Commons Sitting of 17 June 1981

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

    Primary School Pupils
    1. Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how much was spent per pupil in primary schools in Scotland in each of the past three years, at constant prices.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Alexander Fletcher): Local authority current expenditure on primary schools at November 1979 prices, excluding items such as meals and milk, was £447 per pupil in 1977–78 and £477 in 1978–79. The provisional figure for 1979–80 is £497.
    Mr. Knox: Does my hon. Friend agree that, if there is a connection between standards and the amounts spent on education, there is no reason why education standards in primary schools in Scotland should have fallen during the past three years, and strong reasons why standards should have improved?
    Mr. Fletcher: I agree with my hon. Friend. The provision that is made for education in Scotland is such that standards can not only be maintained but improved.
    Mr. Home Robertson: What is the Government's policy on small village primary schools?
    Mr. Fletcher: The closure of schools, to which the hon. Gentleman is perhaps referring, is in the first instance a matter for the local authority. We take the view that the closure of rural schools is of particular importance in the local area, that proper consultation must take place if a closure is planned, and that the distance between a primary school and another where closure is contemplated must not be so great as to impose a strain on the children or parents.
    Mr. John MacKay: Did my hon. Friend see the cheap and sensational article in last Sunday's Sunday Standard? Will he give the House the figures for pupil expenditure in secondary schools, which I am certain do not bear out the remarks contained in that article?
    Mr. Fletcher: I am at a loss to understand the arguments in that article. I am happy to tell the House that current expenditure on secondary schools, at November 1979 prices, and excluding such items as meals and milk, was £778 per pupil in 1977–78 and £786 in 1978–79. The provisional figures for 1979–80 is £813, and the provision made in the rate support grant settlement for 1980–81 was £825 per pupil.
    Mr. O'Neill: Will the increase that the Minister mentioned be sufficient to match the loss through
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    economies of scale resulting from falling school rolls? Will sufficient money be available to maintain the service for those youngsters who are at school and for whom it will become more expensive because of the fall in school rolls?
    Mr. Fletcher: I do not deny the difficulties that face local authorities at a time when the size of education is contracting because of the fall in pupil numbers. Whereas the number of pupils will fall by about 14 per cent. during the next three years, expenditure will fall by about 7 per cent. We believe that that is adequate to cover the contingencies that the hon. Gentleman has in mind.

    Huntlyburn Hospital
    Mr. David Steelasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when the final cost limit for Huntlyburn hospital was received by his Department from the Borders health board; when he expects to give approval to it; when he expects the contract for construction to be let; when he expects work on site to commence; and what is the target date for completion.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Russell Fairgrieve): My Department received the final cost limit submission on 19 February this year, and wrote approving it on 1 June. The Borders health board hopes to go to tender about 12 months from now. Work on site should start later in 1982 and take about five years to complete.
    Mr. Steel: The Under-Secretary will appreciate that some of that information has been given since the question was tabled. Is it not true that, because of the 12-month delay that occurred in his Department while the board was required to re-cost the project, the saving has been wiped out by inflation in the meantime?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: No, I cannot accept that, because the delay that took place in my Department when I asked for that re-costing was only three months.

    Economic Forecast
    Mr. Grimondasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is now his assessment of the course of the Scottish economy in 1981–82; and if he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. George Younger): The indications are that the fall in output in Scotland, as in the United Kingdom, is coming to an end, and I would hope to see some modest recovery over the period ahead.
    Mr. Grimond: As there have been two important changes affecting the outlook —the fall in the price of oil and the fall in the value of the pound, which we used to be told were two of the greatest handicaps to industry —has not the Secretary of State revised his estimates much more upwards? May we now expect a great surge in Scottish industry? Will the right hon. Gentleman use his influence in the Cabinet to prevent any attempt to raise interest rates consequent upon the fall in the price of oil and the fall of the pound?
    Mr. Younger: Like the right hon. Gentleman, I hope that we can look for good signs, but it would be wrong of me to give the impression that we can expect to see a surge of recovery. I think that the recovery from this recession will be slow and difficult.

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    The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that the fall in the value of the pound gives some welcome benefit to our exporters, but in the longer run it puts up import prices, which, particularly in the case of raw materials, may have countervailing effects. The net effect is helpful, but perhaps not greatly so.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: Can the Secretary of State confirm that he has received the report of his special study group on the impact of oil-related industry on non-oil-related industry in the North-East of Scotland? When will it be publicly available?
    Mr. Younger: I have received that report, and I am studying it carefully. As my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State announced recently, we intend to publish it. I think that it will be a few weeks before that can be done.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the real, underlying answer to Scotland's recovery lies in Scotland's own hands, and that if the Scottish people take a realistic view of prices, wages and productivity in the future, there is no reason why we should not compete with the best?
    Mr. Younger: I agree. The root and principal cause of the great difficulties in the Scottish economy is that so many of our industries have become uncompetitive. It is up to all concerned in them to see that they become more competitive and that, in particular, they do not manage to pay themselves more than they can earn by the sale of their goods.
    Mr. Millan: Will the Secretary of State let us into a little secret? At the crisis Cabinet meetings, is he still tamely following the policies of the Prime Minister, or is he doing what he should be doing, which is to fight for Scotland and for a reversal of the present disastrous policies, which have already brought record unemployment to Scotland?
    Mr. Younger: I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has failed to read any newspapers in the past year or two. When he speaks of "tamely following", he might recall the efforts successfully made by the Scottish Office over such matters as the rescue of Weir and Ferranti. "Tamely following" is not the way in which I intend to do my job.

    Hospital Beds
    Mr. Norman Hoggasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the number of hospital beds currently unused in each health area.
    Mr. Fairgrieve: This information is not available centrally. There are many reasons for hospital beds not being in use at any one time. It would be difficult and costly to collect this information from health boards on a consistent basis.
    Mr. Hogg: How does the Minister justify such a disgraceful reply —in fact, not a reply at all? What steps is he taking to ensure that Health Service facilities are available to those who are sick?
    Mr. Fairgrieve; The policy that is the basis of what the hon. Gentleman describes as a disgraceful reply is exactly the same policy as that which the previous Government carried out. We are ensuring that National Health Service
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    facilities are provided by giving health boards more money in real terms than they received under the previous Government.
    Mr. Myles: Is my hon. Friend aware of the concern in the Dufftown area about the provision of geriatric care?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: We are well aware of that. That is why the Grampian board has suggested, although it has met a certain amount of local opposition, that some maternity beds should come out of service and be turned into geriatric beds.
    Mr. Harry Ewing: Why did the Minister come to the House so badly briefed? Is he not aware that he wrote to me on 18 February giving me the figures that he has just told my hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Hogg) are not centrally available? Those figures show that there are nearly 400 beds in seven health boards out of use because of lack of funds. Why on earth did he not tell my hon. Friend that?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: I regret to say that the hon. Member for Stirling, Falkirk and Grangemouth (Mr. Ewing) has got it wrong again. That is becoming quite a habit with him. When I wrote to him earlier this year I gave him figures of beds that were out of use for financial reasons. There are many other reasons for beds being out of use. For financial reasons there were 296 out of use, about 0·5 per cent. of the number of beds in Scotland.
    Mr. Lang: Will my hon. Friend confirm that all sectors of the Health Service in Scotland are enjoying increased Government expenditure, both capital and current, in real terms, and that this is growing at a faster rate than it is in England and Wales?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: My hon. Friend is correct.
    Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: Is it not true that in Argyll and Clyde health board area, where Inverclyde is one quarter, we have waiting lists equal to those of the other three-quarters, yet for financial reasons 70 beds are out of action? Is it not a disgrace and a false economy that so many people have to wait for so-called cold surgery operations and so on, thus being deprived of work and earnings—all because of foolishness by the Government
    Mr. Fairgrieve: The right hon. Gentleman, as he lives there, must know that during the building of Inverclyde Royal hospital the population of Argyll declined so much that with the 70 new beds closed it still has the Scottish average of beds per 1,000 patients.

    Construction Industry
    Mr. Home Robertsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many construction workers are now unemployed in Scotland.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): On 12 February 1981, the latest date for which information is available, 47,600 people who had last worked in the construction industry were registered as unemployed in Scotland.
    Mr. Home Robertson: Is the Minister aware that, regardless of what might be said in his statistician's filing cabinet, there are still 150,000 applicants for housing in Scotland and that there are still more than 100,000 houses in Scotland below the tolerable standard? In those

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    circumstances, does he not think that he should do something about getting those 47,600 building workers back to work rather than pay them to do nothing on the dole?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman knows that there are not 150,000 homeless people in Scotland. What he is talking about are people, many of whom are housed, but would wish alternative accommodation. He should realise that the policy of reducing expenditure on housing was recommended by the Labour Government in their Green Paper in 1977, and is continued by the present Government.
    Mr. Peter Fraser: Will my hon. Friend speculate on the number of construction workers who would be unemployed in Berwick and East Lothian if the Torness power station project were not proceeding? Will he also speculate on the number of building workers in Dundee who would have employment if Dundee district council had been sensible about its rates policy and had £3·75 million to spend on capital projects for housing?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is right on both counts. There are about 1,400 people employed in Torness, many of whom are recruited locally, and Dundee would have had a much larger capital allocation for its housing expenditure, which would have helped the local construction industry, if it had made a reasonable response on rents.
    Mr. Gordon Wilson: As projects initiated by the Scottish Development Agency lead to the employment of people in the construction industry, would the hon. Gentleman care to suggest why the agency seems to be going through turmoil as a result of the hobbles that are being placed on its activities by the Government? Does he not think that that will be harmful to the Scottish economy?
    Mr. Rifkind: That is a tortuous question, with little relevance to the construction industry. I invite the hon. Gentleman to address it to the Department at the appropriate time.
    Mr. James Hamilton: As one who worked in the construction industry, I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that last year 65,000 people emigrated from Scotland—an increase of 10,000 on the previous year —and that most of those workers were from the construction and engineering industry. As local authorities and public bodies are crying out for more money to carry out projects involving public expenditure in the construction industry, will the hon. Gentleman examine that matter and do something about it?
    Mr. Rifkind: The Government have said that they believe that the resources available should, wherever possible, be concentrated on capital rather than current expenditure. If local authorities could accept the Government's advice in this respect, it would be possible to make even more resources available on the capital side, which would help the construction industry.
    Mr. McQuarrie: Does my hon. Friend agree that if local authorities would release land that they are holding, and if planning applications did not take so long to go through the authorities, developers in the private sector, of whom there are plenty, could take up most of the unemployed construction workers and thus create more dwellings, which are alleged to be required in Scotland?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is correct. We have appealed to all local authorities to review land in their possession and see whether some could properly be released to encourage development. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that we have introduced a number of measures to streamline planning procedures so that necessary work can be begun as soon as possible.

    Youth Opportunities Programme
    Mr. Ron Brownasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many people were trained under the youth opportunities programme in Scotland during 1980.
    Mr. Alexander Fletcher: In the year from April 1980 to March 1981, 49,300 young people entered the youth opportunities programme in Scotland.
    Mr. Brown: Is the governor-general aware —[Interruption.] —Is the Minister aware that youngsters are being cynically exploited as cheap labour? Is he further aware that as the programme proceeds many employers take on youngsters, but reduce apprenticeships? Can he say, in all honesty, how many youngsters trained last year under the youth opportunities programme obtained real jobs? We should be interested to know the figures.
    Mr. Fletcher: I am aware that criticism is made of the programme on the grounds outlined by the hon. Gentleman. The Manpower Services Commission monitors the scheme closely to ensure that participants are not used as cheap labour, but gain useful experience and training. The requirement that all schemes should be approved by the appropriate trade unions provides an additional safeguard.
    Most school leavers who do not go on to full-time further education can expect to find jobs within a few months of leaving school. Those who do not will be offered a place on the youth opportunities programme. Follow-up surveys have shown that five months after leaving the programme 70 per cent. of participants are in employment, full-time further education or training.
    Mr. Lang: Following the Government's commendable expansion of the youth opportunities programme, does my hon. Friend agree that there is a need for improved and more flexible vocational, educational and training programmes for youngsters? Has he had an opportunity to consider the MSC consultative document?
    Mr. Fletcher: Yes, Sir. As my hon. Friend knows, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment is studying industrial training and the industrial training boards with a view to ensuring that the emphasis and direction of the youth opportunities programme is on and towards more vocational training.
    Mr. Foulkes: Is the Minister aware that there have been representations from both sides of the House that the plethora of training schemes, apprenticeships and special measures should be replaced by some integrated scheme, so that youngsters can obtain training relevant to the jobs that might become available in Scotland and the remainder of Britain? When will there be an announcement about an integrated apprenticeship scheme for Scotland?
    Mr. Fletcher: I agree with the point made by the hon. Gentleman. The Government are anxious to move towards an integrated scheme. He will know, better than most, that there are vested interests among the trade unions, the

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    teaching profession and employers. Because of that, any fully integrated scheme requires a great deal of negotiation before it can be introduced. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment is working towards that aim. We shall be happy to make an announcement as soon as possible.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Can my hon. Friend confirm that Scotland is in a unique position to do something constructive in this context? Scotland has a Minister with responsibility for education and industry. Should not that be used to the advantage of youngsters in Scotland? Perhaps we could give the remainder of Britain a lead in this respect.
    Mr. Fletcher: I agree with my hon. Friend. Obviously, there are advantages in having a governor-general for Scotland.
    Mr. Dempsey: Will the Minister investigate the desirability of allocating some of the many unemployed youngsters to the LETA training establishment at Coatbridge, which has many vacant places, especially as completion of such training leads to about 70 per cent. of them finding jobs?
    Mr. Fletcher: I have discussed this matter with the hon. Gentleman on a number of occasions. He knows, as I do, that, rather surprisingly, it is difficult to find volunteers and applicants for some of the places in training establishments such as the one that he mentioned.

    Sheltered Housing
    Mr. Foulkesasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will take steps to increase the rate of building of sheltered housing for the elderly and disabled.
    Mr. Rifkind: We have encouraged local authorities to give priority to meeting the needs of the elderly and disabled. In addition, I understand that almost a third of the Housing Corporation's programme in Scotland involves the provision of housing for the elderly and disabled, and its allocation of £72·8 million for the current year contains an additional £3·8 million provided specifically for this purpose.
    Mr. Foulkes: That is an extremely misleading answer. Does the Minister agree that it is disgraceful that, at a time when the number of old people is rising rapidly, the real programme for sheltered housing in Scotland is being cut? Will he admit that there has been a substantial reduction in the amount of money available to the Housing Corporation? Will he examine the effect that that is having on the Bield housing association's housing programme for Patna and Dalmellington, as well as causing many other delays in other parts of Scotland?
    Mr. Rifkind: The number of sheltered housing bed spaces increased by 20 per cent. in 1979–80, which is the last year for which we have final figures. The hon. Gentleman is incorrect to suggest that we have made any reduction in the allocation to the Housing Corporation. Its allocation this year is greater in real terms than in any previous year of its existence.
    Mr. Henderson: Does my hon. Friend agree that local authority provision in that area has been poor compared with the work of the housing associations? Is it not true that there has been a substantial increase in the funding
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    available to the Housing Corporation, and that for the first time housing associations are able to take up all that funding? Should there not be a review of the projects being undertaken by housing associations, so that new projects that are especially valuable are not impeded by old programmes that might not be so relevant?
    Mr. Rifkind: Some local authorities have responded better than others in the provision of sheltered housing. The reference to sheltered housing in their housing plans is one of the most important considerations in determining allocations. We have told the Housing Corporation that sheltered and other housing for special needs should be a priority in its allocation of resources.
    Mr. Dewar: Does the Minister accept that, whatever the total allocated to housing associations, it is inadequate when measured against demand? Will not the programme for sheltered housing inevitably be squeezed? On the question of the sale of housing especially adapted for the elderly or disabled, will he reconsider his attitude, which is fraudulent and which will result in the dissipation and selling of assets that are badly needed in the community? Taking those two facts together, is he not throughly ashamed of his Government's record?
    Mr. Rifkind: On the contrary, I am proud that there is now a far greater concentration on the needs of the elderly and on the need to provide increased sheltered housing than under any previous Government.

    Council House Sales
    Mr. Allan Stewartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what further representations he has received from local authority tenants experiencing difficulty in purchasing their homes under the Tenants' Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Act.
    Mr. Rifkind: My right hon. Friend has received a number of such representations from tenants of a small minority of the local authorities in Scotland. The evidence to date is that applications are being processed expeditiously by the vast majority of authorities, including many with a disproportionately high volume of applications.
    Mr. Stewart: Does my hon. Friend agree that there is concern in certain areas that private valuers are valuing properties at substantially higher prices than are the district valuer? As there is no appeal against a valuation by a private valuer employed by a local authority, is it not important that tenants should be aware of their right to insist on the district valuer, if they so wish?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is correct. It is for the tenant to say whether he wishes to use the local authority valuer or the district valuer. In areas where the number of applications is so high that the local authorities find it difficult to provide valuers quickly, that is an additional reason to use the district valuer, to provide valuations at no expense to themselves.
    Mr. Home Robertson: Has the Minister seen the recent parliamentary reply from the Secretary of State for the Environment, which confirmed that less than 10 per cent. of the proceeds from the sale of council houses could be made available for new building and repair schemes by local authorities? Are the figures in Scotland similar? If so, is that not the biggest rip-off in the history of housing in Scotland?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman is not correct in his supposition. We are anxious to make available to local authorities the freedom to use the resources that they receive from the sale of houses. Up to now, they have not been enthusiastic about such a freedon, because they believe that it might affect their allocations. We are considering the proper approach for next year.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Has my hon. Friend had any reports of Dundee constituents experiencing difficulties in taking up the opportunity to purchase their houses? If they are having difficulties because of the local authority's actions, what does he propose to do?
    Mr. Rifkind: My understanding is that since the finding that Dundee was in default of the Tenants' Rights, Etc. Act 1980, the Dundee district council has accepted its statutory obligations and is now processing sales in a proper and acceptable way. If we receive any information that that is not so, we shall respond as a matter of urgency.

    Nurses (Training)
    Mr. McTaggartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is satisfied with the provision of nurse training in Scotland.
    Mr. Fairgrieve: The Scottish position is broadly satisfactory, though there are one or two areas of local difficulty.
    Mr. McTaggart: Is the Minister aware of the real anger and resentment felt among nurse teachers in Scotland due to the fact that their numbers are falling along with their living standards? Does not he feel that the time is now appropriate for them to be properly represented at the Whitley council?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: It would be much easier if hon. Members gave correct facts. In fact, the opposite is the case and 30 nurses undertook the teachers' training course in 1980 compared with only 23 in 1979 and 17 in 1978.
    Mr. Henderson: Will my hon. Friend give further consideration to psychiatric nurse training? Will he consider whether mature persons might be recruited for that training without having to receive complete and overall professional nursing training—in other words, to specialise in psychiatric nursing?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: I shall consider that possibility.
    Mr. Ernie Ross: Does the Minister accept that one of the difficulties in attracting recruits, especially into the psychiatric sector, arises from his failure to introduce into the system medium security units to deal with the problem of patients who cannot be held in establishments such as the Carstairs and Liff hospitals?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: That is not the whole answer. As I have said, nurses of all disciplines are increasing in numbers in Scotland. For the period up to 30 September 1979 there were 54,400. In 1979 there were 56,000 and in 1980 there were 58,000. It is a picture of increasing numbers.
    Mr. Robert Hughes: If that is so, why is it that the Grampian health board is having to go as far as Newcastle to try to recruit nurses? It is unable to keep all its beds open because of a lack of nurses. Is not the Minister being complacent'?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: The Minister is not complacent. Grampian is one of the areas where the nursing picture is pretty good. It would not be much of a country if people could not move around to go to jobs in different areas.
    Mr. Harry Ewing: The Minister has said that the number of nurses in employment is rising. That may be true. However, does he accept that the figures that he supplied in a parliamentary answer of 26 January demonstrate that, for the first year for which he was responsible for the Health Service in Scotland until the end of the financial year in September 1980, the intake of student and pupil nurses fell to 5,059 from 5,117 the year before? Is that the pattern that is to continue throughout the hon. Gentleman's ministerial career?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: The hon. Gentleman is having a bad afternoon over facts. During the period for which I have been responsible, the number of nurses and doctors in Scotland has increased year by year.
    Mr. Harry Ewing: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for me to hand the Minister his own answer so that he may study the figures when Question Time has ended?
    Mr. Speaker: Yes, but not at this moment.

    Powers of Entry (Proof of Identity)
    Mr. Hendersonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what proof of identity and authority by local and central government officials or the servants of statutory undertakings in Scotland is given when they seek access to private homes.
    Mr. Rifkind: Where officials of my right hon. Friend's Department have a statutory right of access to private premises they are provided with certificates of identity and, where appropriate, entry authorisations.
    Information about powers of officials in local government and other statutory bodies is not available centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.
    Mr. Henderson: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is considerable concern about evidence of increasing crime resulting from bogus officials seeking access to houses? Will he take steps to investigate the nature of this type of development? Does he agree that the best way to prevent this form of crime developing is for householders to insist on proof of identity and for officials to have no hesitation in offering it?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is correct. It is highly desirable that all members of the public, especially the elderly, should insist on identification before allowing any stranger into their homes.

    Unemployment Statistics
    Mr. Maxtonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what estimates he has made of the total numbers of people made unemployed as a result of the cuts in public expenditure in Scotland.
    Mr. Alexander Fletcher: It is not possible to make estimates of the precise effects of changes in public expenditure. The control of public expenditure is an essential part of the Government's strategy to control

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    inflation and restore economic competitiveness, which is the only way to bring about the creation of new, secure jobs.
    Mr. Maxton: Is the Minister aware that it is an insult to the House to project economic policies for Scotland and to be unable to give any estimate of the effect on unemployment, which is one of the most disastrous consequences of his policies? Is he aware that unemployment has been created in both the public and private sectors as the result of his economic policies, which include the cutting of public expenditure? Will he admit that his economic policies, far from improving the economy, are making it considerably worse?
    Mr. Fletcher: If the hon. Gentleman does not know already from the experience of his own party when in Government, I can tell him that high levels of public expenditure create unemployment. High rate demands create unemployment. That is the lesson of the past 10 to 15 years in Scotland. That is why we are taking action to remedy these faults.
    Mr. John MacKay: Has my hon. Friend made any attempt to estimate from the returns that he receives how many firms have shed labour because of the high rate demands? Does he recall a letter that I read in the House during the Third Reading of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) (Scotland) Bill from the Tilcon group, which showed that that quarrying group would take into account excessive rate demands when it came to making a decision on its future labour requirements?
    Mr. Fletcher: I am sure that my hon. Friend has received many such letters, as have I. I am sure that many Labour Members have received letters from companies in their constituencies stressing the loss of jobs in the private sector as the result of excessive rate demands.
    Mr. George Robertson: Does the Minister realise that if local authorities and public agencies in general were as brutally insensitive as the Government are in carrying out all the public expenditure cuts that the Government exhort them to make, that would add thousands to the existing chronic unemployment rates as well as adding mightily, uselessly and needlessly to the money that is being paid out, without any great effect on the economy, in the form of unemployment benefit? Is not this morally indefensible at a time when unemployment, especially in Lanarkshire, is creeping up to almost 20 per cent?
    Mr. Fletcher: I do not think that any Labour Member can talk about economic matters being morally indefensible. The hon. Gentleman is advocating increased public expenditure to bring about, perhaps, a short-term upturn in employment. That was the policy that was followed by the previous Labour Government and during their term of office unemployment more than doubled.

    Sheriff Middleton
    Mr. David Marshallasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has yet received the report of the inquiry by Sheriff Principal John Dick into the recent comments of Sheriff Middleton in the Greenock juvenile sex case; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Rifkind: I refer the hon. Member to the reply which my right hon. Friend gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) on 16 June, in
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    which he stated that, having studied the sheriff principal's report and its conclusions, he was satisfied that there was no racist element intended by Sheriff Middleton either in his sentence or his remarks. The sheriff himself has expressed his great regret that his remarks should have given cause for such widespread concern.
    Mr. Marshall: The reply from the Secretary of State is so much whitewash. Why were the two journalists in court taking notes not interviewed as part of the inquiry? Is an inquiry by one sheriff into the conduct of another sheriff the best way of justice being seen to be done? As an expression of regret is not a denial, will the Secretary of State ensure that the services of temporary Sheriff Middleton are not required in future?
    Mr. Rifkind: If there is a complaint against a sheriff, the normal procedure is for the sheriff principal of the sheriffdom to conduct an inquiry. It is for the sheriff principal to decide what evidence he wishes to hear and the details of the report that he submits to my right hon. Friend. The conclusions in the report led my right hon. Friend to make a statement yesterday. It is on that basis that the matter should be considered. As I understand it, Sheriff Middleton has strongly denied the interpretation that has been placed on his remarks. He has greatly regretted that his remarks led to the concern that has been expressed in sections of the community.
    Mr. McQuarrie: Does not my hon. Friend agree that, as the sheriff principal's report has come out in favour of Sheriff Middleton, and as Sheriff Middleton has publicly apologised to the Asian community on the basis that he did not in any way intend his remarks to be racial, would it not be better to drop the matter rather than to have this emotive outburst from the Labour Party, which will do far more harm than good to the happy relationship between the Asian community and other communities in Scotland?
    Mr. Rifkind: The sheriff principal's view was not that he was coming down in favour of one party or another, but that he was satisfied, having looked at the whole matter, that Sheriff Middleton had no racist intent in the remarks he made. His background and involvement with the Asian community, which was recognised recently by the Pakistani Government, show that his intentions were honourable. His explanation of the circumstances was one which the sheriff principal was willing to take into account.
    Mr. Millan: Is the Minister aware that, whatever Sheriff Middleton intended to say, the fact is that his remarks have caused considerable offence and damage? If he had had the good grace and common sense to make a simple and unqualified apology at the beginning of the affair, by this time it would have been a matter of history. However, he did not choose to do so and the affair has become a festering sore in the Asian community in the West of Scotland. As Sheriff Middleton is a temporary sheriff, has already retired and as there is no question of sacking or hardship involved, is not the simple answer for the Secretary of State to ensure that Sheriff Middleton does not sit on the Bench again before he causes more trouble?
    Mr. Rifkind: The right hon. Gentleman should recognise that certain of the newspaper reports on the remarks of Sheriff Middleton were out of context. It is on that basis that there was considerable disagreement about the background to the incident. All along, Sheriff

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    Middleton has expressed his great regret at the interpretation of his remarks which has been made in certain quarters, perhaps not unreasonably, given some of the newspaper reports. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, Sheriff Middleton is a retired sheriff who has been used occasionally for temporary purposes. The considerations that have applied in the past will be the same ones that will be taken into account in deciding whether there should be any future use of Sheriff Middleton's services.
    Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This matter refers to a case in my constituency.
    Mr. Speaker: I was not aware of that. I shall call the right hon. Gentleman if his constituency was concerned.
    Dr. Mabon: In view of the procedure adopted by the Secretary of State in reference to the questions he answered yesterday, is it his intention to publish the report? Is he aware of the fact that the reports and allegations were that the sheriff was partly misled by the remarks of defence counsel—I take no sides in the matter—and is it not important that we should know about that, whether or not there is a defence and whether his apology is based on sincere regret for having misunderstood the allegations put before him? Would it not be fair to Sheriff Middleton if that report were published?
    Mr. Rifkind: The normal procedure is that the sheriff principal submits a report to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State who is expressly taking account of the conclusions of the sheriff principal in his report, as he said in his statement yesterday.

    Local Authority Finance
    Mr. Douglasasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the Government's position regarding the reform of Scottish local authority finance.
    Mr. Younger: I have nothing to add to the statement I made to the House on Thursday 4 June.
    Mr. Douglas: Will not the Secretary of State concede that the present course that he is adopting brings him into direct conflict with local democracy as expressed through the local government organisations in Scotland? He is penalising organisations in which there are people who are elected to do a particular job. Will not he sincerely look at the whole system of local government finance so that we can all get out of the morass into which he has put us?
    Mr. Younger: I have no desire for confrontation with any part of local government. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have taken steps over the last two years to try to reduce the amount of central Government interference in what local government does. The cause of the difficulty at the moment is simply the excessive overspending by a small number of local authorities. If no one else will stand up for the ratepayers who are having to pay the price, I shall.
    Mr. Myles: Will my right hon. Friend consider the direct labour costings of Buchan district council, where it is estimated that it will cost that cost-conscious authority a considerable amount to comply with his requirements?
    Mr. Younger: I shall consider the case raised by my hon. Friend. The question of overspending must be seen
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    in the context of what I am asking local authorities to do, which is in no sense unreasonable. The sums that I am trying to get them down to are still higher than what they were spending in real terms as recently as 1978. No one in all conscience can regard that as unreasonable.
    Mr. Grimond: Does not the Secretary of State agree that, apart from the question of overspending, the method of local government finance cries out for change? Will he give an undertaking that the Government intend to legislate on that, at least in the present Parliament?
    Mr. Younger: My right hon. Friends and I agree that the system needs to be reconsidered. As he will remember, I said in my statement on 4 June that we propose to publish a consultative document this autumn about alternatives to the rating system. In the meantime, we are considering whether other shorter-term measures can be taken to ease some of the burdens which are pressing excessively on ratepayers.
    Mr. Strang: Will the Secretary of State admit that the £53 million reduction which he is trying to enforce in the Lothian region's budget can be achieved only if thousands of public service workers are made redundant in Lothian in the current year? Is he aware that that is utterly unacceptable? Will he think again before provoking a confrontation of intensity and bitterness much worse than anything we have seen before, the eventual outcome of which cannot be predicted?
    Mr. Younger: As the hon. Gentleman should know, the figures for that region are to be seen in comparison with similiar efforts at controlling spending in other regions by other authorities in similar conditions, who are managing well with lower levels. If he believes that Lothian region is so over-staffed, I should think that he would have exercised his influence on the authority before now to get it moving on reducing staff by wastage before it is necessary to have redundancies.
    Mr. Allan Stewart: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that a key feature of future reforms must be strict control of the burden of local taxation on industry and commerce, in view of the disastrous effects on jobs of rate increases by particular authorities in Scotland over the last year?
    Mr. Younger: I agree with my hon. Friend. I do not know which to be more distressed about —the effect of those high rate increases on people, particularly old people and single people, living in houses in cities, or the effect on those who are trying to run small businesses in difficult times and who are finding that rate demands have piled up, which means that they must lay off their employees. The fault lies with the overspenders. They must bring down their spending to a reasonable level.
    Mr. Gordon Wilson: With regard to the Secretary of State's statement on 4 June, is it his intention to restore some local autonomy to our local authorities or to erode their powers even more?
    Mr. Younger: If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the powers to which I referred on 4 June, I am asking local authorities to revise their budgets, which they have often been asked to do before, in order to avoid penalties. I have asked those authorities to bring down their spending to the level of the vast number of authorities which have managed to make economies in the same conditions and

    1019
    with the same problems. That is not an unreasonable request. It is high time that that small number of authorities did what they should do, with the interests of their ratepayers in mind.
    Mr. Dewar: Will the Minister accept that, whatever case there may be for the reform of structure, the real problem at the moment is resources? If he insists on a clawback under the miscellaneous provisions legislation and on further cuts next year, the situation will be intolerable and we shall have reached the point of no return for local government. Will he accept that it is disingenuous rubbish for him to suggest that he is not looking for trouble, when anyone with one eye can see that he is determinedly following a policy of confrontation, which will do incalculable damage to the fabric of local democracy in Scotland?
    Mr. Younger: The hon. Gentleman has a selective memory. He should recall clearly, as I do, that this is not the first time that the Government have had to do this with regard to local authorities. He will remember that his right hon. Friend also had to invite local authorities to save on their budgets. The only difference is that in his case the local authorities were mostly Conservative —controlled and co-operative, and in my case a small number of local authorities are determined to ruin their ratepayers and to try to alter the Government's economic policy at the same time.

    Resident Nurses (Vatersay)
    Mr. Donald Stewartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received about the provision of resident nurses for islands such as Vatersay.
    Mr. Fairgrieve: My Department received representations from the Vatersay Community Association in March 1980. The association was advised to put its views on the provision of nursing services to the Western Isles health board.
    Mr. Stewart: Is the Minister aware that the people of Vatersay are extremely concerned that they do not have the services of a resident nurse, particularly when they are isolated by weather from the services of the nurse and doctor in Barra? As they enjoyed the services of a resident nurse in the past, and as there are a fair number of aged and disabled people who could do with daily attention, can he not lean on the Western Isles health board to get it to make an appointment?
    Mr. Fairgrieve: We try not to lean on health boards. We prefer them to make their own decisions. The population of Vatersay is only 90, so it is difficult to justify the services of a full-time nurse.

  SOLICITOR-GENERAL FOR SCOTLAND

    Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980
    Mr. Langasked the Solicitor-General for Scotland what is his assessment of the efficacy to date of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland (Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: At this early stage, the evidence available of
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    the efficacy to date of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 is somewhat impressionistic, but it does give grounds for cautious optimism.
    Mr. Lang: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that experience to date disproves the alarmist and scaremon-gering attitude of the Labour Party during the passage of the Bill? Can he tell us what progress there has been over the use of the compensation order provisions?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: Yes, I can. In the two months up to 31 May, 102 compensation orders have been made, and procurators fiscal are sending pamphlets in appropriate cases for people to make assessments. Although, as I say, we must be cautious, that is a very hopeful sign, indeed.
    Mr. Maxton: In view of the statements made by the Solicitor-General and the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind), about the tape recording of interrogations under the Act, why is the experiment to be continued instead of extending the practice throughout Scotland, so that the suspected person can be properly safeguarded?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: There are a number of issues about tape recording, including a judgment of the court, which I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will know of, in which it was held that, unless the whole tape recording was acceptable, no part of it was acceptable. There are difficulties. It is important that the matter be got right and that the intended safeguards should not frustrate justice but improve it.
    Mr. Speaker: Mr. Peter Fraser.
    Mr. Peter Fraser: The question that I was about to ask has been asked by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton).

    Anglers (Prosecution)
    Mr. Canavanasked the Solicitor-General for Scotland what criteria are used when deciding to prosecute anglers.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: A decision is taken according to the circumstances of the offence.
    Mr. Canavan: Will the Solicitor-General confirm that in rivers and lochs, while they are in the water, fish do not belong to anyone, but, once caught, they become the property of the angler who catches them, irrespective of whether he owns the fishing rights or has received permission to fish? Will he join me in encouraging anglers to enjoy their favourite sport free from the fear of prosecution, harassment and intimidation by water bailiffs and game keepers? Will he support my call for a democratically constituted Scottish anglers trust to regulate and administer all freshwater fishing rights in Scotland?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I thought for a moment that the hon. Gentleman was going to ask that fish should be controlled by warrant sale. I am not willing to confirm such a gross misstatement of the law. The hon. Gentleman will know, if he reads the Lord Advocate's letter, which clearly he has not, that in the 1951 Act the position is set out clearly. In closed lochs and stanks, the fish belongs to the riparian owner, but in fresh water, in which the fish is at liberty to come and go, it is, until

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    caught, ares nullius —which means, for the hon. Gentleman's benefit, that it is nothing at all until it is caught.
    Mr. John MacKay: When considering angling legislation, will my hon. and learned Friend note the interests of the legitimate angler, the legitimate angling club and the riparian owner, who has provided the fishing, as against the interests of some of the people of whom the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) seems to approve, who invade fishings with cans of worms and six rods—
    Mr. Peter Fraser: And hand grenades.
    Mr. MacKay: Perhaps even hand grenades —and who indulge in illegitimate fishing to the detriment of legitimate anglers, who wish to enjoy their sport?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I would not wish to refer to the hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) as a can of worms or a hand grenade. There are competing interests of owners and fishermen, those who genuinely enjoy the sport. A review is going on of the law, but it is unlikely that the solutions to be applied in the West Stirlingshire democracy are those which would satisfy any of the parties who live together and enjoy the sport which is enjoyed by a large number of people in all parts of Scotland.
    Mr. David Steel: In pursuit of the question asked by my former fishing companion, the hon. Member for Argyll (Mr. MacKay), may I ask the Solicitor-General whether there have yet been any prosecutions under the protection order on the Tweed, and, if so, whether any of them relate to persons from West Stirlingshire?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I am sorry to know that the right hon. Gentleman has given up fishing with my hon. Friend and taken up instead picnics on the lawn with the Social Democratic Party. I am afraid that I do not know whether there have been prosecutions under the Tweed order, but I shall write to the right hon. Gentleman. If there have been occasions of lawlessness, I dare say West Stirlingshire may be responsible.
    Mr. Canavan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, which is a direct contradiction of a letter that I received from the Lord Advocate, I beg to give notice that I shall seek leave to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Courts (Industrial Action)
    Mr. Peter Fraserasked the Solicitor-General for Scotland what delays are being experienced in both the sheriff courts and High Court as a result of industrial action by court staff.
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The strike action is confined to the courts in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Since
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    the beginning of the strike, 28 High Court cases have been delayed, but 25 of these are now being dealt with. In Glasgow, 150 sheriff and jury trials have not been dealt with and approximately 5,000 summary cases have not been heard. In Edinburgh, 100 sheriff and jury trials have not been dealt with, but the sheriff court is dealing with one-third to one-half of its normal summary criminal work load. There are 2,000 cases awaiting summary diets both in Glasgow and in Edinburgh.
    Mr. Fraser: While the Scottish courts administration is to be complimented on its efforts to deal with the backlog, may I ask my hon. and learned Friend and take the opportunity to point out that, in the main, it is members of the public who are suffering from the action? Does he agree that, as a direct consequence of the action, the administration of justice is being blocked, and, at the end of the day, it will be the public at large who suffer?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend's conclusion. The public and justice are suffering, which is extremely unfair.
    Mr. Millan: Is not the situation a public scandal and an affront to Scotland, when thousands of cases are being dropped and many thousands more being delayed, with considerable prejudice to civil rights? Was it not the hon. and learned Gentleman who in 1979 demanded legislation from the Labour Government right from the first day? Does he recollect that the Second Reading of the Administration of Justice (Emergency Provisions) (Scotland) Bill was taken less than a month after the 1979 strike began, yet this action has gone on for three months and the Government have done nothing? Is not that particularly ironic, when the Conservative Party is supposed to stand for law and order? Do we not need emergency legislation and other Government action to bring the strike to an end?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: We are indeed the party which stands for law and order. As I understand it, the right hon. Member stands for those who are disrupting law and order. The present position is clear. Emergency legislation would have no effect other than to build up a backlog of summary cases. The only way to solve the matter is for those who have the responsibility to discharge it and go back to work.
    Mr. Henderson: Despite the industrial action in the courts, can my hon. and learned Friend find out whether awards for compensation would have been made by the courts, but for the fact that the offenders concerned were on probation? Will he then consider whether some change can be made in that aspect of the law?
    The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I shall look into the matter and write to my hon. Friend.

Multi-fibre Arrangement (Debate)
Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I call for the statement to be made, I have a brief ruling to give. Yesterday I undertook to rule on the submission made by the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) that a certain European Commission document had been cited by a Minister and ought therefore to be laid upon the Table. It is quite clear from the precedents that in applying this rule of the House the test has always been the actual quotation of the document. No such quotation has been alleged to have been made in this instance. The rule therefore does not apply.
The House will recall that on 10 June 1980 I had occasion to rule that a Minister was free to quote from an EEC document only if it had been made available in the Vote Office at least two hours before the beginning of the debate in question. That ruling still stands, but I fear that I cannot go beyond it.

