Commons Sitting of 3 February 1981

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  Social Services

    Health Authorities (Financial Plans)
    Mr. Moateasked the Secretary of State for Social Services when he expects health authorities to be in a position to formulate definite financial plans for the financial year 1981–82.
    The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Patrick Jenkin): I hope to be able to notify regional health authorities of their volume allocations for capital and revenue within the next few days.
    Mr. Moate: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Kent area health authority has published contingency plans for a 2 per cent, cut, based on the possibility of underfunding of the amount in the coming year? Does he agree that the authority is being unduly alarmist? Does he also agree, however, that it emphasises the importance of moderate wage settlements within the cash limits?
    Mr. Jenkin: It is always wise for treasurers to make reasonable provisions, because the future cannot be known with certainty. I certainly agree that when we set the cash limits it will be most important that settlements are made within the cash limit factor, because otherwise the money will have to come out of services for patients.
    Mrs. Knight: In the context of financial planning, has my right hon. Friend met with any success in dealing with the well-documented suggestions that there is fairly wide-scale abuse by hospital staff, particularly in the pilfering of hospital equipment and food and the making of false claims for overtime by maintenance and ancillary staff? Is he aware that it is said that the cost to the NHS is at least £50 million a year? Will he comment on that?
    Mr. Jenkin: If my hon. Friend has any evidence to support those allegations, they should be investigated by local health authorities, which are maintaining tight security on such matters. If it is suspected that pilfering is going on, it is right that they should do that.
    Mr. Allen McKay: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the financial position of the Trent regional authority, which has been the Cinderella authority for a considerable time? Is he making any provision in the financial arrangements to enable the Trent authority to catch up with the others?
    Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman knows that in the current year the increase in the volume allocation to the Trent authority was twice that of the four Thames regions.

    Handicapped Children
    Mr. McQuarrieasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he is satisfied with the treatment provided within the National Health Service for newly born handicapped children.
    The Minister for Health (Dr. Gerard Vaughan): No, Sir. We always hope to see still further improvements. The House will be pleased to know that there has been a major reduction in the perinatal mortality rate in the past five years from 20·3 per 1,000 in 1974 to 14·7 in 1979.
    Mr. McQuarrie: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Has his attention been drawn to allegations that lethal doses of the sedative DF 118 have been administered to newly born handicapped children? If so, what action does he propose to take on that matter, which is of great concern to those of us who are intensly interested in the handicapped from birth onwards?
    Dr. Vaughan: I am glad that my hon. Friend has raised that subject, which is a matter of considerable concern. We are looking into the implications.
    Mr. Freud: Is it not time that there was a statutory duty imposed on the NHS to acquaint the parents of handicapped children with the names and addresses of voluntary organisations that support the handicaps in question?
    Dr. Vaughan: There is already a wide range of services available from the statutory agencies, including multi-disciplinary assessments, treatment and advice. I shall gladly look into the matter if the hon. Gentleman will tell me what he has in mind.
    Mr. Carter-Jones: While acknowledging that there has been an overall improvement in the perinatal mortality rates, may I ask whether the Minister is aware that there are still substantial regional variations? With regard to the care of neonates, will the Minister take the advice offered by the Select Committee chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short) and consider multi-disciplinary analysis of the needs of the handicapped neonates?
    Dr. Vaughan: Yes, that is a very important part of our programme for helping newly born handicapped children. This is now one of the most important current developments in paediatric care, and one which I think all hon. Members will want to see developed further.

    International Year of Disabled People
    Miss Richardsonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will list the events which he intends to attend in connection with the International Year of Disabled People.
    The Minister for Social Security (Mr. Hugh Rossi): Invitations are now being received, and I intend to accept as many as possible around the country which are connected with the International Year of Disabled People.
    Miss Richardson: I hope that when the Minister goes to the functions to which he has been invited, the people who are there will make it clear to him how disappointed they are at the measures for disabled people which the Government have announced. On one of these occasions,

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    as he has not been able to do so in the House, will he give his Department's views on NIAC's proposals for the non-contributory household duties test?
    Mr. Rossi: I am aware of the difficulties that the previous Administration ran into on this matter. I am also aware that the council asked for a review to be carried out on the alternative test that might be applicable. That review is being carried out at the moment. As the committee suggested, we are also considering what is being done in other countries. As soon as the review has been completed, we shall bring the matter before the House.
    Mr. Paul Dean: Will my hon. Friend do what he can to ensure that the International Year of Disabled People is marked by a new initiative on the part of the Government—albeit modest in expenditure—to make certain that progress in this important area is maintained?
    Mr. Rossi: We are anxious to do whatever we can to help the disabled, but we must have regard to the current economic situation. It is difficult to find resources that we can apply to new types of assistance. We place great emphasis on the importance of trying to draw the attention of the public to the disabled and to seek to change general attitudes.
    Mr. Ashley: Would it be a constructive contribution to the International Year of Disabled People if the Minister could arrange a special conference between the directors of social services and the managers of social security offices, to discuss the impact on disabled people of cuts in social services, a new scheme for supplementary benefit and their views on the need for a statutory additional cost allowance?
    Mr. Rossi: That is an interesting suggestion. I shall consider the matter to see whether it is possible to call a conference to discuss ways in which it is possible, within the present economic restraints, to give help to the disabled.
    Mr. Chapman: Will my hon. Friend be a little more forthcoming and give a pledge to meet the representatives of parents of severely mentally handicapped children who look after those children at home, and confirm that, no matter how limited the resources of the Government, these parents should be given the help they need and deserve, perhaps above many other causes?
    Mr. Rossi: I am aware of that problem because within my constituency I have been interested in the work of a voluntary organisation concerned with mentally and physically handicapped children. I shall always keep my door open to representations and do the best I possibly can to help, within the restraints of the economy.
    Mr. Alton: In this International Year of Disabled People, will the Minister give the House an undertaking to have discussions with some of his ministerial colleagues, including Ministers from the Department of Trade, and some of the major insurance companies about the problems mentally handicapped children have in obtaining insurance? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a number of my constituents have made representations to me on that matter? I should be grateful if the Minister would make a statement.
    Mr. Rossi: I shall look into that matter if the hon. Member will send me the details.
    Mr. Alfred Morris: The Minister will have seen from the many recent press reports that the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation is considering, with other major voluntary organisations, whether legal action should be taken against local authorities which are failing to discharge their duties under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. What action does the Minister propose to take against defaulting authorities? May we take it that he will work in the closest possible rapport with the voluntary sector in insisting on the full and humane implementation of that Act?
    Mr. Rossi: Under the Act, there is a statutory obligation on local authorities. The sanctions exist under the Act. Court proceedings are contemplated. We shall see what the results of those proceedings is. There is always a reserve power in the hands of my right hon. Friend. When matters are appropriate, the use of those powers will be considered.

    Child Benefit
    Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what percentage of those entitled to receive child benefit are receiving it.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): It is estimated that virtually 100 per cent, of those entitled to child benefit are receiving it.
    Mr. Knox: The situation is obviously satisfactory, but would my hon. Friend care to estimate what percentage of one-parent families are in receipt of the extra amount of child benefit? What steps are being taken to improve that?
    Mrs. Chalker: The take-up of the child benefit increase is estimated to be about 60 per cent, at the moment. We are not satisfied with that amount. My hon. Friend will have seen that I answered a question on 22 January announcing a change of name from "child benefit increase" to "one parent benefit," which will take place in April. Inevitably, there will be associated publicity with the change of name. We shall consider further steps to make as many single parents as possible aware that they should make a claim for one-parent benefit. Any help that my hon. Friend and other hon. Members can give will be much welcomed.
    Mr. Buchan: Would not the Under-Secretary agree that there is a strong contrast between the enthusiasm with which the Government have pursued fraud and their failure to develop take-up of benefits, particularly with reference to the attacks made on the local authority in Strathclyde? Strathclyde's necessary measure to increase take-up has been successful. Would she not further agree that the appalling figure of only 60 per cent, take-up in single parent families requires special measures beyond that of renaming the increase?
    Mr. Chalker: On 1 December 1978, there were 306,000 recipients of child benefit increase. That figure increased to 384,000 by 18 December 1979, and on 17 December 1980, there were 443,000. That is an increase on the previous figures. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that whenever someone is entitled to child benefit increase—as it is known at the moment—he must make a claim for it.
    The hon. Gentleman asked about the supplementary benefit deluge of postcards in Strathclyde at the conclusion

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    of the previous supplementary benefits scheme before 24 November. Whereas about 100,000 of those postcards were sent out, I understand that the take-up was nothing like what was anticipated by those who conducted the campaign.
    Mr. Squire: Will my hon. Friend confirm that she and her Department will continue to press the Treasury to uprate child benefit in line with inflation at all opportunities, given its many advantages, which all hon. Members recognise?
    Mrs. Chalker: I am sure that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will take note of the comments of my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Allan Roberts: Will not the Minister agree that one of the reasons why the take-up of child benefit is better and greater than that of other benefits is that the benefit is not means tested? Does that not demonstrate that many more benefits would be taken up if there were no means tests?
    Mrs. Chalker: Child benefit is not means tested, and neither is child benefit increase. If one follows the hon. Gentleman's analogy there is no reason why we should not have a better take-up of child benefit increase. He knows—and the House knows—that we now spend about £3,300 million on child benefit. All non-means tested benefits are extremely expensive. We use means tested benefits to help those who are most in need. We hope that people will make their applications where they are so entitled.
    Mr. Freud: In a spirit of total helpfulness, may I suggest that the Government could save some of the £1 ½ million that they are currently spending on advertising indexed-linked retirement certificates, which are a rotten bargain by any standards, and use the money to advertise single-parent family benefits so that they may be claimed in full?
    Mrs. Chalker: I shall certainly bring the hon. Gentleman's suggestion to the notice of the Treasury?

    "Inequalities of Health"
    Mr. Sheermanasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will take immediate steps to diminish the difference in the quality of care and attention that the different sections of society receive from the National Health Service, in response to the report "Inequalities of Health".
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The Black report does not confirm that there are significant differences in the quality of care and attention received by different sections of society. The hon. Gentleman's question therefore does not arise.
    Mr. Sheerman: Will the Secretary of State accept that I am appalled by his reply? Is he aware that, although the Black report does not give much encouragement to those of us on the Opposition Benches either, at least we recognise that it is dynamite? Will he reconsider his glib response to a report that he deliberately hushed up because it showed that working men and women cannot take advantage of the benefits of a longer and healthier life, which are their due?
    Mr. Jenkin: To send 100 copies of the Black report to the national and regional press and the broadcasting authorities is a pretty funny way of "hushing" it up.
    Mr. Foster: Does the Secretary of State agree that so far the redistribution of resources to the Northern region is completely inadequate in the light of the problems in an area of such high unemployment? Will he undertake that in the next review of his budget he will do very much better?
    Mr. Jenkin: I have a lot of sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman says. I wish that we could achieve a faster distribution to the regions that are less well provided for, but the speed of the redistribution must depend on the growth precisely as planned by our predecessors. It does not leave much room for redistribution from the well provided areas to the less well provided areas.
    Mr. Terry Davis: How can the Secretary of State deny that the report shows gross inequality in health between the poorer and better-off families? Is it not time to make a concerted effort to break once and for all the connection between health and wealth
    Mr. Jenkin: That was not the question asked by the hon. Member for Huddersfield, East (Mr. Sheerman). It concerned the quality of care and attention that different sections of society receive from the National Health Service. My Department's research has been reinforced by the work done by Professor Rudolph Klein and Elizabeth Collins. It shows that there is no difference between the quality of care given by the National Health Service in different regions and to different classes. However, I am still waiting to hear from the Opposition how it is that, 30 years after the NHS came into existence, the inequalities of which the hon. Gentleman speaks are as bad as they ever were, and in some cases worse.

  National Health Service

    (Managerial and Trade Union Responsibilities)
    Mr. Freesonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services on how many occasions he has been informed of a conflict between managerial responsbilities and trade union activities in the National Health Service.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I would not usually expect to be informed about this type of management issue, which is for health authorities to resolve. One recent incident was brought to my notice by the press.
    Mr. Freeson: Has not the right hon. Gentleman's Department issued a secret instruction to regional hospital authorities asking them to report on the extent of the involvement of managerial staff in trade union activities, which is trespassing on their rights under the Employment Act? What is going on in that regard in his Department?
    Mr. Jenkin: The answer to the right hon. Gentleman's first two questions are "No, Sir" and "No, Sir". The vast majority of people in the National Health Service recognise the potential conflict between management responsibilities and active trade union participation. Fortunately, the problem arises very rarely indeed. I have given no instructions to anyone about it.
    Mr. Anthony Grant: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the evidence shows that there is far less conflict between management and trade union activities when the

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    ancillary services in the Health Service are run by private enterprise and not direct labour? What steps is he taking to encourage the greater use of private enterprise in the Health Service?
    Mr. Jenkin: My hon. Friend is most assiduous in drawing that important development to our attention. I assure him that my hon. Friends and I lose no opportunity to impress on health authorities the desirability of getting the best possible bargain for the provision of ancillary services and the fact that they should look to the private sector when they believe that they can get a better bargain instead of employing their own staff directly.
    Mr. Russell Kerr: Is the Minister aware that the continuing short-changing of the NHS by the Government is producing a situation where there is bound to be conflict between management in the NHS and Health Service workers? Will he and his colleagues please give up their Scrooge-like attitude so that we can have a decent Health Service at long last?
    Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman must know that the expenditure projections of this Government are precisely in line with those of our predecessors. He should direct his criticisms to his right hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals).
    Mr. Terry Davis: Why is the Secretary of State being so coy about the document issued in November? May I remind him that he asked regional personnel officers to report on the extent to which managerial staff are engaged in trade union activities? Why did he want that information?
    Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman no doubt had his attention drawn to the case of the sector administrator in one hospital who was being disciplined becase she took action on a picket line, picketing another hospital in the same district. Her managament considered that that was inconsistent with her management obligations. She was a local COHSE chairman. It seemed to me in those circumstances that it might be wise to see whether such a situation was widespread. I am happy to say that it is not. I have issued no instructions to anyone about the matter.

    Agency Nurses
    Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what has been the cost to the National Health Service in the past 12 months of the employment of agency nurses.
    Dr. Vaughan: In the financial year 1979–80, the cost of employing agency nurses in the NHS amounted to £30·3 million.
    Mr. Roberts: Does the Minister accept that in certain circumstances such expenditure could be wasteful, because other hospitals often do not have the financial resources to employ the number of NHS nurses that they need? Does he accept that it is in a sense another example of a hidden subsidy from the NHS to the private sector, since most of the nurses will have been trained by the NHS?
    Dr. Vaughan: I do not accept that. We are talking about relatively small numbers—some 4,300 agency nurses working in the NHS. On average, the total cost of an agency nurse is very little different from that of a directly employed nurse.
    Mr. Pavitt: Will the Minister examine the problems that occur where agency nurses have to be used? Is he aware that, for example, in Kensington and Chelsea, 1,200 private beds already exist, with another 349 in the pipeline, a situation which is leading to an acute shortage of nursing staff, particularly specialist nurses? Does he realise that the problem exists throughout London? Will he accept that the drain of nurses to look after private patients is forcing the NHS to employ agency nurses?
    Dr. Vaughan: I do not accept that. The majority of nurses working with agencies do so because the system is more flexible. They can make better provision for their personal needs in terms of working hours and availability during the week. The hon. Gentleman is correct about London. About 90 per cent, of agency nurses are working in the London region.
    Mrs. Dunwoody: Is the Minister aware that where agency nurses are employed alongside NHS nurses there is a great deal of ill-feeling? With the encouragement that the Minister is giving to private practice, shall we not soon reach the position where NHS nurses are paid considerably less than agency nurses, but will be providing, if only by default, services for the private sector?
    Dr. Vaughan: I do not know where the hon. Lady gets her information. I know of no great friction or rivalry between agency nurses and general nurses working in the NHS. No nurse likes to have a strange nurse who does not understand the layout in the ward and we are very conscious of that.

    Quangos
    Mr. Philip Hollandasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what will be the net change in the number of official bodies to which he makes appointments, other than civil servants, resulting from the abolition of the area health authorities.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: At present I appoint the chairmen of 90 area health authorities. In order to achieve our aim of much more local decision taking in the Health Service, those will be replaced by between 180 and 200 district health authorities, whose chairmen will again be appointed by me.
    Mr. Holland: Has my right hon. Friend noticed that when his Department seeks solutions to problems in the Health Service it invariably ends up with either more official bodies or more official appointments—or both? Does the DHSS find considerable pleasure in dancing the quango with its basic one step forward and two steps back? Will he try to stimulate a little more enthusiasm for that healthier outdoor pursuit, hunting the quango?
    Mr. Jenkin: I am sure that the House admires the work of my hon. Friend in his pursuit of the case for reducing the number of official bodies. The logic of his argument about health authorities is that the National Health Service should be run not by health authorities but directly by my Department. That would give rise to a wholly unacceptable and unworkable degree of centralisation. I am sure that both the House and the Health Service want a greater degree of decentralisation. That must postulate more local health authorities.
    Mr. Hordern: Is my right hon. Friend fully satisfied with the balance between the provision of services and the

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    recruitment of personnel to the NHS, bearing in mind that the NHS has continued its recruitment every year for the past 20 years, and last year alone increased its numbers by some 25,000? Does not my right hon. Friend agree that it is time for a careful check on the numbers employed in the NHS to determine whether it needs, for example, so many clerks and administrators?
    Mr. Jenkin: I understand my hon. Friend's anxieties. I am sure that he recognises that in a programme such as that of the NHS, which is virtually the only programme that is growing during this period of severe economic restraint, and where 70 per cent, of costs are manpower costs, the growth of its services inevitably means growth in the number of doctors, nurses, midwives, health visitors, and all the other health care professionals who provide a service for patients. We are maintaining a very tight control on administrative costs. During the course of the reorganisation we shall be looking for significant savings in administration through the application of firm administrative cost limits. I understand my hon. Friend's desire to cut the cost of administration in the Health Service.
    Mr. Spriggs: Is the Secretary of State aware that since reorganisation of the NHS the St. Helens and Knowsley area health authority has done a tremendous job in reorganising all the requirements in the NHS? Does he realise that to abolish an area health authority such as that would be nothing less than scandalous?
    Mr. Jenkin: I have not yet received proposals from the regional health authority. I shall consider them carefully when they arrive, and take account of the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
    Mrs. Dunwoody: Is it not the case that the NHS needs good administrators, not necessarily fewer administrators? Will the Minister take on board the fact that if he continually seeks both to bully the trade unions in the NHS and constantly to have a go at the administration, he will not get the professional service that he purports to seek?
    Mr. Jenkin: I agree that we need the highest quality of management in the NHS that we can secure. I deny entirely that I am bullying the trade unions. I happen to enjoy an extremely good relationship both with the health services committee of the TUC and with the individual unions involved.

    Leicestershire
    Mr. Lathamasked the Secretary of State for the Social Services whether he will now announce his decision on the future administrative structure of the National Health Service in Leicestershire.
    Dr. Vaughan: No, Sir. Regional health authorities have been asked to submit proposals for the future pattern of district health authorities in their regions by the end of February. We have not yet received Trent regional health authority's proposals.
    Mr. Latham: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the Trent region's restructuring committee has officially recommended a single district authority for the county of Leicestershire, and that that proposal has wide support in the medical and allied professions in the county? Will he confirm that exceeding the 500,000 maximum target will be permitted in exceptional circumstances?
    Dr. Vaughan: I understand my hon. Friend's concern. There would have to be exceptional circumstances for a new district health authority to serve a population of more than 500,000. However, special reasons may be involved, and we shall consider them when the proposals are put to us.

    Private Health Insurance Schemes
    Mr. David Atkinsonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will introduce measures to encourage the membership of private health insurance schemes.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The Government aim to encourage the development of independent health care as a worthwhile contribution to meeting the health needs of the nation. Recent figures suggest that we are succeeding.
    Mr. Atkinson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that last year private patients saved the taxpayer £86 million? Is he now in a position to accept the recommendation contained in the report commissioned by his Department to the effect that a study be made of the reasons why so many individuals, firms and trade unions are opting for private care?
    Mr. Jenkin: I am not in a position to confirm or deny the figures given by my hon. Friend. It is clear that a large number of people recognise the sense of making private provision for health care including, as my hon. Friend mentioned, a number of trade unions. In recent opinion poll, when trade union members were asked whether they would accept private health insurance as part of their employment package, two-thirds said that they would be happy to accept such an offer if it were made.
    Mr. William Hamilton: Does not the Secretary of State accept that the old, the chronically sick and the disabled are the very people who will not be accepted by private insurance schemes? In so far as the Government intend to finance the NHS basically by private insurance, does he realise that that will be a fundamental destruction of the Christian principles on which the NHS is based?
    Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman persists in missing the point. If private insurance and private care can relieve the NHS of some part of acute in-patient care, that leaves more resources for the NHS to spend on those who do not have private care, which includes the Cinderella services for the elderly and the handicapped. That must be true.
    Mr. Michael Brown: Will my right hon. Friend indicate the implications for NHS hospital waiting lists if there were no private health care schemes available?
    Mr. Jenkin: My hon. Friend is right. For non-urgent operations such as orthopaedic operations, hip transplants and so on, if there were no private beds and no private hospitals, inevitably NHS waiting lists would be much longer.
    Miss Joan Lestor: Is the Secretary of State seriously suggestion that robbing the NHS of consultants and other personnel, trained by the taxpayer in Britain, does not diminish the services of the NHS? Is he not aware, for example, that the use of the Princess Margaret hospital in my area to beckon people from America for private care is having a detrimental effect upon the NHS services?
    Mr. Jenkin: Private insurance and private health care bring more resources to the health needs of the

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    nation—money that would not otherwise be spent—and, therefore, allow the employment of more consultants and more nurses in the NHS. The Opposition persist in playing a zero sum game. It is not the case. It brings extra resources to health care.

    MIND
    Mr. van Staubenzeeasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he has yet determined the size of the grant he proposes to make to MIND for 1981–82.
    Mr. Patrick Jenkin: No, Sir. MIND has not yet made an application for a grant for 1981–82.
    Mr. van Straubenzee: Responding to the appeal of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, when my right hon. Friend comes to settle the grant will he remember the fine work carries out by the local groups of MIND? Will he simply confine his representations to the headquarters of that organisation, and say that next time it makes accusations—and I have been warned that there are more to come—against the medical and nursing staff of a hospital, it should do so quietly and professionally and not by way of a public press conference designed to secure the maximum hurt to people who are at least as much concerned as MIND with the care of the mentally ill?
    Mr. Jenkin: Last Friday I paid a visit to Rampton hospital, not to Broadmoor in my hon. Friend's constituency. I should like to tell the House, as I said to the press after my visit, that I was enormously impressed by the devoted care given by the staff, particularly the nurses, at that hospital, to some of the unfortunate and difficult people who are entrusted to their charge. Those who make accusations of brutality or other malpractice on the part of staff who have those heavy responsibilities owe it to the staff, the public and the service as a whole to do so in the most careful, responsible and well researched manner. If my hon. Friend's campaign, for such it is, can lead those who are tempted to make these charges to do so in such a way, it will have served a valuable purpose.
    Mr. Ennals: When the Secretary of State considers the application from MIND, will he be quite uninfluenced by the campaign of abuse and denigration, in some cases against individuals who work for MIND, under the protection of parliamentary privilege and not publicly where it could be challenged? Will he be uninfluenced by such a campaign that can bring only disrepute to the House and to our time honoured principle of privilege?
    Mr. Jenkin: I intend to follow the four considerations that I set out in a reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. van Straubenzee) on 1 July 1980, namely our priority for mental health, our high opinion of MIND's work especially by its branches, our assessment of its income and expenditure and our general policy on grants under section 64.

    Supplementary Benefit
    Mr. Maxtonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people were in receipt of supplementary benefit in the last week for which statistics are available; and what are the most recent projections made by his Department of the average number of recipients in each of the next three financial years.
    Mrs. Chalker: About 3,200,000 claimants, including school leavers, in August 1980. The most recent published projections for the next three years were given in the 1979 public expenditure White Paper published in March 1980—"The Government's Expenditure Plans 1980–81 to 1983–84" Cmnd. 7841 table 2.12.2 on pages 114–115.
    Mr. Maxton: Does the Minister agree that a large proportion of the increases in supplementary benefits is due to the rise in the number of unemployed? Is it not the case that the real value of the flat-rate benefits has been cut and that the projections include the abolition of the earnings related supplement? Does she agree that it is a disgrace that people are being subjected to the indignity of means-tested benefits, which will be more expensive for the Government? Does she agree that it would be better to restore the flat rate benefits and stop the abolition of the earnings-related supplement?
    Mrs. Chalker: I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman. The House knows full well that the measures that have to be taken are not against the unemployed but are intended to bring our public expenditure under control. We estimate that the total number of supplementary benefit claimants, as a result of all the measures, will be about 110,000. The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong to paint the abatement in unemployment benefit as he did. It is a temporary measure pending taxation which all parties in the House have agreed.
    Mr. Buchan: Is it not an appalling indictment of the Government that their economic and social policies to deal with the economic catastrophe are putting more and more people on to means-tested benefits? Was not the Welfare State constructed on the basis of rights? Is not the hon. Lady replacing that with a mean and squalid form of support? In a single Bill last year 110,000 more people were shoved away from rights on to the means-tested benefits? Is that not a disgrace?
    Mrs. Chalker: The House knows that unless we reduce inflation the value of benefits has no real meaning for the people who have to receive them. We know that inflation hits poor people harder than others. We have given full price protection to the recipients of the safety net benefits, the family income supplement and supplementary benefit. In simplifying the supplementary benefit scheme we have directed more resources to those who need it, such as families with children. Nobody welcomes the present number of unemployed and the Government are doing their best to reduce inflation and public expenditure so as to bring down the rate of unemployment as fast as we can.
    Mr. Ioan Evans: What action is the Department taking about those who, because they have been unemployed for 12 months, have lost their benefit? I have drawn attention to these cases previously. They receive social- security benefit but have now been informed that because they will not attend a re-settlement camp at Henley-in-Arden they are to be denied any income. What action are the Government taking?
    Mrs. Chalker: Although I spoke to the hon. Gentleman before Christmas on this matter, he gave me the details in the middle of last month. Since I received his letter on 12 January I have had a full investigation made in to the section 10 directions on his two

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    constituents. I shall be writing to him in a few days to let him know the outcome, what has happened and what should happen.

  Prime Minister

    Engagements
    Mr. Dubsasked the Prime Minister if she will list her public engagements for 3 February.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): Inaddition to my duties in this House, I shall be having meetings with ministerial colleagues and others.
    Mr. Dubs: Will the Prime Minister confirm what she said on Weekend Television last Sunday, when she suggested that if unemployment reached 3 million or even 4 million she would not change her policies? Does she recall that in the 1930s high unemployment and low rates of inflation co-existed? Will she tell the House whether there is any rate of inflation at which her Government's economic priorities will tackle unemployment?
    The Prime Minister: I am glad to re-affirm what I said on television, that the way to provide sound, long term jobs in the future is to fight inflation now and to continue to fight it.
    Mr. David Atkinson: Referring to the continuing challenge to the Communist monopoly in Poland, when my right hon. Friend meets President Reagan later this month will she discuss with him whether it would be better now rather than after the event for the West to spell out the nature of the retaliation that we would take against the Soviets in the event of their intervention in Poland?
    The Prime Minister: I shall discuss all these matters with President Reagan. But I would counsel caution on the course which my hon. Friend, no doubt with the best of intentions, would have me pursue.
    Mr. Foot: Does the most regrettable re-affirmation by the right hon. Lady of what she said on television on Sunday mean that when she goes to the meeting of NEDO tomorrow she will flatly refuse to examine the alternative policies put forward by the TUC or by the CBI? What will be the purpose of the meeting if she is not going there to listen?
    The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman is interested in securing better long-term prospects for jobs he will fight inflation now. If he is not interested in better long-term prospects for jobs, he will retreat to the short-term expedient of reflating and printing money now. With regard to the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, I shall be going to Neddy to take the chair, as I do once a year. That was arranged long before the TUC document. Doubtless it will wish to raise some of the things in that document in the discussion on industrial policy.
    Mr. Foot: Does the right hon. Lady appreciate, as she has already had a copy of the TUC document, that it explains how she, under her unique arrangements, has managed to achieve the combination of a far worse recession in this country than in most other countries combined with a higher rate of inflation than most of our competitors? Will she explain how she has achieved that? Will she also tell us whether she is taking that body
    142
    seriously? Will she say that she will examine these matters carefully? Does she understand that, when she has brought inflation down to the point where she started putting it up, she will have a right to talk on the subject?
    The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman examines the inflation figures he will find that the rate of inflation is falling comparatively fast here when it is still rising in other countries. If he looks at his Government's record on inflation he will find that when they had been in Government for 20 or 21 months the inflation rate was 24 per cent.
    Mr. Foot: Since the right hon. Lady continues to boast about what she has done about inflation, will she tell us the inflation figure that was left to the Labour Government in 1974 and the figure that we left her?
    The Prime Minister: With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's precise question, the figure was 10·1 per cent, in April 1979. That figure followed an average inflation—[Interruption.] I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman would not wish me to be selective but to give the whole figure. That followed an average rate of inflation in 1975 of 24·2 per cent., in 1976 of 16·5 per cent, and in 1977 of 15·8 percent. Those were three years when it was much worse than it was in our first year—in 1979, when it was 13·4 per cent.
    Rev. Ian Paisley: As the Prime Minister refused to report to the House about her meeting with Charles Haughey in Dublin, and now that she has announced joint studies, will she say where they are taking place? How many civil servants from the United Kingdom and from the Irish Republic are taking part in the joint studies? Will she not push under the counter this most important question for the people of Northern Ireland as she did yesterday when a colleague asked a question?
    The Prime Minister: The studies, which have just started, are taking place in the capitals of the respective countries—London and Dublin. Ministers will, of course, keep a close watch on progress.
    Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 3 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply which I have just given.
    Mr. Roberts: Will the Prime Minister spend a few minutes looking at the survey which shows that the chairmen and managing directors of many large companies are giving themselves 40 per cent, wage increases when they are preaching wage restraint and putting thousands of their own workers on to the dole queues? Will she condemn such divisive action? If there is to be a tax clawback in the Budget will she ensure that these very rich men, who have received massive tax handouts from her Government, are the first to pay?
    The Prime Minister: I cannot emphasise too often that it is vital, at whatever level of employment in a commercial or industrial company, that increases in pay go hand in hand with increases in productivity.
    Mr. Best: Is my right hon. Friend aware that since last summer the rate of inflation has been lower than that of the average of our EEC and OECD competitors? Does my right hon. Friend accept that, most regrettably, since then

    143
    the percentage increases in unemployment in Germany, France and the Netherlands have also been much higher than in this country?
    The Prime Minister: It is true that the recession hit different countries at different rates and at different times. The percentage increase in unemployment in Germany, Denmark and Holland between August and December rose faster than in this country in the same period.
    Mr. David Steel: Has the Prime Minister had time to read the article in The Times today which suggests that the tax burden of the average individual increased by 10 per cent, in the last two years that she has been in office? Can she confirm that figure? If it is correct does she regard it as part of the battle against inflation?
    The Prime Minister: If my memory serves me correctly that figure was of the overall tax burden, including, of course, the considerable tax levied on North Sea oil revenues. The right hon. Gentleman is always trying to persuade me to put up public expenditure. The last Labour Government also wanted increased public spending. Had we followed his or their advice the tax burden now would be much worse.
    Mr. Henderson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that computer staffs in the public service are under extreme pressure from trade unions in the public sector to act as latterday storm troopers in fighting the Government's policy? Does she accept that such sabotage will in the long term only do damage to the standing of computer professions and to the efficiency of information processing in the public sector?
    The Prime Minister: It is absolutely vital in the public sector, as elsewhere, that we use all technology to its maximum extent and that the highest traditions of the public service are honoured in that as in other spheres of the Civil Service.
    Mr. Robert C. Brown: Will the Prime Minister reflect on the devastating effects of her policies on the people of this country? Notwithstanding what she said on television at the weekend, will she take time off to look in the mirror and ask "Mirror, mirror, on the wall, could I be the wrongest of them all?"
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir.
    Mr. Allan Stewartasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 3 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Stewart: Will my right hon. Friend take time today to congratulate the management and work force of John Brown Engineering, a firm of major importance in West Central Scotland, on achieving a £25 million new export order? Since the company was able to achieve that because of the responsible 7 percent, wage settlement last October, does she agree that it demonstrates the increasing climate of responsibility and co-operation which is enabling British industry to increase its competitiveness in world markets?
    The Prime Minister: I gladly congratulate that firm, both on the achievement of that export order and on the realistic attitude of its work force which led to that achievement. Having seen that report and having made
    144
    further inquiries today, I am happy to be able to tell my hon. Friend that that firm announced today a further export order for £35 million. Many congratulations.
    Mr. Maclennan: May I refer to the Prime Minister's forthcoming meeting with President Reagan? Do the Government have it in mind to seek, with the President, to bring the maximum pressure to bear on the Republic of South Africa to reopen negotiations on Namibia which have broken down through the wholly inexcusably intransigence of the South African Government? Will she raise the question of incursions into Mozambique which the Republic has embarked upon?
    The Prime Minister: We are all anxious to try to bring about a solution to the Namibia problem and to bring Namibia to independence. I shall raise that subject in a way which I hope will achieve as near a solution to that problem as possible.
    Mr. Bob Dunnasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 3 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply which I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Dunn: Does my right hon. Friend accept that, while a Bill gives details in the explanatory and financial memorandum of its manpower implications, insufficient machinery exists for monitoring staffing levels once the legislation is enacted? Will she take steps to improve that monitoring?
    The Prime Minister: I am aware that the monitoring of the numbers of people involved in the provisions of a particular Bill is not necessarily exact. As my hon. Friend knows, we are putting more effort into increased efficiency in the Civil Service. The Civil Service itself is working with a will towards that end. We have reduced the numbers in the Civil Service by 35,000 since we came to power. I cannot emphasise too strongly that many young and older people in the civil service are determined to secure the most efficient administration of any country and they are co-operating fully in that effort.
    Mr. McNamara: Has the right hon. Lady had an opportunity yet to consider what Prime Minister Trudeau has said about the undertakings that she is supposed to have given last June about repatriating the Canadian constitution to Canada? Does she intend to impose a three-line Whip? What advice would the Prime Minister give to the House when President Trudeau is so unsure of the smell of his legislation that he says that we should hold our noses while we let it pass?
    The Prime Minister: Matters concerning three-line Whips are not usually discussed until we have the business before us for the next week. We have not yet received a request from the Government or Parliament of Canada. I take the view that I have always taken, that when we receive a request from the Government and Parliament of Canada we have to deal with it as expeditiously as possible, in accordance with precedent and with the law.

    Questions to Ministers
    Mr. Stallard: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I take your mind back to a reply to question No. 7 from my right hon. Friend the Member for Brent, East (Mr. Freeson)? He asked the Secretary' of State about the

    145
    existence of a memorandum issued by the DHSS seeking imformation on trade union activities of individuals employed in the National Health Service. The Secretary of State denied the existence of any such memorandum, and yet a few moments later, in reply to a further question from my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Davis) he went into great detail about an incident that had arisen, leading to the existence of the memorandum. What safeguard do Back Benchers have against deliberately misleading information from the Secretary of State?
    Mr. Speaker: I heard the exchange, the hon. Gentleman heard the exchange, and there is no point of order on which I can give a ruling in that regard.

    DOMESTIC RATING (ABOLITION)
    Mr. Christopher Murphy, supported by Mr. Richard Alexander, Mr. David Bevan, Mr. Tim Brinton, Mr. John Carlisle, Mr. Den Dover, Mr. Bob Dunn, Mr. Peter Griffiths, Mr. Warren Hawksley, Mr. Iain Mills, Mr. James Pawsey and Mr. Richard Shepherd, presented a Bill to abolish the power of local authorities to levy rates on domestic householders: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 27 February and to be printed. [Bill 57.]

Portavadie (Public Inquiry)
3.32 pm
Mr. Dennis Canavan: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the holding of a public inquiry into the sale of the village at the platform construction site in Portavadie.
The village to which I refer was built in 1975 with £3·3 million of public money, but due to an omission, an error, a blunder—call it what you may—by either the Scottish Office or the Department of Energy, or both, the ownership of the village passed to a company called Sea Platform Constructors (Scotland) Ltd. because the Department or Departments failed to buy the land from it. Under the provisions of Scottish law, the ownership of the village passed to the private owners of the land on which the village was sited.
Sea Platform Constructors (Scotland) Ltd. is half-owned by Lord Matthews' Trafalgar House Group, which bought the land for £150,000 from a local farmer in 1974. No doubt the yard and the village adjacent to the yard were built with good intentions way back in 1974–75, the purpose of the village being to house workers for the nearby platform construction yard. In the event, the yard failed to get any orders, partly due to the drop in popularity of concrete platforms compared with steel-structured platforms. I am informed that since 1975 no concrete platforms have been ordered for the United Kingdom sector of the North Sea.
A few weeks ago, on Christmas Eve, a company called Bretshire Enterprises, registered in the Dutch Antilles, was reported to have bought the village for £175,000 from Sea Platform Constructors (Scotland) Ltd. A few days later it was sold to a third party, as yet unnamed, for £450,000. That is not a bad killing in a few days. It is a profit of over 150 per cent. The representative of Bretshire Enterprises, a Mr. Oliver Iny, seems to be very secretive about giving any information regarding the sale, and there is an air of mystery surrounding the whole transaction. This is a story of official blunders, allowing private speculators to make a quick killing out of a public asset that was built with a considerable amount of public money. There is also the possibility that tax dodging is taking place.
There is a great deal of public concern in Scotland and elsewhere. The public are entitled to know about this matter, because the project was built with their money. There is a great deal of public suspicion about a cover-up. The best way to allay that suspicion would be to hold a public inquiry. Yet last month, the Secretary of State for Scotland announced that he had no intention of holding a public inquiry. That indicates a considerable degree of complacency on his part, especially in view of the prima facie evidence that was dug out by the media and the Public Accounts Committee.
On July 1979 the Public Accounts Committee was told that the Government did not buy the site because Sea Platform Constructors (Scotland) Ltd. was reluctant to sell the site. However, even after the village was constructed the Government were refused access to maintain the buildings, which had been built with public money. According to the Government balance sheet of 31 March 1978 the village appears as an asset, and yet under Scottish law it did not even belong to them.
On 18 June 1980, a Mr. Gillett, secretary of the Scottish Development Department, told the Public Accounts
148
Committee that the Government were no longer interested in buying the village, but he seemed unaware that the village was up for offer as a holiday or leisure centre at a reserve price of £500,000. I am sure that the House will be grateful to the Public Accounts Committee for the information that it has unearthed, but there are still many questions that have been left unanswered.
Did the Scottish Office advise the Department of Energy about the implications under Scottish law whereby, if it failed to take the land into public ownership, the ownership of the village would pass on to the private owners of the land? If it did not pass on that information, why not, and what happened to the responsible official? Is he still at St. Andrew's House, advising—or misadvising—Ministers? If the Scottish Office gave the appropriate advice, which seems likely on the evidence of Mr. Gillett, who told the Public Accounts Committee that at no stage did the two Departments act independently, why did the Department of Energy decide to spend £3·3 million of public money without taking the land into public ownership? Who in the Department of Energy was responsible for advising the go-ahead? What happened to him? Is he still at Millbank advising—or misadvising—Ministers?
There is also the question why the village appeared as an asset in the Government balance sheet when it did not even belong to the Government. There is also the deeper question of what efforts were made to get an order. I realise the difficulties, due to the decrease in popularity of concrete platforms, but there was at least one North Sea order after 1975, which went to Norway. There is also the question of the local planning authority's having laid down at the outset that the building should be easily convertible to leisure or recreational use. Why did not the Government take any initiative in conjunction with the Scottish Tourist Board or the Highlands and Islands Development Board in order to find such an alternative use for the village? Who is the present owner? This morning I telephoned the solicitor in charge of the latest transaction and the local authority, the Argyll and Bute district council. They were not able to tell me the present owner of the village, and the local authority told me that no planning permission had yet been submitted for change of use.
Is there any connection between Sea Platform Constructors (Scotland) Ltd., Bretshire Enterprises and the present owner? Is it merely the normal relationship between vendor and purchaser, or is there something deeper? There is the possibility of tax evasion or avoidance. Has development land tax been paid on the transaction, and any other taxes that are due?
Why is the Secretary of State for Scotland reluctant to hold a public inquiry? Has he something to hide, or is there someone in the Scottish Office with a lot to hide? Last year we had the Robroyston scandal, when a publicly owned asset, a former hospital site, was sold off and private speculators were able to make hundreds of thousands of pounds of profit. I maintain that the public are entitled to know why £3.3 million of their money apparently went down the drain at Portavadie while a speculator was able to make a profit over a few days of over 150 per cent. If we are to get to the root of the matter, the public are entitled to a public inquiry, and that is why I am asking for leave to introduce the Bill.
Mr. John MacKay Mr. John MacKay (Argyll) rose—
Mr. Kenneth Lewis Mr. Kenneth Lewis (Rutland and Stamford)rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have had notice that one hon. Member seeks to oppose the Bill.
Mr. Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure whether I should raise my point of order now or when my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll (Mr. MacKay) has made his contribution.
Mr. Speaker: It will be better if the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis) waits until the hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. MacKay) has spoken. On these occasions it is our custom that both contributors are heard without interruption, or reasonably so.
3.42 pm
Mr. John MacKay: The subject of the Bill of the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) is a village in my constituency. I was under the impression that one of the conventions and courtesies of the House was that if an hon. Member intended to raise a matter pertaining to another hon. Member's constituency he should at least take the trouble to send a note to that hon. Member. I fear that my right hon. and hon. Friends will not be surprised to hear that the hon. Gentleman did not send me such a note.
Mr. Robert Atkins: Disgraceful.
Mr. MacKay: However, at 2.32 pm today the hon. Gentleman asked me whether I would assent to his Bill. That was the first time that he had the courtesy to tell me that he was raising the issue.
The hon. Gentleman wishes to set up an inquiry into the sale of the village of Portavadie. If ever there was an example of shutting the stable door after the horse had long since bolted, this is it. More than enough taxpayers' money has been squandered on this white elephant without the cost of a public inquiry, which would not save the taxpayers a single penny.
I shall rehearse briefly the facts of Portavadie. In 1975 the then Labour Government were being pressured to encourage the building of concrete platforms. The press and Scottish opposition parties, such as the Scottish National Party were claiming that Norway was scooping the market and that we were being left behind. Of course, right reason or none, we had to copy Norway. That has proved to be an expensive mistake.
Prior to 1975 Sea Platform Constructors (Scotland) Ltd. had been looking for a site at which to build a dry dock for the concrete platform system that it had designed. It decided on Portavadie and bought a piece of land on which subsequently the village was built. However, during the planning and planning permission stage SPCS began to have doubts about concrete platforms. It began to think that perhaps they were not the way forward and that they were the dead end that they have proved to be. As a result, SPCS was reluctant to invest its own money in that project.
Along came the then Labour Government, who decided to put public money into the project. The Department of Energy, then headed by the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn), who is probably not unknown to the hon. Gentleman, entered into a contract with SPCS to build the dry dock and the village to accommodate the workers. The sums involved were £11.4 million for the dry dock and £3.4 million for the village. Some hon. Members may think that that deserves an inquiry, but that is not what the hon. Gentleman's Bill seeks to do.
150
Although the dock site belonged to the Government via the Forestry Commission, the village site belonged to SPCS, which had bought it when it identified the site prior to 1975. However, the Government were in such a hurry that they decided that the building should go ahead while they negotiated to buy the land. The head of the Department that was to negotiate to buy the land was the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan), one of the hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friends.
Mr. Robert Atkins: Where is he?
Mr. MacKay: The House might think that that was worthy of an inquiry. The negotiations did not go at all well. In fact, they did not go anywhere at all, and while they were failing the market for concrete platforms absolutely disappeared. By 1978 the Labour Government decided to withdraw from the negotiations. At that stage it was clear that there was no obvious use for the complex and that to buy the land from the company and to maintain the village would be a total waste of public money, an example of throwing good money after bad.
That was the situation until the end of 1980. Matters became worse and it was clear that about £500,000 would be needed to put the village back in order. That expenditure would have been necessary if it had been bought by the Government last month. The Government had no possible use for it. If they had bought it, I would have contended that it was an absolute waste of public money. The Government were rightly not interested, as were the previous Labour Government. Thus under Scots laws, as the hon. Gentleman said, the village reverted to the owners of the land. According to press reports, it has been sold and sold again.
The purpose of the proposed Bill is to set up a public inquiry to investigate those recent events, namely, dealings worth £500,000 of someone else's money. If there has been a tax fiddle, I shall be as concerned as the hon. Gentleman, but for the life of me I cannot understand how the fiddle has taken place. I am much more concerned about the waste of £15 million at 1975 prices of taxpayers' money by the Labour Government of whom the hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friends were members. An inquiry should be called into that expensive white elephant.
Of course, that is not what the hon. Gentleman is seeking to do. He would not wish to cause embarrassment to his right hon. Friends the Members for Bristol, South-East and Craigton. Perhaps he would not mind embarrassing one and not the other, but he would certainly not like to embarrass both right hon. Gentlemen.
Mr. David Myles: We do not know which one.
Mr. MacKay: The Public Accounts Committee considered the sale of land and was extremely critical of the then Labour Government for not buying the land before they built on it. However, that took place in the past and I turn to the present.
We shall know who has bought the land when they register the deeds in the register of sasines. We shall also know if and when the individual or company applies to the planning authority, which is the Argyll and Bute district council. Planning permission is specifically restricted to oil development and it will require a change of use provision. The other feature that makes it difficult to understand how there can have been a tax fiddle is that

151
planning permission will come to an end in 1985, when the village has to be razed to the ground unless permission has been granted to another user.
It seems that there are adequate safeguards in the original planning agreement. I know that the Argyll and Bute district council planning authority will keep a careful watch on all developments.
What I find strange—this came through towards the end of the hon. Gentleman's speech—is that Labour Members who are hostile to foreign investment in Scotland in another guise want the Scottish Development Agency to tramp the world to find foreign investment that will come to Scotland.
Some Labour Members even want Japanese car factories to come to Scotland, but they start screaming and squealing whenever it happens. They must make up their minds. To use the hon. Gentleman's choice phrase, they must come clean. Either foreign investment is a good thing, which we want to encourage, or it is a bad thing. Labour Members must be careful, when they start diatribing about it, that they do not drive away those who have legitimate foreign investment to make in Scotland for the benefit of working people who the Labour Party always tries to pretend it represents.
I ask the House to reject the motion and to join me in opposing it in the Division. I ask the House to do so for the sake of the hon. Gentleman. If we were to give the Bill a Second Reading, we would be pandering to and encouraging his serious addiction to cheap publicity gimmicks. It will do him a lot of good if my right hon. and hon. Friends join me in the Lobby. I suggest that the right hon. Members for Bristol, South-East and Craigton should consider joining me in opposing the Bill.
Mr. Kenneth Lewis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to ask whether you thought it was desirable that we should have Ten-Minute Bills for subjects of this kind. I do not blame the hon. Member for raising the matter, but he had opportunities to raise it and to request a public inquiry from the Minister. He could have sought to do that in an Adjournment debate.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I understand the feeling of the hon. Gentleman. I have had that feeling a thousand times since I became Speaker, because this is not the only Ten-Minute Bill in respect of which the opportunity has been taken to ventilate the deep feelings of an hon. Member.
Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 13 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business):—
The House divided: Ayes 153, Noes 194.

