, with its proud record of only a 20 per cent. rate increase in two years—giving the hard-pressed Wandsworth ratepayers a rest from excessive rate demands, which is what the council was elected to achieve—will not turn to the ratepayers for an excessive rate increase unless it absolutely has to do so. There is no question of supplementary rate demands in Wandsworth, as there is in Lambeth. Equally, I do not want to disguise from my hon. Friend the difficulty of avoiding that, unless the council is prepared to countenance rent increases—which I should not be prepared to countenance—that are well in excess of the £3 per week suggested by the Government.
It is not good that the Government make so much play of a £3 per week increase when the consequence of the combined effect of the housing circular and the rate support grant settlement will put boroughs such as Wandsworth in an enormously difficult position. If it is to follow through to the logical conclusion of the Government's policy, it will have to increase rents by a good deal more than £3. That is not supportable. I have made that clear to my colleagues on the council, and I make it clear to the House. One can make academic points about the cost of local authority housing and the amount of subsidies, but at a time when we are rightly asking for
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restraint in wage demands we cannot support a position in which rent increases go beyond a certain level. Once we move beyond £3 per week, we are moving into difficult territory.
Mr. Clinton Davis: I largely agree with the hon. Gentleman's analysis, but does he recognise that that is the ineluctable conclusion of the Government's desires? They are waging a vendetta against the council tenant. That is precisely what they want to happen.
Mr. Mellor: It is a question, not of waging a vendetta but of trying to re-establish a balance. I accept the hon. Gentleman's good faith, but I do not believe in coming here and blindly defending my party's actions. My point is that the consequences in certain parts of inner London are quite serious. But that cannot be turned into a vendetta against council tenants across the country. Tenants outside inner London will no doubt benefit by the rate support grant settlement that has been made to certain councils in the remainder of Britain.
Having made that point, I wish to pass on. It is equally important that the point be made to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State that these problems are being posed to a council which has followed sound Conservative principles and which cannot be criticised for any of the actions that it has taken against the basis of the need for sound management. That should give my hon. Friend and his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State reason to pause and think. It is all very well saying that it is intended to hit at spendthrift Socialist authorities, but when we catch councils such as Wandsworth I think that the instrument is rather too blunt. That is not to say that the paths of virtue presently being followed by Wandsworth council could not be emulated by the likes of Lambeth if it had the good sense to do so.
Mr. Ronald W. Brown: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that Wandsworth was given special dispensation? Its over-expenditure was worse than Hackney's, but the Minister decided that Wandsworth should not go on the hit list.
Mr. Mellor: I do not think that that is right. Inherited expenditure must be taken into account. Councils have to start from the position in which they find themselves when they have changed hands. As we all know—this is the tragedy of so many Labour councils in London—expenditure is terribly easy to start. It is easy to advertise for jobs to fill the departments and to create recreation departments and the great machinery of the fine upstanding Socialist council. The dismantling of the machinery and giving the ratepayers value for money takes much longer to achieve than the erection of the empire. Rome was not built in a day, and the dismantling of the Romanesque apparatus that is found in town halls is equally as difficult and cannot be done quickly.
London has an unemployment problem, as my hon. Friend knows only too well. In the 15 years prior to its not regretted demise, the Location of Offices Bureau was responsible for the flow from London of about 900,000 jobs, something from which London is still suffering. It must be borne in mind that London in many respects is as much in need of assistance from the Government as any of the parts of the North-West and the North-East, which the Government obviously feel are more sensitive.
I regret that only one enterprise zone has been granted to London. That is the zone that the GLC did not want as

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its top priority. The zone was created in dockland, where there was a development corporation already in existence. One feels that the advantages are being duplicated. I suppose that at this time of night one should not be surprised to hear the amusement with which the concept of the enterprise zone is greeted on the Opposition Benches. Labour Members will be aware that all the authorities that have been granted enterprise zones are Socialist, all of which applied for them and which obviously wanted to try to make them work. It is not right for them to laugh.
Mr. Stuart Holland rose—
Mr. Mellor: Any device that is intended to stimulate the return of industries to inner city areas, so badly hit by the blight that we all know about, should surely be welcomed and not made an object for sniggering.
Mr. Holland rose—
Mr. Mellor: If people are really concerned with getting jobs back to London—
Mr. Holland rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Richard Crawshaw): Order. If the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) wishes to intervene, he must indicate that wish and ask the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) to give way and not merely rise in his place.
Mr. Holland: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Mellor: I do not want to go on interminably. All good things must come to an end, and I do not think that I should give way any more. The hon. Gentleman can make his own speech.
Mr. Holland: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Mellor: Very well.
Mr. Holland: The hon. Gentleman was surprised by the reaction of my hon. Friends and myself. My surprise is at the fact that he said that the enterprise zone would, after all, duplicate the benefits from a docklands agency that is already there. The point is that if the policy does not work in the first place—there is plenty of evidence from the Expenditure Committee of this House that incentives do not bite and do not pull in the enterprise—the duplication is the multiplication of zero by zero, and that, frankly, gives rise to some surprise and some cynicism on this side of the House.
Mr. Mellor: That would go down better in the lecture halls of Sussex than it does here. It does not lie in the mouths of members of a party that has run so much of London for so long, and has led us to the present pass, to sneer at a device designed to respond to London's problems. In five years' time, the hon. Gentleman may be in a position to say that it has not worked, but I suspect that he will not be; indeed, he may not even be here to say it if things go as well as we have reason to think.
We face in inner London problems that require careful attention, but we should have not have the apocalyptic view of one or two Labour Members, The hon. Member for Norwood talked about unemployment at a level that he had never seen. I think that in 1977 unemployment in inner London was higher than it is now.
However, none of us, including my hon. Friend the Minister, takes lightly the fact that inner London requires
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assistance from the Government. There is a feeling among some Inner London boroughs, and some people on the GLC, that perhaps the relationship between those authorities and the Department of the Environment has not been of the easiest. We look forward to an improvement in the months and years ahead, so that we can work in partnership for the improvement of the city that we all have the honour to represent.
1.56 am
Mr. Nigel Spearing: The speech of the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) could be titled "Virtue unrewarded". Perhaps he does not realise that had the system of needs and means been continued by the present Government his borough might have been in a happier position than it is.
The hon. Gentleman also referred to the urban development corporation. That corporation does not yet exist. A statutory instrument must first be approved by this House and the other place. Far from its being welcomed, there are 14 petitions against setting up the corporation, and those petitions will almost cetainly be heard in another place in a judicial-style Select Committee. The petitioners include all three boroughs concerned, as well as the unlikely News International, which owns the News of the World, and some property owners in part of the dockland area.
The hon. Gentleman is also wrong about enterprise zones. The Minister does not wish the London borough of Tower Hamlets to run the enterprise zone on the Isle of Dogs; he wants the urban development corporation to do so. The main attraction of an enterprise zone, wherever it is and no matter whose aegis it is set up under, is a rate-free site. It is almost bound to be successful, but it is not replicable elsewhere, except at great public expense, on a scale that would probably not meet with the hon. Gentleman's approval.
The area of Wandsworth that the hon. Gentleman represents is, ironically, made possible by extensive public enterprise, by substantial public housing built in the postwar period in large estates. I can understand the hon. Gentleman's sensitivity about rates. But he should realise that if Wandsworth stands in need the areas of Victorian London, particularly East London, stand in much greater housing need.
The 1971 census shows that only one-third of the housing stock of the London borough of Wandsworth then had outside lavatories and that a much larger number did not have bathrooms. Happily, that is not the position today. In the past nine years municipal enterprise has markedly decreased those proportions. It has also provided until recently, when the Government stopped it, housing for sale to some of its young people. So much for the doctrinaire approach to housing that the Conservatives so often think we have. Unfortunately, a great deal of that is shortly to stop because of the moratorium.
At least as bad as that, the housing association position described by my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley) is exactly the same in my borough of Newham.
Recently I visited the East of London Housing Association's sites, where scores of Victorian houses which it has purchased are now awaiting rehabilitation The funds are just not there. I believe that about 80 such houses in my constituency are awaiting rehabilitation. Yet

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there are building workers out of work and building firms going bankrupt. Due to the Government's moratorium, the two cannot meet.
It is, of course, the housing associations which are filling the gap in housing in the private sector. That is acknowledged everywhere. Indeed, the housing association movement—to some extent bipartisan—was given great acceleration by the Conservative Party, particularly at County Hall. Now, however, the associations are even stopped from doing what Conservative Members encouraged them to do.
I have gone so far as to ask whether the housing associations could not total up the amount of capital they have in empty property, calculate the interest they are having to pay on that capital—which, after all, is public money—and ask the Government to let them use the equivalent of the interest they are paying to get those properties into occupation and thereby get some revenue from them. That might even be a net saving to public expenditure, which should appeal to hon. Members opposite.
If Conservative Members are really concerned about housing, they should tell the Secretary of State for the Environment at least to let the housing associations get on with their work, because that work is compatible with their political philosophy.
London's rating situation is going to be very serious. The Secretary of State made no secret of that in his announcement yesterday. He made it clear that London is to have its share from the Government reduced at least proportionately and possibly absolutely. He made it sound as though the available money was not greatly to be cut. The figures show that the current 61 per cent. of local government expenditure funded by rate support grant is to be reduced to about 59 per cent. But, of course, it is the internal distribution that will hit London, and the right hon. Gentleman made no secret of that. Presumably, therefore, the reduction for London is to be much greater.
Has the Under-Secretary of State a figure for the proportionate reduction for London? But even if we get that figure it will still not be the end of the story, because it is only a proportion of the cake that is available. It is the size of the cake, which certainly does not grow much larger, which we are concerned with tonight. The hon. Member for Putney expressed some puzzlement about how the size of the cake had been arrived at by the Government, because he was shocked and surprised that it means a lop increase for his ratepayers.
The hon. Gentleman has overlooked the fact that the new system introduced by the Government in legislation to which he gave some support in his speech has a totally new philosophy of local government finance. Indeed, it is not local government finance at all—that is the point. The Secretary of State talks about a completely new era of debate about local government, but that is just not true, because through the Government's legislation and the rate support grant there will not be local government as we understand it. That is shown clearly in the blue document which the right hon. Gentleman has put in the Vote Office entitled "Grant related expenditure", setting out how the expenditure needs of local authorities are assessed in the new block grant.
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I do not know whether the accompanying statement has been released to the press. In case it has not, I want to quote from it. In paragraph 4, we read:
"The new system establishes clear links between spending, grant and rates; these links will be strengthened"—
that has a nice, healthy sound—
"by the increased flow of comparative information which will result from provisions of the 1980 Act. This high degree of visibility should enable the local electorate to reach a more informed judgment of the performance of their authority."
The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg): Hear, hear.
Mr. Spearing: The Minister expresses his agreement, but the performance is in relation to what the authority has available, and the performance will be constricted by the other document to which I referred, the calculation of the grant-related expenditure.
Later in the same document, we read in paragraph 27:
"The mechanics work as follows. An authority will be assumed to be levying a notional rate poundage—a 'grant-related poundage'—as its own contribution towards its expenditure."
I add, which the system did not, that that grant-related poundage sounds as though it is the authority's own choice. But I put it to the Minister that the reality of it is that the Secretary of State will try to choose that rate poundage for the authority.
The paragraph goes on:
"There will be a schedule of these poundages, which will of course be higher for higher spending levels as measured against the authority's grant-related expenditure. The grant will be the difference between the sum that would be raised by this grant-related poundage and the authority's expenditure. In this way the grant equalises needs and resources by meeting the whole of the costs faced by the local authority over and above those that can be funded from the grant-related poundage."
That sounds very reasonable, but, in practice, the local authority is caught in three ways. First, the Minister makes it quite clear what he expects the grant-related poundage to be. Secondly, he then makes it clear what the grant will be. Thirdly, and most important, he says:
"the whole of the costs faced by the local authority",
and, if I were writing it, I should add the word "sic". That is the level of service which the local authority is expected to provide, and that, too, will be determined by the Minister. So all three elements in what up till now has been a relatively flexible system will be tightened up into a triple tourniquet.
I put it to the hon. Member for Putney that that is the answer to his question. The virtue unrewarded which apparently has arrived at Wandsworth is that this way of doing things does not take account of the political points that the hon. Gentleman was making.
How does the Minister determine the levels of service that ought to be provided—in his newspeak,
"the costs faced by the local authority"?
It is at that point that we turn to the blue document, "Grant related expenditure". In the annex, we have a table which tells us the total grant-related expenditure which the Government believe the local authorities should make in the coming year at 1981–82 prices. They calculate it at £16·9 billion.
There then follows a table that splits that figure, or a figure that is comparable—these documents are not very well laid out—and shows that of that figure, or of a similar one, no less than £9 billion is taken by the major local authority service—namely, education. Then there are figures for personal social services, £1,643 million; libraries, £245 million; going right down to civil defence,

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with £2 million, which the Government reckon is what local government throughout the country will spend, or ought to spend, in that financial year. I am not sure how the Government have arrived at these figures. They might be related to existing expenditure, and the Government are therefore putting a limit on it. I hope that the Minister will confirm or correct the points that I have been making.
How do we decide the distribution of those sums within each local authority? As my hon. Friends have said, in London different areas have different needs. Indeed, that is why the needs element was in the old grant structure. How do the Government calculate it? I shall take the example of education, because that is the big sector, and look at it in more detail.
The annex contains a whole section on education, and we get another table. It says:
"For assessment purposes expenditure on education is subdivided into the following categories".
We then get national categories of what I presume is the national expenditure on nursery education, primary and secondary schools, and so on. The total there is £9 billion. What the Government then do is to take each of these headings in turn and tell us how they will split each of the totals among the local authorities.
I shall take nursery education as an example. Paragraph 1.1.3 says:
"GRE is calculated by multiplying the number of children under 5 in each local education authority by the unit cost; the latter is calculated by dividing the total expenditure assumed for nursery education nationally by the total number of children under 5".
I assume that the Government will take account of the actual number of children under 5 presently in nursery schools. The London borough of Newham has been particularly progressive in the number of children that it has in nursery education. As I read the paragraph, I am not sure that it takes account of those who are there. If it is not to take account of those who are there, in whatever borough one takes, how can a borough go ahead with putting in children who ought to be there?
A similar consideration applies to the services of all the paragraphs under education. I refer particularly to paragraph 1.1.6, where the Government quite properly say—
Mr. Greenway: The question of nursery education was raised with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science before the Select Committee yesterday morning. He said that the figures that have been referred to by the hon. Gentleman do not include children under 5 in nursery and primary schools. We know that there is an increasing factor there, so one has treat those figures with some caution.
Mr. Spearing: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because he points out that inherent in this approach, are a number of fixed elements that might not be parallel with what is found in practice. That might have been true of the old system, but I think that as we go on we will find that the old system, difficult and complex though it was, probably took account of these things in a rather more flexible way than will this system, which is of equal complexity.
The point I make about schools is that the Government quite properly say that there are children in groups that require, because of social deprivation, greater educational resources. The Government accede to that fact. Then they say:
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"The incidence of these children has therefore been assumed to be related to a number of socio-economic factors: each authority's share of the 13.2 per cent. special needs group nationally is assumed to be proportional",
and then a number of criteria are given.
What is this 13·2 per cent. special needs group nationally? Is it that proportion of schoolchildren who are thought to be having a special need, and, if so, what is the sum allocated to them? Is the Minister satisfied that this is a good, proper and rational way of distributing it? I mention this particularly because London has a much higher proportion of pupils of this character than probably the rest of the country put together. It is a very large number.
My last point on the education aspect concerns the allocations to adult education and the youth service. Paragraph 1·1·13 deals with adult education, which, in the table to which I have referred, is given the magnificent national total of £130 million. Subject to correction, I assume that this national total is to be divided out among all local authorities in the country. Similarly, the youth service is given £112 million.
Whatever is said in Acts of Parliament, we all know that both these services are to some extent optional or semi-optional. I suggest to Conservative Members, particularly those who are worried about rates and other matters, that it is these types of additional but very important educational services that some authorities will be tempted to cut very heavily indeed. Yet we all know from our constituency experience that in terms of value for money, both in terms of education and of irrigating the community life, sometimes that is the best way in which one can spend one's money.
Mr. Greenway: We should have the record absolutely straight. What the hon. Gentleman says about adult education is true, but the youth service is not to be cut at all during the coming year. It is important to point that out. Perhaps I may also clarify for the hon. Gentleman the expenditure on the needs element, to which he referred in relation to schoolchildren. Children in each category of need, whatever it be, receive "times two" in terms of expenditure compared with what ordinary children receive. They get double.
Mr. Spearing: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Perhaps this is part of the fruits of the Select Committees, which provide opportunities which otherwise would not be available.
Mr. Greenway: Not only that.
Mr. Spearing: I want to take up what the hon. Gentleman said about the youth service. It may be that that sum is not a cut on the general expenditure which has been current in the youth service over the country. I shall not deny that. But local authorities—particularly the ILEA—will have to look very carefully at the internal distribution of their actual spending, because these are only calculations to determine what the grants will be. They do not necessarily require expenditure to be pro rata inside the authority. The hon. Gentleman nods his head. So, although he can say that there will be no cuts in the youth service, there may not be cuts in the arithmetic but I suggest that there almost certainly will have to be cuts, and in adult education, when it comes to practice.
Mr. Greenway: The hon. Gentleman does not wish to deny local democracy any more than the Government do.

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It is up to a local authority to decide how to spend the money made available to it. It is reasonable to say that there is no cut in the youth service, and I do not see the authority to which he referred making such a cut.
Mr. Spearing: I disagree. The hon. Gentleman believes the propaganda of his Secretary of State. While it will notionally be up to the local authorities to determine their expenditure, because of the way in which it is calculated and because of the philosophy of the Secretary of State, it will be difficult for them to make any choices. There will be no money to do that. There will be hardly any discretionary expenditure by the time the right hon. and learned Gentleman has finished. And this is only the interim scheme, to be followed by another the next year or the year after, if the Secretary of State has his way. That will be even more draconian and will leave the authorities with even less choice.
What will be the effect on the ILEA's range of expenditure? The Secretary of State will say that it is up to the authority, after it has received the grant, to precept more or less on the boroughs. That is correct, but he can tell us what the grant will be. He will have done calculations on the basis of the precept in the previous year and of what he would like it to do. How much does he think that ILEA should spend in the coming financial year? It is no good his refusing to say and leaving it to the authority. In the book and in his speech, the Secretary of State for the Environment has made clear how much he thinks every local education authority ought to spend. It is in the book.
Mr. Ronald W. Brown: The right hon. Gentleman has gone a bit further than that. He has illustrated that there is a £55 million safety net. He has not said in the book that the ILEA would have to cut its expenditure by £60 million to qualify for the £55 million safety net. In addition, it will suffer a 5 per cent. cut. So the whole thing is a fraud.
Mr. Spearing: My hon. Friend illustrates the difficulty that confronts even those who are relatively familiar with this extremely complex structure of local government finance which is now thrown into the melting pot. He highlights the way in which the Secretary of State is handling the issue. I have shown some of the newspeak in some of the quotations I have made.
The hon. Member for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler) may not like carpets in classrooms, and I might not either. I suggest to him that what appear to be extras in the ILEA can be cut to the extent of a million pounds here and there. But there will be a noticeable difference in the necessary expenditure of one of the greatest education authorities in the world. Professionally, I do not think that the Department of Education and Science knows much about education, but it knows a bit more about it than the Department of the Environment. Apparently the Government are saying that the funding of the education services will be in the judgment and on the advice of officials from the Department of the Environment. Will the Under-Secretary tell us, if that is not true, what advice he receives and whether the proposals have been drawn up on the advice of the Department of Education and Science? If that is so, why not leave the system as it is?
2.25 am
Mr. Martin Stevens: I feel a little sorry for my poor hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, who has to sit here in the middle of the night listening to London Members moaning and groaning about the facts of life when there is much to be said for revealing a little of our national supposed quality of improvisation and adaptability, in which, in other aspects of life, we take some pride.
It is absurd to suggest that local government, or even local government in our capital city, can insulate itself against the economic facts of life that affect us no less than they affect other parts of the world. It is equally absurd for the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) to speak about bringing an end to local government or civilisation as we know it. We cannot ask the Secretary of State to look at an area of public life that spends £20,000 million a year and say that he must not do anything to try to control this vast swelling doughnut in case he wounds the susceptibilities of indivduals who feel that local government officers or members are in a privileged position. They are not. They have spent far too much—the level has grown to an absurd extent—and someone must have the courage to grasp the nettle. In so many different aspects of life the Government are having to do the cleaning-up job that previous Governments over the last 20 years should have done as they went along and not left so much mess to be tidied up by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and his colleagues.
Last year—the first year of this Administration—local government overspent by upwards of £750 million. Then, when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment imposed a moratorium, which I hope will end in a few weeks, and told local authorities that they could not overspend again this year and that he wished to see the estimates before more money was thrown up the chimney, everyone screamed. He would not have had to impose his moratorium if, in the first year of this Administration, local government had been more responsible. If gradually, with pain and grief, this Administration can teach local government, along with other elements in our public life, to behave responsibly, the trials and tribulations of today will not have been wasted.
Mr. John Cartwright: Does the hon. Gentleman take the same view about the overspending by the Ministry of Defence?
Mr. Stevens: I do not wish to start an excursus on the Ministry of Defence. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer the question. 'Yes' or `No'?"] I shall try to answer the question truthfully—my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) was attacked for trying to answer truthfully—even if it does not mean a glib "Yes" or "No" response. The Government's approach to defence expenditure is correct in principle. I do not suggest that there is not extravagance in matters of detail. [HoN. MEMBERS "Millions and millions".] Hon. Members are so unused to hearing a truthful answer from any part of the Chamber that anyone would think that I had let loose a couple of ferrets.
Mr. Clinton Davis: It is not that we are so unused to hearing a truthful answer from the hon. Gentleman but that we are so unused to hearing a truthful answer from the

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Secretary of State. Will the hon. Gentleman indicate to the House, amidst this apologia for the Government on which he has embarked, whether he supports the dramatic shift of resources away from inner London in favour of the shire counties?
Mr. Stevens: I would love it if I received a letter this morning from my right hon. Friend saying "Here is a cheque for £2 million for Hammersmith and Fulham."
Naturally, I am sorry, but I do not think anyone can criticise the Secretary of State for seeking to redress the balance which was so crudely upset a couple of years ago. One should display some sort of understanding for the kinds of problems that he seeks to solve.
Mr. Alfred Dubs: Does it mean that the hon. Gentleman disagrees with the views expressed a little earlier by the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor), who was critical of the transfer of resources out of inner cities?
Mr. Stevens: I said that I regretted it. I do not know what more the hon. Gentleman wants me to say. I have suggested that we should try to look at the problem not from our own parochial points of view. I have talked about pain and grief and I have used all the expressions that I should have thought would be satisfactory to Labour Members. I have tried to look at the problem for a moment from a national point of view and not from our own narrow, partisan point of view. Of course I am sorry. I am very sorry that the price of oil has gone up. I am very sorry that I have a beastly, stinking cold. But I understand the Secretary of State's problems.
What has the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham done? In my view, it has not done at all badly. With restricted resources, it has looked at our housing position and recognised that, with the large proportion of older people in the borough, sheltered housing probably offers the most fruitful method of spending limited resources. We have already doubled the number of sheltered housing units in our borough and are in the process of quadrupling them. I do not need to explain to distinguished hon. Members on each side of the House the benefits of that process.
A couple of weeks ago we won the national award for the borough with the best record of improvement grant management in the whole of the United Kingdom. That was not too bad. At last, after months of battering at the authority, I believe that I have played a modest part in persuading it to approach the question of the 3,400-plus houses and flats in private ownership which have been standing empty for years—and which are a source of outrage and resentment to the citizens—and to begin, at least on a restricted scale, an experiment. which I do not need to describe in detail to hon. Members. Clearly, it would be a bitter reproach if, with a housing waiting list of 10,000 families, the borough council were to go out of office in 18 months' time having done nothing to fill the 3,400 or so dwellings which have been standing empty for so long.
These are all examples of ways in which a sensible council, instead of wringing its hands in despair, can buckle to and do the very best effectively with the money that is available to it.
It is also right to note that when we talk about Government cuts and council cuts, sometimes we talk with such enthusiasm as to outstrip the facts. My borough's
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social services budget has been increased from £11.9 million in 1979 to something approaching £17 million today, an increase in the last 18 months of about 50 per cent. and far in excess of the rise in costs. But the increased budget has to a great extent been eroded by the fact that during that period the white and blue collar workers within the social services department have had wage and salary increases not far short of 60 per cent., and, as we know, the level of wage increases nationally over the past 18 months for public servants has hovered over the 48 per cent. mark.
I have made clear that the next time a constituent tells me that he has not received his blanket bath or his meals on wheels service because of cuts in the social services budget I shall make every effort—I am not wholly without resources—to publicise and embarrass the individual, whoever he or she may be. In our case, any loss of services is the result not of Government or local authority cuts but of an absurd increase in salaries. I shall not try to apportion the blame, but I hope and believe that that will not be repeated in this year's salary review.
Mr. Soley: The hon. Gentleman is in acute danger of misleading the House. As he knows, the balance of power in Hammersmith and Fulham is held by the Liberal Party. The Conservatives gave the social services committee chairmanship to a Liberal, who guaranteed to cut the biggest spending department as far as he could. He has cut it and he has created a crisis in that department. As a result, even the Conservative Party has disowned him and has removed him from power. Yet, for several years, the hon. Gentleman's party and he himself supported him. The hon. Gentleman is now trying to dress up the cuts as if they were of no significance and as if the wage earners were to blame. They are the result of the Conservative Party's policy, which has been supported by the Liberals.
Mr. Stevens: I should be happy to argue the toss about the individual concerned on a more appropriate occasion. The facts are as I have given them. The social service budget for the borough which the hon. Gentleman and I have the honour to serve has been increased from £11·9 million last year to £17 million this year. Whether the Liberal Party, the Labour Party or the Conservative Party was responsible, the increase is far in excess of the cost of living. If there is any shortfall in services, it is not the result of Government or local authority cuts. I am not saying that that is true of everything that happens in every borough. However, we must be careful when we groan about cuts. We must make sure that a cut has taken place and that it is the type of cut that we can rightly criticise.
Mr. Reg Race: The hon. Gentleman told the House that wage costs in the social services. department had increased by, I think, 60 per cent. Will he specify the precise wage rates of manual and white collar staff in order to justify that figure? If the hon. Gentleman is talking about a 12-month period, the amount is far in excess of any of the national and local settlements that have been negotiated by either staff sector. I am sure that the House would like to know the facts on which the hon. Gentleman's assertion is based.
Mr. Stevens: I base the facts on the figures supplied by the department. I refer to the period from the beginning of 1979 to Christmas 1980. I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman about each move, level and date of change as

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divided between white and blue collar workers. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the figures are correct, and I should be happy to show them to him in due course. They were supplied by the department.
Mr. Race: Does that cover a period that includes the wage settlements for manual workers which were delayed from November and December 1978 and which were made at the beginning of 1979? They were followed by annual wage increases at the end of 1979 and by the annual wage increases of November 1980. Three annual wage increases, covering a period of three years, were telescoped into a period of 18 months. I do not accept that the overall wage cost rise for manual workers or white collar staff was 60 per cent. That is not true of national settlements, and I do not know where the department got those figures from.
Mr. Stevens: At all events, whether these rises were good or bad, they happened. Therefore, the problems from which we are suffering are not the result of cuts imposed by either local or national Government.
I have tried to persuade our library services to be more flexible in the use of voluntary helpers. The Charing Cross hospital has between 300 and 400 volunteers, who, in addition to their normal daily jobs, regularly work in the hospital service. The Milsom Road health centre has between 30 and 40 volunteer helpers.
I understand from the library service that of 4,000 disabled persons, only 300 can be supplied with books delivered to their homes. I asked whether they made use of the volunteers who were willing to do this work, only to be told that they would not let unprofessional hands touch their precious volumes. I suggested that at times such as these I did not consider that attitude acceptable.
Having sought not to defend the administration but to try to redress the balance of the argument I should like to make one definite proposal for which I hope to gain the support of hon. Members on both sides of the House. I suggest that we should consider some form of housing legislation for inner London. Whether that should be by ministerial order or primary legislation is a matter for decision.
Many problems in housing and related matters are unique to London and are not reflected anywhere else in the United Kingdom. When we ask for a reform or reexamination of a matter, Ministers properly ask the local government organisations for their views. But none of them—not even the London Boroughs Association—has a majority of members who represent, say, the 10 inner London boroughs. Therefore, there never seems to be much political weight or muscle behind the arguments that inner London Members put forward.
I refer to matters such as the burden that the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act imposes on the 10 inner London boroughs, the burden of holiday lets, which are almost exclusively an inner London problem, and the burden of service charges and other obstacles to purchase which weigh heavily on those who live in mansion blocks of flats in the centre of London. I refer to the grants to new, small businesses which are springing up. I understand that under the national rules my hon. Friend's Department is permitted to help in the acquisition and modernisation of property but not in the provision of plant, which, in inner London, is often more important for a new business than
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the provision of quarters. I ask hon. Members, whatever interest they may reflect in our discussions, who have sympathy with my general thought to put forward ideas which may contribute to a workmanlike and sensible package.
My case is simply that, particularly in inner London, those whom we represent suffer from special burdens in areas for which my hon. Friend's Department is responsible. Those burdens should be examined as a special problem of the capital and solved accordingly, not necessarily in line with the solutions found appropriate for the remainder of the country. I seriously ask hon. Members on both sides of the House to give the proposal their consideration and perhaps their support.
2.45 am
Mr. Ronald W. Brown: It is a peculiar debate. We were invited by Mr. Speaker to state in the ballot the subjects that we wished to discuss today. Fourteen of my hon. Friends chose this subject. However, not one Conservative Member chose any subject related to London. We are pleased to welcome their participation, but it should be made clear that it was not their first choice to discuss London at 2 am.
Some of my hon. Friends tried to persuade the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stevens) to state clearly whether he was in favour of the redistribution of resources from London to the shires. He first said that he regretted such a move. He was then drawn to the view of one of his hon. Friends, who positively objected to it. He then said "I have a cold, and I do not like that either."
May I put the record straight? I take for my text the statement of the Secretary of State for the Environment to the consultative council. As always, he does not number his pages, but at paragraph 30 he states:
"First, the major shift of grant away from the shires to London which we halted last year will now be reversed, as illustrated in the following table".
There is then a table showing the percentage of the needs and resources element and block grant shares right from 1975–to 1981–82. In 1975–76 the percentage for London was 13·3.
We fought manfully from 1964 onwards—and the Under-Secretary of State joined us in 1970—with Labour and Conservative Governments to get over the very argument propounded by the hon. Member for Fulham. There are special circumstances in London. Those special factors were not considered, because the Government conspired to refuse to include in the regression analysis the needs resources of London. It was said that the needs of London were so great that they would scoop the pool. I recognise that we could not scoop the pool and we would have to agree that we could not have it all. However, we should at least be able to show the country the needs of London and compare how much we should have with how much we are getting.
In 1976–77, the late Mr. Crosland, the then Secretary of State, was persuaded by our arguments to include the needs element in the regression analysis. He made it clear that he would not be able to give us all the money. For the first time, we saw that we were entitled to about £600 million in extra resources. He agreed that we would receive only a part of that amount. It would be paid over three years. The first tranche of £150 million extra was received in 1976–77. In 1977–78, however, we did not get