Scotland (Local Government)
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. George Younger): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to outline to the House the Government's conclusions on the recommendations of the committee of inquiry into local government in Scotland, which sat under the chairmanship of my noble Friend Lord Stodart of Leaston to review the working relationships among local authorities in Scotland and to recommend whether any transfer or rationalisation of functions was desirable and consistent with maintaining the viability of the existing authorities. The committee's report was presented to Parliament in January, and I have considered the comments received since then. I am making available in the Vote Office a detailed supplementary statement of our conclusions on each of the recommendations.
The committee recorded 72 conclusions and recommendations and we have decided to accept about 60 —subject in some cases to minor variations —and to consider a further seven in the context of the separate review of Scottish roads legislation, about which my Department recently issued a consultation document.
I comment now on some of the major issues raised by the committee. It emphasised that a change to a system of all- or most-purpose authorities would involve a major change in the structure of local government, and suggested that if this was to be pursued it should be examined specifically on a country-wide basis. The committee did not, however, recommend that such an examination should take place and, as my hon. Friend has already indicated to the House, the Government do not propose now to reopen the question whether or not there should be a single-tier system of local government in Scotland. We consider that the present Scottish system is basically sound and that the upheaval and expense of further major reorganisation would not be justified. In particular, we accept the committee's conclusions that most-purpose status for the four city districts could not be achieved without prejudicing the viability of the surrounding regions, and therefore that a marked move towards all-purpose status could not be justified.
However, like the committee, we see scope for some redistribution of functions between regional and district authorities to reduce the extent of concurrency, particularly in industrial promotion and leisure and recreation, on which our decisions are as follows.
The majority recommendation that industrial development powers should be confined to regional authorities prompted specific reservation and dissent within the committee. Reactions since the publication of the report have emphasised the important role that districts play in providing and enhancing local employment opportunities. I have concluded that it would not be right to deprive districts of their powers to provide factories and mortgages for industrial purposes and I do not propose to change the present powers available to them for industrial development, but I agree with the majority of the committee that all powers of promotion outside their areas should be concentrated on the regions. Moreover, I intend that any overseas promotion expenditure by regions should be subject to the consent of the Secretary of State. Thus, regions and districts will have the same powers available to them as at present to encourage local employment, but the concentration of promotion powers on the regions will,

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I hope, facilitate co-operation and co-ordination of external publicity efforts. This decision will greatly simplify the task of the new Locate in Scotland unit, set up recently in response to a report of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs.
We accept the committee's recommendations that, in general, district councils alone should have comprehensive responsibilities for leisure and recreation functions. Similar considerations apply in countryside matters, but because some facilities have a significance beyond the district boundaries we believe that there should be a defined continuing role for the regions.
In some cases it will be possible to implement our conclusions by administrative action, after further consultation with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, but many of the proposals will require legislation.
We owe a considerable debt to my noble Friend Lord Stodart and his committee for the work that they did under very considerable pressure. The best proof of our appreciation of their work is the very high proportion of their conclusions that we now accept and our determination to implement them soon.
Mr. Bruce Millan (Glasgow, Craigton): There are a number of detailed and complicated matters that should clearly be the subject of a debate. The Government's suggestion that this matter be debated soon in the Scottish Grand Committee therefore meets with our approval.
I agree that this is not a propitious time to deal with major questions of local government reorganisation in Scotland, particularly as local authorities are already in a state of financial crisis as a result of Government policies. I agree, however, that there can be some redistribution of functions between regional and district authorities. I am glad that it is not proposed to deprive districts of all their powers for industrial development. I do not see how a major district with massive unemployment problems could be excluded from that sphere.
I do not understand what the Secretary of State has said about powers of promotion. Unless there are some powers of promotion, the other powers seem comparatively meaningless.
The idea that regional authorities should have to come to the Secretary of State for approval before undertaking overseas promotion is a further example of pettifogging interference by the Government in the rights of local authorities, and we certainly oppose it.
The statement is not at all clear as to the distinction between regional and district functions in terms of leisure and recreation. The Countryside (Scotland) Bill currently before the House has implications in this respect, so we shall wish to examine that.
Finally, I bitterly regret that the Government have not accepted the Stodart committee's recommendation that overseas promotion of tourism in Scotland should be the sole responsibility of the Scottish Tourist Board.
We welcome the prospect of a debate very soon on these and other matters.
Mr. Younger: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's response to the idea of a debate on a matter day, which believe will be widely welcomed. I am glad that he also approves of our ensuring that districts retain their industrial development responsibilities.
I hope that in due course the right hon. Gentleman will think a little further about our decision on promotion. I am
1026
sure that he is as concerned as we are that the Locate in Scotland bureau should be successful in co-ordinating efforts. If he looks into the matter further, he may agree on reflection that a number of different districts in different areas carrying out their own promotion would create only confusion at home and certainly abroad if that were allowed to happen. I therefore believe that there is a wide measure of agreement in many quarters that some element of control would be desirable.
With regard to my approval for regions to undertake promotional activity, I assure the right hon. Gentleman that I would not intend to exercise this in a restrictive way. If the main effect for Scotland is to be achieved, however, it is essential that there should not be large numbers of different Scottish local authorities falling over themselves in foreign capitals. That is the object of the co-ordination.
I appreciate that the leisure and recreation decisions are somewhat complicated, but they reduce concurrency very substantially —in fact, almost entirely —and it should not in future be necessary for both regions and districts to have leisure and recreation departments.
The decision on overseas tourism promotion was announced earlier, but now that we have a Scottish Tourist Board that is able to influence the British Tourist Authority, with a proper strategy for promoting Scotland overseas, we can get the strength of the British Tourist Authority on a co-ordinated Scottish basis to put forward Scottish promotion, and that is an improvement on the previous arrangement.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that there are two abbreviated debates to follow and that the subjects have been chosen by the Opposition. A considerable number of right hon. and hon. Members wish to participate in those debates, and I think that it would be unreasonable for me to give longer than quarter of an hour for questions on the statement. As the House has heard, there is to be a debate in the Scottish Grand Committee. I shall allow questions to continue until 3.55 pm.
Mr. Barry Henderson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that although his statement about the industrial aspects will be very widely welcomed there is disappointment that he has not said anything today about the tourism arrangements within Scotland? Will he accept that there is no single solution for the whole of Scotland that would be appropriate? There are some regions in which it would be appropriate for the regional council to handle tourism, and there are other regions in which it would be better handled by districts. Will he accept that as a solution?
Mr. Younger: I am glad that my hon. Friend approves of the industrial development powers decision. This is not a general debate today on tourism. I am only trying to establish decisions about which tier of local government should have the main responsibility for it. I am satisfied that to put it all on the regions would be quite inappropriate in some areas, because many districts have individual tourist interests to promote. Therefore, it seems logical that districts should be the main authorities for it. I accept that regional authorities will be represented in the new tourist area organisations and that that will be the main way in which regional expertise can be brought in.
Mr. Russell Johnston: Does it mean that at the next general election the Conservative Party will

1027
fight on the argument that there will be no change at all throughout Scotland? That is not the feeling that I get from the Scottish Conservative Party.
Does not what the right hon. Gentleman said about tourism mean that if there is to be a continued interest at both levels of authority there will be a continued fudging of the responsibility?
Mr. Younger: I would not presume to match the hon. Gentleman's close contact with the Scottish Conservative Party. I would certainly not wish to anticipate the contents of the winning manifesto that that party will put forward at the next general election.
In the nature of tourist promotion it is most likely to be the districts that have the closest contact with the tourist needs of their areas, and it is there that the authority is firmly placed in promoting tourism.
Mr. Donald Stewart: Will the Minister agree that the report of the Stodart committee and his reaction to it represents another non-event, in the same class as the non-event yesterday concerning Scottish affairs? In view of the proven success of the single-tier authorities in the Western Isles and in the Orkneys and Shetlands, will he keep an open mind on turning the existing authorities into single-tier authorities?
Mr. Younger: On the latter point, I blush at the compliment that the right hon. Gentleman pays me, as I was the Minister who invented single-tier authorities, for which I hope he is duly grateful. I do not think that he is right in saying that this is a disappointing result. The aim was to try to reduce concurrency and other things in local government, and I have made a number of decisions that I believe to be very helpful in this respect.
If the right hon. Gentleman had been present last night, he would have heard me showering him with compliments for being sensible in not taking part in a debate on matters in which he does not believe. I think that he would agree that he does not believe in including the government of Scotland within Britain, because he wants Scotland out of Britain altogether.
Mr. Peter Fraser: In view of what my right hon. Friend has said, may I take it that in the passage of my Private Member's Bill through another place the Government will not seek to alter the provision that would allow for the setting up of regional parks by regional authorities? There has been some suggestion that it might be necessary to change that, in view of the Stodart proposals. May I take it that the position will be left as proposed in the Bill?
Mr. Younger: I give my hon. Friend that assurance.
Mr. David Lambie: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his decision not to consider all-purpose authorities or to allow a further review of local government to permit the break-up of large, inefficient regions, such as Strathclyde, will be received with disappointment by the people of Ayrshire, including his own constituents? How can the right hon. Gentleman make the statement that he has made when during the general election he gave definite commitments to his own voters in Ayrshire that if the Tory Party won the election it would carry out a review of local government with the intention of breaking up large regions such as Strathclyde?
Mr. Younger: I do not know how many of my election meetings were attended by the hon. Gentleman. He will be very welcome at all of them in future. I gave no such undertaking at the last election or at any other election, but I undertook to have a review made of the working of local government in Scotland, and today I have announced the conclusions of that review. I should have thought that I had done rather well.
Mr. Albert McQuarrie: Would my right hon. Friend care to consider the need for planning in the restructuring of local government, as there are considerable problems in the complex business of planning at district level and planning at regional level, and it is necessary to achieve some form of integration? Would he accept that his comment concerning the loss of the ability of the North-East Scotland Development Association to go out for investment overseas, and its need to obtain his authority before doing so, will not be received with very great glee in the Grampian region, because that authority has been extremely succesful in bringing jobs from overseas to the region?
I accept the need for a Locate in Scotland unit, but my right hon. Friend should not deter good organisations from continuing the practice that they have been following.
Mr. Younger: My hon. Friend is being unduly pessimistic on the latter point. His own regional authority takes a great deal of interest in this question. As a matter of courtesy, the convenor always lets me know when he is going abroad, so that there is not really any great difference. I have no desire to use the power to stop people going abroad. What I wish to do is to stop them going abroad and finding that someone else is already trying to do the same thing in the same place. That has frequently happened in the past, and is very unhelpful.
There have been difficulties over planning, and so on, in the past but the Stodart committee looked very carefully into them and decided that the present pattern was more or less right.
Mr. Robert Maclennan: Does the Secretary of State realise that his decision to set his face against even examining the question whether a single-tier authority would be appropriate will be widely regarded as Conservatism at its worst, and that it is not right of him, in support of his decision, to invoke the Stodart committee, as the question was quite beyond its remit? Will he accept that the reorganisation of local government in Scotland into a single tier need not result in the kind of expense that resulted from the reorganisation of local government put through by the previous Conservative Government?
Mr. Younger: The hon. Gentleman is being very optimistic in saying that. My chief concern —which I should have thought would be widely endorsed in Scotland —is that the very last thing local government needs is another complete upheaval. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman that it would be cheap; I think that it would be extremely expensive.
Mr. John MacKay: My right hon. Friend's decision that tourism should be a district council function will be widely welcomed in the tourist industry. I draw his attention to those paragraphs —from paragraph 30 onwards —in the Stodart report about the position of Argyll. At the risk of embarrassing the hon. Member for

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Central Ayrshire (Mr. Lambie), I suggest to my right hon. Friend that ha should give more thought to the question of Strathclyde, and especially to Argyll, which the Stodart report suggested did not fit into Strathclyde.
Mr. Younger: That was not quite what the Stodart report said about the Argyll question. It looked into the matter carefully and expressed great sympathy with the points made on both sides. The committee came to the conclusion that Argyll's status was not so different from that of any other authority that it would be right to turn it into an all-purpose authority, particularly as it appeared clear that the level of service available in such an all-purpose authority would probably be much lower.
Mr. George Foulkes: What are the right hon. Gentleman's conclusions about the recommendations for community centres? Is he aware that community associations all over the country, and particularly in Ayrshire, feel strongly that community centres should remain within the community education service, contrary to the report's recommendations?
Mr. Younger: I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. That is one of the matters on which we have decided not to follow the Stodart report's recommendations.
Mr. Allan Stewart: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is not the slightest jot of evidence to show that a major reorganisation of the purely urban areas of Strathclyde would benefit anyone?
Mr. Younger: I very much agree with my hon. Friend.
Mr. Robert Hughes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is widespread dismay in the city of Aberdeen at his announcement about development authorities, because the city has just set up its own development agency? Will the proposed restrictions require legislation? Will the right hon. Gentleman define "promotion"? Does it mean that a local authority that builds an advance factory cannot advertise it as available?
Mr. Younger: No; the definition is not as stringent as that. The provision is designed to avoid the situation in which different authorities from different areas chase each other in an unco-ordinated fashion in different parts of the country and of the world. That is a real threat. Indeed, those who have had responsibilty for such matters will know, that always happen. It is high time that there was better co-ordination, and that is our object. The object is not to stop people doing things but to get them to act in a co-ordinated way, to their mutual, greater benefit.
Mr. Ian Lang: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the successes of local government reform has been community councils? Although not strictly within its terms of reference, the Stodart committee felt obliged to comment on them. Does my right hon. Friend intend to enhance, or at least safeguard, the finance and powers of community councils?
Mr. Youner: We have covered that. Our proposals envisage that districts alone should have specific powers to finance the running costs of community councils. That is logical, given their existing responsibilities both for drawing up community council schemes in their areas and for authorising subsequent amendments. However,
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regions will still be able to make grants to community councils in the same way as they can make them to other voluntary bodies.
Mr. Dick Douglas: Will the Secretary of State admit that he is making a false dichotomy between districts and regions in relaton to promotion? We must not allow a situation in which districts, recognising their industrial and planning functions, are in conflict with the regions over promotion. Will the Secretary of State give us guidelines on how to avoid a proliferation of activities overseas. We could then discuss the matter. He should not get into a conflict between the regions and the districts at the moment.
Mr. Younger: I shall consider whether guidance, or guidelines, are necessary. I agree that in such circumstances conflict does no one any good.
Mr. Bill Walker: As it is proposed to concentrate tourism at district level, will that not produce substantial savings at regional level, where the departments that have existed for some time will no longer be required? Does my right hon. Friend expect an overall saving and improvement, given that so many people have been dabbling in Scottish tourism?
Mr. Younger: I agree with my hon. Friend. To extend his question beyond the subject of tourism, in general, the removal of concurrency in almost all cases, as a result of these decisions, should lend itself to some staff reductions. In addition, it should mean that in most cases there will be no need for regions and districts to have departments on the same subject. I am sure that that will lead to some saving.
Several Hon. Members rose
Mr. Speaker: If they are brief, I shall call the three hon. Members who have been rising in their places.
Mr. John Home Robertson: Will the Secretary of State comment on paragraph 255 of the report, which states that it is for the Government to decide about the problem of community councils? Has he noticed the report's reference to the frustration experienced by those in community councils because of their lack of power, authority and everything else? Will he undertake to comment on that?
Mr. Younger: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point. The position on community councils is patchy. In some parts of the country they are immensely successful and do a good job, but in other parts they seem largely to have fallen into disuse. From time to time we should consider the matter, but I do not propose any difference in their status at present.
Mr. Ernie Ross: Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes)? Will, his decision on industrial promotion and district authorities require legislation? Like the city of Aberdeen, Dundee district authority will not welcome the Secretary of State's decision.
Mr. Younger: I appreciate that. I think that legislation will be needed and therefore we shall have plenty of opportunity to discuss the matter. The objective is to make the promotion that is done more effective.
Mr. Dennis Canavan: Will the Secretary of State admit that the Stodart committee only

1031
scratched the surface of the problems of local government in Scotland? Does he agree that it was expecting too much of an ex-Tory Minister, now rewarded with a seat in the other place, to undo all the damage done by a Tory Government to disorganise local government in 1973? Why has the right hon. Gentleman so firmly ruled out a more radical restructuring of local government, involving a single-tier system, whereby one elected council for each area would be responsible for administering all the local government services in that area? That might also include the health services, which were also disorganised by the Tories in the early 1970s.
Mr. Younger: Not for the first time, the hon. Gentleman seems to be quite out of step with everyone. Our local government system was devised after a long series of consultations and discussions, which started with the Wheatley commission report and the previous Labour Government, was taken up by the Conservative Government —of which I was a member —and was implemented by the Government whom I believe the hon. Gentleman supported. It is a long process. It is legitimate to point out that of all the options open to us, no one in Scotland would greatly welcome another upheaval that would involve great cost and upset.

Residential Homes Act 1980 Amendment)
3.56 pm
Mr. Richard Alexander: I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the provisions of the Residential Homes Act 1980.
The purpose of my Bill is to strengthen the present system of registration and inspection of private and voluntarily run homes for the elderly. The latest figures that I have show that in 1978 there were 2,020 private homes and 1,088 voluntary homes in England and Wales. Those figures and my Bill exclude private medical nursing homes. My Bill would also exclude homes run by local authorities.
The problem is that with the number of elderly people in the community —particularly the very elderly —increasing very rapidly, the strain on the already limited residential sector is likely to increase, and could lead to a lowering of standards. I want to stress as strongly as I can that bad practice in residential care is the exception rather than the rule. I should, perhaps, also disclose that my mother is in a residential home, where the standard of care and attention is of the highest. My Bill has nothing to do with her or my personal circumstances. The law is vague and complex, and the very elderly, who are often vulnerable, are not always adequately protected by it.
First, I want to put a 12-month limit on registration. At present, once a local authority grants registration it is rarely queried again, and it is withdrawn only if the local authority proves in a court that a home or its proprietor is unfit. An annual review should be mandatory. I want to see an annual inspection, as a minimum, to ensure that checks are made on such factors as staff changes, which sometimes also change the running of a home since first registration. On its annual inspections the local authority should be able to make recommendations for improvements and have some means of ensuring that such improvements are carried out. At present, local authorities have other pressing duties, and sometimes inspections occur only rarely.
I am unhappy about some reports that we receive on the quality of care. As a nation, under present legislation we concentrate on physical criteria rather than quality of care. It is often difficult to define quality of care, but basic standards, such as minimum room temperatures, should be laid down by the registration authorities.
A report by the Council on Care for the Elderly recently found that after regular visits to such homes 5 per cent. were distinctly unsatisfactory. They appeared dirty, unfriendly and cold. My Bill would give powers to the local community health council to make visits at any time to check that minimum standards of care were being given.
Voluntary organisations, such as Age Concern, have been pressing for many years for the tightening of the legislation. The Department of Health and Social Security recently issued regulations similar to those that I have outlined, but for private nursing homes. The regulations will come into effect on 1 August. I hope that similar recommendations and provisions will be made by the Government for private and voluntary residential homes. I understand that consultative proposals will be issued soon, by the Department of Health and Social Security.
In the meantime, my Bill would give a measure of protection to those who are frail, elderly and sometimes

1033
in the hands of unscrupulous operators. They may be in the minority but they exist, and old people farming is a reprehensible activity. These old people are often of slender means and cannot afford to shop around for somewhere else. They cannot complain for fear of reprisals. Alone, often abandoned by their families —if they have any —they are some of the most vulnerable and under-privileged in our society. My Bill would give them a measure of humanitarian protection and, as such, I commend it to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Richard Alexander, Mr. Bob Dunn, Mr. George Foulkes, Mr. Stephen Ross and Mr. Michael Welsh.

RESIDENTIAL HOMES ACT 1980 (AMENDMENT) BILL
Mr. Richard Alexander accordingly presented a Bill to amend the provisions of the Residential Homes Act 1980: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 10 July and to be printed. [Bill 160].
Orders of the Day
  SUPPLY
  [21ST ALLOTTED DAY] —considered.

  Domestic Gas Appliances
  Mr. Speaker: I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
  Before the right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith) begins his speech, I should remind the House that those of us in the Chair do our best to see that as many hon. Members are called as possible, but that depends on the length of the speeches.
  4.4 pm
  Mr. John Smith: I beg to move,
  That this House believes that in the interests of consumer safety and service the British Gas Corporation should not be forced to end or curtail the selling and servicing of gas appliances or to dispose of its gas showrooms.
  The motion arises from a serious apprehension on the part of the Opoosition and many other people that the Government may decide to embark upon what is called the radical and extreme option in the recent Monopolies and Mergers Commission report on the gas industry, which would involve forcing the British Gas Corporation to end its retailing arm, its huge sales of retail gas appliances, and force it to withdraw from that market, presumably without compensation, leading in turn to the inevitable closure of 900 gas showrooms, which provide excellent service to the public.
  The Opposition believe that such a move would not only be unfair and wounding to the British Gas Corporation, which is one of our most successful publicly owned industries, but would have serious consequences for public safety and service. The matter arises because the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, acting on a reference by the Director General of Fair Trading irk 1977, produced a report in July last year which, among other things, considered the so-called extreme option to which I have referred.
  Having read the report in detail, I am not much impressed by it. It is a superficial examination of a complicated problem. The commission does not appear to have gone into it in much depth or to have taken evidence on a wide front. The argument throughout appears to be confusing, and the conclusions are muddled and almost incoherent. [HoN. MEMBERS: "No."] That is not normally a conclusion that one comes to about a Monopolies and Mergers Commission report, because frequently such reports are valuable. I shall seek to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) and others why I think that the report has sadly departed from the high standards that it should seek to attain.
  Having found the British Gas Corporation to be a monopoly —that is not difficult, because it requires only 25 per cent. of the market to be a monopoly under the Fair Trading Act —and having also found a foreign gas appliance manufacturer, Chaffoteaux Ltd., a private sector company, to be a monopoly, the report goes on to consider the competition in the industry. It reaches the conclusion that there is not enough activity in the private sector, and

  1035
  therefore it says that it does not know whether the gas corporation is cost-effective. It believes that the present system somehow threatens the gas appliance industry.
  Part of the difficulty with the report is that in paragraph 13.86 it almost reaches the conclusion that it should perhaps make no recommendation. Later, it lurches towards the proposition that there should be the so-called extreme option. It considers the possibility that the British Gas Corporation should have its retail activities amputated, or a lesser option that there should be a reorganisation of the retailing arm to allow separate accountability.
  The report does not make a recommendation. In a curious paragraph at the end the report says that it would make a recommendation but that it realises that there are "political considerations upon which the Commission does not normally form a view …In view of all the circumstances, we do not think fit to express any recommendation between these courses."
  It is most odd to find the commission in such a muddle. The report is further muddled because two out of the six members of the commission who compiled the report actively argue in subsequent notes against the so-called extreme option.
  Before dealing with competition, I should like to consider the nature of the industry. It is no accident that the gas industry is highly integrated in the supply of energy and gas appliances. It is also no accident that the organisation that supplies gas has become the dominant supplier of gas appliances and has the major responsibility, which it discharges well, for ensuring safety and servicing.
  It is inherent in bringing gas into the home that the organisation responsible for that should also have the responsibility for ensuring that appliances are correctly and safely installed. There is all the difference in the world between buying an electrical appliance over the counter and plugging it in at home, and installing a gas appliance. Unskilled operators can endanger the safety of the consumer and many others in the neighbourhood. Everyone who knows about the gas industry recognises that that is an important consideration.
  If the BGC is forced out of the retailing side, the standards of safety and service over the whole industry will inevitably decline and seriously deteriorate.
  Mr Tim Eggar: The right hon. Gentleman makes absurd accusations. What shred of evidence has he to justify his statement?
  Mr. Smith: I have the evidence of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report, which pays tribute to the high standards attained by the BGC. In addition, many of those in the gas appliance industry have repeatedly drawn the matter to our attention. If that is not enough for the hon. Gentleman, he should read the letter that the National Gas Consumers Council has sent to every hon. Member expressing its serious concern.
  Mr. Eggar: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Smith: No.
  Mr. Eggar: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. This is an abbreviated debate, and I have reason to believe that the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) will try to catch my eye later.
  Mr. T. H. H . Skeet: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Smith: No.
  Mr. Skeet: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman is not giving way.
  Mr. Skeet: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman was about to do so.
  Mr. Smith: I am not giving way. I knew that I was being too kind in giving way to the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar). He asked for evidence, and when he was supplied with an amplitude of it his only recourse was to try to bluster his way out.
  The British Gas Corporation spends £27 million a year on servicing and safety work to ensure customers' safety. In 1980 alone, the corporation's staff discovered 196,000 potentially lethal installations, which they put right. About 20,000 people are engaged in servicing and safety, and the BGC recruits 1,000 apprentices each year who are trained to become highly skilled gas fitters with responsiblity for servicing and safety. Apart from anything else, if the BGC is forced out of that end of the market those 1,000 new jobs every year will be put at risk.
  The BGC has to service 8,500 different appliance models. Part of the difficulty is that, of the 34 million appliances in use, 24 million are no longer in production, but the BGC has to carry spare parts and service those appliances, which it does on a wide scale throughout the country.
  The major work of safety and servicing could not be maintained at present levels if the BGC did not have the retailing arm that justifies it. As is made clear by the NGCC and many others who have considered the matter, there is no way in which the 900 gas showrooms could be maintained on the present basis if the BGC were forced out of the retailing side. The showrooms are not used only for the sale of appliances. Their staffs give advice on energy matters, and the showrooms are used for the paying of bills —£800 million a year is paid to the corporation across the counter —for dealing with hardship cases, through the payment of accounts that have fallen into arrears, as a point of contact for consumers when emergencies arise, for the sale of energy stamps and for a range of other activities.
  The gas showroom is an excellent place in which the public can get advice and consultation about the installation and purchase of gas appliances. Nearly every sector of the population has indicated its serious concern at the prospect of that beneficial public activity being brought to an end.
  On safety and service grounds alone there is an overwhelming case for maintaining the present capacity of the BGC. In normal circumstances that ought to be enough for the Government to desist from considering the course of action on which they are embarked. I hope that they will not adopt the extreme option, but our fears were raised by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who said in Swansea on 5 April:
  "The Monopolies Commission has recommended that the British Gas Corporation should dispose of its showrooms and the Government is considering the best way in which to carry this out."
  That is not true for a start. The commission recommended no such thing. The Chancellor of the Exchequer

  1037
  misapprehended the commission's recommendation, but his speech showed that the Government were considering the extreme or radical option. One of the purposes of the debate is to dissuade the Government from that course.
  The argument that seems to be thought to be more important than the good record of safety and servicing is the need for competition. It may have escaped the attention of some hon. Members, but there are already 2,000 private retail outlets for the sale of gas appliances. I do not know what is preventing the private sector from entering the market in a bigger way if it wishes to do so.
  The Monopolies and Mergers Commission report is unconvincing. It says that the BGC sometimes gets discounts from manufacturers because it buys in bulk. What a wicked thing! Marks and Spencer always buys in bulk and gets discounts, but we do not hear Conservative Members running round the country saying "Unfair. It must be stopped." Part of our difficulty is that Conservatives feel that they must do something about successful public sector industry.
  During the 1950s and 1960s, when the gas industry was not so dominant and gas appliances were not so popular, the nationalised sector stuck with the industry and many private retailers left because they did not see a prospect for making profits. Now that gas has become much more popular, the private retailers have come back.
  The commission noted that there was much more activity in the private sector. The gas appliance manufacturers make it clear that they do not discriminate between the public and private sectors, but supply to both. The notion that the consumer is deprived of freedom of choice is absurd. In the average British Gas showroom there are about 30 different models of cookers. Consumers are lucky if there are 10 cookers and four or five fires on display at the average private retail outlet. That is the case throughout the, country.
  One reason why private sector retailers do not wish to go into the market on the same scale as the private sector is involved in the electrical appliances market is that the gas market is much more difficult. A person does not buy a gas appliance, put it in the boot of his car and take it home. Retailers must have some responsibility for the installation and servicing of appliances, in the interests of the consumer and the neighbouring community. That is why the market has been less attractive to those who are interested only in making a quick profit.
  The most absurd section of the commission's report says that the present system threatens the gas appliance industry. It is suggested that the industry is held back from development because it is not given enough customers. The gas appliance industry has made it clear in recent months that it does not agree. Conservative Members must give the people who work in the industry and the managers who run the industry some credit for knowing something about it. I think that they know a little more than do vocal hon. Members who interrupt from a sedentary position.
  Much more serious is a likely sequence of events in which the BGC will be forced out, with no certainty that anyone will fill the gap, and that private sector retail outlets will sell more electrical than gas appliances. The gas appliance market will then decline with serious consequences for the profits and employees of the manufacturers of gas appliances, faced with much lower demand for their goods. That is not merely a supposition.
  1038
  It is what the gas appliance manufacturers say themselves, as letters written to hon. Members by those manufacturers show.
  There will be a stimulus to imports to fill the gap created by the removal of the British Gas Corporation. That is a serious matter. If imports are stimulated in a market already supplied by British manufacturers, there will be serious consequences for jobs and for the success of industry. So much for the patriotism of the Conservative Party. The first opportunity that Conservatives have to try to erode a successful British industry by encouraging foreign competition, they seize it with both hands. The Opposition take a much more responsible attitude to the jobs and success of the industry.
  The great difficulty is that the extreme option in the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report has been seized upon by some prejudiced and biased hon. Members on the Government Benches. They are Right-wing ideologues who cannot allow a successful public industry to operate unscathed. Their continual and perpetual animosity towards successful public sector industry is one of the most crude symptoms of our present political life. If a public sector industry is not successful, it is derided. If it is successful, it has to be attacked and sold off —the most profitable section first —to the private sector.
  Those who argue for that course —I hope that they do not constitute a majority in the Government or the Conservative Party —now seek by devious means to do severe harm to the British Gas Corporation under the guise of spurious competition. At no stage in the course of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission report is any evidence adduced for the fact that increasing private sector retail outlets would reduce prices or increase the range of choice available to the consumer. There is no evidence. It is merely a political assumption made and asserted, rather than argued, throughout the report.
  Mr. John Bruce-Gardyne: It might help to put the matter in perspective if the right hon. Gentleman will say how many complaints he has received from constituents about the service provided by British Gas for its customers. Is my constituency exceptional in the substantial load of complaints that I receive about the service that this great monopoly provides to the customer?
  Mr. Smith: I agree with the hon. Gentleman that his constituency is unique in one respect. It has to put up with him for a start.
  I get very few complaints. Within the last year, I do not think that I have received one complaint from any constituent about the British Gas Corporation. I have had a large correspondence from many people worried about the closure of gas showrooms. I believe that that is the experience of many hon. Members.
  What might be regarded as a case for either some minor adjustment of the retail side of the British Gas Corporation, or no action at all, which I think is just as feasible, has been changed into a debate on an entirely different matter, namely, whether the British Gas Corporation should be allowed to pursue its activities in a particular area. Over the years the corporation has built up an integrated, highly developed system in which safety has been a paramount consideration.
  I hope that the hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. BruceGardyne) will examine the safety record on installations. The ratio of accidents as a result of private sector

  1039
  installations compared to those of the British Gas Corporation is 15 to one. There are 15 times more accidents in non-BGC installations than in public sector installations. That is one reason why there is not the volume of complaints that the hon. Gentleman alleges. The hon. Gentleman is the most dedicated of all the crude ideologues in the Conservative Party. He spares no time attacking the British Gas Corporation, including the chairman and the staff, on any occasion he can find.
  One symptom of the way in which debate has been moved from proper consideration of a report of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission on to the wrong ground is that it must be the first MMC report which says, in relation to a trading situation in which it has some criticisms to make of the trader, that the trader should be forced out of business. I have never heard that argument used previously in terms of a Monopolies and Mergers Commission report. It is one of the possibilities that is canvassed in the report. It is that possibility to which the Opposition seek to draw parliamentary and public attention.
  I do not know whether a final decision has been taken by the Government. The terms of the amendment would seem to indicate that it has not been taken. The cautious phrasing of the amendment leaves a number of options open to the Government. I hope that the focusing of attention on the matter in this debate means that the Government will be forced to listen to the voice of Parliament and that a debate will be stimulated in which the voice of public opinion is heard. It is important that the public should be alerted to the dangers inherent in adopting the extreme course that the Opposition motion attacks. As one of the members of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission team commented, it would be a leap in the dark.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: One out of six.
  Mr. Smith: It would be a sad and dangerous course for the Government to adopt. It would be bad for the British Gas Corporation and for the public, who are the shareholders, and who share in the profits of this activity. Even more important, it would reduce the high standards of consumer safety and service, of which we can be proud. I hope that the House will express its confidence not only in the record but in the great potential of the British gas industry and the appliance industry by supporting the motion.
  4.27 pm
  The Minister for Consumer Affairs (Mrs. Sally Oppenheim): I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
  'this House welcomes the fact that the Government, recognising the serious adverse public interest findings in the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's Report on the Supply of Domestic Gas Appliances, and the need to strengthen competition, has accepted its responsibility for examining thoroughly ways of producing the most effective remedy, while maintaining safety standards, availability of supplies and adequate services to consumers.'.
  I must say that listening to the uncharacteristically intemperate and ill-researched opening remarks of the right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith) one could be forgiven for thinking that the House was debating a proposal hatched up by some extreme Right-wing caucus in the Conservative Party, with the sole aim of dismantling a nationalised industry. We are not.
  1040
  What we are debating is an extremely thorough report, following an extremely thorough examination by a completely independent body free of any party political identity —the Monopolies and Mergers Commission —in response to a reference made under the previous Government, published last year after three years of exhaustive investigations. It is hardly the superficial report represented unfairly by the right hon. Gentleman.
  The report concludes that the corporation's monopoly has acted against the public interest by restricting competition in the retailing of appliances, by vin ue of its ability to demand advantageous terms from the manufacturers and to subsidise sales of appliances from the sale of gas. This, the commission suggests, has limited the number of independent outlets, suppressed competition, and possibly increased prices.
  The commission considered, too, that the manufacturers had given undue weight to the BGC's views on design, have accorded delivery and price preference to the corporation, and are over-dependent on the BGC's marketing of their appliances, and that indirectly this has restricted and distorted competition, deprived consumers of the benefits of competition, reduced incentives to improve efficiency, depressed investment, and led to poor performance on the part of the manufacturers.
  There are also criticisms of the monopoly enjoyed by some manufacturers of gas appliances, but the recommendations in this regard were far less trenchant than in relation to the BGC.
  So —we have the evidence before us —consumer choice has been limited, prices have been higher than they might otherwise have been, and the competitiveness and investment policies of manufacturers and, more importantly, their readiness to respond to consumers wants and needs, have all been seriously undermined by the dominant and dominating position of the BGC, in the opinion of the MMC.
  That is what we are debating —those very disturbing findings and the Government's and the Opposition's reaction to them. We have just heard the Opposition's reaction. It is quite plainly to reject the consumer interest in favour of the entrenched public sector monopoly. I welcome this occasion to discuss the Government's reaction and to deal in greater detail than did the right hon. Gentleman with some of the MMC's findings.
  First, however, I wish to express my concern and that of my right hon. Friends at the reprehensible scare campaign waged by the BGC, reinforced this afternoon by the right hon. Gentleman, about the possible consequences of certain courses of action —if they were to be decided upon by the Government —on safety, service, availability of gas appliances and convenient access for consumers to advice and account-paying facilities.
  This propaganda campaign —that is what it is —is quite unwarranted, as I shall show, and was clearly calculated to evoke unjustified fears on the part of the public. Moreover, it is a campaign —perhaps this is the most damning part of it —that has made no attempt to answer the criticisms made by the commission. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Energy has already roundly condemned it in the House.
  Let me make it absolutely clear at the outset, and in response to that campaign, that no solution that failed to maintain safety, at at least its present level, that limited availability of supplies, that generally inconvenienced

  1041
  consumers, or that was seriously damaging to manufacturers, would be acceptable to the Government. I shall go further into these matters in detail shortly.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: I warmly agree with every word that my right hon. Friend said about the disgraceful and reprehensible campaign by the British Gas Corporation, but that is not untypical of the present management of the corporation. I wonder why, in these circumstances, we decided to renew the chairman's mandate for a further five years.
  Mrs. Oppenheim: I know that my hon. Friend will be aware that that was not a decision for me, but it is a decision that, as a member of the Government, I uphold.
  Mr. Stanley Newens rose —
  Mrs. Oppenheim: No, I cannot give way.
  I shall return to some specific matters in the report that the right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North found it convenient to slide over.
  Mr. John Smith: Will the right hon. Lady give way?
  Mrs. Oppenheim: No. This is a short debate. I am telling the House the Government's position, and I cannot give way at this stage in such a short debate.
  I should like to set out for the House the three important findings that the Commission made and that the Government have accepted and feel bound to act on. First, the commission found that the British Gas Corporation was monopolist in relation to the retail supply of specified gas appliances and that this had operated, and might be expected to operate, against the public interest. Secondly, it found that some gas appliance manufacturers enjoyed a monopoly position in relation to the supply of cookers and that this was against the public interest. Thirdly, it found that all the manufacturers belonging to the Society of British Gas Industries had so conducted their affairs as to restrict or distort competition, and that that had operated against the public interest.
  These conclusions are set out at length in the report and, taken together, they offer an impressive and depressing testimony to the power of a monopoly buyer —in this case a public sector corporation —to institutionalise lack of competition in an industry, and to an inadequate response to consumer needs. In the Government's view, it is essential from the point of view of competition policy that a vigorious remedy should now be found.
  This was also recognised by the commission, which considered that the adverse effect of the manufacturers' monopoly that it had identified would be remedied by modifying the corporation's position. In this respect the commission identified two main options but, as the right hon. Gentleman said, it did not choose between them. The first was the "radical" course, by which British Gas should discontinue its retailing function over the space of a suggested three years. The second was the "gradual" course, in which the corporation's accounting and other procedures would be changed with a view to reducing its dominance in the retailing sector and thereby influence over the manufacturers. The BGC would be obliged to avoid obtaining an unfair price advantage in purchasing and to allocate showroom and other costs scrupulously.
  These are two widely differing recommendations, and the Government have considered them very carefully, with other possibilities that give a comprehensive range of options. But however varied the range of possibilities, one
  1042
  conclusion from the report is inescapable —that the dominant position of the British Gas Corporation in this market must be, at the very least, substantially reduced —although no final decision has yet been taken on the precise means.
  I think that it will help the House if I am as candid as I can be on the types of choice that face the Government in considering a solution.
  At one end of the spectrum is the "radical" course suggested by the MMC. There is no doubt in the Government's mind that this course would rapidly resolve many of the problems in the market as identified by the commission. But the problem with this course is that it has an extremely compressed timetable. No option that includes a timetable so compressed that essential services were disrupted and the consumer interest suffered would be acceptable.
  Wider than that, there is a legitimate interest by the domestic gas appliance industries in ensuring a minimum market disruption in any transition to a new market structure from the cosy structure that they have enjoyed with the gas corporation in the past.
  The Government are considering several options. I am sure that the House would agree that the Government should research as fully and consult as widely as possible before reaching a decision, so as to be fully informed of all the practicalities of each suggested approach. Two options are among those currently under consideraton, including the MMC's options. The first is that the British Gas Corporation should be required to withdraw from gas retailing, but over a longer period than that proposed by the commission, subject to ensuring the retention of convenient accessibility for consumer advice and bill paying, and that safety standards for the installation and maintenance of gas appliances were also maintained, by means of either a statutory or a voluntary code.
  Another option that the Government are considering is that the BGC itself should set up the retail sale of gas appliances in a separate subsidiary. In addition, the corporation would sell to reputable dealers appliances on the same terms as they are made available to showrooms.
  In considering those options the Government have to bear in mind certain points made in the MMC report in arriving at the serious conclusions that it did. The report highlights a number of damaging contributory abuses, which serve as almost classic examples. Manufacturers have had pressure put on them by the corporation to offer progressively higher discounts to the corporaton, but not to others. Manufacturers dominated by one purchaser, and at the mercy of its purchasing policy, have been reluctant to invest.
  Consumers have suffered, because the range of appliances available has been more limited than it would have been and is in other countries. Manufacturers have been slow to anticipate and respond to consumer demand —a situation that itself could provide a ready market for imports.
  Manufacturers' spares and supplies systems have been adapted to the requirements of the BGC, while private sector retailers have been made to suffer delays in the supply of goods and spares and, in some cases, have been denied access to certain models.
  The whole far-too-cosy relationship between the BGC and the manufacturers has disadvantaged private retailers, driven some of them out of the field altogether, discouraged new entrants, and certainly harmed the

  1043
  consumer interest. Very importantly, numerous complaints were received by the commission from independent retailers that deliveries from certain British manufacturers were unreliable, because the BGC had the first call on appliances.
  Moreover, the independent sector, although buying appliances at prices substantially higher than the BGC, was already selling those appliances at prices below —sometimes substantially below —the selling prices in the BGC's showrooms. While in some cases aggressive tactics were employed locally in some regions, in one case a retailer reported to the commission that local showroom staff attempted to undermine public confidence in the private sector retailer, as does the BGC propaganda, and as did the right hon. Gentleman in today's debate.
  Finally, the report says:
  "The consumer has suffered from the fact that the Corporation has become in practical terms the sole decision taker. Even if all its decisions have been prudent and public spirited (we have no reason to doubt that over the entire field of its activities the majority have been both) they are no adequate substitute for the choice provided in a competitive situation."
  That is a massive indictment of the status quo, which no Government could ignore.
  Mr. John Smith: Does not the right hon. Lady agree that she is a great tiger against the public sector monopolies but is very quiet about private sector monopolies, some of which are mentioned in the report? More important, where does she see the restriction on consumer choice, when in the average gas showroom up to 30 cookers are available, while one is lucky to see 10 in private sector showrooms? On that basis, surely the BGC is giving a very wide consumer choice.
  Mrs. Oppenheim: I hope that I am as much a tigress about private sector monopolies or anything that undermines competition as I am in the case of the public sector. The right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North asks why more appliances are available in the BGC showrooms than in private sector showrooms. It is because private sector showrooms do not have access, and they do not have access because of the agreement that the BGC forces on its suppliers. That is the answer to the right hon. Gentleman's question.
  I turn now to some of the points raised by the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon, and to other points that appear in the motion that may lead to misunderstanding and groundless fears. The right hon. Gentleman, with noticeable "Rooke-ability" —in terms of the gas showrooms' own advertising slogan —referred a number of times not only to the possible consequences of the various options outlined in the MMC report, which contained two alternatives, but, by inference to those that might ensue following any disruption of change in the retail supply, installation and maintenance of gas appliances, arising out of any of the options or whatever course of action was chosen by the Government.
  I remind the House that as yet no decision has been taken by the Government, but, whatever decision the Government take, it is only fair to those already operating in the private sector, who, by implication, have been impugned by such remarks as those of the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon and by the BGC's campaign, to set out some of the facts, while in no way anticipating the Government's final decision.
  1044
  First and foremost is safety. Obviously, it is understandable that there should be fears on this score. The Government fully appreciate and accept the importance of this aspect of any solution that they reach, but it is important, too, to dispel any unwarranted fears aroused by the right hon. Gentleman's remarks among consumers already purchasing appliances, or about to purchase appliances, from private sector retailers, and at the same time to set the record straight about the status quo in terms of the sales and service of the British Gas Corporation itself.
  The implication made by the right hon. Gentleman is that the installation and maintenance of gas appliances by anybody other than the BGC is necessarily less safe and less reliable. I remind the House that there are 9,000 Corgi-approved member firms in the private sector. The BGC itself sub-contracts, particularly in the case of central heating installations. It sub-contracts, so far as it knows, to Corgi-approved installers, but it does not know to which firms those Corgi approved installers will sub-contract. Does the right hon. Gentleman object to that?
  In an emergency such as a gas leak in the night, does the consumer rush down to the local showroom and beat on the door? He cannot even get his local showroom on the telephone. Of course, he does not. He picks up the telephone and rings the gas board emergency service, not the showroom.
  During the period of conversion to North Sea gas, which many right hon. and hon. Members will remember, did the BGC, which sub-contracted widely on that occasion, find it necessary to express its public concern about the firms to which they were sub-contracting? Of course it did not, although the potential dangers of that conversion in the minds of many people was far greater than with the installation of a mere gas appliance. The BGC did not find it necessary to wage a campaign against sub-contractors on that occasion.
  Mr. John Smith rose—
  Mrs. Oppenheim: I must make one point clear because it is very important, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree. By no means do the Government say that safety is unimportant. On the contrary, It is very important. But even without the present publicity campaign —which, as I have told the House, I regret and deplore —safety would rightly be a matter of public and essential concern in any decision that the Government reached.
  Anyone could be forgiven, listening to the right hon. Gentleman and reading the BGC's advertisements and propaganda, that the BGC's services were above criticism. But the National Gas Consumers Council receives over 30,000 complaints a year about the corporation. Fifteen thousand of those complaints are about its sales and service. Possibly as many complaints again are received by the citizens advice bureaux on the same subject, so the corporation's standards are themselves hardly beyond criticism.
  Mr. John Smith: What about the Consumers Association?
  Mrs. Oppenheim: I regret to say that it has been brainwashed by a highly misleading document. The association must look to its own complaints and the evidence that I am now presenting before it makes its final

  1045
  decision. It is easy to instill fears in people. It is the easiest thing in the world to stir up fears, particularly in an unwarranted campaign. Anybody could be forgiven for being made fearful by such a campaign.
  Let us look at the reality behind the campaign. I am informed that gas appliance installation technology is comparatively low technology. On the "Today" programme this morning we heard a prominent retailer say that the after-sales service of gas appliances was much simpler than that of electric appliances. Nobody simply delivers an electric cooker and pushes a plug in. That is quite a different matter. It must have special installation. I am not making value judgments about one type of appliance or the other, but the technology of installation of electric household appliances is much higher than that for gas appliances.
  Those selling gas appliances in the private sector have found, as has the corporation, that they can easily adapt the skills of their electrical engineers to those of the relatively low technology in installation. We are discussing not the fundamental installation of the gas supply but merely the connection of appliances to it, which is very different.
  I turn to a number of the fears expressed about availability and continuity of the supply of gas appliances to consumers if any changes are made in the present structure. It is already clear that under the present system in certain areas choice in the range of appliances available is far too limited —very limited indeed when compared with similar electrical appliances.
  Mr. John Smith indicated dissent.
  Mrs. Oppenheim: The right hon. Gentleman has only to see, in any department store, the size, range, and flexibility of the electric cookers on offer in the market compared with gas cookers. Perhaps he has not been to such stores.
  Mr. Smith rose
  Mrs. Oppenheim: I shall not give way again. It is not fair to other hon. Members who want to take part in the debate.
  More emphasis on the private sector avenue for retailing these appliances would inevitably lead, as a result of response to demand, to wider choice and more availability, and that is what consumers want.
  In any change, whichever option is finally decided upon by the Government, there will have to be a transition period. That is what appliance manufacturers fear, and those fears must be taken fully into account by the Government in deciding upon any option. However, the fundamental fact remains that if consumers want to buy gas appliances, retailers will sell them. The reality is that market demand will dictate, as it should, what retailers sell.
  There is a considerable hard core of consumer loyalty to gas cooking. For example, many consumers want only to cook on gas appliances, despite the fact that those appliances are more limited than electrical appliances. Retailers would surely respond to that demand. Under the present regime they are prevented from doing so as fully as many would like. Indeed, if the status quo were allowed to continue without any change they would turn increasingly to imports, frustrated as they are today by some British manufacturers because of the manufacturers' relationship with the corporation.
  1046
  I have already dealt with the points that have been made about consumer access to advice. I must now turn to the consequences that would follow the adoption of any of the options that I have outlined —either those put forward by the commission or any of the alternatives that the Government are considering. I fully appreciate the concern about employment. However, under any of those options the corporation would retain its fundamental role in the installation and maintenance of the primary gas supply. Clerical and administrative staff dealing with billing, inquiries and advice would not be affected.
  Here, I should like to pay tribute to the staff in the gas showrooms throughout the country. [HoN. MEMBERS: "Oh."] The right hon. Gentleman did not pay tribute to them. Many of them give excellent service. Much of their work in providing consumer advice and bill-paying facilities is essential, whatever the future shape of the gas appliance market. [Interruption.] I hope that instead of making those primeval noises hon. Members will join me in recognising that work.
  At the end of the day the Government have to take a very difficult decision. Their objective and their first responsibility must be to respond to and remedy the adverse findings in the commission's report in a way consistent with the need to give consumers wider choice, better service, safety, availability and convenience, and at the same time to minimise as far as possible any adverse effects of any changes on our own manufacturing industry and on the employees of the British Gas Corporation.
  The Government are ready to honour their responsibilities and obligations in this respect. It would be nice, but no doubt unrealistic, to think that the Opposition would join us in a constructive and responsible approach and support the Government's amendment and thus the British consumer in the Lobby tonight.
  4.57 pm
  Mr. David Ennals: We have listened to a very disappointing and prejudiced ministerial speech. It was disappointing in that, although the report was presented nearly 12 months ago, the Government have not been able to reach their conclusion —even the sensible one of rejecting the "radical" proposal that is the principal proposal before us. As for prejudice, what the Minister said suggests to me that, although she made no announcement, she has made up her mind what the Government will do.
  The right hon. Lady went through all the criticisms of the British Gas Corporation and none of the tributes to it. She then accused it of defending itself, it having been attacked. Is it not human nature, and is it not natural, for a body, whether a public or a private corporation, to defend itself if it is attacked? I believe that it was right for the corporation to defend itself and to tell the public what would be some of the consequences of the radical proposal if it were implemented. I believe that if it were, it would be a disaster for the gas supply industry.
  The right hon. Lady and other Conservative Members referred to the countless criticisms that hon. Members receive. I do not receive such criticisms of the services provided by the corporation. The criticisms that I receive in countless numbers are of the prices —and those result from the decisions taken by the Government. They cannot be laid at the corporation's door.
  The Government would be well advised not to allow their passionate commitment to private enterprise at all