Division No.59]

[3.52 pm

AYES

Allaun, Frank

Bradley, Tom

Alton, David

Brown, Hugh D.(Provan)

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Brown, R. C. (N'castle W)

Ashton, Joe

Brown, Ron(E'burgh, Leith)

Atkinson, N.(H'gey,)

Buchan, Norman

Bamett, Guy (Greenwich)

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

Beith.A. J.

Campbell, Ian

Benn, RtHon A. Wedgwood

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Bennett, Andrew(St'kp'tN)

Canavan, Dennis

Bidwell, Sydney

Carmichael, Neil

Booth, RtHon Albert

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Boothroyd, MissBetty

Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'stolS)

Bottomley, RtHon A.(M'b'ro)

Cohen, Stanley

152

Cook, Robin F.

McElhone, Frank

Craigen, J.M.

McGuire, Michael(Ince)

Crowther, J.S.

McKay, Allen(Penistone)

Cryer, Bob

McKelvey, William

Cunliffe, Lawrence

McNally, Thomas

Davidson, Arthur

McNamara, Kevin

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

McWilliam, John

Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

Marks, Kenneth

Dixon, Donald

Marshall, DrEdmund(Goole,)

Dobson, Frank

Mason, RtHon Roy

Dormand, Jack

Maynard, MissJoan

Douglas-Mann, Bruce

Meacher, Michael

Dubs, Alfred

Mikardo, Ian

Duffy, A. E. P.

Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

Dunn, James A.

Mitchell, R.C.(Sotonltchen)

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

Morris, RtHon A. (W'shawe)

Eastham, Ken

Morton, George

Edwards, R.(W'hampt'nSE)

Newens, Stanley

Ellis, R. (NED'bysh're)

O'Neill, Martin

English, Michael

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Ennals, Rt Hon David

Paisley, Rev Ian

Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

Palmer, Arthur

Evans, John (Newton)

Park, George

Ewing, Harry

Penhaligon, David

Flannery, Martin

Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

Fletcher, Ted(Darlington)

Race, Reg

Foot, RtHon Michael

Richardson, Jo

Foster, Derek

Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

Foulkes, George

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Fraser, J. (Lamb'th,N'w'd)

Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

Freud, Clement

Roberts, Gwilym(Cannock)

Garrett, John (Norwich S)

Robertson, George

Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

Robinson, G. (CoventryNW)

George, Bruce

Rooker, J.W.

Golding, John

Sheerman, Barry

Graham, Ted

Short, Mrs Renée

Grant, George(Morpeth)

Silkin, RtHon J.(Deptford)

Grant, John (IslingtonC)

Smith, Cyrill (Rochdale)

Grimond, RtHon J.

Spriggs, Leslie

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

Steel, RtHon David

Harrison, RtHonWalter

Stewart, Rt Hon D. (WIsles)

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Stoddart, David

Haynes, Frank

Stott, Roger

Heffer, EricS.

Strang, Gavin

HomeRobertson, John

Straw, Jack

Homewood, William

Summerskill, HonDrShirley

Hughes, Mark(Durham)

Thomas, Dafydd(Merioneth)

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Torney, Tom

Hughes, Roy (Newport)

Wainwright, E.(Dearne V)

Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

Wainwright, R.(Colne V)

John, Brynmor

Watkins, David

Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

Welsh, Michael

Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rh'dda)

White, Frank R.

Jones, Barry (East Flint)

White, J.(G'gow Pollok)

Jones, Dan (Burnley)

Whitehead, Phillip

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Whitlock, William

Lambie, David

Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

Lamond, James

Winnick, David

Leighton, Ronald

Woodall, Alec

Lewis, Arthur (N'ham NW)

Woolmer, Kenneth

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Young, David (Bolton E)

Litherland, Robert

Lyon, Alexander(York)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Lyons, Edward (Bradf'd W)

Mr. Russell Kerr and

McCartney, Hugh

Mr. John Maxton.

McDonald, DrOonagh

NOES

Adley, Robert

Blackburn, John

Aitken, Jonathan

Body, Richard

Alison, Michael

Boscawen, HonRobert

Ancram, Michael

Bowden, Andrew

Atkinson, David(B'm'th,E)

Boyson, DrRhodes

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Brooke, Hon Peter

Bell, SirRonald

Brotherton, Michael

Bennett, Sir Frederic (T'bay)

Brown, M. (BriggandScun)

Benyon, Thomas(A'don)

Browne John(Winchester)

Berry, HonAnthony

Bruce-Gardyne, John

Bevan, DavidGilroy

Budgen, Nick

Biggs-Davison, John

Burden, SirFrederick

153

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln,)

Gray, Hamish

Carlisle, RtHon M.(R'c'n)

Greenway, Harry

Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

Grieve, Percy

Channon, Rt. Hon. Paul

Griffiths, Peter Portsm'th N)

Chapman, Sydney

Grist, Ian

Churchill, W.S.

Grylls, Michael

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

Gummer, JohnSelwyn

Clegg, SirWalter

Hamilton, Hon A.

Cockeram, Eric

Hamilton, Michael(Salisbury)

Colvin, Michael

Hannam, John

Cope, John

Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

Cormack, Patrick

Hawkins, Paul

Corrie, John

Hayhoe, Barney

Costain, SirAlbert

Henderson, Barry

Crouch, David

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

Holland, Philip(Carlton)

Dorrell, Stephen

Howell, RtHon D. (G'ldf'd)

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)

Dover, Denshore

Hunt, David (Wirral)

du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

Hurd, HonDouglas

Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

Irving, Charles(Cheltenham)

Durant, Tony

Jenkin, RtHon Patrick

Dykes, Hugh

Jessel, Toby

Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

Eggar, Tim

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Elliott, SirWilliam

Kaberry, SirDonald

Emery, Peter

Kershaw, SirAnthony

Eyre, Reginald

Knight, MrsJill

Fairbairn, Nicholas

Knox, David

Fairgrieve, Russell

Lamont, Norman

Farr, John

Langford-Holt, SirJohn

Fisher, SirNigel

Latham, Michael

Fletcher, A. (Ed'nb'ghN)

Lawrence, Ivan

Fletcher-Cooke, SirCharles

LeMarchant, Spencer

Fookes, Miss Janet

Lennox-Boyd, HonMark

Forman, Nigel

Lester Jim (Beeston)

Fox, Marcus

Lewis, Kenneth(Rutland)

Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Lyell, Nicholas

Glyn, DrAlan

Macfarlane, Neil

Goodhart, Philip

MacGregor, John

Goodlad, Alastair

MacKay, John (Argyll)

Gow, Ian

McNair-Wilson, M.(N'bury)

Gower, SirRaymond

McNair-Wilson, P. (NewF'st)

Grant, Anthony (HarrowC)

Marland, Paul

154

Marten, Neil(Banbury)

Sainsbury, HonTimothy

Mather, Carol

Shaw, Michael(Scarborough)

Mawby, Ray

Shepherd, Colin(Hereford)

Mawhinney, DrBrian

Silvester, Fred

Meyer, SirAnthony

Sims, Roger

Miller, Hal(B'grove)

Skeet, T. H. H.

Mills, Iain(Meriden)

Smith, Dudley

Mills, Peter (West Devon)

Speed, Keith

Moate, Roger

Speller, Tony

Molyneaux, James

Sproat, Ian

Montgomery, Fergus

Squire, Robin

Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

Stevens, Martin

Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

Stewart, Ian(Hitchin)

Murphy, Christopher

Stewart, A.(ERenfrewshire)

Myles, David

Stokes, John

Needham, Richard

StradlingThomas.J.

Nelson, Anthony

Tebbit, Norman

Neubert, Michael

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

Newton, Tony

Thompson, Donald

Onslow, Cranley

Thornton, Malcolm

Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

Townend, John(Bridlington)

Osborn, John

Townsend, Cyril D.(B'heath)

Page, John (Harrow, West)

Trotter, Neville

Patten, Christopher(Bath)

Vaughan, DrGerard

Pattie, Geoffrey

Viggers, Peter

Pawsey, James

Waddington, David

Pollock, Alexander

Wakeham, John

Powell, Rt Hon J.E. (S Down)

Waldegrave,HonWilliam

Prior, RtHon James

Waller, Gary

Proctor, K. Harvey

Ward,John

Pym, Rt Hon Francis

Warren,Kenneth

Rathbone,Tim

Watson,John

Rees-Davies, W. R.

Wells,John(Maidstone)

Renton,Tim

Wheeler,John

RhodesJames, Robert

Whitney,Raymond

Ridley,HonNicholas

Wiggin,Jerry

Rifkind,Malcolm

Williams, D.(Montgomery)

Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)

Wolfson,Mark

Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

Tellers for the Noes:

Rossi, Hugh

Mr. Ian Lang and

Rost, Peter

Mr.RobertAtkins.

Question accordingly negatived.

Orders of the Day
  SUPPLY
  [7th ALLOTTED DAY]—considered

  Poverty
  Mr. Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
  4.2 pm
  Mr. Norman Buchan: I beg to move,
  That this House deplores Her Majesty's Government's policies which are destroying the welfare state, eroding personal freedoms and increasing poverty among the unemployed, the elderly, the sick, the disabled, the working poor and families with young children.
  The motion is at least a damned sight better than the amendment. I have never seen such a wishy-washy amendment from any Government when faced with a major challenge on their policies. It contains at least one wild inaccuracy. The Government claim that their polices are the only ones which will achieve "real economic recovery" while at the same time
  "protecting the most vulnerable groups in society."
  The burden of our charge today will be that the Government are doing precisely the opposite. Indeed, the amendment should read
  "This House acknowledges that at a time of severe economic recession, the policies of her Majesty's Government are putting all the burdens on the backs of the poor.
  The most shameful thing about this period which history will record is precisely that at a time of continuing economic failure, largely as a result of their own policies, at a time when their policies are turning a short-term cyclical recession into a long-term industrial decline, at a time when, largely and specifically as a result of their own dogmas, we have the most appalling unemployment figures that most of us have known in our lifetime, the Government should choose to slash the incomes, curtail the rights and throw the greatest burden upon the backs of the poorest and weakest in our society—the sick, elderly and unemployed.
  And it is even more shameful because it takes place against a background of two Budgets. The first gave 37 per cent. of the tax handouts—about £1½ million—to the richest 7 per cent. of the community. The second Budget gave 14 per cent. of the entire handout to the richest 2 per cent. of the community. As if to add philosophical salt to the wound, all of that has been done in the sacred name of freedom and the concept of rolling back the boundaries of the State. That has come from a Government who possess a Secretary of State for the Environment whose every action is invading and destroying local democracy, forcing policies on rents and rates which the community does not want and imposing sharp incomes policies on our poorest public sector workers.
  Like other hon. Members who took part in Question Time today, I saw the Prime Minister during her television broadcast on Sunday. She was at her most obsessive. There was not a faint glimmer of doubt that she could be wrong. She seemed to regard it as a false kindness to show compassion or to intervene. I understand that her favourite parable is that of the Good Samaritan. I suspect that had
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  she been the Good Samaritan, out of kindness and in the best Friedmanite doctrine she would have allowed the Levite to die and then proceed to cut his death grant.
  All this has been done in the name of freedom. There are no freedoms where there is no choice, and for millions of people in our community there is now no choice. Nor are there freedoms without rights, and the Government are replacing rights with means tests. The right to work has been replaced by the appalling numbers who more and more are going on to supplementary, and, therefore, means-tested, benefits.
  Both the right hon. Lady and the Secretary of State have recently been exalting the principle of charities and of voluntarism in our society. What they do not understand is that the voluntary organisations—and we welcome voluntary work in the community—can work only, and certainly work best, when they recognise that there is a wider family and community. Together they make up the community of the nation which creates the framework in which voluntarism can work best. The wider national framework is necessary.
  That is shown, if it needs to be shown, by the strong opposition to virtually every step which the Government have taken by virtually everybody working in the voluntary sector. These people recognise how their voluntarism can best work even if the Government cannot. Whether in relation to pensioners, the unemployed, children, those concerned with families and, indeed, within the family itself, organisations such as the Child Poverty Action Group or the National Council for One Parent Families have all opposed the Government, and on all the aspects that I mention they are facing difficulties because of Government actions.
  What do the voluntary bodies say about it? I should like to quote what some of them have said. The National Council for One Parent Families says this about a Government who are supposedly devoted to voluntarism:
  "Government policies are devastating and demoralising one parent families. Local authorities need special help to cope with these growing numbers. But cuts in resources means less housing for the homeless, less day care for those in work and worse social services for those in trouble. Our belief that it had a commitment to one parent families is now wearing a bit thin."
  I take another group—the Disability Alliance. More in sorrow than in anger, it says:
  "The Conservatives came to power with an impressive record of promises"—
  indeed they did—
  "to chronically sick and disabled people. People with disabilities were left in no doubt that their needs would be given a special priority by the new administration. These expectations have not been fulfilled. A year after taking office, the Government appears to have forgotten its assurances to people with disabilities."
  The same points were made by Help the Aged:
  "Since the elderly and particularly the frail elderly make the greatest demands on our social services, it is no wonder that they should be among those most affected by the current wave of cuts in central and local government expenditure. There are still too few sheltered housing schemes. Part-three accommodation is extremely expensive and is all too often more of an institution than a home. Now, even those essential services are being cut."
  In that sacred document "The Right Approach"—the Tory Government's textbook—they made a promise under the heading "The welfare of the community". It mentioned social security and said that our first priority must be to look after the retired, the disabled, the sick and the very poor. About that, the Child Poverty Action Group said:
  "Behind all the fine words about 'protecting the needy', the Government has introduced a Budget which singles out social

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  security claimants and families with children to bear the main burden of the sacrifices required by its economic policies, and which through a policy of means-testing divides the poor from the rest of society."
  The former chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission, Mr. David Donnison, said that a new set of priorities was required urgently if the casualties were not to mount still further.
  What was the Secretary of State's view? He said:
  "We believe that it is the duty of the strong to help the weak"—
  Good. He continued:
  "and that is why we seek to help the most vulnerable in our society. These words are not just pious platitudes: look at the record."
  We shall take the right hon. Gentleman at his word and we shall look at the record. Let us go through the list in "The Right Approach". What have the Government done about the retired? They have ended the link with earnings or prices, whichever is the higher. As a result, if pensions had been uprated in line with the earnings index for the year ended November 1980, a pension for a single person would have been £28·10 and for a married couple £44·90. As a result of the Government's action single pensioners lost by 95p a week and married couples lost by £1·45.
  If we were to pursue that to when linkage to earnings started, we should find that married couples would have been £3·50 better off than they are today. That is the measure of the Government's cut. The Government have tried to make a virtue of protecting pensioners from inflation. However, pensioners will never become better off while such arrangements continue. Not only has there been an immediate cut; as a result of the policy no pensioner can become better off. A person's pension is in line with inflation, but it will not improve on the rate of inflation.
  The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Patrick Jenkin): The hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood a very complicated provision in the Social Security Act 1975, as amended. The provision places a floor under the uprating. It is open to any Government—we have repeatedly given this pledge—to ensure that as and when the prosperity of the nation improves pensioners will share in it. [Interruption.] It has happened before and I have little doubt that it will happen again.
  Mr. Buchan: I expected that intervention. I repeat that the policy means that pensioners can never become better off.
  With reference to the Social Security Bill the right hon. Gentleman said:
  "In the Social Security Bill we give the guarantee that pensioners and other long-term beneficiaries will be at the very least protected against rises in prices."
  Note the phrase "at the very least". What has happened? That phrase has now become "at the very best". The Government propose to claw back the 1 per cent. due to old-age pensioners—[Interruption.] Do the Government intend to drop that Bill? The Government propose to claw back the 1 per cent. and they complained about the earlier "over-provision." What a term! The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that they would claw back the 1 per cent. that resulted from the Government's misunderstanding of the inflation rate.
  The Government say that pensioners have been over-provided for. That clawback must not be allowed to happen. I hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer agrees
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  with me. However, we have been promised a squalid little clawback Bill. Nothing quite so mean has yet been proposed by the Government. I almost prefer their major crimes to that little bit of vindictive meanness. I want a guarantee. Will the clawback end there? I understand that in Cabinet it was a close-run thing whether the Prime Minister would be prepared to break that pledge. We are told that it is a very leaky Cabinet. The Prime Minister has told us that it is very leaky. She sacked the most distinguished and stylish of all its members to bear out that the leaks were true. By definition, a leak does not matter if it is untrue. The Prime Minister was on the verge of going back on that pledge. We are entitled to ask about, and have evidence and proof of, the Government's intentions as regards sticking to that mean concept. We could get confirmation of that today.
  The next group that "The Right Approach" claimed to support was the disabled. Earlier this month, my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), who was the former Minister with responsibility for the disabled, tabled a wide-ranging series of questions to find out what new initiatives the Government had in mind to mark the International Year of Disabled People, and at what cost. I have looked through the answers from nearly a score of Ministers. Every one made clear that there would be virtually no new extra expenditure to mark the IYDP.
  We welcome the new Minister for Social Security, the hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi), to the Front Bench. Like me, he is a newcomer and I wish him luck. I hope that he will have something to say on this subject. During Question Time the hon. Gentleman did not give much evidence that he had any intention—[Interruption.] I agree; he was very good. He got away with it. That is the definition of "very good" among Conservative Members. However, not a single pledge was given about further expenditure for the disabled. If that is good, he was very successful. The hon. Gentleman got away with his baptism. He will not get away for long if the Secretary of State does not encourage him to put some money where his mouth is.
  The Government are good about promises. When the Conservative Party was in Opposition its members spent their time attacking every one of our provisions for the disabled as inadequate. No one in this party believes that we have done sufficient for the disabled. However, we would say that we at least made a start. We appointed a Minister and spent over £1,100 million on the chronically sick and disabled. We introduced new types of cash benefits. It is not enough, but it is a start. But every time a new benefit was announced someone denounced it as insufficient and called for more. Who was that? It was the right hon. Gentleman. In the IYDP he has an opportunity to go down in history, yet not one substantial benefit has been proposed to mark the occasion.
  Perhaps alone in the world, Britain has not responded and has not brought forward any provision. The right hon. Gentleman is turning the International Year of Disabled People into a kind of sick joke. It is beginning to fray the nerves of those in voluntary work. In yesterday's edition of The Times an article referred to Colin Low, who is a blind lecturer in law. He was invited to the shindig at No. 10 to mark the glorious year of the disabled. He is president of the National Federation of the Blind. However, he will not go to the reception. He said that the

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  reception at No. 10 Downing Street was an "obscene irrelevance" compared with what has been done for the disabled. Later on, The Times states:
  "Mr. Hugh Rossi who has replaced Reg Prentice as Minister for the Disabled, told Professor Townsend he regretted Mr. Prentice's publicly stated view that disabled people should share cuts in public expenditure."
  I hope that the hon. Gentleman will tell that not only to Professor Townsend but to hon. Members. I hope that he will give us some evidence of his intentions.
  The next on the list is the sick. What have they done to bear out the fine words in "The Right Approach"? The first thing that the Government did was to cut sickness benefit by 5 per cent. below the inflation rate. It was cut by 5 per cent. below the amount that the sick could reasonably have expected. The Government said that they would stick to their pledge of inflation-proofing pensions—although they would cut back any little bits that went over the top—but they have not done that for sickness. That means a real and direct loss, per week, of 85p for a single person and £1·49 for a married couple. That is the first evidence of the Government's attitude towards the sick. The earnings-related supplement has been reduced this month. It is to be abolished next year. The figures for 1978–79, the latest that I have been able to obtain, show that the average man earning £95 could have claimed a supplement of £14·49. The new measures taken by the Government mean that there will be a drop from £14·49 to £11, a loss of about £3·50, in the earnings-related supplement of a newly sick man.
  The Government have changed the rule in relation to this complicated aspect. The new Minister will discover that this is a complex field. It takes a long time to find a way through. I do not wish to spend too long on some of the details. However, the change in the rules about the linking of periods of interruption of employment from 13 weeks to eight weeks has two clear effects. First, it will become more difficult to qualify for the invalidity benefit. Secondly, as the Disability Alliance points out, these changes will create an additional deterrent to work for the chronically sick and disabled. Yet so much is claimed to have been done by the Government in the name of incentives.
  The long-term sick have been struck a double blow. Like pensioners, their benefit is no longer to be related to earnings or prices, whichever is higher. Unbelievably, any increase in the invalidity pension will be 5 per cent. below estimated inflation. The loss for a single person receiving invalidity pension benefit is £1·15 and for a married couple £1·85. For a family, the figure is £3·35. That indicates the extent of the Conservative Party's devotion to family policy.
  Prescription charges are up by 500 per cent. In April 1979 the charge was 20p. It is now £1. The National Health Service was one of the two basic planks of the Welfare State to which all Governments were pledged. The Opposition recognise that all charges are bad. I would deplore it if what has happened were done by a Labour Government. Labour has done nothing to compare with what has happened now. All charges are bad, but these are prohibitive, the basic concept now being introduced for financing the NHS is, on the one hand, charges at this level and, on the other, the introduction, presumably, of one-armed bandits and lotteries. Those most outraged by this
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  development are the very charities and voluntary organisations that the Government say they exist to defend and enhance. The charities and voluntary organisations see their support and income disappearing as a result of this policy. It shows the decline that has occurred since Beveridge and Nye Bevan.
  Community care has commented on the shift to employer liability, euphemistically called "income during initial sickness", which puts the onus on the employer instead of the Government for the first eight weeks of sickness. It says
  "Mrs. Thatcher and her colleagues have developed a remarkable talent for uniting the most motley groupings in opposition to their policies. When else, for example, have the Child Poverty Action Group, employers' associations, civil servants, Help the Aged, the Labour Party"—
  we are in good company—
  "and the British Medical Association, the trades unions and a chunk of the insurance business condemned a policy as to a man?"
  The policy is rejected virtually by every organisation, whether an employers' organisation or a supportive voluntary organisation. The Engineering Employers' Federation says:
  The EEF whose members employ some 2 million people will lead a major attack on the Government's proposals for payment of sick pay by employers when Parliament reassembles."
  I welcome allies from any direction, We have to ask whether the Government, in the face of such opposition, intend to go ahead with the proposals. We saw some sign, under pressure, of a watering down of the proposals in December. Why cannot the Government go the whole way and withdraw them? Among those affected will be the small business man, the apple of the Tories' eye. What a disincentive this gives the small business man to employ more labour.
  I have left the unemployed until last, for the simple reason that they did not appear in the list in "The Right Approach". It did not talk of the unemployed among those to be looked after. There are 2½ million people—one in 10—out of a job. I have a hunch that the Government think that this is the fault of the unemployed themselves. They talk as though that were the case. The Prime Minister thinks that if people get the sack they should go and look for work. The Prime Minister's message for the unemployed is "Have sack, will travel". We see the effects of the Government's attitude on the morale of the unemployed. One of the unemployed, quoted in a recent publication, said:
  "The public have a tendency to blame us for being unemployed … they think that we are lazy… I used to have the same view when I was employed… they should have a taste of it themselves".
  A man made unemployed at Consett said:
  "I have looked for jobs almost every day since I was made redundant, but I do not have much of a chance. I suppose if I am honest I sometimes think I'll not work again. And I am 46."
  This shows the attitudes of despair that the Government have inculcated with their short, sharp, brutish campaign against so-called scroungers.
  The Government do not like the unemployed—certainly not in practice. Unemployment benefit has gone up by 5 per cent. less than the rate of inflation. Earnings-related supplement has been reduced this month and will be abolished next year. That supplement, it should be remembered, is about £8.80 a week on average. The long-term supplementary benefit will be available to all after one year—we can say in mitigation that the Opposition

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  welcome this—except for the unemployed. Why are they singled out? This will make a difference to them of £8.85 in the case of a married couple.
  The Government, faced by mounting unemployment, must reconsider their decision to exclude the long-term unemployed from eligibility for the enhanced long-term rate of supplementary benefit. Even worse, more than half the unemployed do not even receive unemployment benefit. There are 780,000 on unemployment benefit only, 160,000 on unemployment benefit plus supplementary benefit, and over 600,000 on supplementary benefit only. And others get nothing. These figures are increasing as the number of long-term unemployed approaches the 500,000 mark. The associated poverty increases with the cutting of the unemployment benefit as more are pushed on to supplementary benefit. The Government's estimate last year was that another 110,000 would be put on supplementary benefit. Why have the unemployed been made to suffer this shabby treatment? Is it the cost? Or is it the obsession with the "Why work"? and the scroungers syndrome?
  The Supplementary Benefits Commission, in its annual report, said:
  "Incentives to work can only be effective if there are opportunities to work. To increase incentives while unemployment accelerates upwards is like trying to encourage somebody to jump into a swimming pool while the water is being drained out."
  Those who suffer most from Government policy are those like the unemployed, who are having to bear the brunt of such policies.
  I come now to the bull point—families. The Prime Minister has said "We are the party of the family." In a speech to the WRVS, she declared
  "Not only is the family the most important means through which we show our care for others, it is the place where each generation learns its responsibilities towards the rest of society".
  The crucial factor is child benefit. Child benefit shows a miserable increase below the galloping inflation that we face. It is only up 75p from last year—a loss in real terms of nearly 50p a child a week. The benefit should be at least £5…20. Most people in the child benefit sphere would recognise that even this amount is inadequate. I wish that the Government would put the money where its family mouth is and restore what has been lost by the cut.
  We are told that those suffering poverty as a result of these policies are not finding the same treatment in the offices. More people are being turned down for lump sum grants or section 30 miscellaneous discretionary payments. The Child Poverty Action Group reports a big drop in the number of claimants asking for these grants for clothes and shoes because they appear to be told flatly that the law says "No", again they say, without any attempt properly to assess whether or not a discretionary payment should be made. They are finding case after case where people on other benefits living just above the supplementary benefit level are clearly being hurt where the new rule disqualifies them from lump sum payments. These reports are very disturbing and I am getting them from many hon. Members. I hope that the Minister will make a report shortly on the operation of this new scheme.
  We are concerned also about the inadequacy of the scale rates. There is a whole list of things that require to be financed out of the scale rates—food, household fuel, the purchase, cleaning, repair and replacement of clothing and footwear, travel costs, weekly laundry costs, miscellaneous household expenses, and so on. All these
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  have to be covered by the new scale rates that have been introduced. We have sought to have these costed, but how much money is coming for this enormous list of needs? My hon. friend the Member for Battersea, South (Mr. Dubs) asked the Secretary of State for Social Services
  "what costings his Department has made of the items listed in paragraph 4(1) of the Supplementary Benefits (Requirements) Regulations 1980."
  The new Minister of State replied:
  "None. Successive Governments have considered it right that beneficiaries should have the freedom to decide for themselves how to allocate the resources on those items,".—[Official Report, 23 January 1981; Vol. 997, c. 252.]
  Freedom to decide whether to apply for a pair of shoes or a blanket—what kind of freedom is this? We have to get the costings, otherwise we do not know if they are adequate. What a picture of Tory freedom that gives. The level of these benefits should be such that the beneficiaries could have an income which enables them fully to participate in the life of the community. All of us accept that, I should have thought. I wish they would give us the costings to ensure that it happens. Someone asked me "Could you live on it?" I am pretty sure that the poor cannot and I think that the family service unit, for example, can give example after example of how the poor are unable to live on the new kind of views that are coming through as a result of these policies.
  The fate of the low-paid is little better. In the first place, family income supplement applies to only about 90,000 families. Incidentally, the Government have still not removed the discrimination against women. A woman who is the earner in a FIS-supported family does not and will not benefit until November 1983, when the Government will be forced to pay this by Common Market regulations. I never thought that the Common Market regulations were necessary to develop a sense of compassion in any British Government. Apparently that is the case with this Government. They are leaving it right to the last syllable of recorded time before they bring it in.
  The combination of family income supplement and the tax proposals have deepened, sharpened and widened the poverty trap. For example, it means that a couple with two children on £55 a week would need to get a wage increase of over £20 per week in order to make them better off. A couple with four children earning £55 per week would need to get a wage increase of about £30 to £40 a week in order to escape from the vicious poverty trap. It is Government tax policy along with the benefits policy which has created this.
  It does not need me to say this. We have a better witness here. "One is bound to ask, what can be more absurd? What can one think of a tax system under which someone who is so poor that he is entitled to draw a means-tested benefit finds himself paying tax to contribute towards the cost of it?" The right hon. Gentleman himself said that. His Government have made it worse. We hope to hear him say something about that today.
  The truth is that the Government have created a kind of caste in our society in which the people in it have no means of gaining either independence or freedom, or a sense of respect because they feel trapped perpetually in a new permanently means-tested life in which virtually no action they can take can improve their condition. That is what poverty is about, and that is what freedom is about.
  Mr. Ralph Howell: How can the hon. Gentleman make such cheap points when his Government were operating the same FIS system and even higher rates of income tax than this Government?
  Mr. Buchan: What this Government did was to introduce a Budget which among other things gave a hefty dollop to the rich at the top and abolished the lower income tax level at the bottom. If the Government want to find an answer to that charge that is one means of doing it. Secondly, they can do it by pushing up the threshold at which tax starts to be paid. This is the absurdity which the right hon. Gentleman talked about and which they have shied away from. The poor are getting poorer as well as there being more of them.
  Unemployment and sickness benefit levels are now at their lowest in real terms since 1971. The benefit income when sick or unemployed for a married couple with two children was down from 67 per cent. in 1977 to 57 per cent. in 1980 as compared with average male earnings, and similarly with the retirement pension. Again, it is lower.
  If the poor are getting poorer, it is also true that the poor pay more, because the necessities of life weigh much more heavily on a poor person's income. Electricity prices have gone up through Government action. Gas prices have gone up through Government action. Yet the Government have abolished the electricity discount scheme. That gave help to about 4 million poor consumers. That has been abolished and replaced by the narrow, small means-tested scheme for 350,000 people. We see the result. Every hon. Member who has constituents coming to his surgery sees the result in increasing disconnections and now by the new development of the installation of load limiters. We want to get something done about that.
  Incidentally, my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Cartwright) is bringing in a Bill on this subject. Now is the opportunity for the Government to show their evidence of intention by supporting that Bill.
  There is one point on which I should like to get a reply. In Northern Ireland fuel costs are on average 50 per cent. higher than in the rest of the United Kingdom. This was understood, and a special allowance was made for it. That allowance has been abolished. It means about an extra charge of £2·50 per family in Northern Ireland. What a piece of meanness it is to apply that to that country of all countries with its present level of unemployment.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: The hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware that gas prices in Northern Ireland are three times what they are in the rest of the United Kingdom.
  Mr. Buchan: As I said, I was averaging the figure, and the total fuel costs are about 50 per cent. higher than in the rest of the United Kingdom. But I am grateful for the intervention.
  All this has been in the name of rolling back the boundaries of the State. We have a Government who have increased poverty among council tenants and slashed the freedom of local authorities at a stroke on rent and rates. If there is one clear way of alleviating the worst of this new kind of poverty, it must be through an increase in child benefits.
  I turn to the man who gave the intellectual impetus to this new brutalism of the modern Tory Party—the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat). If hon. Members
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  remember, it was his campaign against scroungers that gave the Tories the basis for much of their election campaign and gave them the push within the country to dare to get away with the policies that they have. What does this intellectual from the North tell us about child benefits? This is what the hon. Member said in an article about two weeks ago in the Glasgow Herald. I may say that he shares this column with me; there are four of us who do this column every month, so there is always one good column in the month. I regret to say that I cannot read my own to the House. The hon. Gentleman says this:
  "Why doesn't the Government abolish child benefits?"
  There is a good question.
  "It would save about £3,000 million a year. To put it in perspective, that is about the same as we got from North Sea oil last year. This should make a lot of people think. Money from North Sea oil is supposed to be a magic part our national salvation. Yet here we are, chucking almost the same amount away on child benefits …
  Furthermore, why should the taxpayer fork out money to people just because they have children? I reckon that it's up to parents to work out how many children they want and can afford.
  Just think what we could do with that £3,000 million. We could greatly cut income tax, without increasing inflation … In that way, we could encourage people to work hard instead of just encouraging them to have children."
  This is the man who laid the intellectual basis for this Government's policy. We would like to get an answer.
  Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones: Intellectual by the hon. Gentleman's standards.
  Mr. J. W. Rooker: Does the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) agree with it?
  Mr. Garel-Jones: Of course not.
  Mr. Buchan: The Government, having won an election on the promise of tax cuts—by God, we have seen the result of that—having won a campaign by arousing some of the worst attitudes among some of our people in relation to scroungers, have felt that they now have to fulfil those promises, and we have had the launching of this great new fraud campaign.
  The Under-Secretary of State—the hon. Member for Wallasey (Mrs. Chalker)—said:
  "If some people are able, through fraud and fiddling, to get money to which they are not entitled, it means there is less for those whose need is genuine".
  We say "Amen" to that. Certainly some people are capable of fraud and fiddling. We have had some good examples of fiddling, including the Vesteys. But the only Vesteys that the Government are concerned about are the street-corner Vesteys. That is the sort of fiddling that they are concerned about. We do not approve of scroungers at either end of the spectrum.
  On 13 February the previous Minister of State—the right hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Prentice)— announced the appointment of 1,050 additional staff to work on fraud and abuse. The aim was to save £50 million a year. How are they getting on? Have they reached the £50 million, or is it their failure to reach it that gives rise to the new guidelines for fraud inspectors? Is it tougher than they thought? How will they interpret the latest instructions to staff?
  We have seen leaked in New Society and other newspapers something of the horrors of the new fraud guidelines that have been issued in order to try to implement the new campaign. I have asked that they be

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  published. Only today I received a reply from the Secretary of State. I have not had time to digest it fully, but it is clear that the right hon. Gentleman is refusing to publish the guidelines. I wonder why. Nevertheless, for the sake of greater accuracy I thought that it would be wise to have a copy with me.
  Mr. Patrick Jenkin: Before the hon. Gentleman reads the document to the House will he make it clear that in my letter to him I made it clear that the system that he is about to describe is that operated by his predecessors for many years in Manchester? It was found to work and is now being extended to other parts of the country.
  Mr. Buchan: No, I am dealing with the June 1980 amendments to the fraud investors' guide. The right hon. Gentleman must not mislead the House.
  Mr. Rooker: That is twice today.
  Mr. Buchan: There are some interesting bits of reading in the document. One struck me especially. An indication is given of cases in which staff should not proceed to prosecution, and it is suggested that there should not be prosecution if
  "The offender is of such low mentality that the court might be more sympathetic towards him than towards the Department".
  That is not suggesting that staff should refuse to proceed to prosecution because the person concerned is of low mentality and should be in care. It is not suggesting a sympathetic approach to that person. It merely suggests that there should be no prosecution, because the court might take a more sympathetic view towards him than would the Department. In other words, a British court of justice would be more sympathetic than the DHSS. That is a terrifying concept.
  The Department's attitude denies a great deal of natural justice and extends and presses even more the question of humiliating investigations. And all in the name of cost-effectiveness. It is not the seriousness of the suspected offence but the cost-effectiveness that will be derived if it is prosecuted that is taken into account. We on the Opposition Benches believe injustice as well as equality.
  Even worse are some of the internal documents. Those who are most horrified by the proposals are the social security officers themselves. The union involved is also upset, because it finds the process distasteful. I have seen some internal documents. We are told that pressure is applied to persuade people to drop their claims. A man meeting officials in those circumstances would not find it difficult to experience the sort of guilt that the Government have inculcated with their talk of scroungers, and might drop his claim under such investigation. I have also seen, from an unnamed area, other sorts of pressure. I have a document announcing good news and bad news. It states:
  "I was pleased to announce our success in the level of savings we have achieved since the beginning of the year."
  It goes on to say that the news for November last year was not so good:
  "Our results for that period indicate that we only just achieved our target".
  They have targets for savings on fraud! It is like telling a police station that it should have a target for the number of prosecutions that it brings. There is no requirement of justice involved. The document continues:
  "results fluctuate from month to month and the most recent result is not typical. I would like …to reinforce what I said … that we cannot rest on our laurels".
  What sort of pressure is that to bring on the fraud special investigators who are trying to establish justice? It is a
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  terrible document. The Government's new guidelines should be withdrawn, and I should like a public pledge from the Secretary of State today that he will withdraw them. If he will not, they should be published, so that all involved can examine them.
  Mr. Allan Roberts: Will my hon. Friend also ask the Secretary of State why, if the guidelines are not new, members of the DHSS staff and union officials have been to see me on a number of occasions at my advice bureaux complaining about what management is requiring them to do? They tell me that they are being required to bully people out of benefits to which they are entitled.
  Will the Secretary of State also explain why the long-term unemployed in Merseyside are being deprived of benefits because they are accused of not being enthusiastic enough about looking for work? It is not that they are turning down jobs; they are told that they are not enthusiastic enough in looking for work. That is a new concept and, given the unemployment that the Government have created in Merseyside, it is an insult.
  Mr. Buchan: That intervention is typical of many things that I have been told privately by hon. Members. We hope that we will get an answer from the Secretary of State, but the best answer would be for him to repudiate the document.
  There are other scroungers. The Vesteys were mentioned, and they are good examples. Let us also consider the position of those working under wages councils. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) asked about the number of firms not paying the full amount established by law through wages councils and he was told:
  "Underpayment of wages including holiday pay, was found at 10,969 establishments during 1979".—[Official Report, 12 January 1980; Vol. 996, c. 511.]
  That is a lot of scroungers and a lot of money, but there is no special fraud squad to investigate those firms. The Wages Inspectorate still employs 270 civil servants, compared with the thousands pursuing—and we know the disgraceful ways in which they sometimes have to do their work—social security frauds.
  Let us consider taxation. The Inland Revenue officers tell us:
  "vast sums in excess of £3,000 million are not being collected".
  There is a source of scrounging, fiddling and fraud—£3,000 million; not the £50 million with which the Government are obsessed. They are more concerned with the street-corner Vesteys than with the real Vesteys, and the millions of pounds that we lose because of them.
  Another matter that should be considered is the take-up of benefits. I wish that the Government spent as much energy on ensuring that people take up their benefits as they do in pursuing fraud. We were told today that unclaimed supplementary benefits total £400 million. Among the poorest of all, the single-parent families, there is a take-up of only 60 per cent. of benefits. Why do not the Government devote even a modicum of the energy used on fraud investigations to encourage the take-up of necessary benefits to which people are entitled as of right? That would serve the cause of justice and freedom better than does the Government's new tawdry document.
  We have seen how the Government responded to the Strathclyde regional council, which attempted to encourage the take-up of benefits. The Government should