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the second tranche. Once again, there was hell fire from the counties. Mr. Crosland backed away a little. We received only about half the amount that should have been paid. In 1978–79, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) picked up the ball and gave us a little more of what we rightfully should have received. However, we never got the total to which we were entitled. In 1979–80, the Secretary of State stopped it.
There was no transfer of resources from the shires to London. All that happened was that London was seen to be cheated of hundreds of millions of pounds a year. The Secretary of State has put us back to the position that we previously occupied. The right hon. Gentleman has refused wilfully to recognise that London has special features. It is time to stop the mythology that there is any movement of money from the shires to London. On the contrary, we have been contributing to the shires for years and also trying to solve our own problems. Those sums of money add up to hundreds of millions of pounds that have been taken away from London.
The Secretary of State is not only ensuring that this money is taken away from London. He is going further and taking more from London. Hon. Members recognise that this is a political issue. There are elections in the counties next year. The right hon. Gentleman hopes to buy his way out. I suppose that that is understandable. He has a propensity for that type of skulduggery. My guess is that people will not be so easily misled as to believe that this type of issue has any merit.
I hope that I have put on record the actual facts about the transfer of money from London to the shires rather than what is illustrated in paragraph 30 of this wretched speech of the Secretary of State, which is totally untrue. It is misleading. The Secretary of State knows that it is misleading. I hope that the right hon, Gentleman will have the courtesy to make a statement to the House as he had to do on a previous occasion when he told me an untruth. The right hon. Gentleman had to come to the House on the tracked hovertrain to say that he had told me a lie and that he did not mean it. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will put this paragraph right.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not saying that the Minister has lied on this matter. If he is, he must withdraw the remark.
Mr. Brown: I cannot recall the phrase that the right hon. Gentleman used when he came to the House. His words were to the effect that "I did not intend to mislead the hon. Gentleman, but, if I did, I am sorry." I know only that something I was told was untrue. Whether the right hon. Gentleman actually said that he had told a lie, I am not sure. He illustrated that he had misled me. I challenged him. He refused to withdraw the remark and finally had to come to the Dispatch Box in the House—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am not dealing with any previous incident. I think that the hon. Gentleman was suggesting that some statement made now was a lie.
Mr. Brown: I was pointing out that paragraph 30 is comparable with the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman misled the House on the previous occasion. I hope that he will come to the House and put the matter right. What is stated in paragraph 30 is not in accordance the facts.
Mr. Soley: Before my hon. Friend leaves the point of the transfer of money to the shires, may I ask him whether he agrees that what we are witnessing in this debate and in Government policy generally is the devastation of inner city areas, particularly in London? A number of Conservative Members, including the hon. Members for Fulham (Mr. Stevens) and for Putney (Mr. Mellor), are becoming frightened and are running around their constituencies bleating about what is happening to housing, the closing of toilets and the cutting back of services. They are saying to the Government "We support you, but please give us some extra help." This hypocrisy will be found out not only in the GLC elections but, one hopes, in other elections.
Mr. Brown: I accept that. The worth of the hon. Gentlemen will be judged by whether they support the Government in the Lobby. They are right to raise their concerns. I support them. I go further than the hon. Member for Fulham, because I do not merely regret the Government's proposal. I think that it is utterly disgraceful. I shall watch with interest how the hon. Gentleman votes on the orders. I trust that he will be in the Lobby with the Opposition, otherwise he will be seen to be a man of straw. The hon. Gentleman and I have been friends for many years and we knew each other well in local government. I know that he is not a man of straw, and I expect him to vote with me against the Government.
Mr. Stevens: If we cannot all be hon. Friends at 3 o'clock in the morning in the week before Christmas, we are coming to a sad pass. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for paying so much attention to my modest remarks, hut, having made a rather passionate defence of the Government, I am not clear why I should be told that I shall be a man of straw if I do not go into the Lobby against them.
Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman made clear that he was not in favour of the transfer of resources from London to the shires. I expect him to be with me when we defeat the Government on this squalid issue.
The Secretary of State tries to continue the mythology about the transfer of money from the shires to London. He
said on Tuesday:
"In present circumstances, the broad effect is that about £300 million has been shifted to London. There is bound to be an effect when a system is introduced that depends on independent measurement rather than on the arbitrary decisions of politicians."—[Official Report, 16 December 1980; Vol. 996, c. 148.]
I thought that I would find out what was meant by "independent measurement" and the "arbitrary decisions of politicians". The general premise set by the Government wag for grant-related expenditure assessments to move away from seeking to reflect patterns of actual local authority expenditure and towards judgmental approaches that are derived from a variety of bases.
However, the assessments that will apply under the block grant are no more than the aggregate of subjective assumptions about what authorities ought to be spending, derived from a variety of past and limited academic researches and average unit costs and preconceptions as to who are underspenders or overspenders—all constrained by the availability of some appropriate data. I went into the matter in depth in a debate on 25 November.
Therefore, the most crucial general point is that the assessments will be presented as having emerged from a

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great professorial, technical process, whereas in fact they have no basis beyond the subjective judgments of civil servants and those involved in compiling statistics and the academic studies that they have relied on. There is no way in which it can be contended that the systems that are being developed are any simpler or more intelligible than the alleged complex regression analysis approach that they are designed to replace. Let us have no more of the nonsense from the Secretary of State about getting rid of the judgment of the politician. What we have now is "The man in Whitehall knows best." Apparently, we shall have to put up with that.
Mr. Frank Dobson: Is my hon. Friend aware that there are rumours of doubts about whether the man in Whitehall knows best, because he had to rely on American computers to do the calculations for him?
Mr. Brown: That is interesting. It does not surprise me. We speak about buying British, but the Government do not seem to encourage that.
How does the new system affect Hackney borough council? In the documents that we received we noted that Hackney, under the base position, would. have received £42,435,000. Under the new position, it will receive only £34,430,000. That is a loss of 12·9p or 10·6 per cent. Those are Government figures, so I can only presume that they are correct. That is only for starters. That is taking the present position of previous expenditure, which is now being confirmed, based on the old and new systems. There is already a loss simply on the change alone. More differences will occur because of the cutting by the Government of the rate support grant. Hackney borough council, which is in tremendous difficulty, will find itself in even worse difficulty.
I heard the hon. Member for Putney refer to the virtues of Wandsworth. Wandsworth overspent more than Hackney, yet the Secretary of State chose to look kindly upon it and not put it on the hit list. I looked at the position of Wandsworth. Under the old system it would have received £48,295,000. Under the new grant system it will receive £40,082,000. Yet the Secretary of State claimed that Wandsworth is not a high spender. It is spending more than Hackney, but it is not on the hit list. We are now seeing the most disgraceful piece of squalid party political issue. The Government are deliberately picking out councils. Hackney is not the highest spender. That is shown in the documents. It is below Wandsworth. Will the Under-Secretary look at that? It is quite disgraceful that Hackney should be treated in that way.
The hon. Member for Putney kept underlining Labour authorities or Conservative authorities. We are seeing clearly that the Secretary of State is differentiating between the boroughs that are elected by the people of this country and happen to be Conservative and those that are elected by the people of this country and happen to be Labour. The Secretary of State is saying that he does not care a fig for their vote; he will change the balance in this way. It is a new and novel concept. If he proceeds with it, those of us who argued that local government should not be in the cockpit of politics—it is not fair to deal with it in that way—will have to revise our view.
There will be a time when the Minister is sitting in the corner behind me, which was his favourite seat when in
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Opposition. It will be no good his grumbling, as he grumbled before, about political intervention by the central Government in local government and complaining bitterly that it should be left alone. He will have not only been a part of the charade but will have deliberately contributed to the appalling behaviour of the Government—more than simply as a Back Bencher but as part of the system, and taking the Queen's shilling for doing it. The Government have made the position worse for Hackney than they should have done.
I ask the Minister to look at the effect that the hit programme is having on Hackney. The Secretary of State made a great issue about housing. As I pointed out to the House on 25 November, Hackney has 16,000 families on the waiting list. That number is rising by some 100 families a month. I illustrated to the House the hopeless position in Hackney. It is on the record, so I shall not rehearse the argument again.
When I studied the housing improvement programme, I found that in 1980–81 Hackney was receiving £34,945,000. In 1981–82 it is being allocated £21,598,000. The Secretary of State is aware that in 1981–82 £15,274,000 has already been allocated. The housing improvement programme is giving Hackney, with its tremendous problems, £6 million. The people of Hackney should be clear about exactly what the Government are doing to them.
It is a total no-hope situation. My hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) has told the House what is happening in Lambeth, and that is precisely the situation in Hackney. As I said in a previous debate, we are now getting people coming to Hackney who were misled by the Prime Minister and persuaded to travel from other parts of the country. They go into a room somewhere, double up with a group or family and are declared homeless. They then bring their family to Hackney to go into hotel accommodation and try to obtain some priority for rehousing in a borough with 16,000 families on the waiting list. The Government's contribution to solving some of the problems in Hackney is nonsensical.
Mr. Clinton Davis: The bed and breakfast problem seems to be increasing week by week. Is it not a fact that my hon. Friend and I found that the council is required to pay an ever-increasing amount to support the system? Whatever may be the rights and wrongs of those who occupy the bed and breakfast accommodation, is it not a fact that there is tremendous deprivation within that accommodation in terms of basic standard amenities that are not available?
Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend is right. Hackney borough council is trying desperately to alleviate the problem. There are fewer and fewer hotels that it can use. The absurdity is that the Prime Minister invited people to travel from other parts of the county. At one of my recent surgeries on a Friday night, I was told by someone of the appalling conditions in which he was living. I asked where he came from and it transpired that he came from Birmingham. I asked why he had left Birmingham and he replied "Because the Prime Minister said that we had to travel to look for work." I asked him why he had not tried Bromley. I told him that it was a good place that did not have many problems.
Barnet and Bromley do not appear on the hit list. I do not know why Hackney appears on it. Bromley is a pretty

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high spender. I do not know how Bromley did not get on to the hit list. I turned up Hansard of 15 December 1980 and studied column 76. A question had been asked about the rate and grantborne expenditure of each authority. I noted that Hackney's expenditure was £63,985,000 while Bromley's was £84,933,000. I wonder why Hackney is being called a high spending authority or a profligate authority. Why has it had to suffer the Government's appalling attack with a view to withdrawing its funds? Barnet has expenditure of £85,691,000. I turned to Ealing. I thought that that would be interesting as I anticipated the presence in the Chamber of the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway). Ealing's expenditure was £98,057,000. Apparently all the highspenders are all right, whereas Hackney, because it is Labour-controlled, is subjected to appalling behaviour.
Mr. Greenway rose—
Mr. Brown: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman if he can explain why spending £63 million is profligacy whereas spending nearly £100 million is not.
Mr. Greenway: The hon. Gentleman has not mentioned the population of the boroughs to which he has referred and the relative expenditure per head, which is a much fairer way of talking about the matter.
Mr. Brown: The hon. Gentleman is right. His right hon. Friend has not talked about the problems. If we in Hackney had only the problems of Ealing, Bromley and Barnet, we should be happy. Unfortunately, we get the problems from Ealing and Bromley. Their provision of services is so appalling that people come to Hackney on the buses.
Mr. Greenway: Rubbish.
Mr. Brown: That must be taken into account as well. That is why I am so concerned that the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends have put Hackney on the hit list. We have once again nailed as a downright untruth the argument that Hackney is a profligate borough, spending money like water, when, it is said, Broniley, Barnet, Ealing and Croydon are all doing so much better in the spending of money.
The Secretary of State has appointed himself the gauleiter of local government, from the Reichstag in Marsham Street. He says "When freedom comes, you will do as you are told. Local government will do exactly as I tell it." The Tory führer makes it clear that he will have his way. We had a classic example a few weeks ago, when the right hon. Gentleman decided that he would raise rents by £2·50 to £3. We had an exchange of view with him on the way in which he announced it. The right hon. Gentleman was clearly very petulant, and after having a couple of free meals he has now decided that the increase will be £3·25 instead.
This great gauleiter apparently no longer has any view about local government being local. The great theme of the present Secretary of State for Industry when he raped London in 1963 was that the primary unit of local government was the borough. That right hon. Gentleman created the enormous problem that the Secretary of State for the Environment is now struggling with. Now, from on high, the right hon. Gentleman is to determine all the various issues.
Where is the voice of freedom, that of Sir Horace Cutler, which we heard from 1967 to 1973 and from 1977
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until the present day? We have not heard a word from the great Sir Horace, the bastion of freedom, the man who defended local government from the wicked Labour Government—who, in fact, gave London more money. Perhaps he has gone on holiday. We used to hear his voice trumpeting as he travelled between Buckinghamshire and London.
Weeks have gone by, and we have heard nothing from Sir Horace. We have heard no bitter complaint about the raping of London by his friends here. I thought that he was all right, as he did not have to fight for his KBE any more. As the doyen d'age in local government in London, he could have added his voice in complaint about his Government's appalling behaviour. His silence is deafening.
I turn to the issue of unemployment, which I have raised a number of times. It is no use our skirting round the issue. I recall sitting on the Government Benches and hearing the present Under-Secretary grumbling about unemployment in London, blaming the Labour Government for every conceivable ill. In 1978 he even attributed the snow at Christmas to my right hon. Friend the then Secretary of State for the Environment. The hon. Gentleman was so upset in those days.
Yet unemployment in London has risen from 130,900 in December 1979 to 220,000 in December 1980—a 70 per cent. increase in one year. The figure might even double by the end of the year. We shall see when the latest figures are announced next Tuesday. That means that London has about one-twelfth of the country's total unemployment and that one-quarter of the total increase in the country's unemployment this year has been in London.
How the Under-Secretary of State can continue to sit on the Government Front Bench after all the words he had to say in those days is beyond me. I have looked up Hansard and I can tell him now that if, when he replies, he tries to deny the statements he made in those days, about unemployment and about what was happening under the then Government, I shall intervene to correct him. We had not even reached 1 million unemployed then; now, we are nearly at 2½llion—probably nearer 3 million if we use the proper figures.
That is the situation for which the Government must answer. It is no good simply saying "Well, we're getting the economy straight." Everybody has said that. When Labour was in power, the right hon. Gentleman did not accept that argument from the Government. He did not accept that there was an international recession; he did not accept that it was due to the gnomes of Zurich pushing up the value of our money because we have an oil well in the back garden. Those were not acceptable answers to him as to why things had gone wrong.
Earlier today, a Minister claimed that there was a great problem because the pound was rising and the Government could not do anything about it. That is not what the present Ministers said when we had a Labour Government. Then, it was all Labour's fault. They used to say "Don't keep blaming somebody else; take your own responsibilities." Now, they blame everybody else. They blame the gnomes of Zurich; they blame the Arabs; they blame the French; they blame the EEC—they blame everybody. There is not a soul they do not blame—except themselves. They will not look in a mirror to see the obvious cause of the

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situation. If only they did that, they would see the problem. But no. They simply go on and on blaming everybody else.
Not only is the capital's unemployment at a record level, but London lost more jobs in 1980 than in any year since records have been kept. The hon. Member for Putney recalled 1977. He was quite wrong. This year is the worst year for London since records have been kept. The Under-Secretary of State and I used to argue about jobs leaving London. We used to complain bitterly about stupid Governments, of both colours, moving industry out voluntarily. We used to argue the importance of keeping industry in London. But now the Under-Secretary of State is part of a system that is not only deliberately forcing industry out but is deliberately raising unemployment in London to the highest level ever. It will be his memorial that he was the mastermind behind ensuring that London got the highest level of unemployment it has ever reached.
What a record! How proud the hon. Gentleman must be of it. All it has done is to make this Tory Government look the shabby, incompetent bunch that they really are. But what effect does it have on the ordinary people in my constituency? We get case after case of people's electricity being cut off, for example. What are the Government doing? How are they making any sort of effort to ensure that people are saved from the appalling problem of having their electricity disconnected and being made to live in shocking circumstances?
The Child Poverty Action Group recently circularised all Members of Parliament drawing their attention to this situation. I have seen the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security about it and have urged her to see the chairman of the electricity board in order to try to ensure that families, old people and others in poor circumstances do not have their electricity cut off and are not made to freeze as they are now being made to freeze until some way can be found to restore it.
It is a situation of no hope. Once people are cut off, there is no way of getting them back on again. The electricity board says that it is not a social service. The social security office says that it can do nothing because heating is included in people's benefits. The social services department of the council is being cut and cut and cannot do anything because it has no funds. The mayor's charities cannot do any more, because we have lost industries which used to contribute substantially.
I do not suppose that the Minister cares about the people. Someone in his Department should know how many families are cut off at present, so that he is made aware of the problem. We see elderly people being treated like chequers on a chequer board. No one cares. This is the most uncaring Government that I have ever seen.
The hon. Gentleman will recall that the Labour Government intervened with the eletricity and gas boards to make sure that a procedure was gone through before disconnections took place, and help was given for heating. This Government have discarded all that machinery, and we now have a situation where the electricity board, on instructions from the Government, are simply cutting off people without any consultation with anyone.
Mr. Clinton Davis: Is my hon. Friend aware that the present Secretary of State was not always so concerned about public expenditure? When the right hon. Gentleman
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moved into the Department of Trade and Industry, as it was, in 1970, a vast amount of money was spent on decorating his room. His present attitude comes very sadly from a gentleman with those rather luxurious tastes.
Mr. Brown: I am not a frequent visitor to Victoria Street, but I accept what my hon. Friend said. It is another example of profligate expenditure, about which this Government know so much.
I know of case after case of people being treated badly by the GLC. The GLC is treating its tenants badly because, it claims, it has no money. I cite as an example the case of two sisters whose GLC flat has dangerous wiring. They told me about it, and I raised the matter with the GLC. I received a letter on 3 November saying that it was being attended to. Apparently the landlord did not know the dangerous state of the wiring in the flat. When I received that letter, I presumed that, since the local authority told me that it was being attended to, that was the end of the matter. Accordingly, I wrote to the tenant asking her to let me know when the rewiring had been completed. I got a letter back from her saying that nothing had happened, although she had a letter from the district manager saying that the work would be done and that it was in hand.
Following that, I contacted the GLC again. I said "Why don't you do this job? The wiring is dangerous. It could start a fire. The tenant can't have fires on because of the risk of the wiring exploding."
Finally, I received another letter from the tenant:
"I regret to have to tell you that my dear sister died on 24 November, so the matter is no longer urgent."
This Government should be proud of themselves, I must say. The GLC cannot do its work because it has no money with which to do it. This is the sacrifice that the Government are making on the altar of monetarism, and it is an absolute scandal.
I would not mind so much if it was just the occasional case, but there is case after case. I had occasion to get in touch with the GLC about the flat of an elderly lady of 87 whose heating was off. The GLC assured me that it would do its best to do something about it. I telephoned again this morning so that I could tell the House about it. Nothing has been done, of course. I repeat that this is an old lady of 87. This is contempt by the Tory GLC on the one hand and by the Tory Government on the other. It is disgraceful to treat peope in this way, and it cannot go unsaid that the appalling situation that we are facing is a direct result of the way in which the Government are deploying themselves and insisting that councils should behave in a certain way.
I had a classic case only last weekend. After fighting for five or six years to get a man transferred—one would have thought that he was asking to get a piece of moon rock—from a two-bedroom property to a one-bedroom property, with his wife, we made it. He went into a new estate. He is very lucky, because the new estate is up for sale and properties are being advertised at £42,000 to £43,000. There are not many takers, of course, but the properties are being advertised. The one-bedroom properties could not be sold, so they are being let.
After waiting all those years, my constituent, instead of going on holiday, decided to put his money into new furniture—which makes me very proud for my furniture workers. He carpeted his little place, and it is his home. Last Thursday, a joint on the main water supply pipe blew. These things happen, I suppose, although I am advised that

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it was sheer bad workmanship—private enterprise building, of course. The result was that 130 gallons of water poured into his flat. There was water in every room.
The reason for the 130 gallons pouring in was that nobody knew where the stopcock was to turn off the water supply. The contractors are still on the site, but they did not know. The GLC said that someone would come at some time, but it would have to be fitted in between a visit to a district office and a visit to an estate, and someone turned up 24 hours later. The fire brigade was called. The police were called. Everybody was called, but nobody could find the stopcock. Finally, some people from the water board came. They knew where the stopcock was, but they did not have a long enough key, so they could not turn the water off immediately. They tackled the problem by breaking up the ground around the stopcock in order to turn it off.
Because of the delay, my constituent had 130 gallons of water in his flat. The place was ruined, and when I said to the GLC "What are you going to do about it?" the reply was "We will give him a form for a claim." I said "The man is paddling in water in his flat", but he was left there. It is a scandal that the GLC can behave in this manner, because what happened was inexcusable.
The Secretary of State spoke today about empty properties in Hackney. I am pleased that he is keeping a close eye on Hackney. I hope to invite him to come and see us. The Under-Secretary does come, so he knows. Does he know what those empty properties are? They are being kept empty by the GLC so that they can be sold. It will not let anyone rent them. Some belong to housing associations, but they cannot complete them because they have no money to get them into good order. I have received a cri de coeur from every housing association in my constituency, begging me to do something with the Government so that they can carry out the work that they have undertaken to do.
Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I do not want to misquote the hon. Gentleman when I reply to the debate. Will he repeat the figure of empty properties owned by Hackney borough council?
Mr. Brown: I thought that the Secretary of State said that there were 1.000 empty properties in Hackney. I am going through the group to tell the hon. Gentleman why they are all empty. I am surprised that there are only 1,000. I thought that there were many more. I am coming to another one. I ask the House not to hurry me, because I am coming to the next one.
I come now to that great company that is so close to the heart of the Secretary of State—Fairview Estates. The House will recall that there was a public inquiry to determine whether the council should build 34 sheltered homes for the elderly. The inspector was satisfied that it was a right and proper use of the site. Unfortunately, the determination came before the present Secretary of State. He took a different view. He decided that these sheltered homes could wait and that someone else could provide them. He gave it to his old friends, Fairview Estates.
Fairview Estates owns more empty property in my constituency than that. I have already had words with the Under-Secretary, who has even intervened in the matter. These properties are still empty, disgraceful and falling down. I have got the public health authority to look at them. That authority is in trouble because it has not been
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allowed to recruit, so it does not have the necessary staff to process section 89 orders. Therefore, these friends of the Secretary of State are still allowed to have all these empty properties hanging around in Victoria Park Road, with no one doing a thing about it.
Therefore, I am surprised that the Secretary of State could add up only 1,000. It ought to be a lot more than that, with all his friends holding them empty. Perhaps he can explain why. Perhaps this is part of the shorthold story. Perhaps this is the fiddle that is going on.
I was very surprised, but I am pleased, that the Secretary of State has his eye on the matter. When I return to my constituency in the early hours of this morning, I hope to learn that he has taken action with Fairview Estates, his friends, and has asked them what they are going to do about tidying up that site and all their empty properties.
The Under-Secretary has been very kind. He intervened earlier. I asked him what to do about the poor woman waiting to be rehoused. Nothing has happened. She is still there, in the most appalling conditions. Lead has been stolen from her roof. She is being harassed by people who are simply going into her property thinking that it is empty like all the others round about her, owned by Fairview Estates—private enterprise, the boys who know how to do it. This is a part of the story as to why there are 1,000 empty properties in Hackney, many of them in my constituency.
The housing associations are desperate. Will the Under-Secretary get in touch with the housing associations? He knows them. He helped to set up many of them, arguing that they were the great creature that would do all the great work for us. Now, they are in desperate trouble. They want his help. I should like to know tonight what he is doing about it and how much money he will be giving to all these areas. Circle 33 and the World of Property Housing Trust hold vast numbers of properties in my area—quite wrongly, I think, but they have got them. They are doing nothing with them because they have no money with which to do it. I hope that the Minister will tell me what he is doing.
The private landlords in my area do not come out too well, either. Recently I have been having some exchanges with a private landlord over the problems of installing baths. There are houses owned by private enterprise in my area that still do not have baths, toilets and the like. Because it has been declared a general improvement area, we are trying to get the private landlord to do some work in this regard. We are trying to get some of the tenants rehoused pending renovations by the owner. I finally got Hackney borough council to agree, but the landlord wished to have six nominations for each empty property, for which he would give a reciprocal arrangement. If the council rehoused the family, it would be able to give six choices for the replacement. But the landlord is not satisfied with that. In his letter to me, he says:
"The Council have indicated to you that they will try to put forward suitable nominees. All we are saying is that they must provide reasonable proof that the nominees are suitable."
How can one do a deal with people like that? The people who are suffering are my constituents. The landlord cannot do the work, has not done the work over all these years, cannot rehouse the families anyway, and the council is prepared to help, yet we can make no progress. The only losers are my constituents, who are desperate to be rehoused in a place where they can have a bath.

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The more that I listen to the shorthold story, the more I realise that this is part of what the shorthold lessee's position will be if ever he gets into the clutches of the private landlord.
So one could go on. There has been a total destruction of housing in London, and there is a total destruction of the whole means of not only the councils but the housing associations and in other associated areas.
The House has heard me many times on the question of the St. Leonard's hospital and the appalling way in which the area health authority has chosen to close it, first temporarily and subsequently by putting it in the position of never again being the hospital that it was. The authority had the opportunity of a public discussion of the working party report on what to do about the hospital. However, because it objected to that report it was never discussed. Instead, there was a dirge on who would vote for the proposal from the area health authority. Any chance of consultation was lost.
I visited the hospital yesterday. It is like a dosshouse. The same thing is happening at Bart's. The deterioration in the Health Service is a direct result of the Government's policies and is unbelievable. Beds are empty and wards have been closed. Those that are open are like dosshouses. As from the near future, breakfasts will be reduced to a slice of bread and a cup of tea. It is to be called a Continental breakfast. Apparently, patients will shortly have to arrange to have their breakfast brought in or have sandwiches left behind at night as an economy.
In my area a building is being redecorated and painted. It stands out like a sore thumb. It is the office for the relief of the poor. The GLC has just arranged for the road to be opened—presumably, to allow the queues to form and to disperse after having obtained their relief. So, under 1980s Toryism, offices for the relief of the poor are being opened.
The Government are presiding over the greatest rundown of our society ever attempted. Every basic element of our compassionate society is to be destroyed. The Welfare State is to be non-existent by 1984. We have returned to the pre-1944 position of poor housing, poor health service, poor schooling and poor retirement pensions and benefits, all in a society based on fear. Two basic factors remain: if people have the money, the world is their oyster; if they do not, it is the knacker's yard for them. If we have the biggest nuclear fleet, as apparently we shall have with Trident, we shall be the finest nation outside NATO in that regard.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: Our nation is inside NATO.
Mr. Brown: It is most unseemly for the hon. Gentleman to interrupt from a sedentary position. Hon. Members usually have the courtesy to get up, but since he has not I forgive him. He is as much a part of the behaviour of his Government as anyone else. He is a nice fellow. I like him. But he cannot opt out of what the Secretary of State is doing. I merely ask him to consider, and I ask his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to consider:
"For what shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul."
3.40 am
Mr. John Hunt: At the beginning of his speech—which seems a very long time ago—the hon.
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Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) was kind enough to welcome Conservative Members to the debate. I thank him for that welcome, and I am bound to admit that if he and his colleagues had not entered their names in Mr. Speaker's ballot for the Consolidated Fund Bill we should not be sitting on these Benches at this absurd hour today. However, we shall not bear the hon. Gentleman any lasting ill will in that respect.
I shall not comment in detail on the hon. Gentleman's speech, for fear of continuing for the same length of time that he took to deliver his remarks. However, he spoilt some aspects of his case by overstatement and exaggeration. Inevitably, in a debate on the subject of Government assistance to London, the question of the rate support grant must figure prominently. It has tonight, and a number of speakers, including the hon. Members for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) and Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) and my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) have dealt with that aspect of London's current problems.
Few hon. Members can yet forecast with certainty the precise effect of the rate support grant on their individual boroughs. I am sure that the borough treasurers are now working feverishly with slide rules and pocket calculators, and in due course we shall know the result of their labours. I do not understand why the Labour Party, faced with Government decisions of this sort that it is so quick to criticise, always presents the public with the stark alternative of cuts in services or increases in the rates when there is a third choice that it rarely mentions—a cut-back in staffing levels.
The media fall into the same trap. Shortly after the announcement of the Secretary of State on Tuesday afternoon, LBC broadcast an interview with the deputy Labour leader at County Hall, Mr. Illtyd Harrington. It would be interesting to know upon what basis that gentleman was chosen to speak for London. Again, he was allowed to get away with the myth that the only course available to local government was higher rates or a cut in services. Yeterday morning, on the "AM" programme, LBC again demonstrated its political balance and impartiality by calling Mr. Ted Knight of Lambeth to the studio to discuss the same matter. At no time did any interviewer even raise the question of staffing levels in local government.
Quite fortuitously, on Tuesday in The Daily Telegraph my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham and Crawley (Mr. Hordern) wrote an article on the overstaffing of local authorities, and he gave some staggering figures. He told us that 20 years ago the total number of full-time and part-time employees in local government in England and Wales was 1,500,000; 10 years ago it was 2 million; and it is now 2½ million. That is a frightening progression, and that is at the very root of our current problems in respect of public expenditure.
Mr. Race: The figures are wrong.
Mr. Hunt: If the figures are wrong, the hon. Gentleman must take them up with my hon. Friend the Member for Horsham and Crawley. I am quoting his figures.
Mr. Race: According to the local government manpower watch figures, the number of full-time employees in local government has never gone beyond 2.1 million. I do not know from where the hon. Member for Horsham and Crawley (Mr. Hordern) gets his figures.
Mr. Hunt: I have told the hon. Gentleman from where I get my figures. If there is a dispute, he must take it up with my hon. Friend, who wrote the article. At least, we are agreed that the figures are over 2 million, which is a very large—
Mr. Race: As I understand, the figure is now below 2 million.
Mr. Hunt: I hope we can count on the hon. Gentleman's support for that welcome trend.
Mr. Race: No.
Mr. Hunt: I am interested to hear that we cannot. I often wonder whether the hon. Gentleman represents the constituency of Wood Green or NUPE in these discussions. Perhaps one day we shall be told.
My point is that it is possible for local government totals to come down, and if the national trend is now in the direction that the hon. Gentleman suggests I certainly welcome that and suggest that the trail has been blazed in that respect by the GLC, which, in the course of the three years since 1977, has reduced its staff by about 4,000. This has been done on the basis of the sound housekeeping which it has practised since the Conservatives won control of County Hall. This sound housekeeping has in turn been reflected in the rate precepts which have been levied. In the two years of Labour control prior to the Conservatives winning, the rate precept went up by 235 per cent. In the five years since then the precept has gone up by 23 per cent. Those figures speak for themselves.
Mr. Clinton Davis: As a well-known wit who seems to have spent a great deal of time in the Sahara desert, will the hon. Gentleman indicate whether he agrees with the view that
"with average London domestic rate bills already more than 40 per cent. above the rest of the country, it cannot be accepted that London has been favourably treated in the least. This makes it all the harder to swallow a significant movement of grant away from the capital which can only jeopardise London's efforts to cope with the problems of decline, particularly in the inner areas."
Does the hon. Gentleman agree with that statement? Would he be surprised to know that those are the words of Richard Brew, the deputy leader of the GLC?
Mr. Hunt: I am not entirely surprised. From my soundings, I know that there is some unhappiness in London government circles concerning the present position. It is something of an exaggeration to talk of a significant shift. I am prepared to wait until all the figures have been finally worked out. I do not know the precise effect on my own borough. It is a little premature to talk precisely in the hon. Gentleman's terms, although I would not dispute that there is concern at County Hall and among some Conservative authorities within the London area.
I was struck, in the exchanges which followed the Secretary of State's announcement on Tuesday, by his comment that
"the fundamental assumption of so many inner city authorities that if they increase expenditure and rates they will improve the local environment does not stand up to examination. In fact, they drive more and more people and firms out of the area, thus aggravating the problems that they are trying to cure".—[Official Report, 16 December 1980; Vol. 996, c. 152.]
There is a great deal of truth in that comment and a great deal of strength in the argument. It meets to some extent the point that the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch was making about unemployment in London.
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It is being exacerbated and accentuated by the high rate demands which have been a feature, particularly in Labour boroughs, for many years now.
Mr. Race: Would the hon. Gentleman care to substantiate his very serious allegations by naming the firms which have moved out of any one Labour-controlled borough over, say, the past 10 or 20 years, and tell us how he knows that those firms have moved because of rate rises?
Mr. Hunt: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman would seriously expect me to have figures of that kind at my fingertips.
Mr. Race: It is absolute rubbish.
Mr. Hunt: The hon. Gentleman is entitled to think that it is rubbish. What I am saying in reply is that, in my contacts and links with those who run small businesses, one finds that they are very perturbed about the level of rate demands.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Greenway: Charrington's has moved almost completely out of Tower Hamlets. I regret that, because it has been in Tower Hamlets for a long time. I know the firm well. The move was largely due to the rates. It has taken a substantial proportion of its operations to Buxton in Derbyshire. I could list several firms that have moved out of Tower Hamlets. I was a candidate there for several years.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Hunt: I do not think that hon. Members can intervene on an intervention, and I shall not give way. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for providing the name of a firm [Interruption.] Names should not be bandied around the House. Evidence could easily be assembled. Many cases will bear out my point.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State sought to make it clear that the most profligate authorities do not spend money to the best effect. I shall give one practical example. Lewisham borough council is a neighbour of Bromley borough council. Lewisham boasts that it can offer free services to the elderly. I understand that it does not charge for home helps, regardless of a person's financial position. However, Bromley charges according to need. That tradition of wise and prudent housekeeping has helped to provide the necessary resources for other worthwhile projects within the borough of Bromely. For example, we built the Bertha James centre. It is a leisure centre for the elderly that any borough would he proud of. It cannot be matched by Lewisham or any other borough.
Mr. Dubs: Will not the hon. Gentleman concede that good arguments can be made for refusing to charge? The cost of administering a means-tested service for home helps is often so high that local authorities such as Lewisham rightly decide that it is not worth while.
Mr. Hunt: I can retort only that that is not the experience in Bromley. A charge of £2 per hour is made to those who can afford it. That provides revenue for the council. That is symptomatic of a wise and prudent approach to local government expenditure. At the same time, it has enabled us to undertake other valuable projects such as the leisure centre, which provides chiropody, hairdressing, bathing facilities and so on. In addition, for