  1047
  costs to sway their judgment. Their judgment must be based upon the public interest. They should reject the radical proposal. It would be an act of political madness were they to go down that route.
  We are considering today not the profits in the manufacturing industry —large profits are made by the private sector so I do not know what the complaints are about —but the radical proposal. We must begin by recognising what the Monopolies and Mergers Commission has to say about the present service.
  I listened to the Minister going through the litany of criticism. I wish to quote from page 103 of the report:
  "It must be acknowledged that the present practices of the Corporation have provided the public with a nationwide retail and advice service which the public has found of high value and which has concerned itself, to the great advantage of all, with ensuring that the supply of gas is safe."
  Mr. Douglas Hogg: Go on.
  Mr. Ennals: I was—
  Mr. Hogg rose—
  Mr. Ennals: I shall not give way. If the hon. Gentleman wishes me to read on, I shall do so. The report continues:
  "Nevertheless we discern in particular two overriding defects in the present situation. Of these the first is that the public is losing the benefits of competition"
  that is nonsense. It continues:
  "and thereby that we cannot know whether or not the Corporation's retailing system is indeed cost-effective or whether it provides a range of appliances meeting consumer demand at the cheapest price. The second is that the present retailing system threatens the longer-term efficiency and viability of the appliance industry."
  Those are two speculations with no evidence to justify them—[Interruption.]
  Mr. Tim Eggar rose—
  Mr. Ennals: I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is always making sedentary interruptions. We must concentrate on the proposals before us.
  With regard to the second alternative considered by the commission —it was only given two —the British Gas Corporation said it was prepared to consider some change in the acounting system. However, in this debate we are simply dealing with the radical alternative.
  The commission has not only paid tribute to the corporation for its services, but has shown some of the grave damage that could result from the radical proposal. It did not reach the conclusion that the radical proposal should be carried through, but played into the hands of the political prejudices of the Conservative Party by saying that it was a political judgment. Its report states on page 105:
  "We are, at the same time, very much aware of the problems that would be created by such radical change of policy as the cessation of the Corporation's retailing."
  It continues:
  "Almost certainly (unless other showroom businesses were substantially increased) there would be some loss of employment. A number of other jobs might also change and some be lost."
  The corporation believes that up to 40,000 people could be put out of work. The unions put the figure at between 30,000 and 35,000. Why do not the Government
  1048
  automatically reject a proposal that could add another 30,000 to 35,000 to the already monstrously long list of unemployed? I find that amazing.
  The commission saw other difficulties. It said:
  "the discontinuance of retailing might lead to the closing of some showrooms."
  It would lead to the closure of many showrooms. The report added:
  "and thereby the lessening of their functions as centres for advice on energy saving. If so, this would be a loss to the public. It is also likely that showrooms with only a modest turnover might be closed, but that the towns where they were located might not have enough trade to offer to attract alternative retailers of substance with large stocks. Hence, such towns would lose by the closing of their local gas showroom both its advice centre functions and the wide range of stock it held, without any evident offsetting benefit."
  The Minister did not mention energy. Perhaps she did not think it important. The report went on:
  "Finally, independent retailers are unlikely to commit substantial resources and goodwill, and particularly the necessary investment in specialised staff training to a market the future of which is uncertain, at least in the medium term."
  Mr. Douglas Hogg rose—
  Mr. Ennals: I shall not give way.
  Mr. Hogg: Give way.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine): Order. The right hon. Gentleman is not giving way.
  Mr. Ennals: This is a short debate and I do not wish to take much longer because many of my hon. Friends wish to speak. The radical proposal would be a demolition job on a fine public service. The Government today should have rejected that radical proposal. We could then have considered a number of other serious proposals contained in the report. I do not believe that the radical proposal would help the private sector. The Government think that if we close down or squeeze the public sector all of a sudden there would be a great burgeoning of the private sector. That does not appear to be the case. I do not believe that that would happen.
  If the British Gas Corporation was no longer involved, the range of appliances that manufacturers produce and that retailers display, stock and sell would shrink. Manufacturers' costs would increase, sales would fall because of reduced promotion, advertising and the nature of independent retailing. Gas would compete with electricity at point of sale, and the problems of installation, ventilation and flueing that are unique to gas would place gas appliances at a disadvantage.
  I do not believe for one moment, from anything that has been said either in the report or by the Minister in her speech, that it would be in the interests of the public to carry through the proposal. The task of the House is to be concerned with the interests of the public. The interests of 14 million showroom customers would not be better served by the wholesale closure of gas showrooms and the forcible withdrawal of British Gas from appliance retailing.
  I said that I regretted the fact that the Minister was not prepared to make a statement today. Thank heavens the Opposition decided to hold the debate so that our concerns could be properly aired, not only to the House, but to the public at large. I hope that the Government will listen to what is said before they reach their final conclusions.
  5.8 pm
  Mr. John Hannam: I shall speak briefly in this important debate on the future of the gas showrooms and on the importance of the report that has been presented to the House. I disagree with the remarks of the right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith), who described the report as superficial. Much work went into producing the evidence.
  I support the Government's amendment to the Opposition motion, which, as usual, represents a blind determination to maintain the statue quo regardless of the circumstances. Nationalised industries continue to fail to realise the effects of the recession. They show a certain inflexibility. Their objective response to any report is to put their arms around themselves to protect themselves from any sensible streamlining or improvement. We must consider the report in a cool and calculated manner. My right hon. Friend the Minister did that in her opening speech.
  Whether it is by British Telecom responding to the competition of the market by producing newer models and better service, or by British Rail responding to the challenge of lower fare coach services, it is that sort of competition that begins to produce real benefits for the consumer. That is the objective of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's report. We are considering a valuable report and endeavouring to ascertain the methods by which we can make improvements for the consumer.
  The commission found that monopolies exist and that they are against the national interest. It found that they have resulted in lack of investment, poor research and development and a failure to provide exports. It is the same old story, and most consumers recognise the symptoms. As we are dealing with a State monopoly, the Government and Parliament have to find the solution. That is not the responsibility of the market outside the House.
  We begin by taking account of the views expressed throughout the country by consumers, consumer organisations, representatives of the industry and representatives of the British Gas Corporation. That is the method by which we as Members of Parliament approach this sort of debate. Following that, we try to come to some conclusions based on a natural desire, as expressed by my right hon. Friend, to protect the safety of and service to the gas consumer, while overcoming the monopoly deficiencies that we now know exist.
  There are about 900 showrooms offering sales of cookers and appliances, accounts departments and service and installation advice facilities. I do not believe that a change in the accounts system would have an adverse effect on gas consumers. There will always be a gas corporation presence in the high street and there will always be corporation offices. They will always exist, given the nature and size of the industry.
  Mr. Stephen Ross: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that about 100 showrooms have already shut in many towns, especially in my constituency? If the sales and retailing sector is removed, there will be many more closures.
  Mr. Hannam: I am describing the accounts side of the business, and not necessarily the closure of all the retail outlets. If the showroom-retail part of the business were taken away, or if the accounts side of the business were taken away from the showroom, facilities would still be
  1050
  provided through the Post Office for the paying of accounts. We all know that. How many hon. Members in the Chamber go to their local gas showroom to pay their gas account? I should be interested to know how many use the showroom for that purpose. The argument that we must maintain highly expensive central high street showrooms for the payment of accounts does not hold water. Facilities for paying accounts will be provided in other directions.
  Do we need the showrooms to effect the sale of appliances? The report tells us that one in four gas showrooms had a turnover in 1978 of less than £25,000. That is about two cookers a week on average. Therefore, I do not consider that a large range of expensive showrooms is necessary for retail sales.
  We begin to move into an area of argument and concern when we come to consider a careful approach to servicing, safety and emergency services. My right hon. Friend stressed her awareness, and that of the Government, of these factors. At present, a large range of spares and equipment is stocked by British Gas. A full, if somewhat uneconomic, servicing and back-up service is provided.
  The right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North implied that lower safety standards are observed and provided by private sector installers. I refer him to paragraph 13.72 of the report, which states:
  "However, the purpose of CORGI is to maintain satisfactory levels of competence among installers, and there is no evidence that gas central heating installations are less safe because they are normally installed by private sector firms".
  The right hon. Gentleman implied that there was a general acceptance and assumption on the part of the members of the commission that a lower standard of safety was inherent in private sector installations. Having heard the representations made by the National Gas Consumers Council and its chairman, Sheila Black, I am prepared to accept that the Government must approach carefully any change in the gas retailing system. A great deal of adjustment will be necessary on the part of consumers, manufacturers, retailers and installers if we are to avoid serious disruption in a vital energy supply system.
  Mr. John Smith: I think that the hon. Gentleman has read the representations made by the British Gas Corporation. It observed that in 1979 there were five explosions in domestic premises due to faulty workmanship arising from British Gas installations, and 146 from other installers. Of a total of 151 explosions, only five were attributable to the corporation. As the corporation is responsible for the vast bulk of installations, is it not clear that it has a much better safety record than has any other organisation?
  Mr. Hannam: That is evidence presented by the corporation. I should wish to consider it carefully. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the Confederation for the Registration of Gas Installers represents a protective mechanism, which should be strengthened to deal with what might be an expansion of installations by the private sector. It would be ludicrous to pretend that one monopoly organisation has a better standard of service and technology than that provided by all the expertise that is available throughout the industry. That argument does not apply. It is not the only expert system that exists. I do not accept evidence that is presented by the one organisation that is in a defensive position. I believe that we can require and effect the necessary safety requirements and precautions through the mechanism of the 1972 regulations.

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  When representatives of the National Gas Consumers Council came to the House, they said that we must ensure that we have strong safety requirements that are backed by law. The main thrust of their representations was essentially that fair competition should be established initially through separate accounting systems. Even the guardian of the monopolistic gas corporation, the chairman, has accepted that as the first requirement as laid down by the report of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. The representatives of the NGCC require stronger safety requirements, and that would be part of the changed system. They require fair competition, including the opportunity for British Gas to compete with the private sector, with discounts being based on the quantity of goods supplied.
  The council went on to suggest that the Confederation for the Registration of Gas Installers should become an independent self-financing federation that is able to enforce standards of safety for installations. It suggested that the 1972 gas safety regulations should be reviewed by the Government to strengthen gas safety in the home. This might include mandatory inspection of gas installations. That would be a sensible and feasible step to take, regardless of any dramatic or radical changes in the system of gas appliance retailing.
  The number of accidents occurring inside homes where the corporation does not have statutory rights underlines the need to strengthen the provisions that allow for interior inspections. In the South-West there are about 71 showrooms, and without doubt some of them are larger and more grandiose than they need be. The number of independent retail gas outlets increased from 19 in January 1980 to 140 a year later, and is still increasing. There is a natural evolution towards provision in the retail sector. If we carry out the recommendations contained in the report, that will create the right balance between the two sectors.
  My conclusion is that the Government should make a decision in principle to separate the retailing and maintenance sections as distinct and accountable parts of British Gas. The monopoly of supply and purchase should be removed so that a more modem gas appliance section is encouraged and is available through all retail outlets.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. BruceGardyne), who is no longer in his place, referred to the chairman of the corporation as the king of the monopolists, or the No. 1 monopolist, in the United Kingdom. In his determination to remain not only a monopoly seller, but a monopoly buyer, both with the natural commodity of gas and with appliances, he will need to be given the extra title of king of the monopsonists as well. That is another definition.
  I do not blame the chairman for fighting the battle to keep his empire intact. It is inevitable that he would do so, but I do not think that he should be allowed to get away with a vast advertising campaign paid for out of the gas supply budget and not from the budget of the showrooms. In his lovely, cosy monopoly, that is the sort of thing that he is allowed to do.
  The Government should move carefully and progressively towards a more efficient and cost-effective retail operation, with a programme over a few years of an orderly changeover to a fully competitive market. I do not believe the scare stories of a massive loss of jobs. The gas
  1052
  appliance market is so vast, and is increasing so rapidly, that there is a guaranteed future for those genuinely engaged in servicing that market. That is certain.
  In the interests of the safety of supply and maintenance for the consumer, I support a phased changeover to private competition with immediate separation of accounts within the British Gas Corporation. The question of gas safety in the home should be reviewed as soon as possible. By her speech my right hon. Friend has shown that she takes a most responsible attitude to safety regulations. Therefore, I support the amendment.
  5.21 pm
  Mr. Terry Davis: Although the Minister has said that she has not yet made up her mind about the action to be taken by the Government, it was clear to those of us who listened to her speech, from her choice of language and from the emphasis in her speech, that she had already made up her mind about what she would do. She said that she wanted the Government to take action to reduce the market share of the British Gas Corporation in the sale and marketing of domestic gas appliances. It is worth repeating again and again that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission made no such recommendation.
  The commission's report puts forward two options. The first would change the activities of the British Gas Corporation so that the marketing of domestic gas appliances would be done through a separate profit centre. It would be possible for people to see whether the profits from the sale and supply of gas were subsidising the sale and marketing of domesic gas appliances. There is a strong case for changes in the accounting procedures of the British Gas Corporation. But when I listened to the Minister, it was clear to me that she favoured the second option, described as the extreme option, which would insist that the British Gas Corporation withdrew from the supply of domestic gas appliances.
  The right hon. Lady painted a picture of the manufacturers of domestic gas appliances being dominated by the British Gas Corporation. I have had discussions with representatives of Parkinson Cowan, part of the Thorn group, which is in my constituency. I have a different view of its behaviour. It does not seem to me like a group of little boys bullied and dominated by the British Gas Corporation. Those people seem capable of standing up for themselves in negotiating with the British Gas Corporation. The company's profit record suggests that it negotiates successfully with British Gas Corporation. It cannot be denied by the Government that manufacturers of domestic gas appliances are opposed to the extreme option which the Minister favours. They do not want the right hon. Lady's protection against the British Gas Corporation. They do not want to be dictated to and told whom they shall supply and what prices they should charge. They are willing to negotiate and sell to the British Gas Corporation and to independent retailers. The picture painted by the right hon. Lady is not fair, in my experience.
  It is understandable that most of the speeches have concentrated on the effect the extreme option on the British Gas Corporation, the people who are employed by it, and the interests of consumers. Another group of people is also affected by the debate —those people employed by the manufacturers of domestic gas appliances. As I have

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  already said, one of the largest of those manufacturers —Parkinson Cowan —is in my constituency.
  What disturbs me about the Government's favour for the extreme option is that I believe it may lead to increased imports. In other industries, the increase in imports has taken place as a result of a distribution network being available for importers. I make no bones about my position. I advocate a policy of import controls. With our membership of the Common Market it is difficult to prevent imports, but the British Gas Corporation is an effective invisible barrier against imports of cookers and space heaters.
  One part of the market of domestic gas appliances has not had this protection. That is the market for water heaters. Between 1973 and 1979 we have seen an increase in the import share of the market for water heaters from 10 per cent. to more than 40 per cent.
  Mr. Robert C. Brown: That is a monopoly.
  Mr. Davis: I would not describe it as a monopoly. The report does, but it also says that it is not against the interests of the consumer.
  I am concerned about the tremendous increase in the volume of imports in the market to which I have referred. A French company called Chaffoteaux has increased its share from 10 per cent. to 40 per cent. Commensurate with that increase, we have seen a wave of redundancies at British factories making water heaters. One of the firms which was dominant in that market was Ascot. It has now declared massive redundancies at its factories here.
  If the Government insist on a dogmatic approach to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's report and on bulldozing through the extreme option, we shall also see rising imports of free-standing cookers and space heaters.
  Fifteen years ago, imports of motor cars stood at a negligible figure. The real increase in imports of foreign cars began when the number of franchised outlets was reduced by the motor manufacturing industry. The fashion, which was begun by Ford, was adopted by the three other companies. The retail outlets were available and the importers took advantage of those outlets.
  At present, the independent retailers have such a small share of the market for space heaters and gas cookers that it is difficult for importers to obtain a share of the sales of those appliances. However, if the Government insist on boosting the share of independent retailers, there is nothing to stop the independent retailer turning to a foreign supplier for domestic gas appliances. That is my concern. That is what I fear will happen as a result of the right hon. Lady's policy.
  The hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) said that the gas appliance market was increasing. I believe that he may be out of date. My understanding is that the market for domestic gas appliances is not increasing in 1981. On the contrary, the British manufacturers of domestic gas appliances face a difficult situation. The depression has reduced the size of the market. The threat of redundancy is hanging over us. That threat could become a reality if the policies pursued by the Government are carried through and especially if they adopt the extreme option.
  5.28 pm
  Mr. Stephen Dorrell: The most depressing aspect of the speeches of Opposition members
  1054
  so far is the unwillingness of all three speakers —though to a lesser extent by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Davis) —to answer the questions and to confront the problems that are set out in the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's report. A ritual response is trotted out by the Labour Party whenever anyone chooses to criticise a nationalised industry. That response is the more depressing because the report was initiated when the Labour Party was in power. It has set out a series of problems that confront all of us as politicians, regardless of which party we happen to belong to.
  I could stomach the Labour Party's opposition to the recommendations if it gave a rational analysis of its disagreement and proposed alternatives, but I find its refusal to face the problems that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission has isolated difficult to stomach.
  The Labour Government allowed the inquiry to go ahead,
  and we are entitled to ask what Labour Members would like to see happen in response to the commission's conclusions.
  It is not a problem about who owns what in the industry.
  The problem is that the industry is not producing the results that we are entitled to expect. We should ask how we can reorganise the gas appliance industry for the benefit of those who work in it and for the consumers.
  I have read several Monopolies and Mergers Commission reports, but I do not remember any other that slates the total picture in an industry as hard as this report slates the gas appliance industry. I should like to read one or two extracts from the report that put the commission's concerns firmly on the record.
  In dealing with the manufacturers of gas appliances, the report says:
  "13·20 In the case of most of the companies the buildings, plant and machinery devoted to the manufacture of reference goods are relatively old …
  "13·21 …British manufacturers do not appear to have made sufficient effort to surmount these obstacles …
  13·22 …It is our impression that the manufacturers …have come to rely too greatly on the Corporation for research and development, basic design, market research and marketing …
  13·23…This has not stifled all innovation …but we are in no doubt that it has deterred manufacturers' own research and development …
  13·29 …The manufacturers have for most of the time, been reluctant to do anything that would disturb their easy relationship with the Corporation."
  Together, those remarks add up to considerable criticism of the status quo in the gas appliance supply industry. They add up to a picture of an industry that has failed to have any impact in any export market. Almost all its production is devoted to the supply of goods within the domestic market, 90 per cent. of which is controlled by the BGC. Because of that control, orders are apportioned by the BGC on the basis of what is bureaucratically comfortable, without the industry facing the hard facts of its failure over the years to be internationally competitive, of which there is ample evidence in the report.
  There cannot be a clearer indication of the industry's failure to be internationally competitive than the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Stechford, who said that if the market were opened up it would be a sitting duck for imports. If we cannot compete in export markets, of course the domestic market is in danger of import penetration. That is a clear criticism of the status quo.
  Mr. John Smith: It is true that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission made a number of assertions, but the evidence on which they are based is not very convincing.

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  What has stopped our gas appliance manufacturers exporting to markets such as France, where there are different cooking habits and types of cookers? That has nothing to do with the BGC. Should not the hon. Gentleman criticise the manufacturers for not making the effort?
  Mr. Dorrell: I said at the outset that I was not concerned to argue about ownership. I am criticising the picture within the industry. A series of options are open to stimulate a more internationally competitive domestic gas appliance industry. The failure of the industry to exploit any export market—
  Mr. John Smith: Whose fault is that?
  Mr. Dorrell: It is partly the industry's and partly the result of a cosy relationship that has been built up over a long period between appliance manufacturers and the BGC.
  We were told earlier that appliance manufacturers were opposed to the change. For example, Thorn Gas Appliances Ltd. has written to hon. Members stating that it is opposed to the radical solution adopted by the commission. That surprises me not at all. If I were a monopolist with a cosy relationship with a corporation that controlled the major part of the market, I should want to do nothing less than to break up a relationship that had over the years given me a relatively easy living. The inevitable conclusion from the report is that over a period the industry has been allowed to become sleepy, with a secure home market and without any need to become internationally competitive. I find that unattractive.
  Retailers come out of the report only marginally better than do manufacturers. It states:
  "13.64 …Whilst it is impossible for an allocation of costs to be precisely accurate, in our judgment the allocations made in drawing up the appliances marketing account amount in effect to subsidies from the sale to gas account. Hence private retailers compete with the Corporation from a disadvantaged position…
  13.66 …the Corporation has been, in our view, perhaps too ready to see independent gas retailers not as allies but merely as 'discount houses and corner shops', with no longer-term commitment to the prosperity of the gas industry".
  There can be no clearer indication of the way that the corporation sees independent retailers than the use of the phrase, which comes from its own evidence, that independent retailers are seen simply as discount houses and corner shops. Those are perhaps the two most pejorative terms that the corporation could summon to describe the independent retail sector.
  There is prima facie evidence in the report that the BGC has abused its market dominance in the retail of gas appliances.
  Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: The epithets may be highly pejorative from the view point of a privileged monopoly, but they are extremely attractive from that of the customer.
  Mr. Dorrell: I entirely agree. Presumably, by "discount houses" the BGC means firms such as Trident, in the electricity appliance supply industry, and Comet, in the gas appliance supply industry, which offer a wider and more competitive service to the customer than was possible—
  Mr. John Smith: Absolute rubbish.
  Mr. Dorrell: The evidence is against the right hon. Gentleman. Over a short time those discount houses have built up a substantial trade. The consumers vote with their feet. The corner shop has a different section of the market, and many consumers prefer it to glossy showrooms in the town centre, which may sometimes be inaccessible.
  The evidence about the retailing of domestic appliances shows that the BGC is using accounting techniques to underprice and aggressively price, and particularly to insist on lower prices from suppliers, on uncommercial terms, which is unfair to the private sector retailer.
  The right hon. Gentleman is always asking for examples. I cite the example of a particularly damaging arrangement benefiting neither the consumer nor the gas appliance manufacturing industry. The "Superflame" scheme was extremely restrictive in the way in which the consumer and the manufacturer could take advantage of the technological advance which undoubtedly took place at that time.
  The British Gas Corporation argues that it is the only body committed to the long-term future of the gas industry. I can only say that many others would be grateful for the opportunity. The most objectionable thing about that comment is its failure to appreciate that independent retailers can be just as committed to the future of gas as the corporation and to see them as allies fighting with it to increase the market share of gas, rather than as competitors who must always be defeated.
  One of the Labour Party's most common themes is that the market economy must be subject to checks and balances, because without them it would impose unreasonable costs and social strains on individuals. The oldest example of checks and balances in market economies throughout the world, however, is the checks introduced in almost every Western country against monopolies. Anti-trust legislation in the United States dates from the beginning of the century. Since the war we have erected substantial and sophisticated checks on the abuse of monopolies to try to ensure that the consumer interest has an adequate say and that monopolies cannot abuse their position.
  I concede that some monopolies are inevitable. The supply of gas is one —[HoN. MEMBERS: "No."] Some of my hon. Friends disagree, but to me the supply of gas is a natural monopoly that makes sense. I do not concede, however, that the manufacture or the retailing of gas appliances is in any way an inevitable monopoly.
  In those circumstances, I believe that the Government are right to seek ways to break up a cosy market, which over a long period has become inefficient, and which has been allowed to remain inefficient, to the detriment both of people working in the manufacturing industry and of the consumer.
  5.43 pm
  Miss Betty Boothroyd: A good deal of prejudice seems to be emanating from the Conservative Benches this afternoon, but that is not unusual. Yesterday afternoon, the hon. Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) bounced up in his usual jolly way and asked the Prime Minister to confirm the Government's objective in reducing the operations of State enterprise. True to form, the Prime Minister did so, without any caveat as to whether the enterprise involved was efficient, profitable or providing a service for the community.

  1057
  Having tabled the motion and arranged this debate, we have a duty to warn the public about the Government's hard-line attitude because the outcome of the inquiry, depending upon whether the Government apply common sense or dogma, could have an adverse affect upon the vast majority of families in this country, either through job losses or through the reduction of services to consumers who at present enjoy such services through British Gas.
  I share the view of my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith) about the report. I find it a very shabbily argued document. It is certainly not short on contradictions. It is studded with admissions about the high standard of service to the public and the great advantages which flow from high safety standards. Those admissions, supported by a great deal of evidence, greatly weaken the force of many of its conclusions. Before seizing upon the conclusions, therefore, I hope that the Government will examine closely the responses received since the report was published from the various organisations interested and involved. These indicate the wide-ranging implications for manufacturing industry, employment prospects and the quality of service provided on a national basis to millions of people.
  I take first the manufacturing and employment implications. The demand for restructuring has not come from the trade unions, nor from the appliance manufacturers. In fact, the commission dismissed trade union evidence estimating that about 30,000 jobs would be lost. It did this without examining in depth the resulting job losses. It is a scandalous omission for the Monopolies and Mergers Commission not to have considered the impact of this proposal upon employment prospects.
  The manufacturers made it clear that any major rejigging of distribution outlets and closure of showrooms could result in chaos in the industry. I hope that the hon. Member for Enfield, North is listening, as he claimed a short time ago that that was not the case. They say, too, that it would encourage import penetration and could result in 50,000 job losses in the industry and British Gas combined.
  A few weeks ago, the president of the Society of British Gas Industries spoke on a public occasion in the presence of a very senior Cabinet Minister. He said:
  "Precipitate action based on political dogma, and without a real understanding of the particular circumstances relating to the retailing of domestic gas appliances, could lead to a total and catastrophic collapse of a profitable sector of the industry. Such a collapse could leave the way clear to the foreign importer, unencumbered by either safety or performance requirements, to come into the UK. It is this, and the resultant unemployment and the lowering of standards of installation and service to the consumer, which we are seeking to avoid."
  Few sectors of manufacturing industry today have not had cause to complain about the destructive effects of imports. In gas appliances, however, out of total sales of about 150 different models, only 17 are manufactured abroad. Here is a sector relatively untouched by foreign imports. Yet there is evidence from professional sources of the rush to reduce the authority of the distributive State sector, which would reduce the standard of service, and lead to import penetration, the collapse of the industry, and further job losses.
  There is always a first time for everything in life. I believe that this is the first time that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission has reported in a manner that would put firms out of business and further increase unemployment in this country.
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  I turn to the role of the independent retailer in selling and in providing a service to the consumer. The report seems to suggest that restructuring should take place in a relatively short period. We are grateful that the Minister for Consumer Affairs has put on record in the Official Report the fact that this will not now be five years. But, whatever the period of time, the Government should consider what has taken place in the last 30 years or so since the nationalisation of the energy-supplying industries.
  I take as an example electric cooking appliances. Today about 60 per cent. of all electric cookers are still purchased by customers through the area boards. In over 30 years the degree of penetration into the sales market by private retailers has been only about 1 per cent. each year. Although there is technology involved in the installation and after sales service, it is not a difficult problem, as is gas installation. But the rate of 1 per cent. per year penetration shows how slow the private sector has beer in seeking to penetrate that market.
  Taking that background into account, it would seem to be highly improbable that those same retailers will be capable of taking up, or will even have the initiative to take up, the market share of gas appliances in the foreseeable future. Today 90 per cent. of all gas cooking appliances are purchased through showrooms. In a period of over 30 years, the penetration into the market by the independent retailers has been even less than it has in the case of electric appliances. It has been minute in that period. Had the private sector seriously wished to enter the market, there would have been nothing to stop it. But for many reasons, some traditional, and because of a lack of expertise in dealing with the wide scope of appliances and the levels of safety demanded, there has never been any profound move in that direction.
  There is no history of appliances being sold in volume through independent retailers. I well remember as a girl at home that we bought our gas appliances not through a private outlet but from the gas showroom in the town. That was over 30 years ago. We bought our gas appliances from the people who supplied the gas. A sort of municipalisation applied, whether in town or city.
  There is another reason why the private sector has never taken up retailing to any extent. It cannot cope with the wide market and with the burden that would be placed on it in offering to the consumer the wide choice that is currently available in the high street from the gas showrooms. British Gas does not simply sell gas appliances. It advises on safety and on the efficient use of a very combustible material in the home. It is an integrated business, and if it is fragmented it cannot succeed.
  The Minister for Consumer Affairs seemed to try to give the House the impression that it was not only the Opposition who were out of step with her but that organisations outside this House were also out of step with her. She spoke about appliances not being available to the private retailer. In that respect she was wrong. They are available. The reasons why the 2,000 independent outlets do not accept all the appliances is that they have to do battle for scarce space in the showrooms with television sets, video recorders, and a whole paraphernalia of consumer goods. As a result, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North said, only one-third of the cookers available on the market are on display. They are competing for space and for expertise in the private sector.

  1059
  Therefore, the freedom of choice for the public —that freedom of choice that the Government talk so much about and are so desperately anxious to enhance —will be denied as showrooms close and as choice becomes restricted. It is far from clear how the vital high standards of advice on the use of combustible material and on installing equipment, together with the supporting service, will be maintained.
  If the cost has to fall on manufacturers, with each of them setting up a nation-wide facility, or even sharing a facility, it will in turn bear heavily upon the price of the product. It will have to be met in increased prices to the consumer. There will, indeed, be little choice for the consumer, because British Gas appliances will gradually be replaced in independent retailers' showrooms by electrical appliances. They are easier to sell and easier to install, and the after-sales service is easier to provide. The gas appliances will be squeezed out and their place will be taken by the products of electrical manufacturers.
  I do not have to select a source which is sympathetic to my own philosophy for support of the view that the independent trade would not be able to absorb the British Gas market share. My view is shared by the president of the Society of British Gas Industries, who says:
  "The bald fact is that there is no retail independent organisation capable of taking on the scope of the retail outlets and services of the BGC; such an organisation does not exist." That is what the president said a few weeks ago.
  If the Government will not listen to voices inside the House, perhaps they will not show such a commendable fortitude for prejudice and will listen to voices outside. My own union, the General and Municipal Workers Union, will lose thousands of jobs if this fundamental restructuring takes place. I hope that the Minister who replies to the debate will say whether he has seen the unions concerned or intends to see them before a decision is made. Equally, I hope that the Minister will say whether he has seen the manufacturers or intends to see them before a decision is made.
  Monopoly practice usually implies that prices higher than necessary are being charged. Whatever else the report is intended to achieve, it is not lower-priced gas appliances. The British Gas Corporation is not accused in the report of charging unnecessarily high prices. Paragraph 13.70 acknowledges that the break-up of the monopoly will not reduce prices to the consumer; in fact, the report is careful to make clear that the ban on sales at gas showrooms would not necessarily result in lower prices to the consumer. The report does not say what would be the price structure resulting from the break-up. But from the evidence available, and the responses to it, it is clear that costs would be bound to rise, because of the multitude of distribution points, the transport of goods to those points, the administration costs and, above all, the advisory service, the cost of installation and the after-sales service.
  For the Government to fly in the face of professional and expert evidence and to attempt to restructure the retailing of the appliances in a fundamental way is like saying to everybody involved in the industry —the manufacturers, the work force, those employed by British Gas, and the millions of consumers up and down the country —"We are going to do you a favour. We are going to give you a face-lift. But before we give you that facelift we are going to cut your throat." This draconian
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  measure is unacceptable to us, to organisations outside this House, to industry and to the trade unions. We shall do all that we can, in the best interests of the public, to oppose it.
  5.59 pm
  Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: The hon. Member for West Bromwich, West (Miss Boothroyd) always makes interesting speeches. I regret that I cannot pursue her arguments. She said that she was a member of the General Municipal Workers Union, which is the union relevant to the industry.
  Miss Boothroyd: I made it clear that I was a member of the General and Municipal Workers Union because I wanted it on the record.
  Mr. Skeet: I understand that if the Government pursue their policy of hiving off a segment of the industry the union will strike. That is wrong. Let us get to the crux of the problem. The British Gas Corporation is the largest producer of appliances for both wholesale and retail sale. It produces 93 per cent. of the total number of gas cookers, 88 per cent. of space heaters and 67 per cent. of water heaters. It also dominates the supply of such appliances through retail outlets. It is responsible for the supply of 97 per cent. of cookers, 92 per cent. of space heaters and 97 per cent. of instant water heaters. Opposition Members argue that if the monopoly is good for 93 per cent. of the market, the corporation should have a complete monopoly. They argue that, if safety is good for that 93 per cent. of the market, why should the BGC not have a complete monopoly? Why should we concede that? [Interruption.] The Opposition want the monopoly to be further aggrandised. That is why my right hon. Friend the Minister is right to suggest that we should partly dismantle the monopoly, or do something about it. There is a 100 per cent. State monopoly in the sale of piped gas. There is a monopoly in the supply of natural gas from the North Sea. We have learnt from the report that manufacturers tend to be subservient to the BGC. The unions are prepared to use their industrial muscle to enforce compliance with their ideas. However, that is not true only of those involved with the BGC. The Financial Times stated that the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation was also threatening strikes. There was a demand to keep off British Steel.
  In the United States of America competition reigns supreme. There, such matters would be referred, under the Clayton and Sherman Acts for anti-trust operations. In such circumstances, a divestment would be ordered. It would be demanded that over a period of years or months, part of BGC's monopoly should be transferred to those who are prepared to abide by recommendations of the covers. A similar operation should prevail in the United Kingdom.
  I pay tribute to the BGC for its high safety standards. There is no reason why other firms should not conform to the standards of the British Standards Institution. There is no reason why CORGI should not be restructured on an independent basis. In addition, there is no reason why retailing should not be encouraged over a three year period. It is worth citing the following observation:
  "Nevertheless we find it surprising that advertising should be charged entirely to the sale of gas account when appliances feature prominently in the advertisements, and also that only 25 per cent. of the costs of premises should be allocated to the appliance marketing account irrespective of the amount of space which appliances occupy in the showroom."

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  In order to thwart competitors, the BGC has ensured that they are squeezed. It has ensured that competition cannot grow up. We are trying to dismember the monopoly, to support the small man and his business, and to give him an opportunity. We are trying to prevent the BGC from manipulating its accounts in such a way as to provide funds from the sale of gas to other areas, which can then be utilised for this section of British Gas.
  Hon. Members should not think for one moment that the BGC depends on the sale of appliances for its profits. According to the British Gas Corporation consolidated accounts, the sale of gas accounts for 85 per cent. of turnover. Its subsidiary activities make little impact on the total. However, the BGC does not mind utilising their funds for such purposes. I am against that.
  It has been said that the relationship between the BGC and manufacturers has not been good, because manufacturers do not want to disturb the cosy situation. The report mentions subservience. Manufacturers have supported the BGC's monopoly and the idea that it should be the principal arbiter of the models to be offered to the public. The position is not good, and my right hon. Friend the Minister wishes to alter it. There could be no more damning indictment of a corporation than the small summary included on page 97 of the report. It states:
  "We are left in no doubt that these monopoly situations have largely contributed to the manufacturers' lack of investment, inadequate commitment to technical or market research and development and failure to promote exports. The manufacturers accepted a position of subservience to their chief customer."
  There could be no more damning indictment than that. Therefore, I hope that something will be done at an early date.
  We have not yet discussed what can be done. The Under-Secretary of State for Energy will have to introduce a direction under section 7 of the Gas Act 1972 or change the scope of the monopoly under section 2 of that Act. Under section 2(2)(h) there is a power
  "to manufacture gas fittings, to sell, hire or otherwise supply gas fittings, and to instal, repair, maintain or remove gas fittings."
  One option would be to strike out that provision. However, I believe that we should reduce this sphere of the BGC's monopoly to 20 to 30 per cent. of its present operations. That would allow the BGC to remain in the market. If the reduction were phased over several years, the provision would enable other competitors to evolve into the corporation's place.
  Private enterprise has the largest share —about 60 per cent. —of the ventral heating market. If private enterprise can extend into that sphere it can also extend into the others. Therefore, we could keep that provision, but we could ensure that the monopoly was reduced to 20 to 30 per cent. of its present operations. Another option is available. Section 7 of the Gas Act 1972 states that directions of a general character may be given to the corporation. Without prejudice, subsection (2) states:
  "the Secretary of State may, after consultation with the Corporation, direct the Corporation—
  (a) to discontinue any activity either wholly or to a specified extent, …to dispose of any part of their undertaking or of any assets held by them, or to call in any loan made by them".
  Under that subsection, perhaps a direction could be given fairly rapidly. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consult the Department of Energy and let us know when legislation is likely to be introduced. On that basis, we shall consider what further should be done.
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  To sum up, the crux of the case is a monopoly, which in part must be dismantled. Over the years we should ensure that private enterprise is allowed to grow by preventing the British Gas Corporation from manipulating its accounts, which the report has clearly shown has happened. The safety standards of the BGC have been commendable. We must ensure that those standards are maintained by ensuring that CORGI is maintained as an independent body and that the British Standards Institution's standards of safety are also secure over the entire industry.
  The Government are correct to do what they are doing. I am surprised at the Opposition's arguments. We now know who supports monopolies. We know that they will countenance any argument to maintain, in being and sacrosanct, a monopoly which should be dismantled as not in the national interest.
  6.10 pm
  Mr. R. C. Mitchell (Southampton, lichen): When the Minister was speaking I gained the impression that she did not like the British Gas Corporation very much, and that she did not like the chairman of the corporation, probably because he is an outspoken fellow. I wonder why. Perhaps it is because the BGC makes a profit. In the Conservative philosophy, any nationalised industry that makes a profit is suspect. The poor, publicly owned industries do not have a chance. If an industry makes a loss it is because it is inefficient. If it makes a profit it is because it indulges in unfair trading. In Conservative eyes, the public corporation cannot win.
  It does not necessarily follow that all monopolies are bad —some are, but not all. Nor does it follow that competition is always beneficial to the consumer. It may be in some circumstances, but in others it may not. There are many areas of competition —especially competition from subsidised industries overseas —that are not beneficial to the British consumer.
  The failing in the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's report is not that it has been critical of the British Gas Corporation. Many of those criticisms may be true. There may be much truth in the criticism of the arrangements that have been made with manufacturers. It may be true that the arrangements between the BGC and manufacturers mean that the gas appliance export market is not as thriving as it should be. However, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's report does not prove that the present operation has an adverse effect on the British consumer. As one of my hon. Friends said, there is no evidence in the report suggesting that if the corporation were forbidden to retail there would be a reduction in the price of gas appliances. Most of us suspect that it would be the other way round.
  There is no evidence in the report to the effect that if the corporation could no longer retail there would be a greater variety of product available. All the indications are that the variety of product will be decreased, for the reason mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for West Bromwich, West (Miss Boothroyd), namely, that most other retailers would not have room in their showrooms for all the competing products, the variety of goods and the choice that the gas showrooms have.
  The Minister mentioned conversion. When we converted to North Sea gas, I suspect that every hon. Member who was a Member at that time had masses of complaints —because the regional gas boards had to use

  1063
  outside labour, much of it consisting of cowboys, to carry out the mass job that had to be done. The cowboys were dismissed as quickly as possible when the gas boards discovered who and what they were, but that still resulted in complaint after complaint. The boards were not only using their own trained staff; they were forced by circumstances to use outside people. The hon. Lady should not mention conversion. The evidence from the report is that there will be a threat to safety.
  The second point concerns contact. As has been said, the showroom is not only a retail outlet. It combines a place for payment of bills, advice on safety and installation, and other matters. I understand that this year 60 million visits have been made to gas showrooms.
  One aspect that has not been mentioned is that one can purchase gas stamps from a showroom. The stamps enable customers to spread the cost of paying bills. Every hon. Member knows the number of people who have moved below the poverty line under this Government. They find great difficulty in paying their bills, be they gas or electricity. In parenthesis, I should add that gas prices now are higher than they need be, because of the Government's insistence and not because of the wish of the corporation. The Government compelled the gas corporation to increase prices more than necessary.
  If the gas showrooms, as outlets for gas stamps, disappear, individuals will find it more difficult to pay their bills. It is nonsense to say that if the retail outlets disappear the showrooms will remain. They will no longer be an economic proposition. The retailing aspect makes them an economic proposition. If anyone believes that the regional gas boards will be able to maintain the same number of outlets to enable people to pay their bills or receive advice, he is living in cloud-cuckoo-land.
  I must declare an interest, in that in my constituency I have the headquarters of the Southern Gas Board. It is interesting that on this subject I have had more letters than on any other issue except abortion. A good job has been done. All the staff of the showroom have written to me and to other hon. Members in the area. Their jobs were threatened, so I do not blame them. The Minister said that we must pay great tribute to those who work in gas showrooms. Is it not typical Conservative policy to pay tributes to employees one week and to sack them the next?
  If the Government persist and decide to go for the major option, as suggested by the commission, it will be a bad day for this country. The gas consumer will suffer in the long run.
  6.18 pm
  Mr. Tim Eggar: This has been an interesting debate, not least for the opening speech of the right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith). He is the same man who came rushing to the House on frequent occasions urging my right hon. Friend to refer the purchase of The Times to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. Indeed, we had to listen for days on end to his pleadings. Yet when he receives a Monopolies and Mergers Commission's report that he does not like, or that he finds politically inconvenient, he dismisses it as rubbish, ill-founded and badly thought out. I am sorry that he has not had the courtesy to remain seated on the Front Bench throughout the debate.
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  There is one clear conclusion from any objective reading of the report, namely, that the present position is unsatisfactory. That was the unanimous conclusion of the six members of the commission who put their names to the report. The report showed that the BGC's retailing monopoly was a text book case of a monopoly operating to the detriment not only of the consumers but of the producers. The only organisation that benefits from the monopoly is the British Gas Corporation. We may disagree about the remedy, but we should be honest and accept that fact.
  It is worth considering the BGC's response to the report. It has been "To the ramparts. Defend the empire whatever the cost, but be sure that taxpayers' money is used, along with any devious means and any cheap publicity or downright lies that help the case." I should like to hear from the Government how much the advertising campaign to persuade us to keep the showrooms has cost the BGC. The campaign is being financed by the money of taxpayers and gas consumers. It is disgraceful that a monopolist such as Sir Denis Rooke can use public money in that way.
  Miss Boothroyd: Sir Denis has to defend from the Government the corporation and the interests of those whom it serves.
  Mr. Eggar: I take the hon. Lady's point. A person in Sir Denis's position, with a marvellous monopoly, will do anything he can to defend it. I do not blame Sir Denis, but I object to the fact that he is using the money of taxpayers and gas consumers to pay for the campaign.
  Most of the BGC's venom has been directed against the radical solution proposed by the commission, but we must recognise that the BGC also opposes the less radical solution. I am sure that all hon. Members have received evidence from the corporation, which states:
  "The less radical option was complex and would be difficult to implement. Moreover, the main principles were already embodied in the Corporation's current practices and assurances that this will continue to be the case have been given to the Government".
  That is rubbish; it is not true. In 1971 the Department of Trade and Industry urged the corporation to separate the accounting practices of the retailing arm, but, because of lack of pressure from the Department under the then Conservative Government and the succeeding Labour Government, the BGC got away with avoiding the spirit of that direction.
  It is worth examining the corporation's reasons for objecting to the radical solution. The first is that standards of safety and servicing will drop. There is nothing in the commission's report that suggests that the BGC monopoly in servicing should be reduced. If the assertion that safety standards would suffer were true and there were convincing supporting evidence, it would be a matter of considerable concern. But we have to pay attention to the commission's report, which says that there is no evidence of a deterioration in safety standards in the private sector. The BGC's claim is not well founded.
  The corporation's next argument is that it would be a blow to British industry if the retailing monopoly were removed. But there has been no bigger blow to British industry than the practices followed by the BGC over the past 20 years. The commission used some trenchant language in its report:

  1065
  "we are left in no doubt that these monopoly situations have largely contributed to the manufacturers' lack of investment, inadequate commitment to technical or market research and development and failure to promote exports."
  That is a formidable indictment and it is extraordinary to hear the BGC talking about a blow to British industry.
  The BGC also claims that customers would lose their point of contact. What is the point of contact? First, it is the payment of bills, but accounts could be paid more easily through sub-post offices. The hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Mitchell) referred to the advantages of gas stamps, but it would be much more convenient if such stamps —I should prefer to call them energy stamps —were more readily available through the sub-post office network, which is much more widely spread than British Gas showrooms.
  We are also told that the showrooms act as a contact point in emergencies and for servicing. But showrooms are often not listed in phone books, because the corporation prefers inquires to be directed to the regional depots.
  We are told that showrooms are necessary because their staffs provide advice. That may be true, but there is no need for advice to be given on plush, high-cost, High Street sites. It could be done as easily in cheaper premises off the main streets.
  The BGC claims that customer choice would be curtailed if the more radical option were adopted. Of course private retailers offer less choice. They have to buy appliances at a higher cost than does the BGC and, in order to be competitive, they often have to sell at a lower price. Their mark-up is, therefore, much lower than that of the corporation and they cannot afford the same stocks and diversification, especially since British Gas, as the commission made clear, effectively fiddles the accounts of the showrooms to try to make them appear profitable. If the more radical solution were followed, we would soon find private retailers offering more choice.
  The last and, in many ways, most worrying assertion of the BGC is that up to 40,000 jobs would be lost if the Government adopted the more radical solution. It is understandable that many in the industry are worried about that claim, but the House should recognise that the BGC has waged a disgraceful and misleading campaign. It is extraordinary that the management should have rushed to the unions and used them in its campaign to retain the monopoly.
  Only about 3,500 of British Gas employees are actually employed in showrooms. Many of them would be employed by private retailers if the more radical solution was to be followed. Even if there was a diminution in servicing personnel those people would be able to find jobs, probably with little difficulty, in private service companies which always complain of a shortage of qualified gas fitters.
  The British Gas estimate is higher than that given by the TUC to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. The commission's comment on the TUC's evidence was that it appeared to have given an extremely high estimate. What should the Government do? There should be no attempt to replace a public monopoly by a private monopoly. I would not want to see the chain of British Gas showrooms sold off to one private sector purchaser. That would get us nowhere. I am delighted that the Monopolies and Mergers Commission takes the same view.
  Unlike some of my hon. Friends, I am sceptical of the less radical solution. The Department of Trade and
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  Industry originally intended in 1971 that there should be separate accounting principles and that there should be separate profit centres. That was never achieved. Ten years later, a report of Monopolies and Mergers Commission is needed to point out that it was never achieved. I do not believe that the less radical solution, given the attitude of the British Gas Corporation management and workers, would succeed, even over a relatively long period, say, a decade, in reducing the corporation's effective monopoly power and dealing with accountability.
  We have to go for the radical solution. I accept, however, the point made in the commissions's report that the radical solution would impose a considerable shock on manufacturers as they shifted from patterns to which they had grown accustomed. For that reason, I hope that the Government will adopt a two-stage approach. I hope first that they will implement immediately separate accounting principles and that a separate subsidiary will be set up, responsible for the showrooms under independent management, and, it is to be hoped, from outside the British Gas Corporation. That separate and newly formed company should be given clear instructions about the disposals in which it was to indulge over a five-year period with amounts to be realised through asset disposals in each year clearly stipulated. I believe that the total value of High Street assets is about £ ½ billion —not an inconsiderable amount.
  At the end of the transitional period of five years —I would not want it to be longer —the remaining assets of the British Gas showroom subsidiary should be sold off and privatised, leaving a separate, independent retailer specialising only in gas appliances with perhaps 20 to 25 per cent. of the gas retailing market. That would be a step very much in the right direction.
  I hope that the Government will act courageously in the matter. It would be only too easy for the Government to cop out and adopt the less radical solution. If that happened, we would face, in 10 years' time, exactly the problems we now face.
  Mr. Speaker: I understand that the Front Benches have agreed not to seek to wind up the debate until 6.50 pm. That will permit three five-minute speeches in the time still available.
  6.34 pm
  Mr. Norman Hogg: There has been much talk in this debate about the British Gas Corporation's management and chairman. I should like to make some remarks on behalf of the industry's work people. NALGO has 50,000 members in the gas industry. It is a major union in the industry. Its members would be in the front line if the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's most radical proposal were to be implemented. I was an officer of the union. I act now as its parliamentary consultant. I have long experience of public utilities. My view is that it is not in the interests of consumer safety and service to curtail the functions of the British Gas Corporation.
  The present integrated system of the British Gas Corporation works in the best interests of the consumer in relation to safety, service and prices. The corporation's safety record is outstanding in both national and international comparative terms. I have gone to the trouble of checking the figures for several West European countries.