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  have been the first to support it, but they attacked the council's efforts as being a political gimmick. The Undersecretary said:
  "I objected to this crude exercise".
  In fact, it was merely an exercise to allow people to obtain their rights.
  The right hon. Gentleman said that:
  "Right at the heart of our Tory philosophy lies the principle of 'One Nation'."
  He went on to say that when Disraeli spoke about one nation he meant not some of the people but all of the people. He then said:
  "that is the ideal which has inspired the approach of successive Conservative Governments from his time forward. It is certainly the ideal which inspires the present Government under Margaret Thatcher."
  However, the truth is, as the right hon. Gentleman said, that:
  "If general living standards are rising, presumably society can afford to be more generous to the poor."
  Two things are wrong with that statement. One is the curious concept of the poor not being part of society and the second is the concept that we can do our duties by the poor only during a period of growth and increasing public expenditure. We reject both propositions. The poor are a part of our society. We shall not stand aside and see them made a separate caste in this way. They have rights, as everyone else does, and we are here to defend them. There is no freedom when that sort of concept develops. The safety net concept of this Government is now sagging so much that people who fall from the trapeze will probably fall on to the floor.
  The debate on the Loyal Address two years ago was marked by an interesting speech by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), in which he quoted Professor Tawney, who said:
  "It is assumed by the privileged classes that when the State holds its hand what remains as a result of its inaction is liberty. In reality, what remains for the mass of mankind is tyranny".
  The right hon. Member then added:
  "—the tyranny of private wealth and private power, but tyranny nevertheless."—[Official Report, 16 May 1979; Vol. 967, c.228.]
  In December, the hon. Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) said:
  "The truth is that it is not greater equality that will end poverty."
  He said that only growth will end poverty. He then went on to attack Peter Townsend. He said:
  "The Townsend approach, so beloved of the left, simply feeds the politics of envy—which has done more to sour human relations than almost any other single influence."
  I compare that with his written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who asked for the introduction of a comprehensive disability income. He said that:
  "there is no prospect of any new benefits until the economy has improved. It would, therefore, be premature to produced plans for improvements in this area."—[Official Report, 12 January 1981; Vol.996, c. 489.]
  Therefore, it is no good the disabled being envious. They will not benefit much from their envy, even in this International Year of Disabled People.
  Taking the Government's Budgets over the last two years and the social policies which they have developed, they have smashed the consensus that started from Beveridge with the Welfare State—the consensus of
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  security against want without a means test. Alongside the bucket-shop economics that they have been introducing they have been bringing back the ethics of the workhouse.
  David Donnison, the previous chairman of the Supplementary Benefits Commission, writing in New Society, two weeks ago, said:
  "The older paternalistic brand of Toryism seemed to have died. After May 1979, as social security minister, Reg Prentice made the new philosophy brutally clear; 'If you believe economic salvation can only be achieved by rewarding success and the national income is not increasing, then you have no alternative but to make the unsuccessful poorer.'"
  The Government's policies have been mean, petty, squalid and meretricious.
  The Industrial Law Journal said it better than any of us in the issue of December 1980:
  "For many people, lawyers and non-lawyers, the most startling feature of the legislation under discussion"—
  —the two social security Bills
  "is that at a time of acute unemployment, a phenomenon now recognised to be caused principally by external economic factors rather than individual weakness, the Government has decided to reduce levels of benefit and thus the standard of living of the poor."
  The life of this Government has been nasty and brutish. It is our job also to make it as short as possible. When we come back into power, I give the pledge that no matter what difficulties we face—there will be plenty of difficulties when we take over—and left with the mess of the Conservative Party, our solutions will not be at the expense of the poor. When we are asked if we are our brother's keeper we shall reply, with Robert Blatchford, with a resounding "Yes". That is the message which I give to the right hon. Gentleman.
  4.56 pm
  The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Patrick Jenkin): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "this House acknowledges that at a time of severe economic recession, the policies of Her Majesty's Government offer the only effective way to real economic recovery, the creation of lasting jobs and a decent standard of living for all the people of this country while at the same time protecting the most vulnerable groups in society.".
  I congratulate the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) on his first appearance on the Opposition Front Bench in a major debate on social services. If the length of his speech is any guide, he should earn a place by right in the Shadow Cabinet. It is difficult to know what importance the Opposition attach to social security. When the Leader of the Opposition appointed his Shadow Cabinet it seemed curious that social security, which is by far the highest spending programme, should not have entitled the hon. Member to a place in that body.
  One quality shone through the hon. Gentleman's speech. It was the insistence, in virtually every sentence that he uttered, on more public spending, without giving the slightest indication of where that money would come from.
  I shall turn now to the case that the hon. Gentleman made. I hope that he will excuse me if I set it out simply, but, I hope, fairly, in my own words, without the accompanying hyperbole to which he treated the House.
  The Government are accused of rejecting the post-war consensus on social welfare. What is more, the Opposition's argument continues, the Government's monetarist policies—which the Labour Party denounces

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  the more enthusiastically now that the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) is no longer Shadow Chancellor—have led to an increase in unemployment. They go on to say that only the election of a Labour Government—with or without the support of the Gang of 13, or however many it was at the last count—can save our social services by returning to first principles on redistribution and the pursuit of equality. They argue that only by adopting Socialist economic policies, whatever they may be, will we get out of the rut of the mixed economy and create more resources and more jobs.
  I should like to deal with each of those propositions in turn and at the end of my speech to say a few words about the future of the Welfare State.
  The world did not begin in May 1979, nor did Britain's problems. We inherited an economy in steep decline, no longer able to sustain the standards of welfare provision enjoyed in other countries—countries which had in earlier decades lagged behind us.
  I do not blame the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West or my predecessor, the right hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals), for that. The fault lies in our economic performance over the past two decades or more—years of low growth, rising inflation, crawling productivity and lost markets.
  Mr. David Ennals Mr. David Ennals (Norwich, North) rose—
  Mr. Jenkin: I was forgiving the right hon. Gentleman—I was not blaming him. I shall not give way at the moment.
  We also inherited from the previous Administration public expenditure plans which bore not the remotest relation to reality. We would have needed a miracle of Old Testament qualities in our economy to pay for them. To have gone ahead with those programmes as we inherited them would have meant higher inflation, higher taxes, higher borrowing and a swift return of the men from the IMF. It was inevitable, therefore, that we should review those spending plans. Since social security accounts for about a quarter of all public expenditure and is the largest sector of spending—£20,000 million a year—it was equally inevitable that some of the savings would have to come from that programme.
  The hon. Gentleman dwelt on the savings with a loving dissection. I wish to put them into perspective before I remind the House of the priorities that we have set ourselves within the financial constraints—constraints, moreover, by which any Government in our position would have been bound.
  First, other countries with far better economic records than ours have had to take similar measures in the face of the world recession. I shall mention only a few. Germany and the Netherlands have trimmed their uprating provisions. Denmark has done the same, and has also had to cut back on family allowances. Canada has reduced the level of income replacement for illness, injury and pregnancy. The Norwegians are studying our experience to help them in their review of social security. The story could be repeated for country after country. Are we really to believe that the Labour Party has discovered a secret formula that will protect us from the economic conditions affecting all our friends and competitors?
  Sir Frederick Burden: What about Afghanistan?
  Mr. Jenkin: My hon. Friend appears to be suggesting that Afghanistan may give us the answer.
  The motion talks of destroying the Welfare State, which is absurd. By itself, the 1980 uprating of benefits added about 10 times as much to the cost of the social security budget as last year's cuts took away from it. That point seems to have escaped the Labour Party. In a full year, the uprating added over £3,000 million to our budget. The savings amount to about £270 million in benefits in 1981–82, rising to about £480 million in 1982–83. I do not pretend that those savings are negligible, but they mean that around 98 per cent. of the social security budget remains intact.
  The social security budget has grown in real terms by £7,000 million over the past 10 years. The cost now amounts to about £1,000 for each household in the land. Even after our savings the total social security programme will still be rising in 1981–82 in real terms. With those figures in mind, I find it astonishing that any responsible party can put its name to a motion that talks about destroying the Welfare State.
  Any Government in our position would have had to cut spending, unless we were simply to slash capital investment, which was what the Labour Government did, with all the consequent damage to the private sector and to the long-term strength of the economy. We had to tackle revenue spending. Given the huge growth of the social services budget over the past decade, to have exempted it from making any contribution to retrenchment would have imposed disproportionate cuts elsewhere. No Minister in my Department relishes having to tell the elderly and others in need of help and support that we cannot afford to do as much for them as they had hoped or as we would have wished. It is a measure of the Government's resolution to tackle our problems that we have been prepared to take the decisions and to argue them out in the House and in the country.
  Of course we should like to have more resources to help all the disadvantaged groups in our society, but until the economy is restored to health and we are creating the wealth we cannot spend it. What we must do, and are doing, is to ensure that those in the greatest need are helped and protected as far as we are able. Let me therefore spell out as clearly as I can the five priorities that we have held before us in tackling poverty and preserving the fabric of our welfare services.
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: The right hon. Gentleman is asking the poor and disabled to make sacrifices. What sacrifices are he and others on similar incomes making to get our economy right?
  Mr. Jenkin: As the hon. Gentleman knows well, those are matters on which Parliament has voted. I was not aware that the hon. Gentleman had voted against them.
  First, as we promised, we have maintained the value of pensions in line with prices. In cash terms, the pension for married couples is now nearly 40 per cent. higher than it was when we took office. Most benefits for the disabled have been fully protected against inflation. Mobility allowance has been increased ahead of inflation, and we have brought 30,000 of the older disabled into the mobility allowance earlier than was orignally planned. We have fully price-protected the safety net—the supplementary allowance level below which none shall fall.
  Secondly, we have gone further than our manifesto pledge to the 900,000 one-parent families in the country.

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  It is estimated that the number of one- parent families has increased in the past decade so that today about one in every eight families with children depends on a single parent. It is recognised on both sides that single-parent families face severe problems. That is why we have increased their special addition to child benefit—now to be renamed "one-parent benefit"—by 50 per cent. and extended entitlement to cover those relatives who, although not parents, are bringing up a child on their own.
  For needy families in work we have doubled the family income supplement, with the result that about 11,000 more families are now entitled to it. The hon. Gentleman got the question of equal treatment wrong. I can well understand that. These are complicated matters, and I certainly do not hold it against him. We are not obliged by any European directive to extend the supplement to women, which was the point about which he was complaining. We have chosen to do so. The change will come into effect in 1983 at the same time as the changes to supplementary benefit, which we are obliged to undertake under a European directive. We are going further than the Community requires. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will now rise to give us credit for that.
  Mr. Buchan: I rise to express my perplexity. Every time that the right hon. Gentleman mentions the family income supplement he states that it must be dealt with in relation to the other benefits. No one can tell me why, least of all his Department. It is nonsense. There is no reason why it cannot be brought in now. If it had been linked to a Common Market timetable we might have excused the Government for shoving it to one side. But as the right hon. Gentleman says that it is not there is no reason why the measure should not be brought in now.
  Mr. Jenkin: The hon. Gentleman's insatiability for doing everything now would be more impressive had the Labour Government done a little more.
  Since November we have received about 18,000 more claims for FIS than in the same period last year. The average number of new claims per week is running at about 5,250, which is roughly double the normal intake. Bearing in mind that, by definition, FIS goes to low-income families whose breadwinner is in work, that is some indication that our recent publicity efforts are paying off. FIS is an essential part of the safety net for families. We believe that it is of the highest importance that all who can claim should do so.
  Still dealing with families, in the reformed supplementary benefit scheme, about which I shall have more to say in a moment, new help is being directed to families with children. Moreover, the new tapered disregard for the earnings of one-parent families will help many more single parents to take part-time work. Those are small but important improvements for hard-pressed sectors of our society.
  I know that there is concern in all parts of the House, not least among a number of my hon. Friends, about the future of child benefit. When we increased the benefit last year we undertook, subject—as such a commitment must always be—to economic and other circumstances, to uprate it each year to maintain its real value. With the Budget only a few weeks away, I cannot go further this afternoon. It is important—and we gave some indication of this when in Opposition—that child benefit should be
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  looked at at the same time as the tax allowances are looked at in the Budget. It is not only the Chancellor who has to go into purdah at this time of year. We want to know the views of hon. Members. If the past is any guide, I know that a number of my hon. Friends will not be bashful in making their views known.
  Thirdly, the steep rise in world energy prices, from which we cannot isolate ourselves, has posed acute problems for needy pensioners, the disabled and families on low incomes. So, last November, we introduced our £100 million package of help, bringing total spending on fuel help to £200 million. That was substantially higher than anything done by the Labour Government. Most of that help is rightly concentrated on the poorest of all—those who depend on supplementary benefit and family income supplement. More than 2 million people, 1½ million of them pensioners, are receiving worthwhile extra help thanks to our scheme. I stress "worthwhile" because the help given under this scheme is infinitely more worth while than the ill-fated electricity discount scheme, which spread small sums very widely. Last year we raised the supplementary benefit heating addition by more than the rise in fuel prices. We shall announce the next increase at the time of the Budget.
  Mr. Reg Race: The new regulations introduced by the Government set out several criteria for giving exceptional needs payments to families having difficulty in paying their fuel bills. Will the Secretary of State explain how, under that system, someone who falls within all the criteria can still be disregarded and refused an exceptional needs payment?
  Mr. Jenkin: The short answer to that is "Not without notice". If the hon. Gentleman lets me have the details of the case that he has in mind I shall ensure that it is investigated.
  There is the question of making the best use of available resources. I believe that the whole country is behind the Government in their firm tackling of social security fraud and abuse. The right hon. Member for Norwich, North will know that we are building on what we recognise as the sound foundations laid by our predecessors. We are massively increasing the amount of benefit that we are saving as a result of the discovery of fraud. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman even bothered to try to persuade his colleagues to allow him to employ additional fraud investigators in his Department, where savings would substantially outweigh the cost of additional employment. When we employed additional people, I was told that it was the first time that any Government had made the sensible decision to trade off savings on benefit against the far smaller cost of employing additional people.
  Mr. Ennals: The Secretary of State must realise that he is talking nonsense. It is true that the Government have a dual responsibility, to ensure that people who are entitled to benefits know of the benefits and receive them, and that those who receive benefits to which they are not entitled should be discouraged and prevented from doing so and, if necessary, prosecuted, and when I was Secretary of State that action was taken successfully. The right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have so accelerated the anti-fraud campaign as to deter many people from claiming the benefits to which they are entitled.
  Mr. Jenkin: I am not surprised that, faced with my earlier remarks, the right hon. Gentleman changed the subject. He was not able to persuade his colleagues to allow him to employ additional people. He had to take people away from other work, such as visiting, in order to have more fraud investigators. The House is entitled to know how the programme is progressing. I hope to make a statement about the results of the current campaign early in the next financial year.
  Going beyond the social security budget, but still relevant to the needy, our final priority has been to protect the NHS and to ask local government to do the same for its most vulnerable groups. Spending on the NHS continues to rise in line with our predecessors' plans. It is right to remind the Opposition that, on current forecasts, spending on the personal social services in the five years from 1979 to 1980 will be higher in real terms than in the five years of Labour Government.
  In the face of those facts—and they are facts—anyone who argues that we are destroying the welfare services of Britain is simply deceiving the people. My defence of our policies does not stop there. We have never regarded it as enough simply to batten down the hatches and maintain the existing system. As everyone knows, it is complicated. There are substantial overlaps with private provision, and the sheer cost of running the system, in terms of both manpower and money, is huge. We have therefore embarked upon a series of reforms that will simplify the system, cut out wasteful duplication, bring the short-term benefits within the tax system—to which the Opposition agreed in principle—and modernise the administration of the service.
  The hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West had a certain amount to say about the new supplementary benefit scheme. It is early days yet, but all the indications are that the reforms have got off to a good start almost everywhere. Considerable credit is due to the staff and managers in my Department, whose efforts during the months that preceded the changeover deserve the thanks of the House. Nevertheless, we are not complacent. We are commissioning a number of independent research studies into different aspects of the new scheme. We are collecting statistics about certain aspects of the scheme, and we are undertaking special inquiries into the more sensitive areas.
  One change has been widely welcomed, namely, that we have put claimants' rights on a legal footing and taken steps to ensure that they are aware of their rights.
  Mr. Andrew F. Bennett Mr. Andrew F. Bennett rose—
  Mr. Jenkin: If the hon. Gentleman will contain himself, I may have some good news—even for him. The rules are set out in regulations. The adjudication system has been remodelled on the lines of that tried and tested over many years for national insurance benefits. We have expanded the supplementary benefits handbook, which explains the rules of the scheme in layman's language. The handbook was praised by speakers on both sides of the House in an earlier debate. We are issuing written notices of assessment. It is astonishing that this has not happened before. Accompanying them will be an explanatory leaflet to all new claimants, and to other claimants where there is a major change. As hon. Members will be aware, further information has been made available by the chief supplementary benefit officer's decision to publish his
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  guidance bearing on claimants' entitlement. All that represents a considerable improvement on what happened previously.
  I can now announce a further step in our campaign for open government in relation to supplementary benefit—
  Sir Frederick Burden: We must accept that my right hon. Friend's advice to Members to approach heads of local DHSS offices direct about subjects of great concern to constituents has been most helpful and has cleared the approaches for constituents. A great deal of credit for that should go to the managers of local DHSS offices.
  Mr. Jenkin: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for his remarks. One of the unexpected but welcome by-products of the letter that I sent to every right hon. and hon. Member has been the number of letters that I have received from all parts of the House telling us about the splendid service from local offices. Those remarks have been passed on to the offices concerned and have been very much appreciated.
  I want to announce a further step in our policy for open government in relation to supplementary benefit. We shall make publicly available the instructions to supplementary benefit staff—the so-called "S" manual. That manual replaces the "A" code under the old scheme. The fact that the old "A" code was never published led for many years to suspicion that somehow the scheme was being operated on secret instructions. The manual has, of course, to be overhauled to incorporate the new guidance now being issued by the chief supplementary benefit officer. We are working towards a manual that will contain all the information issued to local offices, bearing on entitlement to supplementary benefit. That revised manual will be made public. The revision will, of course, take some time, but it should be available around the end of the year. The important thing is that what I am announcing today is a firm decision in principle to publish. We shall work towards it as rapidly as we can. I hope that it will be welcomed by the many organisations concerned with claimants' rights.
  Much of the case made by the hon. Gentleman turned on the rising unemployment, which, without doubt, is causing a great deal of hardship and distress in the land. I expect that the House will wish to debate this matter fully on Thursday in the debate on the economy, so I shall be brief about it now.
  The hon. Gentleman is himself no stranger to arguments about unemployment. Indeed, one of the factors which he and I recognised when he was on the Government side, as we are now, and which, I think, establishes common ground between us, is one that I shall put to him now. Quite apart from the effects of the recession, and quite apart from the effects of technological change and of rising competition, we are having to cope also with an increase in the labour supply. There have been more young people and more married women coming onto the job market, which has been pretty static for several years as our economy has ground along in bottom gear.
  Perhaps I may now quote something that was written in 1978:
  "The 1,500,000 unemployed is therefore entirely due to an expansion of the work force in Britain. And over the next decade an additional 1,500,000 more will be in the labour force. That leaves, even with improved growth, a possible 3,000,000 by the end of the 1980s. To try to blame this"—
  the article went on—

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  "on the mishandling by any Goverment—Tory or Labour—does not get us very far."
  I am sure that the hon. Gentleman recognises that, because he wrote it himself, in the Glasgow Herald. I have it here if he is in any doubt about it. It appeared under the heading "Danger of Package Politics", with a splendid picture of the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West. I repeat the closing words:
  "to try to blame this on the mishandling by any Government—Tory or Labour—does not get us very far."
  I suggest that it has not got us very far this afternoon, either.
  Mr. Buchan: The Secretary of State has not read the entire article, which explained exactly what was happening in new technologies, and so forth, and this makes even more serious the fact that the Government do not recognise—[HON. MEMBERS: "Wriggling."] No, I am not wriggling. I suggest that the Secretary of State should read the entire article. What I was saying there—the Government should take it on board—is that there are deep-seated reasons, including major technological reasons, why fewer and fewer people are needed to produce the same volume of goods.
  Therefore, if we are to recognise that and act accordingly, measures must be taken to ensure that it does not create a body of people at work and a body of people unemployed. Secondly, it makes it all the more necessary to take action in a developing situation such as this to ensure that our unemployed are treated as having rights, instead of being put on a means-tested basis. I wish that the Secretary of State would read the article.
  Mr. Jenkin: I understand the hon. Gentleman's unease at being reminded of what he wrote two and a half years ago, but I fully concede, if he wants me to, that his remedies are not my remedies, and the House will have to decide at the end of today and on Thursday on which side it stands.
  We on the Government Benches believe that in order to provide more jobs we must halt and reverse the long-term decline of the British economy. We need to reduce inflation to the levels of our successful competitors. We need lower interest rates. The Government must borrow less. We need a real shift from what Bacon and Eltis, in their widely praised book a few years ago, called the non-market sector of the economy towards productive industry.
  That is the strategy on which we have embarked and, with inflation now coming down rapidly and with more and more forecasters predicting the beginning of a slow recovery later this year, it is reasonable for us to argue that, despite all the difficulties, we are more or less on course. Of course, there are casualties in the fight against inflation—mainly those who lose their jobs—but here, too, we are helping. In the coming year we shall spend no less than £570 million on special employment measures, much of it for the young.
  The Opposition sometimes pretend—if they feel the need to say anything about it at all—that there is some quick, easy solution to all these problems, but it is very difficult to know what they have in mind. The other day the Leader of the Opposition called for more Socialism—more, apparently, than we have ever seen before. I was reminded of King Lear, who threatened to do
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  "such things—What they are yet I know not; but they shall be The terrors of the earth."
  They certainly appear to have terrified a number of his right hon. and hon. Friends.
  Some right hon. Members on the Opposition Benches are more specific. They want higher borrowing and lower interest rates, both at the same time. I have to say that this is a combination that does not appear in the economics textbooks. They want, too, a lower exchange rate for sterling. Perhaps they could achieve that with other policies. I doubt that they would see the sort of gentle depreciation in the pound that they envisaged. What they would see is the sort of devastating run on sterling that has happened under virtually every Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer since the war.
  On one thing we can depend with certainty. The policies which the Opposition seem to want would put us fairly and squarely back on the road to hyper-inflation. What would that do to provide lasting jobs for the unemployed? What would that do for the disabled? What would that do for single-parent families? What would that do for pensioners or for the low-paid, about whom the hon. Gentleman waxed so eloquent?
  Inflation is the engine that destoys prosperity and creates poverty. Inflation is the biggest enemy of the poor. [HON. MEMBERS: "This Government put it up."] When Socialists talk about poverty, they talk about it not in absolute but in relative terms. For them, the way to abolish poverty is redistributive tax and spending policies that seek to produce not just equality of opportunity but what the Americans have called equality of result. We could argue the philosophical case for and against that view of the world, but what never ceases to surprise me is that so many Socialists do not appear to recognise the grossly unfair effects of inflation.
  Inflation does not redistribute resources according to need. It redistributes them according to chance and according to muscle power. That is the sort of redistribution that the Labour Party offers us today. It has nothing whatever to do with elimination of poverty or the creation of a more just and fair society.
  The truth is that what we are able to do for the poor, for the sick, for the retired and for families depends on what we can afford. The standard of social provision in any civilised society is largely the result of its economic performance. If we want better hospitals, we need more competitive industries. If we want higher benefits for those who cannot work, we need higher productivity from those who can.
  The future of the Welfare State and the future competitiveness of British industry are therefore two sides of the same coin. Our social services will depend upon the success or failure of our efforts to rebuild our strength as a trading nation. Equally, the structure, the priorities and the quality of services that we are able to provide will help to create a social climate in which success is more likely. In other words, we have to develop a more competitive economy, while at the same time building on our traditional instinct for co-operation.
  It is partly for that reason that I believe we should take a less monolithic view of our caring services, strengthening the voluntary movement wherever possible, not because it provides a cheaper way of doing things, but because it often provides a better way of doing things. To

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  go back to the oldest metaphor in the argument, our statutory services should be a safety net, not a blanket that smothers initiative and self-help.
  The challenge for the Government is threefold: first, to make the most effective use of the money that we can responsibly spend on health and social security, taking special care of those who are frequently the innocent casualties of the fight against inflation; secondly, to win that fight and rebuild the foundations of a stronger and healthier economy, able to sustain a higher standard of living for the British people and better social welfare; and thirdly, to enlist the energy, the imagination and the sense of community of our people in developing a broader base for the Welfare State, to which both parties are committed.
  In the confidence that, whatever the difficulties, we have begun to discharge those tasks, I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to support the Government amendment in the Lobby tonight.
  5.29 pm
  Mr. Jack Ashley: We have heard a speech from the Secretary of State which failed completely to answer the case put by my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan). I am shocked to find a Secretary of State so totally unable to deal with some fundamental points about poverty in Britain which were put to him by my hon. Friend.
  The Secretary of State made a number of grave misjudgments in his speech. I shall deal with a number of those and his failure to answer my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West. First, he said that inflation was the enemy of the poor. The real enemy of the poor is the Govenment's policy. This policy—pursued relentlessly ever since the Government came into office—has been most damaging to the poor people of this country. I wonder what the poor, the underprivileged, the unemployed, the single-parent families and the disabled will think when the Minister stands at the Dispatch Box and says "We are on course". What a statement to make!
  The Secretary of State, by saying that there are no easy solutions, caricatures our case because we do not pretend that there are easy solutions. My hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West made a number of proposals which were not dealt with by the Secretary of State.
  The Secretary of State mentioned the philosophy of the Conservative Party. I should like to make a few observations on the philosophy of the Conservative Party because there is no doubt that the philosophy of the Government is impoverishing the impecunious. The policies are harsh and divisive. They are oppressing the poor and damaging the disabled. The real problem is that the policies are based on a delusion. Let us get down to the heart of the policy propounded by the Secretary of State. His policies are dominated by the theory that by raising the living standards of the wealthy and lowering the living standards of the poor he can create an incentive society and thereby a prosperous nation. That is the philosophy of the Conservative Government—the theory of conservatism. It has not worked in the past, it has never worked throughout history, and it certainly will not work in the future.
  When the great apostle of conservatism, Disraeli, spoke of two nations the philosophy was not working. It certainly did not work before Disraeli. It has not worked since Disraeli and the Government are a throw-back to the theory and principle adumbrated centuries ago and
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  practised for hundreds of years which has failed and failed again. The reason why it fails is that instead of creating an incentive society it creates deep and dividing bitterness in our society. It creates anger and strife. It creates the kind of thing that St. Francis of Assisi would have frowned upon. The Conservative philosophy of helping the rich and damaging the poor creates bitterness and strife where there could be harmony.
  I hope that the Secretary of State and his boss, the Prime Minister, will remember that and bear it in mind. The policy sometimes wins sullen acquiescence. It usually wins non-co-operation. I am speaking not now of industry but of social policies. It always creates deep and dividing distrust and sometimes genuine social unrest.
  The main reason for this philosophy is ignorance of the lifestyle of millions of the very poor, the unemployed, single-parent families and severely disabled people. Despite the work of my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) when he was Minister and all those who supported him, despite the brilliant work of Professor Peter Townsend, despite the valuable work of the Child Poverty Action Group and all the groups which make representations to the Secretary of State, Ministers still do not understand the problems of the poor. What other reason can there be be for cutting incomes, pensions and benefits, for penalising the long-term unemployed, and for hitting the disabled?
  That ignorance is compounded by hostility to poor people. I say that understanding the problems of the Minister. I know that he cannot wave a magic wand, but his party is hostile to the poor. I do not include all Conservative Members, because there are some good blokes on the Government Benches. There are some sincere hon. Members on the Back Benches. I hear them speak with sincerity about poverty. But the general philosophy of the Tory Party is hostile to the poor because it believes basically that the poor have nothing to contribute to its incentive society. The Conservative Party does not believe that it is worth while giving incentives to the poor.
  The evidence of that hostility is in the scrounger campaign. The Secretary of State has not played a leading role in that campaign, although he has played a role. The leading role was played by the former Minister with responsibility for the disabled. I am not favouring scroungers. I do not favour pickpockets. We should try to stop both of them from operating. But the scheme which may save £50 million is being pursued with vigour and imposes fear on legitimate claimants. Many poor people are becoming afraid to claim their rights because of the vigour and the hostility with which the former Minister with responsibility for the disabled pursued that campaign.
  I want to put to the Secretary of State a different principle touched upon by my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West. I should prefer more effort to be put into not simply stopping the pickpockets but catching bank robbers. We should take a much closer look at the black economy.
  I hope that the Secretary of State read the fascinating exchanges in the twenty-ninth report of the Public Accounts Committee. Sir Lawrence Airey, the chairman of the Inland Revenue, conceded under some pressure that no less than £3,000 million is lost in tax through the black economy each year. That is not £5 million but £3,000 million. The chairman was pressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton). I suggest that

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  in addition to the campaign against scroungers—and people who fiddle must be stopped—a campaign should be launched to deal with the black economy. In addition to the 1,000 people who have been recruited to stop the scroungers, a large number of people should be employed to end the black economy. If we wipe out the black economy, the £3,000 million should go to help the poor people in Britain. That money should be used to help the single-parent families, the long-term unemployed and the disabled.
  The Prime Minister was asked recently about helping disabled people. She made a remarkable reply. I asked her a question and she said that it was of course the Government's intention to increase resources when they could. She also said:
  "The International Year of Disabled People will, I hope, call forth a lot more voluntary effort on the part of the disabled. Most of us think that it is more laudable to try to do something for oneself than to get up and take a public stance on an issue to try to persuade the Government to do it."—[Official Report, 13 January 1981; Vol. 996, c. 1239.]
  What did the Prime Minister mean by that? She is not an insensitive woman. Did she mean that people who are suffering from muscular dystrophy, spastics or blind people should stand up and help themselves? People are using POSSUM only to open doors. Are they the type of people who should help themselves? Is that the philosophy that the Prime Minister is adumbrating?
  I am deeply concerned by the answers provided by the Secretary of State today and by the Prime Minister. Severely disabled people cannot help themselves. The long-term unemployed cannot help themselves to jobs when there are no jobs. It behoves the Government to change their policy and to be more positive.
  The Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation has written to me expressing its deep concern about the present Government's policy. Its evidence of hardship to disabled people was emphasised by the secretary of the Association of Directors of Social Services, Mr. Brian Whitecroft. He spoke of the figures produced by the Secretary of State and about what was being done to help. Mr. Whitecroft said:
  "When inflation is taken into account there should be an increase to maintain the present level of services and maintain and expand the services of some 16 per cent."
  That has not been done. There have been some very serious cuts in those services.
  The Secretary of State says that the voluntary associations should help. Mr. Whitecroft says that the finances for voluntary associations have been cut by 25 per cent.
  All the facts about the philosophy of the Conservative Party, about the money that it has allocated and about its attitude underline the basic theme of the debate—that the poor of Britain are being damaged by this Government. I call upon the Secretary of State to think again. There is no need to pursue a policy which is damaging the underprivileged in our society. We are not asking for the moon. We are asking for a change of emphasis.
  Please do not make us believe that Britain's economy depends upon oppressing such people. The Government must stop dividing the nation and jumping on poor people. They must give them some help and show a little humanitarian concern. I urge the Secretary of State to change his policy and to help people in the greatest need.
  5.46 pm
  Mr. Paul Dean: I am glad to follow the speech of the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley). We all admire the courage which has enabled him to triumph over disability and the example and encouragement that he has given to other disabled persons. I shall comment on some of his arguments later.
  First, I wish to comment on the motion tabled by the Opposition in their usual extravagant language, and the speech by the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan). Not for the first time the Opposition have shown a convenient disregard for their own record in office and a failure to face economic realities. I am talking not only of the current recession but about long-term trends.
  Three key factors which cannot be neglected in social service debates stand out in sharp relief. The first is that the budgets for social security and health amount to over one-quarter of all public expenditure. For some years they have been growing three times as fast as the national wealth.
  Secondly, there is a growing proportion of elderly, particularly very elderly, people. That trend will continue, with all the implications which it rightly has on pensions, health services and local authority personal social services. Thirdly, the growth rates in our economy are nothing like as good as they were some decades ago. They are not only British problems. The problems confront, to a greater or lesser extent, all advanced communities in Western Europe, America and elsewhere.
  Present commitments to the Welfare State, the expectations that we have aroused and the improvements that we want to introduce are progressing much faster than the money to pay for them. That is the harsh reality. It is clear, as my right hon. Friend said, that if we are to maintain the essential fabric of the Welfare State against that background we must prune the non-essential, wipe out abuses and get better value for money.
  Of course, these things are easier said than done. Cuts do not necessarily produce savings. Further, the all-important human factors have to be taken into account. There are areas where chopping a programme, if it affects the elderly or the disabled, can have a devastating affect on vulnerable individuals. The best example is in the personal social services run by the local authorities. I am glad to note that in Government thinking and in the thinking of local authorities there is now a shift of emphasis from cutting programmes to cutting costs within programmes.
  I should like to give the House two illustrations of what I mean from my county council of Avon. It has been doing its utmost to respond to the Government's call for economies in public expenditure and to keep within cost limits. One of the factors that it has had to consider is the possibility of closing some of the older old people's homes and some of the training centres for the handicapped. When it examines those matters it is finding that although there may be short-term savings by these policies they will almost inevitably mean consequential additional expenditure elsewhere. We cannot go far down the road of closing old people's homes, and so on, without creating additional pressure on geriatric beds in the National Health Service. Avon county council is now trying to avoid closures of that sort, and it is making economies within the programmes.
  Mr. Rooker Mr. Rooker rose—
  Mr. Dean: I should like to finish this point, and then I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman.
  My second illustration concerns manpower. A substantial proportion of any local authority budget is spent on manpower. Here, Avon county council hopes that if it is able to save £500,000 on the social services budget through manpower it will be able to allocate additional resources to more important programmes and services, for example, better furniture and equipment for residential homes, day-care centres and more aids for the handicapped. It is also finding that it may be able to spend more on intermediate treatment and community support, thus relieving the pressure on residential care. It also hopes to be able to allocate more resources for boarding allowances for fostering children, thus saving capital expenditure
  I quote those illustrations as two good examples of Avon county council responding to the need for economies while at the same time making every effort to preserve the essential fabric of the social services that it provides.
  Mr. Rooker: The hon. Gentleman has given a good example of a county council that may be—I do not have all the details—weighing up the pros and cons of the decisions that it will have to make. But what is the answer to Solihull district council, which is meeting today, and is about to cut the home help service by 24 per cent.? That can only lead to more people losing jobs involving looking after old people, and it will put pressure on old people's homes. The council will have to cut the field work staff by 62 per cent. That is a Tory-controlled authority. It is not following the Government's advice.
  Mr. Dean: I gave an example of a county council in the area that I know. I am suggesting to the House that the change of emphasis from cutting programmes to cutting costs within programmes is a policy that can be achieved. I hope and believe that the Government will encourage local authorities to do likewise.
  The watchwords should be "Cut costs, not programmes for vulnerable sections of the community".
  Mr. Lewis Carter-Jones: The hon. Gentleman is fortunate, in the sense that he is talking about Avon. The Black report clearly states that there are 10 inner city areas of this country where a cutback of any sort means despair for 30 or 40 years—areas with the highest perinatal mortality, the highest death rate, the longest housing queues, a decline in rate payment and a decline in rate support grants. How can those 10 authorities cope with the problem?
  Mr. Dean: I am saying that, given the need to economise, there are ways. I have quoted Avon county council as a concrete example of how it is possible, within limited resources, to save on costs without cutting programmes. I commend the example of the Avon county council to the hon. Gentleman's county council.
  I turn now to the cash benefits. The Government are right to look for economies in short-term benefits—as they did last year—in order to maintain priority for the long-term benefits. There is a firm pledge from my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister with regard to the long-term benefits. She said in the House on 25 November 1980:
  "The full value of the pension in terms of what it will buy will be preserved.…The undertaking is to compensate fully for price increases over the lifetime of a Parliament."—[Official Report, 25 November 1980; Vol. 994, c. 488.]
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  That pledge has been honoured and more than honoured so far in this Parliament; and we have the word of the Prime Minister that it will be honoured in the future. In the light of that, there can be no justification for the extravagant language in the Opposition motion or for the extravagant language in the speech of the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West.
  There are two areas where the Government should aim to do better in 1981 than they were able to do in 1980. They should aim to do more for the disabled and families with children. I turn first to the disabled. I suppose that I should declare an interest, as a war pensioner.
  In his opening speech, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State described some of the welcome improvements that the Government have made in services for the disabled. I am still disappointed that the invalidity benefit was bracketed with the short-term benefits in 1980 and had an abatement of 5 per cent. I recognise that the Government are committed to restoring the position of invalidity benefit, so that it is equivalent to the retirement pension, as soon as the resources permit. I hope that resources will permit this year—this appropriate year, the International Year of Disabled People. We should not wait until the invalidity benefit is brought into the tax system because many of those in receipt of the benefit are below the tax level. If it is not possible to do that this year, I hope that the Government will look carefully at what is now being described as the "invalidity trap". That was well described in a recent paper produced by Disability Alliance. It said:
  "Many invalidity pensioners are caught in what might be termed the 'invalidity trap'. Their income is too high for them to qualify for supplementary benefit at the ordinary rate, yet it falls below what they would receive were they eligible for supplementary benefit at the long-term rate. Because they do not qualify for the former they can never qualify for the latter, though their situation is a long-term one and their income is less than the minimum regarded by the Government as necessary for people in that situation."
  According to a parliamentary answer, there are about 100,000 in that category. I hope that this year the Government will be able to do for them what last year they did for the young disabled aged 16 and 17 years. That was a welcome removal of the anomaly for those young people, and I hope that the Government will consider seriously the possibility of enabling invalidity pensioners to qualify for the long-term rate of supplementary benefit after a year on invalidity benefit. That would go a long way to deal with those invalidity pensioners who are most in need.
  I hope, too, that during this International Year of Disabled People the Government will feel able to take another initiative. In its manifesto at the last general election the Conservative Party stated:
  "Our aim is to provide a coherent system of cash benefits to meet the costs of disability".
  That is clearly a long-term aim, but there is a case for a Green Paper in 1981. That would indicate that the Government mean what they say and intend to provide a positive response to the International Year of Disabled People. I recognise that there is a risk that a Green Paper will create expectations that cannot immediately be fulfilled, but against that there is a great deal of work to be done. There is no agreement among disabled organisations about the right form for a comprehensive income. I suggest that a Green Paper produced this year with a fairly prolonged period of consultation would be a

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  most valuable step towards this long-term aim. I hope that when my right hon. Friend replies he will be able to give an encouraging response to that suggestion.
  There is little doubt from the figures, including the impressive memorandum that we have had from the Child Poverty Action Group, that families with children have come out badly in comparison with childless couples. The traditional commitment of the Conservative Party to support family life needs reinforcement during 1981. Child benefit is now the main vehicle for family support. It is also one of the best ways of relieving the poverty trap and producing incentives to work. I do not wish to expand these arguments as I know that a number of my hon. Friends wish to do so.
  The Government are pledged to uprate child benefit each year to maintain its value subject to economic and other circumstances. To increase it by whatever is required to maintain the value of the benefit seems to be a high priority in the Government's programme for this year.
  In highlighting these three aspects I am suggesting what seem to me to be the three main priorities for progress during 1981—namely, the local authority personal social services, provision for the disabled and support for families with children. I support the Government's general policy, charcterised as it is by realism and humanity. I contrast that with the unreality and wishful thinking of the Opposition. I shall therefore have no hesitation in voting for the Government's amendment.
  6.5 pm
  Mr. Robert C. Brown: First, I turn to the Secretary of State's speech, which I did not think was worthy of him. I complain about the attempt to insult my intelligence. The right hon. Gentleman said that Socialists do not seem to understand the effects of inflation. I have been a life-long Socialist and I well-understand the effects of inflation on those whom I represent, who are not well heeled enough to build hedges against it. It is fair to say that there are many who are doing very nicely, thank you, under the policies of the right hon. Gentleman, and who have a vested interest in high inflation. Ask the property speculators if they want lower inflation.
  Mr. Patrick Jenkin: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I had no desire to insult his considerable intelligence. However, he must acknowledge that if his party persists in calling at the same time for lower interest rates and higher public spending, that will be the road to hyperinflation. It will be the poor who will suffer most from that. If the hon. Gentleman will accept that, there will be nothing between us.
  Mr. Brown: I do not accept that. However, I shall spend no more time directly on the right hon. Gentleman. I shall develop my speech as I go along.
  I refer to the plight of the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, part of which I have the honour to represent in this place. We now have 18,544 of our citizens unemployed. That compares with 13,736 a year ago. That is an increase of 4,808, or 35 per cent. About 43 per cent. of council house tenants are in receipt of relief, such as social security benefit and rent or rate rebates. When I think of the deprivation being suffered by thousands of my fellow citizens in Newcastle, and when I recall the Prime
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  Minister's words on the steps of No. 10 Downing Street, when she quoted St. Francis of Assissi on 4 May 1979, I feel outraged that she should have bastardised the words of a saint. Before I resume my place I shall justify fully the charge that I have made against the Prime Minister.
  I turn to Government policy as it affects low-paid workers, and I declare a dual interest. I am a sponsored member of the General and Municipal Workers Union, and as the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, West I represent many thousands of low-paid workers. The Tories do not have an overt policy for the low-paid, but some of their other policies on tax, social security and employment have been universally damaging to the low-paid. Far from increasing the protection available to a group that suffers disproportionately from the ravages of inflation—the right hon. Gentleman conceded that—the Government dismantled much of the existing protection.
  The Government have increased the tax burden on the low-paid. They have pushed up the in-work poverty line—that is, the family income supplement—in such a way as to widen the poverty trap. They have reduced other social security benefits for the low-paid. They have abolished the fair wages legislation for workers not employed on Government contracts. They have destroyed the low-paid workers's chances of organising in unions, by abolishing recognition procedures. They have announced plans to cut back the staffing of the Wages Inspectorate, which polices legal minimum wages set out by the wages councils. They have imposed a direct pay policy on all but some of the lowest-paid public service workers by linking them to the 6 per cent. increase.
  According to the new earnings survey of 1980, there are 1 million men aged 21 and over who are paid less than £75 a week, including overtime, and there are 2·5 million women aged 18 and over who are paid less than £75 a week, again including overtime—and I remind the House that £75 a week is the recognised figure for the low-paid. That totals 3½ million adult workers.
  If we exclude overtime payments, the number of low-paid workers increased by 0·6 million men and 0·1 million women, making a total of 4·2 million low-paid workers. In addition, it is estimated that there are 250,000 low-paid young men, and 1·7 million part-time workers receiving a lower hourly rate of pay than would yield £75 for a 40-hour week. The total number of workers earning less than £75 per week or its equivalent could therefore be as high as 5½ million.
  I turn to the effects of the Government's taxation policies on the low-paid. In each of the three Budget Statements so far the Government have damaged the interests of the low-paid. In the first Budget they cut direct taxes on higher-rate taxpayers by almost £1,500 million. One-third of all moneys distributed by tax cuts went to the higher-rate taxpayers, although they represent only 5 per cent. of the tax-paying population. Meanwhile, the low-paid received less in direct tax cuts than was immediately retrieved by the increase in value added tax.
  The Government's second Budget abolished the £750 band taxable at 25 per cent. That had been introduced specifically to aid the low-paid. As a result, 2,275,000 taxpayers faced a rise from an initial 25 per cent. to a 30 per cent. tax rate. Yet the Tory election manifesto had claimed:
  "We shall cut income tax at all levels.…It is especially important to cut the absurdly high marginal rates of tax both at the bottom and top of the income scale."