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the past three years Bromley has held the rates steady when the neighbouring borough of Lewisham has increased them by 40 per cent. to 50 per cent.
It is possible to curb expenditure and yet to make adequate provision for the most needy and deserving. If the rate support grant proposals impose some restraint and instill some sense of responsibility into councils such as Lewisham and Lambeth, we shall be moving in the right direction.
3.53 am
Mr. Stuart Holland: I shall address my remarks to areas such as housing, health and social services, particularly in relation to private and public spending.
Several hon. Members have stressed the multiple deprivation of inner city areas. I shall not repeat what is already clear to Labour Members. But it is important to stress that much of the housing stock in constituencies such as mine was constructed in the 1930s and 1940s and is coming to the end of its natural life cycle. Instead of simply needing someone to repair the roofs or clear the drains, it needs new roofs and drainage systems and major capital expenditure. That expenditure is bound to be bunched inasmuch as the initial housing projects were bunched—a point admitted in the current issue of "Social Trends".
While the need for housing expenditure rises for that reason, we are in a situation where the cuts in housing allocation at the GLC level are of 50 per cent. and in Lambeth of nearly 40 per cent. That, as my hon. Friend the Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) stressed earlier, is imposing a sense of real desperation on people who, instead of imagining, as it seems some Conservative Members imagine, that the housing problem is due to bureaucracy, have come to realise that they are actually going to die in damp, uninhabitable conditions and that asthmatic and bronchial people, whether old or young, are still going to have to climb up four, five or six flights of stairs.
Recently I saw a young woman constituent who has half a kidney, a chest complaint and a collar round her neck as a result of pulling a pram up a flight of stairs on the Brandon estate, where the lifts simply do not work. They are regularly out of action. The Tory GLC last summer broke a written commitment to the tenants' association to modernise and improve that estate. I say "modernise" in the sense that the estate itself is only seven to eight years old, yet it is in need of dramatic remedial action to make it habitable and functional.
A broken commitment there has a dramatic effect on the feasibility of the tenants' association being able to deal effectively with local vandalism. If the tenants' association has no authority, cannot bargain with the local authority and cannot have some kind of assurance that the local authority will stand by a guarantee to improve the estate, confidence in local government is profoundly undermined. In my constituency, it is not the left jabs which are passingly made by Conservative Members towards what they call the people's republic of Lambeth which are giving concern but the Right-wing slam which is coming from this Government with their cuts in public housing and their reneging on written promises.
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Another example is Kilner House on the Kennington Park estate, where a written commitment was made by the GLC to tenants that they would be able to move into a modernised block on that estate. This covered people who had special needs for ground floor housing. In fact, the Tory GLC again reneged on this commitment and put the properties up for sale. It is hardly surprising in this circumstance that there is a very strong reaction by the tenants' association of the whole estate in support of the occupation of Kilner House by the London squatters' union on condition that, if the GLC stands by its original commitment to let rather than to sell the properties, it will relinquish the properties concerned.
People are losing confidence in a profound manner not in Lambeth and its Labour council but in the Conservative GLC and its policy of council house sales, which have, in effect, ended outward movement from boroughs such as Lambeth. Also, they are losing confidence inasmuch as the Tory GLC cannot be trusted any more by tenants on estates for whom what previously had been a housing problem has been translated by the Government into a housing disaster.
One thing that I find most surprising in, for example, the contribution made by the hon. Member for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler) is that he seems to believe that public spending is inherently bad—that there is an almost Manichaean division between public spending, bad, and private spending, good—without realising that public spending mainly sustains rather than drains the private sector.
That point is directly relevant to an answer that the Secretary of State gave me to a parliamentary question earlier this year. I asked the Secretary of State for the Environment:
"what proportion of council house building in the United Kingdom was represented by … direct labour departments of councils and … private companies in the years since 1974."—[Official Report, 28 July 1980; Vol. 989, c. 540.] The reply was that in England and Wales for each individual year since 1974 direct labour departments had represented less than 8 per cent. of total local authority house building. What does that mean?
We have had many sweeping generalisations from the Government Benches tonight, with a failure to present facts to support their arguments. Here is a fact that I suggest that the Government take into account if their political future is to be even vaguely ensured. As a result of direct labour departments representing less than 8 per cent. of spending, for every £100 of public spending cuts in housing, £92 is taken away from private and not public contractors. I asked for the breakdown for the greater London area but was told that it was not available. The figures are likely to be similar in the London area.
While the Government and the CBI are focusing their attention on high interest rate policy, inasmuch as very few firms and councils like having high interest rates hung around their necks, the Government, by cutting public expenditure on modernisation programmes, such as on the Brandon estate, and on new housing, which in the local authority sector is sizably more than one-third of total housing in the country, are dropping the floor of demand from under the feet of private enterprise. They are aggravating the problem of both the public and private sectors in housing.
The assumption is made by the hon. Member for Ravensbourne (Mr. Hunt) that in some way public

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employment is bad and should be reduced. What kind of productivism or mercantalist philosophy is that? Is the society that he wants one that produces only goods rather than services? Is it a society in which only private health services, education or housing are legitimate? Is he really planning to reverse the trend since the last war for the private rented sector in housing to be reduced from 60 per cent. of total housing provision to only some 10 to 14 per cent.? Does he wish to reverse that trend on the assumption that private is in some way better than public?
Are Conservative Members, who throughout the debate have inveighed against rates—local taxes—as if local tax is breaking the back of business, really unaware that corporation tax has virtually been abolished in this country by successive Governments and that the biggest problem for small business in the inner city is not big spending by local government but big business and centralisation of capital? The large firms grow larger, in large part by eating up the small firms. Half the growth in the rising share in manufacturing of the top 100 companies over the main part of the period since 1950 was by takeover of other firms. The Government are looking in the wrong direction.
I am surprised that the hon. Member for Ravensbourne talked with such confidence. I am glad that he was challenged by my my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mr. Race). I have studied the question of location and mobility of enterprise in some depth. I find that much of the argument that high rate costs cause the outflow from the South-East, like the argument that there are locational costs in going to the North-East, is boardroom myth. It seems clear that if business men or civil servants, isolated from the real world either by their class or by the Official Secrets Act, repeat something to each other for long enough, they come to believe it to be fact. It was interesting to note that the hon. Gentleman, when challenged, produced no facts.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: If we are talking about facts and about Lambeth, will the hon. Gentleman tell the House the rates per week on his own house now compared with five years ago? Does he recognise that many of his constituents, business people and residents, feel like moving out of Lambeth because of the accelerating increase in rates, cascading year after year? The hon. Gentleman, as an economist, must know that this is a disincentive to remain.
Mr. Holland: The increase in rates in Lambeth has not been decided by Lambeth because it wishes to increase the rates. If local boroughs have no option but to finance either maintained levels of spending on social service or contracting levels, other than rates, it is because they are being given a godfather offer by the Government.
Mr. Bottomley: What are the hon. Gentleman's rates?
Mr. Holland: There has been a very sizeable increase in rates in Lambeth. It is going to be worse. I am not disputing the points that the hon. Gentleman makes. I am disputing the context in which he makes them. It is not a situation in which local authorities can sustain indefinitely spending levels on housing, health services or welfare services simply by rate finance. The tragic aspect of the Government's current policies is that a new form of tax will be imposed on consumers locally inasmuch as, if local authorities exceed the spending targets that the Secretary of State sets for them, the right hon. Gentleman will
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reduce the rate support grant the following year. That will cause a severe crisis for local authorities such as Lambeth. It is a regressive and reactionary policy. It is cynically taking with one hand and taking with the other hand as well.
The consequence for several councils, possibly including Lambeth—I say "possibly"—is that the Conservative Party, apparently the party of democracy and local devolution of decision-making, will appoint commissioners to impose its draconian policy and cuts. The irony is that the commissioners will be precisely what the Conservatives have wrongly accused the Labour Party of wishing to introduce in industry. The commissioners will be the commissars of local communities.
The policy pursued by the Government is not only bad for working people but devastating to industry. It might be advisable for at least some Conservative Members to realise that the Confederation of British Industry has only got the matter half right when it says that interest rates are high. Its claim that the Government should "really cut public spending" is precisely what is going to unemploy business not only in the inner city but in the country at large.
I wish to refer to some problems that are arising in my constituency. One—the threatened closure of the Belgrave hospital for children at the Oval—relates to the Government's general principle of the privatisation of services and their opposition to public services.
In line with the Government's general policy, the Variety Club of Great Britain, on a charitable basis, has promised £750,000 towards the cost of providing new facilities for children at King's College hospital, which is a considerable distance from the Belgrave site. However, the total estimated cost of two new wards at King's is £1·8 million. The rest of the money has to be found by savings in the rest of the King's health district. Where is the value for money in closing an existing hospital and starting a new facility for which the private charitable contribution cannot provide even half of the estimated cost? Indeed, it appears that the Variety Club is having some difficulty in raising the £750,000. Where is the economic sense in closing the Belgrave, where the cost of in-patient care is £358, when the cost at King's is an average of £544 per patient?
The new high-technology equipment that is due to be installed at King's College hospital will be for specialist, rather than general, medicine and will not meet the general needs of those in my constituency and other areas of South London served by the Belgrave hospital. This is much more of a community care hospital, serving the interests of families—oftern one-parent families with problems of multiple deprivation—for whom the care of children in a local hospital, even on a short-term basis, is so desirable.
In practice, because of the specialist beds to be provided at King's, where there will be 24 beds for high-technology cases and 16 beds for less acute cases, there will be a net loss of 23 beds for general cases. That is crazy logic in Health Service policy. The private charity's expenditure will lead to additional public expenditure and a reduction in the number of general beds.
There is a social class dimension to such a policy. The specialist beds will not serve the local area, where the demand for them would not be sufficient, but are likely to be serviced by private health provision over a much wider area—indeed, internationally. I am not so opposed to people coming to this country for medical health care,

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especially when they cannot receive care of a comparable standard in their own country, but I strongly oppose a prestige project that is of more direct interest to the expansion of mini-empires by certain consultants than to the serving of the interests of the local community. That is related to the Government's policies of giving support to privatised services.
The Government lay great emphasis on the fact that they want to disengage the statutory sector and involve the voluntary sector in certain services. One of those services in my area is, I regret to say, housing associations. That involves the St. Mungo community housing association, which has been in the news recently following the prosecution and conviction of Mr. Jim Horne, the founder of St. Mungo's. I do not wish to comment in the House on that trial and conviction, which has clearly been covered by the courts. I am far more concerned that on a voluntary sector basis, without adequate involvement of the statutory sector, St. Mungo's is failing to run either an adequate service or even a remotely adequate service for the people concerned.
There is a building, the Lennox building, in Parry Road, by Vauxhall Cross, which basically should be condemned and where the life scheduled for the property is only another two years. The conditions in that building, under the supervision of St. Mungo's, are absolutely staggering. I visited several of the flats concerned. Some of them have no connection between the sink and the drainage. The water is literally dripping from the sink. There are loose power points. There is wire hanging loose and inadequate wiring. There is seepage from lavatories. The conditions are thoroughly unsatisfactory. I am awaiting the report of the environmental health inspector on more than one flat. Yet when I submitted to St. Mungo's that it has a responsibility to those who are its tenants to undertake repairs and a certain amount of maintenance—because in many cases, although some of the flats are zero rated, it is charging £10 and £16 a week to couples—I find that little or nothing is being done.
For example, I have studied the case of a Mr. Carr. The windows in his flat are falling apart. They do not have sash cords. They cannot be properly closed. A reply from St. Mungo's dated 11 September stated:
"you will just have to prop your windows open."
In another case a gas cooker has not been provided, so there are no cooking facilities. In the case of a Mr. Boyle in one of the flats that I visited earlier in the year, there appears still to be no cooker in the kitchen, while water seepage and flooding render the floor damp and unhygienic. Tonight, to my surprise—and, I think, to the surprise of other hon. Members—at the hour of about three o'clock I was given a green card. I was surprised because I had not anticipated being approached at that hour of the morning. I have been approached by a Mr. Tippler and a Miss Cherry Winfield, who are at the moment in the Strangers Gallery and who have been—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Order. We never refer to anybody who is not actually in the Chamber.
Mr. Holland: I am most grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, since I was unaware of that. I assume that that record will not be in Hansard. I have been approached by
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constituents. I have no desire to refer to them being present here tonight. If that part of the Hansard record has to be struck, I should be happy with that.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not think that Hansard can be edited in that way. The hon. Gentleman has said what he has said, and I have said what I have said.
Mr. Holland: I have been approached during the past months by a Mr. Tippler and a Miss Cherry Winfield, who have a series of cumulative problems in their relations with St. Mungo's which clearly raise in question the capacity of that charity to manage effectively a property or a service of that kind. I made repeated representations. I found that some of the statutory authorities involved, especially Lambeth, have been most co-operative in attending meetings and giving support and pressure basically to remedy problems in the St. Mungo's trust. I found less responsiveness from the GLC.
I have written to the Minister asking him to have the situation investigated, and it has not been investigated. In fact, we now face the situation where St. Mungo's, which became notorious because of the misappropriation of funds by its founder director, is being run by a committee which clearly lacks the competence to fulfil the tasks for which it is responsible. There are social problems in the building rather than simply housing problems.
These are people who have very considerable needs. They are single homeless people with serious problems. They are in a half-way house between night shelters and another more independent world. I advised the director of St. Mungo's that I would need to consider raising this matter in the House if he could not, in fact, respond by showing more direct action to resolve the problems concerned. I am not satisfied that he has done so, and I think that this matter should be made public.
Plans should be undertaken for the residents of Lennox Buildings to be decanted and found alternative accommodation from now. In one or two cases where I have pressed this individually as a Member of Parliament, this has happened. But I put it to the House, since I am aware that I have stressed this case at some length, that as a Member of Parliament I should not have to take up each individual rehousing case in a property of this kind because the management itself appears incompetent to take the initiative on it.
I urge the Minister in turn to urge the Housing Corporation that it should be more concerned with the social work aspect of management in a case such as St. Mungo's and that the Housing Corporation, if it feels that it does have the ability or the professional competence to do this, should take advice on how to sort out the problem and should work with the statutory authorities to see that adequate social work is provided.
I consider personally that John Lane, the director of St. Mungo's, is not able to resolve these problems by himself.
The further case which causes me very great concern is that of the North Lambeth day centre. It is a related problem inasmuch as St. Mungo's has been providing mainly night shelter for the deprived and the North Lambeth day centre has been providing, as its name suggests, day facilities—in effect, shelter for some 1,500 people who over the last year have used it, it is estimated, on some 10,500 occasions.
I am very glad that there has been an informal assurance from the Department of the Environment that the staff and

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running costs of the centre at present levels will be funded through until 1982. I am also glad that there has been a categoric assurance from Lambeth of continued funding on this basis. However, I am very concerned by the fact that from the 23rd of this month this day centre, which is in the Royal Waterloo hospital by Waterloo Bridge, will no longer have any claim in law to the premises and that as a "street level agency" it may itself literally be put on the street through the regional health authority's intention to sell the hospital premises.
This relates directly to the question of funding and spending, inasmuch as pressure has been put on the regional health authority, which I do not regard as primarily responsible in this matter, by the Government to reduce spending. One of the ways in which it feels that it can most easily reduce spending is by the sale of a capital asset. But the day centre using the ground floor of this hospital has, in fact, no alternative premises.
The North Lambeth day centre is a voluntary non-statutory body. In this case, I stress that it has very high professional competence and has made a major contribution to the area. It is complementary to Health Service provision, and in both these respects I should have thought that it should appeal to the Government as a voluntary sector agency.
The regional health authority is only the holder of the property on behalf of the Secretary of State. I therefore submit to the Secretary of State that if he is concerned that the men involved in this day centre should not literally be put on the streets through this winter—with a sense of uncanny timing—on 23 December, if they are not literally to be exposed during the winter and if there are not to be problems of increased vagrancy, very possibly increased alcoholism and increased pressure on psychiatric and other social services, he should personally intervene to extend the deadline with which this day centre has been faced.
A real search has been made by the centre for alternative premises, but there are none that are suitable in the area. I urge the Secretary of State preferably to ensure that any future commitment of the property includes the continued use of the ground floor, at present occupied by the clay centre. An extended deadline of midsummer next year would be reasonable, even if the sale of the building, which I would oppose on certain grounds, proceeds. That extension would be reasonable on the ground that, even if it were sold without hitches and delays, the sale would involve advertisements, bids and tenders, which would not permit the beginning of work on the premises before midsummer. It is not unreasonable to assume that the building may not be sold quickly. Certainly its vacant disposal is not required in the time schedule demanded by the regional health authority, under pressure from the Government.
Elsewhere in my constituency there are hospital premises, which should have been demolished, being used as nurses' accommodation. That is in the area of the Lambeth hospital related to the St. Thomas' group. I do not indict St. Thomas' for this, but nurses are living in accommodation that is like a derelict industrial site. The Royal Waterloo hospital could well be converted to provide accommodation for nurses, which it once was. This could be combined with use of the ground floor for the continuation of the day centre.
In addition, there is the crucial point made in a letter to the chairman of the community health council last December by the chairman of the regional health authority
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that the hospital should not be sold until a decision has been made about the future of the Coin Street site. That site raises the general issue of public spending on housing versus private expenditure on office development.
As a result of a public inquiry, the Secretary of State invited competition in design for the properties concerned at the Coin Street sites. The Conservative GLC has shown a dramatic interest in selling the sites before mid-spring next year. Coincidence between events next May and the desire to dispose of the properties does not need much subtlety to see. The GLC is in an unseemly haste to sell the site, and there has been an unseemly haste to have the competition, but the fundamental issues have not been resolved.
Office construction in central London is increasing, while new technologies have staff- and space-shrinking effects. There is a patent need for housing in inner London, as Labour Member after Labour Member has stressed through the night. Homelessness in London as a whole is dramatic, while 300,000 homes are unfit, lacking in amenity or in need of modernisation.
The current property boom could result in a 10–20 per cent. increase in office accommodation over the next few years, while new technology—microprocessors, word processors and data processors—could result in a 10–20 per cent. decline in demand for office space.
We hear a great deal about the waste of public money. But many of us on the Labour Benches are concerned about the waste of private money. Ironically—or with a certain inherent logic—when private money is lost on a major scale, public funds are employed to bail out the private sector."
I have asked the Secretary of State whether he had taken account of the space- and staff-shrinking effect of new technology in consideration of planning permissions in the central London area, and he replied, briefly, that indeed he had not. I asked whether the Government were making any overall evaluation of the supply and demand for office space in the central London area and was told, in a parliamentary reply, that the Government were relying on market forces to sort out the situation.
It is quite clear that if, in fact, continued office development is allowed in London on current trends, and if there is any significant net shrinkage of the demand for office space as a result of new technology, we shall have a collapse in the property market which will make the collapse of the early 1970s look like a tremor in the market.
It has been put to me by one former Minister that the financial collapse in the 1974–75 period of the last Labour Government which would have been involved for the secondary banks and the other financial institutions involved in that office boom would have been of 1929 proportions had not the Government intervened with a bail-out operation of over a billion pounds—a billion pounds of money which could have been mobilised towards investment, including public investment in the inner city. Over a billion pounds at the time was more than one-third of the nation's annual manufacturing investment. Yet we had to mobilise that to bail out the property companies, the private property companies, which had seen only the upswing of the market and had been taken for a ride.
Mr. Peter Bottomley: I was not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was saying that a billion pounds was one-third

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of manufacturing output five or six years ago. May I repeat the question I put to him earlier? What are his rates now, on his own house, and what were they five years ago?
Mr. Holland: I think the hon. Member will realise that I have moved on from that point. I do not deny that the rate increase in Lambeth has been very considerable indeed.
The question of the current property speculation and the scale of the current property boom is relevant inasmuch as the property companies now tell us that the public should not be concerned because, whereas last time round it was speculative capital which was involved, now it is the safe money of the pension funds and the insurance companies. But that is an even worse prospect for the public at large and for the Government in particular, for the obvious reason that, whereas last time pension fund and insurance money was not directly involved, and last time we could have been in a 1929-type financial crash, this time it is compounded by the involvement of pension fund and insurance finance, which affect the whole use of resources in the system.
We could be in a very serious situation. It is directly relevant to a debate on the Consolidated Fund. It shows the completely arbitrary, if not manic, division in Government reasoning between the public and the private sectors and the two-facedness of the argument that public expenditure is a drain on the economy rather than sustaining the economy. Private speculation does not match supply and demand in the manner of the market myth assumed by the Government and can lead to massive public intervention to bail out the private sector.
I urge the Government, though with very little persuasion that the argument will be acceptable to those for whom trivialisation and personalisation of issues is of far more interest, to take on board that the course on which they are embarked, involving public spending cuts, is decimating the private sector. The squeals of dismay to be heard from the Confederation of British Industry, which came first from small firms, now come increasingly from large firms. It is a mistake to think that public enterprise, public spending and local spending on housing, health and education in the public sector of the market is in some sense Socialist rather than socially justified. Being a Socialist, I should support its extension. If I were a capitalist and a Government supporter, I should also be concerned to urge the Government to spend rather than to cut.
If that message is not coming across from the Opposition Benches, the Government should consider, for example, the plea of the National Federation of Building Trades Employers. The federation says that if the moratorium if not lifted in three weeks, several of its members will be bankrupt and that if it is riot lifted in three months the industry will be in crisis. It has urged the Government to spend and to plan.
4.36 am
Mr. Neil Thorne: I should not like it to be thought that, in the few brief remarks that I wish to make, I ignore the importance of unemployment and of rate support grant.
My views on unemployment are clear. I was never in favour of the Location of Offices Bureau or any like
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organisation which had a mind to get rid of as much employment from London as possible. I am glad that that policy has been abandoned, and I hope that it will never return.
I was interested to hear what Opposition Members said about rate support grant and their view that the increase in rates was not a deterrent to the industries operating within their constituency boundaries.
In my experience, people are reluctant to move their homes or businesses to other districts and need a great deal of encouragement to do it. However, when people think of setting up businesses in the first place, they take these matters into account. If they find that the level of rates in one area is very high, they take that factor into account when considering the rent or the purchase price that they are asked to pay. In the event of the combined total being too expensive, they are likely to take their firms elsewhere. Therefore, those local authorities which overprice themselves must expect, over a period of time, to discourage businesses from opening in their areas, and they must accept the unemployment which is likely to result.
I move on to deal with the remarks of Opposition Members about housing. One hon. Member pointed out that the private sector had found the provision of rented accommodation uneconomic since the beginning of this century. I do not agree. In my view, the private sector has found it uneconomic to provide housing for rent only since the last war.
I want to renew my request to my hon. Friend the Minister to consider whether the fair rent system is failing. I believe that it is wrong to expect the fair rent system to provide a subsidy. If a subsidy is to be provided, it is right and proper that it should come from the Department of Health and Social Security. We should look to the vast resources that the trade unions, the insurance companies and the pension funds have at their disposal for investing in the residential property market. All of them invest very heavily in the commercial and industrial sectors. Why is it that they do not invest in the residential sector? The reason is, I think, that the fair rent system is not working, as it should be, to give them the encouragement that they need to put their money into that sphere.
I am surprised that throughout this long debate no one has mentioned the need to consider the transport system. We heard today that the Select Committee on Transport considers London roads to be a scandal. I think that the Government could give a lot more assistance to London, and they could give it in this way. The Greater London development plan brought out proposals for a road network that would serve the capital. When I served on the GLC, from 1967 to 1973, we liked to think of London as the capital not only of Great Britain but of the world. That may not always be the case, but the road transport system that we have in London leaves a lot to be desired when one looks at the systems in other capital cities.
It was a great shame, I believe, that the proposals that were put into the Greater London development plan were not implemented, owing to the alliance that was struck between the "Homes before Roads" lobby and the Labour Party when it entered the GLC election of 1973. It was a shame because, as it happened, the Labour Party would have won that election anyway, and therefore it was unnecessary to throw this important matter out of the window. The harm done will be suffered by London for many years to come. We cannot put in a road system in

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a short period of time. It does, of course, with our present system, take at least 10 years to set about, acquire and build any road network, and sometimes a good deal longer.
The M25 has been held out as the salvation of the road transport system of London, and from speeches made on both sides of the House we have been led to believe that people will find an enormous improvement in transport in the capital when the M25 has been completed, which, I believe, will be in 1986. I must say, from my own experience and knowledge, that I am sceptical of that view. I am afraid that, although a substantial volume of traffic moving from the docks, the Midlands and the North will no longer need to pass through the centre of London, at the same time it will not remove a lot of the traffic that has to visit parts of London itself. Certainly, if industry and commerce are to he encouraged in the centre of London in future, the vehicles that have business here will not wish to go all the way out to the M25 to travel round the outside. I think that the M25 will be of much more limited value than has been made out, and I am sorry indeed that the proposals to provide a proper South Circular Road were thrown out when the Labour Party returned to power in the GLC in 1973. As I have said, the whole of London will suffer for many years to come.
The Government have a part to play here. I do not agree with the Select Committee when it says that it thinks that transport matters dealing with roads should be put more in the hands of the local communities, because I think that the local communities are very much afraid of the effect it would have on their local voters. I think, therefore, that when one is dealing with strategic roads one has to deal with them from a strategic distance.
The main objection that I have found to the construction of new roads is the inadequacy of the present compensation system. We need to take a far more enlightened view of the compensation system and the way in which it can benefit those who are affected by road proposals. If this were done, it would save an enormous amount of time and effort by all concerned. If the country wishes to purchase a person's property, whether that person is a freeholder or a tenant of the premises he ought to be adequately compensated. Merely to talk in terms of paying compensation at market rental, on the basis of a willing seller and a willing purchaser, is nonsense. I have no doubt that we shall not resolve this problem until such time as we have a proper compensation code and we deal with these people properly.
I hope, therefore, that the Minister will look at both of these points and let me have a more encouraging reply than the one I had last time.
4.46 am
Mr. John Cartwright: I confess that 4.46 am is not an ideal time to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but it is appropriate that we should be discussing this morning the question of Government assistance to London in a week which has seen two major statements from the Secretary of State for the Environment, both having a tremendous impact on Londoners, the first being on housing allocations and the second being on the rate support grant. In both statements London was picked out for special treatment.
The Secretary of State commented very clearly in the RSG statement that he was reversing what he called the recent drift of grant to London. I would quarrel with the
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term "drift", because it was not in my view a drift of grant to London; it was a deliberate policy which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) has reminded us, was the result of a great deal of pressure from hon. Members on both sides of the House, from London local authorities of both Labour and Conservative political control and from the London Boroughs Association and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, all of us arguing that London had been unfairly treated under the old RSG system and that there was a strong case for righting that injustice.
It was a matter of gratification to all of us, whatever our politics, that previous Secretaries of State accepted that view and went some way towards righting the injustice that had been done to London. It was our case that the bright lights and great wealth which may be concentrated in some parts of London do not mean that every London street is paved with gold. We also argued that the high rateable values that exist in the City and the West End were no reason for clawing back a section of the RSG to which London was entitled.
We argued. too, with great justification—and the point has been made in this debate—that London had more than its fair share of social problems. Whatever social problems one picks, one finds that London, and certainly inner London, has far more than any other part of the country—whether it is single-parent families, homelessness, bad and overcrowded housing, vandalism, the growing problem of unemployment or the decline and collapse or departure of industry. Sometimes London industry has been lured away by deliberate Government policy. All these problems have had an impact on the life of London.
The problems of London are, therefore, different from those of the shire counties, areas which are starting to get their own back now that they have some supporters in high places. I sometimes wish that the Secretary of State for the Environment would leave his ivory tower in Marsham Street and come to see what it is like to live in council estates in the constituencies that I and my hon. Friends represent. He ought to see what it is like to live in a graffiti-covered council estate with the rubbish around, the smashed glass, the vandalism and the wrecked lifts. If he saw that, he might begin to understand why it costs so much more to provide services in these hard-pressed inner areas of London than it does in more peaceful, pleasant and greener surroundings.
Let me turn now to the impact of this week's rate support grant settlement on my borough of Greenwich. We have been singled out for particular treatment. It is losing about £7 million in grant compared with what it would have got under the old system. The London Boroughs Association estimates that the effect on the ratepayer in Greenwich of the loss of this grant is about 12·9p in the pound, a substantial sum. The loss is 12·7 per cent. on the general rate compared with the current year. That makes Greenwich the hardest hit borough in London under the settlement. The next nearest is Wandsworth, about which we heard and which loses out to the extent of 10·9 per cent.
The reaction of council officials and councillors in Greenwich is to ask what it has done to deserve such treatment. Greenwich is certainly not renowned as a profligate authority. It does not have a reputation as a municipal spendthrift. In terms of rates per head of the population, Greenwich has been one of the lowest and, on occasion, the lowest in London. The figures of rate and

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grantborne expenditure as set out in Hansard on Monday 15 December show that Greenwich has a total expenditure of £44,803,000 in the current financial year. That is considerably lower than Hammersmith and Fulham, about which we heard earlier, and substantially less than Wandsworth, about whch we heard a great deal. It has the lowest level of expenditure in Greater London, with two exceptions. They are Kensington and Chelsea and Kingston upon Thames.
On the basis of those figures, no one can suggest that Greenwich is a high-spending, wicked sort of authority. It has been tackling major problems of housing, for example, where it has undertaken substantial comprehensive redevelopment schemes in old and decaying areas. It is tackling the problem of a substantial and growing proportion of elderly in its population. It is tackling new problems such as the fact that one in every six families in the borough is reckoned to be a single-parent family. That creates problems. Instead of moaning about the devastation caused by the departure of industry, which has happened to a substantial extent, the borough has taken practical steps to attract new firms into Greenwich.
It has gone about its task in a reasonable and businesslike way. It has not featured in any of the Conservative Central Office propaganda. It has not been shown on television in Conservative Party broadcasts as being a wicked, high-spending, profligate authority—unlike Lambeth, for example, which always figures in our debates on this subject. The Conservatives always present it as the great villain of public spending in London. They always seek to make our flesh creep about the extravagance of Lambeth's spending. We have been told over the past few months that it would all be sorted out and that the Secretary of State would ensure that Lambeth would get its come-uppance. We were told that Tarzan would crack his whip and the Red Knight would be brought to heel when we had the new rate support grant system.
Having discovered that my borough was the hardest hit in London, I looked to see what dreadful things had been done to Lambeth on the basis of its extravagant expenditure. I thought that, as my borough, with its reasonable record, had been so hard hit, terrible things must be in store for Lambeth. Yet I find that the cut in rate support grant for Lambeth is not even 1 penny in the pound. It is 0·9 pence in the pound, and the percentage cut at 0·6 per cent. is one of the lowest in the whole of Greater London. I am left wondering what system it is that penalises reasonable spending authorities and apparently seems to let off those that are constantly castigated on the Tory Benches as being wicked, extravagant and profligate.
We have been told frequently that this new system of rate support grant would be more logical, intelligible and understandable than the old system. I hope that in his reply the Minister will explain how there can be this tremendous variation and how authorities such as Greenwich and Wandsworth, which are of different political colours, can show that they were not high spenders and were not unreasonable in their demands but can be hard hit, whereas an authority that has constantly been accused of high spending can apparently get away almost scot-free.
I turn to the question of housing financial allocations for Greater London. Here again, Greenwich has been incredibly hard hit. Expressed in 1981–82 outturn prices,
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this year's housing allocation for Greenwich is £23,515,000. We understand that that will drop next year to £14,859,000—a percentage drop of 37 per cent. That is bad enough, but the difficulty comes when, against the figure of £14,859,000 allowed for next year, no less than £21,156,000 is already committed expenditure. We have a minor problem. The committed expenditure is over £6 million more than the allocation. That is a clever trick, and I shall be interested to see whether the Minister can explain how that can be done. How can there be a committed expenditure which is in excess of £6 million more than the allocation? Where does the difference come from? Does it have to be put on the rates? Does expenditure have to be cut to meet the allocation? Do schemes already under construction have to be stopped or slowed down? What happens to new schemes that are desperately needed? In Greenwich, as in most inner London boroughs, the housing problem is worsening rapidly, waiting lists are growing steadily and the problem of homelessness is getting worse.
I wish to mention some of the impact of what is politely called the moratorium on spending—most ordinary people regard it as a freeze—on the modernisation of council property, on desperately needed environmental improvements on some of our older council estates and on housing associations. I find that ironical, because I recall the time when housing associations were the blue-eyed boys of the Conservative Party and when they were built up as alternatives to council housing. Now, they discover that life if different. I have had the same experince as my hon. Friends. Representatives of housing association after housing association are saying how monstrously they are being treated and that they cannot do even the basic bread and butter things they need to do because they are being so harshly treated in the allocation of finance. Essential repairs and modernisations are not being carried out.
My third point arising out of the freeze on housing expenditure is the problem of improvement grants. I know that the Secretary of State has said that underspending authorities—as he delightfully calls them—will be allowed to continue to make discretionary improvement grants. But that still leaves the problem of people in local authority areas that are not getting that sort of treatment. It may be right for the Government to be tough with local authorities. They may think that it is right and that that is the right way of going about things, but I question the Minister as to whether he is right to penalise individuals who are not responsible for what local authorities have or have not done. I know from my own experience that a number of people who are caught by the freeze on improvement grants are in real trouble. It is a matter of hardship for the individual home owner and of hardship for some of the small builders who were desperately relying on improvement grant work and who now find that it has suddenly dried up.
There are a number of schemes in my borough where improvement grants were all ready to be approved and the whole thing has been held up because of the housing freeze. Whatever else the Minister does, I ask him to look particularly at that point, because it is quite wrong that individuals should be penalised in this way.