  1067
  The service provided by the British Gas Corporation goes beyond the sale of appliances. It includes installation by trained installers and engineers, assessment of the appropriate appliance for different situations, advice on flue-ing and safety arrangements, maintenance and repair work and the provision of spare parts. Prices compare favourably with those for the range of appliances sold by any other gas appliance retailer as well as with the other competitive elements of electricity, oil and coal.
  The Monopolies and Mergers Commission was unable to prove that the British Gas Corporation had unfairly exploited its monopoly power. Paragraph 13·84 says:
  "It must be acknowledged that the present practices of the Corporation have provided the public with a nationwide retail and advice service which the public has found of high value and which has concerned itself, to the great advantage of all, with ensuring that the supply of gas is safe."
  The commission goes on, in the same paragraph, to justify its recommendations by reference to some unproven, unsubstantiated theory, and states:
  "Nevertheless we discern in particular two overriding defects in the present situation. Of these the first is that the public is losing the benefits of competition, and thereby that we cannot know whether or not the Corporation's retailing system is indeed cost-effective or whether it provides a range of appliances meeting consumer demand at the cheapest price. The second is that the present retailing system threatens the longer-term efficiency and viability of the appliance industry."
  This is nonsense. There is no proven economic theory that equates competition to consumer benefit per se.
  Similarly, in paragraph 13.70, the commission recognises that
  "It is not possible to judge with any degree of certainty what the level of prices payable by the consumer would have been had there not always been a monopoly in the hands of the sellers of gas."
  The remainder of the paragraph draws upon the art of assertion against the background of limited evidence to conclude that some magic element of competition would have benefited the consumer. Again, that is economic nonsense. One has to compare the real world situation, whereby the British Gas Corporation provides an integrated sales, installation and maintenance service, including the holding of about 2½million spare parts, with the situation of the private retailer who merely sells appliances and provides no installation or after-sales service.
  One must also consider the situation in terms of safety. Explosions related to faulty installations by private installers in this country have accounted for more than 90 per cent. of all explosions in recent years. The figures offered by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith) confirm what I say. Overall, it must be concluded that the only justification for interfering with the present structure of the British Gas Corporation is one of political and economic dogma, and not one of economic rationale.
  The people who will suffer from this dogma are the consumers, who will face higher prices, poorer service and less safe installations, and the 35,000 British Gas Corporation employees, who will be declared redundant as a result of this serious situation. The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet), who is no longer present, referred to the possibility of a strike in the gas industry. I say with some regret that the nation will face the loss of gas supply as a result of the industrial action which the gas unions will take to defend their employment.
  1068
  Last week I attended the annual conference of NALGO, when Mr. David Stirzaker, the national officer of NALGO for gas staffs, asked me to meet delegates of his union at the conference. They left me in no doubt about how worried they were about the future of the industry. They expressed deep concern for safety and service, and worry about their jobs. I am a training officer of some experience, and I was left in no doubt that serious industrial unrest would be created if Government accepted the most radical proposals before them.
  I hope that the House will support the motion.
  6.40 pm
  Mr. John Bruce-Gardyne: The House has heard a great deal about the report of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. I do not intend to go over that ground again, because it has been thoroughly covered by my hon. Friends and rather curiously covered by some right hon., and learned, Gentlemen on the Opposition Benches.
  I wonder what the right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith) would have done if the commission had delivered to him the report that he had commissioned. Presumably, he would have thrown it down a manhole. It provides a devastating indictment of the damage done by a monopoly supplier and the relationship that it has with the gas appliance industry. Of course, the gas appliance industry does not want the arrangements upset. The reason was demonstrated by the comments made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Davis). He described the devastating effect on the gas appliance manufacturers that would be caused by the Government if they were to act in the spirit of the clear conclusions of the report. Alas, under the umbrella of this cosy monopoly relationship with the gas boards, the corporation has shown itself to be increasingly debilitated and unable to compete in international markets. It might have problems in competing in the domestic market as well.
  The House should be concerned about the interests and rights of consumers. I find nothing surprising in the attitude of the gas unions. On the whole, those who work in the nationalised industries have been encouraged for many years to believe that those industries exist to serve them, and not the customer, and it is hardly surprising that they should take the attitude that they do.
  I find profoundly offensive the attitude of top management of the corporation. It passes my understanding why we have chosen to renew the mandate of Sir Denis Rooke for another five years. I do not know what came over us. His reputation as an entrenched and bigoted champion of monopoly privilege is unrivalled throughout the nationalised industries. At every stage he has resisted any attempt to introduce competition into his industry. He talks about the profits he makes. Anyone who is in a position, as a monopoly buyer, to fix the price of his product, and who fixes that price so low that for years it is rendered artificially unattractive to exploit the gas resources of the North Sea to the extent that might been expected, can make a thumping great profit. That is not proof of competence and efficiency; it is proof of the scale of monopoly privilege that this gentleman has been exploiting.
  Sir Denis Rooke has shown himself to be virulently resistant to any suggestion that the corporation should disembarrass itself of such fringe activities as oil exploitation in Dorset. The suggestion that the

  1069
  Government might be convinced by the arguments of the commission has thrown him into a paroxysm of rage and an indulgence in advertising and publicity techniques on his own behalf that I find profoundly offensive. Above all, I find utterly indefensible the way in which he has sought by scare tactics to suggest to consumers that we would all be at risk in our beds if the commission's conclusions were accepted. It is high time that the Government took a much firmer line with these over-mighty citizens who dominate the nationalised industries and seem to believe that monopoly is a privilege that they can exploit until kingdom come.
  6.45 pm
  Mr. Leslie Spriggs: We should do justice to the report of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission by saying than we are indebted to those who serve on it for the hard work that they have put in, although some of us do not agree with parts of the report.
  It just is not true to say, as did the Minister for Consumer Affairs, that gas appliances are not made available to private retail businesses. I wish to give my personal experience, which I hope the House will listen to carefully and accept as the truth.
  Some years ago I asked Ben Dale and Company, of Victoria Road, Thornton Cleveleys, to install in my house hot water appliances. That was done, but the equipment failed from time to time, and I had to get Ben Dale and his team back to the house. Unfortunately, I had settled the account when I was asked to do so, and that job was never completed.
  I was heavily biased against gas board employees coming into the house to do work, so for years I hung on, winter after winter, with no central heating, although I had paid for it. Eventually, I went to the gas board's offices in Cleveleys and asked that someone should come to see my system to find out whether the equipment provided by the board could be adapted to replace all the equipment in my house, with the exception of the water heater.
  The board sent in a team and gave me a price for the job, which I accepted. For the first time in 10 years we had central heating. There were teething troubles after the new equipment had been installed. The appliance failed on two or three counts, but, whereas I could not get Ben Dale or his team to look at the appliances that that company had supplied, the board's representatives came within eight to 10 hours every time I sent for them.
  We should be proud of the British Gas Corporation for the service that it gives to its customers. Whatever may be the Government's policy towards the commission's report, I appeal to the Minister to give an assurance that she and her Government will do nothing to impair contracts with the corporation for the maintenance and repair of appliances.
  6.49 pm
  Mr. John Smith: We have had a short and interesting debate. It has emerged that the Government have not yet reached a final conclusion, or at least one committed to the so-called extreme or radical option. I am glad about that. The battle has still to be fought. There is perhaps still some hope of persuading the Government to desist from such a foolish course of action. I hope that they will listen, not only to the speeches that have been made by Opposition Members, but to some of the hesitations that were expressed by Conservative Members about following such
  1070
  an extreme course. The hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) made his hesitations quite clear, although he did not write them out in capital letters.
  Two things have marred the debate. One was the contemptible attack by the right hon. Lady the Minister for Consumer Affairs on the British Gas Corporation for having the temerity to defend itself against the attacks made on it by the Government. It reminds me of the notice that appears in a Parisian zoo, which says "This animal is naughty. When one attacks it, it defends itself'. That is the Government's attitude to the BGC which, when faced with the amputation of a profitable part of its organisation, has the temerity to fight back, appeal to public opinion, and advertise the strength of its case. I might acid that, whenever the private sector mounts a case, the same people laud it with praise, as they do when shareholders' and customers' money is used to oppose public ownership, or anything of that nature. I think of the building industry campaign that took place before the last election.
  The second thing that marred the latter stages of our debate was the intemperate and foolish speech of the hon. Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne), who went out of his way to attack Sir Denis Rooke, the distinguished chairman of the BGC. When I think of the years of dedicated public service that Sir Denis Rooke has given to this country —I had occasion to work with him when I was at the Department of Energy —I am appalled that an ideological, idiotic foppet such as the hon. Gentleman, who has done little to serve the public, should attack such a distinguished and expert public servant.
  Sir Denis Rooke is probably one of the most successful managers in British industry today, whether in the public or the private sector. He serves the customers and his employees with rare dedication. It is an unfortunate aspect of public life that people like him have to put up with the sort of nonsense that the hon. Member for Knutsford gets paid far too well to write in the Sunday Telegraph and other Right-wing papers, and to which we have to listen in the House.
  It is clear from the speeches that have been made by the Government Front Bench that a deep, abiding animosity exists in the Conservative Party against successful public sector industry. That animosity is given an opportunity to assert itself by one of the options canvassed in the report, and I fear that the Government will be sorely tempted to follow some of their prejudiced ideological inclinations. I hope that they will desist from doing so.
  More than that, I hope that this timely debate, which has raised the issue and fully aired the arguments, will stimulate greater public interest in the matter. I hope, too, that the public will ask themselves whether they want the safety and service that has been provided in the past to be prejudiced because of one of the ideological spasms of the Conservative Party. Do they want to see gas showroom services dismantled? Do the people who work in the gas appliance industry want their jobs put at risk?
  The hon. Member for Knutsford does not seem to worry about imports, but the people who will lose their jobs, either in management or in the work force, do worry about them. There is no reason why there should not be an export market, if that is what is wanted, but simply to remove the BGC from the scene without knowing what will replace it, whether it be British or foreign, is folly. During the past two years, we have become used to seeing the

  1071
  Conservative Party show a bland indifference to the needs of industry and its disregard for the need to maintain a proper public sector.
  Consumer needs are important. It is interesting that the strongest case against the radical option comes from the Consumers Association and from the National Gas Consumers Council. Opposition to the extreme option comes from the National Gas Consumers Council. The right hon. Lady said that those bodies had been brainwashed by the Britsh Gas Corporation. Some of us are tempted to think that that fate is unlikely to befall her.
  It is clear that there is animus and prejudice in some sections of the Conservative Party. I hope that sanity will break through. I hope also that the force of public opinion will make itself felt. The more people know about what might be proposed, the more they will seek to resist it. I hope that they will make their views clear and contact their Members of Parliament about stopping the Government from taking this sad and dangerous course of action.
  6.56 pm
  Mrs. Sally Oppenheim: We have had an interesting and, above all, a revealing debate —revealing, because it has demonstrated that the Labour Party does not want to know when we talk about abuse of a dominant market position, about the restriction and distortion of competition, and about wider choice. It is clear that the Labour Party is against wider choice and against more competition. The blanket and biased attack on the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's report, which in this instance does not happen to suit Labour Members, was unworthy, to say the least. I exonerate the hon. Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) from that charge.
  Opposition Members were not slow to quote selectively from the report when it suited them. More of them were content to use wholesale chunks of the very literature that I criticized —the scare campaign and the advertising campaign, which —this is in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, North (Mr. Eggar) —cost the British consumer some £2 million.
  We had excellent and constructive speeches from my hon. Friends. I regret that I cannot reply to them in detail. As I said earlier, the MMC report is very serious, and no responsible Government could fail to act upon it. However, the Government are determined that whatever course of action is adopted there will be no lowering of standards in safety and installation and maintenance, and that the standards of consumer advice offered by the British Gas Corporation will be maintained.
  If the introduction of greater competition into the gas appliance market were to bring with it the need for new rules and standards on safety, it would be imperative to introduce such rules and standards to safeguard consumers. At the end of the day, the MMC report cannot and should not be ignored. As the leading article in the Financial Times said today, this matter has to be decided not in response to bullying from entrenched forces within the industry but in the public interest.
  That is the view that the Government take. In seeking a constructive, realistic, practical and effective remedy, the Government are pursuing the public interest, and I believe that they should be supported in the House tonight. I call upon the House and the Labour Party to support the
  1072
  Government's constructive, thoughtful and well-researched attitude —not precipitate decisions, not biased decisions, but careful and thoughtful attitudes —and the British consumer in the Lobby tonight.
  Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question: —
  The House divided: Ayes 228, Noes 283.

  Division No. 225]

  [6.57 pm

  AYES

  Abse, Leo

  Fitch, Alan

  Allaun, Frank

  Flannery, Martin

  Alton, David

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Anderson, Donald

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Ford, Ben

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Forrester, John

  Ashton, Joe

  Foster, Derek

  Bagier, Gordon A.T.

  Foulkes, George

  Barnett, Guy (Greenwich)

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

  Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (H'wd)

  Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

  Beith, A. J.

  Freud, Clement

  Bennett, Andrew(St'kp't N)

  Garrett, John (Norwich S)

  Bidwell, Sydney

  George, Bruce

  Booth, Rt Hon Albert

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Ginsburg, David

  Bottomley, Rt Hon A.(M'b'ro)

  Graham, Ted

  Bradley, Tom

  Grant, George (Morpeth)

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

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

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

  Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

  Brown, Ronald W. (H'ckn'y S)

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Buchan, Norman

  Haynes, Frank

  Callaghan, Rt Hon J.

  Healey, Rt Hon Denis

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

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Campbell, Ian

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

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

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

  Canavan, Dennis

  Home Robertson, John

  Cant, R. B.

  Hooley, Frank

  Carmichael, Neil

  Horam, John

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Howell, Rt Hon D.

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Howells, Geraint

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

  Huckfield, Les

  Cohen, Stanley

  Hughes, Mark (Durham)

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Conlan, Bernard

  Hughes, Roy (Newport)

  Cowans, Harry

  Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

  Craigen, J. M.

  John, Brynmor

  Crowther, J. S.

  Johnson, James (Hull West)

  Cryer, Bob

  Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rh'dda)

  Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

  Jones, Barry (East Flint)

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

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)

  Kerr, Russell

  Davies,Ifor (Gower)

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

  Kinnock, Neil

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

  Lambie, David

  Deakins, Eric

  Leighton, Ronald

  Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

  Lestor, Miss Joan

  Dempsey, James

  Lewis, Arthur (N'ham NW)

  Dewar, Donald

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Dixon, Donald

  Litherland, Robert

  Dobson, Frank

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Dormand, Jack

  Lyons, Edward (Bradf'd W)

  Douglas, Dick

  Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

  Douglas-Mann, Bruce

  McCartney, Hugh

  Dubs, Alfred

  McElhone, Frank

  Dunn, James A.

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Dunnett, Jack

  MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

  McNally, Thomas

  Eastham, Ken

  McNamara, Kevin

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

  McTaggart, Robert

  English, Michael

  Magee, Bryan

  Ennals, Rt Hon David

  Marks, Kenneth

  Evans, loan (Aberdare)

  Marshall, D(G'gow S'ton)

  Evans, John (Newton)

  Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

  Ewing, Harry

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Faulds, Andrew

  Martin, M(G'gow S'burn)

  Field, Frank

  Mason, Rt Hon Roy

  1073

  Maxton, John

  Skinner, Dennis

  Maynard, Miss Joan

  Smith, Cyril (Rochdale)

  Meacher, Michael

  Smith, Rt Hon J. (N Lanark)

  Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

  Snape, Peter

  Mikardo, Ian

  Soley, Clive

  Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

  Spearing, Nigel

  Mitchell, Austin (Grimsby)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Mitchell, R. C. (Soton Itchen)

  Stallard, A. W.

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Morris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)

  Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Stoddart, David

  Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

  Stott, Roger

  Newens, Stanley

  Strang, Gavin

  Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

  Straw, Jack

  O'Halloran, Michael

  Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

  O'Neill, Martin

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

  Park, George

  Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

  Parker, John

  Thomas, Dr R.(Carmarthen)

  Parry, Robert

  Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

  Pendry, Tom

  Tilley, John

  Penhaligon, David

  Torney, Tom

  Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

  Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

  Prescott, John

  Walker, Rt Hon H.(D'caster)

  Price, C. (Lewisham W)

  Watkins, David

  Race, Reg

  Weetch, Ken

  Radice, Giles

  Wellbeloved, James

  Rees, Rt Hon M (Leeds S)

  Welsh, Michael

  Richardson, Jo

  White, Frank R.

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  White, J. (G'gow Pollok)

  Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

  Whitehead, Phillip

  Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

  Whitlock, William

  Robertson, George

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

  Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

  Rodgers, Rt Hon William

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

  Rooker, J. W.

  Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

  Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

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

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Wilson, William (C'try SE)

  Rowlands, Tec

  Winnick, David

  Ryman, John

  Wolfson, Mark

  Sandelson, Neville

  Woodall, Alec

  Sheerman, Barry

  Wrigglesworth, Ian

  Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

  Wright, Sheila

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Young, David (Bolton E)

  Short, Mrs Renée

  Silkin, Rt Hon J. (Deptford)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

  Mr. George Morton and

  Silverman, Julius

  Mr. James Tinn.

  NOES

  Adley, Robert

  Brotherton, Michael

  Aitken, Jonathan

  Brown, Michael (Brigg & Sc'n)

  Alexander, Richard

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Bruce-Gardyne, John

  Arnold, Tom

  Bryan, Sir Paul

  Atkins, Rt Hon H.(S'thorne)

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  Atkins, Robert (Preston N)

  Budgen, Nick

  Baker, Kenneth (St.M'bone)

  Bulmer, Esmond

  Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

  Burden, Sir Frederick

  Banks, Robert

  Butcher, John

  Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Bendall, Vivian

  Cadbury, Jocelyn

  Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

  Carlisle, John (Luton West)

  Best, Keith

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Bevan, David Gilroy

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

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Channon, Rt. Hon. Paul

  Blackburn, John

  Chapman, Sydney

  Blaker, Peter

  Churchill, W. S.

  Body, Richard

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

  Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

  Bottomley, Peter (W'wich W)

  Clegg, Sir Walter

  Bowden, Andrew

  Cockeram, Eric

  Boyson, Dr Rhodes

  Colvin, Michael

  Braine, Sir Bernard

  Cope, John

  Bright, Graham

  Cormack, Patrick

  Brinton, Tim

  Corrie, John

  Brittan, Leon

  Costain, Sir Albert

  Brooke, Hon Peter

  Cranborne, Viscount

  1074

  Critchley, Julian

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Crouch, David

  Latham, Michael

  Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Lee, John

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

  Lester, Jim (Beeston)

  Dover, Denshore

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Dunlop, John

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

  Loveridge, John

  Dykes, Hugh

  McCrindle, Robert

  Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

  MacGregor, John

  Eggar, Tim

  MacKay, John (Argyll)

  Elliott, Sir William

  Macmillan, Rt Hon M.

  Emery, Peter

  McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

  Eyre, Reginald

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

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Fairgrieve, Russell

  Madel, David

  Faith, Mrs Sheila

  Major, John

  Farr, John

  Marland, Paul

  Fell, Anthony

  Marlow, Tony

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Fisher, Sir Nigel

  Mates, Michael

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

  Mather, Carol

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Mawby, Ray

  Forman, Nigel

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Fox, Marcus

  Mayhew, Patrick

  Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh

  Mellor, David

  Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Fry, Peter

  Miller, Hal (B'grove)

  Gardiner, George (Reigate)

  Mills, lain (Meriden)

  Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

  Mills, Peter (West Devon)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

  Goodhew, Victor

  Moate, Roger

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Monro, Hector

  Gow, Ian

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Moore, John

  Gray, Hamish

  Morris, M. (N'hampton S)

  Greenway, Harry

  Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

  Griffiths, E.(B'y St. Edm'ds)

  Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

  Mudd, David

  Grist, Ian

  Murphy, Christopher

  Grylls, Michael

  Myles, David

  Gummer, John Selwyn

  Neale, Gerrard

  Hamilton, Hon A.

  Needham, Richard

  Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

  Nelson, Anthony

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Neubert, Michael

  Hannam, John

  Newton, Tony

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Nott, Rt Hon John

  Hastings, Stephen

  Onslow, Cranley

  Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

  Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

  Hawksley, Warren

  Page, Rt Hon Sir G. (Crosby)

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Page, Richard (SW Herts)

  Heath, Rt Hon Edward

  Parris, Matthew

  Heddle, John

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Henderson, Barry

  Pattie, Geoffrey

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Pawsey, James

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Percival, Sir Ian

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

  Peyton, Rt Hon John

  Holland, Philip (Carlton)

  Pink, R. Bonner

  Hooson, Tom

  Porter, Barry

  Hordern, Peter

  Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Price, Sir David (Eastleigh)

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldfd)

  Prior, Rt Hon James

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Proctor, K. Harvey

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Pym, Rt Hon Francis

  Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

  Raison, Timothy

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Rathbone, Tim

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Rees-Davies, W. R.

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Renton, Tim

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Ridley, Hon Nicholas

  Kimball, Marcus

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Rifkind, Malcolm

  Kitson, Sir Timothy

  Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

  Knox, David

  Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)

  Lamont, Norman

  Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

  Lang, Ian

  Rossi, Hugh

  1075

  Royle, Sir Anthony

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Townsend, Cyril D, (B'heath)

  St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.

  Trippier, David

  Scott, Nicholas

  Trotter, Neville

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

  Vaughan, Dr Gerard

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Viggers, Peter

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Waddington, David

  Shepherd, Richard

  Wakeham, John

  Shersby, Michael

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Silvester, Fred

  Walker, Rt Hon P.(W'cester)

  Sims, Roger

  Walker, B. (Perth)

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Walker-Smith, Rt Hon Sir D.

  Speed, Keith

  Waller, Gary

  Spence, John

  Walters, Dennis

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Ward, John

  Squire, Robin

  Warren, Kenneth

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Watson, John

  Stanley, John

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Steen, Anthony

  Wells, Bowen

  Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

  Wheeler, John

  Stewart, A.(E Renfrewshire)

  Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

  Stokes, John

  Whitney, Raymond

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Wickenden, Keith

  Tapsell, Peter

  Williams, D.(Montgomery)

  Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

  Winterton, Nicholas

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Tebbit, Norman

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs M.

  Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Thompson, Donald

  Mr. Spencer Le Marchant and

  Thorne, Neil (llford South)

  Mr. Anthony Berry.

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 32 (Questions on amendments), and agreed to.
  Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
  Resolved,
  'That this House welcomes the fact that the Government, recognising the serious adverse public interest findings in the Monopolies and Mergers Commission's Report on the Supply of Domestic Gas Appliances, and the need to strengthen competition, has accepted its responsibility for examining thoroughly ways of producing the most effective remedy, while maintaining safety standards, availability of supplies and adequate services to consumers.'.

Lorries, People and the Environment
7.13 pm
Mr. Albert Booth: I beg to move,
That this House, conscious of the problems caused by existing heavy lorries, is opposed to the Armitage recommendation of 44 tonne lorries.
I have just learnt, to my great surprise, that the outcome of the debate will probably be the complete endorsement by the House of the motion tabled by the Opposition. Therefore, I open my mouth with the greatest trepidation. I can only worsen the position at which we have arrived.
Nevertheless, the serious problems that have been caused by the huge increase in the use of heavy lorries in Britain —following the last two occasions on which the House sanctioned an increase in lorry weights —has resulted in massive opposition to the proposal in the Armitage report that lorry weights should be raised again, and especially the proposal that the 44-tonne lorry should be allowed on the roads in Britain.
The heavy lorry is identified in the minds of a large number of people —probably the majority —with road congestion, noise, vibration, smoke, smell, serious or fatal accidents and damage to buildings, gas mains, sewers and water pipes. The Armitage report has not convinced most of those concerned with the issue that the problems of heavy lorries in Britain can be solved, or even lessened, by a series of proposals that contain within them a recommendation to increase lorry weights. The failure of Armitage to convince the majority of concerned people stems from two considerations. First, the analysis, the assumptions and the judgment that the Armitage report contains are suspect in many respects. Secondly, the Government are suspected of being unwilling to carry through a number of the proposals contained in the report that could lead to some amelioration or reduction of the problems of heavy lorries.
I wish tonight to deal with those two elements in that order. If Armitage is wrong, if the assumptions on which the report is based are wrong, if the analysis is wrong and if the conclusions are wrong, we should not endorse Armitage —irrespective of whether the Government are suspected of not proposing to carry out the recommendations that involve a large measure of public expenditure, which Armitage judges to be necessary to deal with the problem. The extent to which that suspicion of Government may be justified would only worsen the problems that would have stemmed from accepting what is basically a wrong judgment.
Armitage is attacked on many grounds. The fundamental error in his assessment is contained in that part of the report where he states that if we have heavier lorries we will have fewer lorries. A large part of his report rests on that basis. He contends that having the 44-tonner will lessen, rather than increase, the problem. That fundamental error arises from the Armitage committee ignoring the thorough review that was undertaken. That is revealed in the first chapter of the report. It shows that with each significent increase in lorry weight that has been permitted in Britain there has been a massive transfer of freight from the railways to the roads. No acknowledgement of that is made by the Armitage committee in its calculations of the road damage and the ill effects that would flow from having the 44-tonner on British roads.
Mr. Gary Waller: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that with the trend towards heavier lorries, the number of light lorries has dropped considerably? The overall number of lorries on our roads has dropped considerably over the years. If the Armitage recommendations about lorry weights were implemented, either in full or in part, it would not mean a reduction in the number of lorries now, but in the future number of lorries that there could be commensurate with the increase of traffic on our roads.
Mr. Booth: I cannot accept that suggestion if we are talking within the terms of Armitage. It depends on how one defines a lorry. Armitage has defined a lorry in the first chapter of the report. As we have introduced heavier lorries to our roads there has been an increase in the very smallest and the largest. Those under 30 cwt have increased in number as have those of the maximum size permitted by the law of the day. Where there has been a diminution in the number of lorries following changes in the permitted maximum weight, that has occurred in the middle range. When eight-tonners were allowed on our roads, the number of five-tonners decreased. That has been the pattern.
The fundamental error of the Armitage report is that it ignores the massive transfer of freight from our railways to our roads. In 1953, two years before the gross weight of lorries was increased to 24 tons, there was more freight in tonne-mileage terms carried on the railways than on the roads. In 1958, only three years after the 24-tonner was allowed on our roads, 30 per cent. more freight was being carried on our roads than on our railways. In 1963 there was 130 per cent. more freight being carried on the roads than on the railways. in 1964 the 32½-tonne lorry was introduced. That was followed by another great wave of transfer of freight from rail to road. By 1968 three times as much freight was being carried on British roads as on British railways. In 1979, the last year for which the Armitage report presents figures, five times as much freight was carried on our roads as on our railways.
The roads were carrying more and more freight both as a percentage of total freight moved in the United Kingdom and in absolute terms while the railways were losing freight in percentage and in absolute terms. That has been the pattern. We cannot ignore the lesson of our post-war history. If we go for another massive increase —an increase from 32½tonnes to 44 tonnes would be massive —in lorry weights, one of the most probable consequences will be yet another massive shift of freight from the railways to the roads. I question whether our railway freight system could stand that.
Mr. John Carlisle: I am sure that the House is impressed by the figures that the right hon. Gentleman has recited. Will he tell us how many miles of railway track have been taken up and how many miles of new bypasses and motorways have been constructed in the same period?
Mr. Booth: I do not have those figures but I do not think that they are crucial to the argument. There are about 12,000 network miles of railway and about 200,000 road miles. Irrespective of the legislation that we transact in the next few years, we shall require many lorries on our roads. Given the ratio of railway network to road network, we shall be unable to bring about a major reversal. We shall be unable to introduce a system in which all our freight is
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carried by rail, or 80 per cent. or 50 per cent. However, it is possible that we can initiate another wave that will cause movement from rail to road and substantially damage our environment by introducing more heavy lorries to our roads and making even less effective the railway system, which, if anything, needs to be made more effective for freight carriage purposes.
Mr. Peter Fry: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the transfer of freight from rail to road has been a conscious decision on the part of most of the main manufacturers? They have chosen a system that suits their firms best and that is the most efficient. Is not there a danger in preventing the most efficient and economic distribution of goods?
Mr. Booth: Manufacturers have chosen the means of shifting their goods which is the cheapest or the most suitable for their purposes. Whether it is cheaper or more suitable to carry freight by road or by rail depends in part on the weight of lorries available on roads. The 32½tonners are available and most manufacturers do not consider using the rail container system unless there is a journey in excess of 200 miles. If the maximum permitted weight for a lorry were halved, it might be that 100 miles would become the economic point of balance.
There is no inherent advantage to our total freight movement in having the present weight of lorry. However, as we allow that weight of lorry to operate, the roads provide a cheaper way of shifting goods and, therefore, traffic is taken away from the railways.
The Armitage committee made a fundamental error in assessing the effect of introducing the 44-tonner. It has chosen to use a damage number formula by which to calculate the relative damage done by different types of lorry. In that formula there is divided the sum of the fourth powers of static axle weights by the payload of the vehicle. The Armitage committee argues that, given that one is shifting the same amount of freight, the acceptance of a larger vehicle will mean that there will be fewer such vehicles on the roads and there will be less road damage. That is the argument reduced to the bare bones. It is based on a uniform tonne-mileage formula and it produces unrealistic figures.
Even if we accept the argument of the Armitage committee and accept the damage number formula, the committee proposes that we should allow on our roads a lorry that is more damaging than the existing 32½tonner and even more damaging, by its own formula, than the 44-tonner. It is proposing that we should have the four-axle articulated 34-tonner on our roads. That would be more damaging, according to the tests and the Armitage formula, than 44- or 32½tonners. We are contending that there is an argument not only against 44-tonners but against any movement in that direction. Even for those who accept the Armitage committee's assessment of damage, it is an argument that applies with greater force to the 34-tonner. That is seen by reference to table 39 and recommendation 51.
Mr. lain Mills: If the right hon. Gentleman is basing his argument upon the 34-tonne lorry in total, will he inform the House how many lorries of 34 tonnes would be involved?
Mr. Booth: Given the four-axle articulated configuration, one could virtually run the 32½tonners at 34 tonnes.

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that is, in effect, what the Armitage report says. That being so, a large number of 34-tonners could quickly appear on the roads.
The formula that the Armitage committee has used to calculate damage numbers is subject to grave suspicion among many highly qualified automobile engineers. I am qualified in another engineering discipline. The committee has chosen to use a formulation which depends on the sum of the fourth powers of individual axle weights. It is a formula that has not been tested in the United Kingdom. It has not been subjected to scientific tests. However, it has been tested in the United States. I took the trouble to ascertain how the tests were conducted. It seems that the lorries ran at a fixed uniform speed on a perfectly flat surface. No allowance was made for any variation of speed. No allowance was made for any dynamic effects or for any variations in the condition of the suspension systems. Those conducting the tests did not even measure the damage made when the lorries made turns. Measurements took place when the vehicles made a straight run at a uniform speed.
That is a good way for the scientist to isolate the fourth power effect. However, that does not correspond to the real world in which lorries earn money for people and carry goods for them. I do not believe that the speed of heavy goods vehicles and the conditions of their suspension system do not have some bearing on the degree of damage which they inflict on our roads.
Mr. Ronald W. Brown: If my right hon. Friend has any doubts, can he come to Graham Road in Hackney where there is a good example of the damage which is done? The lorries not only damage the roads and the houses, but knock down all the guard rails.
Mr. Booth: I am sorry if the natural attractions which would normally cause me to respond with alacrity to an invitation to come to Hackney have been spoiled by lorries knocking up the roads there. I shall bear the invitaion in mind.
We must deal quickly with the contention that Armitage is not as bad as many people are making out because it is arguing only for heavier lorries and not bigger lorries. It is true that Armitage is proposing only a small increase in length of the articulated vehicle. It is proposed to increase the length only to 51 ft. However, it is also proposed that the existing articulated vehicle should be allowed to run as a 44 tonne draw-bar combination. Existing owners of the 32-tonne articulated vehicle would be able to put a trailer section on the back of the lorry. That will increase the lorry's length by 20 per cent.
Armitage also proposes that the existing three axle rigid 24-tonne vehicle should be used as a 44-tonne draw-bar combination. That will increase the lorry's length by 64 per cent. Those draw-bar combinations would be allowed to run on the roads at the length of 59½feet. We do not see many such lorries at the moment. There are many on the roads and autobahns in Germany and in other countries that have experience of allowing high weight draw-bar combinations. It is slightly to misrepresent the situation to say that Armitage is not arguing for bigger vehicles. The draw-bar combination vehicles are massively bigger vehicles than we are accustomed to on our roads.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that there could be a seriously detrimental effect on development areas, particularly areas such as the western parts of Wales, where it would be virtually impossible to live with those lorries, especially if there were trailers behind them? That is another argument in that context.
Mr. Booth: It certainly is. I shall refer shortly to the way in which we must approach that problem.
Armitage strangely underestimates or ignores a number of serious problems of the heavy lorry. The report devotes only one paragraph to the effect of heavy lorries on underground pipes. I do not know how Manchester councillors feel about that proposition, particularly when one reads the 1977 report of the inquiry into serious gas explosions. At the end of the report Dr. King concluded that the increasing number of heavy lorries was a serious cause of gas main ruptures.
The evidence of the British Gas Corporation to the Armitage inquiry strongly reflects the same view. The National Water Council states that a large proportion of its sewers and water mains repair bill results from the use of heavy lorries. Of equal concern to me is that Armitage fails to evaluate the effect of vibration caused by lorries on buildings. If Armitage does not know and if we in the House do not know what the effect would be of the vibration caused by a 44-tonner on old buildings in a number of our constituencies, we would be ill-advised to sanction any such increases until some proper, effective and convincing experiments had been carried out.
The damage to bridges is dealt with in a surprising way in the Armitage report. That is a major issue. Armitage says that the reason why 44 tonnes and no more is recommended is that that is what our bridges will stand. However, the argument on what our bridges will stand is based on the assertion that those of our bridges that were built before 1922 were brought up to standard by "Operation Bridgeguard". The bridges were not strengthened to the standard required by "Operation Bridgeguard", but were allowed a 25 per cent. stress allowance below the requirement of "Operation Bridgeguard", on the understanding that the older bridges would be more quickly replaced.
It is for the Secretary of State's Department to tell us whether those bridges have been more rapidly replaced. I cannot see the evidence of that. However, I can see the evidence of major bridge owners, such as British Rail and the British Waterways Board, feeling great concern as a result of preliminary surveys on the effect on some of their bridges of 44-tonners. As yet we have no knowledge and convincing tests to show what would be the effect of two 44-tonners passing at mid-span in the centre of some of our wider span bridges.
Armitage's major claim for the increase in lorry weight is that transport costs will be reduced. The report says that that justifies bringing in its recommendations, provided that we can also do that in a way that reduces the adverse effects of lorries on people and their environment. The benefit to be gained is precisely quantified. The report says that we would save between £100 million and £160 million a year if we acted in accordance with its recommendations. That is suspect. It depends on the assumption that there would be fewer vehicles on the roads. If I am right in my contention that every major increase in lorry weight means a shift from rail to road, Armitage's calculation on road