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  So much for Tory manifesto pledges. Of the revenue forgone by the direct tax cuts, 10·1 per cent. finished up in the pockets of those earning more than £20,000 per year. They constitute only 1·5 per cent. of taxpayers. Only 26·6 per cent. of revenue forgone went to those earning less than £5,000 per year, although they comprise 41·2 per cent. of taxpayers.
  In the most recent Tory statement, national insurance payments were increased as from April this year. As a result of that increase, the marginal tax rate—that is, the income tax rate plus national insurance contributions—will have been increased from 31·5 per cent. in June 1979 to at least 37·75 per cent. in April this year. In the same period, the marginal tax rate for a person earning £500 per week will have declined from 83 per cent. to 60 per cent. As I said, those are the people who have a vested interest in high inflation rates.
  I turn to the Tory poverty trap. My hon. Friend the Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) covered that subject very well, and gave examples. I charge the Government with having made the poverty trap worse by abolishing the lower rate tax band, by announcing a planned increase in national insurance contributions and by increasing the eligibility limits for family income supplement by so much as to ensure that even more families will be affected by the poverty trap because the overlap between tax thresholds and social security eligibility limits has been increased by so much.
  I turn to social security benefits and the abolition of the means test for free school meals. Only recipients of family income supplement or supplenentary benefit are now eligible for school meals. That means that the loss of FIS inflicts a further immediate cash loss in terms of free school meals. The scrapping of the means test for free school meals has deprived 500,000 schoolchildren of school meals and has therefore cost their parents five times 35p, or £1·75 per child per week.
  On prescription charges, the Prime Minister appeared on television during the election campaign and said, hand on heart, in front of millions of people, that although the Labour Party had claimed that the Conservatives would increase prescription charges they had no plans to do so. That is what the Prime Minister said, hand on heart, to the nation. But what have we got? A prescription charge of 20p has been increased to £1 per item. We all know that eligibility for free prescriptions is limited to a very few categories, such as old-age pensioners, and the Government themselves admit that the take-up is extremely low. It is not that the lower-paid do not need prescriptions. Studies have indicated that low-paid workers suffer higher average morbidity rates than do others. So the very people who need prescriptions unfortunately nowadays cannot afford to take them up.
  I turn to the subject of collective bargaining. What the Tories have done through meddling with this process has always been to the detriment of the lower-paid. Schedule 11 of the Employment Protection Act enabled workers to make pay claims through their trade unions, either for the recognised terms and conditions arrived at by national collective bargaining in the industry or for the general level of terms and conditions of comparable workers in the same industry and the same district. In effect, schedule 11 established across the whole of industry the principle of fair wages embodied in the fair wages resolution, which applies only to workers engaged on Government contracts. Despite representations from employers' associations,
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  fearful of the undercutting of recognised terms and conditions, the Government abolished schedule 11. They argued, of course, that it benefited the higher-paid rather than the lower-paid, but studies of cases brought under the schedule have shown that workers paid predominantly less than average were the main beneficiaries of that schedule, which the Government have now abolished.
  Attempts have been made to influence the Government to abolish wages councils, which set legal minimum wages for almost 3 million workers. Indeed, a Ten-Minute Bill was introduced by one of the Tory backwoodsmen. So far, however, the Government have not resorted to that tactic—probably because the basic rates awarded by wages councils are ludicrously low. I do not think that any Opposition Member would deny that.
  The Government have, however, significantly undermined the protection afforded by wages councils to low-paid workers in shops, hotels, restaurants, the retailing and clothing industries, hairdressing, and so on. They have done that by announcing cuts of one-third in the Wages Inspectorate. The level of underpayment is already appalling. The last available figures indicate that almost one-third of employers visited by the inspectorate were found to be underpaying. One-eighth of workers whose wages were examined were discovered to be underpaid, on average, by £67·31 per week. That is absolutely scandalous. Yet in the face of those facts, far from increasing the inspectorate, as they should, the Government are bent upon reducing it.
  The Low Pay Unit estimates that the total loss of earnings through underpayment in 1979 was £22 million. My right hon. Friend was right to point out that there are scroungers in society who are scrounging bread out of the mouths of people who can ill afford it—and in the shape of employers, too.
  I have already referred to the 6 per cent. pay norm for local authority workers. No sooner had Clegg dealt with his last case than the Government set about undermining pay relativities, which the Commission had spent so long on establishing. The Government have been anxious to impose reductions in the living standards of public service workers. In fact, it is fair to say that they are hell-bent on doing that. Once again, it is the low-paid, who lack industrial muscle, who are footing the bill for the Government's economic policy.
  The Tories' 6 per cent. cash limit for public sector workers is nothing more than a straightforward 6 per cent. pay policy. No one can deny that. The consequent pay increases that local authority manual workers and NHS ancillary workers receive will not be enough to cover increases in council rents and rates that have been forced on local authorities as a result of the policies of the right hon. Gentleman who presides in Marsham Street. Worse than that, if press leaks are anything to go by the Government are not finished in their crucifixion of the low-paid. There have already been leaks from the Treasury suggesting that the Rooker-Wise amendments will be abandoned in the forthcoming Budget. That means that tax thresholds will increase tax more than the rate of inflation.
  As well as increasing the tax burden of the lower-paid, this move is bound to increase the poverty trap. In addition, the Government's sickness benefit plans, about which even small employers are bitterly complaining, will make the lot of the lower-paid worse, at a time when they are badly in need.

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  I trust that what I have said justifies my claim about the Prime Minister's bastardisation of the words of St. Francis of Assisi.
  6.22 pm
  Mr. William Waldegrave: I shall in due course follow the argument of the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, West (Mr. Brown). He concentrated our minds on one of the most important questions, namely, where exactly the worst impact of this recession is falling. I shall return to the hon. Gentleman's line of argument. He added to the debate, which started somewhat slowly. I think it was the Duke of Devonshire—the one in Balfour's Cabinet—who said that he once had a nightmare that he was speaking in the House of Lords, woke up, and found that he was. I felt that the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) woke up a couple of times during his prolonged speech, and perhaps that was a pity.
  The House is not at its best on these occasions. There is no way in which one can look at the statistics about any of the poverty support schemes that have existed since 1945 and predict from them when changes in the Government have taken place. There is no monopoly of virtue on either side of the House in that regard. I could refer to various lists of statistics which show that in some areas, such as child support, most of the best figures have occurred under Conservative Governments. However, I would not claim that that was because we had a monopoly of virtue. All that that shows is that during the period since the war the economy has functioned relatively strongly for much longer under Conservative Governments than under Labour Governments. Such figures normally simply reflect the strength of the economy.
  We do ourselves no great service by indulging in the worst kind of ping-pong politics, whereby as soon as we go into Opposition we say that everything would have been splendid had we only been in Government. Unfortunately, it is not as easy as that.
  I now turn to the line of argument adopted by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, West. I should like to concentrate on the question of where the impact of this peculiar recession is falling. It is a peculiar recession, because by no means everybody is worse off. I do not mean merely those who have benefited from cuts in the higher rates of taxation. In the last year, average earnings for those in work ran ahead of average increases in prices. That means that, overall, a large number of working people have had gains in real disposable income during the last 12 months.
  The impact has fallen on smaller numbers who have experienced large falls in real disposable income, such as those who have gone out of work altogether, and particularly—to some extent I am arguing on the basis of instinct rather than figures—the lower-paid. When the figures are published in due course, I suspect that we shall find that the more highly unionised groups, many of them in the public sector, have kept ahead of inflation in the last year, and that it has been those at the weaker end of the employment market who have suffered.
  I think that we shall find that workers earning about three-quarters of average earnings and below have taken the brunt of the fall in living standards, apart from those who have gone out of work altogether. But even among
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  that group the impact has not been evenly spread. Within that group there has been a marked difference in the impact on those with families and those without. In fact, there has been a small improvement in the position of childless couples during the last year, both between the two Budgets and following the second one. One can arrive at the figures in various ways. If one merely takes the tax burden, one will see that there has been a small drop in the tax burden of a childless couple on three-quarters of average earnings. However, for a couple with two children in a similar position there has been quite a significant increase in the tax burden. According to the Child Poverty Action Group, that increase has been of the order of 11.6 per cent.
  There are other ways of measuring the impact. Again, I must acknowledge the help of the CPAG. The Inland Revenue itself has produced an index, which in General Haig-type language it calls "the tax break-even-point-index". That measures the point at which money paid out in tax exactly balances the money received in cash benefits. According to that index, which the Inland Revenue has calculated by valuing child benefit and family allowances in cash terms back to 1945, there has been a marked deterioration in the position of a family with two children of seven index points over the last year, compared with the position of a childless couple. That seems to indicate that the impact of this recession, apart from the impact on those who have suffered by losing their jobs, is being felt by the lower-paid family in work.
  What can the Government do about it? We know that there is only one great instrument at the Government's disposal which can attack this problem, and that is the instrument of child benefit. Before developing my argument and saying what I think should be done, I should point out that subsiduary arguments can be advanced in favour of that instrument. Mention has already been made of the effects of the "Why work?" syndrome and marginal tax rates. The hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West gave examples based, in fact, on the CPAG calculations of the poverty trap for families with children. According to the latest figures from the CPAG, a three-child family is worse off if it earns £81 than if it earns £61, assuming that it claims all the means-tested benefits to which it is entitled. For a two-child family, the figures are £75 and £55.
  Over the past few years the situation has worsened. The Government have made the situation worse as a result of increased reliance on means-tested benefits, and as a result of the increased value of some of the means-tested items involved, such as school meals. The problem is becoming acute. That remains a subsidiary but powerful argument for child benefit.
  The principal argument for reliance on child benefit is that it is the only weapon with which we can directly attack the problem of those on low pay who have families. In a different world, with a different economic situation, it might be posible to talk in terms of minimum wage levels, as the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, West said. At a time of recession it is not sensible to put much more weight on our mechanisms—such as they are—in this area, or to try to extend them. In such a recession we should try to distribute the burdens by redistributing cash through the tax system. Therefore, nothing other than child benefit can be used.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote to me on 11 April 1980. The letter must have been drafted by dozens of people with first-class degrees in various disciplines. Therefore, it was not a very

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  clear letter. One could look at it from different angles. One could burn it, and see how the smoke blew in the wind. One could even tear it into pieces, throw it about like leaves in the wind—as they used to do in ancient Rome—and see how the pieces fell. One could do all those things to find out what the letter meant, and still not necessarily be much the wiser.
  I think that it was intended to mean—if that is a meaningful concept in this context—two things. First, it was intended to mean that child benefit retains its centrality to Government policy vis-a-vis the family. Indeed, the letter is relatively clear on that point. There can be no doubt about the emphasis on the centrality of child benefit to the Government's family policy. Secondly, I think that the letter states that child benefit must advance with tax allowances. That is how I interpreted the letter, although it is a matter for scholastic debate whether the letter can be interpreted in other ways.
  I hope that at the very least that is what my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services mean. I was interested when my right hon. Friend said that he had joined the Chancellor of the Exchequer in pre-Budget purdah. That is a hopeful sign. If it means that my right hon. Friend will be genuinely engaged in discussions with my right hon. and learned Friend before the Budget, about its impact on the social programmes, it is a great advance. I hope that my right hon. Friend was not using purdah as a protective device for avoiding answering a question in the House. That would be most uncharacteristic of him. I hope that it means that genuine discussions are going on between my right hon. and learned Friend and my right hon. Friend about the Budget's impact on the social programmes. If that is so, I am happy to allow my right hon. Friend to veil those discussions in the secrecy of purdah.
  We know that my right hon. Friend is committed to the maintenance of a proper child benefit scheme, but there are some in my party—and many in the country—who are not. Last year I spoke on this subject in the House and I received many letters saying that it was nonsense to encourage people to have children. Some members of the Conservative Party may feel the same. The other day, I remembered those letters and I did a thing that it is always unwise for a Conservative Member or, perhaps, a Labour Member to do. I took a book off my shelf and read it. The book had been written by the former Leader of the Conservative Party, Lord Beaconsfield. It was called "Sybil". In that book, he analysed the social problems of the day.
  The hero is, of course, the younger son of a peer. His older brother, Lord Marney, is a dreadful fellow, who goes about saying that it is the poor's fault for breeding in the first place. He says that they should look after themselves. No one talks like that nowadays. However, the descendants of people with such attitudes are still about. It behoves us to remember that the great Tory tradition of one nation does not even begin with "Sybil"; it begins with Burke and his letter to the electors of Bristol. That is where the slogan of "one nation" first appears. That great Tory tradition has to mean something in a recession and in hard times, or it means nothing.
  What is adequate in terms of action on child benefit? I hope that tax allowances will be allowed to advance with inflation. If they are not, we shall again be allowing the impact of the recession to fall on the lowest-paid. If tax
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  allowances are advanced and are not de-Rooker-Wise-Lawsoned—or whatever the phrase is—both they and child benefit will keep pace with inflation.
  As a result, there would have to be an increase of about 50p or 60p in child benefit. That would be tolerable. It would be much better if my right hon. and learned Friend were to restore the value of child benefit to the level that existed when the Conservative Party came into power. That would mean an addition of a little less than £1. I am not so sanguine as to believe that that will happen.
  This year, anything much less than 50p would make nonsense of the remainder of our family policy. Many of us would find it difficult to support the abandonment of that policy. A wide gap would open up between the rhetoric that we used and meant when we were in Opposition—just as the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West means it now that he is in Opposition—and Government practice. It would mean that the coherent theme that we developed to link the different parts of our social policy had been lost. I refer to the family theme so eloquently described in an article in Tory Review last year, by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Patten), who has recently been promoted to the Northern Ireland Office. When we were in Opposition we based our social policy on that theme of the family. Indeed, we based our approach to the election on that theme, and we have used its rhetoric since. That theme will be lost for good if we allow the effectiveness of child benefit to diminish further.
  6.36 pm
  Mr. David Ennals: I am tempted to take up the remarks of the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave), but time does not permit me to do so. However, I warmly welcome everything that he said about child benefit. I think that he received a welcome from both sides of the House. He expressed the view that was expressed last week in the Select Committee on Social Services. It is the all-party, unanimous view that this step should be taken.
  I am also tempted to follow the much less interesting speech of the Secretary of State, but I shall resist that temptation because there is one subject that I wish to bring to the attention of the House, namely, the serious plight of charitable organisations that care for children, the disabled, and the elderly.
  On 19 January 1981 the Prime Minister told the ladies of the Women's Royal Voluntary Service how much she looked to the voluntary sector to plug the gaps—enormous in my view—in the Welfare State. That has always been the right hon. Lady's philosophy, and it has increasingly become the philosophy of the Government Front Bench. Last December, eight major charities, led by the Spastics Society, wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer asking for some relief from the intolerable burden of 15 per cent. VAT. The organisations involved were the Spastics Society, Dr. Barnardo's, the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children and Adults, Help the Aged, the Save the Children Fund, the National Children's Home, the Royal National Institute for the Blind and the Royal National Institute for the Deaf.
  Although it is hard to believe, not only did the Chancellor of the Exchequer say "No"; he refused to receive a deputation from those organisations. They make an invaluable contribution to the welfare of the least privileged in our society. The Spastics Society was forced

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  to cut its services and had to close its careers and employment educational and advisory service, which is essential if spastics are to be found jobs.
  A month after the Chancellor of the Exchequer had refused to see the deputation, he agreed to do for amateur sportsmen and their clubs what he had refused to do for the voluntary organisations. Even drinks and refreshments in clubhouses are to be exempt from VAT. How can the Chancellor possibly justify this concession when he has refused to help charities that are in serious financial trouble because of the imposition of value added tax?
  Caring for the handicapped and the disadvantaged is surely more important and should be given greater priority than relieving such frivolous activities as golf and horse racing from paying the tax. Tim Yeo, the director of The Spastics Society, said:
  "We are disgusted at this announcement. It shows that the Government really does not care that charities are struggling to maintain their services in the face of crippling burdens that they should not have to bear. It prefers to help sportsmen to buy their drinks on the cheap."
  The next action of the societies was to write to the Prime Minister. In the letter, sent on the day that the right hon. Lady was addressing the WRVS, they said:
  "The virtual doubling of VAT in June 1979 from 8 to 15 per cent. has already compelled us to reduce or limit our services. Unless the burden of VAT is removed, further cuts or limitations will be forced upon us. This will bring inconvenience and hardship to those whom we try to help and inevitably make more people dependent on the already overstretched services of local authorities".
  In a further comment, Tim Yeo said:
  "Commercial businesses recover all their VAT. Local authorities that run residential homes for the handicapped recover all their VAT. So why not The Spastics Society?"
  and the other voluntary organisations that work with local authorities for the same purpose? He added:
  "The Government must realise that we are in a very serious financial position with our highest deficit ever of £823,000. Big cuts in our services to some of the nation's most severely handicapped men, women and children have had to be made. Yet, as local authorities cut back, we are needed more and more. The Government must concede some help. Relief from VAT would be a start in a year that is being devoted to the problems of disabled people".
  On the same day as the Prime Minister made her appeal to the WRVS, the voluntary organisations made their appeal to the Prime Minister. They received a reply from the Prime Minister at considerable length, but it really amounted to only one word—"No". The Government would not help. Although they looked to the voluntary organisations to help, they would not do anything that would relieve their financial situation.
  All that happened at the same time and on almost the same day as the Government issued a circular to health authorities indicating how they should use the power that the House had given them, to the fury of the Opposition Benches, to raise money for health purposes. We had made a great hullaballoo about this when dealing with the Health Services Bill. The Government had brushed aside our protests and described the new power as a modest extension of existing ways by which the National Health Service could draw on voluntary funds. We were accused of making political propaganda by deriding the sight of Health Service staff organising bingo sessions and shaking tins in the market square.
  Mrs. Sara Morrison, chairman of the National Council of Voluntary Organisations—she is no Socialist, not even
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  a Social Democrat, so far as I know—felt impelled to write to the Secretary of State for Social Services on 9 January explaining that the council had not raised any objection to the clause at the time because it believed the Government's assurance, to which I have referred, and because it thought that there would be consultation with the Government about any guidance on how the powers would be used.
  The significance of the circular—DHSS health circular (HC (80) 11)—which was sent out on 18 December, just before Christmas, when presumably no one would notice, except the recipients—was grasped by the voluntary organisations only at the beginning of this year, and in her letter Mrs. Morrison expressed deeply felt concern, indeed, alarm, among the voluntary organisations. Four days later, Nicholas Hinton, director of the National Council of Voluntary Organisations, described the circular as potentially the most dangerous blow suffered by the voluntary organisations for years. By 20 January, one day after the Prime Minister had spoken to the WRVS, 45 leading charities said that they were extremely angry that they had not been consulted. They felt that they had been misled, and Nicholas Hinton, speaking on their behalf, said
  "Patrick Jenkin should withdraw the circular."
  All hon. Members may not have read the circular. They may wonder what all the fuss is about. They have only to read the circular, which is in the Library, to find out what all the fuss is about. The circular envisages health authorities employing professional fund raisers, major public appeals, involving a wide range of staff, interest-free loans to pay for appeal costs, lotteries, bingo "on a large scale", sponsorship of pharmaceutical companies and donations from drink companies. Fortunately, the Government just managed to escape donations from tobacco companies. However, a pattern of large-scale fund raising was revealed. The Opposition had not realised that the proposals would be on such a scale. We, too, perhaps, had been influenced by the assurances that were given.
  There are four objections to the circular. The first is that it will bring the National Health Service into direct competition for funds with the voluntary sector. The second is that public funds will be available for the starting costs of National Health Service fund raising, while the voluntary organisations have no such financial backing. Thirdly, the circular says that health authorites are
  "in the best position to establish priorities for voluntary help which are compatible with their overall plans for providing services"
  In the view of many voluntary organisations that will threaten the independence of the voluntary movement. The fourth objection is about the lack of consultation with voluntary organisations before the circular was issued. Nicholas Hinton was right when he pointed out that the charities that would expect to suffer most would be those coping with the physically and mentally handicapped and the frail elderly—in fact, those leading charities that are suffering most from the crippling burden of VAT.
  If the Government believe that greater emphasis should be placed on the voluntary organisations and the voluntary movement, they have to do something to enable the voluntary organisations to be in a position to help. The first matter is VAT. It is appalling that there has not been a Treasury Minister on the Government Front Bench the whole day. A second requirement is that the Government should withdraw the health circular. I have tabled a question to the Secretary of State asking him to do so. I

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  hope that he will decide to do so, in the interests of those organisations that both sides of the House respect. They have done fine work for the people of this country, but today they face dire problems because of the financial burdens placed upon them by the Government.
  6.48 pm
  Rev. Ian Paisley: The right hon. Gentleman for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals) will forgive me if I do not follow his remarks, but I support what he says in regard to voluntary organisations. It is important that the Government should take this matter on board and act as quickly as possible. It would not be right for the House to debate poverty without the case for Northern Ireland being placed fairly and squarely on the record. The Secretary of State, in summarising the policy of the Government, said that those most in need would be taken care of. I take issue with the Secretary of State on that enunciation of the Government's policy, because those most in need are not being taken care of. I am very glad that a member of the Government who has served in Northern Ireland is on the Front Bench today; I am sure that he will appreciate what I am about to say about Northern Ireland and its plight.
  Northern Ireland is most in need because of the low incomes of its working people. The average income is well below the national average, while the cost of living is higher than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Then there is the bad housing—housing not fit to be lived in. Some houses are without even one amenity. Some have neither electric light nor piped water, and none of the other amenities.
  Transport costs in Northern Ireland are outrageous. Unemployment is twice the national average, with one in five unemployed. I am very grateful to the spokesman for the Opposition for bringing Northern Ireland into this debate and highlighting the energy costs. I regret that the Secretary of State made no response to that matter, which was placed before him by the Opposition this afternoon.
  We have heard statements today to the effect that the poor are becoming poorer. In Northern Ireland the poor are becoming poorer and colder. This is very serious. If people in Northern Ireland have a gas supply, whether they be on the poverty line or below it, they have to pay three times as much for that gas supply as people anywhere else in the United Kingdom. If they are on an electricity supply they have to pay one-third more than anywhere else in the United Kingdom. If they are purchasing coal, they have to pay more per ton for each ton that they consume. So at every level of energy the people of Northern Ireland are at a great disadvantage. There is nothing that the Government are doing at present to deal with that. That is the seriousness of the situation.
  Today in the House we have heard talk about the family. I believe in the family. It is the basic unit of society and should be defended at all costs. But let us remember that in Northern Ireland two out of every five children live in a household with an income at or below the level of minimum need. Let hon. Members just think of that. I am referring there to the report of the Supplementary Benefits Commission. That report states
  "one family in ten is living in unfit accommodation; one in every ten households is living in overcrowded accommodation."
  The situation could not be much graver.
  A survey made of households in Northern Ireland discovered that at least 35 per cent., or 150,330
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  households, were living below the needs level, while in the United Kingdom as a whole it is estimated that 21 per cent. of all households were living below the needs level. So hon. Members can see the great gulf between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. At least 191,040 children under 16 are being brought up in families with resources below the needs level. In short, at least 39 per cent. of Northern Ireland children are being brought up in a situation of economic disadvantage. Overall, 478,570 people in Northern Ireland live below the needs level.
  If ever there was a case in regard to need and poverty, that case is Northern Ireland. Yet the Government tell us today that it is their policy to deal with those mostly in need. We do not find that happening in Northern Ireland. Of course, the unemployment figures are disastrous. We will soon have well over 100,000 people unemployed, with 40,000 unemployed in Belfast alone.
  What amazes me is that while the Government are pursuing a policy of running down the gas industry, because they have refused to let Northern Ireland share in the natural gas from the North Sea, the workers in the gas industry who are going to lose their jobs are not to benefit in regard to redundancy pay as their counterparts in Great Britain would benefit. It has just been announced that the redundancy payment in Londonderry—a city that has more unemployed, perhaps, than any other part of Northern Ireland—will be half of what would be paid to workers in the rest of the United Kingdom. So here we have a people who are suffering terribly, and yet when it comes to payoffs they do not get parity with the rest of the United Kingdom. I want to put those matters firmly on record.
  What is more, if jobs are to be saved in Northern Ireland, they will not be saved by the policy being pursued by the Government. The indigenous firms which have battled through all the difficulties and which have good order books but which have a serious problem of cash flow are the firms that should be helped, instead of the Government pouring £90 million and more into a firm like De Lorean. I hope that the firm will not go down, because it would be a tragedy if it did fail, but I think that jobs could be saved in a better and more secure way in Northern Ireland.
  I would just underscore to the Government the seriousness of the situation. I know the Minister for Social Security knows what I am talking about, for he has been there and has seen the situation and knows that these are facts. Someone talked about realities. These are the stark realities of the situation in Northern Ireland. This Government must implement their policy of dealing with those in greatest need.
  6.59 pm
  Mr. Clement Freud: It is significant that the last two speakers from the Government side both attacked the Government for their failure to do what they set out to do. They both made excellent points, one in the case of the people of Northern Ireland and the other—the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave)—in respect of children who were suffering as a result of the Government's reneging on their promise on child benefit.
  Earlier in the debate, when the Secretary of State, who has presumably now gone to Grantham, or wherever, was talking about a speech made by the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan), he complained bitterly that the hon. Gentleman had given no indication where the

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  money was coming from. That is a valid point, because it is too easy, from the Opposition Benches, to ask the Government "Why not do this, or that?" when the proper answer will involve thousands of million of pounds.
  I should like to point to a few sectors where the money could easily be found. It would alleviate precisely what the debate is trying to highlight, namely the
  "increasing poverty resulting from Government policies".
  One policy that increases poverty is the assisted places scheme. It may not involve a great deal of money, but in the present economic climate it is an obscene way of advantaging the already advantaged at the direct cost to children who most need extra money—those in the maintained sector.
  The money could come by taxing the windfall profits of banks. It must be wrong for a Government's fiscal policies fortuitously to advantage a whole sector of industry, allow it to keep the money, and distribute it in higher dividends to shareholders who probably do not need it. I know of few poor people who are dependent for their support on annual bank dividends.
  A lot of money could be saved if the Government looked at the building societies. They are neither particularly sociable nor do they build anything. They own prime sites in the High Streets of our towns, when anyone who really wanted money would go to the outskirts and walk up to the second or third floor, provided that the loan was at the right price.
  A great deal too much money is being spent for no other purpose than to advantage those who are already advantaged, and the latest news today is of yet another EEC parliamentary beano, which will cost the taxpayer £250,000 and enable 35 higgledy-piggledy European Members to see what someone else is or is not doing. There is scope for saving there.
  I welcome the debate because, in common with most of my right hon. and hon. Friends, I came into Parliament for the express purpose of realigning the wealth of this land. The debate is trying to do just that. We have heard from several hon. Members about the poverty trap, and I should like to give some figures that have not yet been supplied.
  The differential between a man earning £110 per week and a man earning £70 per week is £6·35 per week. When the comparison is made with a man earning £500 a week, it is found that the differential is not one-sixth, as it is with a man on £110 a week, but two-fifths—40 per cent.—compared with 16 per cent. That is exactly the sort of policy that could easily be reversed to work infinitely to the benefit of the lower-paid.
  The hon. Member for Bristol, West mentioned child benefit. A 50 per cent. rise in child benefit would cost £275 million and would give the average family an extra £1 a week. To achieve the same effect for a standard-rate taxpayer by increasing the married man's allowance would cost £610 million. I asked the Treasury earlier this week what would be the saving to the country if we paid child benefit monthly in arrears. I was told that the saving would be £50 million a year. Surely at least that saving could be credited to child benefit and the benefit could rise by that amount, if not more.
  We are discussing poverty, and it is interesting to note how different people have different concepts of the meaning of the word "poverty". I asked a trade union
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  officer what poverty was and his answer was that it was £75 a week or less for a family with two children. I read a philosophical definition of poverty, which was
  "the lack of command over resources relative to need".
  The Supplementary Benefits Commission defines poverty as an income that does not enable people to participate in the life of the community. That is probably the best definition. The poor need an income to enable them to participate.
  Our current policy is not to keep people out of hardship and misery but to wait until they suffer it before taking action. The Secretary of State asked what the Government could do other than paying large sums in benefits. The first thing that everyone can do—the Government have no exclusive right to it—is to care. We cannot legislate for care, but we can provide a fertile atmosphere for it.
  In our society money has replaced caring. We pay people a pension and feel that we have done our job. I suggest that much rethinking will have to be done. Housing policy will have to be reviewed, because a great deal of poverty, in actual if not real terms, is occasioned by people being housed in the wrong place and in the wrong sort of house. People are housed where they need transport in order to get to work or where they need more heating than they can afford. Inevitably, either simply as a result of that or as a consequence of accident or illness, they get into debt, and when someone is in debt local authority housing policies do not consider applications for housing transfers. While practising such policies we are condemning people to everlasting poverty.
  We can help, without much cost to the nation, by gearing secondary education much more towards that aspect of unnecessary policy. The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) spoke about energy. In all the home economics syllabus in the secondary sector of our maintained education system there is little about the proper use of electricity—the economies of strip lighting as against light bulbs and the economies that can be effected by the proper use of the right heating apparatus.
  Local authorities can and will pay something towards energy conservation, but they spend little advertising what they have a statutory right to do. I mentioned at Question Time today the doubtful morality of the Government's expenditure on advertising to encourage people to buy index-linked retirement certificates but not advertising available benefits that are unclaimed because people do not know about them.
  While we are discussing poverty, the Government must not forget the new poor who will be created by their policy of denying State benefit in the first weeks of sickness. One must weep in advance for the frail man of 40 who becomes unemployed and seeks employment in a small company. That company—rightly, because it cannot afford not to do otherwise—will look at the man's health record, and if he is asthmatic or has an arthritic condition of the hip, or any other ailment, will say "We cannot employ him, because we cannot afford to pay the first weeks of his sickness benefit."
  I shall end by quoting the Prime Minister, who said:
  "For me, the heart of politics is not political philosophy. It is the people, and how they want to live their lives."
  The Prime Minister believes in choice. We know that she has a choice, and the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas), the hon. Member for Beeston (Mr. Lester) and the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Fox) know that she has a choice. I wish to ask her whether she

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  believes that the poor have a choice. William Cobbett said that to be poor and independent is very nearly impossible. Nothing much has changed.
  I remind the Prime Minister of something that Paul Johnson wrote before he became her great Fleet Street ally. He said:
  "The real tragedy of poverty is not suffering or degradation, but waste. Over the centuries tens of millions in this country alone have failed to realise their potentialities and make, each one of them, his or her unique contribution to the wealth and happiness of all. No form of investment is more fruitful than that which breaks the reproductive cycle of poverty."
  I believe in that. That is why my right hon. and hon. Friends and I will support the Opposition motion in the Lobby tonight.
  7.11 pm
  Mr. Tom Benyon: I agree with much of what has been said in the debate, certainly much of what the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) said. I also agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave) on the questions of the uprating of child benefits. It is an inevitable occupational hazard to speak fairly late in a debate, because much of what one was going to say has already been said. I do not believe that that matters, if the weight of opinion in the House is felt by the Minister. Perhaps I should declare an interest on child benefit, as my wife has just given birth to our fourth child.
  I should like to dispel the impression which has been given judging from one or two letters which I have received—possibly even in my own party—that child benefit is a form of soup kitchen or cash handout. That is a travesty of the truth.
  Child benefit is not a soup kitchen. It was designed to place cash in the pockets of the mother who needs it most, so that she can look after her children. It gives a tax cut to the poorest families in the land, and is the surest way of alleviating the poverty trap or the "Why work?" syndrome. We inveighed against those inequities before the election in May 1979. Since that date, unfortunately, the poverty trap has become worse. Now—to give one example out of many—a couple with four children are better off earning £55 than £95 a week, in certain circumstances.
  In Opposition the Minister described the poverty trap as devastating and a real blot on the face of the tax and welfare system. I know that he still believes that. I also know that he believes that the uprating of child benefit is one of the best ways to close the poverty trap. I wish him well in his battle against his Treasury colleagues.
  Unfortunately, last time child benefit was uprated the Chancellor of the Exchequer decided not to face the issue entirely, which will make it harder for him this time. This time he will need to add 95p to the value of child benefit to return it to its former level. That is vital. We have an obligation to raise child benefit in line with other personal allowances. No other tax allowance should be given greater priority than child benefit. If personal allowances are not to be raised in line with inflation, child benefit should be an exception to that.
  The cost of uprating child benefit will be about £190 million. Each of us has his own pet method of how that money should be found. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Isle of Ely that there is no point talking about
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  an increase in public expenditure without giving an indication that one has thought about how the additional money should be raised.
  Substantial savings can be made through the monthly payment of child benefit—which the hon. Member for Isle of Ely also advocated—and the introduction of the autocredit transfer system. There will be savings on supplementary benefit, if child benefit is uprated, and further savings on the cost of families who have to go into care because they cannot cope with the burdens of poverty. The balance might be procured from uprating tobacco tax—each of us has our favourite, and that is mine.
  The qualification "where resources permit" must be accepted. However, we were talking about improving the 1979 position of the disabled in "The Right Approach". No doubt, when resources permit, we shall bring forward policies that might benefit the disabled. However, it would be nice if the Government could undertake a Green Paper of the piecemeal benefits given to the disabled, to see how they could be rationalised into a disability pension which might be given as a right, as opposed to the claimant having to request the benefit being cast in the role of supplicant. Currently, applicants are compelled to apply for benefits which depend on the cause of his disability. For example, someone who is disabled at birth will receive less pension than someone who is disabled at work.
  To date, the official response to a request for a Green Paper is that the hopes of the disabled might be raised unfairly. That is rubbish. We raised the expectations of the disabled in "The Right Approach" and in our manifesto. Disabled persons are not daft. They are as alert to the present economic climate as are the rest of the population. No doubt they realise that no improvement can be expected from the Government until there are available resources. However, such a Green Paper would at least give some credibility to the idea that the Government are conscious that there are problems to be solved.
  The disabled face many problems. I take the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West that one does ill for any cause by overstating the case, or by trying to pretend, on a ping-pong basis, that until May 1979 everything was wonderful and now everything is appalling. Nothing is as simple as that. At the moment, the disabled and the unemployed face horrendous problems. I hope that hon. Members will bear with me if I outline some of the problems facing the disabled and the unemployed, many of which have arisen since May 1979.
  There was the uplift in VAT in June 1979 and the uprating of invalidity benefit, which came only in November 1979. Prescription charges have increased five times, and not all invalidity pensioners qualify for free prescriptions. Electricity costs have spiralled. An ominous statistic that I saw recently in New Society on 8 September 1980 was that disconnections in London have doubled in the past year. A number of people simply will not pay, but in that bleak statistic will be included others who cannot pay. I have no reason to suppose that the disabled unemployed are not among them. Local authorities are cutting services that will be missed by the disabled.
  Unemployment is at an all-time high. The disabled will be the last in line to be employed, especially as many employers are wary about the plans to shift on to them responsibility for payment of short-term sickness benefit. One cannot be surprised if they regard disabled applicants

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  with some suspicion in such circumstances. It is not surprising that the unemployment rate for the disabled is double that for those without disability.
  Many unemployed disabled are in a "Catch 22" situation. If they work, even part-time, they are likely to lose their invalidity pension. Then, of course, invalidity benefit is being cut by 5 per cent., which is a great problem for them. They cannot get full-time work, and part-time work does not provide a living wage. If they do part-time work they are likely to lose all their sources of income. The Manpower Services Commission can help to set up in small businesses only those with physical disabilities. I believe that the mentally handicapped do not qualify. A constituent of mine is in that precise position.
  Also, invalidity pensioners do not qualify for free school meals for their children. Lastly, as has been stated several times, charities are suffering sorely from the problems created by VAT. It would be absurd to suggest that all those problems have occurred in the past 18 months, but I mention them to give an indication of the work yet to be done.
  I do not know what it is like to be seriously handicapped, although I am quite deaf. Occasionally, arrogantly, one imagines that one can understand what certain disabilities must be like. However, I am sure that it is not possible to understand the problems of others' disabilities. A man who is deaf cannot imagine what it is like to suffer a nervous breakdown. A deaf woman cannot imagine what multiple sclerosis is like. We might think that we know, but the reality is that we do not. The disability is unique to the sufferer. Each person who is disabled lives with his own problem, which no one else can fully understand.
  In the same way, short of genius, it is impossible for a man who is well-off to understand poverty. I make no pretence of being able to appreciate fully the problems that face the unemployed disabled. It would be hypocrisy for me to pretend to do so. All that the Government can do is to provide services and benefits, remembering as we do so that we are dealing with people and not statistics.
  I note with interest that the debate is about poverty. It is easier to talk about poverty than about the poor; it is easier to argue about the state of unemployment than about the unemployed. It is often a trap to believe that the theories of abstract ideas are things in themselves. We must reorganise benefits for the disabled without patronising them. They do not want our sympathy. They wish to lead full lives, integrated in the community. A Government can do only so much, in a co-ordinated effort with the disabled, their families, local authorities and voluntary organisations.
  It must be a sustained programme of reform. It would be too easy to indulge in a vigorous one-off demonstration of concern in this the International Year of Disabled People. It would be like a brief national outpouring of concern for the victims of remote foreign earthquakes—a quick payment to salve our national conscience and assuage our guilt at having done so little in the past, and then "Let's get on with the next item on the agenda."
  The problems of the disabled, the unemployed and the poor will not go away. There are no easy solutions for this or any Government. They cannot sweep the problems away year after year, hoping that they will be forgotten. It is profoundly depressing that the position of the disabled
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  unemployed has grown worse in the past year. However, I am optimistic that the Government will respond to the challenge, which is clearly our overriding duty, and will place the disabled unemployed as our highest social priority.
  7.25 pm
  Mr. Ernie Roberts: We have proved this afternoon that the Government's policies are responsible for increasing poverty. In an excellently researched book, Professor Townsend recently pointed out that 26 per cent. of our population—about 14 million people—could be said to be living in poverty. Hackney bears out what Professor Townsend said and what we have said. The Government are responsible for increasing poverty.
  I wish to say a few words about the economics of poverty. I make my remarks on the basis of information that I have received from the many hundreds who visit my advice centre and from the thousands of letters that I receive as a Member of Parliament, and on the evidence that is only too obvious in my area. Anyone can see the obvious poverty of an area that has a high percentage of old-age pensioners and an absence of young people because they have left the area. We now have about 18,000 people on housing waiting lists, and hundreds of homeless temporarily in bed and breakfast accommodation. People are squatting in fairly large numbers. We have over 5,000 single-parent families, with all their problems. I challenge the libel that they drink or gamble away then-child benefit. They use it to try to eke out their poverty stricken existence. Hackney has the highest infant mortality rate in Britain and a high number of mentally ill people, the causes being mainly poverty and distress. Massive gas and electricity bills are continually brought to me. They are debts owed by the unemployed and by people on social security.
  Hackney is an area where people have some of the lowest incomes in London, with mass unemployment and no investment. The advertisements on one page of the local paper indicate the poverty—18 jumble sales are advertised for one weekend. That is the way that my constituents have to provide for their needs. They receive social security as a right and not because they are scroungers. The Government are making the situation worse by their policies and their inability to solve the problems of inflation. Their taxation policies go against working people and the unemployed, as do their cuts in housing, hospitals, schools, social services, health, and so on.
  "Inequalities in Health" has been referred to. On the first page the Secretary of State for Social Services states that
  "there is … little sign of health inequalities in Britain actually diminishing and, in some cases, they may be increasing. It will be seen that the Group has reached the view that the causes of health inequalities are so deep rooted that only a major and wide-ranging programme of public expenditure is capable of altering the pattern."
  I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman understands that. He continues:
  "I must make it clear that additional expenditure on the scale that could result from the report's recommendations—the amount involved could be upwards of £2 billion a year"—
  that is a measure of the neglect of the people in Britain, £2,000 million a year—

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  "is quite unrealistic in present or any forseeable economic circumstances … I cannot, therefore, endorse the Group's recommendations."
  That is an indication of the poverty being suffered by people in Britain.
  The Government attack local authorities. They attacked Hackney for alleged overspending when it tried to solve the deplorable social problems of poverty. The council faces massive rate burdens and its tenants face massive rent increases. Those are burdens on an already impoverished community, yet that area adjoins the City of London, whose banks, insurance companies and multinational headquarters are bursting at the seams with wealth. The comparison between those two areas exemplifies Britain's problems—a nation of the very rich and the very poor, the "haves" and the "have nots"—Disraeli's two nations.
  That position is brought out sharply in the report of the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth, which was published in eight volumes. When the report was published, more than 23 million people earned less than £3,000 a year, yet about 17,500 people earned up to £12,000 per year, or four times as much. Other people—more than 4,000—earned 17 times as much, namely, up to £50,000 per year. Others were receiving more than £100,000 per year. The figures do not include those who receive unearned income from investments. That disparity of incomes in Britain causes the massive deep-seated problem of poverty.
  The Hackney Gazette said in a recent editorial:
  "Nothing very surprising in the new report on Hackney which predicts even more vandalism and violence in an area that was once renowned for the closeness of its down-at-heel community.
  Unfortunately, those of us who live and work in Hackney have been only too aware for many years of the gradually increasing levels of violence and wanton destruction…
  Their conclusion is that while nothing will bring back the Hackney of pre-war days, it would be inviting trouble if central government does not allocate resources to halt the decline and to maintain the fabric of Hackney."
  Those are the views of the local press, which speaks on behalf of the local people.
  The Minister asked where the money would come from. Let me be emphatic about this. One has the illusion that Britain is broke. This is a wealthy country. It is the second wealthiest country in the world. It is the second largest investor overseas—second only to the United States. Currently the gross national product is running at a rate of £200,000 million. That is a considerable amount of wealth and it is going into the pockets of those whom the Government truly represent.
  This week The Sunday Times estimated the nation's reserves at $27½ billion—in other words, $15 billion net of all debts. The money is there to be used—if the Government have the will to use it—in the interests of the people of Britain. This country has a considerable amount of wealth, which should be used to solve the problems of poverty. The TUC has made it clear how the problems can be solved, namely, through a £6 billion budget boost—a £600 million increase for State industry, £710 million for a manpower programme to provide 520,000 jobs, £250 million for private industry, £750 million for higher pensions, £500 million for education and £300 million for school meals and milk. The money could come from the sources to which I have referred. All that would help those who suffer from increasing poverty.
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  The only solution to the problem of poverty is the removal of this Government, who are responsible for the poverty, and the election of a Labour Government who will create a new type of society in Britain.
  7.36 pm
  Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones: I want to follow the argument of the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Mr. Roberts), who quoted One or two novel statistics. The first and perhaps most surprising remark was that the number of jumble sales that take place in his constituency is a valuable indicator of the level of poverty. My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, West (Mr. Bottomley), who takes a considerable interest in these matters, is reputed to clothe himself entirely from jumble sales. Perhaps optimistically, I place another interpretation on the upsurge of jumble sales in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. It is that those marvellous events are usually organised by Conservative women, to whom I shall refer later. No doubt the Conservative women of Hackney are being spurred into great activity in an attempt to remove the hon. Gentleman from the seat that he now occupies.
  Other statistics that he not surprisingly used, in view of his position before he entered the House, were those put forward by the TUC. The hon. Gentleman is a Member to whom the House should now listen with special attention. His past position in the TUC and his present contacts there place him in an important position in the Labour Party as it is today. We must listen with great care and attention to the figures that he puts forward. I do not know where he obtained some of his figures. He said that Britain was the second wealthiest nation in the world. He then suggested that an expenditure of £6 billion should be undertaken. Presumably, he feels that that money can be obtained simply by confiscating wealth from the rich. I do not think that that statement merits serious consideration by the House.
  I wish to confine my remarks principally to the question of child benefit and the need further to consider it. First, I want to say a few words about the remarks of my hon. Friends the Members for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) and Abingdon (Mr. Benyon) about a Green Paper on the disabled. I support such a move, especially in the International Year of Disabled People. Returning to the question of poverty, and those affected by it, I recall asking a millionaire acquaintance why he had joined the Labour Party. The reason that he gave, which seemed convincing, was that as a young man he remembered seeing children, with no shoes on their feet, and suffering from rickets, running around in the streets of our major towns.
  The first fact that we ought to establish today, in order to put the problem into perspective, is that poverty on that scale has now been eradicated and what we are now talking about is relative poverty in a State of relative affluence. Anyone who smiles at that need only glance at the problems faced by the one-third of the world that we know as the Third world. I have no doubt that the people of the Third world would regard as affluence what we in this country choose to regard as poverty, though I hasten to add that I do not make that point in order to minimise the problems of the relative poverty that we face in this country.
  I turn now to the basic thrust of Government policy and the difficult decisions that they have to take. My hon.