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The issue of public transport has not figured very much in the debate, and it is a very important one for those who represent South-East London constituencies. Most of my constituents are very reluctant commuters. They do not want to commute into central London to work. It is something which has been forced upon them as a result of the decline of industry and the departure of industry from a borough such as Greenwich. It used to be a borough to which people came to work. Now, it is a borough from which people go to work. The change has happened very quickly. Many people dislike it, but they have to depend on the transport system to get them to and from jobs, sometimes a long way from their homes.
We have a number of newcomers who have settled in the borough, particularly in the new town of Thamesmead. They are forced to travel in order to get back to their jobs in more central parts of London. It is not an easy operation to travel from my constituency to central London. South-East London is certainly the forgotten corner of the public transport system in the London conurbation. We do not have an Underground system. We have to live without that. Our bus links are not particularly good with central London, as my postbag constantly makes clear. That is true also for the hon. Member for Woolwich West (Mr. Bottomley). There is the problem of traffic congestion, which is a real headache on our roads. It can often take 45 minutes, and sometimes an hour or more, to get from Woolwich into central London.
Now, we have the added problem of British Rail cutting back on its commuter services. There are problems about stations being shut in the evenings and at weekends. British Rail is now delightfully imposing some sort of curfew on my constituents. Whereas at the moment they can catch late trains at 11.35 pm, 11.56 pm and even—for those who really stay out late—a 12.59 am train, if British Rail has its way the last train from Charing Cross to get to my constituency will run at 11.27 pm, so there is a substantial reduction in the quality of service which my constituents will be getting from British Rail.
I want to make a particular plea for the Thamesmead development. As the House may recall, it was to be a great new city within London, a city of the twenty-first century, rising phoenix-like from the Thames mud. It has been a chapter of delays and difficulties which have slowed down the whole project. It is still very much an isolated community, cut off from its neighbouring areas by tracts of undeveloped open space. For them the transport links are absolutely vital, because so many of them have to get back to central London for their work.
Mr. Clinton Davis: As with so many other places in inner London, my hon. Friend is to get the ashes, but where is the damned phoenix?
Mr. Cartwright: It is probably sunk in the mud at Thamesmead at the moment. The problem is that transport for a community such as that is absolutely essential. I remind my hon. Friend that no doubt many of his constituents have found a new home at Thamesmead. They may find that they miss the bright lights of Hackney. We have considerable open spaces and a lot of cold-looking water and there is the occasional tree to amuse them. That is not adequate amusement for those who come from the high life of Hackney.
Transport is important. The Jubilee line seemed to be Thamesmead's salvation. It was proposed that the Jubilee
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line should run to Thamesmead. Sadly, the Labour Government showed little enthusiasm and gave little encouragement to the project. Sir Horace Cutler reacted in a robust fashion. In no uncertain terms, he said what he thought about the Labour Government's attitude to the Jubilee line. He made it clear that he would bash on regardless and would give London its Jubilee line.
I was surprised that when the Conservative Government buried the Jubilee line and cut it out from the plans for docklands Sir Horace did not say anything. We heard not a cheep, moan or squeak from County Hall when the Jubilee line's throat was cut. However, it has left a considerable gap in the transport provision for South-East London.
The GLC is suffering a cut in its housing allocation of approximately 50 per cent. That must raise considerable questions about whether the Thamesmead development will continue in its present form. It is many years behind schedule. There are about 20,000 residents, but if the development is finished there will be 50,000 residents or more. Many of my constituents in Thamesmead want to know whether they will be in a proper, independent new town or whether they will find themselves isolated on a sort of Devil's Island. They want to know whether they will find themselves in a half-finished ghost town that will be developed at a snail's pace for the rest of the foreseeable future. Perhaps the Minister will comment on that point.
Whatever Conservative Members may say, they know that the cuts in Government aid to London will undermine the quality of life in the city. The cuts in rate support grant, housing, transport, health and social services generally will make the social problems of inner London more difficult to resolve. In the weeks and months to come, it will become yet more clear that the people of inner London are being forced to pay far too high a price for the Government's financial and economic policies.
5.7 am
Mr. Reg Race: The debate has been lengthy, and I shall not detain the House for long. I am sure that that will please many of my hon. Friends and perhaps some Conservative Members. I shall refer to several factors arising out of problems in my borough of Haringey and, in particular, to housing. That is the most important issue in the borough and the most important social priority.
The hon. Member for Ravensbourne (Mr. Hunt) spoke about the development of industry in London and about the impact of rates on location decisions by capitalists setting up industries and by firms that wish to find the most beneficial sites. In reply to the hon. Gentleman's strictures, I would argue that the rate burden on a company represents only a small part of its total costs. Recently, I visited all the industrial estates in my borough that have been developed by the London borough of Haringey. It was clear that those industrial estates, which the borough had let to ordinary commercial companies—some of them small companies—were developed because the borough could inject the right level of expertise and could impose rates at the right level. Rates in Haringey are higher than those in the neighbouring London borough of Enfield, but they were no disincentive to firms that chose locations in those industrial estates, some of which are on the border with the London borough of Enfield. Therefore, the

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argument that somehow the overall level of rates is a major disincentive to the location of industries in particular parts of London which have high rates is nonsense.
I asked the hon. Member for Ravensbourne to name firms and industries that had been badly affected by that problem. My question was not answered satisfactorily. I do not believe that it could be answered, because there is not the evidence to sustain that argument.
We have had two arguments advanced with no evidence to back them up. We had the argument by the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Stevens) about rises in wages in the social services department of his borough council. That clearly was not sustainable on the facts.
We then had the argument about the location of industries in relation to rate levels. I do not believe that that argument is sustainable on the facts. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have a duty to relate their arguments to the facts, not to produce airy-fairy generalisations that do not stand scrutiny.
A more general point relating to London's problems was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) when he argued—correctly, in my view—that public enterprise and expenditure were beneficial to the development of employment, particularly in inner city boroughs. The Library brief makes clear that the cost of unemployment anywhere in the country, let alone in London, is £440 million for every 100,000 people on the register. That being so, the argument for sacking public or private employees involves the taxpayer and the ratepayer paying out more money to keep people idle. I am against keeping people idle for no purpose. It is a nonsensical political decision. I am sure that that policy breeds only frustration among the unemployed and creates no social product or utility.
Housing in Haringey is the most important social issue. Yesterday morning I went through my constituency files and discovered that I had dealt with nearly 300 families with housing problems during the past year and written more than 1,000 letters relating to them. I am sure that that is nothing out of the ordinary for any inner city Labour Member of Parliament. However, it shows that the housing problem in my borough is extremely serious and is likely, as a result of the Government's policies, to become more serious.
Haringey has the third highest crude deficit of dwellings in London, the deficit being the difference between the number of households and the number of dwellings to be lived in. It has the sixth highest percentage of households sharing dwellings and the fifth highest percentage of households lacking sole use of basic amenities. The 1979 Greater London housing condition survey shows that 14·4 per cent. of dwellings in the borough are unfit for human habitation, that 8·8 per cent. of the stock is lacking one standard amenity and that 17·4 per cent. of dwellings need at least £3,000 to be spent on repairs to bring them up to a satisfactory standard. That is the accepted, factual background to the housing crisis in the borough that I represent.
It is disgraceful that a Government can impose a policy that makes people in those conditions wait many, many years to be rehoused. It is outrageous for Conservative Members to talk about the need to cut back, to sack people and to reduce our spending, as if those are abstract phenomena and do not matter to anyone. It is as if we are
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talking about hot lunches. In fact, in Bromley the issue is hot lunches. The local authority in the constituency of the hon. Member for Ravensbourne has just decided to cut hot lunches for schoolchildren from 1 April. Some hon. Members talk as if we are debating philosophical abstractions that do not matter. However, we are talking about housing conditions that are becoming substantially and not merely marginally worse.
In my borough, it is unlikely that the housing authority will be able to sustain its statutory responsibilities under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977 in 12 or 18 months' time. The problem will not be solved by changing that legislation. The answer is to provide the resources so that the authority can meet its statutory duties and take people off the waiting list, which is the purpose of a public sector housing authority. The private sector cannot and never will produce the number of houses necessary to fulfil the housing needs of the people. If the market could do so, it would. It has not done so for many a long year. It has been in decline since the First World War. Since 1914, the percentage of private sector rented housing has been declining, and it will continue to decline in the foreseeable future, irrespective of what the Government have done about shorthold tenancies.
Mr. Soley: The decline started before the First World War. It began at the turn of the century.
Mr. Race: I bow to my hon. Friend's greater knowledge.
Homelessness in Haringey is becoming even more serious. In 1977, 379 families were rehoused under the authority's statutory obligation under the Act. In 1979–80, 617 families were rehoused. The growth is bound to continue. That is the basis for asserting that it is possible that the authority will not be able to meet its statutory duties in 12 to 18 months' time, given the cuts in the housing investment programme imposed by the Under-Secretary for State and his supporters in the Government. That is feeding through to a substantially increased number of people on the housing waiting list. The number of families on the waiting list in 1978 was 8,760. The figure in March 1980 was 10,165. That is, by any stretch of the imagination, a substantial increase. The figure increases inexorably every day, every week and every month of the year.
The situation is complicated by the fact that the Greater London Council, under Conservative Party control, has virtually stopped its house-building programme save for Thamesmead, which continues erratically. This has particular significance for inner London boroughs such as Hackney, Haringey and Lambeth because of the shortage of land in those areas and general lack of resources. Those boroughs depend on outer borough nominations to meet their housing requirements. The GLC nominations which Haringey receives have dropped substantially. They stand at 320 in 1980–81. Without those outside sources of assistance, Haringey council would hardly be able to rehouse any family in two-bedroom accommodation in 1980–81.
The freeze on house building and the other housing functions of local authorities has had a serious effect in my borough and, no doubt, in other London boroughs. One effect in my constituency has been the cutting of heating improvements costing £450,000 at Bounds Green Court, Winkfield Road and Albert Vittoria House. The

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Department of the Environment has frozen its own bureaucracy. By that I mean that the approvals that the Department has to give to rehabilitation schemes have been frozen in the pipeline. This means that the number of empty properties in any single London borough will increase substantially.
Mr. Clinton Davis: Is it not hypocritical for the Secretary of State to denounce local authorities for allowing properties to remain idle in the circumstances described by my hon. Friend when his own bureaucratic incompetence has manufactured the situation?
Mr. Race: My hon. Friend is right. My experience is that one of the first questions asked by constituents who cannot get housing from the local council is "What about the empty council house or flat down the road from me?" When they are told that the property is part of the rehabilitation programme and that the Department of the Environment is sitting on approval for the rehabilitation, they look blankly in disbelief. We know, however, that this is the situation and that the Department sometimes sits on approvals for many months.
The freeze on housing spending, applauded by some Conservative Members in their speeches, was based on a statistical piece of nonsense.
The Secretary of State argued to his Cabinet colleagues and the House that his action was necessary, but he knew that the figures on which he was relying were figures for projected expenditure received from local authorities at nearly the beginning of the financial year. Any housing authority will confirm that the slippage that occurs in housebuilding programmes, rehabilitation programmes and the housing investment programme generally is such that the alleged overspending that the Secretary of State thought would occur would not actually have occurred.The Guardian and other publications have made clear that the alleged £180 million overspending has been reduced to £6 million—well within the tolerances that are normally approved for the carrying forward of expenditure on the housing investment programmes from one year to another.
In those statistical circumstances, it is irresponsible and stupid for the Secretary of State to pretend that he is acting because of overspending. For him to pretend that his action is necessary and to attack the poorest and weakest sections of the community is despicable. I despise the Government for carrying out such a reactionary and nonsensical policy, especially when many members of the Cabinet are wealthy and have two or three houses of their own.
The housing situation is extremely serious. This week's Shelter report shows that 3 million households are without basic amenities or live in houses that are unfit or require major repairs, 2 million have no home of their own and 1 million families live in overcrowded conditions. In those circumstances, it is irresponsible, outrageous and wrong for the Government to impose such a stupid policy on the housing investment programme and they ought to sleep uneasily in their beds in the knowledge of what they are doing to the homeless and those on waiting lists.
5.27 am
Mr. Alfred Dubs: London faces many serious problems, which have been made worse by some of the decisions announced by the Government this week, but it is a pity that we have to debate the problems of London at such a ridiculous hour. I hope that we shall
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be able to manage our affairs differently in future, so that the problems of our capital city can be discussed at a time when clarity of thought can be added to the process of discussion.
I should like to discuss some of the problems concerning the Inner London Education Authority, London boroughs, particularly Wandsworth, and London Transport. I start by referring to the speech of the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor). He and I have constituencies within the borough of Wandsworth, and I noted with interest that he regretted the effect of the RSG settlement on the borough. He said that it was a disappointment. It adds another harsh measure to those already suffered by the people of Wandsworth, the other harsh measures having come from the borough council itself.
The hon. Member suggested that the council had indulged in good housekeeping and that the cuts in expenditure since the Conservatives took over in 1978 had been sensible. What was not said clearly was that Wandsworth council rents had risen by more than those for any other borough in London during the past three years, that virtually no council building was taking place in Wandsworth, that empty houses stood empty simply because they were awaiting purchasers—despite the fact that the waiting list was many thousands long and getting longer—that repairs to council properties had been cut, that under the heading of social services in my constituency a lunch club and a day nursery were closed, that there were cuts in the home help service, that social workers had suffered cuts and they were desperate because they were no longer able to undertake any preventive work but were simply trying to cope with the crises that occurred, and that there were cuts in transport for the disabled. The law centres in Wandsworth have disappeared, and other voluntary organisations have faced harsh cutbacks in their expenditure. Those and the many other cuts that have taken place in Wandsworth represent a heavy price for having a Conservative council that believes that it should keep down the rates. I suggest that it is too heavy a price to pay for the many people in Wandsworth who are dependent upon the services and now find that they are no longer available, are less adequate or are available only at a higher cost.
I understand that Wandsworth, in common with other inner London boroughs, was hit this week by the Government's decision. I cannot help feeling that the Government's decision to transfer resources from inner London to other parts of the country was a politically motivated act. As long ago as October 1978, the Secretary of State for the Environment made a speech to a Conservative Party conference in which he said that the next Conservative Government would not continue the practice of milking the county ratepayer to find cash for the problems of the inner areas. This week we have seen the inner area that has been made to bear the burden in inner London. I know that in that same speech the Secretary of State went on to say that it would be unwise to spend money in inner city areas because it would represent a misunderstanding of the causes of decline in the inner cities and the policies needed to restore them to health. I cannot see that the many difficulties and crises affecting people living in inner London can be solved by cutting the money that goes to inner London. The real

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needs of inner London demand more expenditure to improve the services and to tackle the deprivation that is there for all to see.
I turn briefly to the ILEA. I noted earlier in the debate that the hon. Member for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler) accused the ILEA of wasteful spending. He omitted to say that his local authority, the Westminster city council, has in recent years also been guilty of spending that would be difficult to justify. That is a problem with local authorities, and I understand that. But Westminster had new housing developments, and before they were occupied by tenants they had to have extensive repairs carried out to make them decent and habitable and to prevent water from coming in through the roof. It is not right for the hon. Gentleman to attack the ILEA and to pick it out in that way.
I do not wish to reiterate all the arguments about why the ILEA should not be broken up. We have heard the arguments in previous debates. The points are well known. There is no local support among parents, teachers and those concerned with education for the break-up of the ILEA. We are now waiting for the inquiry that was established by the Government. I ask the Minister to comment on the allegation that the inquiry has already reported to the Cabinet but the Cabinet did not like the report, rejected it and sent it back, presumably for further amendment. It adds to the uncertainty hanging over inner London if the inquiry is further delayed. I hope that we shall have its report soon.
What will be the effect of the rate support grant settlement on the ILEA? It is difficult to calculate the precise impact of the various measures on inner London education expenditure in the coming year. I understand that if the ILEA makes no cuts in its services and keeps them on the same level next year as this year, the effect of the rate support grant settlement will mean that the ILEA will have a cut in Government support of about £90 million a year.
If the ILEA were able to cut its expenditure to about £640 million, which I understand is an assumed budget figure, it would be getting £50 million or £60 million less next year than in the current year.
The penalty elements in the settlement will be brought to bear on the ILEA because to avoid them the ILEA would have to cut its expenditure to an impossibly low level. The ILEA is entirely an inner city authority. When comparing it with other education authorities, we should not omit to mention that they tend to go into suburban and less deprived areas whereas most of inner London is an area of deprivation.
I accept that that does not apply throughout. I concede that there are a couple of boroughs that are more affluent. However, in the main, inner London has to tackle some of the most difficult problems. I fear that the harsh cuts that the Government are imposing through the announcement that they made earlier this week will be extremely damaging to the well-being of schoolchildren in London and to the well-being of education in London. The level of the cuts that are demanded means that it will be difficult for the ILEA to cope with them. I fear for the future of education in London.
I turn briefly to some problems in Wandsworth. There are housing problems, and I am concerned especially about the HIP allocation, which was announced a few days ago. I understand that Wandsworth council asked for £35
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million for the coming year and that the offer made to it is half that amount, to which can be added £6 million or million on the assumption that the sales of council housing will generate that much income plus a little more from one or two other sources.
I am not here to defend Wandsworth council, which is Tory-controlled. I am concerned about housing standards in the borough. It will be difficult for the council to meet its obligations, to carry out essential repairs to council properties to keep them at least to statutory levels. It will be difficult for it to do that without neglecting essential repairs, cutting the money going to housing associations or stopping the one housing scheme that the council has for next year, which is to build much-needed sheltered housing for the elderly. I fear that the way in which the HIP allocation has been set will make housing difficulties in Wandsworth extremely difficult. They are bad enough already, and I believe that they will be even worse in future.
I turn briefly to the problems of London Transport. Some years ago London Transport used to be among the best transport authorities, if not the best public transport authority in any major city. It has now gone into a sad decline. The standard is lower and the services are unreliable. All too often, one sees a notice board outside tube stations carrying information about train cancellations and delays. It might be instructive to compare London Transport with public transport in Paris. About 20 years ago public transport in Paris was run down and decayed. Recently there has been a dramatic improvement. Why is that? The answer is that extra resources have been made available. This is true not only in Paris but in most other major cities in the world. They are spending more on public transport than London is. We appear to be trying to spend less and less.
In 1976, the fare receipts of London Transport covered 65 per cent. of expenditure. In Paris they covered 41 per cent. In 1977, investment in public transport in Paris was £221 million. Investment in London in bus and rail services was £64 million.
Apart from the major advantage that Paris public transport has had adequate resources to provide good services, it has had other advantages. It has an integrated system of Metro, bus and rail, with easy interchange. It has a fare structure which does not provide a disincentive to people to use it. The fares are lower. It also has the carte orange system, whereby Paris is divided into a number of zones, but there are essentially flat fares and people can buy season tickets, lowering the cost, providing a more certain income to the undertaking and making it more workable.
It may be argued that Paris is smaller than London and that its transport system is smaller. But it is not that much smaller. I believe that the main comparison is valid, even allowing for the differences in size. London comes out very unfavourably in a comparison of what is being done about the services.
As a result of the extra effort that has gone into public transport in Paris, there have been increases in the services and in numbers of journeys, matched by a growth in productivity. In London there has been a decline in the number of journeys and the number of passenger-miles, which has inevitably resulted in a constant or declining productivity. Paris public transport has self-confidence

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and is reliable. I believe that the whole House will agree that public transport must be the lifeblood of a modern city.
Inner London desperately needs resources to have a proper transport system to tackle the deprivation and improve the standards of its housing. I hope that the Government will think again about their wish to denude central London and inner London of resources. I hope that they will reverse the trend, because only in that way lies a decent life for the people living in inner London.
5.42 am
Mr. Clinton Davis: What has happened this week is that the Secretary of State for the Environment has declared war on inner London. That is the whole burden of the indictment made not only by Opposition Members but by Conservative Members representing Wandsworth and Hammersmith. It is the case made by Mr. Richard Brew, to which I referred earlier in an intervention. He has categorically stated that he believes that the policies being pursued by the Secretary of State are grossly inequitable.
That case was also convincingly argued in a leading article in The New Standard on 16 December. It said:
"Today the Environment Secretrary Mr. Heseltine makes his announcement of the Rate Support Grant to local authorities for the coming year. His proposed cut in the proportion of funds the Treasury pays out from 60·1 per cent. to 59·1 per cent. will do further injury to councils already half crippled by Mr. Heseltine's policy of slashing housing budgets in 1981–82.
London, even more than most cities, will be seriously affected. The real reduction in housing funds for boroughs unable to sell many of their council homes could be nearer 25 per cent than the 15 per cent. Mr. Heseltine was claiming yesterday."
Therefore, the case is advanced by both Labour and Conservative sources.
There can be no doubt that the main victims of the right hon. Gentleman's assault will be, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mr. Race) said, the poorest and most vulnerable members of the community, people on whom the Secretary of State's colleagues have already vented their spleen by cutting the value of unemployment, maternity, injury, sickness and invalidity benefits by 5 per cent. and child benefit by more than 8 per cent. The origin of these deliberate and disreputable attacks by what are already a discredited Government is the Prime Minister herself. I must say that I found it a bit thick the other day listening to her interview with Michael Charlton, justifying her toughness and her surgery with these words, difficult though it may be to believe:
"Now come on shake out. I know you had an operation yesterday. It's time you put your feet to the ground and took a few steps."
Those were her words. Such advice medically can sometimes be fatal.
I wonder whether even the Prime Minister would be able to tell that to Mr. Andrews, who lives on the Pembury estate. After rent deduction he is left, to pay for his gas, electricity and food, with £28.85 a week. Mr Andrews is an elderly man who has suffered a terrifying stroke and desperately needs to have warm accommodation—much warmer than most people require.
Mr. Andrews fell into arrears with his electricity bill—some £500. There was a misunderstanding in relation to part of the bill, but nevertheless the arrears were substantial. No proper inquiries were made by the London
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electricity board before it disconnected his electricity. The code of practice was not honoured on that occasion. There was a mistake.
We know, of course, that the LEB itself was being required substantially to increase its prices—another form of taxation imposed by this Government. We are left with the position that Mr. Andrews cannot receive assistance from the local authority, for the reasons given by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown), because its ability to help is restricted to section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963.
The Department of Health and Social Security can offer only very limited help. The fuel direct payment scheme really does not offer any solution in a case of this kind. The Department is further constrained because much of its discretion is now being removed. The LEB itself finds it extremely difficult to cope with a situation of this kind, where the arrears are so massive.
I am glad to say that discussions have taken place, and I believe that Mr. Andrews' electricity supply will be reconnected. How does somebody like Mr. Andrews, to use the Prime Minister's expression, put his feet to the ground? How does he help himself on £28·85 a week, out of which he has to pay for future electricity bills, consuming electricity at an above-average rate, and, of course, for his gas and his food as well?
It is no small wonder that I read in the Daily Mirror the other day that the Prime Minister was reported as being the most feared and hated figure at Madame Tussaud's. They took a poll of the visitors there. It is true that the visitors put her behind Hitler and Amin but in front of Dracula and Jack the Ripper.
To add insult to injury, we have had these two malevolent statements from the Government this week. The Secretary of State for the Environment has deliberately and, to make matters worse, gleefully chosen to disadvantage the inner city areas such as our own to the advantage of the shire counties. In this crazy new system of his, he seems to give very low priority to spending for personal social purposes.
In his substantial cuts in the housing programme, the Secretary of State has revealed a complete abdication of his responsibilities, and in particlar his responsibilities for housing in inner London, as though we needed any further abdication after the operations of the Greater London Council over recent years. My hon. Friend and I know very well—and I am sure that this happens in other London boroughs—that properties have been left vacant in the hope that someone will turn up and buy them. Mortgages are difficult to come by for people in the Hackney area because very few of them rank in the area of affluence which somehow the Secretary of State has managed to discover amongst council tenants.
I suppose the Secretary of State must have some fine attributes, but humility, compassion and a desire to discover how the real world goes about its business and the way in which ordinary people live are not, seemingly, amongst them. He seems to be totally unmoved, unconcerned and unaware of the plight of areas such as Hackney. That is not surprising in a way, because he occupies the lush pastures of Henley and he has a penchant for luxurious living himself. He is reputed to be a millionaire, so I do not suppose that he cares much about these matters. But I am surprised that he has ignored the reports that he must have received from the Under-Secretary of State, who is not unfamiliar with the Hackney

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area. He has been there, and I hope that he is not unconcerned about the plight of the people about whom I speak.
Some of the criteria which I should have thought would occupy the minds of those in the Department of the Environment seem to have escaped their attention, so perhaps I can turn to Hackney and deal with some of the criteria which I believe to be important.
In August, before we felt the full blast of the recession—it was a gathering storm at that stage—the level of adult male resident unemployment was 10·6 per cent. in Hackney. It is always difficult to get the exact percentage, but that was reported to the council. The figure is now of the order of 12 per cent., as against a national figure of 7·8 per cent. in August and 8·3 per cent. today. The Greater London average was 6·3 per cent. then. I am not sure what it is today, but it is still less than the national average.
The position now is considerably worse than it was in the summer, and unemployment in an area such as Hackney hits particularly the ethnic minorities. I accept the argument that my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley) advanced. It hits particularly the disabled and the unskilled. We have plenty of unskilled in Hackney, because more than half the unemployed there are unskilled or general labourers, and there are very few vacancies for such jobs in Hackney at present. Even for skilled workers, there are three unemployed for each vacancy. We are the lowest income area in the whole of inner London. If the Secretary of State took the trouble to find out, he would find that very few of that class of £8,000 per annum households about which he is so fond of speaking are to be found in my constituency.
My constituents are hit quite directly in two ways. They are hit by increased rents, although they are essentially low-income families, and by the reduced rate support grant.
I invite hon. Members to consider some of the criteria for deprivation—the incidence of perinatal deaths, the incidence of problems afflicting one-parent families and the incidence of problems afflicting the elderly and the disabled who struggle for survival. The figures again are higher in Hackney and Tower Hamlets than anywhere else in London. Yet these are factors which, apparently, the Secretary of State thinks are of very little consequence.
Some of these problems are reflected in a report that was issued by the head of social work and domiciliary services on 30 September 1980 in relation to fuel debts, a matter to which my hon. Friend alluded and which I should like to particularise, because this is a problem. Although I referred to Mr. Andrews in particular, it is a problem that will develop with devastating intensity, particularly if we have a cold winter. The head of those services informed the council in September that
"upwards of 100 families with children were approaching the Directorate each month for help with fuel debt problems. It should be noted that this estimate excludes elderly or handicapped persons."
That was the scale of the problem in September, and if we have a very cold winter indeed I hesitate to think what the scale of the problem will be.
This is a problem that has arisen because of the high cost of fuel and low incomes, because of people living on
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pensions finding it enormously difficult to cope and because the powers that are available to local authorities are very limited indeed, even if one considers the provision where children are involved and where the local authority has to intervene under section 1 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1963 to prevent their going into care because of these problems. It is pointed out that the intention of the Act was never that responsibility for income maintenance should fall on the local authority, but that is what is increasingly happening.
It is reported that
"Based on expenditure last year, a notional amount of £4,340 was alowed within the 1980–81 estimates for expenditure under section 1 payments to clients for gas, water and electricity bills. On 16 September actual expenditure under this heading totalled £6,205."
That was an overspend of more than 40 per cent. in less than six months, and with the winter months still to come we know that the fuel debt problem will obviously increase.
Nothing can be done for adults or for handicapped and elderly persons except to advise them how they can make use of alternative methods of heating and lighting, so what the Government say is "Rely on local charities". I believe that to be extremely time-consuming and difficult. In any event, charities these days are very reluctant to provide large sums to settle fuel debts.
We have already had cuts in expenditure on personal social services, which the Government do not seem to take into account at all. A survey was undertaken this year by the Association of Directors of Social Services, and I should like to refer the Minister—he may already be aware of the survey—to the introduction. This is from an independent source, not a politically motivated source. It says:
"Expenditure reductions have been achieved through abandonment, deferment or reduction in planned growth; by introducing new charges or increasing existing ones; and through cuts in current levels of services. They have affected every client group; the elderly and the handicapped are two of the groups who have been most seriously affected by cuts/savings which have often adversely influenced the quality of life. Services for children have also been badly affected and particularly disturbing are the cuts made in support services for families with children under five."
What has emerged from this is that there was never any prospect that the cuts or savings could be achieved by reducing administrative and clerical costs alone. How much nonsense we have heard about that tonight from some Conservative Members, including the hon. Member for Ravensbourne (Mr. Hunt)—the good housekeeping argument. This is a group of independent officers who say that that argument is palpable nonsense.
I should like to quote another passage from the introduction, because I think that the Minister should direct his attention to this. The association says:
"It is in those very authorities where social services budgets have been subject to restraint and some cuts or savings for a lengthy period that clients have suffered most."
These authorities are the underspenders or the uncarers. It goes on:
"Those authorities and those with traditionally low budgets, which might indicate that they do not have a tremendous commitment to the personal social services, have continued the cuts so that the people who turn to them for help have suffered a further diminution in already inadequate services."
That may be what is happening up and down the country in some of the Tory-controlled boroughs, where the Tories are so proud of the fact that they underspend. Of course, they receive the affectionate pat on the back

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from the Secretary of State, who prefers to use the axe on those authorities which are carrying out their statutory duties. These are factors which ought to weigh very heavily in the Secretary of State's mind.
It seems a very long time ago, but I remember the contribution made to this debate by my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. Stevens). It was a most remarkable contradictory contribution, but eventually he said that London was a special case. So it is. On every criterion, it ought to be a special case. Even though the hon. Gentleman's argument was jumbled and confused, at the end of the day that was the suggestion that he clearly made to the Under-Secretary.
Just as other hon. Members have referred to the problem of housing, I should like to spend a few moments dealing with that. I suppose that every hon. Member who represents an inner London constituency is most affected by the problems of housing. I share surgery premises with my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch. Our problems are not dissimilar. At that surgery, which we hold weekly, and in the mailbag that I receive, certainly housing is the preponderant problem.
What is it that is being asked for by decent people who are at the end of their patience, and understandably so, people who have been on the waiting list for years, sometimes people who want to come back to Hackney but just cannot find anywhere to live? All that they are asking for is a roof over their heads, a decent home. That is a perfectly reasonable request. Yet so many of our people are living in grossly overcrowded conditions, often suffering from extreme dampness, and there are young kids who are ashamed to bring their friends to their homes, which in some cases have not even sufficient room for them to introduce them into their homes. Case after case of that kind occurs. Just as my hon. Friend cited cases, I could do so, but I shall not do that at this stage of the deabate.
Mr. John Hunt: Is the hon. Gentleman seriously telling the House that all this has happened in the last 18 months?
Mr. Davis: No, of course not. But it adds insult to injury when the Secretary of State imposes a moratorium on us against that backcloth. It is not so much a moratorium for our people as a crematorium for their reasonable aspirations.
Mr. Ronald W. Brown: Following the intervention of the hon. Member for Ravensbourne (Mr. Hunt), does my hon. Friend agree that over the past 10 or 15 years we have received no help whatsoever from the London borough of Bromley towards solving our problems in Hackney?
Mr. Davis: Representatives of the London borough of Bromley are a political incubus on the body politic of London. They are selfish and unprepared to co-operate, refusing over the years to allow the GLC to do what it should have been doing—that is, to act as a strategic housing authority. There they were selfishly standing on their own. The only thing in their favour is that they have quite a nice Member of Parliament and they do not deserve him. Some of his views are a bit odd, but he is quite a nice chap.
I remember the arguments adduced not so long ago by people like those from Bromley. They said that there was
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a housing surplus in London. There is not much of a surplus in Hackney. About 15,000 to 16,000 people are on the waiting list.
The GLC's house condition survey shows that 10 per cent. of London's housing stock is statutorily unfit, and the situation is worsening. An additional 5 per cent. is lacking one of the five basic amenities—an inside lavatory, a fixed bath in a bathroom, a washbasin, a sink, and hot and cold water at three points. Twenty-five per cent. of all London's housing stock needs substantial attention.
Given the position in London as a whole, the Under-Secretary will be prepared to agree that that in Hackney it is infinitely worse than the average. I agree with my hon. Friends who say that private landlordism cannot produce any sort of answer to these problems.
refer here to the Newlon housing trust, a housing association in my constituency. It wrote to me recently saying:
"Here in Hackney the housing associations have suffered a cut of over 50 per cent. in their allocation and we are told that even deeper cuts are scheduled for the financial year 1981–82."
The effects of the cuts, as the association puts it, are reflected in two ways:
"first, the projected production of 200 units for this year 1980–81, will drop to 100 units and secondly the threat of redundancies which will put at risk the commitment and expertise that has been so painstakingly built up over the past six years."
The work of the housing associations is of significance. Certainly the Government believe that, but now they are using their axe on them as well. So the Minister will have to deal with the housing associations, too. I hope that he will come down to Hackney to visit the Newlon housing trust.
The burden on local authorities in dealing with housing is not confined to the points I have outlined. I intervened in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch to refer to the need to provide bed and breakfast accommodation. He rightly described the burden being imposed on Hackney and, no doubt, other inner London boroughs by desperate people following the advice of the Prime Minister, given so glibly and without much thought, as is so often the case, to come down to London to look for work. There is a statutory obligation to provide bed and breakfast accommodation. Those numbers are rising. About 200 families in Hackney are receiving bed and breakfast accommodation. The predicted length of stay is 18 months, and that is unbelievable.
Many of these families with children—some of them single-parent families—are living in accommodation which is pretty overcrowded. Indeed, 80 per cent. of the hostels are deemed by the environmental health officers to be overcrowded. In those places there is no room for the children to play; the cooking facilities are sparse, if they exist at all; and the families are forced to go out to eat, if they can afford to eat out. There are inadequate washing facilities—nowhere to dry the clothes and the nappies. Obviously, all that leads to further frustration, hopelessness and humiliation, and the cost to local authorities is constantly growing.
Money is needed to remedy those problems. Conservative Members say that we cannot keep throwing money after them, but what do they suggest should be done? I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will not repeat that trite remark. I have heard him use it before, but he was not in the Government then. Perhaps he has learnt a little. I do not know. We cannot solve these problems