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damage is wrong. It also depends on for how long those bigger lorries would have full loads, part loads, are empty after having dropped off a load or when they are going to pick up a load. The percentage payload carried by a heavy lorry has a large bearing on its operational cost.
It is certain that a 44-tonner is more expensive to produce and maintain. Armitage, backed up by other studies, contends that the heaviest lorries do not pay their track costs. The heaviest lorries —the 32-tonners —have been failing to meet their track costs by amounts which have varied between £35 million and £85 million a year over the last five years. They have been subsidised by those who operate lighter lorries and cars on our roads. Their contribution has subsidised the track costs of our existing heavier lorries.
Therefore, I believe that if we have heavier lorries on the roads the only way of making them meet track costs would be to impose a massive increase in taxation on those heavy goods vehicles. Depending on which perspective one takes, the effect would be either that the cost would be passed on to the public —to the person who purchases the services of the heavy goods vehicle operator —or it would be an amount which one should knock off any calculation of the advantage to be gained by bringing those heavier lorries on to the roads. I take the latter view.
I have one more criticism of the report, which concerns the approach to lorry action areas. If we adopted the proposal, we should have considerable arguments about which relatively few areas should benefit from Government grants. If it was agreed that we should deal with the problem more widely than proposed, the cost would be enormous. The Noise Advisory Council estimates that it would cost £1,600 million merely to insulate the houses of those who already suffer noise from a new road higher than the Government's criteria for noise compensation. That shows that the cost of heavy lorries cannot be measured only in terms of the freight charge to customers.
I put it to conscientious hon. Members who know their constituency problems that, even if the area in each of our constituencies worst affected by lorry noise was given a Government grant, we should still not have completely solved the problem. We should merely have made our constituencies fit the needs of bigger lorries. Perhaps we should take the opposite approach, and make our lorries and transport system fit the needs of our people and towns.
Our major conurbations will not be helped by bypass programmes, much as I should like to see the programme extended. The M25 will not cause a vast drop in the number of heavy lorries that rumble through London. The evidence shows that most of the 32½tonners on London's roads are there to pick up or drop loads and not because they are passing through. We must start thinking in terms of lorry bans, weight restrictions and transhipment depots outside our major conurbations, so that smaller vehicles can take the loads in.
We are also concerned about the Government's response to the Armitage report. Shortly after the previous transport debate, on 21 January, in answer to a question the Secretary of State said:
"Clearly, we should try to reach decisions on the report as soon as we can." —[Official Report, 21 January 1981; Vol. 997, c. 908.]
However, the Government have not made such decisions, although they have made decisions closely related to the problems posed by Armitage and by Foster, for that
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matter. If they have taken any decisions, they have not communicated them to the House, so we have a number of questions for them.
What are the Government's views about the impact of the Armitage proposals on trunk road expenditure and the bypass programme, which are crucial to the argument about heavy lorries? In 1980–81, expenditure on English trunk road construction and maintenance was only £422 million. In 1979–80, it was £466 million, in 1978–79, £446 million and in 1977–78, £430 million, so it is lower now than at any time since 1977.
Bypasses are crucial to the Armitage argument, and the Government estimate that we have acquired about 400, yet this year only 10 will be opened and next year only eight. Eighteen bypasses in two years hardly shows that the Government have decided to accept the judgment of Armitage.
The Government have not made a decision whether to extend section 8 grants, which could have significant bearing on the amount of freight carried by rail. They have not decided whether to make the grants for rail sidings eligible for Sealink or Freightliner, as recommended. Neither have they dealt with the country planning anomaly, which denies section 8 grants to developers who are required as a condition of planning consent to put in railway sidings. They have not moved on the enforcement provisions of Armitage, which clearly show a need for more manpower. We also need a decision on axle weight indicators, particularly in the light of what the Government have discovered about overloading, not only by British operators. Foreign operators also have a bad record, and they should have more experience than we have of operating heavy lorries. The Government have not moved on the need for a more appropriate penalty for severe overloading. We have had two Transport Bills from the Government, and neither has touched on the Armitage proposals. What is even more surprising, neither contains legislation on the provisions of the Foster report, which has been around for much longer.
In June 1980, in response to his hon. Friend the Member for Bebington and Ellesmere Port (Mr. Porter), the Secretary of State said that he welcomed the Foster report, and particularly its objectives of promoting road safety, helping to protect the environment and preventing undue damage to our roads. He accepted the general conclusion of the report that we could improve our road haulage operation in many important respects. He went on to say that the report contended that deeper and wider scrutiny was required than its terms of reference allowed, so he had determined the Armitage inquiry terms of reference in such a way that it could consider the interrelated environmental issues and thus make possible a wider perspective. At that time, he judged it right to consider the Foster and Armitage proposals together. Therefore, the Government have decisions to make and communicate to the House.
To argue that the proposed lorries would not be much bigger than existing lorries is to miss the point. The concern stems from people's experience of existing lorries.
Mr. Waller: We knew that the Opposition were opposed to 44-tonne lorries from the motion, but the House has a right to know whether they are in favour of any increase in lorry weight, because jobs may depend on that information.
Mr. Booth: I am sorry if I have not made matters clear. I thought that I had spelt out our detailed objections to the 34-tonners. We object to many of the Armitage proposals to increase lorry weight. Our objection is not confined to 44-tonne lorries.
I believe that the Armitage report fails to meet its own standards. It states in paragraph 139:
"There must be an absolute reduction in the adverse effects of lorries on people and the environment".
Yet the report is based upon the idea of an increase in heavy lorry mileage. It rejects any kind of limitation or quantity licensing and it displays an inability to quantify many of the dangerous effects of heavy lorries.
It is for those who believe that there is a case for the heavy lorry to make the case. It is not for those who argue that much needs to be done to cope with existing lorry problems to prove that even more must be done to cope with heavier lorries. In putting forward the motion tonight, I believe that we are expressing the view of the majority of people represented by Members of the House. I hope that our decision will reflect their verdict on the heavy lorry proposal.
7.50 pm
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Norman Fowler): I know that many hon. Members wish to speak. I shall therefore try to be brief. My hon. and learned Friend will deal more fully with the arguments at the end of the debate.
I remind the House of the main events leading up to the present position. The inquiry was originally set up with terms of reference that had been announced by the Labour Government. The inquiry, under the chairmanship of Sir Arthur Armitage, was independent. It reported in December last year, and we had a debate —I concede at once that it was at very short notice —on 27 January. Early in that debate it was put to me by the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) that some outside organisations which would like to put their views on the report had not yet had time to do so. I immediately expressed the Government's willingness to receive representations up to the middle of March, and in effect a little later, before they would start looking for decisions.
Subsequently, the Select Committee on Transport examined Sir Arthur Armitage and his assessors. The Select Committee recommended that the Government should make a full statement of their intentions in respect of the complete set of recommendations before individual proposals were brought forward, and that more than the usual time should be made available to the House to debate any proposals brought forward under the statutory instruments procedure for amending regulations to increase maximum lorry weights.
I should like to make it clear straight away that the Government accept those recommendations of the Select Committee. It is our intention to publish a statement setting out our response to the report as a whole, and I assure the House that there is no question of proposals on lorry weights being put forward without adequate time for full debate.
But we are not at that stage tonight. The House will appreciate —if it does not already, having heard the speech of the right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) —that the report contains much complex argument, and makes 58 recommendations covering a wide range of issues. A large number of organisations and individuals
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have put their views to me, and some have raised important technical questions on which I have thought it right to have detailed discussions. Although we have made a lot of progress in those discussions they are still not quite complete, but I hope that they will very shortly be so. It is right that we should take time to consider very carefully the large number of points that have been made to the Government on the report. We want to build where we can on points of agreement and develop a set of proposals that properly meet the widespread concern about lorries and the environment.
Later I shall tell the House what are the main arguments that have been put to me on the report, and what have emerged as the central issues. Let me say first where the Government stand on the recommendation for a 44-tonne lorry, which is the subject of the motion.
The 44-tonne lorry on six axles is the heaviest type of lorry proposed in the Armitage report. There are some particular worries about this vehicle to which the right hon. Gentleman has properly drawn attention. To increase the maximum weight from 32·5 tonnes to 44 tonnes would take us in one jump from having the lowest to having one of the highest gross weights in Europe. It is significant that the European Parliament only last month debated this issue and resolved against the 44 tonnes lorry proposed by the Commission in its most recent directive, recommending instead a European agreement on the basis of a top weight of 40 tonnes.
It is clear from what industry has told me that there are relatively few heavy traffics which could take advantage of such a high weight as 44 tonnes. The most significant are probably bulk liquids, steel construction materials and fully loaded containers. It is perhaps significant that these are types of traffic for which the railways are competitive over many routes, and the substantial cost savings offered by the 44-tonne lorry could in some cases lead to loss of rail traffic to road. I agree with the hon. Gentleman on that.
It is clear that the greater part of industrial benefits could be obtained with a smaller top weight. The calculations done for the Armitage inquiry suggested that on its recommendations we could expect 30,000 vehicles of 38 to 40 tonnes, compared with fewer than 5,000 vehicles of 44 tonnes. Not only is there much less potential use for these very heavy vehicles, but our domestic commercial vehicle industry is not at present well placed to produce the nesessary equipment.
The Government have decided, therefore, that the response to Armitage that we shall bring forward in due course will not contain any proposal for a maximum weight as high as 44 tonnes. Accordingly, we are not opposed to and will in no way seek to oppose the motion.
Mr. Terence Higgins: My right hon. Friend has to some extent made the point that I was about to make. He referred to fully loaded containers as being among those traffics that might benefit from a 44-tonne limit. That is not my understanding of the representations made by container users, who, on balance, do not expect to have to go to 40 or 44 tonnes.
Mr. Fowler: As my right hon. Friend says, I think that I have made the point in the decision that I have just announced.
I should emphasise that the decision does not prejudge what we may propose in relation to the Armitage

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recommended weights for four and five-axle lorries. We are still considering this. Perhaps I may briefly summarise the views that have been put to the Government.
Mr. Fry: My right hon. Friend will be aware that there are many recommendations in the Armitage report that would benefit the environment. These will be expensive. The cost of putting them into effect was to be covered by the advantages of increased lorry weights. Has my right hon. Friend been able to calculate the limit that he will suggest that will give the benefit of those environmental advantages?
Mr. Fowler: If my hon. Friend will stay with me for a moment, I shall try to set out the arguments, which form the next part of my remarks.
As my hon. Friend rightly says, on the one hand I have been pressed by all sectors of industry to accept heavier weights. The main reason is that as they see it, there would be a reduction in transport costs. Although heavier vehicles would be individually more expensive, the argument is that fewer of them would be needed. Many companies have done detailed calculations of cost savings. The national estimate, based on a TRRL survey, suggests that we are now running about 9,000 more heavy articulated vehicles than we would need if we permitted individual vehicles to carry more weight, as proposed by Armitage. By cutting out these unnecessary vehicles, industry could save in its transport costs.
It has also been put to me that the heavier weights proposed would bring particular benefits to international trade. An increasing proportion of our trade with Europe goes by road throughout, and goods shipped to and from other continents are increasingly carried in standard maritime freight containers. The result of our present weight limit is that a standard 40 ft. container being shipped to or from the Far East can be loaded only to two-thirds of the weight for which it is designed if it is to be carried for any part of its journey on roads in this country.
An international road haulage journey is similarly restricted, even though the great majority of the journey may be on continental roads. This adds to the price of our exports in foreign markets, and penalises our industry in competition with foreigners. Finally, our commercial vehicle industry has told me that it would greatly benefit from having a home market for the types of heavy road equipment that are dominant in export markets. The arguments from industry have been put to me by a great range of specialist trade associations, and by the Confederation of British Industry. I have also had over 200 letters from individual companies, and from operators generally.
On the other hand, all the major national environmental organisations have sent me detailed submissions expressing their opposition to any increase in lorry weights. The great mass of letters from individual members of the public and from organisations such as parish councils and women's institutes express concern and opposition to heavier lorries. I recognise and share the widespread public concern about the nuisance from heavy lorry traffic —the size of the vehicles, the noise and vibration they cause —that underlines this opposition. The basic line of argument put to me is that heavy lorries are a major blight on our quality of life, and that we should therefore reduce our reliance on road transport, reduce the numbers of lorries on our roads, and improve standards of
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safety, noise, and so on for those lorries which we cannot do without. Many views of individuals are, of course, coloured by particularly bad local road conditions.
A number of other organisations have also raised with me technical engineering questions about the effects. of heavier lorries on roads, bridges and underground pipes. The local authorities and the statutory undertakers are, of course, particularly concerned with those questions, and my Department has been having a number of discussions with the main organisations concerned.
This is not the occasion for a comprehensive review of all the arguments, but I should like to draw attention to some of the more important underlying issues.
First, there is the right hon. Gentleman's point that heavier means fewer. Many industrialists and operators have said that they could reduce the size of the fleets if they were allowed to carry heavier loads. For example, the milk coming every day from the West Country to London is at present transported in lorries which each carry the maximum load of 20 tonnes. If that could be raised to, say, 25 tonnes, the vehicle fleet could be reduced by 20 per cent. There are a number of similar examples from other industries.
Of course, it is essential, as Sir Arthur Armitage proposed, that heavier vehicles should be controlled so that they are not bigger or noisier than existing maximum weight vehicles. I give categoric assurance that any increase in the legal limits on lorry weights would, if that were decided —and no decision has been taken —be associated with new legal restrictions on their length and height to ensure that heavier would not mean bigger.
The effect on roads, bridges and underground pipes of the heavier lorries proposed would depend upon the detailed rules for axle weights and axle spacing. This is a technical engineering question on which I have received a great deal of detailed comment from professional engineers in vehicle manufacture and operation. Final conclusions have not been reached on all aspects, but there is general agreement that the vehicles proposed by Armitage could be satisfactorily designed and operated and would not be significantly different from existing vehicles in the damage that they cause.
It is necessary to reduce the environmental problems caused by the lorry, and one of the most effective ways of doing this, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out., is through the roads programme.
Mr. Booth: I did not point it out.
Mr. Fowler: In that case, I should like to point it out. I think that very few people would dispute it. I have sought to give priority to schemes that will take traffic out of towns. In the White Paper on the roads programme I included as many bypasses as possible. Since then, work has started on bypasses for Gloucester, Bowes in County Durham, and Bere Regis in Dorset. We have also invited tenders for bypasses for Berwick-upon-Tweed, Dorchester on Thames and Ipswich. These schemes will bring relief from noise, danger and nuisance to many thousands of people.
But the strategic routes are also important. Although motorways account for only 1 per cent. of the length of highway, they carry over a third of the mileage run by the heaviest lorries. As the road programme is completed, they will take more of this traffic away from roads in built-up areas. Last month we let the last two contracts on the

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north-eastern part of the M25. These should be completed in 1983. Traffic will then be able to get from the Al to Tilbury and the Channel ports without going through London. We are also just starting work on the M54 to Telford and the M65, which will bypass Accrington, Burnley and other towns in north-east Lancashire.
I have been reviewing the programme scheme by scheme with the intention of bringing forward as many bypasses as possible. During the last year I have been impressed by the severity of the problems which are being experienced in far too many places without any early prospect of relief. I do not need to spell out the difficulties. The scope for change is bound to be limited. But developments since the last White Paper may give me the opportunity to advance a few schemes. In carrying out the review, I shall certainly be concerned to use the funds available to me to relieve as many people as possible from heavy lorry traffic.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Fowler: I give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Griffiths).
Mr. Eldon Griffiths: What my right hon. Friend has just said will be very welcome. Will he do his utmost to improve the planning procedures —the length of time that it takes from the initial proposal to have a bypass, all the way through to acquisition? The laying of the concrete is easy. The most difficult part is getting through the procedures.
Mr. Fowler: We struggle with that problem more or less daily in the Department. We have to achieve a balance between what is right in terms of the general public interest and trying to meet the interests of individuals who are concerned. I take note of what my hon. Friend says, and we should like to improve the position in that respect.
Another major issue discussed by Armitage is the taxation of lorries, and that again was mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman. The House is aware that the Transport Bill, now in its final stages, contains provisions that will enable the Government to change the structure of vehicle excise duty so as to redistribute the burden from less damaging vehicles to the heavier, more damaging types, so that the taxation can be directed more squarely at them.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned section 8 grants. The Armitage recommendations have been generally supported. There is a general desire on both sides of the House that the railways should be helped to obtain a good share of the bulk traffics requiring the types of special loading facilities and other equipment for which section 8 grants are available. I am sympathetic towards that objective, and we are looking to see what changes might be justified in terms of value for money and help to the environment. I accept the argument that waterway facilities could in certain circumstances attract traffic which would otherwise go by road, and that grants should therefore be available to waterway users on the same basis as section 8 grants are for users of the railways. We would want to introduce legislation at the first opportunity.
It is clear from representations made to me that noise from vehicles is a very important issue, and that a reduction in vehicle noise limits would do more probably
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than any other change in vehicle standards to improve the environment. The Government are determined to tackle this problem. We have already announced new tougher limits, which will come into effect in 1983. And we have put proposals to industry for very much tougher limits by the end of the decade. We can look forward by then to a generation of lorries no noisier than most present-day cars.
Mr. Sidney Bidwell: The right hon. Gentleman has not alluded to representations made to him —and certainly to the Armitage committee —by trade unions, and in particular by the Transport and General Workers Union. That union caters for many of the workers who will be involved in any changes. The Secretary of State will need their co-operation. Did it cross his mind to ask the TUC and the CBI to nominate a representative on the initial committee of inquiry? If he had done so, the operation would not have been so abstract and academic.
Mr. Fowler: We shall take into account anything that the Transport and General Workers Union or the trade union movement may wish to put to us on that point. However, the Armitage inquiry was not meant to be of the type that includes representatives from every known group. Indeed, I do not think that that was the intention of the former Secretary of State for Transport, either. It was not that type of inquiry.
Mr. John Prescott: The right hon. Gentleman has told us that he is not contemplating a 44-tonne lorry. However, he led the House to believe that that was because the demand by industry was small. Is he influenced by the damage factor of axle weights, or by industry's demand? According to Armitage, those two factors come together for the 38-tonne lorry.
Mr. Fowler: We are more influenced by the demand factor. However, I hope that I have made it clear that we have not come to a conclusion on the 38 or 40-tonne lorry.
Let me summarise the main points. On lorry weights we have decided that it would not be appropriate to bring forward proposals for as great an increase in maximum gross vehicle weight —that is the 44-tonner —as proposed by Armitage. We are still considering the arguments for and against an increase to some lesser figure than 44 tonnes. Whatever we decide on this issue, I shall make a comprehensive statement on Armitage covering all the main recommendations. We accept that the House will want a proper debate on the Government's proposals, and I repeat that there is no question of the Government's implementing proposals to amend the regulations on lorry weights without the fullest consultation with all interested organisations and an opportunity for a full debate in the House.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Apart from Front Bench speakers, 18 hon. Members have indicated a wish to contribute to this short debate. Therefore, I appeal for self-restraint.
8.14 pm
Mr. Peter Snape: I shall try to bear your strictures in mind, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and keep my remarks brief. My first and perhaps deepest concern can be compressed into a short question. If it is not to be 44-tonners, what will the limit be? It is apparent from the Secretary of State's remarks that some increase in lorry limits —probably, as my hon. Friend the Member

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for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) said, to 38 tonnes—is inevitable as a result of the Armitage report and the non-stop pressure from the Department of Transport both now and in the past. The Department of Transport and the Department of the Environment —when it had transport responsibilities —have publicly said that they are the sponsored directorate for the road haulage industry. As such, they have done a pretty fine job over the years.
A predictable intervention was made by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Fry). He implied that people chose to send their goods by heavy lorries because they were more convenient and flexible and cheaper. The Department's figures show that such transport is cheaper because our heaviest goods vehicles do not meet their track costs. In addition, the transport of those goods is subsidised by other road users and, in particular, by the private motorist. I hope that those who belong to organisations such as the Automobile Association and the Royal Automobile Club will do the sensible thing, which is to resign their memberships and save their money. Over the years, those organisations have singularly failed to point out to their members that the average car driver is directly subsidising that great hulking, stinking, and often dangerous brute that may be blocking the motorists' road.
Mr. Fry: As the hon. Gentleman mentioned my intervention, perhaps he will make it clear whether he is satisfied with the heaviest lorries covering their track costs —as contained in legislation before Parliament—or whether he wants to charge an extra amount in order to penalise very heavy lorries?
Mr. Snape: I should like to see heavy goods vehicles paying their true track costs. I do not accept the figures that successive Governments have put forward, because they ignore such things as accidents, delays, pollution and damage to roads and buildings. Even with his blind adoration for heavy goods vehicles, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not tell us that they do not damage roads, pavements and buildings. That damage is paid for not by the road haulier but by general taxation. More often than not it is paid for by the car driver.
My stricture against the motoring organisations is that for years they have been part of the road promoting fraternity. Not once have they told their members that their interests have not been adequately represented by successive Governments. They have certainly not been adequately represented by the motoring organisations. They have been content to go along as part of the great road promotional business.
The promotion of bigger, better and wider roads has been best undertaken by the Department of Transport. The average civil servant —who gives the impression that his head was filled at birth with pre-mixed concrete —is concerned only to build a bigger and better road network. Such civil servants are not interested in the competitor to the road haulage industry, namely, the railways. Why? The answer is that they can play at building roads. They do so extremely well. They are not allowed to play trains, because they are run by the British Railways Board. Therefore, they have no direct interest in the operation of that industry. As a result, they spent the post-war years building up a system of transport which, unlike any other country in Western Europe —or in the United States of America for that matter —is virtually dependent on the heavy lorry.
Mr. Ronald W. Brown: My hon. Friend suggested that the costs were paid not by the road haulage industry but by taxpayers. In Graham Road, Hackney those who pay for the safety rails that are knocked down week after week are the ratepayers of Hackney.
Mr. Snape: I apologise to my hon. Friend for overlooking the great damage caused in Hackney, as elsewhere, by the heavy goods vehicle. I accept his view. The last people to pay for the damage are those in the road haulage industry. The damage is always paid for by someone else. No wonder the road haulage business is profitable and that it is the ambition of many drivers to own their own vehicles. It is easier for any driver to own a vehicle and to put it on the road in this country than it is in any other Western country, including the United States. The fact that so many drivers are anxious to become owner-drivers is not only because the road is provided for them by someone else but because they do not need to worry about the cost of the damage that they do.
Unlike any other force in Western Europe, our police have the reputation, quite correctly, of being easy on the heavy goods vehicle industry. On the Continent there are those models of efficiency, the Germans. One sees no heavy goods vehicles on German roads on Sundays and bank holidays, because the Government will not have them. On the roads of some of our other rivals, competitors or colleagues in the EEC, such as the French and the Italians, there are no heavy goods vehicles on the roads on Sundays and bank holidays, because the Government have banned them.
Regularly on foreign motorways one sees squads of police doing nothing else but carrying out checks on heavy goods vehicles. In this country it is possible to drive for years in a clapped-out, overloaded, badly maintained lorry and be 100 per cent. assured that one will not be stopped by the police.
The Department's examiners —there are not too many of them, incidentally —have conspicuously failed to control the growth in lorry traffic, especially the growth in dangerous lorry traffic. The only people who appear to be concerned about lorry weights and standards are the various county councils, among them, to their credit, the Kent county council —an area from which most of the prosecutions for dangerous and overloaded lorries emanate.
Until two or three years ago it was the intention of the Labour Government to introduce a network of lorry routes because of the indiscriminate use and driving of heavy goods vehicles. That proposal did not meet with the approval of the civil servants in the Department of Transport so, in the subtle way that they have, they quietly persuaded both Governments that the network of lorry routes was unnecessary.
In 1973 the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) introduced a measure to attempt to control the heavy goods vehicle at local level. It was called the Dykes Act. Most local authorities, including mine, do not use the Dykes Act. When I tried to persuade my county council to use that Act in my constituency I was told that Stewart Mustow, in Birmingham, does not like the Dykes Act. As he does not like it, it is not used; therefore it has not been used by the West Midlands county council since it was passed in 1973. Many of my constituents, like those of

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many other hon. Members on both sides of the House, continually express their concern, anger and annoyance at the obtrusive nature of heavy goods vehicles.
The Secretary of State pointed out that Armitage had said that there was a need for more and wider section 8 grants, but one of the problems with section 8 grants is that where, for example, it is a condition of planning permission that a factory or a warehouse should be rail-connected, that factory or warehouse is not eligible for a section 8 grant. It is nonsensical, but that is my understanding of the problem.
If one casts one's mind back to 1978 one remembers that the Armitage report arose as a result of a leaked memorandum between two civil servants in the Department of Transport. The fact that it was a one-man inquiry meant that the Department first relieved itself of any possibility of embarrassment because of the dangers of a minority report from the environmental interests so brusquely waved aside by the Secretary of State. That inquiry was loaded. Every piece of evidence that went to Armitage from the Department of Transport favoured the introduction of heavier goods vehicles. As a result, the Armitage inquiry produced the result that the Department set out to get. I am concerned that Sir Arthur Armitage said that his recommendations were in no way a package. As a result of the inquiry, the United Kingdom is likely to have bigger and heavier lorries, more and more nuisance caused to the motorist and people living in towns and villages, and greater problems for many of our cities and towns.
The inquiry was rigged. The Department will now go ahead and introduce heavier goods vehicles, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of our people are fed up to the back teeth with the heavy lorry and its acolytes.
8.26 pm
Mr. Nigel Forman: I give a warm welcome to the announcement by my right hon. Friend about there being no move towards a weight of 44 tonnes. I welcome his promise of full consultation before further decisions are taken and that consultations will be in the House and with the relevant bodies outside.
I dispute the sweeping statements of the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) about my right hon. Friend not being concerned with environmental interests. My right hon. Friend's speech gave the lie to that. The hon. Gentleman cannot have been listening with his customary attention.
Heavy lorries are a major concern to my constituents. I have had many representations about them, especially because of the significant increase in lorries over 28 tonnes over the past 10 years. The increase has been about 250 per cent. The problem is seen as serious by my constituents, because so many of the large heavy lorries coming up from the Channel ports use residential roads that are not suited to their use. That causes problems for other traffic, danger to cyclists and pedestrians and considerable annoyance and discomfort to the residents, who feel hostile towards these machines. It is vital that action is taken to tame and control the menace.
I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends are serious when they make statements such as that made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) in the debate on 22 May, when he said that
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"the Government are determined to ensure that the damaging effects of lorries on the qualities of our lives are reduced. …Our main aim, however, is to reduce the damage at present caused by heavy lorries." —[Official Report, 22 May 1980; Vol. 5, c. 614.]
That was an admirable statement, and if the Government are serious about it, they must use their influence and financial power to help local authorities, such as the GLC and the London boroughs, to arrive at a sensible solution.
The Armitage report contains some sensible proposals. Each hon. Member could pick out one or two. I instance merely the proposal that each class of lorry should pay in tax at least its full road track cost, and the recommendations on noise. I am delighted that the recommendation on full track costs has already been incorporated into the Transport Bill.
However, the report also has many deficiencies. The economic arguments were not adequately investigated and did not conclusively favour heavy lorries. According to table 31, savings of only 5 to 7 per cent. would be achieved by moving to 35-tonne lorries, and savings of only 7 to 14 per cent. by moving to 40-tonne vehicles. The argument is not conclusive, especially when one remembers what a relatively small part of total costs is represented by transport costs for almost any sector of industry.
The arguments of the environmentalists were not given adequate priority in the report, which was not sufficiently realistic about the availability of public funds. One example is financial assistance to local authorities for the lorry action areas mentioned in paragraphs 340 and 341 of the report.
As the right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) pointed out, according to Transport 2000, even if all the funds were spent at £6 million a year on the double glazing recommended by the Armitage report, it would take until the year 2247 for that task to be completed.
It behoves those of us who criticise the report to make some practical suggestions about the way forward. The major initiative in Greater London must come from the GLC and the relevant London boroughs. The Government have a part to play through the early completion of the M25 in 1985. I should welcome confirmation from my hon. and learned Friend the Under-Secretary on that point. Early completion of the motorway would be a great help to my constituents, because it would hold out the prospect of many heavy vehicles going round London and avoiding the area that concerns my constituents.
It is encouraging that the GLC transport committee recently agreed to initiate an independent inquiry into the possibility of a ban on heavy lorries in London. I hope that all those who are interested in the matter will give evidence to that inquiry. The GLC's idea is a good one, because it allows not only for the possibility of a total ban in Greater London, but for the possibility of smaller area bans, such as that introduced in North London, where 50 square miles have been covered, and conditions for residents in places, such as Enfield, Barnet and Southgate have been greatly improved. I understand that my hon. and learned Friend the Under-Secretary has noted that development with approval.
I hope that a similar scheme will be introduced in South London and that when the M25 is completed places such as Carshalton, Beddington, Wallington and St. Helier will be incorporated into the scheme.
I am pleased that I have had a favourable response to my efforts not only from the controller of transportation

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and development at the GLC —Miss Audrey Lees —who served on the Armitage committee, but also from the director of technical services of the London borough of Sutton. I urge the Government to support local authorities' efforts and to provide the finance to enable them to go ahead with their schemes.
Without such financial help and the necessary environmental protection it would be foolish for the Government to allow significantly heavier lorries on our roads or to condone any of the other manic objectives of the road haulage lobby. We should pay attention to the point made by Transport 2000, which says:
"Transport is a cost, not an end in itself, and its increasing share of gross, national product is a trend we should seek to reverse."
That is not a Luddite statement. It merely points out that transport is essentially a cost, whether to industrial users, customers or the general public. It is an environmental, social and economic cost. We have every interest in seeking to minimise it.
The answer must lie in a judicious combination of restrictions, where they are appropriate, improvements in existing vehicles, many of which are foreshadowed in the Armitage report, and sensible road building programmes, of the sort that I suggested earlier when speaking about the early completion of the M25. I hope very much that the Government will be robust on this matter. Even though we have two excellent Ministers from the Department of Transport dealing with these issues, I hope that they will not forget to put on their environmental hats from time to time and take due account of that interest. I am able to feel optimistic.
I conclude my speech with a choice quote to which I shall endeavour to hold my hon. and learned Friend the Under-Secretary of State, who said on 27 January that
"nothing should be done that is attractive to the road haulage industry unless the public and this House are satisfied that what is being done is not causing environmental damage".—[Official Report, 27 January 1981; Vol. 997, c. 874.]
I hope that the Government will live up to their promises.
8.35 pm
Mr. Tom Bradley: The previous debate on this subject on 27 January was most unsatisfactory. It was hurriedly convened, and inadequate in length, and there was no particular question before the House on which hon. Members were able to reach a decision. I felt last last Thursday, on the announcement of the business for this week, that the Opposition had done a service by ,giving up some of their time to enable us to return to this subject.
I felt that way particularly because the Under-Secretary of State, whether unwittingly or not, during the debate on 27 January, gave the impression that he regarded the debate as discharging the Government's undertaking to consult the House before they took a final decision on these matters. I welcome very much the Secretary of State's assurance this evening that the Government will consult hon. Members further before tabling any recommendations.
It was because the debate on 27 January was so unsatisfactory that the Select Committee on Transport, of which I have the privilege to be Chairman, decided to give Sir Arthur Armitage and his colleagues an opportunity to
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explain their reasons for reaching the conclusions contained in their report. That opportunity was provided on 25 February.
On the basis of the evidence that the Select Committee took, it is clear that Sir Arthur did not design the reportas a package, which was the theme constantly reiterated by hon. Members during our debate on 27 January. We said in paragraph 11 of our second special report to the House:
"We believe that it would be a misrepresentation of their Report"
meaning the Armitage report—
"to regard it as a package designed to justify the introduction of heavier lorries or, conversely, as a package designed to force environmental protection measures to be taken under the threat of the impact of the introduction of heavier lorries."
Although the main recommendations of the report specify the need for much tougher standards on noise, smoke and vibration, a heavier tax on larger lorries, more bypasses and so on, it is nevertheless the case that the introduction of 44-tonne or 42-tonne lorries will arouse hostility in every constituency.
I acknowledge that the axle spread proposed for 44-tonne lorries may reduce the damage factor. There is no hard evidence to question the Transport and Road Research Laboratory's judgment that heavier lorries will not cause greater environmental damage than is caused by existing heavy lorries. However, there must be doubts about the conclusion that the introduction of heavier lorries will lead to a reduction in the number of heavy lorries on the road and consequent savings.
That view has been challenged by many eminent transport economists, particularly Professor David Starkie of Adelaide university, who wrote to the Select Committee on Transport, drawing attention to Sir Arthur Armitage's claim in paragraph 359:
"Much of the benefit"—
of heavier lorries—
"should feed through to prices to the consumer."
Starkie pointed out to us that the saving in road freight costs, as suggested by Armitage, of between £120 million and £190 million, represents only about 0·1 per cent. of final consumer prices, or, as Starkie put it
"the equivalent of three days of inflation at the current rate."
So even on Armitage's own calculations the benefit to the consumer is likely to be negligible.
Professor Starkie also claims that on the basis of previous academic studies and experience the reduction in mileage achieved by allowing much heavier lorries on roads would be nearer 3 per cent. than the 8 per cent. suggested by Armitage in paragraph 406 of his report. If that is true, the reduction in the nuisance caused by heavy lorries would at best be marginal, and no one could be expected to notice it.
In view of the apparently small advantages, and the doubts about the environmental impact of heavier lorries, particularly on bridge structures, we must ask ourselves whether the introduction of heavier lorries is worth while. Public suspicion is justified by the failure of Governments to come to grips with environmental damage already known to be caused by goods vehicles. It is unreasonable to expect the public to support the introduction of heavier lorries which will intrude into their environment, unless we can make every possible provision to secure the amelioration of damage suffered by the recent increase in lorry traffic.
Although Sir Arthur Armitage may not have intended his report to be regarded as a package, we as politicians

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must regard it in that light. So, before allowing heavier lorries on to our roads, we should insist on firm Government guarantees on the recommendations listed at the conclusion of the report. There is no use the Government's saying that industry needs to know what kind of lorries it will be able to use, unless at the same time they reassure those who suffer from the impact of these vehicles about the steps that they propose to take to protect them from the consequences. That is why the Select Committee concluded its short report by recommending that a full statement of the Government's intentions in respect of the complete set of recommendations should be made to the House by the Secretary of State before individual proposals were brought forward.
The Select Committee also concluded that where proposals were made to take action on major issues, such as maximum lorry weights and axle weights under the statutory instrument procedure, more than the usual time should be made available to the House for the proposals to be fully debated before such action was approved.
I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State's assurance that he accepts those recommendations. I hope that in the meantime he will pay serious regard to what he has heard tonight in this debate.
8.43 pm
Mr. Eric Cockeram: I welcome the opportunity to debate Armitage. This is a subject on which much prejudice exists. All people and parties concerned have had the opportunity to give evidence to the committee and there has been time for that evidence to be weighed impartially and for a report to be produced.
I said that there was much prejudice on the subject. That was brought home to me by a letter I received from a constituent who opposed the proposal to introduce heavier lorries. The letter contained a leaflet which had been issued by several organisations—the Council for the Protection of Rural England, Transport 2000 and others. The somewhat emotive heading was "Do you want heavier lorries?" It is hardly likely that there would be a "Yes" to that question.
The letter was dated 3 December. By courtesy of the Post Office it arrived on 9 December, the very day on which Armitage was published. That showed that, although neither my constituent nor the publishers of the pamphlet had been able to consider the report, which was published six days after the letter was written. They had made up their minds in advance. I hope that no hon. Members approach the matter in a similarly prejudiced manner.
Among the facts that are revealed, some of which we knew beforehand, is the dramatic decline in the tonne mileage carried by British Rail. Over the past 25 years, British Rail's share of the tonne mileage of freight in this country has dropped from 42 per cent. to 12½per cent. The British road transport industry is clearly an essential part of the country's economy —as Armitage called it, the "essential sinew of the economy". Road transport is competitive, flexible, speedy and essential.
Mr. Snape: And subsidised.
Mr. Cockeram: I was coming to that. I say "essential", because even the freight that is carried by rail has, in most cases, to start and end its journey by road. We
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cannot all live next to stations and goods yards. Lorries represent only 3 per cent. of the vehicles on our roads, but they are intensively used and therefore represent 8 per cent. of all mileage.
No one disputes the fact that the increased load-carrying capacity of lorries would lead to fewer lorries. I shall quote one sentence from paragraph 418 of the conclusion of the Armitage report. It says:
"The net economic benefits would be greater if the types of heavier lorries to be allowed were such that they did no additional damage to our bridges. We propose a way in which this can be achieved".
The method in question is the intensive study that was undertaken by Armitage of the principle of axle weight. I shall not go into the technicalities and the power of four, and so on. That is involved. In layman's terms, I can sum it up by saying that two axles of 8 tonne capacity do less damage than one axle of 10 tonne capacity. The conclusion one reaches is that the number of axles and the consideration given to the spread of the weight load is more important than the overall maximum.
Armitage proposes a number of items. I do not intend to mention them all, because I intend, like other hon. Members, to be brief. However, some aspects need to be reiterated on the question of prejudice. First, no change is proposed in the width of lorries. It is to be 2½metres, as now. Then there is the height of lorries. At the moment, there is no limit by law. Armitage proposes a limit of 4½metres. At the moment, the maximum length of lorries is 15 metres. Armitage proposes 15½metres —19½inches longer. That is not much, but there is a good reason for it, and I am surprised that no Opposition Member has mentioned it, because it is important. Armitage proposed that the maximum length of the lorry should be marginally increased from 15 metres to 15½metres because the international standard container that is used by shipping lines and others throughout the world has a length of 40 feet. If a lorry carries a container and the total length of the lorry is limited to 15 metres, the driver in the cab is constricted. If an extra 19½inches are allowed, the driver's cab can facilitate the driver in a number of ways, by giving him support facilities, and can cut down vibration and noise for the driver. That is something that we should all welcome.
Armitage proposes more expenditure on roads and bypasses. I believe that this part of the report, too, should be implemented. We should not forget that the road transport industry—petrol tax and all taxes from vehicles —yields about £8 billion a year. That is vastly more than is spent on roads. At one time, expenditure on roads was 50 per cent. of the yield from transport taxes. Today, it is less than 30 per cent. There is a margin there that can be used for bypasses.
I do not want to indulge in a long speech on the merits of rail and road, because they both have their part to play. The consumers should make the final decision as to which method of transport they use, but we should not overlook the fact that the railways are substantially subsidised by the taxpayer, whereas the road transport industry as a whole makes a net contribution to the Exchequer.
Armitage makes a total of 58 proposals. They include higher standards for noise control, which we welcome; higher standards for smoke control, which we welcome; higher standards of vibration control, which we also welcome.
Mr. David Penhaligon: Who are "We"?
Mr. Cockeram: We also welcome the higher standards for brake control and tougher penalties for overloading.
The hon. Gentleman has asked who "We" are. I do not know. If he does not welcome higher standards of noise, smoke, vibration and brake control, let him say so. Most of the citizens to whom I talk welcome higher standards of control of those matters.
Armitage also recommends that lorry taxation should be increased to cover the true track costs. I welcome that, too. That is only reasonable and right.
If Britain continues to run its road transport industry, which is a vital industry, on a maximum of 32½tonnes, one of the lowest in Western Europe, it cannot expect our vehicle industry to be among the leaders in Europe. If we want to sell our vehicles abroad and to trade with customers on the Continent, we must move with the times, too. That means increasing the total weight from 32½tonnes. I welcome the Armitage proposals.
8.52 pm
Mr. Sydney Bidwell: I declare my interest, in that I am sponsored by the Transport and General Workers Union. The union is very disappointed with the Armitage report, because it did not seem to pay due regard to the whole environmental effect on the road workers for whom the union substantially caters. I have already said that in an intervention during the Secretary of State's speech, and I said it at greater length in my speech last January. I do not intend to take long tonight, because that is already on the record.
The House should be reminded that although the Government have, thankfully, stepped back from the commitment to 44 tonnes, they have not stepped back from what will in their hands inevitably become an increase in road freight tonnage. That is what underlies the Minister's speech tonight.
The Opposition have been exactly right, first in complaining about the limited nature of the earlier debate and now in pressing the motion. The Government are to accept it, because they have no choice. If they had tried to vote against the motion it would have been understood that they were committed to 44 tonnes.
It is still not clear —and it is not likely to be clear from the debate —what the Government will be committed to. All sorts of figures have been bandied about. It is my union's view that there could be far greater efficiency in the use of the existing amount of freight haulage stock on British Roads. The present tonnage is ample. Single-journey loads, are commonplace.
It is a fact of life that we have far too many road vehicles chasing too few goods. In the Union's submission, that is the essence of the matter. I ask the Minister to give it further study, using extreme caution. In my view, the Armitage report did not do so. I have already suggested that it could not, because it did not bring together people with experience of working day after day in unsavoury weather conditions, working unsocial hours, and so on, to maintain and operate Britain's transportation system. They are the people who matter. They must be won over to any considerable changes in the present system. Having ventilated that view earlier, I shall not repeat it now.
I have read the observations in the national press about the Armitage report. I do not refer to the journals that present the views of Labour Members ½namely, a better usage of our transportation system involving the old
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Socialist idea of integration of existing modes of transportation that can be vastly improved, and the cutting out of the cut-throat competition that has been encouraged by the Government and that adds to the wastage and cluttering up of our highways.
The Western Mail does not usually advise people not to vote Tory at elections. I am not an avid reader of that newspaper. It advises caution about the Armitage report. The Daily Telegraph is a better-known paper. It is sometimes described as the Bible and Prayer Book of the Conservative party. It said that it would be wrong to tip 44-tonne vehicles on to British roads because of the present rate of road reconstruction. There will not be a rapid burst of activity to provide even the roadways recommended in the Armitage report.
The M25 has the green light to go ahead. There will be a massive circle around London. But freight vehicles will still have to traverse London to reach their offloading points. There will be considerable problems both in the inner city areas and over a wider area. The Government dare not cast a blind eye on those problems.
I am a motorist, but I try to avoid travelling on the motorways. It is a frightening experience for any motorist to pass a commercial vehicle approaching the present maximum limit of 32 tonnes when it is raining. It throws up spray that is so bad that it is similar to running into thick fog at speed. To allow the draw-bar, trailer-type commercial vehicles on our present road system would mean greater hazards for the motorist, unless we provide in the longer term —I shall not live long enough to see them —highways solely for the use of freight vehicles.
An environmental objection exists in many parts of Britain about our present road system, let alone the fear of a massive increase in lorry tonnage as envisaged in the Armitage report. I dare say that that is envisaged also in the minds of the Ministers who are bending to the pressure of the Common Market countries.
My union believes that the operation of road transportation in most Continental countries is well known to be grossly inefficient. It is often run on a one-man, one-vehicle basis. That is a wasteful system. There is much greater efficiency when it is collectivised. There is much better planning in the total use of road haulage vehicles when that occurs. Much less time is spent running a lorry that is empty. Better planning will ensure that 32-tonners run with a full load on both the outward journey and the return journey. That is the way to reorganise British transport.
When the next Labour Government take office my right hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) will be a good Socialist Secretary of State for Transport. It is possible that he will be better than any of his predecessors, because he will have the right spirit and the right ideas, which he expresses in the Chamber.
I hope that my right hon. Friend will never engage in a wide-ranging inquiry without calling in representatives of the workers, either from the sub-committee of the TUC's general council or directly from the transport unions. Unless he does so he will not get an intelligent answer. I am sure that if Sir Arthur Armitage were put alongside practical transport workers the result would be something really good and representative of the voices of transport workers. Forthwith I shall tread in fear and trepidation of the Government's real intentions for 44-tonners.
9.2 pm
Mr. Matthew Parris: The greater part of what I wanted to say has been made redundant by the happy circumstance of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State having said that we are not to proceed with the 44-tonne lorry. I welcome that decision, but it is rather unwise of those of us who are worried about heavy lorries to concentrate so much of our fire on the 44-tonne lorry. The 44-tonner is rather like a vicious dog that the Government keep in a kennel. Every now and again they bring it out to snarl and bark at everybody. When it is put back in its kennel, people are so relieved that they accept with gratitude any smaller changes that may have happened at the same time.
In answering the many letters that we have had from our constituents on this issue, many of us have reassured them that the Armitage report is recommending, not that we should have larger lorries, but that we should have heavier ones. That has been said on more than one occasion this evening. However, there is only one sense in which that is true.
The Armitage report recommends increasing the weights that various different types of lorry are allowed to carry. If those weight increases are implemented, the relative economies of operating the different types of lorry will be altered. I understand that the operator of a 32-tonne lorry can carry more or less the full pay load, and therefore run it economically, without violating weight limits. However, an operator will not be able to allow one of the larger lorries to carry its full pay load. It will be limited to 32 tonnes, and the operator will not be able to run it economically. If the recommendations in the Armitage report are implemented, the operators of larger lorries will be enabled to operate them economically. That will mean that we shall have more of the larger lorries on the road. It does not mean that larger lorries will get any larger, but we shall have more of them.
Our constituents are right to say that the Armitage report will mean larger lorries, in the sense that larger lorries will be rolling past their windows. In that respect the answers that we have been giving them have been wrong. I quote briefly from paragraph 353. It states that the Transport and Road Research Laboratory
"concluded that, if freight volumes remained fixed at 1977 levels the 780,700 32·5 tonne lorries used in 1977 would be replaced over several years by a combination of 26,400 32·5 tonne lorries and 42,200 heavier lorries, a total of 68,700."
Armitage says that the total is slightly less. However, it is worth remarking that those 42,000 heavier lorries are probably five-axle articulated lorries that would otherwise not be on the road. That is 42,000 new heavy lorries on the road. That is the point that I want to make. There is a sense in which Armitage means heavier lorries.
Much in Armitage is sensible. However, on the whole the changes confer benefits on road hauliers but do not extract many concessions from them. Many small towns, villages and country lanes are already being pounded by heavy traffic for which they were never built. It is a pity to implement a major series of changes which confer benefits on the road hauliers without taking the opportunity to extract from them the significant concessions that we need in country areas. Therefore, I am glad about the 44-tonne decision. However, that is not as important as other weights. I am more worried about 40-tonne and 38-tonne lorries. We should tread carefully in that area.
Mr. Waller: Will my hon. Friend accept that it would be unfair to impose the expensive recommendations that make up most of the 50 recommendations in Armitage while at the same time not allowing the economic benefits? Does he agree that the converse also applies?
Mr. Parris: There must be a trade-off. In that trade-off we must extract concessions at the same time as conferring benefits. I am not sure whether, in Armitage, we extract the concessions that people in a rural constituency such as mine would want.
9.7 pm
Mr. David Penhaligon: I candidly admit that I am not convinced of the argument in favour of any increase in lorry weight. An hon. Member said that, unless that were implemented, we would have the lowest maximum lorry rate in Europe. That is probably true, but we are perhaps the most densely populated country in Europe. What I want to say revolves around the report's concept that separating the people from the lorry is not possible in the United Kingdom.
I believe that if 44-tonne lorries were allowed and they were restricted to the motorways of Britain, probably no great harm would be done. From my front door in my constituency where I was brought up to the nearest motorway is about 100 miles. That is how far it is to the nearest inch of motorway. Therefore, the restrictions to motorways would be of no great assistance to the economy of the far West.
I am delighted that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West made a point about the size of larger lorries. It is true that the size of the largest lorry will not be significantly greater than that of the largest lorry to be seen on United Kingdom roads now. There is no doubt that the number of the largest lorries in my constituency and the hon. Member's constituency in Derbyshire would increase dramatically if the report were implemented —certainly by half, and perhaps even more than that.
The Opposition's motion is that 44 tonnes should not be accepted. It seems that the Government will accept nearly 40 tonnes. The estimate of those large lorries is contained in table 32 to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Of 42,200 extra large lorries expected to be on our roads, if the report were to be fully implemented, only 2,600 are stopped from going on the road because of the Government's announcement tonight. The figures of 2,600 out of 42,200 extra large lorries is very small.
Much has been said about the impact on urban areas. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Brown) would again make the valid point which has been made well by the right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth). Other Members have also referred to the problem in urban areas. The hon. Member for Carshalton (Mr. Forman) said that the problem could be solved in his constituency if there were a bypass around it. That would be difficult in my constituency as it stretches from coast to coast. A bypass around my constituency on that basis might solve many problems caused by lorries.
It is said that the problem in urban areas is insoluble, because many of the lorries have to go into the towns to make deliveries. It is no easier to solve the problem in rural areas. There is not a ghost's chance of this Government, the Labour Party or even the great Liberal-Social

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Democratic alliance, when we get the power that I am sure we shall get in the near future, finding the money required to separate people from lorries.
To do that only in my constituency, which is the one that I know best, we should need bypasses around St. Blazey, Sticker, Zelah, Carnon Downs, Ladock, Mitchell, Blackwater, Probus and Grampound —and that would not even solve the biggest problem of getting the china clay from the north of St. Austell, where the pits are, to the ports to the south of it. No doubt I have upset a village somewhere, but I worked hard on the list, so perhaps I have not. Building the bypasses to make the larger lorry environmentally acceptable would solve unemployment in my constituency for a long time, but there is not a ghost's chance of any Government building all those bypasses, and only by doing so can the report's objective of separating large lorries from people be achieved—and that would only solve the problem in one constituency. We should have to multiply the cost by the 300 or 400 other rural constituencies. I do not claim that my constituency is particularly bad. No doubt any of my hon. Friends could prepare a list as long, if not longer.
The separation must be achieved to avoid damage to roads and houses. We talk about the fourth and fifth power of axle weight damage to roads. What is the axle weight power of damage to houses? In the little villages in my constituency we have houses built 150, 200 or even 250 years ago of old cob, earth and stone. They were built by shuttering. The men came home from the mines, dug earth out of their gardens and threw it between two pieces of wood. Each night, they added a foot on. That is how the old cob houses in much of rural Britain were built. They did not know of British standards in those days, but the houses served people well.
The cracks in such village houses are frightening. People who live in them are worried to the point of despair. They worry about their houses more than about the roads, which the county authorities are responsible for repairing if they crack. They have to repair their own houses. If a serious fault occurs, I would bet my bottom dollar that every single official for miles around would claim that it had nothing to do with him, and the whole load would fall on the householder. The Minister receives many submissions from county surveyors arguing for roads to be better maintained in areas like mine and, I suspect, the Minister's constituency. The reason is the impact of the much heavier lorry over the last 15 or 20 years.
Would the Minister write to me on one local point? The report refers to height restrictions, and suggests a special exemption for glass. A surprising number of submissions have been made to me suggesting that the provision should be extended to broccoli, which is a light vegetable and contains more water than anything else. An enormous effort has to be made to get even a few tonnes on the back of a lorry. As the broccoli crates are piled up, lorries leave the far South-West looking more like a triumph of man's ability to construct scaffolding than anything else. The danger to bridges is zero. They scarcely want to lose their own broccoli on the way. They know by now, although they perhaps discovered by trial and error, the height of the bridges on the route from the far South-West to London. The broccoli industry is significant in my area during part of the year, and several people have commented that a height limit could seriously affect the economy of that industry.
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I look forward to hearing the Government's view when they eventually announce to the House what they intend to do about larger lorries. There is little in the report or in the debate today to convince me that any increase at all in lorry weight is required. It is true that we should then have the lowest weight in Europe, but we are also about the most densely populated country. I do not believe that the basic premise of the Armitage report of keeping separate the large lorries and the people affected by their noise can be satisfactorily achieved in any other way.
9.15 pm
Mr. Chris Patten: I shall not follow the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) into the problems of broccoli transportation. I welcome this further, albeit short, debate on the Armitage report. I am surprised, once again, at the determination of the Opposition to try to make a party political issue out of the question whether one favours heavier lorries. I am not sure of the reasons for that. Listening to the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape), I thought that it must have something to do with NUR sponsorship and reselection, but as he has gone off for refreshment, he cannot help us on that.
I think that we can set the mind of the right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) at rest on this party political issue. As Government Whips are chosen for their perspicacity as well as their looks I cannot imagine that they would seek to drive through the Lobby those of us who do not regard heavier lorries as the touchstone of our Tory beliefs, today or on any other occasion.
I wish to make three brief points. The first concerns the environmental and economic arguments underpinning the Armitage report, which I do not think is at present in danger of being killed by kindness. The second relate; to the environmental package. The third relates to the linguistic issue examined by the Select Committee on Transport —the question of when a package is a package. I should like to suggest a package of my own.