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  Friend the Member for Somerset, North brough out the essential point to be borne in mind, that over the past decades expenditure on our social services has increased at three times the rate of growth in the creation of wealth. I believe that that figure is not disputed on either side of the House. I realise that there are such members as the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington who believe that there is a crock of gold somewhere that can simply be confiscated and handed out, but I think that, apart from the small minority of hon. Members who take that view, it is generally recognised in the House that it is necessary to look to the business of creating wealth.
  It is my contention that while that is being done, and while the nation faces its present difficulties, the Conservative Party, if it looks to its origins and its basic beliefs, is particularly well suited to operate with humanity and imagination a policy directed to the necessary creation of wealth. Although it is true that the Tory Party has no dogma, I believe that it has always attempted to do what seems best at the time. That is no bad philosophy in the context of problems such as those that we face today. Without detaining the House for long, since I know that others wish to speak I shall expand a little on what I mean.
  I believe that in two areas already the Government have begun to show that at the edges they are prepared to intervene against what the Opposition take to be the party's dogma—to intervene to help those who are in difficulty. I refer, of course, to the considerable expansion that has rightly taken place in the youth opportunities programme for helping the younger unemployed. Moreover, on industrial policy, I refer to a speech made by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in which she referred to "constructive intervention". Many of us hope that in the coming months and years the Government will be building on that concept in order to intervene in the economy not only through purchasing policy but through Government investment such as that which took place in Inmos, in order to help to create more employment opportunities.
  My first theme, therefore, is that a Conservative Government are in a position ideologically to make decisions of that kind to help in areas of need when they arise. There is no ideological inhibition restraining us from so doing.
  Having mentioned industrial and employment policy, I turn next to social policy and pick up the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave), who referred to an article published by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Patten). The title of that article asks a question:
  "One Nation at the Hustings—Two Nations in reality?"
  Those of us who take an interest in Tory social policy believe that at the core of that policy must be help and support for the family. As my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford said in his article:
  "The great debate in the Tory Party today on social policy should be centred on how we can help the family in all its different manifestations".
  As my right hon. Friend knows, many of us on the Conservative Benches still regard that as a central issue. We believe that he is at one with us in that belief. But we are worried that that central part of our policy may be beginning to slip away from us, and we very much hope that when, as he says he must do now, he enters into
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  purdah with my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, he will defend as vigorously as he can that central core of Conservative social policy, which must be the maintenance of the family.
  Those of us on the Conservative Benches who press for child benefit do so not only in the confidence that my right hon. Friend the Secretary for State is behind us and supporting us, as we know he is, but in the knowledge of what was said in the letter from the Chancellor to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West, which we now refer to as the "Waldegrave letter". In that letter my right hon. and learned Friend said that he had
  "no intention of going back on our earlier policy on child benefit."
  We believe, therefore, that we have the powerful combination, as I may so call it, of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on our side, but, as if that were not enough, we have with us the Conservative Women's National Advisory Council. I assure hon. Members on the Opposition Benches that there is perhaps no organisation more powerful or more influential in the Conservative Party than that council. It has not only done a great deal of work on child benefit but has expressed itself as
  "deeply concerned about child benefit and the heavier financial burdens which will fall upon families with children in 1980".
  Therefore, those of us who advance this case believe that we have good allies, and we believe that the Government wish to do what we are advocating.
  There are two general points to be made about child benefit. I acknowledge that all hon. Members now in the Chamber who take an interest in these matters will be well aware of them, but they are points that bear repetition, because they are not well understood outside. For example, whenever I make a speech about child benefit I find that it is not a popular issue in the country. One receives a lot of letters from old-age pensioners, from the disabled and from all manner of people, who ask "What are you doing?". The hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) referred in this context to an article in a Scottish newspaper written by one of my hon. Friends. I think, therefore, that the two basic points that I am about to make bear repetition, since it is important that people generally understand this matter.
  Child benefit was introduced to take the place of the old child tax allowances. The child tax allowances were in no way regarded as a social service. They were there to achieve some sort of equity at all income levels for families with children as compared to families without children. That is the first fact to be established. This is not a social service handout. In a sense, it is another fiscal or tax weapon.
  The second point to be made—again, I do not wish to overstate it, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Howell) has done a great deal of work on it—is one that those who support the Conservative Party would certainly believe to be important, and I hope that many who support the Labour Party would take the same view. Child benefit helps the person who is in work, as opposed to the person who is unemployed. It is important to stress that for every £1 that is paid to a person out of work £1 is deducted from any unemployment or supplementary benefit that that person receives. That is an important point for people to understand.
  The third aspect of child benefit to be emphasised is that it is what is referred to as an indiscriminate benefit. It is

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  collected by the very rich and the very poor. I am in two minds about this. On the one hand, I think that there are significant advantages in paying it to everybody, since that upholds the principle that it is the old child tax allowance, and there is considerable benefit to be derived from that. If in his discussions with the Chancellor my right hon. Friend fights, as I am sure he will, to uprate child benefit this year and he finds it necessary that those who pay tax above the standard rate should pay tax on their child benefit, I should not regard that as a retrograde or offensive step. The sum involved is about £40 million, which in the context of the total expended on child benefit may sound trifling. It is, nevertheless, a contribution.
  In advocating an increase in child benefit the next question that we have to ask is whether the family is slipping behind other sectors of the population. The answer to that must be an unqualified "Yes". Some of my hon. Friends referred to statistics supplied by the Child Poverty Action Group. I would add one more to them, namely, that in the last two decades the proportion of income tax and national insurance contributions paid by a childless couple on three-quarters average earnings has increased by 122 per cent., whereas the proportion paid by a family with two children, one under 11 and one over 1, has increased by 382 per cent.—about three times as much. That is how the position of families is being steadily eroded.
  It is worth noting that since the Government have been in office—I am referring to the years 1978–82—the tax burden for a childless couple has increased by 1·3 per cent., whereas for the family on three-quarters average earnings with two children it has increased by 11·6 per cent. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary looks rather surprised. The statistics that I am now using were part of the memorandum presented by the Child Poverty Action Group.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West said, by whatever yardstick one chooses to measure that—whether by tax-free income, the tax break-even point, or changes in net disposable income—the position of families vis-a-vis single people has steadily been eroded. He effectively made the point that low income families above all suffer from inflation. That is another point that we have to bear in mind. Another example is the increase in school meals since April 1979. When the Government came to office the price of a school meal was 25p. The average price of today's school meal is 45p. Higher fuel bills and grants for school uniforms and children's clothing are being cut back. Those are the factors that affect low-income families. Both my hon. Friends the Members for Bristol, West and for Abingdon (Mr. Benyon) gave figures that I do not wish to repeat. It is worth reminding ourselves and the nation that a couple with two children are still better off earning £55 than if they earn £75. A couple with four children are better off earning £55 than £95. That is a point that bears repetition.
  Those of us who are concerned about this problem have three options to offer to the Government. The first and perhaps the most important is that child benefit should be increased by 95p. That is the figure needed to restore child benefit to the level at which it stood in April 1979. On the other hand, if one assumes that the personal tax allowance will be increased in line with the Lawson-Rooker-Wise amendment, that would be satisfactory. That would involve an increase in child benefit of approximately 70p. Some of my hon. Friends and I would be in difficulty if
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  the increase in child benefit announced this year by my right hon. and learned Friend fell below 50p, which is the absolute bare minimum at which it would retain its present value.
  What is the cost of all this? The cost of a 95p increase in a full tax year would be £522 million. The cost of a 70p increase would be £385 million. The cost of a 50p increase would be £275 million. For the year 1981–82 it would be significantly less than that, because the cost falls in only part of the financial year.
  The hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) made the point that when looking at this kind of expenditure one must bear in mind the cost-effectiveness of child benefit. I shall suggest ways in which the extra expenditure could be paid for. As the hon. Member for Isle of Ely rightly said, a 50p increase in child benefit as a bare minimum would mean, for a family with two children, £1 per week. To achieve the same effect by altering the standard rate of tax by increasing the married man's tax allowance would cost £610 million. That has an added disadvantage, which the hon. Member for Isle of Ely did not mention. When the tax threshold is moved it does not affect the very poor, because they are not in the tax net anyway. The reason why we stress this is not only its cost-effectiveness; it is that if one tries to do it through the tax allowance it leaves out altogether the very poor.
  The Opposition are quick to suggest that the Government should make this expenditure, but they are not quite so quick to suggest how it may be financed. The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington made suggestions. However, he is a smash-and-grab merchant, who believes that there are pots of gold somewhere to grab and hand out. Conservative Members have a responsibility to make suggestions on how this could be financed.
  I shall confine myself to my private hobby-horses. The first obvious suggestion is to increase the revenue tax on alcohol and tobacco. From those two items alone, by quite modest rises of 10 per cent. or 15 per cent. as much as £1 billion could and should be raised in the coming Budget for many other reasons. That alone would finance a rise in child benefit sufficent to bring it back to the April 1979 level.
  Another policy that I have advocated in the past—I am delighted to see that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are not entirely opposed to it—is a windfall profits tax on the banks. That is dangerous territory for a Conservative Party, but we are entitled to say that a great deal of the interest on dead money that sits in clearing banks accrues as extra profit as a result of the increase in minimum lending rate. Those are not profits in the true sense of the word. They are not gained by business acumen and expertise. In the real sense of the word they are windfall profits. I should have no objection if my right hon. and learned Friend found it necessary to lay his hands on £30 million, £40 million or £50 million-worth of those profits. But that is a one-off tax, which will not provide a continuing income for any Government because we all expect the minimum lending rate to come down shortly. Such a tax could be operated only when minimum lending rate was in excess of 10 per cent.
  My other point concerns capital taxes. Many of my hon. Friends have pressed hard for my right hon. and learned Friend to do something about capital transfer tax and other capital taxes. I do not think that there can be a

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  single Conservative Member who does not believe that to be important. Equally, many of us would say that we should not be looking at capital taxes when we have serious problems of poverty and need among families throughout the country. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor will not feel it necessary to do anything at all about capital taxes this year.
  A network of tax allowances has built up. One of the side arguments in favour of child benefit is that it is a step towards sorting out the nightmare of tax benefits that stretch not only to many companies, for which taxes have become virtually voluntary, but down the system to people applying for tax relief at the DHSS. In my constituency elderly people sit at a counter and negotiate with the clerk about whether they are to be given an allowance to buy blankets, gloves or a winter coat. That has arisen not from the policies of a particular party but from our desire to tailor-make social benefits to individuals. That system of individual benefits no longer stands up, good though the sentiments behind it are. We must move towards phasing out the network of tax reliefs at all levels.
  With that in mind, I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not feel it necessary to raise the threshold on mortgage relief. I hope that he will leave it at its present level, which will provide a considerable saving.
  I turn to the question of tax thresholds and the Lawson-Rooker-Wise amendment. If the Government believe it necessary to raise the tax thresholds, so be it. However, in the difficult times that we face and the sacrifices that we are asking people to make, this is not the time to lower the tax thresholds at the top end. There is no justification for that. My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen) argued that by doing so the Government would index-link the very wealthy against inflation. If there is anybody who needs to be protected from inflation it is the very poor, not the very wealthy.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West said:
  "It is possible to argue that inflation hits the poorest hardest and that the poorest have the least means of avoiding the effects of inflation. The same argument cannot be extended to the rich." [Official Report, 3 June 1980; Vol. 985 c. 1347.]
  Even if tax thresholds are to be lowered at the lower band I hope that it will not be felt necessary at this juncture to do so at the top end.
  We are asking the Secretary of State to reaffirm the Government's belief in child benefit and to reaffirm what we believe to be the central core of this Government's social policy. We are asking him to ensure that child benefit does not become, in the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, another addition to the list of "also rans". If he does what we ask him my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be restating a coherent social policy, around which we can unite and ask the country to face the difficult sacrifices that are facing it.
  8.3 pm
  Mr. John Maxton: I wish to make only two comments on the speech of the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones). He compared the people of the Third world with the poor in Britain. Most of my hon. Friends will take that point. However, his comparison is a little hypocritical for a member of the
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  Conservative Party, which is increasing poverty in this country and helping to make the appalling poverty in the Third world even worse by its aid programmes, trade policies and education policies.
  Mr. Garel-Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Maxton: No. The hon. Gentleman took a long time with his speech.
  Mr. Garel-Jones: What about import controls?
  Mr. Maxton: Import controls would be selective and would not necessarily improve the position of the poor.
  The hon. Gentleman said that the family was at the core of the Conservative Government's social policy. Family life is eroded by unemployment. Anybody who has seen unemployment in poor areas knows of the psychological degredation felt by the breadwinner when he loses his job. It can break up a family and make family life more difficult. When Conservative Members talk about the family they should remember that violence, for instance, is more likely in a family where there is unemployment. In a household where there is unemployment, children are more likely to be taken into care. The statistics in Strathclyde region certainly bear that out.
  Some Government Members, particularly the Secretary of State, should visit my constituency if they want to see what is happening to the poorer people. In my constituency there is a large housing scheme with a population of 38,000. It is one of the largest public housing schemes in Europe. Even before 1979—and I am being honest—the levels of unemployment and multi-deprivation were far too high. Since then, unemployment and deprivation have reached disastrous levels. It will not be long before they reach crisis levels.
  It is difficult for me to obtain unemployment figures for that housing scheme. It is a clearly recognised community, but it has no unemployment benefit office, no jobcentre and no DHSS office. People who have to register as unemployed spend about 5 per cent. of their incomes on travelling to register for work. The Government have already cut their incomes by not raising the levels of benefit by the full amount of inflation. That should not be tolerated.
  I understand that unemployment is running at about 25 per cent. in the scheme as a whole. That is probably a conservative figure if one takes into account the number of people on short-time work and the number of women who have been employed but who have not registered. In certain pockets of the scheme with populations of 9,000 or 10,000 unemployment is probably over 50 per cent.
  The poverty effects of the Government's actions in cutting unemployment benefit are seen most clearly in such areas. The problems will be increased with the disapperance of the earning-related supplement.
  Unemployment and social security benefits have always been on the breadline. In such circumstances people have to be saints in terms of patience and abstinence. They have to have the financial skill of chartered accountants in order to live and maintain a basic standard. They live on the breadline. If they are not to get into debt, they cannot afford the occasionl packet of cigarettes or the occasional pint of beer or even take their kids to the cinema. This Government are making their plight even worse.

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  The Secretary of State made great play of the fact that old-age pensions and some other benefits, but not unemployment benefit, are going up with inflation.
  As the hon. Member for Watford said, inflation hits the poorest hardest. This Government's direct policies have made inflation harder for the poorest than for the rest of the community. The Government have insisted that local authorities put up rents way above the current level of inflation. They have insisted that the Gas Council and the electricity boards put up their prices way above the level of inflation.
  The Government have also cut the special needs payment for clothing from supplementary benefits. With regard to food, as everyone knows, the poorer a person is the more he pays, and the more he pays for his food the poorer he is. Poor people cannot afford to shop at the supermarkets, because normally there is no big supermarket in the area in which they live. They do not have a car to transport large amounts of produce bought in bulk, and even if they have a car they do not have a freezer in which to store the food. All the benefits of low pricing in the hypermarkets and the advance of the freezer are lost to the poorest in our community. Therefore, they have to shop in the corner shops where the average prices are at least 15 per cent. higher than in the supermarkets. The poor are being hit harder by inflation. Even with inflation-proofing—in many areas the Government have not implemented that—they are being hardest hit.
  I see the effects of increasing unemployment and social deprivation in my constituency. There is no doubt that more people are being disconnected from electricity supplies. That creates enormous risks, not simply in terms of hypothermia but in terms of direct physical risks to young children whose families are having to use oil heaters and candles. For young children under the age of 5, the risks in that sort of environment are enormous. Glasgow has one of the highest fire risks in the whole of Britain.
  The number of children that have been taken into care as a result of unemployment is increasing. Vandalism is increasing. Education is being cut. It is not simply a matter of what is being paid to the poor. The back-up services on which they rely are being cut by local authorities. The home-help services and the social work back-up services are also being cut, or at best they are being maintained at the same level, and with increasing unemployment that means a real cut. Tenants are facing massive rent and rate increases. Conservatives tend to forget that council house tenants pay rates. In Glasgow, the district authority is saying that it will not be able to maintain its housing stock at the present level in the current financial year. It is not a matter of increasing or improving standards, redeveloping houses or building new houses for the old and disabled, but simply a matter of maintaining them at their present level. That cannot be done, because of Government cutbacks.
  Repairs on housing will not be carried out, so the people who are already poor will suffer even more. Those people are poor and they are getting poorer. They are also being hounded by fraud squads that have been established by the Government. I should not like anyone to think that that is not happening. At my surgery, people have already complained about the way in which investigations are being carried out. They are carried out on pure speculation. First, an anonymous phone call seems to be the greatest source of information for the investigators. Secondly, they see people in their working clothes.
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  Anyone who knows working class areas knows that jeans and an anorak are common uniform, whether a person is unemployed, walking the streets because he has a bad back, on invalidity benefit, or at work.
  I know of one case where it was clear—although there may be a difference in the wording of the interview that took place—that a person was intimidated into coming off sickness benefit. He was told that there was some suspicion that he was working. There was little or no evidence, but the investigator told him that he believed that he had been working since September and that the Department would have to be repaid £1,000. He was told that if he could not pay £1,000, a warrant sale—as it is known in Scotland—would have to be carried out on his property and household chattels, and that he might be prosecuted. One can imagine that in those circumstances the man signed himself off sickness benefit for one short weekend. I assure the House that he is now back on sickness benefit, and the Department made some sort of apology for what happened. That sort of thing is happening; I have heard of similar cases.
  A skilled motor mechanic—many skilled motor mechanics are unemployed in the West of Scotland—who is fit, healthy and employed for more than four months is in trouble. He is likely to be investigated by fraud squads, probably on three different occasions and on three different counts. That goes against every principle of British justice. As soon as the Department becomes suspicious, it stops payment. It acts as investigator, prosecutor, jury and judge in its own cause. Even if the appeal takes only three or four weeks, a family is without money for that period, and it is not only on the poverty level but is in penury, and has to survive by begging from the social services department. That sort of activity by the DHSS is increasing.
  Some Labour Members have been accused of scaremongering when they say that there will be an increase in violence on the streets. I do not think that that will happen in the short term, but we shall see a genuine threat to democracy. Elected members of local government—particularly in my party—are becoming increasingly frustrated because they, who have been elected, are unable to carry out the policies on which they were elected. In some cases they are having to take the blame for carrying out this Government's policies. In those circumstances, the ability to encourage people to stand for a local position must be eroded. The poor in my area will not suddenly start storming the barricades, but they are becoming increasingly apathetic. They no longer believe that local authorities or the Government can do anything for them.
  There is real danger to democracy, not necessarily from violence on the streets but from apathy on the part of people who no longer believe that democracy works for them. It is happening in many areas where unemployment is at the level of that in my constituency. It is my fear that democracy is being threatened by increasing poverty.
  Why are the Government doing it? There is little logical sense in their economic case. They are not solving the economic problems, and in the long run they are not solving the problems of inflation. It seems increasingly that what they are trying to obtain by their policies is a subservient working class that will be able to give them cheap labour for their friends and enable them to become even wealthier.
  8.19 pm
  Mr. Peter Griffiths: The motion in the names of the Leader of the Opposition and others is about poverty. Because it seeks to list some of the groups to which the term "poor" may be applied, the debate has tended to concentrate on the problems of individual disadvantaged groups in our society. If, at this late hour, I do not repeat the list and add my own strength of feeling to the problems that have been described for such groups as the disabled, the unemployed, families on low wages and those with sizeable families to keep on small incomes, it is not because I do not feel as strongly as do my hon. Friends or Labour Members, but because I feel that the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud), when he spoke about what is poverty and what poverty means, introduced a new perspective into the debate.
  I shall identify a group that is slightly different from those that have been spoken about. It is a group that is additional—I am not putting it forward as an alternative—to those that have been identified.
  The groups identified in the motion, which was moved by the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan), might be called the visible poor. They are groups that are recognisable. We know of them because they often have vocal advocates. They have organisations that speak on their behalf, or they are strongly organised themselves. They organise demonstrations. These are the visible poor, whose needs are regularly drawn to our attention and about whose needs there is little doubt. Nevertheless, they are not the only people in our society who are suffering from the relative poverty to which we are referring. Absolute poverty in the world-wide sense, or historical sense, does not now exist in Britain.
  At the very end of his speech my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said—I hope that I am not misquoting him—that the Government should take special care of innocent victims of inflation. I identify a group of people whom I describe as the invisible poor, or the new poor, and who are the innocent victims of inflation. They are all relatively poor. They are poor relative to those who live round about them. They are relatively poor in terms of their expectations during their working lives.
  I am talking about those who saved while they were at work and who by their own thrift and self-denial expected a relatively comfortable standard of living during the years after their retirement. I add to that group a section of society that is often made up of women, although not entirely, who have given up career and marriage prospects to look after elderly parents. During the time that their parents are alive, and sometimes after their death, these people, very often women, and especially single women, suffer from the relative poverty to which I have referred.
  In many instances the members of this group receive State benefits. Certainly many of them are eligible for old-age pensions. Their additional income comes from their savings, perhaps from small pensions, which may have been eroded by inflation. I take issue with the hon. Member for Isle of Ely when he says that none of the poor depend upon investment income. I think that he was talking about investment in banks, but many of those who are relatively poor have placed their savings in fixed interest accounts and are dependent upon small investment incomes that have been gravely eroded by inflation.
  Those people are the new poor. They are the invisible poor, because they do not allow their poverty to show.
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  They do not appear down-at-heel. They do not demonstrate. They do not draw attention to the problems that they face. To my mind, that makes them the more deserving. They should be identified within our society, the burdens that they face should be recognised, and our efforts should be developed to try to help them. Their problems are sometimes referred to in a slightly sneering manner as "genteel" poverty. I believe that poverty of that kind should excite our admiration, in that there are people who live on very small incomes but manage nevertheless to maintain a respectable front to the world. They manage to retain their pride and to make sure that they do not draw the attention of the world to their problems.
  Often, these people are the contributors to our society. When they go along to luncheon clubs for the elderly, for example, often it is not so much to receive a lunch as to organise the function itself. Very often, they are the stalwarts of voluntary and charitable organisations. Certainly, the Conservative Party could not go on for very long without the selfless services of people in that category. These people are the contributors to society. They make very small claims on the social services. They may receive their rate rebates, but, they make few claims upon society as a whole. Their relative poverty shows in the fact that their houses become shabbier and they are able to make fewer bus journeys to go to clubs and societies, where they make a positive contribution for their friends, their neighbours and society in general.
  All too often, I fear, it means that these people may be suffering as much from restrictions of diet and heating as those who have lower incomes but who have lower outgoings. They are people often left in larger houses, which are difficult to maintain, extremely difficult to heat and require a great deal of expenditure. They therefore find themselves forced to cut down on the essentials of life in order to maintain the standards that they had hoped to be able to maintain in their retirement years without the kind of sacrifice that they have to make today.
  I wish to refer to a matter which perhaps has not had all the attention that it might have had in the debate, namely, the amendment in the names of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and others. It deserves a great deal of support. It does not cut directly across the original motion, although the wording may appear so to do. It addresses itself to the broad national problem rather than to the difficulties of individual groups. Opposition Members may laugh, but I do not see this as a matter for levity. It should have the serious attention of all hon. Members, so that we may identify the problems, and so that the people who are the subject of the debate may feel that they are receiving the serious consideration that they deserve.
  The groups to which I have referred will not be greatly helped by minor changes in the social security system. By varying individual benefits, one may indeed help particular groups. Clearly, families with children are greatly helped if one increases child benefit. The people to whom I am referrng are not likely to be helped by this kind of project, nor will they be helped by the grandiose proposals put forward yesterday by the TUC for £6·2 billion to be spent to rejuvenate the economy. In the short run, that would undoubtedly help some of the groups that have been identified today, but in the longer term it would once again fuel the fire of inflation.
  The people on whose behalf I have been speaking are those who have suffered most from inflation. They are

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  people on small, relatively fixed incomes. They have no way of protecting themselves against inflation in the way that the rich can—on that I agree with Labour Members—and as some poorer groups can. The poorer groups are protected by powerful vocal groups outside this House, which can influence hon. Members. The group to which I am referring depends entirely upon the success of the Government's policies. In 1979 they voted for a Conservative Government because they believed that that was the most likely way to do two things: first, to tackle inflation, and, secondly, to cut direct taxation, particularly by raising the thresholds at which direct taxation affected their relatively small incomes.
  Those who voted for the Government on that basis will never forgive us if, after the sacrifices that they have made, the Government lose their nerve and back off from their basic priority. The Government were elected on one clear and absolute priority—to fight inflation. They ought to be given a great deal more credit for the success that they have achieved. Inflation has already come down to single figures—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] It has come down rapidly.
  Labour Members who served on the Committee that considered the Social Security (No. 2) Bill will recall that the right hon. Member for Salford, West (Mr. Orme), who led for the Labour Party, said that we should not raise benefits by only I6½ per cent, as the level of inflation could not possibly be down to that level by November. That was refuted at the time, both by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. We were right. The rate of inflation went down to 16 per cent, in November.
  Mr. Race: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Griffiths: No. The hon. Gentleman's laughter has been his contribution.
  The Government's programme for the reduction of inflation is on target. This is the only way in which the new poor will be helped. The Opposition's motion is ill-judged and ill-timed. Therefore, I am directly opposed to it. I enthusiastically endorse the amendment, because therein lies the hope for the new poor, the invisible poor and those who need the support and help of all sections of the House.
  8.34 pm
  Mr. Allan Roberts: If it has not done anything else, the Opposition's motion has given well-known wets in the Conservative Party the opportunity to come out of the woodwork and try to salvage some of the social policies that they believe in. Those policies seem to be ignored by the Prime Minister and her Cabinet. I understand that the Prime Minister is unwilling to listen to the CBI, the TUC or others who regret the vicious and unfeeling nature of her policies. The right hon. Lady and her Government are not likely to listen to their own Back Benchers. She considers them to be heretics.
  The hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths) spoke about the new poor. Perhaps I should describe them as the poor rich or the genteel poor rich. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North is having trouble with members of his Conservative association. They are beginning to realise that the Government's policies also hit them. They are not making as much money and are not as affluent as they had
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  anticipated they would be when they voted Conservative and decided to work for the Conservative Party in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. That is a strange note to introduce into a debate on poverty.
  I turn to the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North's hon. Friends, who are obviously more on the Left of the Conservative Party. Led by the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave), and with the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) bringing up the rear in defence of his marginal seat, those hon. Members made a very good case for increasing child benefits. The main thrust of their argument seemed to be based on the virtue of non-means tested benefits. It seemed to be based on the idea of a universal benefit that would go to all those with children—whether rich or poor.
  Indirectly and directly, those hon. Members attacked the whole idea of selective benefits and means-tested benefits. I hope that they and their party will apply that criterion to all the other benefits. I hope that the Conservative Party will accept that a non-means tested benefit represents a much more effective way of dealing with poverty and of giving benefits to those who most need and deserve them.
  Those who are rich, and those on high incomes who receive child benefit, pay for it through the tax system. Indeed, they contribute to other people's child benefits. That seems a fair and equitable way of organising things and does not involve forms and means tests.
  The Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Watford and others challenged us to say how we would pay for increased benefits, for a social programme and for the public expenditure that we advocate. It should not be paid for by an increase in indirect taxation. I hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will listen to me. He certainly will not listen to his own Back Benchers. I plead with him not to increase indirect taxation to pay for increases, in child benefit or anything else, or to reduce the public sector borrowing requirement. An increase in indirect taxation will particularly hit those who are poor, those on lower incomes, and those who are unemployed. Those who receive widows' pensions and those in receipt of DHSS benefits or unemployment benefit pay the same amount of VAT on a product as does a millionaire.
  If taxation has to be increased to fund social benefits, an increase in direct taxation is the fairest and most equitable way of collecting the revenue. I do not shrink from the prospect that the next Labour Government will have to increase taxes in the early years of their Administration to pay for the social benefits that a civilised society should provide. I do not object to the idea of a wealth tax. I plead with the Government to keep, and not to sell off, the profitable parts of our nationalised industries. Some of the money that accrues from them could be used to provide a social wage.
  I ask the Government, and certainly the next Labour Government, not to replace Polaris but to cut defence expenditure in a way that will also reduce public expenditure. I can give figures to show how this Government's policies are increasing public expenditure. In the quarter ended 31 March 1980, expenditure on unemployment benefit in Great Britain was £210·8 million, compared with £168·5 million in the same quarter of 1979 as a direct result of increasing unemployment created by the Government.
  I speak as one who represents a Merseyside constituency. The Secretary of State, if I recall his remarks

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  correctly, said that social benefits, the future of the Welfare State and the future of British industry are interrelated. The problems of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North, pale into insignificance compared with the unemployment and poverty in the Merseyside development area. During August 1980, 4,782 redundancies were notified in the Merseyside employment service area compared with only 850 in August 1979. In the Merseyside special development area, 3,424 redundancies were notified in August 1980 compared with 766 in August 1979. The industries that have been hit include printing, paper, publishing, transport, communications, the construction industry and the manufacturing industry.
  In the special development area of Merseyside 102,685 people are unemployed—the massive figure of 14·8 per cent. That is the background against which my constituents are having to grapple with the economic problems created by the Government. There is more to come. The docks in Merseyside will create more unemployment. Tate and Lyle threatens to close the Lark Lane factory in Liverpool with the loss of well over 1,000 jobs. The loss of those jobs is blamed by the management not on the unions but on Government policy and the consequencies of our membership of the European Economic Community.
  Courtauld's, on Merseyside, is likely to make people redundant as a direct result of Government policy. The company has to compete not with the poor nations of the world but with Japan and the United States in synthetic fibres. The Governments of both those countries—yes, even the United States Administration—give aid and assistance to their textile industries to compete with Courtaulds and to knock our manufactured man-made fibres out of the British market. The Government take no action. As a result, unemployment and poverty increase on Merseyside.
  More people in my Bootle constituency, as in other parts of the country, are becoming long-term unemployed, dependent on unemployment benefit and eventually on DHSS benefits. It is against the background of the greater dependence of the people of this country on DHSS benefits and the amount of money that the Government has to find for unemployment and DHSS benefits, which is out of control, that accusations are made—I believe them to be justified—that the Government in trying to fulfil their pledge, made during their scandalous election campaign on the issue of the scroungers, are trying to force people entitled to DHSS benefits off those benefits.
  The Secretary of State made a number of statements that misled the House about the way in which the Government are proceeding in trying to deal with fraud and abuse in DHSS benefits. The right hon. Gentleman said that he had managed to increase the staff employed in the DHSS to deal with fraud and abuse. This is grossly untrue. In the House of Lords on Thursday 27 November, in answer to a question about reductions in Civil Service staff, the Lord President of the Council said that the figures for DHSS were: staff in post on 1 April 1979,98,369; staff in post on 1 April 1980, 97,917; target staff in post on 1 April 1984, 87,700. That is a quite significant reduction of 10,000 planned in the staff of the DHSS.
  It is in the light of those reductions that the Secretary of State has had about 1,400 staff switched from other work in order to deal with fraud and abuse. The whole
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  social security system is being altered in the way that local offices work and in the way that fraud and abuse are being investigated in order to justify the figure of £50 million which the Secretary of State claimed would be saved by the tracking down of people who were fiddling the system. It has become obvious that that figure of £50 million was plucked out of the air without any facts or figures to justify it.
  The Government are not likely to save £50 million, because there is not £50 million to be saved. Indeed, to get somewhere near the £50 million, shock troop tactics are now being developed in the DHSS to force people who are receiving benefits and are entitled to them to go off those benefits. What is happening, despite what has been said by Conservative Members and Ministers, is that a team of special investigators is arriving at a local office of the Department of Health and Social Security, picking out files at random and visiting families in order to try to ascertain whether there is fraud and abuse and to persuade these people, by whatever method they can, to give up the benefits which they are now receiving.
  Internal documents from the DHSS show that this is happening. The fact that the staff in the DHSS themselves are complaining about the methods that they are being asked to use in order to save money also justifies the claims that I am making. I have here a document—the minutes of a Whitley Council meeting which took place on 23 October 1980 at St. Martin's House, Bootle, in my constituency, where the union side met management. According to these minutes the trade union side said that it understood that there had been a change in policy with regard to the use and role of special investigators in the region.
  Apparently the investigators would no longer fully investigate cases of suspected fraud, pursuing them to prosecution if necessary, but would concentrate on knocker campaigns which involved visiting claimants where there was a suspicion of fraud or abuse and being able to persuade the persons concerned to withdraw claims for benefit. They go on in this document to complain about these techniques and point out that the management are even saying to staff that their promotion prospects will be dependent upon how many people they get off benefit, in the way policemen are promoted based on the number of prosecutions they get.
  There is a document from the management side which says:
  "There will be no question of random selection—only cases selected by reference to criteria along the following lines will be investigated".
  Remember, there is no question of random selection, but anyone who is in receipt of a benefit who has a marketable skill or trade, for example, motor mechanic or building trade, can be investigated at random. Anybody with a record of self-employment can be visited at random. Anybody with a significant money-earning occupation which could nevertheless be followed on a casual or spare-time basis can be visited at random. Anyone who is apparently in good health and fitness can be visited at random, as can anybody whose current unemployment has lasted for more than four months. All those people can be visited without any other justification and attempts can be made to persuade them to give up benefits. Yet we are told that there is no question of random selection. What the staff of the local offices are being asked to do is totally undesirable.

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  The unemploment review officers who used to operate from DHSS offices and try to help the long-term unemployed to get work—and that was a difficult job in Merseyside—are now being used to deal with abuse. The 36 unemployment review officers in the Merseyside region have been supplemented by other officers and given the job of getting the long-term unemployed off the books. That is called benefit savings.
  I have examples of those officers persuading or forcing the long-term unemployed off benefits for no other reason than that they are not sufficiently enthusiastic in seeking work, even though they have not turned down jobs. The DHSS staff also object to that and those who object most to the new tactics are the staff in local offices. They see part of their job as being to make sure that people get the benefits to which they are entitled. Those staff are having a lot more work to do as a result of special investigation teams moving into areas, picking out files at random, persuading people to come off benefits when they should continue to claim benefits, and moving out, leaving the local staff to pick up the pieces.
  The Under-Secretary said on television that that sort of thing was not happening, but I know that 44 cases were picked out at random from the local office that operates in her constituency of Wallasey. They were visited and some were wrongly persuaded not to continue claiming benefits. Since the special investigation team left her constituency, the local staff has had to pick up the pieces and help those concerned, who have got into considerable difficulties as a result of the tactics of that special investigation team.
  The policy being forced on the DHSS staff by the uncaring Government and their uncaring Ministers is a disgrace to a civilised society. It goes against natural justice and causes considerable hardship among those who are least able to defend themselves. Despite what the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North said, I know of no strong army representing the unemployed and those receiving DHSS benefits. I know people who strongly represent employers or trade unionists at work, but those on supplementary benefit do not have much bargaining power.
  I recently received a letter that indicates the sort of situation brought about by the Government's unfeeling policies. A lady wrote to me in these terms:
  "In February of this year my husband became ill and claimed sickness benefit. He had not previously sent in a claim in 34 years work. He was noted for his integrity and was a very respected member of the staff. On June 12th a woman came to the door and demanded to see him; I can not express it in any other way. It was most upsetting as my husband was at that moment dying. His death took place a few hours later."
  That is the sort of situation being created by the special investigation teams which are operating not only in selected areas but throughout the country. Even if the Government claim that the methods have been used previously—though they have not—they cannot claim that they have been used throughout the country before. Special investigation teams were established in only a few areas and operated under different terms of reference. They now operate throughout the country, and the Government should be ashamed of the way in which they are operating.
  The Government and their spokesmen have not yet convinced me today that they care about those in need, the unemployed and those who are worst off in our community. I believe that their policies, which have
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  pushed up inflation and are now designed to bring it down, are also designed to do that at the expense of those in most need in our community. They hope to protect those whom they represent—the wealthy in our society, the people who contribute to Conservative Party funds and the sort of people represented by the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North.
  8.55 pm
  Mr. Robin Squire: I hope that the House will accept my apologies for having had to miss some of the earlier speeches. Because of that, and because of the little time that is left, my contribution will be short. I hope that the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) will not object if I do not follow him down the path that he took.
  I endorse what my hon. Friend for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths) said about inflation. All hon. Members have accepted that inflation hits the poor particularly hard. It is therefore of great relevance, in a debate on poverty, to consider what is happening to inflation.
  Putting aside party rhetoric, there is no question but that price increases in the last six months of last year were low, and welcome because they were low. The increases were of about 3·7 per cent. We would be the last to suggest that that represents an annual inflation rate, in the way that we all understand inflation rates, of 7½ per cent., but it is undeniable that it represents inflation coming down rapidly. It is the first welcome sign of relief to those who are most in need.
  The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) made a point to which I shall refer, although it has only passing relevance to the problem of poverty. He spoke somewhat darkly about problems that might arise, civil disorder and disinterest. He cited local government. I do not believe that I take second place to many Conservative Members in my knowledge of and fight for local government. With great respect, I say to the hon. Member that the problems of which he speaks and the poor calibre of many local council candidates have been with us for many years. I am sure that on reflection he will agree with that.
  I welcome the fact that in spite of all the rumours a few months ago about cuts in all benefits across the board, the Government have maintained retirement pensions, widows' pensions and supplementary benefits. At the time I felt strongly that it would have been wrong if those benefits had not been uprated in line with inflation and with our commitments. As someone who fought for the uprating of those benefits, I welcome what has been done.
  My prime concern has already been expressed by other hon. Members, particularly Conservative Members. It was eloquently expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave). That concern relates to child benefit. I make no apology for returning to this matter, because if poverty in this country is not a matter of starvation—and we know that it is not—and if it is not the sort of poverty that was experienced in the 1930s—and by and large it is not—none the less it remains poverty that is associated in the main with large or larger families in poor housing and in poor environments and breeds a train of problems for which, ultimately, society must pay.
  I am convinced, even if for no other reasons—there are many others—that child benefit stands out clearly as the easiest and greatest way to assist these people. We should be ashamed that a written answer in January this year showed that the level of child benefit was lower in real