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with the provision of nurseries, play rooms and proper monitoring of such cases by case workers without money. There is no other way in which they can be solved.
The Under-Secretary has been interested in the concept of partnership schemes, although I wish he had not written such a nasty letter to the London borough of Hackney on 18 September. I hope that, with the benefit of hindsight, he will agree that to charge Hackney as being a profligate authority, a high spender and so on in the way that he did, and to write a nasty, solicitor's letter—I speak as a solicitor—was not right. I shall not read the letter unless the Under-Secretary urges me to do so. It was an unpleasant letter, and the Minister received a terse, effective reply. The deputy leader of the Hackney borough council pointed out that it is all very well for the Under-Secretary, acting under orders from the Secretary of State—from the commissar or gauleiter, whichever title one prefers to use—to criticise Hackney, but it was carrying out its statutory obligations and its moral duties to the people it represented. It also embarked upon a partnership scheme which had received the praise of the Under-Secretary of State for Employment. He congratulated the partnership on being
"one of the best in the employment field".
He suggested that it might benefit other partnerships
"to see details of the Hackney/Islington partnership's work".
No sooner had those words been uttered by the Under-Secretary of State for Employment than the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, who obviously had not read his colleague's words, decided that Hackney should begin to dismantle this important venture. The venture has brought more than hope. It has brought new areas of employment to Hackney. It has done invaluable work. I need not rehearse all that because the Under-Secretary of State should know it. But that is now in peril, and it is no use the Under-Secretary of State asking why the Hackney borough council does not plead with the Government and say that it has not overspent so that they can cease to crack the whip. The burden is on the Secretary of State, not the Hackney council, because he knows the facts. But he is choosing to ignore them.
The Government say that councils such as Hackney are driving business away, but that is confuted by the Under-Secretary of State for Employment. But in any event, if a local authority is prepared to do its job properly, it will spend, it will be forced to put up the rates, and that can have the effect of deflecting the attention of new businesses. We concede that. But how does it escape from this Catch 22 position that the Government have created for it?
In Hackney and in other inner city areas there is a concentration of problems, and what the Secretary of State has done is to depict a blindness, a callousness and a deceit, as well as an incompetence, in failing to recognise the extent of those problems or that they exist at all.
The Under-Secretary of State has a lot to answer in the debate and, more importantly, he has a great deal to answer for
6.15 am
Mr. Frank Dobson: Considerable changes have happened in the financing of local government services and housing in London this week, and those changes are so complicated that it is
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difficult to make any accurate assessment of their likely effects. Nevertheless, it is clear that the people of London have been dealt two very crushing blows by the Secretary of State for the Environment in his housing investment programme statement on Monday of this week and the rate support grant statement on Tuesday. They very severely damaged the hopes, aspirations and likely future living standards of a lot of the already worse-off people living in London.
The Secretary of State claims that the national cut in housing investment programmes for next year will be 15 per cent. down on the figure for this year. In the case of outer London, that 15 per cent. cut which applies in the rest of the country will be 31 per cent. and in inner London the reduction will be 41 per cent. In some cases, some of the inner London councils have already committed themselves to spending sums in excess of the amounts that the Secretary of State proposes to provide for them next year. Many others are quite near that limit, and five or six of them already have some overspending this year which will have to be deducted from their next year's spending, so they will all be in a bad way.
One might assume from this massive attack on housing investment in London that London was in some way better off than the rest of the country, but this is manifestly not so, because one-quarter of all London's housing stock is unsatisfactory and nearly one-third in inner London is unsatisfactory.
In London as a whole there is a shortage of about 100,000 homes, and for every household rehoused from a waiting list in 1979 six more households joined that waiting list. In 1979, around 17,000 homeless families were given temporary accommodation by the London boroughs. Council rent levels in London are already one-third higher than in the rest of the country. London ratepayers already contribute nearly £500 per dwelling, compared with £23 for district councils in the rest of the country.
As a result of the new Housing Act, which weakens the position of private tenants—of whom there are also a disproportionate number in London—more people will have to turn to the public sector for housing. Despite that, public sector building starts in Greater London have declined from 24,000 in 1975 to just over 4,000 in 1980. Led by the GLC, Tory councils in London sold more than 13,000 houses last year. Tremlett, the GLC's Tory housing chairman, said, in a burst of philosophy:
"to stop building council houses in the poor areas of London is an essential step."
I do not know why it is essential, but that was what the man said. I can do no more than quote him accurately.
Another thing that came out of the housing investment programme statement was the Secretary of State's announcement that he was looking for rent increases of £2·95 per dwelling throughout the country. He said that he thought councils would have to introduce their own rent increases—averaging 30p—for the costs that fell outside the subsidy system. That brings the total to £3·25.
That is not the end of the matter for those living in council houses in London. A London Boroughs Association document, dated as recently as 3 December 1980, indicates that the national average addition of 30p may be as high as £2 for council tenants in some London boroughs. Most London boroughs and even outer London boroughs will considerably exceed that 30p national average. The Secretary of State, as if not satisfied with the

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dirty work that he did on Monday, jumped up—nothing daunted—at the Dispatch Box on Tuesday and tried to do the same thing again.
I am not an expert in the block grant system. Indeed, few hon. Members would claim that distinction. However, some might do so with more justification than I. I understand that the rate support grant settlement for next year represents a 3 per cent. reduction on this year. None of that reduction will be borne by Wales. The whole reduction will be borne by England. London will suffer considerably more than any other area. I have browsed through the figures and I understand that next year the total grant for London will be roughly the same as that for this year.
Next year, every increase, including inflation, will have to be borne by the ratepayers of London instead of by taxpayers. That is another unfair imposition on the people of London. The figures are extremely difficult to understand. I hope that I have understood them. If I have not, it is partly due to my inability to do so and partly due to the deliberately fraudulent nature of the documents circulated by the Department of the Environment. They are calculated to deceive rather than inform.
Councils will receive full grants only if they hit the targets set by the Department of the Environment for next year. If they fail to do so and exceed the target figures, their grants will be reduced. The newest local authority, the Inner London Education Authority, which the House created comparatively recently, will find that the Government's target for its expenditure is £468 million. This year, however, the Inner London Education Authority expects to spend about £700 million. If the new block grant system had not been introduced and the rate support grant system that had gone before had continued, ILEA could have expected to receive £145 million from the RSG settlement.
I asked the Secretary of State yesterday how much the ILEA would get under his new system. He said:
"it is estimated to receive £69.7 million."
That, as can be seen, is a dramatic reduction on the estimated £145 million to which it would have been entitled had the existing system continued. Indeed, it represents a substantial reduction on the £180 million which it received by way of rate support grant settlement this year.
To get to the Government's target expenditure level of £468 million and thus to qualify for the maximum grant, which is in excess of the £69 million that the Secretary of State thinks that it might get, it is estimated that ILEA would, amongst other things, need to break the law. It is believed that to achieve that figure, having spent something approaching £700 million this year, ILEA would have to sack one-third of its staff and not give them any redundancy pay. As hon. Members will be aware, that is against the law.
Therefore, there seems to be little prospect of the ILEA achieving the Government's target and consequently entitling itself and the people of London and the children at inner London schools to the maximum figure that the Government might be able to give it under the new system. That is for an education authority 40 per cent. of whose children have mothers who were not born in the United Kingdom, 27 per cent. of whose children are not living with both natural parents and more than 10 per cent. of whose children do not speak English as a first language.
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The Inner London Education Authority has also been subjected to much ignorant, prejudiced and despicable criticism by Conservative Members, led in particular by the hon. Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Baker), and to a great deal of adverse press criticism as a result of the publication—I should add, at the request of ILEA—of a report by Her Majesty's inspectors of schools. The Minister is proposing draconian cuts in the amount of money available to ILEA—an authority that provides an education service to those of his constituents whose parents are not rich enough to buy their way out of the system.
The final conclusion of the report states:
"If, however, the authority can continue to develop its in-service training programme and retain the good will of its existing teachers, and if it can continue to recruit and keep sufficient good teachers, there is enough good practice in all sectors to justify reasonable confidence that considerable further improvement can be achieved."
There are one or two big "ifs" there, and they have become bigger this week as a result of the proposed rate support grant settlement introduced by the Secretary of State. If ILEA, in order to meet the Government's target, needs to sack one-third of its staff, how can it retain the good will of its remaining teachers or continue to recruit and retain sufficient good teachers? It is absurd and disgraceful to suggest that it can do so in the face of the Government's decisions on the rate support grant.
The attack on the standard of provision for inner London in paricular is not confind to ILEA. From my quick reading of the figures, the inner London boroughs' total budgetary target for the next year is around £150 million less than they are getting this year. All the figures are still rather uncertain and remain so.
Under the mysterious and allegedly simple system that the Secretary of State has introduced, the announcement having been made, all local authorities have to calculate what they consider they are entitled to claim from the Government by way of grant. They then have to tell the Government what they feel they are entiltled to, and the merry men in Marsham Street consider the bids. It is certain that the amount of money that the totality of authorities in Britain claim will exceed the amount that the Secretary of State has announced that he wants to spend. The Department of the Environment will therefore have to tell the authorities that they are not getting all that they want, either by introducing a standard reduction for everyone or by being selective, biased or prejudiced, as the Secretary of State has been in every other stage of the propositions. Probably some time later in the year there will be further adjustments for inflation through external causes, in spite of the fact that the Secretary of State has denied that.
The system is intended to cut down bureeaucracy, to clear things up and make them simple. However, the final revision of all the figures and the final clear entitlement to grant for 1981–82 will not be known to local authorities until their books are well and truly closed and gone over by the district auditor. Next year's grants will be sorted out finally in 1983–84, which is an odd way to run any system. It is deliberately introducing uncertainty, and uncertainty and discretion on the scale envisaged by the Secretary of State are the breeding ground for bureaucracy. That will be the inevitable result, and it will be unproductive.
In introducing his new rate support grant in the House on 16 December, the Secretary of State talked of "new weapons" that had been placed in his hands by the

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legislation, Those new weapons are direected against the welfare of the people of London, as the figures that I have been able to give, even at this early stage, prove.
London has certain rich areas. Generally speaking, they tend to get richer towards the outskirts, although there ae patches of people of extreme elegance and wealth even in the middle. However, large areas still have bad housing, great poverty, high unemployment, a collapsing transport system, poor health provision and schools not as good as they should be. The Secretary of State is deliberately making the situation worse. That is the stated object of his housing investment programme and rate support grant announcements.
When the Chamber has been graced by the presence of, at best, half a dozen of the 50 Conservative Members for Greater London, I wonder what those Greater London Tories intend to do about the situation. Will they set about representing the people who elected them, or will they continue to creep and crawl to their own Front Bench and do nothing for the people of London, as they have done nothing since May 1979? They represent a Conservative overall majority in this Parliament. If they jib and say that they will not accept a settlement that is so damaging to the people of London, the settlement cannot go through. One of the major problems, I suspect, is that the Prime Minister is a London Member and feels that she has to play Jane to the Tarzan of Marsham Street. No one else on the jungle of the Tory Benches, to carry this metaphor to ridiculous extremes, will try to tangle with either Tarzan or Jane.
In circumstances where there are now 42 Labour Members and 50 Tory Members representing Greater London, there is nothing that the 42 on the Opposition side can do to put the rate support grant and housing investment programme settlement to rights. There are 50 Members able to sit on the Government Benches, if they deign to do so, who can put it right. If they do their duty by their electors, that is the course they will follow.
6.36 am
Mr. Thomas Cox: We are fast entering the period of Christmas. It is supposed to be the season of joy. There is no joy for the people of London or, indeed, for the people of this country this Christmas. The reason is not hard to find. It is the Tory Government and the policies they are pursuing. Whatever the issue, the outcome is bleak. The list extends from employment, housing, the social services and education to transport.
Week after week, however, the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer claim that we are on course. If we are on course, my reaction is to say "Heaven help us if, in the view of the Government, things start to go wrong." Many issues are discussed in the House. Whatever the issue and wherever it occurs, one can also say that it exists in London. The capital city of this country is in one hell of a mess. We are starting to become a rundown city that is full of despair.
I want to talk about several issues. They are issues within the responsibility of the Greater London Council and local authorities in the GLC area. Unless there is awareness of these issues by the Government, the problems will worsen. Every hon. Member holds advice centres. High on the list of the cases we hear and the letters that we receive is the issue of housing. I should like the Minister to inform the House what action the Government
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have taken in 19 months which has reduced the waiting list of those seeking housing in London, has helped people to purchase property on the open market, has helped the building industry and has helped to reduce the number of unemployed building workers.
The housing position in my area worsens monthly. I wonder whether the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Secretary of State for the Environment have any idea of the problems faced by many people. I have received a letter from the Catholic housing aid centre in Wandsworth which states:
"We interviewed Elanie. She is a cheerful, independent young mother of a baby boy and was deserted by the child's father early in her pregnancy. She lives, eats and sleeps in a room 10 ft by 10 ft, cramped with furniture and personal belongings, which leaves virtually no activity space, and shares kitchen, bathroom and WC with the landlord's family in his overcrowded household. In the absence of a solution to date from either the council or housing associations, she writes to us 'I am having to walk the streets at all hours of the day with the baby. I am constantly being hassled by the landlord each time the baby cries or walks on the floor. It is not easy to keep him cooped up in his cot. I am getting to the stage where I am constantly hitting him for every cry and I know this is only because I am under pressure at home. I do try to go out or go away with friends, but I cannot keep it up very much longer'."
That sort of letter provides an insight into the problems faced by many people in many parts of London each week, each month and, in many cases, all year round. That is why my hon. Friends have stressed that housing is so important.
The Minister must be aware of the figures. About ¼ million families are on waiting lists, 16,000 are classed as homeless, 18,000 families are in bed and breakfast accommodation and 2,000 people sleep rough in the city every night. One can add the special problems of the elderly, the handicapped, the mentally ill and the ex-prisoners with nowhere to go. They all need housing and, in many cases, special accommodation. How can they ever hope to find somewhere decent to live with their families if they are not helped by local councils or housing associations?
Father Noel O'Regan of Tooting was for many years chairman of the Threshold housing association. He was deeply committed to helping people and he worked seven days a week from early morning until late at night to try to get the housing association off the ground and to help my constituents. He was assisted by a first-class team of men and women who shared his concern. He recently wrote to me a letter that illustrates the enormous housing problems in Wandsworth which, without the help of the Government, will not be eased.
He said:
"In the year to 31 March 1980 the Tooting Centre, covering the Borough of Wandsworth, received 1,659 new enquiries of which 38 per cent. were either actually homeless, or had the prospect of becoming so within 28 days. Even if all the housing associations working in Wandsworth decided to devote all their programme to housing single people (neither a likely nor necessarily desirable turn of events) we could not even house the homeless, let alone any of the many other deserving cases."
That illustrates the sort of problem that we face. Such are the housing problems in Wandsworth that without the help of housing associations in the borough many people would not be housed, because Wandsworth council cannot rehouse them. It repeatedly supplies names of people who should be rehoused and tries to get local housing associations to house them.
As a direct result of decisions taken by the Secretary of State for the Environment, whatever help in the past has

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been possible from housing associations is fast coming to an end. Recently, the four Members of Parliament for Wandsworth received a joint letter from all the housing associations in the borough. They asked for our help to fight the Government's cutbacks in the financial allocations to housing associations. My hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs), my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea. North (Mr. Jay) and I went to visit a property at 13 Shelgate Road, S.W.11. It is owned by a housing association. It was bought at an auction at a cost of £23,000. We were told that it would cost about £30,000 to repair and modernise the property and bring it back into habitation, yet as a direct result of Government policy the work on the house has stopped.
Many hon. Members have mentioned housing associations during the course of the debate. Will the Minister tell the House of any housing association, anywhere in Britain, that has written to the Secretary of State in recent weeks to support fully his decision to cut back their finances? It would be interesting to hear what has been said. We know what has been said in Wandsworth. It would be interesting to hear the Minister tell us of the sort of comments that have been made by housing associations.
Will someone say how a policy that keeps people without a home and that boards up property can be justified while at the same time thousands of qualified building workers up and down the country are out of work? How can the Government justify that policy? The Government are causing that aspect of life in Britain. I am sure that at our advice services this weekend we shall be inundated with decent, hardworking, honest people asking us to help them to find somewhere to live. We say that that is hopeless. They will cite boarded-up properties that they have seen. They will ask why someone does not do something about those properties.
If the Minister does not know where those properties are, we can let him know. When will he tell us about the Government's policy to get those boarded-up houses back into circulation for those who need them?
Mr. Ronald W. Brown: My hon. Friend will be aware that yesterday afternoon the Minister made much of telling the House how many empty properties there are in various boroughs in London, as though it was a great thing that he had achieved.
Mr. Cox: My hon. Friend has made an interesting point. It is a valid one with which I intended to deal.
Comments have been made on the actions of the Secretary of State for the Environment against what he calls the overspending councils. Is it the right hon. Gentleman's intention to take action against councils, of which Wandsworth is one, which deliberately board up properties because they are trying to sell them and are not having much success in so doing? Those properties could be used for rehousing in Wandsworth. Is it the right hon. Gentleman's intention to take action against such councils?
I suggested to the Minister that the councils were denying revenue to their local authorities. They are denying revenue in the form of rent and rates. Is it his intention to say to the councils "Either you will start to get these properties back into circulation so that people can live in them or we intend to take action against you for not doing so"? It will be interesting to hear what he has to say about that.
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Is the Minister aware of the rackets—we have heard about one or two of them, but there are many others—that operate in private housing? There are those who say "I can get no help from the local authority or housing association. Let us see whether there is any private rented accommodation available." Is he aware of the rackets that are being pursued? For example, I have had cases referred to me in which landlords have said to prospective tenants "Pay eight weeks' rent in advance, and the rent is £35 a week. If you cannot pay eight weeks in advance, at £35 a week, you will have to pay fortnightly a rent of £50 a week." Is he aware of the fees that are still charged to those who are seeking accommodation and the old racket that we have often discussed of a fixtures and fittings charge?
How can those who say "The only hope of getting somewhere decent to live for my family is in the private sector"—we know that that accommodation is pretty scarce, but let us assume that they find somewhere—ever have any hope of being able to save sufficient money to secure a deposit to buy a property of their own when they are faced with abuses by landlords in trying to get somewhere to live in the first place? I hope that we shall hear from the Minister what action his Department will take to deal with such abuses.
I cannot believe that the Minister who will reply, who is a London Member, is unaware of the problems of housing in London. I am sure that he has housing problems in his constituency. When will someone in the Government have the guts to fight for these people and to fight to secure the finances that are needed to help them? One of the most important aspects of life in our capital city is the right of people to live with their families in good accommodation. Unless the Government give them hope, they will remain in a life of depression, which many of them have had to suffer for too long.
I turn to the subject of transport. We have all recently received from British Rail a letter telling us of the cuts in Southern Region services. We are told that they are being made because of a need to save money. The suggested cuts in my area can be described only as utter madness, a comment that could be echoed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Few London Members will not be affected by the cuts that British Rail will impose in the very near future.
We have little employment in Wandsworth; it all went away long ago. Local people were willing to travel to other parts of London to work, but I do not know how long they will be able to do that—or will want to.
I should like to speak of just a little of what British Rail's decision involves. Tooting and Wandsworth Common stations, which cater for a large number of people who come into the city to work, will close after 10 o'clock at night from Monday through to Saturday. Wandsworth Road station is to close after 10 o'clock from Monday through to Friday and will close all day on Saturday. Two other stations serving a wide area of the borough—Earlsfield and Putney—will be closed at night. What utter stupidity this is on the part of British Rail! Who thinks that the world ends at 10 o'clock? There are many shift workers. Shift work follows no set pattern. People can start and end at all hours of the day or night. What will happen to the transport services to take them to or from their work?
I hope that no hon. Member will mention the possibility of buses. Many of us find London bus services a joke—the

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long wait between buses, the bus that never comes and the lack of facilities for people who have to wait in the cold, the wind and the rain.
I wonder whether the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for the Environment or the Minister of Transport ever travels on a bus. Whatever their position in the Government, I cannot believe that any of them should not travel on a bus. If they did, it would give them an indication of the problems that millions of Londoners have to face day in and day out.
There are still large numbers of people who do not own a car and rely exclusively on buses or train services to go to work or to go out to enjoy themselves. A few months ago the Prime Minister told a conference "What you do is not sit at home and mope about the fact that you have not got a job. You must be prepared to move and find alternative work in other areas." We all know that there is little hope that anyone coming into London, unless he is highly skilled and very well paid, will find anywhere to live. But the situation is fast approaching when, even if a person finds somewhere to live, he will not be able to get to work because of the transport system.
It is not only a question of going to work and getting home again. The fact that the stations I have mentioned are to be closed after 10 pm on a Saturday surely means that many people who like to go out on Saturday evening—that includes hon. Members and many of their constituents—will find that there will not be the trains to take them home. That is another aspect of the utter stupidity of this closure policy.
Mr. Spearing: Is it not much worse than that? Because a relatively few stations may be closing at 10 pm, people might well be dissuaded from going by rail because they are not to know whether the station they would want to use might be closing. The proportionate effect of this announcement upon the utility of the rail services is thereby much worsened.
Mr. Cox: That is a valid point. I hope that Members of Parliament representing London constituencies, Labour or Conservative, will kick up such a hell of a fuss that we shall make the people of London aware of what is happening. Here I pay tribute. Many of us are highly critical of the press situation in London, with the rundown in the number of newpapers. But I must in all honesty say that the kind of campaign that the New Standard is giving to this issue is something that many of us welcome, because it is a newspaper that is read—
Mr. Cartwright: It is the only one.
Mr. Cox: My hon. Friend is right, but at least a good many people of London read it. I hope that as they read it they become aware of what is happening to transport services in the near future.
I do not think that any of us is in doubt about what will happen in a few months' time. We shall then be told by British Rail or the Secretary of State or somebody else that the rail revenue is down and that there are more losses on the transport services, so more cuts will have to be made in what is left of the services. Or we shall have the other argument—that because of the loss of revenue fares must be increased even further. I do not need to tell anyone in
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the House about the escalation in fares that has taken place over the last two or three years, be it on buses or on trains. So again the people of London will be hit.
Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs) compared the Paris system with the London system. When will someone learn that what is taking place is the strangulation—the murder—of the London public transport system? When will someone say "We have to pump money into the system to build it up again"? The Under-Secretary is himself a London Member. I hope that he will be among the first to launch a campaign of that kind from within his Department.
It has been a long night, but I make no apology for the time I have taken. I believe that it is the duty of all London Members to bring to the attention of the Government the problems that we face and will continue to face unless there is a change of policy. We must remember that there is no going back. If services are withdrawn, in the vast majority of cases they will never restart. In the London borough of Wandsworth, land is being sold by the borough council to private developers. Once sold, that land is lost for ever to the people of the borough and to Londoners as a whole. It is our job as London Members to fight for the people whom we represent.
Despite what the Prime Minister says, we all know that the day will come—it may be a gradual process, but it will come—when the U-turn starts. Many of us hope that it will not be long in coming. The longer that it is delayed, the more the damage the Government cause not only to London but to the country as a whole. Only the Government can decide when the U-turn is made. I hope that they will have the courage to make the U-turn in the very near future.
7.7 am
Mr. Ted Graham: This debate has been about London, about the Government's attitude to it and about the assistance that they are giving us.
When I began noting the salient points in hon. Members' speeches, I was thinking in terms of making my own intervention at some time between four o'clock and five o'clock. I revised that to between five o'clock and six o'clock and subsequently to between six o'clock and seven o'clock. However, this has been something of a record for London debates, because by the time we have finished we shall have been discussing these matters for nearly eight hours. That demonstrates how passionately we Opposition Members care about our responsibilities to our constituents. In my view, Labour Members have done their constituents proud by staying up as late as they have and demonstrating their concern for their constituents. However, it would be churlish not to acknowledge that the contributions from Government supporters have also added to the debate, although I suspect that their attendance owes a great deal to the fact that Opposition Members asked for the debate and to the desire of the Government Whips to make a debate of it.
I want to refer collectively to the speeches from the Opposition Benches by my hon. Friends the Members for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley), Norwood (Mr. Fraser), Newham, South (Mr. Spearing), Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown), Hackney, Central (Mr. Davis), Vauxhall (Mr. Holland), Wood Green (Mr. Race), Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs), Tooting (Mr. Cox) and Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson). They have demonstrated their commitment to their constituents and

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they have shown, above all, a passionate concern and a basic knowledge and experience which have been built up not only in their time as Members of the House but during the many years that they served local government in London.
My hon. Friends ranged widely over the subjects that have been of concern tonight—housing, employment, race relations, transport, social services and education. At times we had illustrations that were heart-rending, distressing and in more than one instance, for me at any rate, haunting because of the poignant conditions in which constituents have found themselves—not wholly as a result of the actions of the Government during the past 18 months—and, as so many of my hon. Friends have said, insult has been added to injury by the damage that has been done to London this week by the announcements from the Dispatch Box.
What has happened this week? First, funds for London housing have been slashed. There have been further cuts in education. Council tenants have had their rents increased and there have been soaring rate increases. The Government have wished Londoners a merry Christmas with those announcements, and I submit that they amount to a kick in the teeth for London and a step back in our desperate fight for a decent life for all our people.
One theme that has run through all the speeches from the Labour Benches is not that our rates are going up but that the Government have been able to use the device of the new block grant. They have been able to find a method by which to punish London more than any other area. No doubt the Under-Secretary of State, who is to reply to the debate and who, to the best of my knowledge, has been awake for most of the debate and has not left his seat—he has been assiduous and has listened to everything that has been said—will tell us that what the Secretary of State has perpetrated is fair and reasonable.
Let me give the hon. Gentleman the only quotation that I shall use from a newspaper. Under the headline
"London badly hit by Heseltine rate system",
the Financial Times said yesterday:
"London has been treated unexpectedly harshly in the new rate support system … The beneficiaries have been the mainly Tory-controlled shire county councils."
There is a great deal more that can be said and a great deal more that will be understood, not only in the shire counties—and we know the shabby and shoddy deal that was done by the leader of the Association of County Councils with the Secretary of State and his colleagues to buy them off from opposition in the other place—and in every council that is represented by my hon. Friends but, as the hon. Member for Ravensbourne (Mr. Hunt) knows, in every Tory-controlled council in London, too. It will be understood that this device has been chosen to punish London and the inner city areas and to benefit the others.
Let us take a quick look at some of the winners and some of the losers over rates. The winners are Northampton, Solihull, West Somerset, Southend, Brighton, Bournemouth, Norwich, Hove, Eastbourne and Bath. Those are some of the areas that have benefited most by this settlement.
Let us now look at some of the losers. They are Tower Hamlets, Southwark, Islington, Hackney, Lewisham, Greenwich, Barking, Haringey, Wandsworth, Harlow, Newcastle and Brent. Only two of those are not London boroughs, and one would have said that that list comes
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from an independent source, or an independent observer, merely abstracting the situation as it has emerged. That is the true picture of what is happening.
Last year we saw the beginning of the Tory policy of punishing the cities, the urban areas and the deprived communities, and we now have a grant that is based not upon problems but upon population, where the wealthier communities fare comparatively better than the poorer ones. It was a grotesque assertion by the Secretary of State in his statement to the House on Tuesday that his new system was
"fair, rational and open to scrutiny."—[Official Report, 16 December 1980; Vol. 996, c. 217.]
It is not fair. It is arbitrary, crude and capricious. It is not rational; it is irrational. It is open to scrutiny, but it is not open to influence, alteration or amendment. The arrogant statement will be seen for what it is—a brazen attempt by a discredited Secretary of State to try to delude and deceive the public. It is a blantant act of spite and political malice, aimed particularly at London and the cities.
What is the effect? This is the fourth cut in assistance to London and other areas in the past 20 months. The cuts have been made by Budget, by statement and by written answer. It is no wonder that the people of London and the inner cities are mourning the fact that their living standards are continuously being eroded. How will the Minister care to reply to the situation that we now face in the light of the Conservative election pledges to reduce taxation, to protect the needy, to safeguard standards in education and to encourage thrift?
Let us look at the block grant, because that is at the core of what we are now arguing about. First, let us nail the lie that the present Government meaningfully consulted anyone about the details of the block grant. I happened to serve on the Committee that considered the Local Government, Planning and Land (No. 2) Bill—now an Act—as did my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South. Week after week we were inundated with submissions and pleas in despair from the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, the Association of District Councils, the GLC and every London borough. Every unit of local government throughout the country begged the Government to stop.
The Government will say to us tonight "The old system did not work." Local government recognises that the old system had blemishes, but there were ways in which improvements could be made in it which did not please the Government—quite rightly. It was said that if people were given more money to spend, they would he spending money that was not theirs. That was a problem. The associations said "We shall help you to find another system." Yet throughout 1980 the Government persisted and refused to alter the arrangements, except surreptitiously for their friends in the House of Lords, when it came to that shoddy deal whereby the united front of the local government associations was broken when the Association of County Councils reneged upon the agreements it had made and bought the kind of deal the pay-off for which we have seen today.
It is hypocrisy for the Government to say "We are giving more freedom to local government to do what it likes with its money." The Government forget that there will be less money available next year and that a smaller percentage of that money will rank for grant. It is certainly an arbitrary device.