I take first the economic argument. The Armitage report states, in paragraph 139, that we should
"maintain and develop the economic benefits which heavy lorries have given us".
Some organisations, which are understandably parti pris, have taken the argument further. I notice that the Freight Transport Association, which doubtless does a very valuable job for its industry, went on to argue that there is
"an indisputable link between freight movement, GNP and prosperity".
To reduce that argument to the absurd does not involve travelling very far. Presumably, when we are extremely prosperous we shall all be driving 44-tonne lorries. That is just one of the questionable economic assumptions underpinning some of the arguments in favour of moving more freight by road. I do not take the point that what has stood between this country and an economic miracle in the past decade has been a paucity of heavy lorries, or that the less than onerous restrictions—far less onerous than in other countries —that we have already placed upon lorries have been a brake upon economic progress in this country. I do not believe that for a moment.
I also do not believe in the proposition that bigger means fewer. I believe that that argument falls strictly into the "Tell that to the Marines" category of expert assurance.

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It was demolished earlier by the right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness, to do him justice, as I am always anxious to do. It was also referred to by the Chairman of the Select Committee on Transport.
I wish to deal briefly with two points relating to the environment. First, we must remember the background against which we are arguing this matter. It is more than 10 years since my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) spoke of the lorry as representing a growing and undoubted nuisance. Since then, the nuisance has been no less a matter of doubt, but it has grown a great deal and nobody has done much about it. So when I consider, for example, the Armitage proposals on noise, I do not think that they go far enough. I think that the 1990 target for an EEC directive laying down a noise limit of 80 on the A-weighted decibel scale is simply not ambitious enough. that would mean that we would not have a generation of quiet lorries until nearly the end of the century.
Given that my right hon. Friend said, in his interesting speech in January —he was interesting then, but what he said was much more welcome this evening —that we should regard the quiet lorry as being standard throughout the country and not an exceptional showpiece, I am sure that he will welcome as much pressure as possible to achieve that standard on noise as soon as is practicably possible, and certainly a good deal sooner than Armitage was suggesting.
Vibration is a particular problem in my constituency, where so many of my constituents have to live beneath the shadow of the passing thundering juggernauts. I welcome the suggestion in the Armitage report that we should attempt to limit ground-borne vibration, but I do not think that that is nearly enough. I do not pretend to understand all the arguments about fourth power relationships, but two things seem reasonably clear.
First, in his speech in reply to the debate in January, in a cheerful metaphor, the Under-Secretary of State said that talking about heavy lorries with more axles was like talking about a large lady wearing slippers. He suggested that she did not do as much damage to the floor as a smaller lady wearing stiletto heels. I do not want to abuse the metaphor, but when we are considering the effect of vibrations on old buildings, what matters is the weight of the lady rather than her taste in footwear.
That point was made nearly 10 years ago by the Royal Institute of British Architects, which pointed out that it is the whole weight that operates below the surface as a vibrating source, and that this was the crucial factor when considering the structural effects, on eighteenth century and older buildings, of passing lorries and other vehicles.
While there is some evidence of the effect of vibrations on, for example, St Paul's and other cathedrals, and old churches, there is not nearly enough for us to be certain about the precise amount of damage caused by passing heavy traffic. That point is more or less conceded in the Department's own supplementary material presented to the Armitage committee.
It is difficult to escape the conclusion of the Civic Trust in its evidence to Armitage, when it said that
"in economic theory lorry users could be taxed and the recipients of vibrations compensated but in practice this does not happen. In an ideal world, lorry users would try to discover what costs they are imposing on others but since they do not do so,
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Government as guardian of the public interest has a duty to do so. Ignorance is used as a reason for not compensating those who bear the cost and also for taking no steps to reduce the cost".
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able to tell us shortly about the additional steps that the Government are taking to reduce our ignorance of the effects of vibrations.
I was delighted by what my right hon. Friend said about considering the proposals in the way that the Select Committee had suggested. I hope that we shall press ahead with some of the environmental changes suggested by Armitage. I hope that we shall go rather further in one or two particulars. Let us also, as the right hon. Gentleman said, bring forward some of the bypass projects, and particularly the Batheaston bypass. I remember the Under-Secretary of State, at the end of the debate in January, saying that he was looking on it with a favourable eye, and that he would consider the possibility of resuming work on the bypass as soon as possible. I took it at the time that a wink was as a good as a nod, and I should be extremely grateful for confirmation of that—if not this evening, then certainly later this summer.
Let us go ahead with the environmental measures and let us do something—as the jargon goes —to civilise the lorry. Let us take more steps to protect the quality of life and to preserve our architectural heritage. Let us take more steps to get on with building the Batheaston bypass. When we have done all that, we can return to the question whether to have heavier lorries.
9.24 pm
Mr. Ronald W. Brown: There must be something wrong with our debates if I have to sit down at 9.30 pm, when 91 out of 165 minutes of debating time will have been taken by Front Bench spokesmen. Other hon. Members have only 74 minutes in which to speak. However, I shall be as brief as possible.
The Armitage report does not do much for Hackney. I have expressed that view many times, and I am sure that hon. Members will forgive me if I centre my remarks on Hackney. The roads in Hackney represent a short-cut from the M1 and the North to Tilbury and the docks at Dover and Folkestone. Therefore, the resolution of the lorry problem should be seen in the context of Hackney. It is a typical example. The Armitage committee did not take sufficient care to examine such areas. Armitage could have invited me to point out some of the aspects that crystallise and encapsulate the argument.
One road of grave concern is Graham Road. There have been many arguments and rows about it. From time to time I may have co-operated in attempts to stop lorries by illegally walking across the road to show everyone what happens when the vehicles are stopped for only a few minutes. The scene is extraordinary. The argument that all the vehicles that pass through Hackney stop in London is false. We have done a survey. I do not say that it is completely accurate, and we cannot claim that it is statistically provable, but the residents' association has spent much time and money on it. The residents' association discovered that about 80 per cent. of the juggernauts that pass down Graham Road have no reason to be there. They do not stop in London, and they use Graham Road as a through route. It found that a smaller proportion—46 per cent. of the remaining vehicles —had reason to come through Hackney and needed to stop

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somewhere in the vicinity. I hope that that illustrates the fact that vehicles do not have to come through Hackney because of a need to deliver in London.
It is argued that when the M25 is completed, in 1983, life will be much easier. Life will be easier only if the Secretary of State bans heavy lorries from going down Graham Road. The right hon. Gentleman said that when the M25 was completed there would be a ring road and vehicles would not need to go along Graham Road. Will he confirm that he will take positive steps to stop their doing so? That assurance would help my constituents. They face another two years of misery, but if we can assure them that the Government intend to prevent heavy vehicles from travelling through that area after that, it will help.
My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) mentioned costs. He rightly pointed out that the road haulage industry does not pay the full track cost. That is certainly true of Graham Road. Safety guards have been put up for pedestrians, because vehicles travel not only along the road, but over the pavements. So many people have been injured and killed that guard rails have been put up. They are notional safety guards. They are a warning to pedestrians that they should not cross the road at that point. Although there is a crossing and traffic lights, the railings are a warning to the pedestrian to ensure that he does not cross there.
The railings and traffic lights are knocked over week after week, and pedestrians are continually harassed. One would have thought that action would be taken to protect the pedestrian, but that is not done. Hackney borough council keeps replacing the guard rails to try to protect pedestrians from the vehicles that keep knocking them down.
Many cars are sandwiched between these juggernauts and the pavement as the lorries turn left. Car drivers believing themselves to be free of the lorry to turn left are squashed by the back of the lorry. Drivers and passengers are in danger of serious injury. The vehicles are not stopped, but we build out the kerb—so that the road becomes almost a hazard in itself —to try to stop someone who lives in Hackney from crossing the road, in order to allow a juggernaut from Germany or Paris to turn left from the middle of the road. In doing that we make sure that the driver cannot see what is happening. The pedestrian is in even more danger because the rear of the lorry hits the guard rail and ensures that it is knocked down at the point where adult and child pedestrians are waiting to cross the road.
I have asked everybody in authority in Hackney to see the problem. I have blocked Private Bills in the House. I have done everything that I can to force action by the local authority. As a result, I have had help from the GLC. Did it block the lorries in Hackney, in Graham Road? No. The GLC went to Barnet, which does not have the same problems, as it is not near the M1 and does not have the same number of heavy lorries, and all lorries are now banned from the London borough of Barnet.
I do not object to that, because, as the House knows, one member of my family lives there. However, it is no help to the people of Graham Road in Hackney to know that the London borough of Barnet is well taken care of. Barnet does not even begin to have the problems of Graham Road. Hackney. I see nothing in Armitage that seeks to understand the problem or to give advice or make recommendations on how to solve the problem.
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Now that the GLC is under the control of the Labour Party it has decided to call for an inquiry into a lorry ban in London. it is a costly business. The Secretary of State for the Environment is taking more punitive action against London generally and individually in the boroughs.
Millions of pounds are being withdrawn from London. How does the Secretary of State believe that the Greater London Council and the London boroughs can undertake the urgent and necessary work that follows from Armitage? How can he say that that must be done, while at the same time his right hon. Friend is taking more and more money away from London and making it impossible for it to carry out its work?
Mr. Snape: Is my hon. Friend aware that in Paris, for example, the heaviest goods vehicles are banned from the middle of Paris for no fewer than 12 hours a day, and that other smaller goods vehicles are banned from the centre of Paris at other times of the day? I point out to the right hon. Gentleman that if that works in Paris, it would also work in London.
Mr. Brown: The Greater London Council would be able to adduce those arguments and make powerful recommendations. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to consider providing more money. I understand that he went one stage further by calling in the GLC either yesterday or today to warn it that because of its expenditure to try to help public transport, in order to reduce the amount of private transport he is threatening to withdraw the 1 per cent. subsidy. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will confirm that that is not true and that he does not intend to take punitive action against the GLC because it has tried to solve the traffic problems in London by its proposal to reduce fares.
I shall end now. Time is short, and I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker for calling me at this late stage.
I welcome the Government's decision not to have 44-tonne lorries, but I do not believe that a case has been made even to go beyond the present position. Existing lorries are too heavy if we are to allow them to continue to flood down Graham Road in Hackney and New North Road in Shoreditch. The existing problems must be solved before we decide to allow heavier lorries. Only then will it be possible for my constituents to consider the prospect of even bigger lorries driving past their doors.
9.35 pm
Mr. Gary Waller: Everyone objects to the damage done by heavy lorries. The hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) referred to them as a menace, but we all depend on lorries to an enormous extent. Sir Arthur Armitage referred to the road transport industry as the "essential sinew" of the economy.
Some of the debate has centred on the relationship between road and rail. It is important to remember that, even if rail could increase its share of freight by 50 per cent. the preponderance of traffic carried by road is such that there would be a relatively small reduction in the number of lorries on our roads.
When Sir Arthur recommended a 44-tonne lorry, he saw the recommendation standing on its own in both environmental and economic terms. We should not lose sight of that. He saw environmental advantages in heavier lorries, bearing in mind the proposed axle weights and so on.

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Sir Arthur told the Select Committee that the advantages of 44-tonne lorries also apply to 38-tonne and 40-tonne vehicles. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will take account of the interests of lorry manufacturers and the carriers of goods as well as of those of the residents of our villages, towns and cities.
Only a few carriers would go for 44-tonne lorries, but the number would increase considerably if we went for 38-tonne or 40-tonne lorries. The arguments for 38-tonne or, preferably, 40-tonne lorries are considerable.
The number of lorries involved is an important environmental consideration. Between 1949 and 1979 the vehicle mileage of lorries only doubled, while that for all motor vehicles went up by six times. The reason was the trend towards larger lorries. That trend will continue. It will be promoted, without detriment to the environment, if we agree to 38-tonne or 40-tonne lorries. I accept the reasons that have driven my right hon. Friend to come down against 44-tonne lorries.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Patten) said that it may be nearly the end of the century before we get a quiet lorry. But I would argue that it will be a considerable improvement if, within nine years, we can get a lorry that is as quiet as the average motor car of today.
Sir Arthur told the Select Committee:
"Your complaints in your postbag deal with really an impression that lorries are going to be bigger. They are the same as the ones cruising about now except that the 44-tonners have six axles. Yes, I think you will be able to tell, but you will not be able to tell by anything else but the extra axle."
That is why I believe that the arguments in favour of bigger lorries are so strong. I accept the weight of evidence that Sir Arthur received.
The hon. Member for West Bromwich, East suggested athat the inquiry had been rigged. That is grossly unfair to the excellent assessors who sat on the committee. They have enormous experience of the medical, social and environmental aspects of transport in this country. The case exists for 44 tonnes. It also exists for 42 tonnes and for 40 tonnes. I am confident that when my right hon. Friend reaches a decision, it will be a decision in the interests not only of all those who use our roads but of those who live close to them.
9.40 pm
Mr. John Prescott: This has been a good debate, although perhaps a little of the punch has been taken out of it by the fact that there will be no vote at its conclusion. No doubt, also, more hon. Members would have wished to speak if the motion had not been accepted by the Government. By agreeing to the motion the Government have made it clear that the 44-tonner will not be acceptable. The debate has, however, shown the increasing concern of hon. Members about large lorries and their consequences.
There is increasing scepticism among hon. Members about the findings of what is a highly complex report. I praised the report in a previous debate because I considered the information that it contained to be valuable for those wishing to examine the arguments. The disagreement arises over the judgments that one makes from the mass of material in the report. Many hon. Members have shown increasing scepticism of judgments derived from some of the statistical data in the report.
1108
Many hon. Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth), have questioned the whole basis of freight allocation determined solely by market cost and the continuing relocation of freight from rail to road that an increase in lorry sizes has tended to encourage. The Opposition do not accept totally that to impose a fairer track cost on the lorry is the best way to achieve freight allocation and to get the best utilisation of investment in road and rail.
The arguments about environmental cost, in noise and in damage to pavements and gas pipes, show the increasing concern that exists about the full extent of the cost of the damage. Figures are given in the Armitage report. The feeling among hon. Members seems to be that the cost is considerably greater than that given in the report.
The benefit to the consumer was questioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bradley), who is Chairman of the Select Committee on Transport. He quoted a professor in Australia whose arguments about the benefits to the consumer of an advance to larger lorries seemed to impress members of the Committee. The whole thread of the argument in this debate has been to question the economic costs and the advantage to the community involved in a move to heavier lorries.
I think that the House generally will reject the case put forward by the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr. Cockeram), who suggested that it was necessary to move to larger lorries because Europe had larger lorries. The logic of the hon. Gentleman's argument would be to opt for the 50-tonne lorry seen in Holland. Europe is not prepared to move to the 50-tonne lorry. The recommendation of the European Commission to the European Parliament, which was rejected, was, I think, for a 40-tonne lorry. That shows that not everyone has been pushed to the logic of saying that a 50-tonne lorry gives a better competitive advantage than a 40-tonne lorry or a 32-tonne lorry. Generally, the House has not accepted that kind of logic.
The continuing discussions in the Department of Transport are evidence of the questioning of some of the premises on which argumenets have been based. In the earlier debate, the Secretary of State said that he hoped that the consultations would be completed by mid-March.
We do not complain that consultations are taking place. It is good that the arguments should be looked at by the Secretary of State. I hope that he will approach critically the arguments put by my right hon. Friend about the formula used to assess the axle weight ratio. That is a crucial argument, because the damage equation depends on the figure being right. My right hon. Friend questioned the research that had resulted in the formula.
While we can be clear that no regulation will be brought before the House to permit 44-tonners, the general feeling is that the Government are minded to allow lorries larger than 32 tonnes. There is a possibility that lorries will be heavier but not necessarily larger, although with certain trailers they could be longer.
Our debate has shown that people believe that there will be larger lorries. We can only hazard a guess at the figure that the Minister will arrive at when he decides what size of lorry will be permitted. One of the reasons that the Minister gave for not accepting 44 tonnes was that industry did not demand many vehicles of that size. Table 32 in the report shows the demand for each lorry size. The demand for 44-tonne, six axles is only 2,600 vehicles. The maximum demand hovers around the 38-tonne mark.

1109
About 70 per cent. of the demand for lorries over 32 tonnes is for lorries of 38 tonnes. If the Secretary of State is influenced by the criterion of the maximum demand, he is likely to decide on a limit of 38 tonnes.
There are other factors to be considered. The question of axle weights for various sizes has to be considered. The 38-tonne lorry axle weight is one of the lowest. The only lorry with a lower axle weight is the 32-tonne lorry. The third factor that will be in the Government's mind and in industry's mind is the economic advantage, and that estimate seems to be at a mid-point between 5 per cent. and 13 per cent.
Having listened to the advice that he receives, and having consulted the various organisations, the Secretary of State may finally decide on the 38-tonne vehicle. The evidence of damage, the environmental effects and the freight allocation arguments put by my right hon. Friend are all of equal validity in respect of that vehicle.
The Secretary of State said that he would first produce the Government's comprehensive view of the report —that is welcome —and that then there would be a debate. I assume that the debate will be not on the regulation but on the paper produced by the Government on the Armitage report. If that is so, we welcome it and look forward to the next debate on the subject.
9.50 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): I am reassured by the general tone and nature of this debate. There has been a wide measure of agreement on both sides about many features of the Armitage report. As we have so many partisan debates on transport, it makes a change to welcome and agree with an Opposition motion, as we have. Unfortunately, even when one agrees with the right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth), it is difficult to do so in a spirit of complete accord. I received, by chance, a copy of a statement that I believe he has circulated this evening to describe the total agreement between both sides. It begins:
"The Government's backing away from 44 tonne lorries is a major blow to the powerful heavy lorry lobby. However, the Opposition's campaign to flush out the Government's position is only a partial victory".
If this is a victory, it is the easiest victory that the right hon. Member has had, and probably the easiest that he will ever have, because, as I tried to explain, we agree with him about the 44-tonne lorry.
The hon. Member for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) went further than anyone else in the debate by going through all the old arguments that underlie these feelings that somehow Armitage is a fraud and a rigged inquiry, and part of a device by which the faceless men in the Department of Transport are moving in the direction of heavier lorries. We heard all the old stuff about the Peeler inquiry, and so on. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton (Mr. Forman) that the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East clearly had not listened to the debate. It is unfortunate that there remains a section of the environmental lobby, including many people who are genuinely concerned about these matters and want to protect the public interest in matters affecting villages, and so on, who believe all this stuff. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Cockeram) said, we have all had leaflets that were plainly printed and prepared well before the Armitage report was completed and available.
I hope that our debate this evening and the welcome statements of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State
1110
about the Government's position will reassure people that our study of these matters is objective, that we are concerned about the environment, and that we fully recognise the kind of views that are held not only in the constituencies of West Derby, Carshalton and Truro, but in every rural constituency in England. My right hon. Friend and I are genuinely fairly green men. Everything that has been said and done on the subject of heavy lorries and the environment by this Government and by the Armitage report so far should reassure the general public that we understand the concern that certainly exists.
Sir Derek Walker-Smith: Will my hon. and learned Friend give a more tangible reassurance to those who are properly interested in the environment? This proposal comes from a draft EEC directive in 1979, which I understand is still under discussion. That draft directive will require the unanimous consent of the Council of Ministers under article 100 of the EEC Treaty. If it gets that it becomes, under article 189, part of the law of this country and we have to wear it, will-nilly. Will my hon. and learned Friend give, on behalf of the Government, an unqualified undertaking that our Ministers will withold their consent from the directive imposing the 44-tonne requirement?
Mr. Clarke: I am grateful to have the opportunity of saying "Yes". I shall also take the opportunity to deal with the point that constantly arises in these debates, that somehow all the concern about heavy lorries arises out of the EEC. There is such an EEC directive, but it is a fairly dead issue at present, because this country will not agree to it —nor, I think, will several other European countries. The Armitage report rejects the EEC recommendation, and Sir Arthur points out that acceptance of the directive as it stands will involve unacceptable damage to bridges in this country, and will involve high expense.
We are seeking a solution that matches our needs. It will be a British decision, made in the light of the report. When we reach it we shall begin, on the basis of that, to have discussions inside the EEC, if the matter is raised again, to try to reach acceptable harmonisation, because there are trading benefits if we can harmonise at some level.
When we are all agreed that we are concerned about the environment and the damage that lorries can do to the quality of life, let us acknowledge that Sir Arthur Armitage and his assessors were on the same side. Whether they got it right or wrong, the report put forward propositions in the belief that their acceptance would be of benefit to the environment.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow gave a fair and balanced description of some of the 58 recommendations, many of which I believe will have a wide welcome —the proposed restrictions on dimensions, the recommendations on noise, and so on. Sir Arthur Armitage advises that heavier lorries will mean fewer lorries. That advice has been challenged in the debate. Not surprisingly, there are considerable doubts about it. It is the key matter on which we must in the end make our decision. We should not lightly reject the recommendation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Patten) said that he regarded that advice as being strictly for the birds. He will have to produce arguments to demonstrate that. He may be right in the end; we may all come to the conclusion that Sir Arthur's advice is wrong, but it is well researched.

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Table 32 has been cited. It should be read together with paragraph 353, about the likely change in pattern when the heavier weights are allowed. It is based on research by the Transport and Road Research Laboratory. It was not plucked out of the air, and it was not a product of the road haulage industry. The proposition is advanced that the overall number of lorries of 32 tonnes and over will be 10,000 fewer in this country if the lorries are allowed to be more fully loaded. If that is right, and we reject it, we shall have made a dreadful mistake.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris) that if one asks his constituents or mine "Do you want heavier lorries?" the chances are that they will reply "No". But I think that if we asked them "Do you want fewer lorries?" they would say "Yes, please". Therefore, we must have a serious response to the argument and come to a decision whether that case can be sustained.
The Government have no view on that. We are examining the case and we shall want more time to consider it, because we must come to the right conclusion for the sake of the environment as well as industry.
Mr. Les Huckfield: How does the Minister know that we do not have lorries of 44 tonnes gross weight now? As he does not have the enforcement mechanism, the weighbridges and the weighing machines, and as we are talking about many existing lorries carrying existing containers, how can he possibly say that we do not have many 44-tonne lorries?
Mr. Clarke: I thought that the hon. Member for West Bromwich, East was the only man that I had ever met who believed the preposterous proposition that we had weaker enforcement methods in this country than in other Western European countries. Nobody involved with the road haulage industry will agree. I am glad to say that I think that standards of enforcement in this country are much higher than in many Western European countries.
Mr. Snape: Name one.
Mr. Clarke: We continue to do work on equipment for detecting axle weights. We have regular campaigns against lorries near the ports. I do not believe that standards of enforcement in most Western European countries are as high as those achieved by the police and the traffic inspectors here.
I have dealt with the "more means fewer" argument. I agree with the right hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness that that is the key issue on which we must come to a conclusion. The Government need more time to come to other conclusions.
We must take the economic arguments seriously, because we are an industrial country. If there are those who nurture the theory that there is a conspiracy with the road haulage industry, I point out that it tends not to be the road haulage operators who put forward the claims about economic benefits. It is those who manufacture goods, own-account customers and people with bulk loads such as beer, petrol, flour who think that they would derive great benefits.
We shall consider all 58 recommendations. We have accepted one tonight. The others will now have to be responded to as a package. We shall handle the matter in the way recommended by the Select Committee. Therefore, there will be full debate, and a considered package will appear in due course, taking full account of the views put forward in the debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House, conscious of the problems caused by existing heavy lorries, is opposed to the Armitage recommendation of 44 tonne lorries.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, the Town and Country Planning (Minerals) Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour. —[Mr. Mather.]

Town and Country Planning (Minerals) Bill [Lords]
As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): There has been a revised selection of amendments. It follows the original provisional selection with the addition of amendment No. 3, with which we shall take amendment No. 23.

Clause 2

  DISTRIBUTION OF PLANNING FUNCTIONS
  10.1 pm
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Giles Shaw): I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 29, leave out '4' and insert '4A'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may take Government amendment No. 33.
  Mr. Shaw: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for drawing attention to the revised selection list, which I trust hon. Members on both sides of the House will be able to follow.
  As hon. Members who served on the Committee will know, the Bill has two separate sets of clauses which deal with the Scottish application of the Bill as well as that pertaining to England. We shall move and speak to amendments relating to the English part of the Bill, each of which will have its Scottish equivalent. That is the case with amendment No. 1, the Scottish equivalent being amendment No. 33.
  For the convenience of the House, I shall speak both to amendment. No. 1 and to No. 33. In earlier prints of the Bill we had failed to notice that schedule 3 to the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 already contains a paragraph 4A, inserted by paragraph 24 of schedule 15 to the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980. The new paragraph being inserted by the Bill must therefore become paragraph 4B.
  Amendment agreed to.

Clause 4

  NOTIFICATION OF APPLICATIONS FOR PLANNING PERMISSION
  Mr. Shaw: I beg to move amendment No. 2, in page 4, line 15, after 'subsection', insert whom the applicant knows to be such a person and'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may take Government amendment No. 18.
  Mr. Shaw: This further amendment to the one that I moved in Committee is needed to clarify the position on notifying owners of land to which a planning application for mineral extraction relates. Under the clause as it stands it is possible for a mineral operator making an application to be unaware of the name and address of the owner of the land, yet to have that information through knowing the owner in another capacity. For example, the owner may be a customer and his name and address may appear on the
  1114
  books as such. The amendment ensures that an operator who signs a certificate in good faith saying that he does not know the owner of the land is not subsequently found to be in the wrong through no fault of his own. That has always been our intention, but the amendment is needed to make that clear.
  Amendment agreed to.

Clause 5

  IMPOSITION OF AFTERCARE CONDITIONS ON PLANNING PERMISSION
  Mr. Richard Alexander: I beg to move amendment No. 3, in page 6, line 19, leave out 'ten', and insert 'five'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may take amendment No. 23, in clause 22, page 29, line 31, leave out 'ten' and insert 'five'.
  Mr. Alexander: We have heard many good remarks about the Bill, but many of us feel that there is a blemish in clause 5. It concerns the period during which the industry is to be responsible for the aftercare of its sites after workings have been completed. As originally drafted the period was to be five years, but an amendment was accepted in Committee extending that to 10 years.
  I think that my hon. Friend is aware that the change made in Committee caused the widest concern among the extractive industries. That is why I introduced the amendment, with the assistance of my hon. Friends the Members for Ludlow (Mr. Cockeram) and for Sudbury and Woodbridge (Mr. Stainton). I am authorised to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Knutsford (Mr. Bruce-Gardyne), who cannot be here this evening because of another duty, wants to express his concern about this issue.
  The CBI has taken a special interest in this part of the Bill. The Bill, as amended in Committee, aroused the concern and dismay of many extractive industries, such as the Blue Circle Group, the Amey Roadstone Corporation Ltd. and Hoveringham Dredging Ltd. To have these representatives of the extractive industry in opposition to the clause as amended must, I suggest, give my hon. Friend cause for concern.
  If my hon. Friend agrees that the good will of the industry would be eroded if the amendment made in Committee were accepted, I hope that he will accept my amendment. If he does not, he will lose the good will of the operators who have a good record in looking after their land following the extractive operations. There are many partnerships within the industry and the farming industry, and if the clause were not to be amended on report that good feeling would go. A period of 10 years would be inconsistent with that good will.
  Mr. David Ennals: I support the amendment. I was not a member of the Committee that considered the Bill, and I should not have noted the subject had I not been approached by a reputable firm in my constituency for which I have considerable admiration —namely, Atlas Aggregates Ltd. It told me that it was deeply concerned about the decision that was made in Committee.
  I shall read the first paragraph of the managing director's letter:

  1115
  "We have been taken aback by the Government allowing at Committee Stage of this Bill the period for aftercare (Clause 5) to be extended from 5 to 10 years. This decision is totally inconsistent with Government's previous view that 5 years was a reasonable period to expect the minerals industry to manage land after restoration, a view which the industry (in general acceptance of the principles of reasonable aftercare) had not sought to challenge. The extension of the period fundamentally changes industry's attitude to the whole aftercare provision and to the way in which it might be implemented; industry cannot accept a condition which ties capital in non-productive use for longer than is reasonably necessary."
  Having received that letter, I read the relevant debate in Committee. I was surprised when I learnt of the way in which the change had been made. I referred to the report of the Stevens committee, and I noted paragraph 9.22, which says that
  "even when satisfactory restoration has been secured, the important matter of after-care must not be overlooked. There is no provision in the present planning law covering this vital prerequisite to achieving and maintaining the best practicable agricultural quality of land in those cases in which the agreed after-use is agriculture or horticulture. We have heard evidence that conclusively attests for the need for after-care, and it is plain that the successful record of the National Coal Board's Opencast Executive has been due in no small measure to the attention which has been given to after-care. We therefore recommend that county planning authorities should be specifically empowered to impose on mineral permissions a condition requiring land which is to be restored to agriculture or horticulture to be managed for a period of not more than five years after the restoration has been completed, under the superintendence of the county planning authority who shall be obliged to consult the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food."
  That was a clear recommendation by a committee that had investigated deeply and had consulted.
  I read the Official Report of the proceedings in Committee on 19 May. I saw that the decision to provide for 10 years instead of five years had been taken after a very short debate. It could not have lasted more than 15 minutes. There were only four speakers in addition to the Minister, who said:
  "I am bound to advise my hon. Friend that this was one of the recommendations given by the Stevens committee. The Bill has been put forward largely to enact a number of the provisions recommended by that committee. I believe that the committee found five years to be an acceptable period for the industry …While we note the varying views expressed, we consider that the balance of five years, as recommended by the Stevens committee, is about right …Of one thing we are all certain:we want an aftercare provision in the Bill which both industry and the local mineral planning authority find acceptable. We do not wish to enact an important piece of legislation which causes resistance and aggravation on either side." —[Official Report, Standing Committee G,19 May 1981; c. 21.]
  I am sure that the Minister was right. I do not know why, seven minutes later, he agreed to add another five years to the period for which industry has a responsibility. My constituent, giving one or two arguments for the case, said that
  "it would change industry's attitude and this way influence the way it honours the aftercare obligation"
  That is a strong point. If industry feels that it is being bullied into doing something, its reaction will be different.
  My constituent also said that
  "the 10-year period would become the norm expected by planning authorities and that it would tend to erode the good will with industry …owners of land would be more reluctant to release it for mineral extraction because of the extra time it would be out of their control …there would inevitably be increased costs arising from additional monitoring requirements."
  If the industry is not opposed to and the Stevens committee is in favour of a period of five years, and if the
  1116
  Minister considers that that is the proper thing to do, I do not see why the House should not conclude that it is the proper thing to do. That is why I support the amendment.
  Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: I shall first declare an interest. I shall follow up what the right hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals) said —that paragraph 9·22 in the Stevens report recommended five years and not 10. That was followed by the Department of the Environment's circular 58/78, which said that:
  "We accept that where restoration of worked land is to agriculture or horticulture, it would be right to enable the condition to be attached, providing for aftercare over a period of years similar to the arrangement which obtained for opencast coal working by the National Coal Board."
  I understand that the National Coal Board has a five-year and not a 10-year period. It must be consistent with both nationalised corporations and the private sector that those two should be the same. I hope that the Minister is in an accommodating state of mind and will be able to pursue that recommendation.
  The Derbyshire county council, in written evidence to the Stevens committee, on pages 416–417, recommended that the completion of restoration be followed by management under the MAFF auspices for a period of five years. Various local authorities have been thinking in those terms. I regret that I was not a member of the Committee. Whatever may have happened in Committee, MAFF had no hand in promoting the amendment of 10 years' aftercare and considered that, normally, five growing years was sufficient for land to be brought back into operation.
  One thing that should be mentioned in connection with the mineral industry is that five years is ample and 10 years would mean a prolonged investment. One of the difficulties with 10 years is that the mineral industry would be turned into estate investment companies. It would be unrealistic to tie up its capital for a number of years when it should be devoted to the development of minerals in the United Kingdom. I support the amendment.
  Mr. David Mudd: It is a rare occasion for me to follow so closely the speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Newark (Mr. Alexander) and for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) and at the same time the views of the right hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals). I endorse their views on behalf of the Cornish mineral extraction industry, which generally accepts the Bill and commends the amendment.
  10.15 pm
  The industry, point-blank, says that a period of 10 years is in no one's interest. Ten years' responsibility for aftercare attention is meaningless and unrealistic, and is an albatross around the necks of mineral operators and landowners alike. For instance, the industry feels that over a 10-year period the cost of administration could be higher than the cost of immediate administration. It is traditional in Cornish minerals that reinstatement takes place in the first year after operations have ceased. For Cornwall, even five years is generous, and 10 is carrying things too far.
  There is no clash between the Cornish dimension and the views of the Stevens report and the Government that five years is adequate. In the House of Lords Committee on 5 February 1981, at column 1349, Lord Bellwin said that the Government thought that the five years proposed by Stevens was just about right. In fact, we need look no

  1117
  further than this House. On Second Reading, the Solicitor-General for Scotland appeared to accept that if five years turned out to be inadequate the period could be amended by regulation.
  The industry agrees with Stevens and the Government. It believes that a 10-year aftercare period is wrong, for five reasons. The first is that 10 years could mean a period of responsibility totally disproportionate to the length of operations. Secondly, a period of longer than five years could become standard in the eyes of planning authorities, and thus create another restriction. Thirdly, if 10 rather than five years were added to the period of answerability of operators to landowners, as has been pointed out by the right hon. Member for Norwich, North, the landowners might be less inclined to grant operational licences, because of the additional time that the land would be out of their control. Fourthly, the longer period of responsibility at the closing stages of an operation could substantially add to the cost of monitoring and administration. Fifthly, a protracted period of responsibility could lead to the positive stagnation of financial resources necessary after five years to move to developments and operations elsewhere.
  The operators say —this is not contradicted by the landowners —that five years is the maximum period in which aftercare responsibility has an advantage after restoration is completed. After that, the relationship between money spent and actual improvement is, cost-effectively, a falling curve.
  For those reasons, I hope that the House will support the amendment.
  Mr. Frank Haynes: I am a little surprised to find so many hon. Members on the Government Benches. [Interruption.] I repeat that I am a little surprised to see so many hon. Members on the Government Benches. What we see is a lobby for the five-year period.
  We must look at the matter sensibly. I was on the Committee and I am interested in planning. The suggestion is wrong. Not only that; the Minister has done a U-turn. This was not the position in Committee, and we need to think about that. That is why I say that there is a lobby here tonight in favour of a five-year period.
  On a farm in my constituency, land was restored by the NCB after operations were finished, but because it was done so quickly the farmer has been left with a massive dip in his land, which is constantly full of water. I see that I have the support of the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon), so this must be happening in Cornwall, too. We must consider this matter sensibly and not rush into changes.
  I do not accept that it is a matter of saving administration costs. I should perhaps at this late stage declare an interest as an ex-miner and a member of the NUM. We must be fair and sensible about this. I believe that the 10-year period is sensible and that five years would be far too short.
  Too short a period would not be fair. We must give those who undertake work of this kind —in the coal industry, it is generally the National Coal Board —sufficient time to complete the job properly. Restoration of land would also cover the restoration of tips at pits, so that they become an amenity for the people in the community after mining operations is over. I do not
  1118
  believe that five years would give the NCB sufficient opportunity to do the job properly in the interests of the community.
  Incidentally, I received a letter from the Minister yesterday about a project that I raised with him in Committee. I may indeed wish to question him on that reply, which he promised and for which I thank him, but which I do not regard as at all satisfactory.
  We should not rush into reducing the period to five years, as the amendment suggests. I do not intend to vote against it. I give that assurance. Nevertheless, in the interests of those who carry out this type of work following excavations, and in the interests of the community in the locality that the land should be restored as well as possible, I do not regard a five-year period as acceptable.
  Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: I support my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander) and the right hon. Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Ennals). A 10-year period would force many members of the Stone Federation to sell off their land very quickly, even at a loss, rather than bear the heavy burden of 10 years' responsibility for the maintenance and restoration of that land. That would be a serious penalty. In order to maximise their price they would probably sell the land in very small parcels, so that it would be used for purposes such as horse grazing, which would not be a good use of what is sometimes prime land.
  I therefore believe that we should support the amendment. Very clear reasons have been given, and I shall not repeat them. Certainly in the interests of quarry owners I feel that unless the amendment is passed the town planning people will be given a licence to make 10 years the norm. That penalty should not be imposed upon the industry.
  Mr. David Penhaligon: I ask the House to think again about the line that it is pursuing. There has been a great lobby here tonight to change the 10-year period to one of five years. I have received the same lobby material as other hon. Members. This legislation probably affects my constituency more than any other in the country, certainly in the privately owned sector. I make no claims about the State-owned sector and the National Coal Board, but in the privately owned sector I suspect that more acres of my constituency are actively worked and therefore affected at this time than in any other constituency in the land. Some hon. Members seem to have accepted the lobbying rather easily.
  The argument is that the company concerned would be involved in a good deal of administration. The Bill regards the work as being aftercare, after the restoration has taken place. If the restoration is done correctly and satisfactorily virtually no administration is involved. The grass will grow, a few cows can be put on it, and at the end of 10 years that is the end of it. That is all the aftercare that will be needed.
  But suppose that the restoration work is not carried out satisfactorily, and the period for restoration has been changed from 10 years to five years. There is then no way of getting back at the company. That is the beginning and the end of it. That is what concerns me. I have a feeling that the period of five years may already have been accepted as satisfactory.
  In part of my constituency, in an area measuring about 10 miles by 8 miles, there is a great series of holes, pits

  1119
  and tips. About 6,000 people are employed there, and it is an extremely welcome part of the local economy. Without it, my constituency would have no economy, so let no one think that I am attacking the extractive industry as such. The company concerned has tried to carry out restoration. Although it has made substantial efforts, I could not describe any of the restoration so far as being satisfactory if the meaning of satisfactory restoration is that the land should be as good as it was originally.
  The acres of mica from the pits in my constituency are now planted, by means of a technology that I do not comprehend, in order to encourage grass to grow in that mica material. In the circumstances, I am amazed how much grass is able to grow there. Even so, it is very thin. I said rather jocularly in Committee that it appeared to be one blade per sq. ft. I apologise for misleading the Committee. It is not as bad as that. But nobody could possibly describe the area, after 10 years, as being as good as even the most marginal land. That is not satisfactory restoration. But if the Government get their way, the period of five years will go by and, if the restoration is not satisfactory, there will be no possible recourse to the company concerned. Yet it is the company's responsibility to put the land back to its original condition.
  Mr. W. Benyon: What sort of planning conditions were imposed on the land that could have allowed the company to leave such enormous holes?
  Mr. Penhaligon: The hon. Member cannot have been following the Bill very closely. The reason why the Bill is so welcome is that no planning permission, consent or anything else has been required for the industry. Anyone who applied before 1948 could dig a hole and throw the material wherever he liked. When a company wishes to throw the material into a new place it has to get permission under the law as it now stands, but if a company has been disposing of material in a particular place since 1948 it can continue to do so. The Bill seeks to improve that position dramatically. That is why it is welcome. That was the purpose of the Stevens committee. The Bill could bring about a major improvement to the environment in my area.
  The company in my constituency to which I have referred knew that the Bill was coming and has already attempted to do some of the things that the Bill regards as necessary. However, the efforts so far cannot be said to have reached a level that I would describe as satisfactory, if the definition of satisfactory restoration is that the land should be as good as it was before extraction began.
  10.30 pm
  Mr. Keith Best: Has the hon. Gentleman quantified the cost to that company of reinstating the land? Has he assessed whether it is possible to reinstate it to its full former condition within five or 10 years? Will the hon. Gentleman comment on that, as it is fundamental to his argument?
  Mr. Penhaligon: It is impossible to restore the land to its former condition, because in the intervening period someone has enthusiastically removed material from it. By definition, the level will be lower. I do not know the cost of restoring the land. I do not say that I am necessarily right, but I should like the company to be forced to cover the tips with earth. To date, it has refused to do that and
  1120
  claims that it is unnecessary. As a simple man, something tells me that grass will grow better in earth than in mica. To date, the company has strongly resisted the idea of putting earth on top of the tips. I am sure that grass and normal vegetation would grow well if that were done.
  What would such an operation cost? It would cost something, but it could cost that much to place a in to in layer of earth on top of the tips, even if they covered several square miles. The company in my constituency made £41 million profit last year with only 6,000 employees. Although I am delighted to have one of the most profitable companies in Britain in my constituency, it is too much for that company to argue that putting earth on top of the tips will be a serious burden.
  The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Mudd) obviously read the brief and swallowed it with more enthusiasm than I did. I know the hon. Gentleman's constituency almost as well as I know my own. He referred to the practice in Cornish mining or quarrying of restoring at the end of the first year. The practice is that companies often do as much as they are going to do at the end of the first year. However, I humbly submit that that boils down to very little. Parts of the hon. Gentleman's constituency are like moorland. Past mining activities have left some areas like deserts. I refer to places such as Carharrack, St. Day and Lanner. Areas in the hon. Gentleman's constituency reflect the mining practices of 50 to 100 years ago. The mineral industries have turned them into an endless mass of rubbish.
  Mr. Mudd: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would pause in his phenomenal and fantastic flight into rhetoric whilst I ask two questions. First, he suggested that five years was no good. If that is so, why has he not tabled an amendment extending the period to 20, 50 or 100 years? What is the right period? Secondly, will he be kind enough to explain to a simple soul such as myself which parts of Cornwall he would ravage to provide the soil to fill in his clay pits?
  Mr. Penhaligon: The hon. Gentleman's latter point is not very good. Not unreasonably, one assumes that there was earth there before. Even today, when new pits are opened it is the practice to take earth from the top and to throw it to one side as if it were of no value. Hon. Members may shake their heads. I will take them to the pits and show them if they wish. I do not know how much time is needed, but 10 years would give a better guarantee than five.
  If, at the end of two years, the restoration work is a success, I fail to see that any great expense will be incurred by the company. It will not have to do any more work on it. It will not have to invest any more labour. It will have only to keep an eye on it. As has been said, the responsibility can be transferred on disposal. If the responsibility is of no consequence, the obligation that is handed on will be of no consequence. It will not affect the value of the land in any effective sense.
  I think that the House would be making a mistake if it accepted the amendment because that would reduce the protection given to an area that is putting itself into a considerable environmental difficulty to provide the country with raw materials.
  Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd: I want to add my modest weight to the arguments that have been advanced in support of the amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander).