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  terms than the equivalent child support—which then consisted of child tax allowances and family allowances—paid when Sir Winston Churchill was Prime Minister in the early 1950s. Neither party can be proud of that fact.
  With respect to the hon. Member for Bootle, I believe that in this case blanket benefits are the right way to tackle the problem, and in that I am backed up by many more qualified than I. We still do not have a proper, full tax credit scheme. When we have such a scheme, under which benefits can be more easily and properly directed to those most in need, the concept of blanket benefit fades away.
  Finally, let me say that I, too, would have great difficulty in supporting action that did not raise child benefit by at least 50p at the next uprating.
  9 pm
  Mr. J. W. Rooker: The debate has ranged widely, as was the intention of our motion. The Secretary of State was here to defend the Government's policies. He is the first Secretary of State for Social Services who I have heard talk about going into purdah before the Budget. His speech could be taken as an application to be the next Chancellor. It is frightening that he may succeed. He has been tipped from the Opposition Benches for that position. I do not know why, several weeks before the Budget, he will not tell us his Department's thinking on the future of social security benefits but hides behind the fact that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not talk about tax allowances and rates at this time.
  Until the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths) spoke, the Secretary of State was the only speaker to defend the Government. I have not been present for every speech, but I understand that every Conservative Member attacked the Government for failing in some of their election promises and for misleading voters, and pleaded with them to keep the promises that they made when in Opposition about child benefit, the disabled, tax thresholds, and so on. There has been a fair degree of unison in opposing the Government.
  I welcome to the debate the Minister for Social Security. Anyone who has served in the Northern Ireland Office deserves our respect. However, the hon. Gentleman will find that he has come to no sinecure in the DHSS.
  We have been criticised for saying that everything started to get worse in May 1979. That is the point of our motion. Poverty has increased since May 1979 as a result of the Government's policies. Last week, from the press and television, we learnt of the Salvation Army setting up a soup kitchen in Crowland, in Lincolnshire, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Holland with Boston (Mr. Body). The local authority has abolished school meals at the secondary school, and on Monday the local fish and chip shop is closed. The Salvation Army citadel is about 100 yards away and it set up a soup kitchen for the children. There can be no better one-off example than that to show how things have increasingly gone from bad to worse under this Government.
  Many hon. Members have mentioned the Government's policy of trying to frighten people into not claiming benefits. Reference has been made to the right hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Prentice), the former
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  Minister for Social Security, the shock troopers who he set up to frighten people off and the DHSS internal memoranda about organising the campaign.
  On more than one occasion, when seeking to defend his role, the Secretary of State said that he never fed the argument about the so-called scroungers. Of course, that was carefully left to the Back Benchers of the Conservative Party. On at least two occasions, when speaking from the Dispatch Box he denied that he played any role in the argument.
  When searching through my files recently I came across a few pieces of paper which, in 1978,I had labelled as the Jenkin scrounger-abuse speech. I want to remind the Secretary of State of the part that he played in fermenting fear in many millions of our citizens who are afraid to claim their benefits. In four columns in Hansard, he made three references to the matter. He said
  "However, we all know that many of the people are not reached. We all know that there is a great deal of abuse. By its very nature no figure can be put against that abuse."
  There has been another turn around since the election. The Government are now claiming all sorts of figures relating to the amount of abuse. Two columns later, the Secretary of State said
  "We must strengthen the investigatory machinery and curb abuse of the system."
  He stated in the next column
  "Because it is known that abuse is widespread, people are reluctant to find themselves labelled as scroungers."—[Official Report, 21 November 1978; Vol. 958, cc. 1137–40.]
  That very thing is happening today. People are afraid to claim benefits. During that speech the right hon. Gentleman was pulled up by one of my hon. Friends for distorting the position while speaking from the Opposition Front Bench. He has played his role in fermenting the campaign that was mounted by the Government during and since the last general election.
  Many hon. Members have quoted examples from the Government's new instructions. I want to quote one that has not been touched on in the debate. New Sociefy states that one of the areas of suspicion where a fraud may arise is
  "for instance, where a claimant has been on benfit for over a year without applying for a lump sum grant."
  If a claimant receives benefit for a year and applies for a lump sum grant he will find that the rules have been changed. He will not receive the grant, because the Government say that the weekly benefit should meet all his needs. Yet if he does not apply for a grant, that is marked against him because the Government think that he has more income than he needs to survive. That is a Catch 22 position. The Government cannot deny that they have put people in that fearful position.
  The additional staff that have been employed as social security fraud investigators should be employed by the Inland Revenue. The Inland Revenue's staff has been cut since the Government came into power. I want to quote one figure about the rip-off of the tax system, which receives a great deal of support from the Government. The annual report of the Board of Inland Revenue showed that £61 million was written off as irrecoverable—£23 million of which was because it lost the taxpayer. The Inland Revenue actually could not trace the taxpayer. Another £7 million or £8 million was written off because the amount recovered would be insufficient to justify the costs of proceedings. We could make the same case about some of the small amounts of social security fraud—although, of

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  course, we do not condone them. The Government have found a way around that. The social security offices so frighten claimants at the interview that there will be no need to mount a prosecution. The claimants cannot be defined in the same way as the Inland Revenue tax evaders. The Government cannot put a figure on it.
  Mr. Arthur Lewis: Do the figures include the legal dodging of the Vestey group? Lord Thorneycroft, a great Tory, supported that legal dodge.
  Mr. Rooker: No, and the figures also did not include the legal dodging of the Rossminster group. The figures that I quoted are official Inland Revenue figures for the amount that it has written off.
  Mr. Garel-Jones: What about Lord Brayley?
  Mr. Rooker: The difference between the hon. Gentleman and Labour Members is that we make the same speeches whichever side of the House we are on. That is not the case with Conservative Members. The figures are infinitesimal compared with the tax abuse. But they are known figures by the Inland Revenue. They are higher than the amount of social security fraud that the Government claim they will stop.
  Sir Frederick Burden: For which year were those figures?
  Mr. Rooker: The hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber when I said that I was quoting from the latest report of the Board of Inland Revenue.
  Sir Frederick Burden: Which year?
  Mr. Rooker: The latest report, the 122nd report.
  Sir Frederick Burden: To which year do the figures relate?
  Mr. Rooker: It is the latest report of the Board of Inland Revenue, published in February last year.
  Sir Frederick Burden: Relating to the Labour Government's period in office.
  Mr. Rooker: They are the figures for 1978. I do not deny that. I am not condoning what is there reported. The truth is that the figures have got worse under this Government. I do not draw any distinction between tax abuse under a Labour Government and tax abuse under a Tory Government. Neither do we condone social security abuse under either Government. We make the same point, that the amounts of known social security abuse, worth about 2p in every £5,000 paid out in benefit, are infinitesimal compared with the amount of tax avoidance and abuse. All we ask is that the Government put the same proportionate effort into seeking out tax abuse as they have done for social security abuse. But we know that they will not do that.
  I turn now to what was said by certain hon. Members on the Government Benches. I refer, in particular, to the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones), who spoke while I was out of the Chamber but who, I understand, made a passionate plea that the Government should not renege on child benefit. I understand also that he made some remarks regarding what he hoped the Chancellor would not do about the tax thresholds. I gather that he said that the Chancellor should not this year index-link the wealthy.
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  I hope that most hon. Members appreciate that last year the Government actually altered the indexation provisions of the Finance Act 1977 so that they automatically indexed the wealthy each year, which was not done by the provision introduced by one of my former hon. Friends and myself in 1977. Incidentally, the hon. Member for Watford voted for that change last year.
  The issue of the tax thresholds is of great significance, as even the Secretary of State believes. Perhaps, to be more correct, I should say as he "believed", in the light of what he said in a debate on the poverty trap in 1977. He will recall that debate on a Friday morning, initiated by his hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North (Mr. Howell). I note in passing that that hon. Member has been conspicuous by his absence today, but I shall refer to him later, though not in derogatory terms.
  The Secretary of State then said:
  "The tax threshold is now so low that even those on means-tested benefits are paying tax—for instance, those on family income supplement."
  That is still the position today. The right hon. Gentleman said that the reason—that is, for the poverty trap—
  "is mainly, though not solely, the high initial tax rates and the absurdly low tax thresholds."
  Between 1977 and today the Labour Government introduced a lower tax rate band so that those just above the poverty trap went in at only 25p in the pound. Since then, of course, this Government have raised the high marginal rate for those just coming out of the poverty trap.
  The right hon. Gentleman will remember also saying:
  "The first and most important thing is that tax thresholds must be raised."
  All this was in connection with overcoming the problems of the poverty trap He went on to use a telling phrase in respect of child benefit which is worth putting on record now in view of the importance which several hon. Members on both sides have attached to it in the present debate. I add this especially in view of the speech by the hon. Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire). This is what the right hon. Gentleman said that morning, referring to what he had said earlier in the year:
  "I repeat the pledge which I gave on that occasion"—
  that was in May 1977, and he quoted his own words—
  "I must state clearly, without any 'ifs' and 'buts', that it will be our intention when we win the next general election to introduce a full child benefit as soon as it is practicable as the first stage of phasing in a tax credit scheme.
  "If I am asked why we give that pledge, it is, first, because that is the way to restore the position of the families."—[Official Report, 17 June 1977; Vol. 933, c. 786–94.]
  Of course, the Tories were holding themselves out as the party of the family at that time, although everyone who looks at the figures, whether nationally or in his own constituency, knows that the position of families has vastly deteriorated under this Tory Government.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer also knows only too well the powerful reasons why he must raise the tax threshold at least in line with the cost of living. He gave four categorical reasons, which are listed under early-day motion 118. To do anything less will plunge families into a position worse than they are now, and worse than they were under the Labour Government.
  Mr. Race: Will my hon. Friend care to reflect that the Government have allowed the disaggregation of income for tax purposes for families on high incomes where there are a number of children in the family? For example, it is possible for an individual on a high income to covenant part of his income to his children, thereby gaining an

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  additional personal tax allowance for each child. Therefore, is not the bleating by the Government about child benefit totally out of line?
  Mr. Rooker: I believe that at Question Time last Thursday the Chancellor said what a good thing he had done for charities in the last Budget. He sought to give the impression that he had made a change in the last Finance Act that benefited charities in general. But it was a change that benefited the well-off, who are able to use covenants to increase their net income.
  The figures that the Opposition use are mainly figures supplied by the Government. One can find plenty of other figures to show the position of families. Nearly all groups in society, not just families, are worse off than they were a year ago. In pre-Murdoch days—on 4 January this year—The Sunday Times looked at 11 groups in society. It would be interesting to see whether things go according to plan and whether this exercise is repeated next January. It did not give average figures, because they can conceal as much as they reveal. The survey used figures based on the Government's family expenditure survey of 7,000 households. The figures were put through a computer, taking into account the spending patterns, and produced comparative figures. Of the 11 groups, five were worse off and six were better off. The five worse off were the pensioner couple, the low-paid manual worker's family, the semi-skilled worker's family, the skilled worker's family and the young white-collar worker's family.
  Those are figures from a Government that bleated a great deal about improving incentives for the skilled. I cannot go into details of particular examples about the income of the wife or the children, whether there was investment, or what amount was spent on various items. The single female pensioner was better off, but because averages were not used this example shows what can go wrong if one is not very careful.
  The single female pensioner quoted, who was better off by 12p a week, was in receipt of old-age pension of £27·15 a week, £7·75 a week in building society interest and £6 a week other investment income. She was not a typical single pensioner, but she was only 12p a week better off in 1981 than she was in 1980 because of the changes made by the Government. Also better off was the young single civil servant, the middle-class couple working in London, the middle manager's family, the senior manager and the company director. They were better off in the period January 1980-January 1981.
  Those figures were not dreamed up by the Opposition but were supplied by the Government, following the Government's detailed surveys of what the population spends.
  Many hon. Members have referred to the effect on the disabled of the Government's changes since they came to power. It is incredible that at last the BBC has woken up to the fact that the Social Security (No. 2) Act was not just about strikers' families. It has taken the corporation a long time to wake up to the fact that the people suffering mostly under that Act, as we said at the time, are the elderly, the disabled and the working poor.
  I have read several interviews with representatives of disabled persons groups who complain about what the Government have done. I mentioned the Solihull district
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  council in an intervention earlier. It has always been Tory-controlled and I fear that it always will be. However, its majority will be reduced in the near future. There are no Tory wets in that part of the world, and today the council has been making certain decisions. I do not have the results, but I have no doubt about them. It will cut the home help service by 24 per cent. That is in direct contradiction to what the Government say to local authorities. They say "Do not affect the people in need by your cuts. We want savage cuts, but please do not affect them because we receive complaints and cannot defend such action."
  The Solihull council is to reduce its social work staff by 62 per cent. I understand that for all practical purposes the social work department will cease to exist before long. Such cuts are indefensible.
  Mr. George Park: Is my hon. Friend aware that out of 66 professional social workers the Solihull council intends to dismiss 35?
  Mr. Rooker: That reflects the percentage that I used.
  I should like the Minister of State to answer several specific questions. The Government should make a statement about their intentions on child benefit. The House deserves nothing less. I hope that I shall receive confirmation of a written answer to the hon. Member for Hornchurch. He asked about the 5 per cent, abatement that the Government can still make to this November's uprating. The former Minister of State said:
  "These benefits will be increased … It is not proposed to make use of the power … to abate … by up to 5 per cent."—[Official Report, 19 December 1980; Vol. 996, c. 532.]
  Will 1 per cent., 2 per cent., 3 per cent., or 4 per cent, be involved? Alternatively, do the Government not intend to use the power?
  Mr. Patrick Jenkin: The Chancellor of the Exchequer made the position clear in his statement last November. He said that the 1 per cent, over-payment this year on prices would be compensated by a 1 per cent, reduction next November. That is the only proposal that we have in mind. The provision for that in terms of the long-term benefit will be in the Social Security Bill that we hope to introduce later this month.
  Mr. Rooker: That means that the Government do not propose to use the power in the Social Security (No. 2) Act but that they will abate the benefit under another piece of legislation. Benefits will not go up as they should. That cannot be denied.
  Two Conservative Members have been conspicuous by their absence today. I refer to the hon. Members for Norfolk, North and for Kensington (Sir B. Rhys Williams). One hon. Member was in for part of the debate but did not appear to seek to take part in the debate. Jointly they employ a research assistant by the name of Hermione Parker, who produced a report. However, the hon. Members could not find time to use the evidence in that report to defend the Government.
  The report states, and substantiates with Government figures, that so far under this Government there have been no real cuts in direct taxation except for the tiny minority of people with an income of more than £500 a week. There were no real direct cuts if one takes into account tax cuts, the increase in inflation and other changes made by the Government. The report was published by the Outer Circle Policy Unit, which sent me a copy.
  Mr. Garel-Jones: The hon. Gentleman seemed to be implying that my hon. Friends had in some way attempted to cover up the work that was carried out by their research assistant. Perhaps he did not intend to imply that. As far as I am aware, my hon. Friends made that work available not only to colleagues but to the Child Poverty Action Group.
  Mr. Rooker: No, I did not intend to imply that; far from it. But I should have thought that hon. Members could have attended the debate today because they could then have added weight to their document, which was sponsored under the parliamentary research system. My hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mr. Race) and I have carried out a similar exercise with the Low Pay Unit, and we have not hesitated to use the material.
  Hermione Parker makes a telling assessment that the Government are bringing about a revolution in social policy that is not desirable, without Parliament or Ministers realising what is happening. I assume that Ministers do not realise what is happening. There was a reference to Tory social policy today, and I was reminded of a remark by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, in a previous debate, that Tory social policy seemed a contradiction in terms, given the record of this Government since 1979.
  So far, the pensioners have been hit hardest. Whatever the Secretary of State may say, however hard he may try to wriggle out of it, and however strongly the Tories may claim that the Prime Minister promised that pensions would keep up with the cost of living—the pensioners will have to pay for that promise this year in order to keep the Prime Minister to her promise—they cannot wriggle out of the fact that if they had not changed the law and the system by which the pension is operated, instead of the present pension for a married couple being £43·45 it would be £44·90, If the law had not been changed by this Conservative Government the pension today, of £27·15 for a single person, would be £28·10 under the old Labour-introduced law. That cannot be denied.
  There is an all-party sponsored early-day motion on the Order Paper. The hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Bowden) and my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson), the joint chairmen of the all-party group on pensioners, have their names at that top of the motion. The name of the hon. Member for Kemptown appears first. At present this is the only motion on the Order Paper that has a Conservative Member's name at the top and a majority of the Members signing it from the Labour Party. The motion asks the Government to protect the pension. About four or five, or possibly six Conservative Members have signed it. They ask their Government to reconsider their intention to introduce the legislation that the Secretary of State has promised. That legislation would, in effect, cut the pension.
  I wish to make two brief references to the unemployed and to child benefit. Many hon. Members referred to the unemployed, and I have no doubt that we shall hear more on Thursday. It cannot be denied that the unemployed have suffered most under this Government. Only today, in a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport, North (Mr. Bennett), the Prime Minister
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  refused to consider putting the unemployed on to the long-term rate of supplementary benefit, even though she said that the Government were aware of the case for this change.
  Many organisations have warned the Government about the social consequences of the rising rate of unemployment. I should like to quote part of a letter that I received from one of my constituents a few weeks ago, which states:
  "I tell you … when I'm made redundant in the summer and there comes a time when my missus and laddie face real want then the rule of law is going out of the window."
  My constituent goes on to write about tax abuse and the way in which the wealthy have gained under this Government and are continuing to gain. He is only one of millions who are suffering and who will not accept the Government's policies.
  We will not condone the breaking of the law, but we must heed the warnings that are coming to our notice. The Government are aware of what was said in the Welsh Select Committee and they know what members of the TUC have said, but the message is coming unsolicited from the ordinary people of Britain who are not yet unemployed but who can see a stark future. They will not take it lying down.
  My next question to the Minister concerns child benefit and the change to a four-weekly system. I asked the Secretary of State yesterday whether the benefit order books had yet been printed for a four-weekly cycle. I had information to the effect that they had been. I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether they had been ordered and printed. He told me that no books had yet been printed, and I now repeat the other part of the question, namely, whether the books have yet been ordered. The Minister will not need me to remind him that the Government's consultation remains open until the end of February. It is rumoured—the information came to me via a sub-postmaster—that the books have already been obtained or ordered.
  Mr. Patrick Jenkin: How does he know?
  Mr. Rooker: He obtained the information from Washington, from the child benefit centre. Have the books been ordered? I am told that they have not yet been printed.
  The former Leader of the House, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas), who is obviously resting and recuperating at present, referred in his letter of resignation—if one can call it that—to his belief in one nation and his fight for that in the Cabinet, with the clear implication that the Cabinet did not believe in one nation.
  I shall quote a paragraph from the last report of the Supplementary Benefits Commission, which was published in the autumn of 1980, when the commission was bemoaning cuts in the Welfare State provision. It claimed:
  "the creation of family allowances, the National Health Service, the major social insurance schemes … were not merely administrative inventions, they were deliberate attempts to rally … what might easily have become a divided and demoralised nation."
  It referred to the role played in the past by the SBC and the SSAC and added:
  "A free State will not survive unless its people feel loyalty to it. If the State is not interested in them, why should they be interested in the State?"
  It was quoting the present Lord Privy Seal in February 1980. Those words ought to be taken on board by the

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  Government, by the Minister of State, and certainly by the Prime Minister. The groups that are referred to in the Opposition's motion consider that the State, run by this disgusting Tory Government, is no longer interested in them.
  9.33 pm
  The Minister For Social Security (Mr. Hugh Rossi): First, I thank the hon. Member for Renfrewshire, West (Mr. Buchan) for his kind words of welcome and good wishes to me. Like the hon. Gentleman, I come to a complex and difficult subject with a fresh mind. I hope that in consequence the House will forgive me if I do not go into matters of great detail this evening. I shall try to answer broad-brush questions on various Government policies.
  The debate is concerned principally with poverty—an issue that must be of great concern to us all as individuals who are fortunate enough not to be subject to it, and above all of concern to the Government. It is a highly charged and emotive subject, and it is very difficult to have a discussion that is not free from exaggeration, hyperbole and even distortion and misrepresentation. The debate has not been free from those elements.
  Even the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), to whom we all listen with the greatest respect in debates of this kind, could not resist the temptation to be a little less than fair. He claimed that it was the philosophy of the Conservative Party to raise the living standards of the rich and to lower those of the poor in order to give the poor greater incentive to become rich. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] That catcall from the Opposition Benches indicates how reason and fairness are put to one side when we are discussing matters of this kind.
  What has been said by the Opposition is, of course, a cynical gloss and misrepresentation of our views. We have repeatedly made it clear that our care and concern is to look after and protect the most vulnerable in our society, and I shall deny anyone who says to the contrary. What we have said—and this is no more than plain common sense—is that we cannot do all that we want to do until the country has earned the money to do it. Therefore, the priority must be to reduce inflation and return to a sound economy. Once we have done that we can do all the things that are being urged upon us from both sides of the House to help the less well off in our society, to bring in a comprehensive system to help the disabled, to end the hotch-potch of benefits that we have and to increase child benefit.
  Those are all laudable objectives, but, as a responsible Government, we must strike a balance between longer-term policy objectives and shorter-term economic priorities. The overriding need must be to reduce inflation, and the poor stand to gain the most from that. Indeed, our policy is succeeding. Since inflation reached a peak of 21.9 per cent, it has fallen every month. It is now 15.1 per cent., measured over a 12-month period. The underlying trend is even better, because taken over the past six months the rate of inflation is below 10 per cent, and still falling. Moreover, as my right hon. Friend mentioned, over the past year the standard of living in this country as a whole has risen by an average of 2 per cent.
  The Opposition say that the Government's record does not show care and concern for the poor, and the motion
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  refers to the dismantling of the Welfare State. But what are the figures? As my right hon. Friend pointed out—and I repeat this because it is clear that the Opposition did not hear it—we are spending £20,000 million a year on social security, which is a quarter of all public expenditure. Is that dismantling the Welfare State?
  Mr. Ennals Mr. Ennals rose—
  Mr. Rossi: No, I cannot give way, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) has left me too little time. The right hon. Gentleman must forgive me if I do not give way.
  Moreover, the upgrading this year will add a further £3,000 million in a full year. It is rubbish to say that these measures are undermining the Welfare State.
  Let us consider the details of what we have sought to do. One-parent families have benefited considerably from the measures taken by the Government. I noted that references to family income supplement were much absent from the speeches of Opposition Members when they were talking about poorer working families. After all, it was a wicked Tory measure to produce a family income supplement to raise the level of income of the poorer working families. Yet we have maintained and upgraded it. The average FIS payment is now £10, and the majority goes to one-parent families.
  In pursuing his theme of hostility to the poorer people the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South referred to the efforts that are being made by the Department to prevent fraud and abuse of the system. That criticism was re-echoed by many Labour Members. I say categorically that there has been no departure from the standards of fraud investigation developed during the previous Administration. [HON. MEMBERS: "Rubbish".] The standards are the same.
  As reference has been made to it, I shall quote from the guide that has been issued to the officers concerned. I shall quote paragraphs 9 and 10, and when I have finished hon. Members can judge for themselves whether this problem is being dealt with in as sympathetic and humane way as possible, given the circumstances that always arise when fraud is being committed. It states:
  "We want you to be effective and get results. But those results must be achieved in ways which are consistent with the administration of a major social service. Investigation must invariably be fair and unbiased and have regard to the legal constraints set out in this Guide…firm measures against fraud must not result in the unacceptable treatment of perfectly honest people … This combination of effective investigation and scrupulously fair methods calls for a continuous sense of balance in the sensitive area of work".
  That is the instruction given to all the officers concerned in this work, and it is a standard that has always been maintained by the Department of Health and Social Security.
  Mr. Ashley: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, especially as time is short. The objection that I raised was that the Government were failing to deal with an even greater fraud, that of tax evasion, and refusing to deal with something that is far bigger and greater than a little bit of scrounging. We are all against scrounging.
  Mr. Rossi: I have no sympathy at all for the tax evaders either, because every pound that is fiddled by people getting social security benefits to which they are not entitled, or every pound that people do not pay in tax which they are legally obliged to pay, is a denial of money

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  for those in our society whom we wish to help. It is a pound less for the blind and the disabled. I have no sympathy at all with that.
  The question of prosecution has been mentioned. A change in policy has taken place. We do not prosecute as rigorously and vigorously as did the previous Administration, because we find that it is far easier and cheaper to make sure that these abuses are stopped without dragging people before the courts. Labour Members talk about humanity. When I practised as a lawyer and defended people who had been accused of fraud, I know that they would have given anything to be able to settle the matter before appearing before a judge, by paying the money which they had defrauded or stolen.
  Mr. Allan Roberts Mr. Allan Roberts rose—
  Mr. Rossi: If we could get the money back in that way, would it not be better for the public purse? Would it not be better for all those concerned if this draconian measure of prosecution—with all the panoply of the law that it involves—were used only in serious cases? The Government have adopted that attitude.
  Mr. Buchan: The hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the gravamen and gravity of the charge. Removal from prosecution was not done for humane reasons. The Government have sharpened the pressure on those officers who carry out interviews. As I said earlier, the Government have not made the policy more humane by avoiding bringing prosecutions. For example, a person of low mentality would not be prosecuted. However, that failure to prosecute would arise not from humane motives, but from the fear that the court might take a more humane view of the matter than would the Department.
  Mr. Rossi: I do not accept that statement for one moment. That is not the case.
  I turn to one other matter that was specifically raised and for which I have responsibility, namely, the Government's position on the International Year of Disabled People. I have been asked what steps the Government are taking. For the Year, the DHSS has allocated £103,000 to the secretariat of the Voluntary Organisations Committee. Discussions are taking place about a larger amount that could be allocated to cover the whole of 1981. This year, the main thrust must be borne by the voluntary organisations. The community as a whole should be involved in the International Year. We must try to create a greater realisation of the problems of the disabled among the general public and to change their attitudes towards the disabled. That can be done to better effect through the great wealth of voluntary organisations than through circulars and leaflets from a Department.
  For example, the Department of the Environment has given a grant towards the setting up of a competition amongst architects. They have been challenged to produce a design suited to the needs of the disabled. Anyone who goes into a public building such as a cinema or theatre knows how far this subject has been from the minds of architects.
  Mr. Ennals Mr. Ennals rose—
  Mr. Carter-Jones Mr. Carter-Jones rose—
  Mr. Rossi: I shall not give way. [Interruption.] I do not know how many speeches we are listening to, Mr. Speaker, but I should like to make my own.
  Mr. Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Rossi: I turn to some of the contributions made by my right hon. and hon. Friends. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) referred to the personal social services. He expressed satisfaction that the Government were asking local authorities not to allow their economies to affect the services that they provide for the less able members of our society. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made that perfectly clear.
  Certain figures have been quoted. Cuts in budgets have been mentioned. Overall, the cuts that have been made have occurred, not in actual expenditure but in programmed expenditure. The latest returns from local authorities indicate that the overall expenditure on personal social sevices is being maintaind at a level 4 per cent, higher than in 1978–79. This does not mean that some authorities are not cutting some expenditure. We regret it where that happens. Given that there is a real increase in expenditure, this shows that local authorities, as a whole, have heeded the words, the request and the plea of my right hon. Friend.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North and others of my hon. Friends raised the question of a Green Paper to deal with disablement benefit. It is the Government's long-term objective to introduce a comprehensive, rational benefit scheme for all disabled persons. This can be done only through increased public expenditure. At a time when it is still impossible to forecast what additional financial resources will be available for these purposes, it would raise expectations unnecessarily if we went as far as to publish a Green Paper even on the basis of a long-term consultation.
  It is not necessary for us to publish a Green Paper for the purposes of long-term consultation. Consultation with the interested bodies is a continuing process. It takes place all the time. We heed the representations made to us from all sources about the manner in which the benefits can be restructured and retailored. One hopes that when the day comes that we have additional resources, this will be the time for us to come forward with firm proposals, but not now.
  My hon. Friends the Members for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones), for Abingdon (Mr. Benyon), for Homchurch (Mr. Squire) and for Bristol, West (Mr. Waldegrave) have urged that the Government increase child benefit. I listened with care to the cogent arguments that were advanced. I shall ensure that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is made aware of the depth of feeling that exists on this matter. I must add a word of caution. Child benefit now costs £3,300 million. Each family receives £4.75 per child per week tax free, irrespective of other personal income. Most families today are still better off under child benefit than if the old system of family allowance plus child tax allowance had been retained and revalued in line with prices.
  The benefit, as now cast, is extremely expensive. Every 10p of benefit costs £56 million net of adjustments to other benefits. Although the Chancellor will pay heed to what has been said, I trust that my hon. Friends will understand the size of the commitment that they seek to urge upon him. I remind my hon. Friends that we are committed to the child benefit system. It is our intention, subject to economic and other circumstances, to uprate child benefit each year to maintain its value.
  Mr. Robert C. Brown: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Rossi: I cannot give way. I have only a few minutes left to speak.
  The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) referred to my translation from Northern Ireland and stated that I was aware of the problems there. I regard it as a privilege that I had the opportunity of serving in Northern Ireland. I regret now not seeing the many friends that I made in the few months I was there—charming, delightful, but impossible people they may be. Nevertheless, one cannot but have a great affection for them.
  The hon. Gentleman said that there were special problems in Northern Ireland, as indeed there are, and of course in other parts of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland has particular problems as regards unemployment and fuel costs. They are the most glaring, apart from the troubles themselves.
  But earnings in the Province are coming up to approximately the level of earnings in the rest of the United Kingdom, although there remains a gap. Nevertheless,' Ministers are conscious of the problem and the hon. Gentleman well knows, because we have had this discussion on other occasions, that the total public expenditure of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland for the year 1980–81 will be of the order of £2,400 million for a population of about 1½ million. That is a recognition of the special problems in Northern Ireland, because the per capita expenditure in Northern Ireland is far higher than it is in any other part of the United Kingdom.
  In regard to energy costs, the hon. Gentleman will recall that last summer the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland reappropriated funds and also secured £48 million from the contingency reserve fund, of which £30 million was used for this precise purpose of cushioning the effects of high energy costs for the people of Northern Ireland. Of course, they currently benefit from the very special package of fuel benefits that have been introduced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State at the Department in which I now serve.
  The help to poor consumers has risen to over £200 million a year in Great Britain. This help is most concentrated on the poorest—those receiving supplementary benefit and family income supplement; their heating addition has been boosted by more than the rise in fuel prices during the period November 1979 to November 1980.
  I reject the accusation of the Opposition that this Government do not have concern for the poor or for the people of Northern Ireland. I must tell the hon. Gentleman that the newly formed Social Security Advisory Committee held its second meeting, under the chairmanship of Sir Arthur Armitage, in Northern Ireland only a week or so ago. That indicates the concern that there is for the problem of poverty in Northern Ireland.
  I have sought in the time allotted to me to answer some of the charges made by the Opposition against the policy of this Government. I reject them totally and utterly, but before I resume my seat I must say to the hon. Member for Perry Barr, in answer to the specific question he asked me concerning the four-week books, that they have not been printed nor have they been ordered, and no decision will be taken until the consultation period has been ended. So, as with most of the information he has given the House today apparently from some anonymous sub-postmaster,
  232
  he is entirely inaccurate in the allegations that he has made, as have been totally inaccurate the allegations made by other right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  I conclude with the theme that I began on. In dealing with poverty we are dealing with an emotive subject that concerns us all. But it is of no help at all to those who suffer poverty to have their suffering treated as a political football in a game of confrontation between the political parties. We should have greater concern for all that they suffer.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 258, Noes 304.

  Division No. 60]

  [10 pm

  AYES

  Abse, Leo

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Adams,Allen

  Dunn, James A.

  Allaun,Frank

  Dunnett,Jack

  Alton,David

  Dunwoody,HonMrsG.

  Anderson,Donald

  Eastham,Ken

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

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

  Armstrong,RtHon Ernest

  Ellis, R. (NED'bysh're)

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  English,Michael

  Ashton,Joe

  Ennals, RtHonDavid

  Atkinson,N.(H'gey,)

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Bagier,Gordon AT.

  Evans,John(Newton)

  Barnett,Guy(Greenwich)

  Ewing,Harry

  Barnett, RtHonJoel (H'wd)

  Faulds,Andrew

  Beith,A. J.

  Field,Frank

  Benn, Rt Hon A. Wedgwood

  Flannery,Martin

  Bennett,Andrew(St'kp'tN)

  Fletcher,A.(Ed'nb'ghN)

  Bidwell,Sydney

  Fletcher,Ted(Darlington)

  Booth, RtHon Albert

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Boothroyd,MissBetty

  Ford, Ben

  Bottomley,RtHonA.(M'b'ro)

  Forrester,John

  Bradley,Tom

  Foster, Derek

  Bray, DrJeremy

  Foulkes,George

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Fraser, J. (Lamb'th,N'w'd)

  Brown, R. C. (N'castle W)

  Freeson, RtHon Reginald

  Brown,Ron(E'burgh,Leith)

  Freud,Clement

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

  Garrett,John (NorwichS)

  Buchan,Norman

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

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

  George,Bruce

  Campbell,Ian

  Gilbert, RtHonDrJohn

  Campbell-Savours,Dale

  Ginsburg,David

  Canavan,Dennis

  Golding,John

  Cant, R. B.

  Gourlay.Harry

  Carmichael,Neil

  Graham, Ted

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Grant,George(Morpeth)

  Cartwright,John

  Grant,John(IslingtonC)

  Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'StolS)

  Grimond, Rt Hon J.

  Cohen,Stanley

  Hamilton,W.W.(C'tralFife)

  Conlan,Bernard

  Hardy, Peter

  Cowans, Harry

  Harrison, RtHon Walter

  Cox,T.(W'dsw'th,Toot'g)

  Hart, RtHon Dame Judith

  Craigen, J. M.

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Crowther,J.S.

  Haynes,Frank

  Cryer,Bob

  Heffer, EricS.

  Cunliffe,Lawrence

  Hogg, N.(EDunb't'nshire)

  Cunningham,G.(IslingtonS)

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

  Cunningham, DrJ.(W'h'n)

  HomeRobertson,John

  Dalyell,Tam

  Homewood,William

  Davidson,Arthur

  Horam,John

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)

  Howell, Rt Hon D.

  Davies, Ifor(Gower)

  Howells,Geraint

  Davis,Clinton (HackneyC)

  Huckfield,Les

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

  Hudson Davies, Gwilym E.

  Deakins,Eric

  Hughes,Mark(Durham)

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Hughes, Robert(Aberdeen N)

  Dewar,Donald

  Hughes,Roy(Newport)

  Dixon,Donald

  Janner,HonGreville

  Dobson,Frank

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Dormand,Jack

  John,Brynmor

  Douglas,Dick

  Johnson,James(Hull West)

  Douglas-Mann,Bruce

  Johnson,Walter(DerbyS)

  Dubs,Alfred

  Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rh'dda)

  233

  Jones, Barry(East Flint)

  Roberts,Albert(Normanton)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Roberts,Allan(Bootle)

  Kaufman, RtHonGerald

  Roberts, Ernest(HackneyN)

  Ken, Russell

  Roberts,Gwilym(Cannock)

  Kilfedder,JamesA.

  Robertson,George

  Kilroy-Silk,Robert

  Robinson, G. (CoventryNW)

  Kinnock,Neil

  Rodgers, RtHonWilliam

  Lambie,David

  Rooker, J. W.

  Lamborn,Harry

  Roper,John

  Lamond,James

  Rowlands,Ted

  Leadbitter,Ted

  Ryman,John

  Lestor, MissJoan

  Sever,John

  Lewis,Arthur(N'hamNW)

  Sheerman,Barry

  Lewis,Ron(Carlisle)

  Sheldon, RtHonR.

  Litherland,Robert

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Lofthouse,Geoffrey

  Short, Mrs Renée

  Lyon,Alexander(York)

  Silkin, RtHon J.(Deptford)

  Lyons, Edward (Bradf'd W)

  Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  McCartney,Hugh

  Silverman,Julius

  McDonald,DrOonagh

  Skinner,Dennis

  McElhone,Frank

  Smith,Cyril(Rochdale)

  McGuire,Michael(Ince)

  Smith, Rt Hon J. (N Lanark)

  McKay,Allen(Penistone)

  Spearing,Nigel

  MacKenzie, RtHonGregor

  Spriggs,Leslie

  Maclennan,Robert

  Stallard, A. W.

  McMahon,Andrew

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  McNally,Thomas

  Stewart, Rt Hon D. (WIsles)

  McNamara,Kevin

  Stoddart,David

  McWilliam,John

  Stott,Roger

  Magee,Bryan

  Strang,Gavin

  Marks,Kenneth

  Straw,Jack

  Marshall,D(G'gowS'ton)

  Summerskill,HonDrShirley

  Marshall,DrEdmund(Goole)

  Taylor, MrsAnn(BoltonW)

  Marshall, Jim (LeicesterS)

  Thomas,Datydd(Merioneth)

  Martin M(G'gowS'burn)

  Thomas,Jeffrey(Abertillery)

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  Thomas, Mike (NewcastleE)

  Maxton,John

  Thomas, DrR.(Carmarthen)

  Maynard, MissJoan

  Thorne,Stan(PrestonSouth)

  Meacher,Michael

  Tilley,John

  Mellish,RtHon Robert

  Tinn,James

  Mikardo,Ian

  Torney,Tom

  Millan, RtHonBruce

  Urwin, RtHon Tom

  Miller, Dr M. S. (EKilbride)

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Mitchell,R.C. (Sotonltchen)

  Wainwright,E.(DearneV)

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Wainwright,R.(ColneV)

  Morris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)

  Walker, Rt Hon H.(D'caster)

  Morris, RtHon J. (Aberavon)

  Watkins,David

  Morton,George

  Weetch, Ken

  Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

  Wellbeloved,James

  Mulley, RtHon Frederick

  Welsh,Michael

  Newens,Stanley

  White, Frank R.

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  White, J. (G'gowPollok)

  Ogden,Eric

  Whitehead,Phillip

  O'Halloran,Michael

  Whitlock,William

  O'Neill, Martin

  Wigley,Dafydd

  Orme, RtHon Stanley

  Willey,RtHon Frederick

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

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

  Paisley, Rev Ian

  Williams,SirT.(W'ton)

  Palmer,Arthur

  Wilson,Gordon(DundeeE)

  Park,George

  Wilson, RtHonSirH.(H'ton)

  Parker,John

  Wilson, William (C'trySE)

  Pavitt,Laurie

  Winnick,David

  Pendry,Tom

  Woodall,Alec

  Penhaligon,David

  Woolmer,Kenneth

  Powell,Raymond(Ogmore)

  Wrigglesworth,Ian

  Prescott,John

  Young, David (BoltonE)

  Price, C. (Lewisham W)

  Race, Reg

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Radice,Giles

  Mr. Ron Leighton and

  Richardson,Jo

  Mr. Austin Mitchell.

  NOES

  Adley,Robert

  Atkinson,David(B'm'th,E)

  Aitken,Jonathan

  Baker,Kenneth(Sf.M'bone)

  Alison,Michael

  Baker,Nicholas(NDorset)

  Arnery,RtHonJulian

  Banks,Robert

  Ancram,Michael

  Beaumont-Dark,Anthony

  Arnold,Tom

  Bell,SirRonald

  Atkins, RtHonH.(S'thorne)

  Bendall,Vivian

  Atkins,Robert(PrestonN)

  Bennett,SirFrederiC(T'day)

  234

  Benyon,Thomasf(A'don)

  Garel-Jones,Tristan

  Benyon,W.(Buckingham)

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Berry, HonAnthony

  Goodhart,Philip

  Best, Keith

  Goodlad,Alastair

  Bevan, DavidGilroy

  Gorst,John

  Biffen, RtHonJohn

  Gow, Ian

  Biggs-Davison,John

  Gower,Sir Raymond

  Blackburn,John

  Grant,Anthony(HarrowC)

  Body,Richard

  Gray, Hamish

  Bonsor,SirNicholas

  Greenway,Harry

  Boscawen,HonRobert

  Grieve, Percy

  Bowden,Andrew

  Griffiths, E.(B'ySt. Edm'ds)

  Boyson,DrRhodes

  Griffiths,Peter Portsm'thN)

  Braine,SirBernard

  Grist, Ian

  Bright,Graham

  Grylls,Michael

  Brinton,Tim

  Gummer,JohnSelwyn

  Brittan,Leon

  Hamilton, HonA.

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Hamilton,Michael(Salisbury)

  Brotherton,Michael

  Hampson,Dr Keith

  Brown,M.(BriggandScun)

  Hannam,John

  Browne,John(Winchester)

  Haselhurst,Alan

  Bruce-Gardyne,John

  Hastings,Stephen

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Budgen,Nick

  Hawkins,Paul

  Bulmer,Esmond

  Hawksley,Warren

  Burden,SirFrederick

  Hayhoe,Barney

  Butcher,John

  Heddle,John

  Butler, HonAdam

  Henderson,Barry

  Carlisle, John(LutonWest)

  Heseltine, RtHon Michael

  Carlisle,Kenneth(Lincoln)

  Hicks,Robert

  Carlisle, RtHonM. (R'c'n)

  Higgins, RtHon Terence L.

  Chalker,Mrs. Lynda

  Hill,James

  Channon, Rt. Hon. Paul

  Hogg,HonDouglas(Gr'th'm)

  Chapman,Sydney

  Holland, philip(Carlton)

  Churchill,W.S.

  Hooson,Tom

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

  Hordern,Peter

  Clarke,Kenneth(Rushcliffe)

  Howe, Rt Hon SirGeoffrey

  Clegg,SirWalter

  Howell,RtHonD.(G'ldf'd)

  Cockeram,Eric

  Howell,Ralph(NNorfolk)

  Colvin,Michael

  Hunt,David(Wirral)

  Cope,John

  Hunt,John(Ravensbourne)

  Cormack,Patrick

  Hurd,HonDouglas

  Corrie,John

  Irving,Charles(Cheltenham)

  Costain, Sir Albert

  Jenkin, RtHon Patrick

  Cranborne,Viscount

  Jessel,Toby

  Crouch,David

  JohnsonSmith,Geoffrey

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Jopling,RtHonMichael

  Dorrell,Stephen

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Douglas-Hamilton,LordJ.

  Kaberry,SirDonald

  Dover,Denshore

  Kellett-Bowman,MrsElaine

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Kershaw,Anthony

  Dunn,Robert(Dartford)

  Kimball,Marcus

  Durant,Tony

  King, RtHon Tom

  Dykes, Hugh

  Knight,MrsJill

  Eden, RtHon Sir John

  Knox,David

  Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

  Lamont,Norman

  Eggar,Tim

  Lang, Ian

  Elliott,SirWilliam

  Langford-Holt,SirJohn

  Emery, Peter

  Latham,Michael

  Eyre,Reginald

  Lawrence,Ivan

  Fairbairn,Nicholas

  Lawson, RtHon Nigel

  Fairgrieve,Russell

  Lee,John

  Faith, MrsSheila

  Lennox-Boyd,HonMark

  Farr,John

  Lester Jim(Beeston)

  Fell,Anthony

  Lewis,Kenneth(Rutland)

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Lloyd, Ian (Havant & W'loo)

  Finsberg,Geoff rey

  Lloyd, Peter(Fareham)

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Loveridge,John

  Fletcher, A.(Ed'nb'ghN)

  Lyell,Nicholas

  Fletcher-Cooke,SirCharles

  Macfarlane,Neil

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  MacGregor,John

  FQrman,Nigel

  MacKay,John(Argyll)

  Fowler, RtHon Norman

  Macmillan, RtHonM.

  Fox,Marcus

  McNair-Wilson,M.(N'bury)

  Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh

  McNair-Wilson, P. (NewF'st)

  Fraser, Peter(South Angus)

  McQuarrie,Albert

  Fry, Peter

  Madel,David

  Galbraith, Hon T. G. D.

  Major,John

  Gardiner,George(Reigate)

  Marland,Paul

  Gardner, Edward (SFylde)

  Marten,Neil(Banbury)

  235

  Mather,Carol

  Sainsbury,HonTimothy

  Maude, Rt Hon Sir Angus

  Scott,Nicholas

  Mawby, Ray

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Mawhinney,DrBrian

  Shaw, Michael(Scarborough)

  Maxwell-Hyslop,Robin

  Shelton,William(Streatham)

  Mayhew,Patrick

  Shepherd,Colin(Hereford)

  Mellor,David

  Shepherd,Richard

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Shersby, Michael

  Miller,Hal(B'grove)

  Silvester,Fred

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Sims,Roger

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Miscampbell,Norman

  Smith,Dudley

  Moate,Roger

  Speed, Keith

  Molyneaux,James

  Speller,Tony

  Monro,Hector

  Spence,John

  Montgomery,Fergus

  Spicer,Jim (West Dorset)

  Morgan, Geraint

  Spicer, Michael (SWorcs)

  Morris, M.(N'hamptonS)

  Sproat,Ian

  Morrison, HonC.(Devizes)

  Squire,Robin

  Morrison, Hon P.(Chester)

  Stainton, Keith

  Mudd,David

  Stanbrook,lvor

  Murphy,Christopher

  Stanley,John

  Myles, David

  Steen,Anthony

  Neale,Gerrard

  Stevens,Martin

  Needham,Richard

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Stewart, A.(ERenfrewshire)

  Neubert,Michael

  Stokes,John

  Newton,Tony

  StradlingThomas.J.