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Talking in terms of a very careful analysis of what needs to be spent, I can tell the Minister—he knows this very well, of course—that every time the working parties got to grips with his colleagues on the kind of indicators that were needed, there were dispute, frustration and anger on the part of local authority representatives. No part of this package has met with the full agreement of the local authority associations.
When we talk about the size of the problem in London, and when Opposition Members have sought to protect the interests of London, we must bear in mind that there are more than 1 million pensioners and more than 1½ million people of school age and under and that 6 million journeys are made on London Transport. We must bear in mind that although we live in London and have to pay very heavily for the privilege, there are hundreds of thousands of people who are poorly paid. The average wage of hospital domestic workers is £64 a week. For bus conductors it is £89 a week. For Underground cleaners it is £73 a week. For street cleaners it is £67 a week. These are the basic wages for which a great section of Londoners have to settle at the end of the week.
The Government announcement on HIP allocations will have a crippling effect on housing. The size of the problem is indicated by the waiting list of the London boroughs, which is growing by 100,000 every year. There are now 13,000 people registered as homeless in the capital. My hon. Friends have spelt out the very sad state of the housing stock—the percentages that are unfit and lack one of the five basic amenities.
It is not insignificant that three of the most needy authorities from the point of view of the quality of the housing stock are Islington, with 18 per cent. of its stock unfit, Haringey, with 15 per cent. and Hackney, with 20 per cent. These are the authorities that have tried desperately for many years to meet the needs of their people, but it is they who will be punished by the Minister in his objective of reversing the drift of aid from the centre. I am proud that it was a Labour Government who started the drift of centrally raised funds to London to deal with such problems. That is nothing of which my hon. Friends need to feel ashamed.
The Government's comprehensive assault on London began in May 1979. Labour Members, who are doing their best for their constituencies, are entitled to expect the Greater London Council to provide some relief. It is a regional government and as such it ought to be protecting London, just as my hon. Friends are. However, the GLC, particularly its leader, has been silent about the onslaught by the Government on its resources.
Let us consider the problems that individual Londoners will face on rates. London has always had to pay more rates. In my borough of Enfield, for instance, the domestic rateable value for the average hereditament is £270. In Newcastle it is only £154, in the Rhondda it is £62 and in Sedgemoor, in Bridgwater, the constituency of the Minister for Local Government (and Environmental Services, it is £178. In Enfield the average householder pays £240 a year. In Cardiff he pays only £147, in Rhondda £73 and in Bridgwater only £186. That illustrates that even in present conditions London ratepayers are paying pounds more in rates before they begin to carry the heavy burden that awaits them.
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Let me cite the position of Enfield, Barnet and Haringey. Barnet is Conservative-controlled and Haringey is Labour-controlled, and they are located on either side of my borough of Enfield, which is Tory-controlled. Let us consider what they got last year and translate the effect of the grant as though that is how much they will get. No one knows how much they will get. The Department's figures are that Barnet and Enfield will be hit by 10.3p but that Haringey, which suffers the worst social problems, will be hit to the extent of 14.8p. That is the equity that is applied under this Government. The boroughs that have the worst social problems and need the most money will be given less, and the problems will get worse.
Two or three other problems gravely concern me. I am worried about the effect on the life and safety of people in the capital. Let us look at the ambulance service, which is part of the assistance that is given by the Government to London. The London ambulance service is in a parlous state because of cutbacks and restrictions. I am told by the service that it is now reduced to the level of being unable to provide ambulances, and emergency patients are having to be taken to hospitals by mini-cabs. People will be in the care of mini-cab drivers who are not qualified. They should be in the care of qualified ambulancemen. That is one of the ways in which the Government, wedded to the idea of privatisation and determined to keep as many people as possible off the public payroll, will run London into danger.
The Under-Secretary for the Environment is involved with and has a deep interest in the question of adequate fire cover for London. Before the last general election, when there were rumours that a future Tory Administration would not honour the salary agreement that had been made, the Under-Secretary of State declared that such rumours were nonsense. He said:
"May I make it quite clear that these rumours are utterly false and the Conservative Party is on record as to giving a commitment to underwrite the pledges on salary increases already made".
But what happened two or three months ago? The negotiators had interviews with the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Home Secretary. The Prime Minister said that it was nothing to do with the Government and that the Government did not interfere in such matters. Will the Under-Secretary of State tell the House that in no way—by word, deed, nudge, wink or in any other way—did the Government seek to influence the negotiators to settle for less? I know that the GLC used as much pressure as possible to press for an increase of only 6 per cent. Fortunately, at the end of the day, good sense prevailed and the firemen will get the increase that they deserve.
The Government have produced a Green Paper and they have told all fire authorities that they believe that their standards can be reduced by 10 per cent. According to the GLC, one of the bases on which adequate fire cover is given is that in emergency, if we are short, we can call upon the fire brigades in Kent, Essex and other counties. But what happens if they decide, without consulting the GLC, to reduce their fire cover? At the fire at Alexandra Palace, every available fire appliance in London had to be brought in, as well as appliances in Kent.
Mr. Ronald W. Brown: Before my hon. Friend leaves that point, will he bear in mind that many outlying areas are using part-time firemen in order to cut down costs?
Mr. Graham: That is a dangerous situation, but it is inevitable. I feel sorry for anyone in local government, at any level, who is being put under pressure by the Government. Those people are being forced to consider ways of keeping their heads above water and providing some sort of service, even though it may be the sort of service that, professionally, they know they should not provide.
In his reply, will the Minister deal with the effect of the increases in rates on the small business man and the small business community? He must be aware that there have been more bankruptcies in the past 12 months than, if not for all time, at least for many years. Most have occurred as a result of Government imposts of taxation and rates, and particularly as a result of the high cost of borrowing money. Would the Minister care to tell us whether that has been taken into account?
Will the Minister also tell us what has happened to the Government's pledge—I call it an election bribe—that they were wedded to abolishing domestic rates completely? I wonder what the people who voted Conservative because they were promised that the rates would be abolished will say when their rates in Enfield, which last year went up by 20 per cent., go up by a figure not far short of that next year. They voted Conservative believing that one day—if not this year, then the year after or some time after that—rates would be abolished.
Does the Minister appreciate the enormous damage that these financial arrangements have made to the relationship between central and local government? Is he really aware of the anger and dismay that have been caused at every level in local government—lay, political and professional—by the arrogant manner in which the Secretary of State and his Ministers have ridden roughshod over the attempts of local government to help them in their work?
For London and Londoners, the picture that emerges in this week before Christmas is one of unrelieved gloom. The Government have shown their contempt for those who are at the sharp end in our capital city in their never-ending battle to master the nightmare of social deprivation, compounded by diminishing public resources to deal with it. For London's homeless, the stony response from this discredited Minister is clear and unbending—"There is no room at the inn." There is no room, no blanket, no food and no hope.
But the Londoners I know will deal with such selfish disregard of their problems in the only way they can. They will deal with the Minister's cronies at County Hall next spring by ensuring that their fight back begins by returning a Labour GLC to power. The cities have been plundered and pillaged while the Government's shire supporters are rewarded for their political faithfulness to this desperate gang of desperadoes masquerading as a Government.
The manner in which the Secretary of State has chosen to manipulate the variables available to him—and designed by him—confirms the worst fears of responsible local government of all political persuasions. The Secretary of State has provided himself with an instrument which gives him unprecedented dictatorial powers. In this first year he has used them to punish London mercilessly. Let me give the Under-Secretary a warning that I hope he will pass on to his right hon. Friend. When we are returned to power, we shall not hesitate to use those same powers
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for the ends of social justice and equality. That is the message of hope that I give to London this morning. The return of a Labour Government cannot come too soon.
7.33 am
The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg): I am sure that people will treat the threat of an event that is not likely to happen for 10 years with the seriousness that it deserves.
This has been a very useful debate, but I must say—as we always say on occasions such as this—that it would have been much better had I been replying at 7.33 pm instead of 7.33 am. I hope that the problems of Liverpool will not take quite as long to deal with as the problems of London. I should like to deal with as many points as I can, and there would seem to be two options for me to follow. The first would be to give a brief summing-up of what I believe the debate has been about. The second would be to try to make some comments—some of which I hope will be found useful—on all that has been said by the hon. Members who have spoken, many of whom have been present throughout this long debate.
Many hours ago, the hon. Member for Hammersmith. North (Mr. Soley) brought a refreshing angle to our debates on London. I do not recall any other hon. Member presenting such an angle for 10 or 11 years. He mentioned the problems of racial harmony. He was right to do so. It is a subject that affects us all, because we all know that whatever our political views, whether we are capitalists or Socialists, neither system will survive without racial harmony. It is in the interests of us all to build on a foundation that is more solid than many like to think.
Many of tonight's speeches fell within the responsibilities of other Departments. I can comment briefly only on some of them. I shall pass on to my colleagues exactly what has been said so that they can see for themselves. The hon. Member for Hammersmith, North will appreciate that much of what he said fell within the responsibilities of the Department of Education and Science or of the Home Office.
There is one hopeful sign. I refer to the constructive way in which schools seem to be working. I hope we all agree that schools have an important part to play in the promotion of harmonious community relations. That is particularly true of areas such as inner London, Bradford, Leicester, Leeds and so on. In those cities, people from different cultures live in close proximity and share the same services. Schools cannot be isolated from the attitudes—good or not so good—which prevail in the outside world.
Given the potential for destructive divisions and dissensions in many parts of London and, regrettably, the occasional outbreak of communal violent behaviour, it is a tribute to schools that on the whole they have remained harmonious and stable communities. It is almost poetry to see some of the nativity plays that are being performed in infant and primary schools. A collection of children, representing 10 or 11 different religions, take part. The whole colour spectrum is represented. None of the children and few of the parents who watch see a difference in the children. They are children, participating in one particular act. That is important.

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While most schools strive with some success to promote attitudes of mutual respect, responsibility and courtesy and all the ingredients of enlightened behaviour, only a minority claims to teach racial harmony directly. I am not sure that it can be taught. It must be lived, felt and experienced. The juxtaposition of schoolchildren of all races and colours, both at work and at play, provides valuable clues as to how that can be achieved.
There is a lot of room for argument about means and ends. Last year, my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science set up a committee of inquiry into the education of children of ethnic minority groups, under the chairmanship of Mr. Tony Rampton. The committee is expected to produce an interim report shortly and to complete its work by the end of 1982. I hope that it will have some significant things to say on this topic. We look forward to hearing from it.
The hon. Member for Hammersmith, North referred to the problems of the police in controlling demonstrations and to the signs in some areas of racial activities by various organisations, specifically in South-East and East London. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary is aware of concern about an apparent resurgence of activity by extreme Right-wing groups. We have a tradition in this country that people should be able to come together to express political views, however objectionable they may be to others, provided that in so doing they do not break the law. That is a tradition that we should hesitate to abandon. But my right hon. Friend has consistently made it clear that where people break the law they can expect firm action.
I understand the dilemma of those who see pictures or television news flashes of marches with the police on either side. The police have their weekends regularly disrupted. We should remember that the police are present at marches and demonstrations to carry out their duty to preserve the peace, not to protect the participants.
A review of the Public Order Act 1936 is now taking place. We are currently considering the comments that we have received, and are still receiving, on the Green Paper that we published earlier this year as well as the report by the Select Committee on home affairs. Our conclusions will be announced in due course.
I disagree with the views of the hon. Member for Hammersmith, North on the private sector. I hope later to indicate why he is wrong.
I confirm that the Housing Corporation has received an allocation of £491 million for the next financial year to distribute to housing associations. That is the same in real terms as this year's allocation. There has been no cut of any kind in that finance. The spending of that capital is for the Housing Corporation, not for the Government, to decide. The Housing Corporation was created so that the Government would have an agency through which they could deal with the housing associations. We do not intend to tell either the Housing Corporation or the housing associations how to spend their money in detail. We have tried consistently to make that clear. There has been no change of heart by the Government. Within the limits of the money that is available, we still want to encourage the housing association movement, but it would be wrong for me to hold out any promise of more money being made
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available. I believe that by preserving the amount in real terms—£491 million—we have done as much as we can in the current situation.
The hon. Gentleman asked specifically about revenue deficit grant. We are examining on its merits each case that is put to us. There is no hard and fast rule either way.
Mr. Clinton Davis: There seems to be a common experience among a number of inner London Members of complaints being made to them by various housing associations that they are being hard done by as a result of the activities of the Housing Corporation under its present leadership. If the Minister can be convinced that the evidence that is being assembled is accurate and that the Housing Corporation does not seem to be doing its duty towards inner London, will he at least undertake to discuss the matter with the chairman of the Housing Corporation and, if the case is made out, put him on the right lines?
Mr. Finsberg: I am prepared, and so are my ministerial colleagues, to look at any evidence. None has yet been forthcoming. I am not prepared to be drawn any further than that.
Mr. Soley: Is the Minister saying that if a housing association claims that it is in severe financial trouble and could go bankrupt within six months or so, it should write to him putting its case?
Mr. Finsberg: The line of communication is with the Housing Corporation. Housing associations know that. There is also a line of communication to the Government. The housing associations know full well the way in which it operates. All I am saying is that if they have problems they should not hide them but put them forward for proper consideration.
My hon. Friend the Member for Paddington (Mr. Wheeler) referred to the Metropolitan Police. I am glad to be able to confirm that its strength has had a net gain of 880 this year and that the training school at Hendon is working at full capacity.
I noted with care and concern my hon. Friend's comments about high rates forcing jobs away from London. We all know that that is true. All I hope is that some local authorities will pay rather more attention to that than they appear to have done at the moment.
The hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) raised a considerable number of points. I shall be seeing him later today, I hope, together with one of his hon. Friends, about another matter. He told us of his borough of Lambeth. I have to say that Lambeth is notorious for its refusal to live in a real world. When penalties are visited on it, it tries to blame everyone but itself. The financial crisis in Lambeth was brought on by its refusal to make reductions in expenditure, which have been made by the overwhelming bulk of local authorities up and down the country, of both political persuasions.
The hon. Gentleman told us in graphic terms of the desperate plight of his constituents. Much can be done by Lambeth now. The borough council owns 3,100 vacant dwellings—9 per cent. of its stock. If it sells to its tenants, it can add substantially to its housing allocation by 50 per cent. of the proceeds. The sum of £548 million has been allocated to London for HIPs in this new round, which is more than 30 per cent. of the national total. There has been a continual trend in a reduction of resources allocated to public sector housing from 1974–75, and I do not

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remember Labour Members attacking their Government for a continued year-by-year reduction in capital expenditure. It is a hit hard for them to start now.
Mr. Stuart Holland: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Finsberg: I shall come to the hon. Gentleman, who made, if I may say so, a rather lengthy speech. I want to do him justice when I come to him and not take him out of turn.
I should like to join in the tribute that my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) paid to the hard work done by Wandsworth council. One has only to talk to people who live and work in Wandsworth to know of the prayers that go up every night from them because they do not live across the border in Lambeth, which takes no notice of the people who work or live in the borough.
I recognise the worries that my hon. Friend expresses, but we have explained for the first time all the factors and put them all out in the open in the rate support grant settlement. Let us look at that and the method by which it was reached. During the years of the Labour Government, from 1974 to 1979, massive amounts of grant were drawn into London and away from other authorities. London's total share of grant is estimated to be down to 15·8 per cent., which lies between the 1977–78 and the 1978–79 levels. Several of my hon. Friends have said that the final figure will depend on what authorities actually spend. The actual total grant to London in 1981–82 is at present estimated to be £1,517 million. This is about the same as last year. Many London authorities are currently spending at levels substantially higher than their assessed needs. The high levels of grant going to London have encouraged them in this practice.
This year, the new block grant system is being introduced with new assessments of grant-related expenditure, which replaces the old assessments of spending need. We believe that the new grant-related expenditure assessments are based on more objective and open judgments of what authorities need to spend than was the previous regression-based formula. We have published in the booklet what those judgments are. They have been applied in the same way to all authorities. The results have shown the inner London authorities to be spending substantially in excess of their assessed need.
There should now be a wide-ranging debate about these new assessments and what they show. One of the virtues of the new assessments is that it is possible to do this. It was not possible under the previous system with its incomprehensible jumble of factors. The settlement will encourage tighter financial discipline, because the new grant system gives less to those providing higher standards of service than their needs assessment indicates is necessary. Generally, they stand to lose more grant if they fail to respond to the Government's request for savings and exceed the projections of expenditure which the Government have made.
There is a safety net which ensures that, provided authorities respond to the Government's call for expenditure reductions, the maximum grant loss in relation to any ratepayer as a result of the introduction of block grant is kept down to the equivalent of an 8p rate. There is a further safety net of 5p for the effect of grant losses which arise from authorities spending in excess of their grant-related expenditure.
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There will, Mr. Speaker, as you know, be a full debate on the RSG settlement in the House shortly after the Christmas Recess. It would be wrong of me to anticipate the debate by having a substantive discussion on the settlement on this occasion. I have tried to respond to the points that have been made about the method and the fact that for the first time those who are interested can see for themselves how the matter has been worked out.
The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) opened his interesting speech with what, I am afraid, is his familiar view on enterprise zones. It is known that the hon. Gentleman is opposed to them, as he is against sin and for bicycling. I do not think that he has added anything tonight to the debate on enterprise zones. The hon. Gentleman fell into the same trap as some of his hon Friends. I have, therefore, to repeat that there has been no cut in the allocation of cash to housing associations via the Housing Corporation this year. Nor has there been any cut in the allocation of money to local authorities for their own public housing schemes in this year.
The measures we have taken relating to local authorities are to make certain that they do not overspend. We will be happy if they spend right up to the limit. The hon. Gentleman referred to the grant-related expenditure book. The figures are given following interdepartmental consultation and discussion. They were not simply conjured out of the air by the Government on education, as, I am sure, the hon. Member understood.
My hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. Stevens) brought a breath of reality to the debate. He pointed to the unchecked growth of local government expenditure, which the Government are determined to reverse. The moratorium, as he says, hits the good and the bad. The overspending authorities such as Camden are penalising others such as Hackney in the sphere of housing expenditure. It should be remembered that Hackney has been basically an underspender. However, because Camden and others have deliberately flouted the figures that were given to them, Hackney, like a lot of other authorites, has had to suffer. I do not recall any Hackney Members publicly blaming Camden and others for the problems that have beset places such as Hackney.
Mr. Ronald W. Brown: Of course not. We blame the Government.
Mr. Finsberg: On the suggestion about London legislation, if there were a wish across the parties for that, it might be that the vehicle already exists in a GLC general powers Bill. It would be interesting to see whether there is a feeling that specific legislation should be introduced.
The hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) made the mistake that many hon. Members have made in the debate of talking as though there are no inner city areas outside London. The problems of the inner city of Leicester, for example, are as great as those in Islington, Hackney, Lambeth and elsewhere in London and there are also the same racial problems. We have tried in our new method of analysis to give the same weighting to factors wherever they occur. I believe that by doing that we shall make a more positive contribution to a better balance.
The hon. Gentleman asked me to look again at the rate support grant position of Hackney. There is no question of the council having to come to the Government on bended knees, but it has to tell us what reductions it is

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making in order to get a waiver. Other authorities, including the other half of the Hackney-Islington partnership, have done that. We do not want councils to come crawling. We want the facts. Councils must tell us how they can qualify for a waiver. Islington and Hammersmith have done that, and I see no reason why Hackney council should not follow their example. If it can make a case on the waiver, it will incur no further penalties and that opportunity will remain until the RSG order is approved.
Following what I said about the sins of Camden overspend being visited on Hackney, I should add that Hackney will be able to add part of its housing underspend caught by the moratorium to its allocation for next year. It is not all lost.
I have known the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch for a long time. He usually knows his facts, but there are not, as he claimed, 1,000 vacant dwellings in Hackney. The council owns 2,300 empty dwellings. The 1,000 properties to which the hon. Gentleman referred have been vacant for 12 months or more. It is the responsibility of the council to dispose of those properties and bring them into use. There are many ways in which that could be done if the will were there. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, who cares passionately for the interests of his constituents, will be banging on the door of the town hall in Mare Street to ask why 1,000 properties have been vacant for 12 months or more. Why could not Hackney follow the GLC's example of hornesteading and put people in homes, instead of letting the homes rot and leaving the people on waiting lists as mere statistics?
Mr. Ronald W. Brown: The Minister's right hon. Friend said that there were 1,000 vacant dwellings in Hackney. I said that I did not believe him. The Under-Secretary is wrong to suggest that the GLC has put homesteaders in. There are many GLC houses in Hackney that have remained empty and on sale at £41,000. There are dozens of empty houses on the Fairview development. People cannot afford to buy them.
Mr. Finsberg: I wish that the hon. Gentleman would occasionally listen to what I say. My right hon. Friend said that the 1,000 properties in Hackney had been vacant for 12 months or more. I did not say that the GLC had been rehousing people in homesteads in Hackney. I was talking of GLC housing activity all over London. If the hon. Gentleman wants figures on the number of homesteads in Hackney, he has only to write to the chairman of the GLC housing committee, who will be delighted to provide the information. I pay a public tribute to George Tremlett, who is a most competent housing chairman.
I know that I shall upset the hon. Gentleman, but I do not mean to do so. He has failed to understand that the root of our ills is that for years we have been paying ourselves more than we have been earning. We have been raising people's expectations by saying that we could do more for them than we actually could. The tragedy is that this has gone right across the nation, in every area. We made it perfectly clear before we were elected that we would get the economy right, which would involve many hard decisions. I said that on platforms, as did my colleagues. We concealed nothing, because we were sick and tired of
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British electorates being conned by Governments making promises. We did not promise an easy life. We were clear about that.
The hon. Gentleman cited some sad cases of GLC tenants in Hackney. I could cite similar cases of tenants under the Socialist Camden council three years ago, when there was no shortage of money. The hon. Gentleman and I know that over the years we have both complained, with justification, that there seemed to be a lack of communication in many housing management authorities of both political colours. Occasionally, he overbakes his pudding and spoils his case by trying to imply that it happens only in Conservative authorities. If he would be more catholic and show that it goes much broader, that would be fairer.
The hon. Gentleman also raised the question of hospitals. I wish to clarify the position. The 1980–81 cash limit is based upon the planned spending proposed by the Labour Government. It restored the 3 per cent. squeeze and gave an increase in planned spending of ½ per cent. of that planned for 1979–80. The better-off regions such as the Thames region have been given 0·3 per cent., and the worst-off regions 0·6 per cent., of real growth. The cash limit provides for a 14 per cent. increase in prices between 1979–80 and 1980–81 and in earnings from due settlement dates. Separate provision has been made for increased pay arising from existing commitments and the staging of past awards. Full provision has also been made for the Clegg award on ancillaries and ambulance men. The 1980–81 cash limit has proved to be broadly adequate, and any degree of squeeze will be much smaller than last year. Cash limits for 1981–82 have not yet been fixed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ravensbourne (Mr. Hunt) gave a wise analysis of how a sensible local authority could operate. As he said, the GLC has shown the way to make effective reductions to aid the ratepayers. He was right to point out that many firms had left the areas where rates had risen. The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) uncharacteristically dodged my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) when he challenged him about Lambeth rates. He wriggled and he dodged. He tried to blame the Government, conveniently omitting to tell us that for most of the period in question there were both a Labour Government and a Labour Lambeth council. That was game, set and match to my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West.
I shall try to help the hon. Member for Vauxhall about St. Mungo's. I am sorry that he has written to the Department and received no response. I shall have that investigated later today. It is possible that the letter did not reach us. That does happen. I shall get my private office to contact the hon. Gentleman to make sure that we have the letter. I shall then have the matter investigated as a matter of urgency. As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Housing Corporation, and not the Government, is the body statutorily charged with responsibility for housing associations. When I have the hon. Gentleman's letter, I may still have to say that it should go to the Housing Corporation. I undertake to carry out an investigation urgently.
Mr. Stuart Holland: The point that I am making about St. Mungo's and the Housing Corporation is that it seems that the Housing Corporation lacks the capacity to deal with cases which involve social needs and which demand social work in linkage with statutory authorities. I

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appreciate that at short notice the hon. Gentleman may not be able to comment on the North Lambeth day centre and the problems that I have stressed.
Mr. Finsberg: I think that that would be a matter for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. I recall that the hon. Gentleman said that it was the property of a regional health authority. It would not be the responsibility of my Department. However, I shall pass his views to my right hon. Friend.
I turn to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mr. Thorne). The Housing Act 1980 has brought on to the market the possibility of a new form of tenancy—namely, the assured tenancy. We believe that it is one way of getting people to invest again in the rented sector. It is important that we do not let the rented sector continue to die and wither away. I give the House the encouraging news that the transport supplementary grant for London will be £130 million, an increase over last year of £10 million.
My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West referred to the rate support grant, and I have covered that. I merely add that Greenwich, to which he referred, could add to its capital receipts by selling its houses instead of defying the law. I hope that the council will reconsider its foolish attitude very swiftly.
The hon. Member for Wood Green (Mr. Race) offered reasons for the moratorium that were wild and inaccurate. He knows that the only reason for the moratorium was that there would be an overspend. It was clear from returns from local authorities since the moratorium first came in that there was a real risk of the £768 million London allocation being exceeded, and this could not be allowed to happen.
As for Haringey, there is much that it could do. The previous Administration made considerably more money available to the borough than it could possibly spend. It acquired 6,000 houses, a large number of which are still awaiting rehabilitation. Though there was no shortage of resources at that time, Haringey never made full use of its HIP allocation, and the hon. Gentleman knows that. It could now harness the private sector to assist it. I am glad to note that it is going to do a pilot improvement-for-sale scheme, which will ensure the rehabilitation of some properties and give the council capital receipts with which to augment its HIP allocation. It has 1,515 vacant houses owned by the borough, of which 548 have been empty for more than a year. The hon. Gentleman could do rather more than criticising the Government if he were to say to his authority "Why do you not, as a borough council, do a proper job of work?"
The hon. Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs) asked me about ILEA. The Government's comprehensive examination of inner London's education is still in progress. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science has promised to make a statement when the review is complete. No decisions have been taken on the form of any further document that might be published. If major changes to ILEA are proposed, there will be an opportunity for public discussion and debate. The Government's decision will take full account of the evidence contained in Her Majesty's inspectorate's report on the authority, which shows that while ILEA's performance in some sectors is good there is considerable room for improvement in other parts of its provision, especially in secondary schools.
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Outside the Chamber, the hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Davis) is my hon. Friend and regular pair, and we share the privilege of being ex-Prime Ministers in the Hampstead parliament. I assure him that the Government are far from being discredited. They were elected to clear up a mess, and we shall clear it up. I am confident that when we do the public will re-elect us handsomely.
The hon. Gentleman was rather unfair to the London borough of Bromley, which has only 229 vacant properties—1 per cent. of its total stock. When the authorities of Labour Members have as small a number of vacancies as that, those Labour Members can start criticising authorities such as Bromley.
The hon. Gentleman referred to my letter to Hackney in September. It was written much more in sorrow than in anger. It was neither rude nor discourteous, and I do not withdraw it. It made clear that it takes two to make a partnership, particularly when the Government are contributing 75 per cent. of the partnership money. I repeat that Hackney can escape its problems by seeking a waiver in the same way as Islington and Hammersmith have done. There is no begging; it needs to put facts to us.
Mr. Clinton Davis: I am grateful to my "hon. Friend" for giving way. He could have fooled me when he said that the letter was written more in sorrow than in anger. It is more in anger than in sorrow. I urge him to re-read it. He will see that it was written in the most intemperate and unfriendly terms, wholly inconsistent with the way in which he put the case earlier in his speech. I ask him to review that letter. I am not suggesting that he should write an abject apology, but he should put to Hackney in a rather more friendly way what he said earlier.
Secondly, did the Minister agree with the distribution of the rate support grant by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) some time ago, or does he take the view that that was grossly unfair and unjust, as is the view of his Secretary of State?
Mr. Finsberg: I shall deal with the second part of the hon. Gentleman's intervention later.
I do not think that the letter was intemperate. My noble Friend the Under-Secretary yesterday saw the leader and the deputy-leader of Hackney and conveyed in a discussion what I have said tonight and has been known all along, both to officials and to elected members of the Hackney council. I very much hope that they will respond, in the interests of their ratepayers, who are much more important than the hurt pride of the leader or deputy-leader or my hurt pride. The ratepayers and deprived citizens are much more important, and I very much hope that they will be put first after those conversations.
The hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) asked how many housing associations had written to Ministers to support our policy of cutting housing association finance. I cannot tell him, for one simple reason: we have not cut the finance. The same amount of cash as was allocated at the beginning of the year remains for the Housing Corporation to distribute to housing associations.
The hon. Gentleman asked what could be done. One way of bringing derelict houses on to the market is improvement for sale, which can be done both by housing associations and by local authorities.
Mr. Soley rose—
Mr. Finsberg: I shall not give way, because I have been speaking for a fair time. I want to try to cover the points that have been made, and I am sure that there are one or two other hon. Members who hope to be called to initiate a debate.
The hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr. Graham) quoted from the Financial Times. I do not blame him. In his situation, I have picked the newspapers that suited my case. The hon. Gentleman did not quote from The Daily Telegraph, which gave a totally different view. If the hon. Gentleman looks across the spectrum of newspapers, he will find that more thought that what was being done was not a bad idea than thought that it was. I suggest that when he has a little leisure over Christmas the hon. Gentleman looks at all the press cuttings and sees the rate support grant arguments.
The hon. Gentleman based his speech on the assumption that the new rate support grant system was a punishment. It is not. It is a method of getting openness for the first time into this very complex subject, and I believe that we are very clear in giving as much fairness as we can by exposing all the factors which we have taken into account.
Mr. Graham: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that at all stages while the Department has moved towards the present position and has sought to take informed opinion in local government with it, support has not been forthcoming? Although I would agree that in the event, when certain local authorities have seen what the method means in practice, some of them are relieved and satisfied, the fact remains that every organ of local government wanted to help the Government to improve the old system and has been opposed to the new system.
Mr. Finsberg: I think that that is basically because most of us are conservative at heart—and better the devil we know. After so many years of trying to work out an understanding of the old system, one or two people were actually beginning to understand it—not many. Like the hon. Gentleman, I have had a lot of experience of local government and I would not claim that I understood the system. This new method is a much clearer way because it is all set out and all explained and one can see its step-by-step reasoning. I believe that it is a wiser method.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the statement I was alleged to have made prior to the last general election about fire service pay. He quoted me accurately, but he put the emphasis where it was not. My pledge, very firmly, was given in the light of the rumours that were going round Hampstead that a Conservative Government would repudiate the salary increases already given and claw them back. My pledge was that the salary increases already given would not be clawed back. It is as simple as that. No one in his right mind—and I hope that occasionally I am in my right mind—would give the sort of pledge that would be permanent in guaranteeing an agreement in perpetuity.
I had no right to give such a pledge and, therefore, I did not give it. All I was saying was that the money already paid would not be clawed back. Those are the facts. On fire service pay, again I can only say that the Government did not intervene; they made it clear that 6 per cent. was all that the taxpayer would contribute. I will draw the points the hon. Gentleman made about fire cover to the attention of my right hon. Friend.
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I turn now to the question of the abolition of the domestic rate. The hon. Gentleman lives in the past. It was not in the 1979 Conservative election manifesto, not even in the version that the hon. Gentleman could have brought from Transport House. We said in 1974 that we were going for the abolition of the domestic rate. We have said ever since that circumstances have changed and it is no longer a first priority. The economy has to be got right. But we have not withdrawn the pledge. Nobody could have voted for us in 1979 thinking that we were going to abolish the domestic rate, because it was not in our election manifesto.
Mr. Graham: In 1974, the Conservative Party said that when returned to power it would work towards the abolition of the domestic rating system. I admit that it said that this would not be completed in the lifetime of a single Parliament, but people who voted Conservative in 1979, if they believed what the hon. Gentleman said, would have believed that the Conservatives were still working towards the abolition of the domestic rate. How can the hon. Gentleman square that with the fact that in the meantime the Government are putting the impost that they are on the existing rates?
Mr. Finsberg: The hon. Gentleman and I are at one. We are still working towards it. We have not reneged on that pledge. All I said was that we did not repeat the pledge in 1979.
I have tried to comment on a range of subjects about which hon. Members have shown particular concern. I want now to turn to some rather more general remarks about the Government's policies for London. It is quite understandable that in the debate much attention has been given to the rate support grant and housing improvement programme allocations announced this week. Certainly the RSG distribution has given many London authorities much less assistance than they hoped for and has left them relatively worse off than some other parts of the country. There will be an early opportunity for the House to debate that fully. But it has to be seen against the pattern of recent RSG settlements, in which, for some years, the distribution favoured London and other metropolitan areas. This brings me to the next point I want to emphasise.
When the Government decide how assistance is to be distributed by way of RSG or for special services such as housing, transport and so on, they do so on the basis of using scarce resources to the best effect in dealing with real needs. It is inevitable, of course, that there are differing views about what the priorities are. London, like any other area, will fare relatively well under one distribution and relatively badly under another. Those of us who are especially concerned with London will feel correspondingly pleased or not as the case may be.
Mr. Spearing: Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Finsberg: No, I will not. Since my appointment, I have seen areas—inner cities and rural areas—outside London—
Mr. Spearing: The hon. Gentleman has not answered—
Mr. Finsberg: —suffering every bit as much as parts of inner London. Some of the rural deprivation that I have

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seen in visits to different parts of the country is just as grim as deprivation that I have seen in the inner cities, yet they have been penalised up till now.
Mr. Spearing: Will the Minister now give way?
Mr. Finsberg: The new settlement and the new arrangements try to give much more fairness than there has been.
Mr. Spearing: Chicken!
Mr. Finsberg: I shall welcome a chicken's product in a few moments.
In all conscience, I cannot feel that the overall settlement is wrong, and nor will most fair-minded Londoners.
Mr. Spearing: Tell us about the ILEA.
Mr. Finsberg: The assurance that they want is that we have been consistent and helped those in need within the contraints of our economic position. That assurance I can give.
The subject of this debate is assistance to London. Assistance can come in forms other than simply the distribution of grants. For many years, London was the target for a range of policies designed explicitly to control activity here so that it would be channelled to other parts of the country. The effect over the years was to add to the real physical and social problems of London a blanket of disincentives to commercial and industrial enterprise.
Since this Government came to power, we have swept away or relaxed very many of those controls. The office development permit system has gone and the Location of Offices Bureau has gone, as has the restriction on advertising the commercial and industrial advantages of London. The limit above which industrial development certificates are required has been raised from 12,500 to 50,000 square feet.
We have heard the usual catalogue of attack on the Greater London Council. Let me set the record straight. In housing, the GLC, between 1977 and 1980, sold 13,000 council houses, with a surplus to date of £61 million. On homesteading, 650 cases have been completed and there will be up to 1,200 next year. The council transferred 125,000 houses to the boroughs on 1 April.
In finance and administration, there are more than 4,300 net fewer staff, saving about £44 million a year. The rate precept has gone up by only 4p in five rating years. This equals only 4 per cent. a year cumulatively. I should love to see the Lambeths, the Haringeys, the Camdens and the Islingtons doing even one-tenth as well.
All non-housing debt, £123 million, has been paid off, and "pay as we go" for all non-housing capital spending is the way that the GLC now operates. It has been selling underused and unwanted land, and it has raised £100 million for reinvestment in London. Its special industry and employment centre has helped 1,000 firms to date.
London has enormous problems. It also has very great natural advantages. We feel that the greatest assistance that we can give London is to allow it to exploit those advantages to the full, so that its economy can thrive and prosper. If we do that, it will be much easier to tackle the remaining problems. What will not help is the continual begging-bowl attitude of the Labour Party.