  1121
  Several hon. Members have commented on the lobby. I admit that there has been a lobby. No one can deny that. There is nothing wrong with lobbies. What may be wrong is one's reaction to them. I support the right hon. Member for Norwich. North (Mr. Ennals), who said that he was aware that the people in his constituency were good operators with a decent and understanding concern for the quality of the environment. It was with that understanding that he responded to their concern.
  I approach the matter on a similar basis. In my constituency there are stone and aggregate concerns of considerable importance. Some companies are immensely worried about the quality of the environment. As the Minister will recall, at the beginning of the debate concern was expressed about the lack of understanding among many of the commercial interests affected by the Bill, but the quality of enlightenment and understanding that resides in my hon. Friend and his colleagues at the Department has, to some extent, moved on to the shoulders of the people in those industries, despite the substantial commercial interests that are at stake.
  Those concerned have accepted the need for aftercare. They have recognised that and do not quarrel with it, but they find it difficult to understand how a provision that was originally in the Bill, was not amended in the House of Lords and which had the wholehearted support of the Stevens committee, should subsequently be changed as much as it was. It is difficult for me to explain to them why that has happened. I have read the proceedings in Committee, and I agree with the arguments that have been advanced. The debate was short, and it was not possible for many of us to contribute to it.
  It may be said that many concessions have been given to the industry, especially about compensation. That should be taken into balance in the overall package that the Bill contains. I ask my hon. Friend to quantify the balance, if that is a line of argument that he wishes to pursue. Can he support the contention that as much, or more, has been given to the industry than has been taken away by the provision? The answer to that is necessary to allow me to answer the questions that have been asked by my constituents.
  I understand and appreciate that considerable pressure has been put on my hon. Friend by local authorities. The taxpayer and the ratepayer will have to bear a substantial burden of the cost of compensation. They are most concerned about that. I received a document this morning from the Lancashire county council, dated 18 May —the debate in Committee took place on 19 May —that argues for a five-year aftercare provision. That major local authority in my constituency —where there are substantial quarrying interests —does not support the argument that the five-year provision should be extended to 10 years. I find it hard to accept that in that case the council has been bringing pressure on the Department to increase the period to 10 years.
  The hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) says that we should not rush in. I am the first person to accept that, but Conservative Members are advocating that we should revert to the five-year provision. If my hon. Friend the Minister wishes to insert a power to issue a regulation to extend that in the light of experience, no reasonable, rational person would quarrel with that, and we should not be rushing in. We should be able to test it in the light of experience. That is why I support the amendment.
  Mr. Eric Cockeram: I support the amendment because it deals with an important matter. About ¼million acres of land are being quarried in this country and that is a substantial area which is not in productive use for farming. It is important that after the quarry or mineral workings have finished the land should be restored to agricultural productivity as soon as possible.
  We are not discussing the first five years. We agree what should happen then. The debate concerns the second five years. It would be more efficient if, during that period, the land were in the hands of a farmer, forester or smallholder —rather than in the hands of a quarry owner —because he would be much more likely to bring the land back into productive use than would a mineral worker, who would leave the land lying idle for years while awaiting the opportunity to get rid of it. It would be much more beneficial for the whole country if the land were returned to productive use as soon as possible.
  Much of the land is on the fringe of towns, where aggregate and quarry workings are usually required. If the land were returned to a farmer or to one of the other people whom I have mentioned, it is more likely to be integrated with a smallholding, with the marginal extra acreage being turned to high productivity use.
  I. Penhaligon: I do not disagree I much of what the hon. Gentleman has said, but by supporting the amendment he is supporting the ending after five years of the obligation on the mineral owner to remedy restoration work if it is proved to have gone wrong. It is not a question whether anyone is farming the land or it is being left to I wild. I suspect that it will be farmed anyway, whether on a tenancy, a lease or whatever. The hon. Gentleman is arguing not about who will reclaim it, but about whether the liability for restoration if something goes wrong should end after five years. I see no reason for that.
  Mr. Cockeram: I do not understand the hon. Gentleman's argument. He asks for the liability to continue to the end of the tenth year in case it can be proved that something has not taken place. What is so special about 10 years? Why not 15 or 20 years? The hon. Gentleman seems to think that a magical transformation will take place at the end of the tenth year. I do not accept that.
  After five years' work by the mineral worker, who will by anxious to offload responsibility for maintenance of the land, he will do all in his power to restore it to maximum productivity and beneficial use at the end of the fifth year. The sooner that it is returned to those who can maximise its use, the better.
  Mr. Gordon Oakes: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) that this is an astonishing debate. It is astonishing to see so many Conservative Members here. They are clearly representing a lobby on behalf of the industry and not necessarily on behalf of their constituents who have to live with the results of the industry.
  Your predecessor in the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker, said that, exceptionally, amendment No. 3 would be considered. It is exceptional, because the matter was debated in Committee and it is rare for us to debate on the Floor of the House an amendment on which a decision was taken in Committee, but that is what happened.
  The third unusual circumstance is that this was not an Opposition amendment. It was moved in Committee by

  1123
  the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Heddle), who, possibly for good reasons, is not in his place tonight. I am not criticising him. He persuaded both sides of the Committee and also his hon. Friend the Minister that the amendment was right.
  10.45 pm
  Mr. Michael Shersby: The right hon. Member will recall that I spoke on Second Reading about the need for the extension to 10 years. Because of the peculiar workings of the House, I was not selected to serve on the Standing Committee. I therefore asked my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Heddle) to move what I can only describe as the Hillingdon amendment. The reason why so many of my hon. Friends are in the Chamber tonight, as the right hon. Gentleman has correctly indicated, is that opposition has built up to the Hillingdon amendment.
  The reasons for the Hillingdon amendment were spelt out in Committee. I share the right hon. Gentleman's view that the 10-year period is right. I was responsible for causing the amendment to be moved by my hon. Friend, who kindly dealt with the matter in Committee. Everyone in Hillingdon was delighted and impressed with the words so wisely spoken by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State in accepting the amendment. I share the astonishment of the right hon. Gentleman. Something has changed and I shall listen to his remarks with interest.
  Mr. Oakes: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) for what he has said. Rarely have I given way to an hon. Member and heard such a favourable response. This matter was debated in Committee for a short time, in what I think the Minister will agree was a friendly Committee. Hon. Members did not have much to disagree about. After all is said and done, the Bill has been kicked about by several Governments, including the present Government, and I applaud them for introducing it.
  The Stevens committee report appeared many years ago. The Government of which I was a member did not have time to implement it. The present Government had not previously found time to implement it. I remarked on Second Reading that the issue was very much a matter of balance between the environment and industry. In Committee I moved a number of amendments, some of which were accepted by the Government, in favour of industry, because I felt the balance had gone slightly wrong. I see that the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) agrees with me. We tried to strike a balance within the provisions of the Stevens report.
  Hon. Members in Committee heard the remarks of the hon. Member for Lichfield and Tamworth and of other hon. Members, notably the hon. Member for Truro. I was convinced —I had been neutral—that 10 years was right because the Bill deals not only with agriculture, but with forestry. Five years is a minimal time in terms of forestry. Ten years is much more realistic. Conservative Members may shake their heads, but the argument also convinced the Minister.
  Why is the industry so worried about the situation? An enormous amount of special pleading has been heard in this debate. If the industry does its job properly and restores the land within a period of five years, even though
  1124
  the statute says a 10-year period, what is there to worry about? It will have done its job. The land will have been restored and no more money will have to be spent. So why this lobby about a 10-year period and five-year period?
  It is true that the Stevens committee recommended a five-year period. The Minister said that. He was convinced by the Committee. That is what Committees of the House are for. Hon. Members debate Bills upstairs and are swayed —as I was, because I repeat that it was not an Opposition amendment —by the force of the argument. When a Committee makes a decision, unless the Government change their mind and back-track on what has already been agreed —I suspect that that is what will happen —the matter is not debated again in the House. If a Committee expresses its view on an amendment, that amendment is not normally reselected for debate. That is what happens, unless the Government decide to back-track.
  Mr. Roger Moate: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain this extraordinary notion that the Report stage is not supposed to be swayed and is supposed to accept, apparently without any further debate, the verdict of a Committee of the House? Is he really saying that? Will he modify some of his criticisms of the fact that a lobby has taken place? Surely it is right for hon. Members to respond to representations that they receive. In my case, I received sensible and constructive representations on behalf of an industry which is vital for employment locally and the construction industry generally. Surely there is nothing wrong in that. It is a sensible way to conduct a Report stage.
  Mr. Oakes: I agree that there is nothing wrong with that. When I was a member of the Committee considering the Bill I, too, received many representations, some of which I put forward on behalf of the National Coal Board, the Stone Federation, and a number of other people who were involved with this measure. I was concerned basically with employment prospects—as Conservative Members probably are in voicing their opposition now, but I believe that they are misguided in opposing what was decided in Committee. The hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate), who has been a Member of the House for a long time, knows that when an amendment is debated in Committee it is rare for that amendment, having been accepted by the Government, to be redebated by the House on Report. I do not know whether that has happened before.
  Mr. Ennals: I hope that my right hon. Friend will not suggest that there is anything immoral or unparliamentarian about the House of Commons looking at a Bill that has gone through Committee, reaching a conclusion that part of its conclusions were wrong, and seeking to put it right on Report. That, as I see it, is the purpose of the Report stage. If the House were denied the opportunity of trying to make adjustments to what an admittedly good Committee has done, surely the House would be undermining its own powers. I should not want that to happen —nor, I hope, would my right hon. Friend.
  Mr. Oakes: Of course I should not want that to happen, but time and again, when amendments are raised, even official Opposition amendments, on what has been debated in Committee, they are rightly not accepted by the Chair, because the Chair says that the matter has been debated upstairs and the decision has been made.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Order. The right hon. Gentleman has made his point. Mr. Speaker selected the amendment, and we are discussing it.
  Mr. Oakes: I want to make it clear that I am in no way attacking the Chair. I am merely saying that the matter was debated in Committee. However, I agree that we should leave the point.
  The purpose of the amendment in Committee was to deal particularly with the position of forestry and where, as the hon. Member for Truro said tonight, within a five-year period something could go wrong and at the end of the period nothing could be done about it if it remained.
  One hon. Member asked "Why 10 years? Why not 20 or 100?" In Committee we tried to strike a balance, which was that a 10-year period was fair. We did not want to make it 20 years, 50 or 100. Ten years seemed to the Committee to be more appropriate than five.
  I do not know what the Minister will say. I hope that he will stick to the decision that he made in Committee, where he was swayed by the arguments, not of the Opposition, but of his hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth, who moved the amendment and then received the Opposition's support. There was no vote on the amendment, because the Minister, I think rightly, accepted it. I hope that he will stick to his guns.
  Mr. Sydney Chapman: I listened with great interest to what the right hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) said. I find myself in a minority, possibly of one, on the Conservative Benches. [HoN. MEMBERS: "ND."] I seem to be in a minority of two or three, or four or five. Perhaps that minority will be bigger when the House has heard what I have to say.
  I realise that the arguments are finely balanced. I would not presume to summarise them, but I think that the case for reverting to the five-year period is that the Stevens committee, which looked into the matter carefully, concluded that that should be the period. The case for 10 years can be said to be that a period of five years is too short to determine whether the restoration has taken place successfully, at least on some sites. I think that that is the point that the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) made. From my reading of the Official Report of the Committee stage I understood the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to believe that five years was a short time for a full restoration, and my hon. Friend the Minister spoke of its being a very short period for afforestation.
  Incidentally, I admire the way in which my hon. Friend responded not only to the telling eloquence of my hon. Friends the Members for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Heddle) and for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mr. Murphy) but to the more parochial rhetoric of the hon. Member for Truro, and again the telling eloquence of the right hon. Member for Widnes.
  I do not know what my hon. Friend the Minister will say, but I should like to make what I believe to be a constructive suggestion. I have no financial interest, but perhaps I had better say, prudently, that I have a professional interest as a fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute. I do not know whether my suggestion will have the institute's agreement.
  I propose that the 10-year provision should be left in the Bill but that the Secretary of State should issue a circular saying which sort of restoration work or sites should have a five-year period, a 10-year period, or whatever—
  Mr. Skeet: That is too complicated.
  Mr. Chapman: I do not think that it is. My hon. Friend, with his great experience of planning law, will know that any condition attached to a planning permission can be challenged by way of appeal. If a planning authority were minded to act unfairly and insist on a 10-year period when patently a five-year period would be more suitable, the Secretary of State could reverse the condition on appeal.
  Mr. Skeet: My hon. Friend says that all the terms can be reversed on appeal, but considerable delay and cost are involved in going to appeal. There would be appeals under the clause, under section 41 of the 1971 Act and other parts of the Bill; there would be nothing but appeals. The procedure would be made more bureaucratic for the industry involved.
  11 pm
  Mr. Chapman: On this occasion I must disagree with both the tenor and content of my hon. Friend's intervention. There will be no delay, because we are talking about a condition relating to a period after the planning application has been worked through. When one applies for a planning application to win minerals, the condition refers to a period after the mineral has been exhausted, which might be 60 years. There would be no question of an economic delay to the winning of the mineral.
  Mr. Ennals: It is very much more than the hon. Gentleman suggests. Under clause 5 the restoration condition
  "means a condition requiring that after operations for the winning and working of minerals have been completed, the site shall be restored by the use of any or all of the following, namely, subsoil, topsoil and soil-making material"
  Only after that period do we move to the aftercare conditions. Whether it be five or 10 years, the aftercare condition does not start until the restoration condition has been completed. We are talking not about five or 10 years from the start, but from when the job has been completed.
  Mr. Chapman: With respect to the right hon. Gentleman, the planning application is made before any development takes place. The condition relates to the restoration period after the period in which the development takes place. In some cases that might be about 60 years. There is no additional cost. The matter can be dealt with by written exchanges of views. I shall be interested to hear the view of my hon. Friend the Minister.
  Clause 5(7), after naming the period, uses the words "or such other maximum period after compliance with that condition as may be prescribed"
  My hon. Friend may suggest a reversion to the five-year period because —I am anticipating his words —the Secretary of State would have powers to prescribe a different period through regulations. I ask him to consider one point, namely, that it would be wrong to deal with the matter by way of regulation. It is far better that the period should be incorporated in the statute.
  Mr. Peter Griffiths: I rise to support the amendment. I resent the suggestion that everyone who supports the amendment is necessarily in some way part of a lobby on behalf of a certain industry. I represent an island, a large part of which is at or below sea level. Any extractive activities in my constituency

  1127
  would disappear beneath the waves. We are more concerned with land reclamation than with quarrying or mining.
  I am concerned, as are many other hon. Members, with the best possible protection of the environment that can be given after the necessary economic activity of extraction has taken place. It is fair to say that the extractive industries, both public and private, have an excellent reputation for the way in which they attempt to restore the land that they have used —not necessarily to its original condition but to a condition that will be acceptable for the economic activities and local amenities of the area.
  Many parts of the country are scarred by the activities of bygone generations. My constituency of Portsmouth, North has a quarrying scar from many years ago. How do we ensure that the provisions of this excellent Bill create the best possible opportunities for the restoration of the environment?
  At first sight it would be held by most people that a longer period of aftercare would be an improvement, and the longer the better. I have no quarrying or extractive interests in my constituency, but I have seen the documents that have been prepared by the extractive industry. I am not concerned especially with the industry's financial problems or any of its other difficulties but I am concerned that there was such a strong response from the industry. That suggests that if we move from five years to 10 years without presenting good and legitimate reasons for so doing, we shall impose on it a longer period of aftercare and we shall lose the industry's good will and enthusiasm to co-operate.
  In this instance I would willingly trade the extra five years for the good will of the industry that will be directly concerned not only for the five-year aftercare but for the preparation for extraction and the carrying out of the extraction. From an environmental standpoint I think that it would be wise for my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State seriously to consider the five-year aftercare period, which will have the full and enthusiastic support of the industry as well as what might be called the environmental lobby.
  Mr. Giles Shaw: It may be for the convenience of the House if I intervene now in what has been a significant debate. I find myself in a difficult position. The right hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) recalled, as did the hon. Members for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) and Truro (Mr. Penhaligon), the debate that took place in Committee. It is true that the aftercare period of five years was incorporated in the Bill in accordance with the recommendations of the Stevens committee. I say to my hon. Friends, especially my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander), who introduced into our proceedings a speech of great quality, that the key to this piece of legislation is to achieve an effective balance between the interests of local authorities, which tax us through their rates, and the interests of the industry that provides jobs and essential products for so many other industries.
  The question of balance lies at the heart of the way in which the Committee considered the proposals before it. The debate in Committee was not a long one. My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) said that a representative of the industry
  1128
  said that he could not understand how the Committee could have arrived at such a decision. The debate in Committee was of great quality, although it was not of great quantity. The Committee had to decide how to handle the proposal that was admirably made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Heddle) on behalf of the representative of the Hillingdon proposal. That was the amendment that was subsequently accepted, although not on a vote, by the Committee. The right hon. Member for Widnes and I were persuaded by the fact that the agriculture and forestry issue appeared to be stronger when set against the 10-year provision instead of the five-year provision.
  The hon. Member for Truro said that his constituency had suffered the ravages of an extractive industry, whose operations took place long before the more enlightened planning restraints that are to be available under the Bill, if the House so pleases. I might describe the hon. Member's comments as the earthy views of the prophet Micah. He has rightly drawn attention to the problem of reclamation. However, we must recognise that that balance must struck.
  In Committee there was a vote. My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale must accept that. More members of the Committee sought to make the provision a 10-year one than those who sought to retain the five-year provision. Being a democrat at heart, I recognise, although my school certificate in maths was of the illegible kind, that on the date and time in question I made a point of not resisting the amendment. Equally, I must tell the House that the persuasion of the agricultural and forestry factor was, in my judgment, very sound.
  Since then, I have made considerable inquiries about those elements and how the Stevens committee, which is at the essence of the debate, arrived at the original recommendation. It appears that that recommendation came from the evidence given to that committee by the Derbyshire county council, which urged the adoption of the National Coal Board's standard arrangement, under which the restored site would be managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for five years.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) quoted that provision which suggested that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food found that an acceptable aftercare period for agricultural purposes. The reference to the Ministry's direct involvement in the restoration of opencast coal sites is important. I have confirmed that it does not normally require special aftercare measures to be taken for more than five years.
  We must accept that what goes on within the five years after the initial phase of reclamation is crucial to the development of the land as a productive unit. There is a fair point to be made, that what is crucial is that first five-year period —the commencement of crop growing, the planting of trees, and certainly not their maturity.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr. Cockeram) rightly said that if the land were to be restored to agricultural purposes, the husbandman should have the land available to him at an earlier date than 10 years. That case would also apply to forestry. In the agricultural and forestry argument, there is a strongly-held belief by those who are primarily responsible, namely, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, that a five-year period, after considerable experience through the National Coal Board and its activities, is normal for special aftercare measures to be taken.

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  It has been remarkable that different views have been expressed, although the majority support my hon. Friend the Member for Newark's amendment. Therefore, it is likely that there could be differences of opinion about the optimum period. My hon. Friend was perhaps unfairly criticised for stopping at 10, as opposed to 15, 20, 25 or 30 years. I do not believe that any hon. Member would know the precise number of years required for any given site. What we have to do in a piece of primary legislation is to arrive at the most appropriate average period. I remind the House of a second point on the question of years. We have the power to alter that period by regulation.
  Much research is still being done on the problem, and it could well be that in due time a more effective average period would be regarded by those who should advise us on these matters, such as the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, as more appropriate to be issued by regulation. However, as we stand here now, there is pretty strong evidence that, for agriculture and forestry purposes at least, a return to the Stevens' recommendation of five years would be acceptable.
  11.15 pm
  The right hon. Member for Widnes, throughout the Committee proceedings, made most important contributions to the matter of balance. I say to him and to other hon. Members who served on the Committee that had the argument been placed before the Committee it might have swayed some who felt that an extension to 10 years was preferable.
  I make another point clear in response to those who sought to suggest that the matter is essential for industry. As is his wont, the hon. Member for Ashfield made it clear that he thought that this was a put-up job. Let me issue this caveat —and I come back to the right hon. Member for Widnes. What we are concerned about is to set out in primary legislation the correct parameters, as we see them now, for aftercare, among the other factors in the Bill.
  There is no doubt in my mind that industry would be most unwise if it assumed that what it was writing into the Bill was a total commitment that for ever and a day the case that it sought to make in relation to the provision could not and would not be altered. Should we accept the five-year period, if its operation showed deficiencies, as it most assuredly did for generations in the consituency of the hon. Member for Truro, I trust that the Government of the day would do their duty to restore the balance. In the end, what we are seeking tonight is to establish better environmental control, as well as sensible planning regulation, of this essential extractive industry.
  Mr. Michael Latham: Would my hon. Friend clarify one point, because it is of some importance? It is the question of his reserve powers relating to the alteration of the maximum period. Is he saying that he has no early intention of using the powers and that whatever decision is taken by the House will remain the case unless the circumstances totally change?
  Mr. Shaw: It would not be the Government's intention to pass a piece of primary legislation, including a provision as crucial as this, and in six months' time to alter it by regulation. The power for alteration lies within the Bill, and the Government of the day must take due care that the performance of the aftercare principle is
  1130
  satisfactory, that the restoration is maintained, and that we are not back where we were in having an aftercare period that is environmentally not worth it.
  Whatever the period is, there has to be a partnership between the mineral operator, the mineral authority and the farmer or other ultimate user of the land. If the mineral operator considers that he has been treated unfairly, and if his compliance with the aftercare conditions is grudging and not wholehearted, as my hon. Friends also made clear, we shall not achieve the good restoration that lies at the heart of this part of the Bill and is clearly crucial to the amendment.
  It has been clear that for whatever reasons the industry feels strongly that the amendment period, as passed in Committee, would place an unreasonable burden on it. It is true that the period in the Bill is a maximum, but I nevertheless recognise that if we are to alter the proposal now contained in the Bill the alteration must be carried out for good reasons and not merely because the provision happens to be a disadvantage to the industry at a given time.
  I recognise equally, however, that the commitment of the industry, like the commitment of the local mineral authority, to accept the intentions of the Bill and to operate it fairly and without favour is essential. From what my hon. Friends have said, and for the reasons that I have given, I believe that we should perhaps risk that good will if we kept the provision for a 10-year aftercare period in the Bill. I have to recognise that ultimately less may be achieved by imposing a 10-year aftercare period on an unwilling operator than by the wholehearted co-operation of that operator over a five-year period.
  I have therefore concluded that the amendment made in Committee would be unlikely to lead to better restoration and could well be counter-productive. I have also concluded —and this is the advice of the Ministry of Agriculture —that the agricultural and afforestation uses of restoration which are so clearly important would be satisfactorily dealt with within the shorter five-year period.
  Therefore, unusual though this may be, I am prepared —not being of massive dimension —to evolve what the hon. Member for Ashfield might call a U-turn. I am big enough to do that. I therefore advise the House to accept the amendment to restore the aftercare period to the five-year period originally recommended by the Stevens committee.
  Mr. Best: I am happy to be the first to compliment my hon. Friend the Minister on having accepted the amendment. It is right to say at this stage that he has nurtured the Bill extremely carefully and has given great care and consideration to the deliberations on it. Indeed, so assiduous is he that he was prepared to come and see me at 1 o'clock this morning to discuss my fears about this provision. In case that might be misinterpreted by any hon. Member, I should say that it was in the Library of the House of Commons rather than at any more disreputable venue that my hon. Friend sought me out at that hour of the morning.
  I am glad that my hon. Friend has accepted the amendment, because I believe that it represents a fair balance between the interests of the environment arid those of the industry. The hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) knows that I like him very much as an individual. He knows also that it is accepted in the House that when

  1131
  he makes a contribution he speaks with conviction. It is a great shame that, with all his experience of mining, and particularly of the coal mining industry, he was unable to tell us what was required in respect of opencast mining. It was my hon. Friend who was able to enlighten us on that. I hope that, having heard my hon. Friend's remarks, the hon. Gentleman's fears will be allayed with regard to the proposition that has now been accepted by the Minister.
  It is true that there is a lobby on the Conservative side of the House tonight. Indeed, it is not exclusive. It is on the Opposition side as well. There is nothing dishonourable about that. I hope that the right hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) will accept that there is nothing dishonourable in a Minister, or indeed any hon. Member, changing his mind in the light of superior arguments that he hears advanced in support of a particular contention. That is the way this institution works. I am sure that on reflection the right hon. Gentleman will accept that that is right.
  I believe that the evidence in support of the proposition accepted by my hon. Friend is overwhelming. It is therefore right that the amendment should be accepted, notwithstanding any question of a lobby on behalf of those in a particular industry, who, after all, are constituents just as much as are the environmentalists.
  There is one matter that has not been advanced tonight, and it is right that it should be placed on the record. The mining interests are not always the gargantuan, monumental concerns that will tread underfoot the interests of the environmentalist lobby. The quarrymen are often rather small business men who, especially at this time of national economic difficulty, are in need of the greatest help.
  In support of that view I refer to a letter from a quarryman in my constituency. The final sentence reads:
  "I would only add that it is already difficult enough to run a business without the imposition of further liabilities, particularly beyond that which seems reasonable".
  That is the gravamen of the argument. The amendment is reasonable, and will be perceived to be reasonable, I suspect and sincerely hope, not only by those who have sought to put it forward, but by those who are concerned, as we all are, about the environment. If we can all go away tonight feeling that the compromise is a reasonable one, that will be a triumph for the House.
  Mr. Oakes: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to make clear my view that there is nothing wrong with a lobby. I was merely saying to the House that there are two sides to every question. There is the environmental aspect, and there is the industry aspect. The Minister, in his very fair summing up, made that clear. He said that the period, whether it be 10 years, as agreed by the Committee, or five years, which he accepts, is not a period laid down for all time. The Minister can, in the light of this new legislaton, vary that period in certain circumstances.
  It could, of course, go the other way. If the 10-year period had been accepted, the Minister could have reduced it to five years. From my point of view, the industry "doth protest too much". The period of five years in the amendment is not permanent. In the light of experience, the Minister or a successor Minister could vary it if he felt it necessary to do so.
  1132
  In the circumstances, I do not think that it would be right for the Opposition to divide the House on the amendment, especially in view of the Minister's fair statement about why he has changed his mind. I accept that explanation, and we do not propose to divide the House.
  Mr. Shersby: I greatly appreciate what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has said during this evening's debate. The amendment that he rightly accepted in Committee in the light of the circumstances then prevailing has triggered off what has undoubtedly been an interesting debate. It has also provided the opportunity for a large number of hon. Members to attend the House at 11.30 pm to consider what is not an unimportant matter. He dealt admirably with the points that were raised.
  I originally asked my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield and Tamworth (Mr. Heddle) if he would be good enough to make a number of points on behalf of the London borough of Hillingdon, because anyone who has flown over Hillingdon will realise that the whole of the Colne Valley around London airport consists of dug out gravel pits, and we have to face the problems that are caused by mineral extraction.
  11.30 pm
  The London borough of Hillingdon provides 25 per cent. of all minerals supplied in the London area. That gives an idea of the scope of the problem with which we have to contend. It was the considered view of the planning department of the London borough of Hillingdon that a 10-year period would have been preferable. There was also the desirability of applying the 10-year rule because of afforestation considerations and the views which it was believed were then held by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. All those arguments came together and resulted in the amendment being carried.
  In considering what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State and the right hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) said, I feel, on balance, in view of the strong views expressed by my right hon. and hon. Friends, that it is probably right for the House, on Report, to look at the matter again and to support the Minister in what he said about restoring the five-year period, on the clear understanding that the matter will be kept under review, and if the five-year period proves not to be satisfactory it can be altered by statutory instrument.
  The overriding point made by my hon. Friend, which sways me in the argument and convinces me not to divide the House on this matter, is that we are more likely to get restoration completed within a shorter rather than a longer period. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the trouble that he has taken to consult interested parties, particularly the Ministry of Agriculture, on this important matter. This has been a valuable debate, and I am extremely grateful to him and his colleagues for the work that they have done, and for taking so much trouble to debate these matters at length in the House tonight.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. W. Benyon: I beg to move amendment No. 4, in page 8, line 18, after 'permission' , insert—
  '"forestry" means the growing of a utilisable crop of timber;'.
  The Deputy Speaker: With this we may take the following amendments:
  No. 24, in clause 22, page 31, line 19, at end insert
  'and "forestry" means the growing of a utilisable crop of timber'.

  1133
  No. 32, in schedule 1, page 51, leave out lines 11 to 14.
  No. 34, in schedule 3, page 53 leave out lines 20 to 23.
  Mr. Benyon: On the face of it, this group of amendments is curious. The background is as follows. The Forestry Commission, when asked for a definition of the aftercare provisions on a planning permission, gave the definition contained in the amendment. It was tempting for me to intervene in the previous debate, because the definition gives the lie to those who are worried about the forestry applications. Having restored a number of mineral workings to forestry, I know that five years is a reasonable time.
  The definition was incorporated in schedules 1 and 2. The reason for the amendment is that this is the first time in any legislation that "forestry" has been defined. Although this is a good definition in relation to aftercare, it does not ever the whole ambit of forestry and it could be taken as a precedent, which would be unfortunate. Considerable anxiety has therefore been felt in the forestry industry.
  The definition, for instance, does not include forestry enterprises such as firewood, turning, craft material, shelter belts and coppicing. The purpose of the amendment is to delete the definition from the schedules and to insert it in clause 5. The definition therefore relates simply and solely to aftercare, and a very good definition it is.
  I hope, with that brief explanation, that my hon. Friend will feel disposed to make the change.
  Mr. Giles Shaw: Once I start on the magnanimous road, I find it difficult to leave it. I am pleased to advise the House to accept the amendments commended by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Benyon), which rightly restore the definition of "forestry" to the major portion of the Bill, as opposed to the schedules. This is an improvement, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for introducing it.
  Amendment agreed to.

Clause 6

  LIMIT OF DURATION OF PLANNING PERMISSION
  Mr. Giles Shaw: I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 8, line 26, leave out'(d)' and insert '(b)'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it may be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 7, 25 and 26.
  Mr. Shaw: This is a technical amendment. The effect of the amendment, in conjunction with the following one, is merely to transfer the new paragraph inserted into section 41(3) of the 1971 Act, which I moved in Committee, to the most appropriate position in that section. The insertion is of a similar kind to the existing paragraph (b), and therefore it should most logically immediately follow it.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Mr. Skeet: I beg to move amendment No. 6, in page 8, line 27, leave out paragraph (e) and insert—
  '(e) To any planning permission granted for development consisting of the winning and working of minerals'.
  I listened carefully to the Minister. He has been most accommodating. He has accepted two amendments and I hope that he will feel disposed to accepting mine.
  My hon. Friend was kind enough to write to me on 15 June 1981. The letter contains three misconceptions. He
  1134
  implies that section 41 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 should apply just as much to mineral workings as to other forms of development. There is a big difference between developments in industry and developments on land. So far, minerals have been treated as a special case because the impact of planning control on mineral workings is greater and stricter than on any other form of development. The winning and working of minerals is a continuous operation—generally extending over long periods of time —as opposed to housing development, where on completion the planning permission is discharged and ceases practically to have further effect.
  Section 264 of the 1971 Act and the 1971 mineral regulations showed the special position that minerals hold in the economy. Statements in paragraph 7.8, on page 70 of Stevens, also stress the importance of taking mineral considerations into account. In view of that, I suggest that minerals cannot be treated in exactly the same way as any other development.
  The Minister pointed out in the letter that to provide that the development must be commenced within five years of planning permission would prevent the accumulation of unused planning permissions. The hon. Gentleman will recollect that section 65 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1968 declares that, where planning permission was granted before 1 April 1969 with no time limit attached, it would lapse on 31 March 1974 if not implemented by then. Such permissions relating to mineral workings were extended to 31 March 1979 by the Town and Country Planning (Minerals) Regulations 1971. Thus, all speculative complaints had been got rid of and the shake out was complete at that date. The retention of the five-year rule imposes a penalty on responsible mineral operators in order to cope with the occasional speculator.
  The third point mentioned in the letter is that a mineral operator always has the right to appeal to the Secretary of State. This matter was dealt with under clause 5. The Minister said that the matter could be rectified on appeal. This matter could also be rectified on appeal. However, delays and expense would be involved and such matters would best be obviated by accepting the amendment.
  There are four elements in mining—finding the materials, obtaining planning permission to work them where they lie, acquiring the minerals, and developing them. According to Stevens, on page 70:
  "To service his capital investment the mineral operator must also secure his future supplies of raw materials (the ore-bearing land from which he extracts the minerals)."
  The operator cannot simply go into the market and buy mineral lands. Minerals must be mined where they lie, and suitable land for mineral working comes on to the market only relatively rarely. It must be purchased when available. No one in his senses would dream of taking a mining licence for only five years when heavy capital expenditure is planned. Modern mining is obviously expensive. Alternatively, nobody would expect a mineral operator to wait until he is down to his last five years of reserves before he secured fresh supplies. There are delays in finding materials, further delays in obtaining planning permission and acquisition of rights. At a later stage planning permission may be refused even after the appeal procedure has been explored.
  Baroness Birk, in another place, referred to objections by the Association of County Councils and the AMA. She said:

  1135
  "I believe it would undermine long-term mineral planning, it would generate uncertainty in the community at large". —[Official Report, House of Lords, 5 February 1981; Vol. 416, c. 1325.]
  However, Stevens in paragraphs 7 to 9, on page 71, says that to implement the five year starting rule could have "environmentally damaging results". To prevent the lapse of the permission, the operator will comply with the conditions and start work within the specified period. Having thus preserved his planning permission, he will suspend operations until a time when, in accordance with his own programme, he is ready to resume them and carry them to completion.
  Stevens spent a long time on preparing his report, and I do not think that we have had a more thorough examination of minerals in the history of planning. The report concludes:
  "We see no need for any legal limitation to be placed in the time within which working of that area must start …There should be no time within which work under a mineral permission must be started provided: (1) Working has a defined place in the operator's working programme: (2) The operator's working programme is acceptable to the County Mineral Consultative Committee."
  In other cases the limit fixed will take full account of the legitimate needs of both the operator and the planning authority. As the Minister has been prepared to accept Stevens on two occasions tonight, he could accept the Stevens report now. Why deviate from it? Why not accept the entire package?
  What planning authorities conveniently overlook is that exact methods of and time of working must inevitably be uncertain. There is the problem of quality control. Details of the quality of minerals are often discovered only during extensive excavations. Geological knowledge is cumulative. Coal mining at Rothis had to be abandoned, due to extensive faulting, and the quarry operation at Dunbar cement works in Scotland had to be altered on the advice of geologists, leading to a more effective way of working the quarry. Faults in limestone are discovered only by intimate boring, which is now reckoned at about £5,000 per borehole.
  Another matter that must be taken into account is that the response to advances in technology is unpredictable. Technology may switch the area to be worked, and clause 6 would be of little benefit. The wet process for producing cement in Oxfordshire is due to be replaced by the dry process, with its energy-saving considerations. Output and the extent of working minerals may also vary with the turn of the economic cycle or trade recessions.
  It might be relevant if I read a letter from the Blue Circle technical department, in which it says:
  "It is true that the new Clause 6 allowing a sequential approach to section 41 may well help, but it would not be so easy to do this if as it is quite possible at Oxford we would first need to work at an interjacent area and where it is any case the existing and new quarrying areas might need to be worked in tandem for a sustained period of time. The only solution in these circumstances would be to allow the amendment which you"—
  that is, me—
  "are now putting down."
  11.45 pm
  The type of mineral may also be a factor. The Government's judgment has been influenced by many cases deriving from the sand and gravel industry. They
  1136
  cover a number of implications which are different from those of the long-term limestone quarry. Expensive plant must be invested in the latter case and must be retrieved by long-term planning.
  Early warning may operate against the sterilisation of mineral reserves. Not limiting the period would pose an early warning to developers not to sterilise minerals by building houses, schools, sewers, and so on, above them. In the London area alone, 50,000 acres of gravel-bearing land, representing 1 billion cubic yards of material, was built on between the wars. All that could be avoided.
  I cannot understand the Government's concern for supporting section 41. As a quid pro quo for long-term mineral planning by companies, it is reasonable that local planning authorities should have the right periodically to review planning conditions, as outlined in clause 3.
  The Government's response is not satisfactory. Advising planning authorities which the Minister will probably rely on that they must ensure adequate provision for mineral undertakers is not much good in practice. "The Control of Mineral Workings"—the Department's green book —has been largely ignored by planning authorities over the years.
  The history of mineral planning is littered with unnecessary appeals arising from the failure of planning authorities to have regard to the advice contained in the green book. A recommendation in the Department's circular 58/78 that the green book should be revised and thereafter kept up to date has been quietly overlooked and the industry is still waiting for its republication. Two years have elapsed and we are still waiting for the republication of the book, which is supposed to be for the guidance of mineral operators.
  In paragraphs 7 and 8 the Stevens report refers to the failure of local authorities to act on the advice given by the Department. It says:
  "We were told that the standard period of five years was still being imposed, and in some cases shortened rather than lengthened."
  For example, planning refusals by Staffordshire county council were founded on grounds that the application was premature and not in accordance with the development plan. Many authorities are reluctant to allow long start dates. A continuation of the present law is in breach not only of Stevens but of the Department's circular.
  It is not good enough for the Minister to say that the difficulty can be overcome by the discretion of the local planning authority if it wishes to exercise that discretion in a company's favour. What if it does not? What if a company is left with insufficient security for future mineral development? The Minister may say that there is an opportunity to appeal, but appeals are expensive and long-drawn-out, and may not have the proper consequences.
  One matter that has not been rectified is pointed out in paragraphs 4 to 6 of the Stevens report, which state: "Many of the past failures of planning control in relation to mineral workings were directly attributable to the lack of necessary professional skills in local planning staffs."
  I do not want to detain the House for long, but I thought it right to refer to the Stevens report, which gave earnest consideration to a matter of importance to the mineral industry.
  The Minister has been kind enough to write to me with his initial conclusions. He has tried to accept a broader package tonight to accommodate some of my hon. Friends. Will he take a further step forward and see that

  1137
  these additional difficulties are put right? It is no good being stubborn. Sooner or later, modifications will have to be made. I do not see why he should relinquish his position to satisfy the environmental lobby.
  Mr. Giles Shaw: The House realises that when my hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) gets his teeth into a matter hon. Members will have to listen for a considerable time. The volume at which my hon. Friend speaks does not necessarily mean that his argument carries such weight that the point has immediately to be conceded, and I have to warn my hon. Friend that my magnanimity has run out to a small extent at this stage.
  My hon. Friend knows that the Government have considered the arguments. We have corresponded on the matter. The amendment is against the continuing application of section 41 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 to minerals permissions. I remain convinced that it performs the same valuable function in this area of planning as elsewhere. One of the most important considerations in the Bill is to see that there is a proper balance of planning controls.
  Section 41 ensures that planning permissions do not continue in existence indefinitely if the development to which they relate is not carried out. It prevents the accumulation of unused planning permissions which may lead to further applications being refused in a district in case too much potential development is authorised. It also discourages the hoarding of permissions and speculation in land.
  The relaxation of section 41, which I moved in Standing Committee, and which, incidentally, would be removed by the amendment, helps in a specific situation that occurs in mineral operations—the commencement of development being dependent upon progress in another part of the programme. I recall the importance in the Cornish mining industry of sequential developments of this kind. That dependence can often be foreseen at the time of the planning application.
  I accept that there will be occasions when a mineral operator requires more than five years between a grant of planning permission and the start of development. When it is clear that this will be so, the planning authority can extend the five-year period at the time the planning permission is granted. Although some operators, I understand, believe that authorities are never willing to do this, we know of cases where the five years has been increased to 10 years because the operator has asked for such an extension and has been able to justify his request. Moreover, when the operator believes that the five-year period is too short, but the authority has refused to extend it, he has the normal right of appeal. I am sorry that my hon. Friend does not feel that this is a right that can be exercised with the speed to provide the decision that the mineral operators might want. I accept that this is frequently a complicated matter that involves delay.
  There may also be cases where the five-year condition is imposed and accepted, but is subsequently found to be too short. In those circumstances, the authority can renew the permission. The General Development Order 1977 provides for a simplified procedure for applications made for the same development prior to the expiration of the time limit. Again, there is the right of appeal.
  I know that parts of the industry, possibly only small parts, my hon. Friend should note, still regard the position as unsatisfactory. Despite our requests, they have
  1138
  produced very little specific evidence of difficulties. I can see no reason for taking minerals outside the normal requirements of the planning system in this respect. There would be a real danger that if no time limit for the commencement of development could be imposed, authorities might respond and, perhaps, would respond by refusing applications where it seemed likely that commencement was likely to be deferred.
  I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that if that happened it would be in no one's best interest, least of all that of the industry. For those reasons, I should not be prepared to accept the amendment so eloquently moved by ray hon. Friend. I ask him to withdraw it.
  I can please my hon. Friend in at least one regard. He was critical of the Department's green book, which is the bible under which the minerals industry and the planners operate. I can tell him that it is being updated and will be issued shortly. After all, it will be issued, I hope, in the context of the Bill. Thus, it will be a useful and long-lasting document. It has been widely asked for. I hope that even my hon. Friend will accept that it will be of use to the industry on whose behalf he has spoken so eloquently tonight. I therefore again ask him to withdraw the amendment.
  Mr. Penhaligon: The Minister recognises that there is a problem. I admit that I do not worry about it very much in my county, because the Cornwall county council, as the minerals planning authority, is well aware of the importance of minerals to the county's economy and wants the industry to grow if there is any possibility of encouraging it to do so. In my view, the Cornwall minerals authority will be a benevolent county planning authority. I am not saying that it will allow firms to get away with anything, but I am sure that it will start by wanting to find a way.
  The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Skeet) raises the matter of a planning authority dealing with a malevolent county authority. I cannot go as far as the amendment goes, because it seems to suggest no time limit at all. That is what the Bill is supposed to be improving, and rightly so. However, the problem exists. I imagine that we shall have to wait to see how the system works and come back to the matter again if there is clear evidence after five, eight or 10 years—whatever is a reasonable period—to show that the problem is a real one. There might even be a problem in my county, but I doubt it.
  Mr. Skeet: Industries do not want unlimited time in which to start. They want to collect together sufficient resources, which they can develop at the appropriate time in the future. The amendment that has already been included by the Minister—the current paragraph (e)—is useful in itself, but it does not enable industries to switch about to the property that is appropriate for development, as they see it, particularly if they have to move to another area body immediately. That does not meet what the industry has in mind.
  The Minister says that the green book is coming along. We have waited for it for a long time, and it will certainly provide a guidance for the local planning authorities. But it cannot be enforced. Will they be guided by it? The hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) says that if an authority is malevolent and has no experience in planning, and so on, it can reject the application, and all that could be done would be to appeal to the Minister after some time

  1139
  for an extended period. What guarantee is that? It would not provide the certainty that is necessary to justify a major investment in new plant and machinery.
  Sand and gravel involve short-term operations. Limestone quarrying is a long-term operation. The two are quite different. The Minister has assumed that the two are somewhat similar in their requirements. That is not so.
  I envy the hon. Member for Truro. He lives in an area where mining has gone on for years. The local authority there is realistic and well informed on these issues. It knows what should be done, and is prepared to give the appropriate time in which to start the operations. But that does not happen in many parts of the country, as we have already noticed.
  Mr. Giles Shaw: I must make it clear to my hon. Friend that 82 per cent. of mineral applications are granted. That is the present figure. The vast majority of mineral planning authorities are all too prepared to accept the need to provide a planning decision for the mineral operator, in the industry's best interests.
  Mr. Skeet: I accept what my hon. Friend says, but I am still not satisfied.
  Amendment negatived.
  Amendment made: No. 7, in page 8, line 27 leave out '(e)' and insert '(b1))'. —[Mr. Giles Shaw.]