  Normanton,Tom

  Tapsell, Peter

  Nott, Rt Hon John

  Taylor,Robert(CroydonNW)

  Onslow,Cranley

  Tebbit,Norman

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs M.

  Osborn,John

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

  Page, John(Harrow, West)

  Thompson,Donald

  Page, Rt Hon Sir G. (Crosby)

  Thornton,Malcolm

  Page, Richard (SWHerts)

  Townend,John(Bridlington)

  Parkinson,Cecil

  Townsend,CyrilD, (B'heath)

  Parris, Matthew

  Trotter,Neville

  Patten,Christopher(Bath)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Patten, John (Oxford)

  Vaughan, DrGerard

  Pattie,Geoffrey

  Viggers, Peter

  Pawsey, James

  Waddington,David

  Percival,SirIan

  Wakeham.John

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Waldegrave,HonWilliam

  Pink,R.Bonner

  Walker-Smith, RtHonSirD.

  Pollock,Alexander

  Wall,Patrick

  Porter,Barry

  Waller, Gary

  Powell, Rt Hon J.E.(S Down)

  Walters,Dennis

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Ward, John

  Price, SirDavid (Eastleigh)

  Warren,Kenneth

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Watson,John

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Wells,Bowen

  Raison,Timothy

  Wheeler,John

  Rathbone,Tim

  Whitelaw, RtHonWilliam

  Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

  Whitney,Raymond

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Wickenden,Keith

  Renton,Tim

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Wilkinson,John

  Rhys Williams, SirBrandon

  Williams, D.(Montgomery)

  Ridley,HonNicholas

  Wolfson,Mark

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Young, SirGeorge (Acton)

  Rippon, RtHonGeoffrey

  Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and

  Rossi,Hugh

  Mr. Anthony Berry.

  Rost, Peter

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 32 (Questions on amendments):—
  The House divided: Ayes 290, Noes 255.

  Division No. 61

  [10.14 pm

  AYES

  Adley,Robert

  Alison,Michael

  Aitken,Jonathan

  Amery, RtHon Julian

  236

  Ancram, Michael

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Arnold,Tom

  Fry, Peter

  Atkins, Rt Hon H.(S'thorne)

  Galbraith, HonT. G. D.

  Atkins, Robert(Presfon/V)

  Gardiner,George(Reigate)

  Atkinson, David(B'm'th,E)

  Gardner, Edward (SFylde)

  Baker.Kenneth(St. M'bone)

  Garel-Jones,Tristan

  Baker, Nicholas(NDorset)

  Glyn, DrAlan

  Banks,Robert

  Goodhart,Philip

  Beaumont-Dark,Anthony

  Goodlad,Alastair

  Bell,SirRonald

  Gorst,John

  Bendall,Vivian

  Gow, Ian

  Bennett, Sir Frederic(T'bay)

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Benyon,Thomas(A'don)

  Grant, Anthony(HarrowC)

  Benson,W.(Buckingham)

  Gray, Hamish

  Best, Keith

  Greenway, Harry

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Grieve, Percy

  Biffen, RtHonJohn

  Griffiths, E.(B'ySt.Edm'ds)

  Biggs-Davison,john

  Griffiths, Peter Portsm'thN)

  Blackburn,John

  Grist, Ian

  Body,Richard

  Grylls,Michael

  Bonsor,SirNicholas

  Gummer,JohnSelwyn

  Boscawen,HonRobert

  Hamilton, Hon A.

  Boyson, DrRhodes

  Hamilton, Michael(Salisbury)

  Braine,SirBernard

  Hampson,DrKeith

  Bright,Graham

  Hannam,John

  Brittan,Leon

  Haselhurst,Alan

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Hastings,Stephen

  Brotherton,Michael

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Brown, M. (BriggandScun)

  Hawkins, Paul

  Browne,John(Wincester)

  Hawksley, Warren

  Bruce-Gardyne,John

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Heddle,John

  Budgen,Nick

  Henderson,Barry

  Bulmer,Esmond

  Heseltine,RtHonMichael

  Burden,SirFrederick

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Butcher,John

  Hill,James

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Hogg,HonDouglas(Gr'th'm)

  Carlisle, John(LutonWest)

  Holland, Philip(Carlton)

  Carlisle, Kenneth(Lincoln)

  Hooson,Tom

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

  Hordern,Peter

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Channon, Rt. Hon. Paul

  Howell, Ralph(NNorfolk)

  Chapman,Sydney

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Churchill,W.S.

  Hunt,John(Ravensbourne)

  Clarke, Kenneth(Rushcliffe)

  Hurd,HonDouglas

  Clegg, SirWalter

  Irving, Charles(Cheltenham)

  Cockeram,Eric

  Jenkin, RtHon Patrick

  Colvin,Michael

  Jessel,Toby

  Cope,John

  JohnsonSmith, Geoffrey

  Corrie,John

  Jopling,RtHonMichael

  Costain,SirAlbert

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Kaberry,SirDonald

  Crouch,David

  Kellett-Bowman,MrsElaine

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Kershaw,Anthony

  Dorrell,Stephen

  Kimball, Marcus

  Douglas-Hamilton,LordJ.

  King, RtHon Tom

  Dover,Denshore

  Knight, MrsJill

  du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

  Knox, David

  Dunn,Robert(Dartford)

  Lamont,Norman

  Durant,Tony

  Lang, Ian

  Dykes, Hugh

  Langford-Holt,SirJohn

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Latham,Michael

  Edwards, Rt Hon N.(P'broke)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Eggar,Tim

  Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

  Elliott,SirWilliam

  Lee,John

  Emery, Peter

  Lennox-Boyd,HonMark

  Eyre,Reginald

  Lester Jim (Beeston)

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Lewis, Kenneth(Rutland)

  Fairgrieve,Russell

  Lloyd, Peter(Fareham)

  Faith, MrsSheila

  Loveridge,John

  Farr,John

  Lyell,Nicholas

  Fell,Anthony

  Macfarlane,Neil

  Finsberg,Geoffrey

  MacGregor,John

  Fisher, SirNigel

  MacKay,John(Argyll)

  Fletcher, A.(Ed'nb'ghN)

  McNair-Wilson,M.(N'bury)

  Fletcher-Cooke,SirCharles

  McNair-Wilson, P.(NewF'st)

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Forman,Nigel

  Madel, David

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Major,John

  Fox,Marcus

  Marland,Paul

  237

  Marten,Neil(Banbury)

  Sainsbury,HonTimothy

  Mather,Carol

  Scott,Nicholas

  Maude, Rt Hon Sir Angus

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Mawby, Ray

  Shaw,Michael (Scarborough)

  Mawhinney,DrBrian

  Shelton,William(Streatham)

  Maxwell-Hyslop,Robin

  Shepherd, Colin(Hereford)

  Mayhew,Patrick

  Shepherd,Richard

  Mellor,David

  Shersby,Michael

  Meyer, SirAnthony

  Silvester,Fred

  Mills,Iain(Meriden)

  Sims, Roger

  Mills, Peter(WestDevon)

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Smith,Dudley

  Moate,Roger

  Speed, Keith

  Molyneaux,James

  Speller,Tony

  Monro,Hector

  Spence,John

  Montgomery,Fergus

  Spicer,Jim (WestDorset)

  Morgan,Geraint

  Spicer, Michael (SWorcs)

  Morris, M.(N'hamptonS)

  Sproat,Ian

  Morrison, HonC. (Devizes)

  Squire,Robin

  Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

  Stainton,Keith

  Mudd,David

  Stanbrook,Ivor

  Murphy,Christopher

  Stanley,John

  Myles, David

  Steen,Anthony

  Neale,Gerrard

  Stevens, Martin

  Needham,Richard

  Stewart,Ian (Hitchin)

  Nelson,Anthony

  Stewart,A.(ERenfrewshire)

  Neubert,Michael

  StradlingThomas,J.

  Newton,Tony

  Tapsell, Peter

  Normanton,Tom

  Taylor, Robert (CroydonNW)

  Onslow,Cranley

  Tebbit,Norman

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs M.

  Osborn,John

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Thompson,Donald

  Page, Rt Hon Sir G. (Crosby)

  Thornton,Malcolm

  Page, Richard (SWHerts)

  Townend,John(Bridlington)

  Parkinson,Cecil

  Townsend, CyrilD.(B'heath)

  Parris,Matthew

  Trotter,Neville

  Patten,Christopher(Bath)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Patten,John (Oxford)

  Vaughan,DrGerard

  Pattie,Geoffrey

  Viggers,Peter

  Pawsey, James

  Waddington,David

  Percival,SirIan

  Wakeham,John

  Peyton, RtHon John

  Waldegrave,HonWilliam

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir D.

  Pollock,Alexander

  Wall,Patrick

  Porter,Barry

  Waller, Gary

  Powell, Rt Hon J.E. (S Down)

  Walters,Dennis

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Ward, John

  Price,SirDavid(Eastleigh)

  Warren,Kenneth

  Prior, RtHonJames

  Wells,John(Maidstone)

  Proctor, K.Harvey

  Wells,Bowen

  Pym,RtHonFrancis

  Wheeler,John

  Raison,Timothy

  Whitelaw, RtHon William

  Rathbone,Tim

  Whitney,Raymond

  Rees, Peter(Dover and Deal)

  Wickenden,Keith

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Wiggin,Jerry

  Renton,Tim

  Wilkinson,John

  RhodesJames, Robert

  Williams,D.(Montgomery)

  RhysWilliams,SirBrandon

  Wolfson,Mark

  Ridley,HonNicholas

  Young,SirGeorge(Acton)

  Rifkind,Malcolm

  Rippon, RtHonGeoffrey

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Roberts, M. (CardiffNW)

  Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and

  Roberts,Wyn(Conway)

  Mr. Anthony Berry.

  Rossi, Hugh

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

  Beith, A. J.

  Adams,Allen

  Benn, RtHon A. Wedgwood

  Allaun,Frank

  Bennett,Andrew(St'kp'tN)

  Alton,David

  Bidwell,Sydney

  Anderson,Donald

  Booth,RtHonAlbert

  Archer,Rt Hon Peter

  Boothroyd,MissBetty

  Armstrong, RtHonErnest

  Bottomley,RtHonA.(M'b'ro)

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Bradley,Tom

  Ashton,Joe

  Bray,DrJeremy

  Atkinson,N.(H'gey,)

  Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

  Bagier,GordonA.T.

  Brown, R. C. (N'castle W)

  Barnett,Guy(Greenwich)

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

  Barnett, RtHonJoel (H'wd)

  Buchan,Norman

  238

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

  Horam,John

  Campbell,Ian

  Howell, RtHon D.

  Campbell-Savours,Dale

  Howells,Geraint

  Canavan,Dennis

  Huckfield,Les

  Cant, R. B.

  Hudson Davies, Gwilym E.

  Carmichael,Neil

  Hughes,Mark(Durham)

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Hughes,Robert(Aberdeen N)

  Cartwright,John

  Hughes,Roy (Newport)

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

  Janner,HonGreville

  Cohen,Stanley

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Conlan,Bernard

  John,Brynmor

  Cowans, Harry

  Johnson,James(Hull West)

  Cox,T.(W'dsw'th,Toot'g)

  Johnson,Walter(DerbyS)

  Craigen, J. M.

  Jones, RtHonAlec(Rh'dda)

  Crowther, J. S.

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

  Cryer,Bob

  Jones,Dan(Burnley)

  Cunliffe,Lawrence

  Kaufman, RtHon Gerald

  Cunningham,G.(IslingtonS)

  Kilfedder,James A.

  Cunningham, DrJ.(W'h'n)

  Kilroy-Silk,Robert

  Dalyell,Tam

  Kinnock,Neil

  Davidson,Arthur

  Lambie,David

  Davies,RtHonDenzil(L'lli)

  Lamborn,Harry

  Davies,Ifor(Gower)

  Lamond,James

  Davis, Clinton (HackneyC)

  Leadbitter,Ted

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

  Leighton, Ronald

  Deakins,Eric

  Lestor,MissJoan

  Dewar,Donald

  Lewis,Arthur (N'ham NW)

  Dixon,Donald

  Lewis,Ron(Carlisle)

  Dobson,Frank

  Litherland,Robert

  Dormand,Jack

  Lofthouse,Geoffrey

  Douglas,Dick

  Lyon,Alexander(York)

  Douglas-Mann,Bruce

  Lyons,Edward(Bradf'dW)

  Dubs,Alfred

  McCartney,Hugh

  Duffy,A. E. P.

  McElhone,Frank

  Dunn,James A.

  McGuire,Michael(lnce)

  Dunnett,Jack

  McKay,Allen(Penistone)

  Dunwoody,Hon MrsG.

  MacKenzie,RtHonGregor

  Eastham,Ken

  Maclennan,Robert

  Edwards,R. (W'hampt'nSE)

  McMahon,Andrew

  Ellis, R. (NED'bysh're)

  McNally,Thomas

  English,Michael

  McNamara,Kevin

  Ennals, RtHon David

  McWilliam,John

  Evans, Ioan (Aberdare)

  Magee, Bryan

  Evans,John(Newton)

  Marks,Kenneth

  Ewing,Harry

  Marshall,D(G'gowS'ton)

  Faulds,Andrew

  Marshall,DrEdmund(Goole)

  Field, Frank

  Marshall,Jim (LeicesterS)

  Flannery,Martin

  Martin,M(G'gowS'burn)

  Fletcher,Raymond(Ilkeston)

  Mason,Rt Hon Roy

  Fletcher,Ted(Darlington)

  Maxton,John

  Foot, RtHon Michael

  Maynard,MissJoan

  Ford, Ben

  Meacher,Michael

  Forrester,John

  Mellish,RtHon Robert

  Foster, Derek

  Mikardo,Ian

  Foulkes,George

  Millan,RtHon Bruce

  Fraser, J. (Lamb'th,N'w'd)

  Miller, Dr M.S. (EKilbride)

  Freeson, RtHon Reginald

  Mitchell,Austin(Grimsby)

  Freud,Clement

  Mitchell,R.C.(Soton Itchen)

  Garrett,John(NorwichS)

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

  Morris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)

  George,Bruce

  Morris, RtHonJ.(Aberavon)

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

  Ginsburg,David

  Mulley, RtHonFrederick

  Golding,John

  Newens,Stanley

  Gourlay,Harry

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Graham,Ted

  Ogden,Eric

  Grant,George(Morpeth)

  O'Halloran,Michael

  Grant,John(IslingtonC)

  O'Neill,Martin

  Grimond,RtHonJ.

  Orme, RtHon Stanley

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

  Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

  Hardy, Peter

  Paisley, Rev Ian

  Harrison, RtHon Walter

  Palmer,Arthur

  Hart, RtHon Dame Judith

  Park, George

  Hattersley,RtHonRoy

  Parker,John

  Haynes,Frank

  Pavitt,Laurie

  Heffer,EricS.

  Pendry,Tom

  Hogg,N.(EDunb't'nshire)

  Penhaligon,David

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

  Powell,Raymond(Ogmore)

  HomeRobertson,John

  Prescott,John

  Homewood,William

  Price,C.(LewishamW)

  239

  Race, Reg

  Spearing,Nigel

  Radice, Giles

  Spriggs,Leslie

  Richardson,Jo

  Stallard, A.W.

  Roberts.Albert(Normanton)

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Roberts,Allan(Bootle)

  Stewart, Rt Hon D.(WIsles)

  Roberts, Ernest (HackneyN)

  Stoddart,David

  Roberts,Gwilym(Cannock)

  Stott,Roger

  Robertson,George

  Strang,Gavin

  Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

  Straw,Jack

  Rodgers,RtHonWilliam

  Summerskill,HonDrShirley

  Rooker, J.W.

  Taylor,MrsAnn(BoltonW)

  Roper,John

  Thomas,Dafydd(Merioneth)

  Rowlands,Ted

  Thomas.Jeffrey(Abertillery)

  Ryman,John

  Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E)

  Sever,John

  Thomas,DrR.(Carmarthen)

  Sheerman,Barry

  Thome,Stan(PrestonSouth)

  Sheldon, Rt HonR.

  Tilley,John

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Tinn,James

  Short, MrsRenée

  Torney,Tom

  Silkin,RtHonJ.(Deptford)

  Urwin, RtHonTom

  Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Silverman,Julius

  Wainwright,E.(DearneV)

  Skinner,Dennis

  Wainwright,R.(ColneV)

  Smith,Cyril(Rochdale)

  Walker, Rt Hon H.(D'caster)

  Smith, Rt Hon J. (N Lanark)

  Watkins,David

  240

  Weetch,Ken

  Wilson, RtHonSirH.(H'ton)

  Wellbeloved,James

  Wilson,William(C'trySE)

  Welsh,Michael

  Winnick,David

  White, FrankR.

  Woodall,Alec

  White,J.(G'gowPollok)

  Woolmer,Kenneth

  Whitehead,Phillip

  Wrigglesworth,Ian

  Whitlock,William

  Young, David (Bolton E)

  Wigley,Dafydd

  Willey, RtHon Frederick

  Tellers for the Noes:

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

  Mr. Joseph Dean and

  Williams,SirT.(W'ton)

  Mr. George Morton.

  Wilson, Gordon (DundeeE)

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  MR. SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House acknowledges that at a time of severe economic recession, the policies of Her Majesty's Government offer the only effective way to real economic recovery, the creation of lasting jobs and a decent standard of living for all the people of this country while at the same time protecting the most vulnerable groups in society.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That the Motion relating to Ways and Means may be proceeded with at this day's sitting, though opposed, until any hour.—[Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.]

  Northern Ireland (Election Expenses)
  10.26 pm
  The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Michael Alison): I beg to move,
  That the draft Northern Ireland (Variation of Limits of Candidates' Election Expenses) Order 1981, which was laid before this House on 19 January, be approved.
  Mr. Speaker: Order. An hon. Member is addressing the House and other hon. Members must not stand this side of the Bar.
  Mr. Alison: I am obliged to you, Mr. Speaker, for your protection.
  This order seeks to raise the maximum amount which may be spent by candidates contesting district council elections in Northern Ireland. The increase will compensate for inflation since March 1977 when the limit was last fixed.
  The current limit of £72 plus 1·5p per registered elector in the district electoral area will be increased to £110 plus 2·3p per elector. In percentage terms this will mean an increase of just over 53 per cent. This is closely in line with the increase in the general level of prices since March 1977. These, of course, are limits on expenditure by candidates and do not involve public funds.
  I commend to the House this limited but important measure which will ensure that candidates in the local elections in May can more effectively put their case before the electorate.
  10.28 pm
  Mr. James Molyneaux: Like most amending legislation, the draft order appears on the face of it to be limited in scope. Indeed, one could say that the changes are contained in the equivalent of one line of print in article 2, which substitutes £110 for £72 and 2·3p for l·5p.
  An hon. Member accustomed to the normal electoral process might be excused for assuming that each candidate in each seat is permitted to spend up to the sum in the new scale. The order does not say that, if that candidate is joined by another of like mind and belonging to the same party, the two are not permitted to spend double the amount but that in that case the total sum must be reduced by one-quarter. If they should be joined or assisted in the battle by yet another candidate, the sum would be reduced by one-third. After that, woe betide any party that fields, say, five candidates in any one area. They would be forced to campaign on the lower scale of the three candidates.
  Hon. Members do not realise that this crazy arrangement results from an equally crazy electoral system known as proportional representation, and it is to cope with that crazy system that we are discussing this order tonight. That system was introduced in 1973 with the object of "breaking the mould." That decision is the real reason why we have such a collection of political parties in Northern Ireland and why there can be no political stability in Northern Ireland until proportional representation is abolished.
  242
  In times past, it was perhaps easy for hon. Members to ignore the truth of what I have just said. But now that "mould-breaking" has become a sort of Limehouse pastime, is it not politically dangerous to maintain proportional representation in one part of the United Kingdom and refuse it to others which have not yet been cured of all sorts of fanciful notions, such as centre parties, coalitions and other such political monstrosities? Will not the two big battalions in this House feel very vulnerable when they are faced with a reasonable request from reasonable men for just a teeny-weeny bit of "mouldbreaking", just enough to get the centre party on to its feet? I hope that the two main parties will stoutly resist any such pressure. However, they would be in a much stronger position if the political itinerants were unable to point to a part of the United Kingdom that is forced to tolerate devices that are likely to be damaging to democracy in Britain as Britain has known it.
  While giving a welcome of sorts to the order, I hope that this will be the last time that we make any sort of legislative arrangements for elections held under proportional representation. My party takes the view that the sooner we are done with it, the better.
  10.33 pm
  Mr. James Kilfedder: The only argument that we have heard against proportional representation is that it makes the major parties vulnerable. On that basis we should welcome proportional representation, because anything that makes the major parties think about their policies and makes them realise that they are not on an easy ride into Parliament and into power provides a service to the community.
  I should have thought that Northern Ireland is an example of how proportional representation has in one way enriched political life in the Province. By bringing forward people with different views, for example, on the Unionist side, the people have a greater choice and can pick and choose. No longer are they presented, as they were at election after election for years in Northern Ireland, with the choice "Vote for Official Unionist or you will hand the constituency over to a Republican." It means that the people can vote, and by exercising their vote they can make a choice between the different brands of Unionist. For that reason, I make clear in this House that proportional representation has contributed greatly to political life in the Province. Of course, the major party, for instance the Official Unionist Party, feels vulnerable because it has been shown to be a monolithic party that is more interested in keeping power than in working for the good of Ulster and the people of Ulster. I merely wish to place on record that proportional representation is not the dangerous ill that some make it out to be.
  Mr. Michael English rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Order. Before that line is pursued too far, I should say that it is out of order.
  Mr. English: Before the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) resumes his place, I wish to point out that the single transferable vote system in Northern Ireland is proportional on only one occasion in the European elections and that in other cases it is not a proportional representation system.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Let us leave it at that.
  10.35 pm
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: In briefly commending the order the Minister of State described the expenses allowable to candidates as being intended to assist them in presenting their case to the electors. I wonder whether he realises—I am sure that the House does not realise—that in the elections at which the order will first be effective, the local government elections in May, there will be no question of the candidates having electors to whom they present their views in the same sense as candidates at local government elections in the rest of the United Kingdom.
  Northern Ireland is divided into wards for the purposes of the electoral register. It is not divided into wards for the purposes of elections. There are the same number of candidates as there are wards, but the candidates have no relationship with the wards. The candidates have no electors. The councillors who will be elected will have no specific electors of the ward who elected them, and that mutual responsibility of electors and elected is absent from the elections in Northern Ireland that will take place in May.
  It is a mockery of the electoral system. It is a mockery that would not by tolerated for an instant on this side of the Irish sea. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux) in hoping, and verging upon prediction, that before long the impossibility of maintaining in one part of the kingdom a non-democratic system that is rejected by the remainder of the system will have been seen and acted upon.
  10.38 pm
  Rev. Ian Paisley: I am amazed at the contribution of the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux). His party was a part of the United Ulster Unionist coalition that put forward a Convention report. The report stated that the coalition of Unionists would accept a form of proportional representation but preferred the list system. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the report. That was the consensus of Unionists at that time.
  We are dealing with expenses and the issues raised by the hon. Gentleman on the division of expenses are important. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) has talked about the differences between wards and how candidates stand. The candidates stand for areas and in the various areas there may be three seats or five seats. When those seats are being fought, naturally the candidates of one party run together. I want to know whether those candidates running together have the same opportunity of spending the same amount of money in their election as a candidate of a party which has only one contender in the area. In my opinion, they have not. But I should like that confirmed. I should also like to have the figures confirmed.
  At the Convention election, there was a very broad coalition. Candidates running for different parties had similar advertising and joint meetings. The law was not rigidly enforced on that occasion, and the parties put in their returns in keeping with their own single-party candidates. That is a fact. We had better get this matter straight. If two parties with candidates running in an area have a general agreement on coalition, what is the position with regard to those candidates?
  I agree with the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) who spoke about proportional representation.
  244
  We have been over the question of the single transferable vote. It does not affect me. I had an outright majority in the European election, anyway. I would rather have the first-past-the-post system, for one reason—that it is in keeping with the rest of the United Kingdom. I do not like this system which lines us up with the Republic of Ireland. I never did like it. But there is much strength in what the hon. Member for Down, North has said, because it means that the vote of any party is not decimated. If I am a Unionist, I can transfer my vote and I can see that at the end of the day a Unionist will get my vote. I am not forced, as we have been forced in Northern Ireland, to vote for a particular candidate under the threat that "If you do not vote for us, the Republicans will take the seat". That has been the main threat that has been held over us.
  That system was introduced by the enemies of Ulster, not by our friends. But they overstepped themselves, and instead of hindering Unionism, I believe that the thing that they had planned for its destruction was its salvation. So far as I am concerned, if one has a majority one will be elected anyway.
  Mr. English: As one who comes from a party that has just decided its policy by choosing motions by single transferable vote, the hon. Gentleman will understand that I feel rather deeply about the issue. Does he realise that two successive Republic of Ireland Governments of different parties have recommended that the single transferable vote system should be scrapped in the Republic because it is so disproportionate, and that in the last four elections, on two occasions the party that gained votes lost?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman is tempted to answer that interesting question, I remind him that the order has nothing to do with the voting system. It relates to the limits of candidates' election expenses.
  Rev. Ian Paisley: But it has, in a measure, to do with the system, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If we were to go by an ordinary system, we should not have the ridiculous nonsense that we are discussing tonight about how to split candidates, because every candidate would be entitled to that amount of money.
  But that is not what is happening. That is not what is before the House tonight. Therefore, in a sense, although I shall not stray into this area, I must point out that when the legislation was going through the House we hammered the Government on that point. We told them that the Republic wanted to be rid of the system, but they would not listen to us. So, of course, they are hearing it again this evening.
  The Minister must come clean and spell this out clearly so that candidates will know the amount of money that they can spend and whether, if they run in a broad coalition, they are entitled to claim that they are spending money only within their own parties and that the others who are with them, but not of them, can spend the same amount. That is the matter to which the Minister must apply himself and spell out clearly. Perhaps he will tell us why, if that is the law, it was not observed in relation to the Convention, and why the then Government closed their eyes—not just one eye, like Nelson, but both eyes—on that occasion.
  Mr. Alison: I should like to start by replying to the specific point made by the hon. Member for Antrim, North

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  (Rev. Ian Paisley) in relation to the split of the allowable individual candidate's limit of expenditure. I am advised that the law provides that where there are two joint candidates—that is to say, candidates who share staff, have the same committee rooms or publish a joint address the maximum expense which each may incur is threequarters of the maximum for a single candidate, and where there are more than two joint candidates, the maximum for each is two-thirds of that for a single candidate.
  The hon. Gentleman referred to something which goes rather beyond the concept of common staff, common committee room and a joint election address. It was a somewhat looser coalition. Perhaps he will allow me to take notice of that wider question and advise him in writing as to exactly how the legal point would affect it. However, my advice at present is that this is a fairly tightly specified joint candidature in the way in which I have described it.
  Mr. Michael Brown: Perhaps my hon. Friend can help me on a point of clarification. Does joint staff include the same agent, or is it specified anywhere what joint staff means?
  Mr. Alison: Again, I must ask my hon. Friend to allow me to take notice of that and advise him in writing. However, at first sight it is anything which could be considered as paid or remunerated staff, agent, sub-agent or assistant agent. I shall certainly verify that.
  For the rest, I have attempted to take brief notes of the points made by the hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Molyneaux), the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), the hon. Member for Down, North (Mr. Kilfedder) and the hon. Member for Antrim, North. The notes that I made were brief and succinct—against PR, pro PR, against PR and pro PR. That seems to be about the sum total of the contributions. I thought that the hon. Member for Down, North came down slightly ambivalently but with some slight sympathy in regard to the PR arrangements which exist in Northern Ireland.
  Mr. English: It is possible to be in favour of PR and against STV.
  Mr. Alison: I take that point. The measure is a modest one. It has no profound significance other than that of trying to catch up with inflation. I hope that the two pillars of Hercules, if I may so describe the representation of Northern Ireland on both sides of the House, will allow us to navigate this small, modest craft through the debate in order to make this offset compensation for inflation which will be in the public interest.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the draft Northern Ireland (Variation of Limits of Candidates' Election Expenses) Order 1981, which was laid before this House on 19 January, be approved.

  Northern Ireland (Fisheries)
  10.48 pm
  The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mr. Adam Butler): I beg to move,
  That the draft Fisheries Amendment (Northern Ireland) Order 1980, which was laid before this House on 10 December, be approved.
  The purposes of the order are to vary the maximum punishments and, in some cases, the mode of trial, for certain offences against Northern Ireland Acts dealing with fisheries, to amend provisions of those Acts which relate to sea fishing and to make fresh provision for the culture of shellfish.
  The changes in the penal provisions have three aims: first, they are a response to a continued high level of unlawful fishing—especially in the Londonderry area—which is aggravated by the continued fall in salmon stocks; secondly, they seek a standardisation of penalties as between the Foyle area and the rest of Northern Ireland and as between Northern Ireland and Great Britain; and, thirdly, they take account of the fall in the value of money caused by inflation. The other amendments made by the order cure deficiencies in the present legislation.
  I am sure that the House would like me to go through the articles of the draft order. I shall do so briefly, and I shall try to explain their main purpose. The first two articles—the title and commencement, and the interpretation—are self-explanatory. Article 3 amends the Foyle Fisheries Act (Northern Ireland) 1952, the Fisheries Act (Northern Ireland) 1966, the Diseases of Fish Act (Northern Ireland) 1967 and the Fish Industry Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 by giving effect to the changes set out in schedule 1 to the order.
  Unlawful dealings in salmon or trout and the taking of "unseasonable" fish will, in future, be punishable on indictment in the Crown courts instead of solely in magistrates' courts. The regulation of unlawful dealings is particularly important, because the unlicensed netting of salmon is encouraged by the availability of ready outlets in hotels and restaurants. The severity of the proposed punishments reflect the Government's concern about the extent of poaching. This constitutes a serious threat to salmon stocks. The problem is especially serious in the Foyle area.
  Penalties for offences under the Foyle Fisheries Act (Northern Ireland) 1952 have been revised in the order in conjunction with the Government of the Republic of Ireland. That Act applies only to the Londonderry area—that is to say, the part of the basin of the River Foyle that lies within Northern Ireland. The rest of the basin, of course, lies in the Republic of Ireland, and the whole of it is administered as a unit by the Foyle Fisheries Commission under the title of the "Foyle area". It is important that the fishery law throughout the Foyle area—including penalties for offences—should be uniform, and I understand that legislation will be promoted in the Republic of Ireland on the lines of part I of schedule 1 to the present order. The punishments proposed are, as far as possible, also uniform with those for similar offences throughout the rest of Northern Ireland. Uniformity has also been sought with Great Britain by bringing their levels in line with the maximum punishments for fishery offences fixed by schedule 1 to the Fishery Limits Act 1976 and schedule 6 to the Criminal Law Act 1977.

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  Article 4 amends the Fisheries Act (Northern Ireland) 1966 by extending the existing powers contained in the Act to enable the Department of Agriculture to make regulations requiring the keeping of records and the making of returns. At present, in terms of sea fish the regulations apply only to wholesalers and processors. In future, they will also apply to sea fishermen and those who auction or deal in sea fish at the point of landing.
  The information provided by catch statistics is an important aid to the Government in formulating policies. The accuracy of the catch reporting system that operates at ports of landing is also of considerable importance if conservation measures are to be successful.
  The provisions contained in article 5 give the Department of Agriculture powers of inquiry and of examination in relation to all licensed fish farms, and are mainly concerned with finding a more suitable position in the Fisheries Act (Northern Ireland) 1966 for provisions formerly in section 137(3) of that Act. However the powers in that section referred only to shellfish fisheries. The new provision will extend to fresh water fish farms and will enable authorised officers to enter and examine all things used in the running of a fish farm to determine whether the licensees are complying with the licence conditions.
  The maintenance of strict hygienic conditions in these establishments is of the greatest importance if they are not to become breeding grounds for disease. This is recognised to be very much in the interests of fish farmers and of the continuing viability and prosperity of the industry. I am glad to say that the standard of hygiene in existing fish farms is very high.
  Article 6 would replace, in a more simplified form, existing provisions that enable regulations to be made for the management and conservation of sea fisheries. Where, in the interests of conservation, restrictions are imposed on taking particular kinds of fish, the present law limits the period of those restrictions to one year at a time. That can give rise to uncertainty and is unsatisfactory from both the fishermen's and the Government's points of view. In future, the duration of regulations will be fixed by the regulations in the light of prevailing circumstances. The penalty for contravening a regulation under this article has been raised to a maximum of £1,000, which is in line with comparable Great Britain legislation.
  Article 7 provides for a maximum fine of £1,000 for bringing to land, for landing and for selling or being in possession of fish caught in contravention of the regulations that I have described. Again, this corresponds to the penalty in Great Britain.
  Article 8, which implements schedule 2, replaces existing sections of the 1966 Act relating to oyster bed licences and oyster fishery orders—they overlapped to some extent—with a single set of provisions for the granting of shellfish fishery licences. The new provisions re-enact to a large extent the substance of the existing ones, but they overcome a difficulty that has been encountered in regard to the grant of licences in respect of Crown foreshore.
  Article 9 extends the powers of an authorised sea fishery officer to enable him to require the co-operation of the crew of a fishing boat that he boards in the course of his duties.
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  Although the amendments made by the order are comparatively minor, they will make useful improvements in the legislation affected. I commend the order to the House.
  10.56 pm
  Mr. Tom Pendry: The Opposition welcome the order. It began life with the previous Administration. We are therefore bound to support it, with few reservations. We welcome in particular those alterations which improve the conservation procedures and inrease the punishments for contravening the regulations. These are in the best interests of the fishermen in Northern Ireland, who look to the operation of such regulations to assure them of stable stocks.
  The fishing industry in Northern Ireland is small but is important to the Province. In 1979, 315 boats in Northern Ireland were responsible for landing fish to the value of £6½ million. A sizeable number of the people are involved in the fishing and fish processing industries. The health of the industry as a whole is vital to the people of Ardglass, Portavogie and Kilkeel, not to mention a medley of smaller fishing ports and marine fish farming interests within Northern Ireland.
  It is precisely because of the significance of the fishing industry to these areas of Northern Ireland that I wish to make a number of comments on the order. I should like to question the Minister about its operation and relevance to the industry, which currently operates in a most adverse economic climate. I am pleased to note that the penalties for infringement of fishing regulations are to be increased significantly. Several maximum penalties are to be raised, some by as much as 400 per cent.
  The severity of these penalties will no doubt act as a deterrent to those who might otherwise use incorrrect gear or fish during the close season. Yet of themselves they are insufficient to enforce the regulations which are essential to conserve the fish stock in the waters around Northern Ireland. I should like the Minister, as a consequence of the order, to make provision for fishery protection vessels. This would be an act in conjunction with the spirit of the order. I would also like to know whether the Minister intends to update the vessels in operation. Many of them are outmoded and unable to operate efficiently. Such action would be welcomed by the vast majority of fishermen in Northern Ireland. It would ensure that those who obey the law in the best interests of the fishing industry do not suffer any disadvantage for so doing.
  For the law to gain adherence, the penalties must be enforceable. I seek an assurance from the Minister that every effort will be made to enforce the regulations as laid down by the order and other legislation pertaining to the Northern Ireland fishing industry.
  Article 4 refers to records and returns—the Minister said little about these matters—to be made by sea fishermen and fish salesmen. Such documentation will undoubtedly work to the greater benefit of those involved in the industry. Of that I have no doubt, but I should like the Minister to spell out more clearly what he means by records and returns. I sincerely hope that the necessary forms are kept as simple as possible and that the system does not become too bureaucratic. Those in the fishing industry, as the House knows, work long and hard, so the paper work should be kept to a minimum.

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  I turn to the section of the order that deals with shellfish, and particularly to the details of the operation of the licences under schedule 2. The close attention which is being paid at the moment—not by the Treasury Bench—to this industry is clear evidence of the advance of shellfishing in Northern Ireland over the past three years or so.
  The industry is one of the very few success stories of the Province in recent times. In particular, the value and production of Pacific oysters has progressed markedly. In three years that industry has grown from zero to about £100,000. I was fortunate for a period as a Minister to oversee part of this success story. I can mention one company in particular, Cuan Sea Fisheries, which is highly successful in oyster production.
  In many respects the legislation before us is far advanced in Northern Ireland, more advanced than in the rest of the United Kingdom. From paragraph 136 of schedule 2, this will be apparent to all and certainly very welcome to the shell fishermen in Northern Ireland. It gives them considerable protection against poaching and offers a measure of security which their counterparts in the rest of the United Kingdom do not have. I believe this is the result of good consultation with the shell fishermen in Northern Ireland. The Minister would do well if he were to pass on this example of discussion and negotiation to his colleague the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food before the Committee stage of his Bill has been finalised in order that the United Kingdom shell fishermen can have the same protection as those in Northern Ireland.
  The production of shellfish is clearly an area of growth in Northern Ireland, and as such is recognised by this order. Therefore, I should like to have a number of assurances that the industry will receive full protection in future. For instance, will the Minister ensure that potential areas for shellfish cultivation are not designated as conservation areas before the possibilities for that cultivation are fully considered? Again, if he could act in line with his predecessor on this to ensure that there is close contact with the shell fishermen in Northern Ireland I am sure that we could have a good, clear period of discussion before decisions of that kind are taken.
  Secondly, there is the question of the importation of live shellfish for human consumption in Northern Ireland. Is it to be permitted without a licence? I ask this in view of the diseases which have beset oyster beds in Spain, but particularly in France and which if offloaded in Northern Ireland for whatever reason could introduce a serious handicap to the industry.
  I ask these questions because I am concerned to see that the shell fishing industry in Northern Ireland obtains the maximum possible help from the Government. I know that the Minister's predecessor shares this view, for without his consistent pressure the welcome EEC grant to this industry would not have been forthcoming. I am sure that that is welcome to the industry and the House.
  I move on to view the order in the context of the present state of the fishing industry in Northern Ireland. As a measure designed to tighten controls, increase efficiency and promote more rationalisation in management, the order comes before the House at a most auspicious time for the industry.
  In 1979, which was recognised as a good year, the upward trend in the value of sea fish landings hit a new record of more than £6½ million. We do not yet know the figures for 1980, but all the indications are that it was one
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  of the worst seasons for many years. Prices are at rock bottom and I understand that the market for nethrops, which is, by value, the most profitable fish crop, is at an all-time low.
  In the past few days I have been in touch with many fishermen in the Province and they all tell the same story of the poor state of the market. One told me of dumping between 150 and 200 boxes of fish a night in recent weeks and mentioned that the price of fish was too low to meet even the EEC withdrawal price to qualify for compensation. I hope that the Minister has more information than I on the industry, and perhaps he will comment on its prospects.
  Can the Minister see any way of alleviating the added burden of the high price of fuel being paid by fishermen in Northern Ireland? Some say that it is up to 50 per cent. of their outlay. With those few questions and reservations, I, too, commend the order.
  11.7 pm
  Mr. John Biggs-Davison: I shall detain the House for only a couple of minutes. The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry), who spoke for the Opposition in a splendid isolation that has only just been diminished, mentioned the severity of the punishments provided for and said that they were required. I am sure that that is the opinion of the whole House.
  The hon. Gentleman also referred to enforcement. Can my hon. Friend tell us the present provision for enforcement, what vessels are used, what police are employed, to what extent the Garda Siochana or the Irish Naval Service may be involved in the Foyle area, and what measures are proposed to improve protection?
  Schedule 4 sets out amendments to the Fisheries Act (Northern Ireland) 1966 and mentions the definition of waters within British fishery limits. Why has it been necessary to amplify the definition? My hon. Friend will recall the opinion—I would say the perverse opinion—of a certain magistrate in Northern Ireland who stated that the territorial waters of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland are within the territorial waters of the Republic of Ireland.
  I presume that the Crown did not appeal against that opinion because it was not worthy of much consideration. I hope that I am not in contempt of court in saying that, but is there any connection between the definition and that judgment?
  11.9 pm
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Since the recent Government changes, fishery has taken leave of this House, so far as Northern Ireland is concerned, and has moved to another place, so that the Minister of State in this House finds himself wearing yet another hat—in this case, a seaman's hat.
  However, although the Minister is in a sense only deputising for his noble Friend, he will be very welcome in the fishing ports—large and small—in my constituency. I am sure that he will find it in every way advantageous to pay an early visit to the Mourne coast and to learn to know both the places and the people, their interests and their difficulties.
  This measure is essentially a conservation measure. The fishermen of Northern Ireland are, with good reason, strong conservationists. Genuine conservation measures and the maintenance and the impartial application of those

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  measures will always have their support. Having consulted them on the terms of this order, I find them to be in favour both of the enhancement of the penalties and of the improvement of the means of enforcement.
  The Bill contains substantial provisions which reflect the growing importance of fish farming, as generally so in the Province of Northern Ireland. That was in a way led by shellfish farming, but fish farming has since become generalised. In the Fisheries Bill which is before the House, there are provisions in part IV—which do not apply to Northern Ireland—that correspond to a number of the provisions either in this order or in the principal Acts which are amended by the order.
  My hon. Friends and I have given considerable thought to the fact that Northern Ireland has not been brought within the full scope of the Fisheries Bill. We accept that so far as fish fanning is concerned, the legislation on the subject in Northern Ireland has on the whole been in advance of that in the rest of the kingdom, and that there are certain special problems which form the basis of our licensing system which the order reinforces. Nevertheless, we believe that in due course, in this as in other areas, it will be advantageous for there to be a general regime for the whole of the United Kingdom including Northern Ireland. We take satisfaction from the fact that the new authority set up by the Fisheries Bill will be a United Kingdom authority, on which we hope that Northern Ireland will be directly and personally represented. Therefore, in a sense, the order is for Northern Ireland complementary to other provisions in the Fisheries Bill.
  Both the Minister and the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) placed emphasis on the importance of shellfish for the fisheries of Northern Ireland. Shellfish constitutes the most important single catch within the totals mentioned by the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde. There has recently been considerable anxiety as to the diminution of the stocks of the principal shellfish caught round the coasts. It is in accordance with this that the order brings forward considerable strengthening of the measures for the policing and surveillance of conservation. Some of them are very strict indeed, though those whom I have consulted would regard them as nevertheless being fair and reasonable.
  One is in article 7 and has a counterpart in the schedule attached to article 8, namely, the addition of possession of fish contrary to the provisions of regulations as being a criminal offence, and possession in certain cases not qualified by the term 'for the purposes of sale' but possession pure and simple.
  At this point I want to offer my thanks to the hon. Member for Pudsey (Mr. Shaw), who has gone to fish in other waters, for the helpfulness and open mind with which he considered the difficulties that I put to him. As the order was originally drawn, the provision referred to shellfish of any description that might be 'specified by regulations'. Apart from the lobster, there are three other types of shellfish that are important in Northern Ireland—the nephrops or Norwegian lobster, the scallop and a delectable mollusc that goes by the delectable name of queenie. To make possession of under-sized lobsters pure and simple a punishable offence is perfectly reasonable, since at all stages in the transactions those who are in possession of them have a full opportunity of knowing perfectly well whether the fish that they are
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  handling are in contravention of the size regulations. However, that could not possibly be true of the other three types of shellfish. Consequently, there was considerable anxiety about the unfairness of such regulation if it was extended beyond the lobster. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for having in terms—and this will be found on page 19 of the order—restricted the scope of that severe measure to the lobster.
  Conservation and the rules drawn up for the purposes of conservation depend heavily on scientific evidence—that is to say, upon evidence that it is not within the power of the layman and those representing fishermen as Members of Parliament to test. They have to take very much on trust, as do the fishery Ministers, the results thrown up by the international scientists who are policing the stocks of the various fish.
  Off the Mourne coast, considerable hardship has been caused in recent years and considerable irritation and anger has been aroused by the virtual or complete closure of the Mourne herring fishery in each of the past four years. My constituents who are engaged in fishing and processing were able to persuade the hon. Gentleman that the sample on which the scientific advice was based was taken in too narrow a timespan of the year. In order to judge the effect on herring stocks relevant to the Mourne fishery, it was necessary for the samples to be taken over a much longer period of the year than those carrying out the investigations were doing.
  That point was taken by the hon. Gentleman, who promised to ensure that the investigations would in future extend over the period requested by my constituents. I believe that that has been done. I am anxious, and so are they, to learn the outcome, in the hope that it will be found that the Mourne herring fishery, at any rate on a limited scale, can be opened again in the early autumn of this year. I hope therefore that the present Minister will be good enough to cause to be brought before him the papers on the subject and to bring me and my constituents up to date on that point, which for the fishermen, particularly of Annalong in County Down, is of crucial importance.
  The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) referred to the expression—and it occurs elsewhere in the order—"waters within British fishery limits". I should be grateful if the Minister, when he replies, will confirm exactly what that term means for the purposes of the order. Does it mean the three-mile limit, does it mean the 12-mile temporary limit under the accession treaty to the EEC, or does it mean the sovereign waters, which extend to 200 miles, or the median line? Whatever it may mean within the scope of the order, there will be no satisfactory conservation, and no sense of justice and fairness on the part of Ulster fishermen, unless, within British sovereign waters, control of fishing and control of the enforcement of conservation lie in the hands of Britain.
  For too long, during these last years, British fishermen, including Ulster fishermen, have had to watch enforcement being, very properly, exerted upon themselves under United Kingdom law while other EEC nationalities fishing in the same waters were able to snap their fingers both at the law and at the enforcement. Only national enforcement, and only national enforcement within the full sovereign waters of the respective nations, will be satisfactory, whatever the outcome of the negotiations for a common fisheries policy.