Road Safety
8.25 am
Mr. Peter Bottomley: Before introducing the topic of road safety, I should like to pay a tribute to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment. He spent eight hours on his Bench listening to a debate on London. It was a worthwhile debate, but I think that many of the contributions of Labour Members were far too long. They ought to have appreciated that there were others who wanted to raise matters, both in the London debate and in connection with other topics. I hope that in future we shall use the Consolidated Fund Bill debate to introduce as many topics as possible, so that the patience of Ministers and others is not stretched too far. I congratulate my hon. Friend on what he has done and on the temperate way in which he replied to the debate.
I start by saying that road safety, in so far as it affects my consitituency, would start with the Rochester Way relief road. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport is aware, this has been a long-running saga—longer than the debates tonight on the Consolidated Fund. It has been running for 40 years, ever since the A2 started being used. I appreciate that many of my constituents have been asking for meetings with my right hon. Friend and my hon. and learned Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and with the Prime Minister. I think that the best advice I can give them is to wait until I have published the letter that I received saying that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport hoped to announce the result of the public inquiry within the next three or four weeks. I think that we shall have to see what the result is. My experience of the inquiry was that all the evidence overwhelmingly supported the building of the road, and I hope that that is the decision that will come forward.
Recognising that road safety can be much improved by having specialist roads, as suggested recently in the Armitage report, one ought to recognise further that, even though road improvements are worth while in themselves, the greatest saving that can be made in terms of road safety and protecting the individual lies not in building new roads but in making sure that as many of us as possible in motor cars wear seat belts. I think that the time has come when we ought to recognise that the cost of not wearing seat belts could pay for a large number of the extra benefits for which many of us have been asking. Just because there is no one on the Labour Benches, I hope that no one will think that Labour Members are not interested in the wearing of seat belts. I believe that their absence is because of the length of some of the speeches in the London debate.
I am not here to argue for a change in the law. I think that that would be out of order in this debate. What I do argue is that if, in one way or another, we could raise the proportion of motorists wearing seat belts from about 30 to 95 per cent., the cost savings would be enormous. The one request that I put to my hon. and learned Friend is that he should consider whether there can be an inquiry, bringing together Government Departments, to see what the total savings would be if the proportion of people wearing seat belts were raised to the 85 to 100 per cent. level.

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We know that there would be savings in the National Health Service if seat belts were worn. The Department of Health and Social Security can tell us how many bed nights are used by people who are unnecessarily injured or unnecessarily need extended hospital treatment as a consequence of road accidents when they were not wearing seat belts. The savings go much further than that. There is the cost to the community as well as to the individual of people who are handicapped for many years or for life. There is the cost of social benefits to people who are injured and the cost of social benefits to those who are widowed or orphaned before their time as a result of road accidents. There is the loss of tax revenue to the Treasury, and I imagine that there are a number of other Government Departments that could contribute to cost savings. I hope that if my hon. and learned Friend cannot provide the information this morning he will say that he will bring together the various Departments so that up-to-date estimates can be brought before the House of the total savings that would come if seat belts were used universally. I can think of many more worthwhile ways of using public money—taxpayers' money, ratepayers' money—than paying for the unnecessary consequences of people driving around who are not belted up.
Finally, I make the point—I have no reason to apologise for being brief, after my earlier remarks—that the greatest chance that I have of being killed comes from other people's drunken driving. I do not think that we should concentrate solely on the seat belt issue today. I think that the Government need encouraging to make it far more dangerous for people to drink and drive—dangerous not in a road safety sense but in the way that they might lose their licences and have severe penalties visited on them if they are caught driving after drinking too much.
The habits of many of us in this country have become far more lax over the years. I hope that the Government will see their way to either promoting or encouraging action in the House which will both reduce the proportion of us who drive around without wearing seat belts and reduce the proportion of people who drive having drunk alcohol.
8.30 am
Mr. J. F. Pawsey: When I came into this Chamber some 12 hours ago, it was with the purpose of speaking in a debate about student loans, but since then a metamorphosis has taken place and I find myself speaking not on the question of students but rather on the question of streets. But who am Ito say which is the more important of those two issues?
I welcome the growing emphasis which is being placed on road safety. I speak as a former chairman of a road safety committee in my constituency during my service on my local authority. It is a great compliment to successive Ministers and Secretaries of State that, despite the growing number of vehicles on our roads, the accidents, fortunately, are not keeping pace with that ever-growing number. Accidents have not increased pro rata.
However, perhaps there are two specific measures which could be considered. The first is the mandatory use of seat belts. Here I acknowledge what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley). Certainly this is one single measure which could do a great deal to reduce the accident toll. I
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appreciate that the Ministry has placed great emphasis on propaganda and has launched a major campaign over a considerable period—the "Clunk-click" campaign—designed to persuade people into using seat belts, yet despite enormous expenditure enough has not yet been done and avoidable casualties continue.
Will my hon. and learned Friend the Minister now consider introducing legislation making the wearing of seat belts obligatory?
Secondly, I take up a point also mentioned by my hon. Friend—the need to stress the dangers of drinking and driving. I can speak with perhaps greater experience on the effect of seat belts rather than alchohol. Some years ago, during a particularly busy time in my life, I had the misfortune to experience accidents both with and without a seat belt on. I still bear the scars across my eyebrows, where I hit the windscreen without the seat belt. It took that experience to convince me that seat belts would save injury and save life.
If propaganda, unfortunately, has not worked, it is time to turn to legislation. I shall listen with more than usual interest to what my hon. and learned Friend the Minister has to say on this matter.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I hope that for my peace of mind he will avoid inviting legislation in the rest of his speech.
Mr. Pawsey: I am grateful for your intervention, Mr. Speaker, and I am particularly grateful for the guidance that you have just given.
There are other measures which could be introduced. For example, we could consider improvements in vehicle design to protect drivers and their passengers, Indeed, perhaps further thought could be given to improved road and highway design. Many of our roads are still not designed to meet the demands of heavy traffic.
I should also like to hear my hon. and learned Friend's reply on the question of improving and increasing the training given to motor cyclists. There are certainly too many casualties still occurring to our young people who pass a test on a low-powered motor cycle and then immediately move to a motor cycle of much greater power. Consideration should therefore be given to that point.
Greater emphasis should be placed on road safety training and education in schools. That does not mean the occasional visit of a road safety officer calling in once or twice a year to talk to primary schoolchildren for only 15 or 20 minutes. A more determined approach is needed in the high schools as well as the primaries to include those who will shortly be leaving school and becoming drivers and motor cyclists.
8.36 am
Mr. Richard Needham: I welcomed the comments by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment about the help that is given to country areas by the change in the rate support grant. Labour Members do not realise the degree of rural poverty that exists. It is linked indirectly to the problems that face people in rural areas.
One of the great difficulties in rural areas is that of old people having transport. The obvious best solution is a concessionary fare. Unfortunately, the constraints on local

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authority and Government spending render that impossible. It is difficult for hon. Members to appreciate the distress and loneliness that many people in rural areas undergo because they cannot get about. It becomes worse and more worrying for them as they get older.
If the Government want to act in this, they should examine the whole question of road safety. My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) was commenting on the cost of road accidents. In another place last week, it was stated that if seat belt usage rose from 30 per cent. to 100 per cent. there would be 12,000 fewer serious or fatal accidents. The medical savings at 1976 prices would be £75 million. Of those 12,000 accidents, 600 or 700 are fatal. The amount of space taken in hospitals as a result of road accidents is 150,000 bed nights.
There is also the additional cost—the supplementary benefit that needs to be paid to families, the unemployment benefit and the invalidity benefit. There are obviously the community cost—the loss of productive work and skill—and also the loss to society of people involved in such accidents. There is the psychological and family cost. It is difficult for male hon. Members to appreciate what it means to a woman to go through a windscreen, with the appalling psychological problems that it can cause women who suffer so dreadfully. The vast majority of accidents caused by not wearing seat belts result in injuries to the head. I have the greatest difficulty in persuading my wife to wear a seat belt, which is one reason why I feel so strongly on this matter. I do not want her to suffer in any such way.
Of course, advertising can do much. We should all pay tribute to what Mr. Jimmy Savile did in the "Clunk-click" campaign in getting the usage of seat belts up from 14 per cent. to 30 per cent. But advertising on its own probably ends there, and the argument that is constantly paraded against doing anything further is that of the freedom of the individual to do what he wishes, whenever he wishes. That is an argument to which I cannot give very much weight in respect of this issue. I am sure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that, as a man of principle, when you get into an aeroplane you would think twice before not wearing your seat belt. Certainly, if you did not wear your seat belt, I doubt whether the aeroplane would take off. I do not think that anyone argues that people who travel in aeroplanes should not wear seat belts, no matter what state they are in when they board and leave the aircraft.
The argument can be broken down if one looks at it more closely. We cannot drive through a red light, and we are told that the reason for that is to save other people from injury. That might be true. But what about a person who drives dangerously? It can be argued that he will hurt others, but he might equally hurt himself. People who ride motor cycles wear crash helmets, and no one argues for any change there.
The principle has been established that something needs to be done. The Government dither in this area, because they have a conflict between standing by the bogus argument of freedom of the individual and the argument that they could do something to save on the costs involved. They should look at the costs involved. This is an area where the Government have some sort of responsibility to look at the issue by any means that they think fit. It would be of enormous benefit to the medical service and to people generally. It would allow funds to become available to help those who cannot get around and who
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need to get around. It would he humane and sensible if the Government were to try to get savings of these enormous magnitudes. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister will consider his future actions carefully.
8.43 am
Mr. Tom Benyon: I am glad of the opportunity to make some points in this important debate. The subject of road safety, and especially the subject of seat belts, has been debated many times in the House. I suspect that the House is divided on the matter, as is the nation. I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley), Chippenham (Mr. Needham) and Rugby (Mr. Pawsey) on their speeches. I agree with all of them
The arguments on the subject of seat belts appear to be split into various divisions—the acceptability of them by the nation as a whole and the problems of enforceability. The arguments of compulsion versus the freedom of the individual always cause the most tremendously acrimonious arguments, and all the lawyers in the House thunder along in the most erudite way. Fears are nurtured by many people, both inside and outside the House, that seat belts can cause injury and that some people would be injured and killed if they were wearing seat belts where otherwise they would not.
A recent survey shows that three out of every five people are against compulsion and two are for it, whereas 90 per cent. of all drivers believe that seat belts would be most effective if they were worn.
I am also sure that all of us would much prefer seat belt wearing to be made more effective by the use of persuasion and advertising rather than legislation. Far be it from me to call for legislation in a speech at this hour, but I touch on the point because I cannot believe that we could increase the incidence of seat belt wearing very much by means of the excellent advertising campaigns which have been waged. We do not seem to be able to persuade people, and campaigns have short-lived effects. A great deal is spent—I think that the figure is about £6 million a year—but two months after an advertising campaign the effect seems to wear off completely.
While these arguments rage in this House, in another place and in the media, at least 600 people die unnecessarily every year and 11,000 people have serious injury who otherwise would not.
According to figures for 1977, when there was 90 per cent. seat belt wearing on the Continent there was a decrease in deaths of 24 per cent. and a decrease in serious injuries of 36 per cent. These are very conservative figures and are probably an underestimate.
It is also said that 85 per cent. of children, if they were restrained by using seat belts, would be saved from going through windscreens and so on. It is further said that 70 per cent. of injuries to children would also he prevented.
I should like to attempt to explode some myths that are sincerely held inside the House and outside concerning whether seat belts make matters worse and whether one could be injured more horribly when wearing a seat belt than when not wearing it. Many people are afraid of being caught in a burning car when wearing a seat belt and feel that such restraint would limit their chance of survival. But only 0·5 per cent. of accidents involve cars burning, and in a recent survey it was shown that all those caught in that plight would have been better off wearing a seat belt than not wearing one.

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The same arguments apply to those in a car that has been trapped in water. In a survey done by a very energetic gentleman called Hobbs, it was shown that of those who were thrown clear of a car one-quarter of the occupants ejected were killed. Had they been restrained in the car, clearly that would not have happened. Also, in 2,879 incidents that he carefully looked at and analysed, all those involved would have fared better if wearing a seat belt than if not wearing one.
Many of the anecdotes told by people are mischievous—for example, when they say that they were not wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident but that had they been wearing one they would have been killed. The anecdotes are rather like miracles. One hears about a miracle with bated breath in the bar, but when one analyses it, or when a devil's advocate applies himself to the miracle, it is amazing how, sadly, it often melts like an icicle in a strong sun. I suspect that many of the arguments put forward about the non-use of seat belts would also melt in the same sort of way.
Even if it were the case that two people in 1,000, for example, would have been saved had they not been wearing seat belts, it would not invalidate the case for wearing seat belts. It would be like saying that efficient brakes are dangerous because of the possibility of their causing skidding. Some injuries can be caused by the wearing of seat belts, but the conclusion is that injury would have been caused anyway. These myths can easily be exploded if one looks at the matter dispassionately.
One must consider the countries that have made the wearing of seat belts mandatory. Those who have studied this subject will know that there are 40 per cent. fewer deaths in Victoria, Australia. In addition, Victoria shows a 50 per cent. drop in the number of skull injuries. More work must be done on perfecting seat belts and on making them more effective. No doubt many companies are undertaking such work.
In Victoria, moderate police activity led to a 90 per cent. use of seat belts. That gives some idea of the power of legislation. It is said that the Australians first considered the wearing of seat belts effeminate but that after a while they came round to the idea.
Exemptions are a lawyers' paradise. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Sir R. Bell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) have only to get to their feet to have a marvellous time. They can tell us about the fat ladies who cannot get seat belts round them.
However, in Sweden few problems exist in practice. In the first year, some exceptions were made. They included deformity, immobility, obesity and heart trouble. There were some 1,300 exceptions to the mandatory wearing of seat belts. However, few problems arose and the system worked extremely well. With the exception of Italy, the system works in Europe. Far be it from me to call for legislation. But the House should consider the costs involved and the savings that could be made, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West so ably pointed out.
In a characteristically elegant and eloquent maiden speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) spoke about liberty and the use of seat belts. He said:
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"It is not the same as drunken driving or speeding where the lives of others can be endangered. The only person who suffers is the individual who chooses whether or not to wear a seat belt".—[Official Report, 20 July 1979; Vol. 970, c. 2212.]
As always, there was great weight in my hon. Friend's argument. Nevertheless, on that occasion my hon. Friend's argument was somewhat specious. Many people suffer in addition to the individual directly concerned. Families suffer. The chap who hits the other car suffers when he finds out that he has inflicted serious injury or death. He has to live with that on his conscience for the rest of his life. The police, hospitals and the ambulance men suffer who have to scrape victims off the road. The taxpayer suffers because scarce resources are diverted elsewhere.
A written answer by my hon. and learned Friend the Minister on 1 July 1980 shows that in 1979 a fatal accident cost £113,400. With inflation, a fatality in 1980 will cost the taxpayer something over £130,000. A serious accident cost £6,100 in 1979 and will now cost over £9,000. A slight accident cost £790 in 1979, and a damage-only accident used to cost £350. In 1979, the total cost of the carnage was £1,730 million. On the most conservative estimate, it is estimated that at least £130 million could be saved if seat belts were worn. Indeed, I suspect that a great deal more could be saved.
Many hon. Members, including my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield, argue about liberty. My hon. and learned Friend once told me that he regarded part of his role as being to come to the House to stop us passing laws that his constituents did not want. That is an honourable mission, but from time to time my hon. and learned Friend may have gone too far. This is not the first time that we have been hung up on liberty. It has happened before on many occasions. One notable occasion was in 1854, when Mr. Chadwick, who was a pioneer in public health legislation, was defeated on some measures. Mr. Chadwick disappeared from public life. He was attempting to pass legislation on the subject of cholera. The Times, in an editorial, thundered:
"We prefer to take chances with cholera than to be bullied into health."
The subject of freedom has been raised for a very long time. Occasionally, nations seem to get obsessed on the point. An objective viewer of America would probably think that that country had got hung up on hand guns. How can the Americans sustain an intelligent argument for allowing people to walk about with hand guns? It is a peculiar libertarian argument.
An individual from outer space coming to this country would be amazed that, in the name of liberty, we allow people to kill themselves and others.
Patrick Hutber died in a tragic road accident two years ago. I talked to Patrick Hutber about this subject, but I made the mistake of talking to him in the company of a lawyer. The lawyer dominated the entire dinner party on the liberty of the subject. I remember Patrick Hutber saying that he thought that some freedoms were not worth having and that the freedom of going through a windscreen at 40 miles an hour was probably one of them.
It is all very well for people to talk about their own liberty, but when it comes to the liberty of allowing their children to sit in the front seats of cars and to go through windscreens at between 40 and 60 miles an hour the aspect of liberty takes on an extremely unhappy light.
I accept that any form of compulsory restraint on people inevitably means a loss of liberty. But, when put against

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the additional freedom that can be given to others by spending £130 million on other more constructive areas, I believe that this subject should be considered in a different perspective.
Only last week we had a debate on perinatal mortality. Sadly, the Minister for Health reported to the House that we could not find the £80 million to spend on perinatal mortality preventive medicine which would directly save 5,000 babies and mean that 11,000 children would not be born abnormal. If we could divert the money that is wasted in the carnage on the roads to a more constructive area, we could save at least 1,000 lives in road accidents and 5,000 babies' lives, a total of 6,000, which is not a bad tally for any Government.
I join my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West in asking for an interdepartmental inquiry to work out the costs and savings and how we can divert these resources more usefully and to report to the House.
8.58 am
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): My hon. Friends and I have waited eagerly through the night for this debate. The enthusiasm of my hon. Friends has created a lively House in the time that we have been discussing road safety. It is particularly cheering, given the importance of the subject, that my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon (Mr. Benyon) has been attracting into the Chamber an ever larger number of Members to listen to his oratory. We now have a strong all-party gathering in the Chamber from all parts of the United Kingdom. Obviously, hon. Members were drawn here by an interest in seat belts and road safety and no doubt regret having missed the earlier stages of the debate.
This is an important subject, and I congratulate my hon. Friends on having managed to secure a debate upon it. The country cannot afford to neglect this matter. If we suffered equivalent losses in terms of death and injury from any other single cause, each day our newspapers would be full of the scandal that that represented. Anything that we can do to improve our road safety figures and, therefore, reduce the human suffering that road accidents cause is to be welcomed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley) did us all the favour of getting himself drawn in the ballot for this subject. He began his speech on the topic of road building and its implications for road safety. When we manage the trunk road programme and finance the local authority road building programme, road safety is an issue that we have uppermost in our minds. We evaluate potential road schemes from all sorts of points of view. New roads can produce environmental benefits by taking traffic out of towns and economic benefits by reducing delays and lowering industrial costs. A properly purpose-built new road that takes heavy, fast-moving traffic out of crowded communities cart also have positive road safety advantages.
My hon. Friend went on to deal with the Rochester Way relief road, in which he has a particular interest. It is not the first time that he has managed to introduce that topic in debates in the Chamber. He has always left me in no doubt about the importance that he attaches to it and the urgency with which he believes that a decision should be obtained. He and many of his constituents hope that that decision will give the GLC the ability to go ahead and produce a proposal for the relief road.
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The present position, as my hon. Friend knows, is that the GLC has made all the necessary applications for the statutory powers that it needs, and a public inquiry has been conducted. Applications are before the Department of the Environment, principally for the necessary planning permissions. Applications are also to be decided by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport for the compulsory purchase order, the side roads order and other orders. The public inquiry has been held and a decision is now required from the Government. I know my hon. Friend's impatience for that decision. It has been a difficult and contentious matter and has taken some time to decide, but we are very near to producing the final decision.
My hon. Friend has written to the Prime Minister and others asking for a Minister to meet a group known as the Dover radial action group, which wishes to press upon us the urgent need for a decision. However, I confidently expect that a firm decision will be announced within the next few weeks. I regret that it is unlikely to be before the end of the year, but I expect it to be in the first two weeks of January. It has been considered whether a Minister from the Department of Transport might meet the action group in response to my hon. Friend's request, but there is a serious danger of the decision being postponed in order to fit that meeting into the timetable, which would not be in the best interests of the action group or my hon. Friend's constituents. It is essential from every point of view, whatever one's views on the roads, that we have a definite decision. I hope that my hon. Friend and his constituents will understand our reluctance to meet them at this late stage. As we are about to announce a formal decision on statutory orders that have been considered at a public inquiry, I cannot in this debate express a view on the merits of road proposals.
The debate then moved on to the more familiar ground of road safety, and that legislation was touched on without departing too far from the rules of order. Various items were raised touching on the principal problems that still give rise to worrying casualty figures in this country. One cannot discuss legislation in this debate, but, as the House knows, there will be an opportunity to discuss it in detail at an appropriate time. The Government have introduced into the House the first road safety legislation introduced successfully by any Government since 1974. When we get on to debates about this year's Transport Bill, we shall discuss the problems of drinking and driving and motor cycle safety, which my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. Pawsey) also referred to.
Drink-driving is still a serious problem in this country. The most striking figure that one can produce to show that alcohol still plays a fairly significant part in road accidents is that, of all the drivers who are killed in road accidents, one in three at the subsequent post mortem is found to be above the legally prescribed limit for driving. All the evidence is that, although the orginal breathalyser law had a substantial effect on people's habits and reduced to some extent the incidence of drink-driving in this country, its initial effect has tended to wear off. There is a higher incidence than previously of drivers driving above the limit. Alcohol is once more playing a slightly increased part in accidents. One reason may be that the original legislation, although well intentioned and, in part, effective, contained quite a number of technical defects and obscurities which have stood in the way of effective enforcement.

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It is hoped that the legislation to be dealt with at a later stage in the Session will remove many of the technicalities, that the administration of the law will be simplified and that it will also become much easier and less costly for the police forces to have a proper drive on the question of drink-driving and try to make the legislation effective so that it has the necessary effect on people's habits and, hence, road accident figures.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby talked about motor cycle safety. That matter is uppermost in our minds. It is probably the single most worrying feature of the road accident figures. Over 1,000 young people are killed each year in motor cycle accidents. Looking across the whole sphere of road safety, trying to discover the biggest weaknesses and deciding our priorities in the search for solutions, it is obvious that motor cycles are probably the biggest and most worrying problem.
Various aspects of the problem can and will be tackled. Most of the problems arise with the young, inexperienced beginner who is trying to acquire the technical expertise to control what is potentially a tricky and dangerous machine. It seems to us essential that there should be a stricter limit on the power of the machine which the inexperienced beginner can ride on the public roads while still trying to acquire the necessary skill and experience.
For many years, there has been a restriction on the power of the machine that a learner driver can drive. That limit of 250 cc has been overtaken by technical advances. At the time it was set down, a 250 cc machine was presumably, to some extent, a limited machine. Modern 250 cc machines can travel at over 100 mph. It seems to us inappropriate that someone can wheel such a machine out of a motor cycle showroom and play with it, in effect, on the roads when it has a power beyond the capacity of a novice to control.
We have also been examining ways to encourage more novices to have proper training in the riding of their motor cycles. We are convinced that if all motor cyclists had professional training at an early stage they would be in a safe position to acquire road craft and experience on the public roads. Quite a lot of training is now carried out voluntarily, some in schools by bodies like STEP, financed by the motor cycle industry. by RAC-ACU schemes up and down the country and by many local authorities.
There is, by and large, no lack of training facilities in the country. For some extraordinary reason, there is a lack of trainees. Many motor cyclists seem reluctant to take advantage of the facilities available to acquire some useful training in the control of their machines before riding on public roads. The Government must look at ways to induce more motor cyclists to take a course of training at an early stage when they acquire a motor cycle. We are not thinking in terms of compulsory training. but inducements for more people to take up training are required.
At a more appropriate stage, we shall be putting forward proposals for a two-part test to be undergone by learner drivers before they can obtain a full licence. We shall put a limit on the length of time that they can 5licences so that they will have to get through the two-part test within two years if they are to acquire a full licence and be able to continue riding motor cycles. The second part of the two-part test would be the usual Ministry test which we conduct at present, but the first part
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would be a simpler test aimed at elementary roadcraft and control of the motor cycle. We would expect the first part usually to be carried out not by the Ministry but by various training bodies that we expect to authorise. That package contains inducements to people to get on with reaching the standard required for a full test—
Mr. Dennis Canavan: Face the Chair.
Mr. Clarke: I am obliged to the hon. Member, whose concern for order in the House is well known to us all.
The inducement to get through the test in two years and the fact that the first part will usually be carried out by training bodies will mean that many more young, inexperienced motor cyclists will be brought into contact with those training bodies which will, I have no doubt, make a proper course of training a precondition of their agreeing to carry out the tests.
The other main subject that dominated the debate was the wearing of seat belts. There was a rare unanimity of opinion. All hon. Members who spoke were passionately in favour of the wearing of seat belts and they all said that the case for the compulsory wearing of seat belts was well established. I hope that most hon. Members will agree that the wearing of seat belts is desirable, certainly on a voluntary basis. The question of compulsion divides the House more controversially.
The debate will have done a service if it has underlined to the public yet again that there is an appreciable increase in the safety of occupants in cars if they wear seat belts. Dramatic improvements in accident figures could be achieved if the incidence of seat belt wearing were raised, and most of the arguments still heard among motorists against wearing seat belts are, as my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon underlined, usually myths and can be shown as such by careful research into the effects of seat belt wearing on road accident injuries.
Hard and fast evidence is no longer quite so difficult to come by. All my hon. Friends referred to various well-established figures. No mention was made of the report of the Transport and Road Research Laboratory in leaflet LF633, which was published in May 1978. It was a careful study of a sample of injuries to vehicle occupants in 1,126 accidents in which there were 2,879 vehicle occupants, including 1,100 who were uninjured. That careful research of a significant sample concluded that the use of seat belts resulted in a statistically significant reduction of nearly one-half in all but minor injuries. There was a significant increase in the proportion of uninjured. Only 28 per cent. of the unbelted occupants escaped without injury, whereas 42 per cent. of those wearing belts were uninjured.
That report is merely one of many pieces of work over the years that indicate that in any representative sample of accidents considerable reductions are achieved in the number of dead and injured when car occupants are wearing proper seat belts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon dealt with a number of myths that motorists still rely on to justify their failure to wear a seat belt. The numbers involved in accidents in which the car bursts into flames or falls into water is minimal. In most of those cases, the biggest danger to the occupant of being either consumed by fire or drowned comes from the concussion that is likely to follow a dramatic accident. The risks of being concussed and trapped in the car are reduced if the seat belt is worn, as most modern seat belts have a quick release mechanism.

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Other stories one hears are sometimes true. There may be a tiny minority of cases when the wearing of a seat belt would make the injury more severe than the escape that resulted when the person was not wearing a seat belt. That is a tiny proportion of cases. In view of the serious chances of injury in the majority of accidents as a result of people not wearing seat belts, it is plain that on any sensible judgment it is statistically and in every other way wise to wear a seat belt, especially when sitting in the front seat of a car. The belief of many people that if they are thrown out of a vehicle they may be better off not being restrained by a seat belt is a dangerous myth. A high proportion of fatalities in road accidents are suffered by people thrown out of a car coming into contact with something.
My hon. Friends have done the House and the country a service by underlining again to the general public the case for wearing a seat belt and bringing forward more evidence to indicate that seat belt wearing, if increased, would save both life and cost. My hon. Friends the Members for Woolwich, West and Abingdon asked me to give figures on the estimated economic savings that would be achieved if the wearing rate were improved. I treat some of the figures with scepticism, although I have given parliamentary replies to my hon. Friend the Member for Abingdon only this year giving some estimate of the cost to the economy of fatalities and injuries in road accidents.
That there is substantial cost is beyond doubt. It is difficult to calculate exactly as it involves putting some notional figures on such matters as pain and suffering, which is extremely difficult to put into exact financial terms. I have the latest broad estimates of potential economic savings if a 100 per cent. wearing rate could be achieved. The National Health Service would save between £6 million and £7 million each year, the taxpayer would avoid social security payments of £10 million each year, and savings in lost output would be about £100 million each year.
The figures underline the case for wearing seat belts. Obviously, this is not the occasion to delve into the question whether the wearing of seat belts should be made compulsory. Voluntary wearing seems to be stuck at about 30 per cent. Anything that can be done by way of propaganda, campaigning, publicity and so on to improve the rate would be to the general benefit of the country and would make a great contribution to reducing a lot of unnecessary human suffering.

Colleges of Education (Scotland)
9.18 am
Mr. George Robertson: I am grateful for this brief opportunity to raise the important matter of the Government's intention to close Callendar Park college of further education and Hamilton college of education and in some way to merge Craiglockhart college of education with some other institution. We have stayed a long time in the House waiting for the opportunity to raise this subject. I am glad to have this brief opportunity to speak, although, as a consequence, my hon. Friends find themselves unable to make the contributions that they had prepared.
My remarks will be concentrated on the inadequate costings of the exercise that the Government have put forward to justify the decision that they have taken about those colleges. I wish to quote the Secretary of State for Scotland, who, speaking in the Scottish Grand Committee on 15 February 1977, said about Craigie college of education, which is in his constituency:
"Does anyone feel that it is a reasonable proposition to lose all that I have described the college provides for a saving as small as £187,000 when one thinks of all the benefit to the neighbourhood?"—[Official Report, Scottish Grand Committee, 15 February 1977; c. 42.]
At that time the right hon. Gentleman had the advantage of more figures and at least one statistic that the House now does not have.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Ancram), after the self-confessed debacle last Tuesday in the Scottish Grand Committee when the Government were humiliatingly defeated by 40 votes to none, tabled a question to the Secretary of State for Scotland asking him
"what will be the net effect on the public sector borrowing requirement of the proposed closure of the three colleges"
for the three years following closure. Four months after the announcement of the decision and at least a year after the Government must have been engaging in the preliminary exercises, the reply that the hon. Gentleman received was:
"I shall reply to my hon. Friend as soon as possible."—[Official Report,15 December 1980; Vol. 996, c. 52.]
The House and the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South are still as ignorant of the Government's view of the savings to be obtained from the proposed closures as they were a year ago. It is a public disgrace and a disgrace in the House that decisions of this enormity and consequence are being taken without basic and elementary information being made available.
The Minister supplied me with figures on 10 November in a long and full answer that showed the unit cost per student for each of the individual colleges of education in Scotland. For the major part of the colleges, the general teaching departments, it demonstrated clearly and distinctly that the unit costs for teaching students is lower in the smaller colleges, in the colleges that the Government intend to close, than in the colleges that they intend to retain. The unit cost per student at Hamilton is £1,340, whereas for the alternative college that the Government are proposing in the West of Scotland—namely, Jordanhill—the unit cost per student in the general teaching department will be £1,760. Student teachers will he transferred from Hamilton college of education to an institution where the unit cost for training them will be greater. The figures that have been produced by the colleges indicate clearly the enormous cost to the

517
public exchequer of the closure of Callendar Park and Hamilton colleges of education. The Government have not yet produced any figures to back up their claims.
There is the vexed question of Craiglockhart college. I ask on behalf of other hon. Members who wished to speak in the debate a couple of specific questions, which I hope the Minister will answer when he replies. First, does the Minister agree that the studies on the implications of a merger are only at the first stage of consultation and do not in themselves give a firm basis for any sort of decision? Will he, therefore, make a clear statement authorising Craiglockhart college to have a normal primary and secondary intake as it is clearly impossible to stick to the original timetable? If the Minister will not say what financial savings will be achieved by merging Craiglockhart, will he explain how much money the Scottish Education Department has saved over the past three to five years through the agreement with the Society of the Sacred Heart whereby it pays 20 per cent. of the total running costs for the upkeep of the building?
These are only a few of the questions that we wished to put. I hope that the Minister will take on board the genuine and deep concern that exists on both sides of the House and throughout Scotland about this issue and come up finally and conclusively with the figures that his Department must have, especially on costs.
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Alexander Fletcher.
Mr. Dennis Canavan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Some of us have been up all night, hoping to take part in this debate, which is vital to the future of Scottish education. It appears now that your eye is being caught by the Minister responsible, without our being given the opportunity to contribute from the Back Benches.
The Leader of the House said yesterday that he would be meeting the Secretary of State for Scotland this morning to discuss the matter. Can the Minister tell us what is likely to be on the agenda for the meeting and whether the Secretary of State will make a statement today after he has met his right hon. Friend?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman will understand that I was generous in allowing him to make his point to the Minister under the guise of a point of order. He will also realise that it has long been the custom of the House, probably going back centuries, that the Chair tries to call one hon. Member from each side of the House in turn. One person stood up on the Government side of the House, and it was the Minister.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am party to an agreement to allow my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) to put to the Minister questions that some of us—my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr.. Maxton) and others—might have put.
Mr. Speaker: I realise the frustration when hon. Members have waited all night. I also understand the hon. Gentleman's point, and I am deeply grateful to him.
9.25 am
The Under-Secretart of State for Scotland (Mr. Alexander Fletcher): I am grateful for the points that have been made. I understand the feelings of Opposition
518
Members, but the fact that the debate on one subject took up much of the night has its effect on the debates on other subjects. I shall reply briefly to the points that have been made.
The Government well understand the motivation of the campaigns and the questions that are being put regarding the colleges, their costing and everything else. We have no complaint about that. I can only again ask Labour Members and the staff of the colleges equally to understand that the dramatic reduction in the number of places for student teachers in Scotland is now such that it is uneconomic to try to take a small and decreasing number of teachers—
Mr. Canavan: The hon. Gentleman has cut them.
Mr. Fletcher: —and spread them over the same number of colleges, over 10 colleges. It is in the interests of the teacher-training system in Scotland that we now spread the small number of student teachers over a smaller number of colleges. That is what it is all about.
Mr. John Maxton rose—
Mr. Fletcher: I must try to answer the points that have been raised.
Talks are taking place between my Department and Craiglockhart and have been going on for some time. They are taking place on a friendly and satisfactory basis. There is no expectation other than that a suitable and acceptable arrangement for its future will be made.
As for the intake to the three colleges concerned in 1981, the position remains that there will be no new intake. We hope that the students who have not completed their training by next summer will be transferred to other colleges.
The costings depend on the assumptions used. We have said a number of times that the most accurate costings would be those made in consultation with the colleges when we have completed the detailed arrangements.
Mr Dalyell: Fudging.
Mr. Fletcher: There is no fudging in the fact that significant savings will accrue with the arrangements that we have proposed. [HON. MEMBERS: "How much?"] I shall reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Ancram) on this matter in the usual way, by means of a written answer to his question.
Mr. George Robertson: Planted question.
Mr. Fletcher: There is a need not to go on producing surplus teachers but to use our education funds for training and further education purposes. There are many young people in Scotland seeking a career who require the best possible service that the education system can provide. Our aim for Hamilton college in particular is to make sure that its resources and facilities are made available for the training of young people.
These points were fully debated in the Scottish Grand Committee last week. I do not believe that any fresh matters have been raised in the debate or that if it had been longer any fresh points would have been made. There has been and there still is a continuing exchange of views on the matter, but there is no question but that in the new year the colleges and the Department will have to get down to making detailed plans for the closures in the best interests of the students, of the staff and of education in Scotland.
Several hon. Members rose—
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Michael Jopling)rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put:—
The House proceeded to a Division.
Mr. Canavan (seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for the closure to be moved at this time of morning when the House is not due to sit again until 2.30? There is ample time before then to discuss this very important matter of the closure of colleges of education in Scotland. The Government are deliberately trying to stifle debate on the subject and come to a precipitate decision on it. I appeal to you to allow the House, even after this Division, further discussion of this important matter, because some of us have been up all night wishing to take part in the debate.
Mr. Speaker: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has presented his point of order and for observing the normal courtesies of the House when a point of order is raised during a Division. However, the House itself will decide whether the Question will be put. It is now out of my hands.
The House having divided Ayes 131, Noes 17.

Division No. 36]

[9.30 am

AYES

Alexander, Richard

Goodhew, Victor

Ancram, Michael

Goodlad, Alastair

Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

Gray, Hamish

Benyon, Thomas (A'don)

Greenway, Harry

Berry, Hon Anthony

Griffiths, Peter Portsm' th N)

Gevan, David Gilroy

Hawksley, Warren

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Heddle, John

Biggs-Davison, John

Henderson, Barry

Blackburn, John

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Bottomley, Peter (W'wich W)

Hegg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Boyson, Sir Rhodes

Hordern, Peter

Braine, Sir Bernard

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Bright, Graham

Hunt, David (Wirral)

Brinton, Tim

Hurt, Hon Douglas

Brittan, Leon

Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

Brocklabank-Fowler, C.

Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

Brooke, Hon Peter

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Brotherton, Michael

Kershaw, Anthony

Brown, M. (Brigg and Scun)

King, Rt Hon Tom

Bryan, Sir Paul

Lamont, Norman

Cadbury, Jocelyn

Langford-Holt, Sir John

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Le Marchant, Spencer

Carlisle, Rt Hon M. (R'c'n)

Lester Jim (Beeston)

Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Chapman, Sydney

Luce, Richard

Clark, Hon A. (Plym'th,'S'n)

Macfarlane, Neil

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Macgregor, John

Colvin, Michael

McNair-Wilson, M (N'bury)

Cope, John

McQuarrie, Albert

Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

Major, John

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

Marshall Michael (Arundel)

Dover, Denshore

Marten, Neil (Banbury)

Durant, Tony

Mather, Carol

Dykes, Hugh

Maude, Rt Hon Sir Angus

Elliott, Sir William

Mawby, Ray

Emery, Peter

Maxwell-Hyskslop, Robin

Eyre, Reginald

Mayhew, Patrick

Fairgrieve, Russell

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Faith, Mrs Shella

Miller, Hal (B'grove)

Farr, John

Matchell, David (Basingstoke)

Fell Anthony

Morrison, Hon C. (Davizes)

Finsberg, Geoffrey

Myles, David

Fletcher, A. (Ed'nb'gh N)

Needham, Richard

Fletcher-cooke, Sir Charles

Page, Richard (SW Herts)

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Parris, Matthew

Fox. Marcus

Pawsey, James

Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

Percival, Sir Ian

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Raison, Timothy

Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Ress, Peter (Dover and Deal)

520

Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Van Straubenzee, W.R.

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Vaughan, Dr Gerard

Sainsbury Hon Timothy

Viggers, Peter

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Waddington, David

Shelton, William (Streadham)

Wainwright, R. (Colne V)

Shersby, Michael

Wakeham, John

Silvester, Fred

Ward, John

Sims, Roger

Watson, John

Skeet, T. H. H

Wells, Bowen

Speller, Tony

Wickenden, Keith

Stanbrook, Ivor

Wiggin, Jerry

Steen, Anthony

Winterton, Nicholas

Stevens, Martin

Wolfson, Mark

Stradling Thomas, J.

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Taylor, Teddy (S' end E)

Tebbit, Norman

Tellers for the Ayes:

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

Mr. Robert Boscawen and

Thompson, Donald

Mr. Tony Newton.

NOES

Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (H'wd)

Morris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)

Callaghan, Jim (Midd't'n & P)

Pavitt, Laurie

Canavan, Dennis

Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

Davis, T. (B'ham, Stechf'd)

Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

Duffy, A. E. P

Soley, Clive

Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

Spearing, Nigel

Hardy, Peter

Heffer, Eric S

Tellers for the Noes:

Howells, Geraint

Mr. Bob Cryer and

Lambie, David

Mr. John Maxton.

Mason, Rt Hon Roy

Question accordingly agreed to.
Question, That the Bill be now read a Second time, put accordingly and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House; immediately considered in committee, pursuant to the Order of the House this day.
[MR. BRYANT GODMAN IRVINE in the Chair.]

Clause 1

  ISSUE OUT OF THE CONSOLIDATED FUND FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31ST MARCH 1981
  Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—
  The Committee proceeded to a Division—
  Mr. MATHER and Mr. BOSCAWEN were appointed Tellers for the Ayes, but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Noes, THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN declared that the Ayes had it.
  Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2

  ISSUE OUT OF THE CONSOLDIATED FUND FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31ST MARCH 1982
  Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill:—
  The Committee Proceeded to a Division—
  Mr. MATHER and Mr. BOSCAWEN were appointed Tellers for the Ayes, but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Noes, THE DEPUTY CHAIRMAN declared that the Ayes had it.
  Clause 2 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 3

  SHORT TITLE
  Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
  9.45 pm
  Mr. Canavan: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. May we have a debate on clause 3? I think that the citation of the Bill is completely wrong. The Bill states that
  "This Act may be cited as the Consolidated Fund (No. 2) Act 1980."
  The Bill should be called "The Destruction of Colleges of Education (Scotland) Bill", because that is what the Bill has been all about. Therefore, I should like to move a manuscript amendment to the Bill, and I would ask you to accept it.
  The First Deputy Chairman: It is not possible for the Bill to be amended.
  Question put, That the clause stand part of the Bill —
  The Committee divided Ayes 166, Noes 8.

  Division No.37]

  [9.46 am

  AYES

  Ancram, Michael

  Griffiths, Peter Portsm'th N)

  Baker, Kenneth (St. M' bone)

  Heddle, John

  Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

  Henderson, Barry

  Bennett, Sir Frederic (T'bay)

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Benyon, Thomas (A'don)

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Berry, Hon Anthony

  Hordern, Peter

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Groffrey

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Howells, Geraint

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Hurd, Hon Douglas

  Blackburn, John

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Bottomley, Peter (W'wich W)

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Briane, Sir Bernard

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Bright, Graham

  Lamont, Norman

  Brinton, Tim

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Brittan, Leon

  Le Marchant, Spencer

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Lester Jim (Beeston)

  Brown, M. (Brigg and Scun)

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Luce, Richard

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoin)

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Carlisle, Rt Hon M. (R'c'n)

  MacGregor, John

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

  Chaoman, Sydney

  Major, John

  Clark, Hon A. (Plym'th,S'n)

  Marshall Michel (Arundel)

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Marten, Neil (Banbury)

  Colvin, Michael

  Maude, Rt Hon Sir Angus

  Cope, John

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Duglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

  Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

  Dover, Denshore

  Myles, David

  Durant, Tony

  Needham, Richard

  Dykes, Hugh

  Newton, Tony

  Elliott, Sir William

  Page, Richard (SW Herts)

  Emery, Peter

  Parris, Matthew

  Eyre, Reginald

  Percival, Sir Ian

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Faith, Mrs Sheila

  Raison, Timothy

  Farr, John

  Raifkind, Malcolm

  Fell, Anthony

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Fletcher, A. (Ed'nb'gh N)

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Fox, Marcus

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Silvester, Fred

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Sims, Roger

  Gray, Hamish

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Greenway, Harry

  Speller, Tony

  522

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Steen, Anthony

  Wells, Bowen

  Stevens, Martin

  Wickenden, Keith

  Stradling Thomas, J

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Taylor, Teddy (S' end E)

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Tebbit, Norman

  Wolfson, Mark

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Thompson, Donald

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Viggers, Peter

  Waddington, David

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Wainwright, R. (colne V)

  Mr. Carol Mather and

  Wakeham, John

  Mr. Robert Boscawen'

  Watson, John

  NOES

  Callaghan, Jim (Midd't'n & P)

  Morris, Rt Hon C. (O' shaw)

  Campbell, Ian

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Davis, T. (B'ham, Stechf'd)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Mr. Bob Cryer and

  Mckay, Allen (Penistone)

  Mr. Dennis Canavan

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
  The First Deputy Chairman: The Question is, That I do report the Bill, without amendment, to the House.
  Mr. Canavan: On a point of order, Mr. Godman Irvine. Is it in order to move a manuscript amendment on Report stating that the £3 ½ million that the Government are giving to private fee-paying schools in Scotland should be put towards the running costs of colleges of education?
  The First Deputy Chairman: As there is no amendment, there will be no Report stage.
  The Question therefore is, That I do report the Bill, without amendment, to the House.
  Mr. Canavan: No, no.
  The First Deputy Chairman: Order. This Question has in the past been held to be a purely formal procedure—
  Mr. Canavan: It is not today.
  The First Deputy Chairman: Order. It has been held by the Chairman in the past to be a purely formal procedure, and I stand by that ruling today.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill reported, without amendment.
  Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 93 (Consolidated Fund Bills):—
  The House proceeded to a Division—
  Mr. Canavan: May it be noted in Hansard that the time taken up by these Divisions could have been more usefully employed in a debate—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): Order. That is not a point of order.
  The Question is, That the Bill be now read the Third time. As many as are of that opinion say "Aye"; to the contrary, "No". The Ayes have it.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Alan Chard
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Wakeham.]
10.2 am
Mr. Stephen Ross: This is a very serious case. Alan Chard is detained in Parkhurst prison, in my constituency in the Isle of Wight. He is serving 12 years for his alleged involvement in a series of crimes and conspiracies which occurred in June, July and August 1974.
In all, there were three armed robberies, the first on 28 June 1974, which concerned a bank in Garratt Lane, Wandsworth, when over £3,500 was stolen; the second on 4 July 1974, when a raid took place on Watney's brewery, Isleworth, and over £24,000 was stolen and a member of the public was wounded; and the third on 22 July 1974, in a raid on Barclays bank, St. John's Wood, during which £11,000 was stolen. In that raid a patrolling police officer gave chase and was shot and wounded in the shoulder.
The Crown was later to allege against Chard and others further conspiracies to rob banks at Park Royal and at Chigwell in Essex, although these never actually took place.
After police investigations, various people were apprehended. Alan Chard was not arrested until some two months after the others, the date of arrest being 1 October 1974.
Committal proceedings against most of the gang started on 11 December of the same year. A certain Billy Williams—later to have his name splashed across the pages of the popular press as one of the first of the supergrasses, nicknamed "Squealer Billy"—gave evidence for the Crown.
On the following day, after they had had the opportunity to hear Billy Williams' evidence in court, two gentlemen, Peter Wilding and James Trusty, were accepted as Queen's evidence witnesses. All three had admitted involvement with the crimes. All three gave evidence against Alan Chard which had no corroboration, both at the committal proceedings and at the trial itself.
Committal proceedings against Alan Chard took place on 8 May 1975. Peter Wilding, James Trusty and Billy Williams all gave evidence. Chard's counsel made no submission.
The whole gang appeared at the Old Bailey before Mr. Justice Nield on 9 September 1975. On arraignment, three of the defendants who had pleaded guilty on all counts were let go for later trial, at the request of the prosecution. Three of the defendants applied successfully for severance. In retrospect, it was probably a pity that Chard's counsel did not also apply for severance.
Three notable absentees from the dock were Billy Williams, James Trusty and Peter Wilding. Billy Williams had appeared before the Recorder of London on 9 December 1974, charged with three counts of armed robbery. Thirty-six other offences were taken into consideration. He was sentenced to five years' imprisonment and was released under Royal Prerogative in 14 months. James Trusty appeared in court on 9 April 1975, charged with armed robbery, attempted murder and wounding with intent to resist arrest. He pleaded guilty only to the first charge. The Crown accepted that and he was sentenced to just two years and nine months. He was released on parole after a year. Peter Wilding appeared on
524
6 May 1975, charged with conspiring to rob banks in St. John's Wood and Park Royal. He received 12 months' imprisonment, suspended for two years.
Those three, each of whom admitted to involvement in the offences, served just over two years in prison between them. Their evidence, however, against Mr. Alan Chard resulted in a sentence of 15 years for him, which on appeal was reduced to 12 years.
After the arraignment, five prisoners were left in the dock in September 1975, including Alan Chard. The indictment against them contained 16 counts. Chard was named in three of them. On the sixth count, he was charged with conspiring to commit robbery. The case was that he had supplied guns for the robberies and had reconnoitred the St. John's Wood bank. On the fourteenth count he was alleged to have conspired to rob Lloyds bank, Chigwell. As I said, that robbery did not take place and the only evidence came from James Trusty and Billy Williams, both grasses.
On the fifteenth count, he was charged with conspiring to rob the National Westminster bank, Park Royal. Again, that robbery did not take place and the only evidence came from Billy Williams and Peter Wilding. Chard was the only one of the five defendants to plead not guilty on all counts. He was also the only defendant to face purely unsubstantive conspiracy charges. All his co-defendants faced at least one substantive charge. Chard and Jenkins were the only defendants to face entirely uncorroborated evidence, that against Chard coming from three of his alleged accomplices, all of whom had turned Queen's evidence in return for lighter sentences.
The trial lasted nine weeks. Over 100 witnesses were called to prove the substantive charges. It must have been extraordinarily difficult for the jury to sort out the facts, and on the perhaps unfortunate advice of his counsel Chard did not testify. The judge gave the appropriate warning to the jury to the effect that there was no corroboration of the evidence given by the grasses against Chard. Inevitably, the case against Chard must have been obscured in the summing-up amidst the welter of information concerning the other counts and the other accused. Chard was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment on 21 November 1975. On 8 March 1977 the Court of Appeal, under Lord Justice Lawton, turned down his appeal on all counts but saw fit to reduce his sentence to 12 years. He is now serving that sentence in Parkhurst prison.
I was first contacted on his behalf in July 1979. The person who got in touch with me was a Mr. Jim Colla, and it is to his credit that this case has come to light. He was a fellow inmate of Alan Chard in Parkhurst prison. He became interested in his protestations of innocence and, with considerable ingenuity, investigated the case from his prison cell. The result was a 52,000-word dossier, which I sent to the Home Secretary, with some explanatory notes, on 6 June 1980. I am conscious of the delay, but it took me a long time to understand the case, to see Mr. Chard, to check facts and figures and to form my own opinion.
On 4 August 1980 the Minister replied, pointing out the problems involved in this sort of case. The Minister wrote that, constitutionally, the duty of administering justice in individual cases is placed on the courts. While the Home Secretary has certain powers to intervene, he can do so
"only if some significant new evidence or other considerations of substance come to light which have not already been aired before the courts."

525
The reply continued:
"The Home Secretary may not review the decision of the courts on the basis of the facts or arguments already considered by them."
It is my intention to raise considerations of substance which have not already been considered by the courts and arguments that they have not already heard. A summary of them was included in a further memorandum prepared by Mr. Colla, which I sent to the Home Secretary in August 1980. I understand that police investigations were initiated as a result.
I should be grateful if the Minister would indicate what was in the police report, which is now, I believe, at the Home Office. If it is not possible to give a full answer, I should be grateful if he would tell me when a final conclusion is expected. Mr. Chard had already been in prison for four years when his case was first brought to my notice. A further 18 months has elapsed. Five and a half years is a long time for someone to serve in prison if he is in fact innocent. Mr. Chard's heart problems have recently come to a head again as a result of the acute stress that he is undergoing. He has written to me to ask whether he can undergo a lie test.
I think it best that I go through the counts one by one showing how I think that the evidence on each is unsatisfactory and should be re-examined.
In the sixth count, conspiring to commit robbery, the case against Alan Chard was that he supplied guns for robberies and reconnoitred the St. John's Wood bank. The only evidence for this came from James Trusty, Billy Williams and Peter Wilding—all grasses.
James Trusty related a visit with his brother Philip to the "Peacock" public house in Canning Town, where they allegedly met Alan Chard, who arranged for them to purchase two guns. The guns were for use on the St. John's Wood robbery, and one was said to be the Luger used by Philip Trusty to shoot the policeman. Williams related various conversations with Chard concerning robberies and guns. Wilding related the initial visit to St. John's Wood, allegedly with Chard and a man called Nicholas Smith.
I have submitted to the Minister that a close comparison of the statements of James Trusty and Williams and established fact shows that the "Peacock" public house meeting could never have taken place, because the dates -do not fit the essential requirments. No one attempted to check this at the trial or at the appeal.
Furthermore, the Minister now has a copy of a diagram and argument which show that all the guns used on the St. John's Wood robbery were an accumulation of guns from the two previous robberies. It was never suggested that Chard supplied the guns for Garratt Lane, while Williams, the chief witness for the Crown, actually said that the Watney guns were supplied by a man named Hyde—one of the gang of robbers.
As for the reliability of the evidence of Peter Wilding, the dossier and additional memorandum supplied to the Minister once again show that the various statements of the prosecution witnesses do not match up if rigorously checked against a notional calendar of events. Quite simply, all the protagonists have to be in too many places at the same time according to the evidence given at the trial. Unfortunately, none of the defence counsel did this rigorous dating at the time.
526
The other two robberies in which it was alleged that Alan Chard had played a part in the conspiracy never in fact took place. They remained conspiracies because the gang were rounded up before they could carry them out. We have only the word of the three grasses that Chard was ever involved at all.
The fourteenth count concerned conspiracy to rob Lloyds bank, Chigwell. The evidence on this count came from James Trusty and from Billy Williams and is remarkable, even by their standards, for its confusion and contradictions. According to James Trusty, he, Williams and Alan Chard met in a pub on the Southend arterial road in early July where Chard introduced them to someone who suggested Chigwell. Williams, on the other hand, denied having been to a pub on the Southend road and insisted that Chigwell was first suggested in a Surrey pub by Chard himself on 24 July.
Rigorous checking of dates again tears holes in James Trusty's evidence, because it is agreed that all visits to the bank have to be on a Thursday to check the lie of the land on a day when most money will be in prior to collection of wages. Careful examination shows that, in the light of all the other conspiracies and actual substantive crimes being committed, the visits to Chigwell are impossible on the dates suggested by Trusty.
As for Billy Williams' evidence, this hinged round an alleged meeting with Chard on 24 July. He was extraordinarily specific about that date, because it was close to the St. John's Wood robbery. It was a Wednesday night, for they went to check out Chigwell on the following day, a Thursday. Chard had a cast iron alibi for that Thursday. Indeed, he was so confident in its adequacy that he was perhaps too relaxed about meeting the other accusations against him.
The fact that Chard had an alibi was never properly checked at his trial, because the prosecution then argued that Williams might have been wrong in his dates—despite the fact that he was so emphatic—and that it did not affect the story of Williams. Yet Williams made it clear that they went to Chigwell the following day, and it is also clear that that day had to be a Thursday because of the interest in getting wages money.
The Court of Appeal failed to pick up the point of the importance of its being a Thursday and then went on to say that Chard's alibi was not in fact sound because evidence in its support came solely from two men with criminal records. That is not in fact true. There is a motel register which was offered for calligraphic tests of its authenticity—an offer never taken up. Two other witnesses were the motel manager, a man with no criminal record, and a man who subsequently became, and I believe presently is, the lord mayor of Swansea.
I must stress how important the date of 24 July is. Williams stuck to it through thick and thin. It was a major part of the case which Chard had to confront. He came to court with an alibi. He was then faced with the decison by the prosecution that it did not have to be 24 July after all, even though any other date is demonstrably improbable because of the need to visit Chigwell the next day, a Thursday.
A similar situation occurred in another case, which, I believe, provides an important precedent. It is the case of Regina v. Marks, which forms part of another case, Regina v. Thorne and others, presided over in the Court of Appeal by the same Lord Justice Lawton who had heard Alan Chard's appeal a few months previously. He said:

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"It occurred to the prosecuting counsel that O'Mahoney might have made a mistake about the date that he had seen Marks and Arif keeping observation not on 21 March but on 28 March. This was put to the jury. It was a material change in the case which Marks came to court to meet. He should not have been asked to meet it. This makes the verdict against Marks unsatisfactory. His appeal will be allowed and his conviction quashed."
For the record, Mr. O'Mahoney was a contemporaneous supergrass who gave evidence against some of Alan Chard's co-defendants, though not against Chard himself.
The final count covered conspiracy to rob the National Westminster bank, Park Royal, and the evidence came from Peter Wilding, relating a trip with Nicholas Smith and Chard to the bank on 25 July, and from Williams, recalling conversations with Chard in which Chard agreed to rob Park Royal.
The evidence of Wilding concerning a visit to Park Royal on 25 July comes up against the same South Wales alibi as that put forward in the previous count against the allegations of Billy Williams concerning the 24 July meeting. However, the dossier and memorandum that I have sent to the Minister also show that, contrary to the impression given in court, Wilding was much more heavily implicated in the planning of this raid. The bank was his mother's and he had no need for Alan Chard to suggest it, since he knew it only too well.
The obvious conclusion to be drawn from all this is that Wilding, Williams and James Trusty were much more heavily implicated in the planning of the raids than they cared to admit at the time. In order to qualify as Queen's evidence witnesses, they had to minimise their role. Alan Chard became a convenient person on whom to dump some of the blame.
We know from articles in the national press that Billy Williams was given unprecedented freedom of movement in Chiswick police station. Supergrasses were still a relatively novel phenomenon and the police could scarcely believe their luck when he began to talk. However, his freedom gave him ample opportunity to consort with James Trusty and Peter Wilding and agree on their stories. The latter two also had the chance to hear his evidence at their own committal proceedings. The general tenor of the evidence must be that their aim was to drag someone else in to take the blame for supplying the guns and planning the raids. Alan Chard was, I believe, that unlucky person.
Some of those matters were touched on at the appeal. Lord Justice Lawton felt bound to consider newspaper allegations concerning the freedoms accorded to Billy Williams, though to little conclusion. I have already covered the Court of Appeal's failure properly to consider the alibi evidence. One can have other reservations about some of Lord Justice Lawton's other opinions. However, I prefer to look at his judgment delivered not three months later, on Wednesday 1 June, in Regina v. Thorne and others, which I have already quoted. That appeal again challenged the veracity of a supergrass, this time Maurice O'Mahoney.
Like Williams, and to a lesser extent James Trusty and Wilding, O'Mahoney attributed to others things that he had done himself. It was pointed out in Chard's appeal that Williams tried to frame a man called George O'Dwyer before he fixed on Chard. This was considered fair game by the Court of Appeal, but it was not all right for O'Mahoney to accuse other raiders of carrying a shotgun. Williams could shift dates to get round an alibi, but not
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O'Mahoney. As regards the uncorroborated evidence of accomplices, Lord Justice Lawton pointed out the duty of the Court of Appeal to
"examine the villain's evidence with care to see whether there were any weaknesses in it which the jury may have overlooked or not assessed properly."
That did not happen in the case of Alan Chard, because no one had sat down to do the necessary detailed examination of the statements and the depositions of Williams, James Trusty and Wilding in order to point out fully the weaknesses therein.
Perhaps the final epitaph on the Chard case comes towards the end of Lord Justice Lawton's judgment in Regina v. Thorne:
"Our experience warns us … that in long cases involving a number of accused, there is a danger that those on the fringes will be dragged down by the weight of evidence against those in the centre."
In the case of Marks and Cook, awareness of that led to their acquittal. Three months earlier, Alan Chard had been sent back to Parkhurst prison with only his sentence reduced by three years.
There has been increasing popular disquiet concerning the reliability of supergrasses. We learnt last week that Scotland Yard is now reviewing the role of informers. It is said that the Director of Public Prosecutions will no longer sanction prosecutions based purely on the uncorroborated evidence of grasses. Increasingly, juries are acquitting in cases where supergrasses are involved.
The Minister may correct me, but, so far as I know. Alan Chard is the last surviving inmate of a British prison convicted solely on supergrass evidence. He has spent more than five and a half years in prison. He has always asserted his complete innocence. All three witnesses against him admitted a certain involvement in the crimes, and I believe that the evidence presented to the Minister shows that they were involved much more deeply than they cared to admit. I believe that I have raised enough new issues for Alan Chard's case to be referred to the Court of Appeal for reassessment, and I ask that section 17(1)(a) of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 be thus invoked.
10.19 am
The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Leon Brittan): Before taking up some of the points made by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross), I hope that the House will bear with me if I explain once again the functions of the Home Secretary with regard to individual cases in which a miscarriage of justice is alleged to have occurred. I have done this on a number of previous occasions, but it is of central importance to the matter before us and, therefore, I feel that I must do it again.
Under our governmental arrangements, the duty of administering justice in individual criminal cases is placed upon the courts. While the Home Secretary has certain powers to intervene either by recommending the exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy or by referring the case to the Court of Appeal under section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968, which the hon. Gentleman has invited my right hon. Friend to invoke, he must not exercise them in any way that might tend to usurp the functions of the courts. In practice, this means that he can consider intervening only if some significant new evidence or other material consideration of substance comes to light which has not already been before the courts.
What the Home Secretary may not do—this is particularly relevant to Mr. Chard's case—is to review the

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decisions of the courts on the basis of facts or arguments already considered by them or seek in any way to act as if he were a further court of appeal. In particular, it would be quite wrong of him to use his powers of intervention merely because, if the decision had rested with him, he might have taken a different view of the facts. The Home Secretary cannot act merely on the basis of suggestion or opinion, even his own opinion. In other words, he cannot say that if he had been the trial judge or a member of the jury hearing the case he would, on the evidence, have come to a different view. Nor can he say that if he had been a member of the Court of Appeal hearing the appeal he would, on the basis of the argument addressed to the Court of Appeal, have come to a different view.
It is therefore not sufficient for the purposes of invoking the intervention of the Home Secretary to put forward reasons, whether good or bad, as to why the court of first instance should, on the evidence before it, have come to a different view or why the Court of Appeal, on the material presented to it, should have come to a different view. This is not because either body is necessarily infallible; no human institution is. It is because it is the courts to which is entrusted the task of deciding these matters.
I am sure that the House will agree on reflection that if the Executive were enabled to intervene except in strictly defined circumstances the dangers would greatly outweigh any apparent advantages. Therefore, I think that it is not in any sense restrictive that in support of the fundamental principles of our constitutional arrangements one says it is right that the Home Secretary should intervene only when some significant new evidence or other material consideration of substance comes to light that has not already been before the courts. If that happens, he is not second-guessing the decision of the courts but inviting the courts to look at something which they have not previously looked at. It is crucial before the Home Secretary can consider intervening to reach the view that material has been put before him not which would lead him to take a different view from the courts but which the courts have not had a chance to consider.
As the hon. Gentleman has said, Mr. Chard was convicted at the Central Criminal Cout on 21 November 1975 of three offences of conspiracy to rob and was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment in respect of each count, the sentences to run concurrently. He applied to the Court of Appeal for leave to appeal against his conviction and sentence. On 8 March 1977 the full court refused to allow his appeal against conviction but reduced his sentence to 12 years.
Later, a man who was in prison with Mr. Chard became interested in his case and compiled a dossier of 182 pages, seeking to show that Mr. Chard was wrongly convicted. That was eventually sent to the hon. Gentleman and he visited Mr. Chard in Parkhurst prison. Following that, he wrote to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on 6 June this year enclosing a copy of the dossier, expressing his concern about the case and asking my right hon. Friend to look into it.
My right hon. Friend asked me to look into the matter and I studied the dossier carefully. It seemed to me to consist almost entirely of re-examination of evidence that had already been gone into at some length by the courts, both at Mr. Chard's trial and at the hearing of his
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application for leave to appeal. I could not discern anything in it that might provide grounds, on the principles that I have outlined, on which my right hon. Friend might be justified in taking any action.
However, I recognised that it was a complicated case and that there might be points in the dossier that my officials and I might have missed or misunderstood. Although the bulk of the dossier went over ground that had been before the courts and which one could not reconsider, whatever one's personal view on the matter, there might be in such a substantial document some fresh material.
I therefore wrote to the hon. Member on 4 August asking whether the author of the dossier could make an explicit statement of the new evidence or considerations of substance on which he felt that my right hon. Friend could act, so that by singling out what were alleged to be the new matters we could be in a position to reach a better view.
On 15 August, the hon. Gentleman sent me a further document running to 27 pages. A study of that showed that it did at least contain references to certain facts, such as the dates of alleged meetings, which needed to be verified. In September, my officials wrote to the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis asking for those facts to be investigated and for a report on various matters.
That is the normal practice when representations are received by or on behalf of a convicted person. Before my right hon. Friend or I can attempt to determine whether such representations contain anything of evidential value that is fresh, it is clearly necessary that the facts should be verified, so far as that is possible. Inquiry by police officers, who are trained and experienced in such matters, is not only the most appropriate method of doing that but is the only method available.
I appreciate that it is three months since the inquiries were set in motion. I could well understand the hon. Gentleman feeling that that is a long time, but, as I told him in a letter on 20 October, such delay was to be expected. Such inquiries, especially in complicated cases such as Mr. Chard's, are bound to take a long time if they are to be done thoroughly, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that it is paramount that they should be done thoroughly. Events that took place several years ago have to be re-examined, witnesses have to be traced and interviewed and other possible lines have to be pursued. Although that is an important task, the police are hard pressed with their normal duties.
The thoroughness of the police inquiries that took place as a result of our request is demonstrated by the report on Mr. Chard's case, which runs to 115 pages. That reached the Home Office a few days ago and is being carefully studied in relation to all the other papers that we have about the case, including the two long documents sent to us by the hon. Member. That will also inevitably take time, but we shall press on with it and as soon as possible in the new year I shall write to the hon. Gentleman to let him know the outcome. In considering the case, I shall take full account not only of the dossiers and the police report but of any additional points that have been made in this debate.
Mr. Stephen Ross: It is a question of the whole reliability of evidence from supergrasses. I am sure that the Minister will agree that there has been a new development on that in the past few weeks. I hope that that will be taken into account.
Mr. Brittan: I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman has in mind. He is not right to say that a decision has been taken that reliance cannot, as a matter of rule, be placed on bringing future prosecutions relying on the uncorroborated evidence of supergrasses. He is misinformed if he thinks that that sort of decision has been taken.
Of course, the evidence of supergrasses must be considered with great care by those responsible for deciding whether a prosecution should be brought and also by the jury at the trial. Everybody is well aware that evidence of that character is, rightly, likely to receive special scrutiny. That must be taken into account when deciding whether it is wise to bring a prosecution on the strength of such evidence and with regard to whether it is likely to secure a conviction.
Similarly, the court has to consider the nature of what should be said to the jury about the wisdom of relying on such evidence. It is fair to say that that point was considered both in the court below and in the Court of Appeal. I do not think that we can say that the danger of supergrass evidence in itself constitutes a new factor that entitles the Home Secretary to refer the matter to the courts. We have to look at the particular case and the new considerations. We cannot simply say that supergrasses
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are not as fashionable as they once were and, therefore, that any evidence that has been properly admitted, considered by the court of first instance and then considered by the Court of Appeal can be referred back—in spite of the fact that it was considered applying the normal principles of law—because it emanated from a supergrass. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will see the force of that.
I am aware of the concern that has been expressed. It is right to say that in the summing-up, which the Court of Appeal described as
"a model of clarity and conciseness",
the trial judge took pains to point out to the jury the danger of relying on the uncorroborated evidence of accomplices and to draw attention to discrepancies in their evidence. The jury were reminded of all those weaknesses.
As I have said, I shall consider the matter in—
The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Wednesday evening and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at twenty-eight minutes to Eleven o'clock am.