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  It would be beyond the scope of this debate to mark out the minimum requirements—and there are all too many reasons to fear that they are not being met—of a common fisheries policy. We are dealing with enforcement and conservation which, from any view, is one of the objects of the common fisheries policy. I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that the conservation measures, that these regulations strengthen and help to enforce, which will remain within our national hands within our national sovereign waters. If that is the case, I am sure that the Government can rely upon the support of the fishermen of Northern Ireland in the enforcement of the law—a law that should be enforced not only upon them but upon all who fish, or who are allowed to fish, in the same waters. If that happens, the order will contribute its meed of benefit both to the future fishing stocks and to the future fishing industry of the Province.
  11.23 pm
  Rev. Ian Paisley: The remarks that we have heard from the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) about the agitation and frustration of the fishermen of Ulster should be noted by the Minister and by all sections of the House. I agree with him that the law that is operated against the Ulster fishermen must also be operated against all fishermen in our territorial waters. There is a great building of resentment against what is happening at present. I am afraid that what we are doing tonight could be used against our fishermen if the Government surrender to the policies that have been advocated in the Common Market about giving up our territorial waters and only being granted 39 per cent. of our fishing grounds. When the order is passed, having received a fair wind from fishing interests in Northern Ireland, I should be greatly disturbed if the Government so used it after making an agreement with the EEC to surrender our rights and our fishing grounds. The Minister should take that on board.
  The fishing industry of Northern Ireland is now in a serious plight. I attended a meeting of the Newry and Mourne council the other day at which representatives from that area, speaking for the people and the fishermen there, raised the points that were raised by the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry), speaking from the Opposition Dispatch Box, concerning the sad and sorry state in which the industry finds itself. I hope that the Minister will be forthcoming and will be able to tell us the facts. Let him give us an accurate assessment of what is happening in the fishing industry. It is alarming to hear of the dumping of large quantities of fish, especially in Kilkeel.
  The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde underlined the importance of the price of fuel oil for fishing. I hope that the Minister will be able to help us and perhaps tell us what our fishermen can hope for in the future in that respect.
  It is greatly to be regretted that the principal industries in Northern Ireland—agriculture and fisheries—have no Minister to represent them in the House now. I regard it as a serious mistake that that change was made when new Ministers were appointed to the Northern Ireland Office. The opportunity to question a Minister in this place on agriculture and fisheries has now been taken from the representatives of Northern Ireland, We have no Minister answerable in this House whom we can directly question on these important matters, yet this is the only forum in
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  which the representatives of Northern Ireland can question the Government and require answers to the questions put to them by their constituents. It was a grave error when the Government decided that the main industry of Northern Ireland should be relegated to another place so that the Minister responsible for it would not be answerable in the House of Commons. This is strongly resented by the farmers and the fishermen of Northern Ireland, and they have brought it to my attention time and again
  I cannot agree with the Minister that what we are doing tonight does not make major changes. I have carefully read the principal Act, and I see some big changes. I am not referring to the amounts of money or to the penalties. I am referring, for example, to artical 9 of the order, by which we are to add these words in the new paragraph (aa):
  "require the attendance of the master and of any other persons who are or have been on board the boat and require all such persons to do anything which appears to him to be necessary for facilitating the performance of his functions."
  That is a very wide net. Will the Minister explain the meaning of
  "to do anything which appears to him to be necessary for facilitating the performance of his functions"?
  Again, in paragraph (b) of article 9 we have the corresponding reference to "without reasonable excuse". Those words also are to be added. That is a substantisl change from the relevant subsection in the principal Act, as I am sure the Minister knows.
  What alarms me is that we are told that we need these heavier penalties because we need to preserve the rights of fishermen. But what is happening at the moment? If the Northern Ireland Office cannot police the present regulations, how can it expect to police these new regulations?
  We must know what steps the Minister will take. The media have told us about the Foyle fisheries, the invasion of people from the South of Ireland, the impossibility of the police doing anything about it, the confrontations, and so on. If the Government are unable to police the present regulations, how do they intend to police these regulations by saying "You must pay £1,000 or you will be brought before the court by indictment"? If they cannot catch the culprits now, they will not catch them in the future.
  The Government must explain what they intend to do. They must say how policing is done at present, and what additions will be made. The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde asked what would happen to the patrol vessels, what further steps are to be taken, and how many more people will be employed.
  I remember sitting in the old Stormont Parliament at the beginning of the troubles, when draconian legislation was passed with which everybody agreed, but it could not be policed. What is the use of introducing deterrents if they cannot be policed? The Minister must tell us how much policing will cost, what he intends to do to ensure that the law is upheld, and what he thinks of the regulations, which I believe to be very wide indeed.
  Does he intend to appoint more protection officers? Does he intend to use the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which is already hard-pressed in terms of security? The Minister should be forthcoming on this important matter.
  11.31 pm
  Mr. Adam Butler: With the leave of the House, I shall try to answer the various points that have been raised.

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  Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen will understand if I do not cover all of them, some because of their technicality and some because of the time available.
  The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) was right to say that I am not the Minister directly responsible for agriculture and fisheries in Northern Ireland, yet I answer for such questions in the House. The hon. Member for Antrim, North (Rev. Ian Paisley) expressed in the House a feeling that he has expressed in public—that it is unfortunate, to use more moderate language than his, that the important agriculture and fisheries industries are not represented directly in the House of Commons. My noble Friend is a first-class Minister. I shall endeavour to represent the industries' interests in this Chamber to the best of my ability. I do not claim firsthand experience of the fishing industry but I have some experience of agriculture, which I hope will stand me in good stead in trying to do what I can for the hard-pressed fanners of the Province.
  I turn to the relationship between the Fisheries Bill that is going through Parliament and the order—a point drawn to our attention by the right hon. Member for Down, South. He is correct in saying that the first three parts and part V of the Bill deal with the United Kingdom as a whole and therefore have application in Northern Ireland, whereas part IV does not. He is right to say that much of what part IV will do for Britain is already subject to legislation and is operating in the Province. Where that is not so, this order will achieve the same result.
  The Fisheries Bill and the order recognise the split between the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in the United Kingdom and the Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland, because the separate responsibilities of the two Departments are defined. The split also reflects the intention of the Government—with which the right hon. Member for Down, South does not agree—to see whether it is possible to move back to a system of devolved government, as opposed to the integrated system that the right hon. Gentleman would like.
  The hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Mr. Pendry) asked a number of questions, and some of them were echoed by other speakers. I am glad of the general welcome—which I expected—that the hon. Gentleman gave to what the order is trying to do. I am sure that he is right in what he said. The hon. Gentleman expressed some concern, as others have done, about the importance of policing these measures. It is self-evident that it is no good having regulations and penalties if those who break the regulations cannot be brought to book, but I think that the fact that the penalties have been increased in this substantial way will be some sort of deterrent. The sums about which we are talking as maxima are considerable—£1,000, or £2,000 in some cases—and will of themselves help to deter, but we need to police the provisions successfully. I am told that the co-operation that exists across the border in, for instance, the Foyle area is helping the commission to reduce the amount of poaching that has taken place over recent months, and this is to be welcomed.
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  Fishery protection vessels are not the direct responsibility of the Department of Agriculture, but that of the Ministry of Defence in consultation with the fishery authorities. I think that I can do no better than commend to those responsible what has been said tonight, because I endorse it.
  If my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mr. Biggs-Davison) will forgive me, I shall not now give him details of the various vessels employed, but will endeavour to give him that information by letter.
  I come now to the question of the common fisheries policy and the effect that an agreement will have on the Northern Ireland industry. It is a matter of great regret that it has still not been possible to come to an agreement, because uncertainty by itself is unhelpful. We believe that what we are trying to achieve will be of benefit to the industry as a whole, and therefore there is some urgency about trying to get agreement. As the House realises, the policy and the attempts to achieve agreement on it are not my responsibility.
  The question of sovereign waters was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest and by the right hon. Member for Down, South. I shall steer very carefully in trying to give an answer on this matter. The fishing limits were laid down by the 1970 Act, which extended them to 200 miles. They operate, except in so far as they meet the median line, between the Province and the mainland. With regard to the question of implementation of protection, it is my understanding that we are striving entirely for national enforcement and national responsibility over our waters.
  One or two detailed questions were raised about the importation of live shellfish for consumption. I cannot give an immediate answer, but it allows me to emphasise again the crucial importance of keeping fish farms free from disease. I said that it would do considerable damage to the reputation of the industry, which is growing well in the Province, if disease were to break out. Therefore, every reasonable measure should be taken to ensure that we continue with our present high standard of hygiene.
  I was asked to comment on the prospects for the industry. I shall do so only in the context of this order. It is correct that the industry and the fishermen of the Province, along with most of the fishermen of Great Britain, have been suffering. Indeed, they should benefit from a resolution of the present discussions with regard to a common fisheries policy. The fishermen in the Province have also been suffering severely from poaching and over-fishing. It is in those two areas particularly that we hope the order will be most effective. Therefore, for this evening, I hope that the House will accept that in approving the order—which I hope will be the case in a few moments—we shall have contributed to the future health of the industry in these two vital areas on conservation and poaching.
  I again commend the order to the House.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the draft Fisheries Amendment (Northern Ireland) Order 1980, which was laid before this House on 10 December, be approved.

WAYS AND MEANS

  Gas Levy
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That provision may be made for the levying from the British Gas Corporation of a levy in respect of certain gas supplied to them and for the payment into the Consolidated Fund of any sums received in respect of the levy or of interest on it.—[Mr. Lamont.]
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: Are we to have some explanation of the resolution?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): It is for the Minister to decide whether he will give the House an explanation now or answer at the end of the debate, when he replies, the questions that are raised.
  11.46 pm
  Mr. Edward Rowlands: We certainly need an explanation of the resolution. It is an extremely important measure. It paves the way for a major piece of taxation. I hope that the Minister will reply and explain in detail the effect of the resolution and the proposed gas levy.
  We wish to put down a basic marker on the proposed Gas Levy Bill. We shall not divide the House, but that should not be seen as an acceptance of the levy.
  In one respect the resolution is timely. The Government are at least coming clean. We have to go back many months to find the original explanation of the levy, but according to the Government's press releases it will not increase gas prices because of the arrangements that they are endeavouring to make with British Gas. However, it is evident that British Gas revenues and gas prices and British Gas customers have been and will continue to be used as a significant source of revenue for the Government. British Gas revenue and prices have been and will continue to be a source of Government taxation.
  Last Wednesday the Secretary of State confessed to the Select Committee on Energy that he was the culprit for the significant and rapid rise in gas prices. He confessed that he had enforced upon British Gas a monstrous programme of price increases, namely, 30 per cent. last year, another 25 per cent. this year, with more to follow in subsequent years.
  British Gas did not wish to impose upon its customers anything like such a programme of price increases in the time scale that has been demanded by the Government. It was the Secretary of State who accepted his responsibility for the increases before the Select Committee.
  The inevitable consequence of pursuing such price increases, along with the original target of 9 per cent., is to create a large windfall profit for British Gas. The Government knew that that was likely to happen and they wanted it to happen. It has been achieved at considerable expense to the domestic and industrial consumer, both large and small. The great potential of British Gas profits now justifies the raid on British Gas that is represented by the levy. It is a sort of Dick Turpin act in which British Gas is being expected to pay up and stand and deliver.
  What is to be the extent of the levy? How much will it deliver to the Government? At 10 minutes to midnight we are talking not about a marginal tax arrangement involving a few million pounds that can be dropped into some PSBR ocean but about a tax that from 1980 to 1983 could deliver about £ 1·2 billion to the British Government.
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  The levy will be, as it were, a windfall tax on British Gas. In the crucial year of 1982–83 we could be talking of £¾ billion finding its way to the Government. Is that right? What is the figure? If I am right, will the Minister confirm that this is not so much a windfall tax on British Gas but an election windfall tax for the election that will follow? It will be a contribution to the Conservative Party's expectation of a cut of more than 1p in the standard rate of tax. That is what £¾ billion pounds represents. I should be grateful if the Minister could state the amount of revenue expected from the gas levy that is the subject of this resolution.
  As hon. Members on both sides of the House will know, we shall have a chance to debate the gas levy at greater length when the Bill is introduced in the next week or so. I therefore merely state at this stage that we have some doubts, and believe that the levy is a breach of the financial understandings and arrangements that were made between the Government and British Gas last year. It is an open secret that British Gas was a reluctant partner, but a deal was struck last year with regard to the financial arrangements and the whole question of gas pricing. This is an additional and significant breach of that understanding of the three-year financial arrangement that was made with British Gas.
  Secondly, until we are able to scrutinise the proposed Bill we do not know what effects of the levy may be upon the longer-term investment programme for the industry. Again, that is a matter that must be subject to scrutiny when the Bill comes before the House.
  Despite the idea that this is some kind of retrospective tax on the southern gas fields, going back to pre-1975, and so on, we claim that it is nevertheless part and parcel of an overall Government policy of using British Gas revenues and prices as a form of revenue and taxation.
  As we have suggested over the past 18 months, this policy is imposing an unfair burden, here and now, upon domestic and industrial consumers, small firms and individuals. It especially hits small companies, which are desparately trying to compete in export markets. Again, there is no evidence in the resolution or, indeed, in any Government statement, that the levy, and the income and revenue derived from it, will be used to alleviate the unnecessary burdens on small consumers, be they domestic or industrial. On the contrary, we suspect, first, that it will be used to pursue a blinkered objective of initially reducing the public sector borrowing requirement, and secondly, that if the revenue from the levy reaches the scale, that I have asked the Minister to indicate to us, it could be a very selective and potentially successful bribe to the electorate in 1983–84. That is why we shall scrutinise the forthcoming Bill with those realistic suspicions in mind.
  11.53 pm
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: This is a Ways and Means resolution. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. Rowlands) and, indeed, the whole House have been under somewhat of the same disability as we should encounter in dealing with the Budget resolutions in the absence of a Budget speech from the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As the House would find itself doing in those circumstances, we are, as it were, attempting to understand the Budget resolutions on the Green Paper and to make out as best we can what are the arguments for them, what might be the financial parameters involved,

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  and so on. The hon. Gentleman has done his best, and I think he has deserved well of the House by giving it some fragment of a Budget debate worthy of the Ways and Means resolution laid before us.
  I have to say, however, that it was a singular piece of tactlessness on the part of those inscrutable beings who arrange Government business on the Order Paper to place this item immediately after two Northern Ireland orders. We have been reminded by the hon. Member of the immense yield that is expected from the surplus profits of the natural gas industry in Great Britain. Such was the wisdom of the managers of Government business that they thrust this under the nostrils of the representatives of the one part of the United Kingdom—the one-fortieth of the United Kingdom—that is denied altogether the benefits of North Sea gas.
  Mr. Tim Eggar: Surely the right hon. Gentleman is aware that 50 per cent. of domestic gas consumers in Scotland, Wales and England are not able to get North Sea gas.
  Mr. Powell: Yes, but I am also aware that they get the same tariff as if they were getting North Sea gas.
  It would be impossible for me, with the views that I have expressed year in, year out about the unwisdom of so large an uncovered PSBR, to refuse my general assent to the Government's desire to obtain revenues to close the wider ever yawning gulf of the PSBR. But I feel that without any diminution of my probity in this matter, I can nevertheless with justification say to the House "Look on this picture and on that". The one picture is that of a Government who find themselves with a marvellously productive milch cow. A possible figure was £750 million. No doubt we shall have more precise figures from the reluctant Minister when he replies. However, £750 million was mentioned by the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil as the possible yield, in the next 12 months, of the sort of levy that might be contemplated. That is the one picture.
  On the other picture, there is a Province that labours under the disadvantage, in all its industrial and employment problems, of much higher energy costs than prevail in the rest of the Kingdom. It is a Province that is separated from participation in the energy resources of the rest of the Kingdom by a very large question mark—namely, whether the Government's calculations, on which they base their contention that it is uneconomic to link Northern Ireland to the gas and electricity grids of Great Britain, are well-founded.
  Those are projections that have been modified, modified again, and disputed not only by impartial external surveyors of the scene but by the Economic Council for Northern Ireland. It would be impossible for Northern Ireland Members, faced with this Ways and Means resolution, not to draw the Government's attention to the fact that with a barely visible diminution of what they will secure by this levy they could link Northern Ireland to the energy economy of the United Kingdom as a whole. There is no other single measure that would bring more assistance to the industry and employment of that Province.
  I do not think that this is the occasion of choice, as the doctors say, for a wide-ranging debate upon the future of the gas industry in Northern Ireland or upon the economics of a pipeline. I do not intend to pursue it much further,
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  except to say that, as so often with many apparently economic issues, when we lift the economic fig leaf we find politics below. Of course, it is a political issue.
  We understand that the Government are perfectly prepared to enter into practical discussions with the Government of the Republic as to the piping of gas from Kinsale, in the South of Ireland, to supply Ulster; apparently, having once put down their foot, they are not prepared to consider or reconsider the link across the 12-mile North Channel that separates Ulster from the mainland of Great Britain.
  This is a political as well as an economic issue. It is a question whether that part of the United Kingdom is to be bound in with the energy economy of a separate State or is to be part of the energy economy of the United Kingdom. Having raised this issue in the context of a Ways and Means resolution, it would not have been right if I had not reminded the House that the issue was both political and economic.
  That fact is well understood by the people of Northern Ireland. They will become all the more bitter if, when they see the yields expected from this levy, they also realise that none of that wealth and none of those resources are to be placed into the trembling balance of a decision whether Northern Ireland should enjoy what every other part of the United Kingdom enjoys from a resource that is not local, partial or provincial, but a resource of the United Kingdom as a whole.
  12 midnight
  The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Norman Lamont): The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) is, of course, absolutely right. This is an unusual procedure. The House is at something of a disadvantage, because we are debating a Ways and Means resolution that relates to a Bill that will not be published until tomorrow. It is an unusual procedure, because the Bill was founded upon a Ways and Means resolution.
  The right hon. Gentleman asked for an explanation. The House will recall the announcement made by my right hon. Friend on 8 May to the effect that the Government had decided in principle to impose a levy on the British Gas Corporation in respect of gas purchased from the United Kingdom continental shelf and sold to the corporation under contracts not subject to petroleum revenue tax. The Gas Levy Bill will put that intention into effect. Obviously, there will be a full debate on the precise provisions of the Bill and of the intended levy on Second Reading.
  The aim of the levy is to recover part of the gain accruing to British Gas as a result of the rising value of the gas that it purchases under these old, low-priced supply contracts. Those contracts are exempt from petroleum revenue tax. It is appropriate for the levy to be restricted to petroleum revenue tax and to exempt gas. The rates of levy to be specified in the Bill have been set in the context of the existing policy of economic pricing for gas. The levy in itself will, therefore, have no effect on domestic or industrial prices.
  The British Gas Corporation's existing financial target will be adjusted to take account of the levy. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil (Mr. Rowlands) asked about the revenue that would be raised by the levy and the Bill. I shall not go into all the details, as they will be fully discussed on Second Reading. However, on the basis of the most recent financial forecasts put forward by the

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  corporation, the levy would raise £130 million in 1980–81. In 1981–82 it would raise £420 million, and in 1982–83 it would raise £750 million. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman's addition was absolutely correct.
  The effect of the levy is to transfer the gain from North Sea gas from the corporation to the Exchequer, to the benefit of the country generally. According to the procedures of the House, it is necessary for the Bill to be brought in by way of a Ways and Means resolution. As I said, there will be a full debate on the principles of the Bill on Second Reading. I cannot reply to the points raised by the right hon. Member for Down, South. I noted what he said, and particularly that he disputed that it was not economic to supply gas to Northern Ireland. I shall draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
  Mr. Bob Cryer: The Minister said that there would be no effect on the pricing policy of the Gas Corporation. Is he distinguishing between actual pricing and policy? Will the product of the levy be a charge on the supply of gas? Otherwise, how will the money arise?
  Mr. Lamont: The levy will be a levy on the costs of the gas corporation. It will not affect the pricing policy of the corporation. That has already been determined and worked out on the basis of the market price of gas and the long-run marginal cost. The pricing policy of the corporation has already been worked out. The financial target is being adjusted to a post-levy basis. It does not alter the policies being implemented by the corporation. It makes sure that the surplus funds from the corporation are transferred to the Exchequer permanently for the use of the community as a whole.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That provision may be made for the levying from the British Gas Corporation of a levy in respect of certain gas supplied to them and for the payment into the Consolidated Fund of any sums received in respect of the levy or of interest on it.
  GAS LEVY [MONEY]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 94 (Ways and Means motions)
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to impose a levy on the British Gas Corporation in respect of certain gas supplied to them it is expedient to authorise—

  (1)the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of any sums payable under the provisions of the Act relating to the repayment of levy to the Corporation and the payment to the Corporation of interest on sums repaid;

  (2)the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase in the expenses of the Secretary of State which are attributable to the Act.—[Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.]

  Question agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in upon the foregoing resolutions by the Chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Secretary Howell, Mr. Leon Brittan, Mr. Hamish Gray, Mr. Norman Lamont and Mr. John Moore.

  GAS LEVY
  Bill to impose on the British Gas Corporation a levy in respect of certain gas presented accordingly: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second Time this day and to be printed. [Bill 59].

  LIAISON COMMITTEE
  Ordered,
  That the Order of 31 January 1980 relating to the nomination of the Liaison Committee be amended by leaving out Mr. Donald Dewar and insering Mr. Robert Hughes.—[Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.]

  Tankers (Hazardous Cargoes)
  12.7 am
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn—(Lord James Douglas-Hamilton).
  Sir Bernard Braine: Last summer saw the resumption of an unusual public inquiry. This had opened five years previously with the task of deciding whether planning permission for an oil refinery on Canvey Island should be revoked. The issue was whether it was right to add yet another safety hazard to the massive concentration of gas, chemical and oil processing and storage on the island and in neighbouring Thurrock uncomfortably close to a large residential population. At the resumed inquiry, four independent scientific experts gave evidence that the level of risk faced by my constituents is too high and should be reduced. We are now awaiting the inspector's report and recommendations.
  The reason for this long-drawn out process is that, while in 1975 the inspector conducting the first stage of the public inquiry came to the firm conclusion that the proposed refinery should not be built, he recommended that the newly established Health and Safety Executive should first look at the totality of risk to which my constituents were exposed. The Government of the day agreed.
  Accordingly, the HSE carried out an investigation and published its findings in June 1978. In the event, the Canvey report, as I shall call it, confirmed our worst fears. It identified an appalling array of risks to health and safety, and, indeed, to life itself, which no community ought to be asked to accept. Unfortunately, the conclusions it reached did not match up to the gravity of the situation it had uncovered.
  One of the most glaring weaknesses of the report was its failure to deal adequately with the special dangers posed by tankers carrying hazardous cargoes being involved in collisions and fires while berthed at jetties in Canvey and Thurrock. There had been no consultation with the professional pilots who understood the problem and no proper assessment of the long history of accidents involving such vessels, any one of which might have triggered off a disaster involving the land-based installations.
  Within a few months of the report's publication, as if to chide us for these omissions, the French oil tanker "Betelgeuse", berthed at the Gulf terminal on Whiddy Island in Bantry Bay, blew up with the loss of all 43 of its crew and eight other persons on the terminal jetty.
  That terrible accident is relevant to our situation because similar vessels come into the Thames and discharge at jetties which are much closer to land-based hazardous installations. Moreover, while at Whiddy Island only 61 families have their homes, there are 34,000 people living on Canvey all the year round and well over 40,000 in the summer months. Local safety officers and the fire brigade are agreed that if such an explosion had taken place at Canvey Island it could have led to a cataclysmic fire extending landwards and causing heavy casualties.
  If the gravity of Canvey's situation is to be understood one point needs to be grasped by my hon. Friend from the outset—the island faces not one but a multiplicity of risks, any one of which could trigger off a train of disaster. Indeed, the greatest hazard of all is not an oil refinery or chemical storage but the British Gas methane terminal
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  where a tanker arrives every week carrying 12,000 tonnes of liquefied natural gas, the energy equivalent, I am told on good authority, of six Nagasaki-type atom bombs.
  Huge quantities of liquefied gas are stored at the terminal close to the residential area in what has long been obsolescent below-ground storage which, I am glad to say, British Gas is planning to decommission, and in large above-ground tanks where neglect of safety was the subject of three enforcement notices served by the HSE last year.
  For full measure I should perhaps mention that I elicited from my hon. Friend's Department in 1979 that there are no facilities on the Thames estuary for decanting the lethal cargo of a liquefied natural gas tanker should it become involved in a serious accident, such as fire or explosion aboard or a collision, save by bringing it into the Canvey terminal and carrying out the operation close to a large residential population. To be fair, although the HSE gave no attention to this problem in the Canvey report, I am certain that, in the light of present knowledge, the regional director would not permit this to happen today and the stricken tanker would have to be towed out to sea, if that were feasible. I should be glad if my hon. Friend would confirm this.
  What is more, although there has been a slight decline in the number of tankers arriving in the Thames over the past decade the proportion of fire and collisions has not fallen. The fact is that over the years we have had experience of many incidents which could have had serious repercussions for Canvey. I have given the House full details on other occasions and I refer my hon. Friend in particular to what I said on the subject during the passage of the Merchant Shipping Act in 1978 and 1979.
  We should not be surprised. In recent years there has been a general deterioration in safety standards at sea. Last year, for example, Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organisation experts investigated 1,000 incidents involving oil tankers and classified 200 of these as serious. The number of fires and explosions was the highest since 1972 and pollution incidents were the highest on record, 500 of these occurring in our own coastal waters.
  Last October it was revealed that the HSE had been conducting a spot check of ships carrying hazardous cargoes into our ports. It found that one out of every three vessels had safety faults and half of these were potentially serious enough to cause a disatrous explosion. Unbelievably, the HSE inspectors found that even in the case of tankers fitted with safety systems either these were faulty in themselves or the crew did not know how to operate them. The faults were found not only on flag of convenience ships, but on British and Common Market ships too.
  Let me give examples of what was found on three tankers carrying the most hazardous of all cargoes—liquefied gas. I quote from an account given by a senior HSE inspector at a conference on tanker safety held last October:
  "A liquefied gas tanker was visited; the Master was ashore and the Chief Officer was aboard engaged in cargo operations. This man's experience in tankers was limited to 3 months. He had been on the LPG ship for only 3 weeks. The ship's gas monitoring system was found to be switched off, the Chief Officer did not quite know how to operate the equipment nor did he know whether it was set for monitoring toxic of flammable ranges.

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  On another gas tanker it was found that the gas monitoring device was set for sampling the wrong gas; there was no record of any tests having been carried out, no one on board knew how to carry out such tests nor was there any span (testing) gas on board.
  On yet another gas tanker, when the Chief Officer was required to switch on his monitoring system, it alarmed in 2 spaces (or compartments). The inspector was informed that these were spurious alarms and for that reason the equipment had been switched off. No one on board was capable of remedying the defect or carrying out running repairs."
  Following that I put down a parliamentary question and elicited the alarming fact that since January 1979—when the "Betelgeuse" blew up in Bantry Bay—the Health and Saftey Executive had served 19 enforcement notices and three prohibition notices on vessels bringing hazardous cargoes into the Thames alone. Since the bulk of tanker explosions and fires occur while such vessels are in port areas, the significance of that revelation to our situation at Canvey will be readily grasped.
  Against that background consider, Mr. Deputy Speaker, three incidents that have happened off Canvey in recent weeks. In the early hours of 27 November a fire broke out on the tanker "Texaco Oslo" while moored at the Texaco company's oil storage depot on the island. That, incidentally, was the installation where the IRA planted a bomb two years ago. Fortunately, the fire was brought under control by the Essex fire brigade, but not before a young Norwegian woman radio-operator had lost her life. At the inquest it was revealed that the tanker's own fire alarm was not connected to the land-based alarm system and was not even audible to the jetty supervisor. The fire brigade was alerted by a worker on the jetty who smelt smoke. As a consequence there was a 20-minute delay between the fire being discovered aboard and the fire brigade being called.
  As I have already said in a letter to the chairman of the PLA:
  "whether the woman's life could have been saved had the Brigade got to the ship twenty minutes earlier is not for me to say, but the absence of any effective interconnection was disgraceful and it begs the question as to what surveillance the PLA exercises in these matters with reference to vessels with hazardous cargoes discharging at Canvey or, for that matter, anywhere else in the river".
  Yet, less than two months later, in the early hours of 18 January, at the same jetty, a second fire broke out on the tanker "Texaco Norge" while discharging its cargo of 13,000 tonnes of petrol, 5,000 tonnes of gas oil and 1,500 tonnes of kerosene. Ironically that happened on the second anniversary of the IRA bomb incident at the same installation.
  On that occasion it took the Essex fire brigade only six minutes from receiving the alert to reach the scene—a highly commendable performance. However, here again there was a delay of 23 minutes between the fire being discovered on the vessel and the fire brigade receiving the first call. Bear in mind, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the tanker was carrying 13,000 tonnes of petrol. The fire was quickly put out, but it could have been a very different story.
  I have consulted the chief fire officer and the regional office of the HSE and they are deeply perturbed about incidents of this kind. Well might they be, for it was entirely fortuitous that the fires did not spread and had they spread there could have been major disasters.
  Exactly a week later, in the early hours of 25 January, the 283,000 tons deadweight oil tanker "World
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  Brasiliana", partially laden, collided with the Mobil Oil Refinery's No. 4 jetty at Coryton, destroyed the control tower and severed a fuel oil line.
  No fire was caused, but it was as though Providence was warning us again, for that was the very jetty at which more than 10 years previously a Spanish passenger liner, "Monte Ulia", travelling at speed, had veered off course and crashed, severing oil pipelines and releasing hundreds of tons of blazing oil into the river which then set fire to two barges which drifted towards a tanker discharging benzine at Canvey. We were saved from disaster only by the turn of the tide.
  Were any lessons ever learned from that frightening experience? We cannot be sure. When I asked my hon. Friend's predecessor for sight of the report on the "Monte Ulia" incident and the recommendations made, I was told that this was a matter for the Department of Transport. But that Department replied that it had no responsibility for such inquiries: it was a matter for the Department of Trade. Then my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Transport added this:
  "Neither the Department of Trade nor ourselves have powers to direct the PLA to make copies of their own reports available to the public. The PLA's report is a confidential, internal document, which they do not wish to release. I am sorry I cannot be more helpful."
  When I put this to the chairman of the PLA he replied in a letter which I have only just received today that it was the Department of Trade that conducted the inquiry. He tells me that
  "the recommendations were not released publicly, nor did the PLA receive details of them … There could therefore be no question that the PLA would not release the recommendations—it did not have them."
  I am not suggesting that the PLA did not carry out safety improvements at oil terminals following this incident—if not it would have been gravely wanting in responsibility—but I am saying that the muddle and confusion over this matter, the fobbing-off of inquiries and the fact that the local authorities and the public have thus been prevented from knowing what lessons were learned and how far recommendations for improvement have been implemented is disgraceful. Who is telling the truth over this sorry episode? I am determined to find out. What were the recommendations and how many have been carried out?
  These questions are relevant because of what has happened since. The Bantry Bay disaster was investigated by a court of inquiry presided over by a distinguished Irish judge assisted by assessors of great experience who, incidentally, are very familiar with our Canvey situation. The ensuing report made a series of valuable recommendations in respect of safety. How many of these are directly relevant to conditions in British ports? How many have been implemented?
  The HSE, to its credit, has taken one of the main lessons to heart and has carried out spot checks which have revealed the scale of neglect.
  I have no doubt that the PLA and my hon. Friend's Department also had their eyes opened by the recommendations of the Bantry Bay report and the shocking revelations of neglect of safety revealed by the HSE spot checks on tankers. But what are they doing about it?
  I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to tell us. In particular, I would be glad if he would answer the following questions. First, what specific steps have his

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  Department and the PLA taken to deal with the neglect of elementary safety precautions in our ports? I understand that there is a joint working party on port safety. What are its terms of reference? Who belongs to it? What is it doing? Am I correct in saying that the fire service is not represented on it? If so, why not? One would have thought this absolutely essential.
  Secondly, are the terms of reference of this joint working party such that it can report without fear or favour on what needs to be done, not only to ensure that the risks to the crews of tankers carrying hazardous cargoes are sharply reduced, but also the risks to the workers ashore in high hazard installations adjacent to jetties and to the general public living close by?
  Thirdly, what is being done specifically to ensure that the fire alarms aboard tankers discharging hazardous cargoes are clearly audible and are linked directly with the land-based alarm system? Can this be enforced on foreign vessels?
  Fourthly, what is being done to require stand-by tugs at oil berths to be fitted with fire monitors capable of reaching the decks of large tankers, and other high freeboard vessels?
  Fifthly, what is being done to ensure that jetties are adequate—I am advised the Texaco jetty at Canvey is not—to facilitate easy access for fire appliances and to provide a proper escape route? I am talking of circumstances in which fire officers, who place their lives on the line, must move along inadequate jetties to reach vessels where carelessness has led to the outbreak of fire.
  Finally, will the Minister give me an undertaking that a clear message is passed to all the Government Departments involved—Employment and Environment in particular—that until the present level of risk from storing and transhipping oil, chemicals and liquefied gases at Canvey Island is reduced, and is seen to be reduced, no additional hazard, however small, will be tolerated on the island?
  12.24 am
  The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Reginald Eyre): I have long admired the diligence with which my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Sir Bernard Braine) works on behalf of his constituents, and I much appreciate his vigilance and energy in pursuing the matters that he has raised tonight in the interests of safety and of those living on Canvey Island. They are of considerable importance.
  The incidents to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention and the real issues that he raises are concerned with the main fabric of marine safety. I shall seek to answer his questions in that connection as they come within my Department's responsibilities. I must make one immediate point, and I know that my hon. Friend will understand it. A number of the important matters that he raised are not within my Department's responsibilities but concern the Port of London Authority, for which the Department of Transport has a certain responsibility. The PLA is, as he knows, responsible for the safety of traffic in the Thames and navigational control. The Health and Safety Executive also has responsibilities for some of the matters raised, for which the Department of Employment eventually has responsibility. For other matters there is a Home Office responsibility. I undertake to ensure that all
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  such matters will be brought to the attention of those responsible. I am sure that my hon. Friend will also understand that within the limitations of time tonight I may not be able to deal with all the points that he has raised. If there are any outstanding, my noble Friend, who has responsibility in the Department for shipping matters, will write to him.
  It must be recognised that there will always be an element of danger inherent in taking ships to sea and in the activities associated with their operation, such as loading and unloading in ports. It would be quite unrealistic to suggest that we or any safety authority had the answers to all the questions. The view of my Department is that there will never be room for complacency in safety matters. My hon. Friend has asked what measures are being taken to maintain and improve safety standards in our ports so that the risks may be reduced. I shall try to deal with the particularly important questions of training, ship safety and enforcement.
  A great deal is being done in those areas. There are already comprehensive safety provisions, which are being improved and extended. There is general recognition of the need to concentrate accident prevention on the human element and to provide proper training, high standards of qualifications, examinations, and certificates for officers and crew. My hon. Friend has expressed concern about laxity in observing fundamental safety precautions. As he said, bad habits and slackness in that connection can have disastrous consequences, and I endorse fully his remarks in that sense.
  New certification requirements for deck and engineer officers serving on United Kingdom tankers will come into operation on 1 September 1981. As from that date, the master, deck officers and engineers on tankers and ships carrying liquid chemicals and liquefied gas cargoes and masters, chief engineers, chief officers and any other designated cargo officer will each need to have obtained a dangerous cargo endorsement to his certificate witnessing his having undergone special training and/or having had previous experience in a responsible capacity on ships carrying petroleum, liquid chemicals or liquefied gases, as the case may be. Generally speaking, deck and engineer officers employed on United Kingdom registered tankers and ships bringing hazardous liquefied cargoes to this country are properly certificated and trained personnel. It is expected that those requirements will enter into force late in 1982 or in 1983 for foreign flag ships in British ports.
  With regard to the safety of ships themselves, I wish to mention the following: first, extensive rules for the transporting of hazardous cargoes are in force, and also special design, survey and certification procedures for chemical and gas tankers, the implementation of which is well advanced. All United Kingdom registered chemical tankers and half of the gas carrying ships have already been issued with certificates of fitness.
  Secondly, new inert gas safety requirements for oil tankers are being implemented from 1 June this year for both United Kingdom and foreign tankers. Thirdly—and I am sure that my hon. Friend will be glad to know this—comprehensive mandatory annual surveys for all ships, including tankers, United Kingdom and foreign, commence of 1 May. There will also be a special intermediate survey for older tankers. Fourthly, from 1 May all tankers will be subjected to a survey of their cargo

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  piping and pumping systems and electrical installations in dangerous zones, which would include the area that my hon. Friend has in mind.
  In that context I should mention the working party, to which my hon. Friend referred, on the conveyance and storage of dangerous substances in port areas. That is not primarily a question for my Department, as the membership is very wide ranging and advises the Health and Safety Executive. I can say, however, that the terms of reference do have the object of controlling all aspects of the movement and storage of dangerous goods in port areas, including the loading and unloading of ships.
  The report on the Bantry Bay disaster, which my hon. Friend mentioned, is also relevant. That report has been carefully studied by my Department. As regards the United Kingdom fleet, most of the recommendations are either already in force, or will be implemented shortly. Others are being considered at an international level in IMCO next month. These studies may show a need for further measures.
  Finally, I wish to deal with enforcement. It is one thing to produce all these rules and regulations, and another to enforce them and, so far as is practicable, ensure that they are observed responsibly and achieve the desired effect at all times. My hon. Friend will be aware of the outcome of the recent ministerial European conference on maritime safety in Paris about which my right hon. Friend the former Secretary of State for Trade, now Secretary of State for Defence, wrote to him on, I think 8 December last year. The conference which was attended by 13 maritime nations, was actively concerned to adopt positive measures to ensure that safety conventions were not only brought into force as early as possible but also were effectively policed.
  In that context the United Kingdom has already entered a positive commitment to increase inspections of foreign ships in our ports during this year. My Department's marine survey service carried out well over 2,000 ad hoc general inspections in 1980, of which more than half were on foreign ships. My hon. Friend will be glad to know that this also included two periods when efforts were directed specifically at tankers in our ports—some 200 ad hoc inspections of tankers were carried out at the Thames and Canvey Island terminals. There are very few marine authorities in the world that could lay claim to such an effort which, I must point out, is over and above the fundamental regular statutory survey programme which is itself being reinforced during this year with the introduction of comprehensive mandatory annual surveys.
  I wish to say a little more about my Department's marine safety service. It is no exaggeration to say that the service sets itself a standard which has rightly won the
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  respect of all those concerned with the safety of ships—not only in this country but also in the international maritime community. It cannot be coincidental that the United Kingdom's maritime standing and safety record is second to none, and in this context a very great deal is owed to the marine survey service. It has to be recognised, however, that there will never be unlimited resources available for tasks of this kind.
  One further precaution affecting tanker safety—again, I think this will be of great interest to my hon. Friend—concerns the agreement reached in the Community on the so-called "tanker check list" directive. Broadly speaking, this introduces a harmonised regime whereby all but the smallest oil, gas and chemical tankers report in to Community ports before arrival, have available a check list giving details of various international safety certificates, and report deficiencies and incidents which
  "may decrease the normal safe manoeuvrability of the vessel, affect the safety and easy flow of traffic or constitute a hazard to the marine environment and adjacent areas".
  We hope to lay the necessary implementing regulations in the near future.
  My hon. Friend will know that vessels when in port are also liable to inspection by the Health and Safety Executive. Safety in ports is, of course, also a matter for the port authority, and it would be remiss of me if I omitted some reference to the excellent work of the Port of London Authority in this respect. Having direct responsibility for controlling navigation within the considerable area of the river is, of course, a major task for the PLA in its own right. The authority is absolutely committed to maintaining the highest standards of safety and navigational discipline and has in fact achieved remarkable success.
  There are substantially in excess of 30,000 shipping movements per year in the Thames and the vast number arrive, load or unload and depart safely and without incident or endangering safety in any way.
  I assure my hon. Friend that my noble Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade takes very seriously the points which he has raised. I repeat to my hon. Friend the undertaking which I gave to ensure that the matters raised by him tonight which relate to the responsibilities of other Departments, namely, the Department of Employment, the Department of Transport and the Home Office—as well as those within the responsibility of the PLA—will be brought immediately to their attention.
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having, continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at twenty-three minutes to One o'clock.