Clause 7

  DURATION OF PLANNING PERMISSION
  12 midnight
  Mr. Giles Shaw: I beg to move amendment No. 8, in page 8, line 40, leave out from 'minerals' to end of page 9, line 29, and insert 'shall be subject to a condition as to the duration of the development.
  (2) Except where a condition is specified under subsection (3) of this section the condition in the case of planning permission granted or deemed to be granted after the date of the commencement of section 7 of the Town and Country Planning (Minerals) Act 1981 is that the development must cease not later than the expiration of the period of sixty years beginning with the date of the permission.
  (3) An authority granting planning permission after the date of the commencement of the said section 7 or directing after that date that planning permission shall be deemed to be granted may specify a longer or shorter period than sixty years, and if they do so, the condition is that the development must cease not later than the expiration of a period of the specified length beginning with the date of the permission'.'
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it is convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 9 to 12 and 27 to 31.
  Mr. Shaw: The amendments are purely drafting. Doubts have been expressed about the clarity of the existing text, and in particular whether some of the subsections in part duplicate each other. The clause is therefore redrafted in a clearer and more succinct way.
  Mr. Chapman: I appreciate that amendment No. 8 reduces the length of the Bill, and we should all be grateful for that, but it might be possible to make it even shorter. The new subsection (2) says that where there is no specified duration of development it shall be assumed to be 60 years, but subsection (3) says that the authority granting planning permission
  "may specify a longer or shorter period".
  1140
  Why not simply say that it shall specify a period, whether it is less than 60 years, 60 years, or more? Why bother to say that if the period is not specified it is 60 years, but that the authority may specify a period of more or less than 60 years? It seems unnecessary.
  Mr. Shaw: Although the provision appears to my hon. Friend to be unnecessary, it is what has been agreed as the most flexible way in which we can express this point. We do not wish to write into the Bill such a condition as to make it difficult for the operators to operate flexibly. But I note my hon. Friend's point, and we might consider the matter at some other time.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendments made: No. 9, in page 9, line 32, leave out '(1) to', and insert '(2) and'. No. 10, in page 9, line 32 at end add—
  '(4A) The condition in the case of planning permission granted or deemed to have been granted before the commencement of section 7 of the Town and Country Planning (Minerals) Act 1981 is that the development must cease not later than the expiration of the period of sixty years beginning with the date of the commencement of that section.'.
  No. 11, in page 9, line 33, leave out subsection (5).
  12, in page 9 line 49 at end add—
  '(6A) Where planning permission for development consisting of the winning and working of minerals is granted by the mineral planning authority, any condition to which it is subject by virtue of this section is to be regarded for the purpose of section 36 of this Act as a condition imposed by a decision of the local planning authority, and may accordingly be the subject of an appeal under that section.'.—[Mr. Giles Shaw.]

Clause 10

  ORDERS PROHIBITING RESUMPTION OF OPERATIONS AND ORDERS RELATING TO SUSPENSION OF OPERATIONS.
  Mr. Oakes: I beg to move amendment No. 13, in page 11, line 37 after 'land', insert
  'on or after the appointed day; but'.
  The amendment brings us back to a debate in Committee arising from the National Coal Board's concern that the present wording would render it liable for what was done by its predecessors a long time ago. I understand from the CBI that certain member industries feel similar concern that they would have to remedy defects caused by predecessors many years ago and put right the environment.
  The amendment would set a limit of 1948, the year of the coming into force of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, which the NCB thinks would be a reasonable time to go back to. It points out that mining of one form or another has gone on in this country since Roman times.
  In Committee the Minister rightly pointed out that the Secretary of State held the key to the matter, as he could determine on any application by a county council that it was unjust to the industry concerned. All industries require some certainty.
  In an earlier debate the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) said that one sometimes had to deal, not with a benevolent, but with a malevolent authority. The NCB is worried about a malevolent authority, and possibly a malevolent Secretary of State who supported that authority, which demanded reinstatement of land long before the NCB came into existence because it was a successor in title of that industry.
  I know that the Minister is corresponding with the NCB about the problem. I do not know the outcome of the

  1141
  discussions. Perhaps he will tell us. I suggest that he might extend the magnanimity that he showed earlier with other amendments to this one. It would do no harm to accept the amendment. It would prevent a county council from going back further than 1948 to demand that land should be restored.
  Mr. Giles Shaw: The right hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) has rightly raised this point. I know that the NCB and, I suspect, other mineral operators, are concerned. We have considered the amendment and the reasons advanced for it. I accept that in most circumstances it would not be right for prohibition orders to be made where mineral working was abandoned prior to 1948. However, I believe that there will be a few occasions where the use of this power in relation to pre-1948 working might be justified. For that reason I am not prepared at this stage to advise the House to accept the amendment, although I understand why the safeguard is required.
  I believe that the proper safeguard lies in the provision that all prohibition orders must be confirmed by the appropriate Secretary of State. Such orders can be confirmed only where, in his opinion, it is reasonable to do so. In relation to workings that ceased before 1948, that will be done only in those exceptional circumstances where the mineral planning authority can demonstrate that it is fair to take action after so long an interval of time.
  I know that the National Coal Board has been particularly concerned about this point, although the clause does cover more than old coal mines. I have discussed the board's fears with my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Energy, and we both hope that the Board, and indeed others who may be affected, will feel satisfied, in the light of what I have just said, that there are adequate safeguards to control any unreasonable use of the new powers. In that way we shall ensure that the NCB and others are treated fairly under the Bill.
  Mr. Penhaligon: Suppose a china clay pit had been operated up to 1976, and that the company, for reasons that we discussed fully in Committee, then decided temporarily to move to another china clay pit, perhaps because of the mixture of materials or the way in which the industry tended to work made it more economical to do so—which is the way in which the industry has operated satisfactorily for a long time. What is the position of the company vis-a-vis the pit that it closed down temporarily in 1976? Can the council close the pit, or can it be closed only when the Minister gives the nod to that effect? I wish to clear up that matter, as it is an important point, which has been raised many times with me in my constituency.
  Mr. Shaw: The hon. Gentleman raises a fair point. I remind him that we are talking about a period prior to 1948. That is the basis of the point raised by the right hon. Member for Widnes, which I am seeking to answer. It is clear that when the Bill is in operation permissions will be granted by the mineral planning authority, with this Bill at its back and with the appeal system available should the mineral operator feel that he is being dispossessed. Above all, there is flexibility built into the provisions so that the mineral planning authority will consider the workings and the context in which permission is given for the original planning application. Provided that that context is sound at the time of application, the review period as established,
  1142
  if the permission expires, will be taken in hand. If mineral planning authorities adhere to the Bill and the green book that we shall shortly be publishing, I think that the right hon. Member will find that that will not result in mineral operators having their permissions withdrawn on an arbitrary basis. If they are dissatisfied with the commission, the appeal system will be available.
  I respond to the contribution of the right hon. Member for Widnes. The Department of Energy and my Department feel that the procedures in the Bill, along with the assurances that I have given tonight, should leave the board satisfied.
  Mr. Oakes: I ask for the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to make a further contribution. The Minister's answer was somewhat similar to the one that he gave in Committee. That answer did not satisfy the NCB. Industry likes a degree of certainty. It does not like loopholes. It does not like the possibility of a malevolent county and a malevolent Minister putting a burden on it for something that its predecessors in title have done and on which it has to spend money to clear up.
  Yesterday the Government rightly gave a considerable sum to the National Coal Board. It will want to spend that money not on clearing up the defects left by its predecessors but on developing the industry. It is worried about uncertainty. I am sure that the Minister would not operate the provision in a way that would be adverse to the interests of the board. I am sure that his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Energy a post that I once occupied—would not do so. However, there is still uncertainty in the mind of the board whether it has a contingent liability.
  I shall not press the amendment to a Division, but I hope that the Minister will continue his discussions with the board to ensure that it is satisfied beyond peradventure that it will not be held responsible for defects arising from mining operations that took place before 1948. I am not asking a lot of the Minister, because we are going back to the concept of the Town and Country Planning Act 1948.
  I hoped that the Minister would accept the amendment. I cannot conceive that it is the intention of any Minister to go back beyond 1948 and to charge an industry for the defects of its predecessors. I am certain that industries other than the coal industry may face the same difficulties. They have not approached me, but the board has. I hope that the discussions with the board continue and that there will be an end to the uncertainty for it or for any other industry that considers that it may find itself liable for something that took place much earlier —for example, as I said in Committee to the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon), for what the Phoenicians may have done in Cornwall 2,000 years ago. As the Bill stands, someone could be liable for that.
  Mr. Giles Shaw: I ask for the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to respond to the right hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes). The NCB has been reassured by the extent of the commitment that we have given in the debate. I accept that the right hon. Gentleman's amendment would be an absolute safeguard, but there could be circumstances in which it would be desirable to make prohibition orders where mineral working was abandoned prior to 1948. In this instance we would prefer to work by the advice given rather than accept the cast-iron nature of the amendment.
  Amendment negatived.

Clause 12

  EXTENSION OF RIGHT TO COMPENSATION WERE PLANNING PERMISSION REVOKED OR MODIFIED
  12.15 am
  Amendment made: No. 14, in page 19, line 40 after `in', insert, 'on' .—[Mr. Giles Shaw.]

Clause 13

  SPECIAL COMPENSATION IN RESPECT OF ORDERS UNDER S. 45 RELATING TO MINERAL WORKING
  Mr. Alexander: I beg to move amendment No. 15, in page 20, line 26 leave out 'five', and insert 'ten'.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 16, in page 21, line 6 leave out 'five', and insert 'ten'.
  Mr. Alexander: I apologise for detaining the House at this late hour, but I assure it that I shall be brief.
  Since the Bill was first introduced, there have been fears by those engaged in the extractive industries about the effects upon them of the compensation provisions. In a moment we shall discuss amendment No. 17 which, if it were carried, would be completely unacceptable to the industry.
  Several Government amendments have been welcomed by the industry. It will welcome my hon. Friend the Minister's views on many of the amendments so far this evening. However, throughout the Bill, there is still that divergence of interest between local government planning committees and those in the extractive industry.
  The amendment to extend the period in which mineral compensation requirements are to be satisfied would correct the present imbalance between environmental safeguards on the one hand and the industry's long-term planning needs on the other. The Bill as drafted so far exposes the industry to changes in its working conditions without adequate compensation for consequential loss or damage. To repeat that every five years is grossly unfair and puts the industry at the mercy of some of those malevolent planning committees about which we have heard this evening. Some of their attitudes to the industry might be extremely hostile. We have to guard against what might be when we are considering a Bill.
  The amendment, which extends the period to 10 years, allows the industry to make more effective forward plans and to respond more efficiently to changing market conditions. Ten years would be more in keeping with a proper balance between planning requirements and those of the extractive industry.
  Mr. Penhaligon: I admit that I could be persuaded to vote for the amendment, but only on condition that the amendment next to be taken was passed as well.
  The review will take place every five years. The mineral compensation that could be expected is up to 10 per cent. of the mineral value. That is what the Bill says. The alternative, made possible by the two amendments, of the review taking place only once every 10 years, with the mineral compensation that could be expected being up to 20 per cent., makes more sense when one considers the lifetime of a mineral operation and the bureaucracy that a five-year review could impose on the county minerals
  1144
  committee, especially in counties such as mine, where the operating rights of the sites can be counted in their hundreds as opposed to three or four, as in some counties.
  I welcome the fact that the Minister, by an amendment accepted in Committee expected the industry to contribute less. Let us not forget that in Committee the Minister halved the amount expected from the industry. I believe that he has the global sum right, but I still believe that the matter could be more reasonably and properly dealt with if the review took place every 10 years but the mineral compensation that could be expected at the end of that period was doubled. To achieve that amendment, amendments Nos. 15, 16 and 17 would have to be passed.
  Mr. Giles Shaw: Throughout the passage of the Bill in Committee we endeavoured to ensure a reasonable balance between environmental considerations and the needs of the industry. The amendment would seriously upset the balance.
  I accept that it will not often be necessary for mineral planning authorities to make a further modification to the conditions controlling mineral operations at a site only five years after an earlier modificaion order relating to the same site, but it may be necessary in a few cases, particularly when a great deal needs to be done to bring a site up to current standards, and the improvements, therefore, need to be spread over a period. Of course, operators should not be subjected to constant changes of this kind, but I believe that the five-year period provides them with some stability, while still allowing the authorities the flexibility that they need to deal with exceptional situations.
  It is worth noting that the Stevens committee came to exactly the same conclusions in relation to its proposals for the review of permission. Moreover, there is the usual right of appeal to the Secretary of State, as well as safeguards that limit the amount of loss or damage than an operator can be required to sustain without payment of compensation, and others that protect permissions against fundamental changes.
  So, frankly, I believe that the safeguards provided adequate protection for the operator against unreasonable requirements, and I must, therefore, resist the amendment. I hope that my hon. Friend will agree to withdraw it.
  Mr. Alexander: Although I still believe that my amendment would not upset the balance, in view of what the Minister has said I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 16

  MINERAL COMPENSATION MOFIFICATIONS
  Mr. Oakes: I beg to move amendment No. 17, in page 23, line 41, leave out '10' and insert '20'.
  This is a rather more important amendment than some that we have discussed. It relates to the multiplier for the compensation that the industry pays for damage that it has done to the environment. In the other place it was generally accepted that the top figure would be 20 per cent. On the last day in Committee the Minister introduced an amendment reducing the figure to 10 per cent.
  The amendment seeks to restore the position to what the other place decided—a 20 per cent. maximum. We are talking about a maximum. It would be open to the

  1145
  Secretary of State, in regulations, to introduce a figure of less than 20 per cent. However, despite the industry's representations, I suggest that 10 per cent. is too low a maximum.
  We must consider the different kinds of extraction that we are talking about and the different effects that they may have on the environment. As the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) told the Committee, there have been devastating effects in his constituency from extraction, which not one but subsequent generations may have to suffer almost for ever unless sufficient money is available for restoration. In its wisdom the other place decided on 20 per cent. Perhaps under pressure from the industry, the Minister halved the figure.
  I agree with everything that has been said about balance. Indeed, on Second Reading I introduced the concept. The whole Bill is a question of balance between the rights and needs of industry to make a profit, to employ people and to make productive use of our mineral resources and the rights of the environment and those who live in the area not to have it ruined, as it was perhaps in the nineteenth or early twentieth century in my area and those of the hon. Member for Truro, my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes) and many others.
  I believe that a maximum of 20 per cent. is the right balance. I know that in the present economic circumstances industry whines somewhat about that figure and has prevailed upon the Minister to reduce it to 10 per cent. Under the amendment it would still be open to the Minister to fix a smaller figure, but it would equally be open, on the face of the legislation, to make it 20 per cent.
  I ask the Minister to reconsider, as he did earlier this evening, the decision that he made in Committee and to adhere to the decision that resulted from the debates in another place—this is a House of Lords Bill —and restore a maximum figure of 20 per cent., in the interests of future generations.
  We are not talking about the effects of this action upon local authorities. We are dealing with the effects of the extractive industries upon people's lives and environment. Where a mineral extractor, quite rightly, makes a profit from extraction, it is reasonable for the House to state that the maximum compensation that he should pay to restore damage caused to the environment should not be limited to a mere 10 per cent., but should be up to a maximum of 20 per cent. It is possible for the Minister to determine a lesser figure, but let us adhere to the decision of the House of Lords and restore a top figure of 20 per cent.
  Mr. Alexander: I oppose the amendment, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will do the same.
  The amendment would mean that any enterprise of any size would bear 20 per cent. of the value of its minerals before compensation for restrictive conditions could be claimed. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for some sections of the extractive industry to continue operating profitably under such circumstances. If they cannot operate profitably, job opportunities and the viability of the service industries surrounding them are consequently diminished. Without doubt, that would happen if the figure were 20 per cent. In my view, it would be a penal and unwarranted burden on the industry.
  I cite the example of British Gypsum, which operates in my constituency. Up to March of this year, it faced a decline in demand for its products of 15 per cent., and a further decline of 10 per cent. is expected this year. I put
  1146
  it to the right hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) that this is one of the few industries which actually create prosperity and employment from the natural resources of this country. As such, it should be encouraged and not penalised. A rate of 20 per cent. would be penal and, in my view, tantamount to a wealth tax.
  I hope that the House will reject the amendment.
  Mr. Haynes: The hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander) has suggested that 20 per cent. is penal. The theme that comes across loud and clear to me is that it will affect profits. All that Conservative Members talk about is profits. Even the oil barons talk about profits. We are talking about the community and the people in the community, and about the protection of their livelihood and of the areas in which they live.
  What is being suggested by Conservative Members is tantamount to industry being able to do just as it likes. That would be the end result. They should forget the profit motive for a change. I am sick of hearing about it from Conservative Members. Let us think of the ordinary people. That would make a change for the Government.
  12.30 am
  Mr. Giles Shaw: I am sure that the right hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) will understand that in moving the amendment he was seeking to make a fundamental change in the Bill at this late stage in its progress. More important than that, he is under a slight misconception, because when the Bill was debated in another place no provision was made in the Bill. There was merely reference to the consultation document, which had been in circulation prior to that debate, in which the figure of 20 per cent. was set down. I want to correct the impression, which the right hon. Gentleman may inadvertently have given, that there was, as it were, the provision for a 20 per cent. threshold in the Bill in the other place which has been reduced to 10 per cent.
  Mr. Oakes: I did not want to mislead the House in any way. What I had hoped I said—I may not have done so at this late hour—was that the assumption in the other place from the consultation document was a 20 per cent. figure. I agree with the Minister that there was no provision for a figure in the Bill at that time.
  Mr. Shaw: Certainly that was the case. It was the figure that was quoted in the consultation document.
  The level of 10 per cent. that is now in the Bill was set after careful consideration of the views of the mineral planning authorities and the circumstances of minerals operators in general.
  I understand the concern of the hon. Member for Ashfield (Mr. Haynes), that frequently during the debate on the Bill there has been a contribution on behalf of the industry, which is finding that its resources are under attack or have at best been under strain. He must accept that we are dealing with a core matter, where the industry may not be able to sustain operations if the level of compensation is set too high. We have received many representatives from the industry illustrating the case of the small operator, and a large proportion of the industry is in this category. The view of those people is that they cannot afford the liability of a possible 20 per cent of the notional asset value.
  On the basis of the formula that we have in mind at present, even in the case of the 35 per cent. of sites with

  1147
  the lowest notional asset value, the mineral planning authority will not have to pay compensation for the imposition of new conditions unless the loss or damage sustained by the operator is more than between £2,500 and £4,000. I realise that this is not a large sum, but I believe that it will enable worthwhile improvements to be made, although naturally the planning authorities would like the figure to be higher.
  This is where we come to the question of balance, which the right hon. Gentleman knows so well, and the previous amendments, Nos. 15 and 16, are to some extent the other side of the coin. If we maintain the five-year review period, we consider that the 10 per cent. compensation threshold is the more effective and more just threshold. As the notional value of the site increases, so does the amount of loss or damage that the operator will have to incur before compensation is payable. For the next 15 per cent. of sites the figure will be between £4,000 and £8,000. For the next 20 per cent. the figure will be between £8,000 and £20,000, and so it will go up to the top 10 per cent. of sites with the highest notional value, when the operator could be faced with loss or damage up to £100,000.
  Those are significant levels of expenditure, particularly for an individual operator, and I am convinced that to double them, which is what the amendment would do, would be to place too great a burden on the industry and those who work therein. It is necessary to ask the industry to pay something towards environmental improvement, and that is the object of having the compensation clause included in the Bill as opposed to the matter being left for regulation.
  I consider that 10 per cent. of the notional asset value is fair to both sides. I hope, in view of his continued interest in fairness in relation to the Bill, that the right hon. Gentleman will not feel it necessary to press the amendment.
  Amendment negatived.

Clause 21

  NOTIFICATION OF APPLICATIONS FOR PLANNING PERMISSION
  Amendment made: No. 18, in page 27, line 26, after 'subsection', insert
  'whom the applicant knows to be such a person and'.—[Mr.
  Giles Shaw.]
  Mr. Giles Shaw: I beg to move amendment No. 19 in page 28, leave out lines 3 to 18 and insert—
  '(2A) In order to comply with this subsection—
  (a) the applicant must post the requisite notice of the application, sited so as to be easily visible to and legible by members of the public, in at least one place in the district of the planning authority to which the application is being made; and
  (a) the notice must be in position for not less than 7 days during the period of 21 days prior to the making of the application.
  (2B) At any time before granting an application for planning permission for development consisting of the winning and working of minerals the planning authority dealing with the application may in writing direct the applicant to post copies of the said notice in such places in its district not exceeding 4 in number as may be specified in the direction.
  (2C) Where any such direction as is mentioned in subsection
  1148
  (2B) above has been given the planning authority shall not grant the application until the applicant has furnished to the authority a certificate stating—
  (a) that he has complied with the direction; and
  (b) that any notice required by the direction has been in position for not less than 7 days in the period of 21 days prior to the date on which he lodged the certificate with the planning authority.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we may take Government amendments Nos. 20, 21 and 22.
  Mr. Shaw: This is a technical amendment, but I must inform the House why it has been moved. Its purpose is to improve the drafting of the new subsection (2A) of section 24 of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1972. I am acting on behalf of my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General for Scotland.
  The amendment provides for the partial replacement of the present system of notification of planning applications for deep mining operations by local advertisement. The developer will be required in such cases to post one notice of his application in the district of the planning authority concerned before he makes his application. The planning authority will have power to require him to post up to four further copies of the notice within its district after the application is made.
  This relatively complex provision is the equivalent of the English requirement that such an advertisement shall be displayed in at least one place in every parish or community containing any part of the land to which the application relates. It is necessary because in Scotland neither parish nor community is a suitable unit for such purposes. We expect, however, that in the majority of cases developers will consult the planning authority about the adequacy of its advertisement arrangements before the application is submitted, and that relatively little use will need to be made of the planning authority's subsequent power of direction for further advertisement.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendments made: No. 20, in page 28, line 20, leave out from 'subsection' to 'is' and insert—
  '(2A) or (2C) of this section if the notice or, as the case may be, any copy thereof'.
  No. 21, in page 28, line 22, leave out 'subsection (2A) (b)' and insert 'subsection (2A)(b) or (2C)(b)'
  No. 22, in page 28, line 26, leave out '(1)(aa)' and insert '(1)(cc)' . —[Mr. Giles Shaw.]
  12.39 am
  Mr. Giles Shaw: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
  I ought perhaps to say a brief word about how we see the Bill being implemented. Only Clause 33, dealing with the amendment on pipelines, comes into force immediately. All of the remaining clauses require commencement orders. The modified compensation scheme cannot come into effect until compensation regulations have been made, and as this requires both a further period of detailed discussion with interested parties and then affirmative resolutions in both Houses this will clearly take some time. Separately from this, in accordance with assurances given here and in the other place, clause 1 will not be brought in until certain amendments to the general development order have been made and approved. The remaining clauses will be brought in just as soon as the necessary orders can be laid and guidance can be prepared.

  1149
  May I express in general terms my appreciation of the constructive way in which the Bill has been discussed? I pay specific tribute to the positive and helpful approach of the right hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) both in Committee and in the House. The deliberations in Committee were enhanced by the detailed knowledge of the industry provided by the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon). On the Government side of the House I should like to thank all my hon. Friends, who provided a complete spectrum of views.
  I commend the Bill to the House.
  12.40 am
  Mr. Oakes: I had not intended to speak on Third Reading, but I should like to thank the Minister for his kind words. In turn, I pay tribute to him for the way in which he piloted the Bill both in Committee and in the House.
  The Bill will have an enormously good effect on the environment of many of our people. It has had a long gestation period. In the Second Reading Committee we paid tribute to the Stevens committee for its invaluable work in producing the report that led to the Bill. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join me in paying tribute to it again.
  This has been an all-party Bill. There have hardly been any Divisions. Both sides have been concerned with the question of balance. We have been concerned that those who extract minerals for the British economy as well as for themselves must pay regard to the environment that they will inevitably disturb. I hope that we have got the balance right. I may have said various things in Committee and on the Floor of the House that implied that the balance was slightly wrong. However, on the whole the Government have got the balance right.
  I was a little concerned by what the Minister said about the commencement orders. After so long a gestation period for the Stevens committee and after successive Governments have failed to find the legislative time, I hope that the commencement orders will be made soon. The Bill is important not only for the industry but for those of us, such as the Minister, who live in areas that have been blighted by mineral operations. It is important that those who live in those areas should have the protection that I hope and trust this Bill will afford.
  Therefore, I applaud the Government for having introduced the Bill. I agree with the Minister that discussion of the Bill in Committee and on the Floor of the House has proved to be one of our happier occasions. The Bill has been debated not with unanimity but with a common accord and purpose, namely, to protect our environment without damaging those who earn their living by extracting minerals. We appreciate their contribution to the nation as a whole.
  12.42 am
  Mr. Dickens: Even at this late hour, I congratulate the Minister and all Committee Members on the Bill. All hon. Members will agree that the Bill is a great joy to environmentalists. In addition, it has been quite kind to industry. The Bill is sound and good and it is our good fortune that the Minister was moved from the Northern Ireland Office to the Department of the Environment.
  However, the Bill seems to have neglected part of the industry. Funnily enough, the very people who parade outside the House as environmentalists will also parade outside seeking hope for this part of the industry. I refer
  1150
  to the Stone Federation, whose members are responsible for mining natural stone. Buildings such as the House of Commons are constructed in such stone. One has only to walk outside Westminster Abbey to see the stockpiles of stones carefully measured and prepared for restoration.
  I hope that the Minister will be able to alleviate the fears of members of the federation. The 60-year limit on planning permissions is a concern, because most existing quarries have reserves that will last well beyond this period. Stone quarry owners fear that, although the norm is intended to be 60 years, planning authorities will in many cases impose shorter terms, as has happened in the West Yorkshire structure plan. That seriously threatens the capital investment necessary to maintain such operations and the production and employment they create. We hope that if the Stone Federation were to reapply for 60 years it would get just that.
  There are also general fears that the powers to close quarries that have not been worked for two years will mean that operators will automatically lose their rights to work long-established quarries if operations cease because of a temporary fall in demand. The demand for block stone fluctuates considerably in line with new construction and restoration activities. The Government amendment agreed in Committee has improved the situation by adding that the mineral planning authority can assume that development of minerals has permanently ceased only when no development has taken place for two years and it appears on the available evidence that resumption of such development is unlikely.
  However, in some cases the quarry may have to be reopened after a number of years when matching stone is required for a restoration project on buildings such as the House of Commons. That irregular pattern of working should be recognised by planning authorities.
  The re-definition of mining operations to include the working of stockpiles and waste heaps could mean that operators have to apply for planning permission to use stockpiles. In many instances, quarries are worked for sufficient time to establish a stockpile of material and remain silent until the reserves have been consumed.
  It would be helpful if the Minister would concede that those characteristics which differentiate the dimensioned stone industry from other extractive industries will be recognised in the green book that is issued as a guide to local planning officers. I hope that the Minister w ill make a statement, perhaps tonight, to help those who are responsible for maintaining our heritage, in the shape of our listed buildings.
  12.7 am
  Mr. Penhaligon: I was determined to speak on Third Reading, because I disagreed with the decision to take the Second Reading of the Bill in Committee. The hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Dickens) was affected by that, because he had been denied a personal opportunity to present his arguments, though, to be fair, they were covered in Committee.
  We have, for once, passed some useful legislation. I am fairly cynical and take the view that nearly all legislation has almost exactly the opposite effect from that which Governments intend. I think particularly of the Acts that reorganised the water industry and local government. Several measures have not worked out as Ministers no doubt claimed that they would.

  1151
  The Bill is useful and has helped to restore the balance between an important industry and reasonable environmental demands of those living near quarries. The Government should be congratulated on putting the Stevens report, which was published a number of years ago, into legislative form.
  The industry is often underestimated, and the Minister may have underestimated it until he saw the arrival of many hon. Members to argue about five-year or 10-year aftercare. That demonstrated the importance of the industry better than anything else. Hon. Members expressed the views put to them in their constituencies and even though I did not agree with their arguments I recognise their right to put that case. It was interesting to see so many hon. Members in the Chamber to discuss minerals. It was probably a record attendance.
  Minerals could be a growth industry for Britain. The restoration of regional development grants and the introduction of legislation to sort out mineral rights could lead to a revival of hard-rock mineral extraction such as the country has not seen for a long time.
  Cornwall is proud to supply Britain and Europe with virtually all their china clay. We produce substantial quantities of tin, zinc, lead and silver and I understand that a tungsten mine is about to open. Of course, Cornish granite has long been a product of the county. That is an important industry in my county, probably one of the most important three or four that the county has. The important thing about the Bill is that it will allow planning permission in the extractive industry, of which I am a supporter, gradually to adjust to changing standards.
  The Minister may be aware that there is great tolerance to the extractive industry in my county—a tolerance that is justified as the industry supplies so much employment and so much of the county's economy. The Bill will allow the county authority to reflect opinion in areas where the industry is strong and gradually to move towards an improvement of the environment. The Bill ensures that the eyesores of the past cannot happen again. The House should at some time concentrate its mind on clearing up the eyesores—Blue Hills at St. Agnes and St. Agnes itself. I know that the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Mudd) and I had a vigorous exchange, but great parts of his constituency and mine are waste lands from the activities of 100 to 150 years ago. I do not think that any of us expresses real satisfaction at the rate at which restoration is taking place in those areas.
  My final point is a bouquet for the Minister. He has been superb. He has displayed a capacity for U-turns that I wish would extend to the rest of his ministerial colleagues. He managed one in seven minutes and another in an hour. That puts him in an order of Ministers that I have not witnessed before. Perhaps at the end of the day he reached the right conclusion. I promise him that, if I have good reason to believe that it is not working out as he said, I shall use any opportunity made available to me to put the point.
  12.2 am
  Mr. Christopher Murphy: On a number of occasions the Government have rightly shown a great concern for derelict land. That is a fundamental
  1152
  issue affecting the relationship between town and country, development and conservation and economics and aesthetics.
  The Bill is therefore to be welcomed as a practical demonstration of the realisation that positive action should be taken to end the blight of land decay. The opportunity is being provided to overcome the consequences of a temporary land use which can result in far-reaching destruction and abandonment of areas both large and small.
  Mineral working is rightly recognised as a major industry of considerable value to the country. It is essential, therefore, to achieve a correct balance between firms and organisations involved in such activity and the effects of mineral exploitation upon people and their immediate surroundings.
  My constituency is in mid-Hertfordshire, which has provided—and continues to do so—a major source of aggregates used in the creation of the new towns and their services and for commercial opportunities further afield. The knowledge gained from such a location provides pointers for governmental action and that, combined with the recognition of the necessity for restoring land to normal use, is encapsulated in the Bill.
  A welcome will be given to those provisions relating to the review of all mining and quarrying activities, thereby ensuring a reasoned relationship between the needs of industry and the environment. A similar welcome will surely be accorded to the concept of aftercare, thereby ensuring the potential of the landscape in question. The extractive industries, on which so much building work inevitably depends, and the public, who share the consequences, advantageous and disadvantageous, have both had their interests represented fully in discussions on this measure, that it is to be hoped, will find common cause in its successful implementation. Land is a most precious commodity. The House must carefully guard its future use for the benefit of us all.
  12.5 am
  Mr. Giles Shaw: With your permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to say first to the right hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Oakes) that I do not want to give him or the House the impression that the Government will delay unduly the implementation of this important measure. However, we have to make certain that the guidance is correct and that the regulations, produced after consultation, are laid before the House for implementation. This must be done in an orderly fashion. I assure the House, nevertheless, that it is our intention to see that this important measure is introduced as soon as is correct, bearing in mind its complexity.
  I understand the view expressed so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Dickens) on behalf of the Stone Federation. I assure him that, so far as the Government can see, the anxiety of the industry about the 60-year rule is misplaced. We believe that the vast majority of mineral planning authorities will seek to renew planning approvals that have been given in the light of the industry's undoubted need for long-term stability. There is the appeal procedure available, which the industry will no doubt use if it considers that it is unfairly treated. There is also the important advice that we shall be giving to planning authorities about how they should operate in the context of the Bill. The problem of

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  the stone industry will be involved in the advice that we give mineral planning authorities.
  The hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) made points in relation to the industry about which he is concerned. This is the first time, I believe, since 1948 that the mineral industry has had the benefit of a new legislative framework. The hon. Gentleman can rightly say "And about time, too." I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mr. Murphy) for his comments on the Bill.
  It would seem that the future success of the minerals industry depends more than anything upon partnership between the industry and minerals planning authorities. That partnership is essential, and must be based upon trust. It is also important that there should be a legislative framework that strikes a balance between an insistence on a high standard of environmental restoration from the consequences of mineral working and, at the same time, a high rate of working of aggregates or other minerals to ensure that we get a fundamentally sound industry that can continue to make a major contribution to our economy.
  Because the Bill has obtained not only the considerable support of local authorities and the industries themselves, but has attracted support from all parties in its progress through the House, we can look with confidence, I trust, to the Bill's receiving an unopposed Third Reading.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.

Miss Beverley Woods (Voluntary Work)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Mr. Brooke]
12.57 am
Mr. Gerry Neale: I am most grateful to the House for the opportunity to raise this matter. I should also like to thank my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State who will be replying at this late hour. I realise that my hon. Friend has been busy today in various parts of the country. I am well aware of the interest that he takes in the problems with which this matter is connected.
The debate concerns the way in which voluntary service could possibly affect the status of employment or unemployment among people of all ages. It arises from the case of Beverley Woods, in my constituency. For the purposes of clarity I should like to outline the circumstances.
Beverley Woods, having graduated at the University of Bradford, found that she was unable to obtain employment in the subject of botany in which she had qualified. She returned to Cornwall and decided that rather than sitting at home doing nothing she would show the commendable attribute of looking for some means of making use of her skills and energies. She applied herself to helping spastics at a Spastics Society establishment not far from her home at Bodmin.
The basis of that help was that she would receive full board and lodging, despite the fact that it was only a short distance from where she lives. She was paid £7.50 pocket money a week, but no national insurance contribution or income tax was to be paid by the Spastics Society. Nor did she have a contract of employment. It was made clear that she was not employed by the society and was free to go at any time in order to find permanent work.
On that basis, she endeavoured to register with the local jobcentre as St Austell, but she was told that she was not eligible to register. At the beginning of this year she again tried to register as unemployed and to find help in getting a job. This time she went to the Bodmin jobcentre, which registered her as unemployed. When she went back the following week, as is required by the regulations, she was told that she was no longer eligible. A superior officer said that her registration should be withdrawn. She disputed that. She made it plain that she was not employed, but she was unsuccessful in obtaining registration.
In April this year she left the Spastics Society and went to Bradford. There she sought to obtain unemployment benefit while she looked for work. She was told, much to her surprise, that she could not obtain unemployment benefit for six weeks because she had voluntarily left her job. When she talked about appealing against that decision she was given even more surprising information that it was not worth it, because she had not been in work for 12 months and therefore did not qualify for benefit.
The final bureaucratic insult was to occur to Beverley Woods when she saw a job advertised, under a Manpower Services Commission scheme, for a botanist attached to the University of Wales. She applied for the job, was interviewed and selected, only to be told shortly after her selection that in view of the fact that she had been

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employed the Manpower Services Commission considered that she was ineligible for the job. Therefore she could not take it.
That is not an isolated example of the problems that people—particularly young people—suffer when they try to use their energies in voluntary services while waiting for permanent jobs to be offered to them. I have been approached by the National Council of Voluntary Organisatiions and by the Cornwall Youth Association. I have even had a letter from the Community Service Volunteers, who themselves help to find part-time and full-time voluntary service work for young people while they are waiting for permanent jobs. The irony is that that organisation is partly sponsored by the Manpower Services Commission.
I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that this case has attracted much publicity, and concern has been expressed about it by various voluntary organisations. It gives rise to a number of questions, which highlight the dramatic under-utilisation of human skills and energies for the benefit of voluntary organisations and the community as a whole.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment said last year that he was very much in favour of people doing voluntary work if they were unemployed. He felt that every unnecessary obstacle should be removed. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary holds the same view.
The first area of doubt that this instance has given rise to is whether the very act of taking up unpaid voluntary work, full-time or part-time, counts the volunteer out for the purposes of obtaining unemployment benefit, being eligible for Manpower Services Commission schemes, or even for any other job opportunity created by Government schemes. We must have more clarity about whether merely doing voluntary work for any organisation means that in terms of statutory eligibility under the schemes a school leaver, or whoever it may be, rules himself out as being unavailable for work.
Let us view the position through the eyes of a young person, or a person who has lost his job and cannot find another but who wants to use his energies for the benefit of the community, or perhaps someone who has retired early. If such a person is to have an experience such as Beverley Woods has had, he will be far less likely to help the local community. I ask my hon. Friend to clarify the position of unpaid voluntary work. Does it affect the matters that I have touched on?
I come to the second situation, which is very similar, but where some pay results, rather as in Beverley Woods's case. For most of the time she was receiving £7.50 weekly, although there was a short time when she received about £15 for certain project work. It is important that the jobcentres and benefit offices are clear exactly what provision must be borne in mind when there is some allowance for out-of-pocket expenses.
I have been astonished to discover one fact in my researches into the matter. I am ashamed to say that as a Member I should have known it before. It appears that if someone who receives social security benefit wants to do voluntary work every £1 received over £4 a week must be taken off the benefit. But a person receiving unemployment pay is entitled to earn up to 75p a day —shortly to rise
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to £2 a day. If he earns more than that in any one day, that day's benefit is lost, and he claims the remaining days in the week for which he is unemployed.
However, it seems that on a Sunday any sum earned from any form of employment does not rank in any circumstances for these computations. Sunday market stallholders, for example, or even professional sportsmen, and people in any form of casual employment on a Sunday, when they will be earning double time or even more for long hours, can earn that money and yet legitimately register as unemployed for the rest of the week.
I ask my hon. Friend to bear in mind the feelings of someone such as Beverley Woods, helping people who are considerably disabled and doing it in a highly commendable way, on discovering the extraordinary exemption by which people can do other work on a Sunday and not have it affect their benefits or, presumably, their right to obtain permanent employment under any Government scheme.
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for the co-operation and assistance that he has given me. Will he confirm that it is the Government's commitment not to do anything other than remove, as quickly as possible, obstacles that are put in the way of people, young or in early retirement, who want to help the community, voluntary organisations, and those who are least able to help themselves?
Will my hon. Friend comment on the Beverley Woods case? I hope that he agrees that it has given rise to the most unfortunate circumstances. In commiserating with her, as I hope he will, perhaps it will be possible for him to inquire into the circumstances to see whether Beverley could be given some priority on the various schemes operated by the Manpower Services Commission, so that she finds the work for which she is so clearly qualified.
The case has given rise to a great deal of concern among voluntary organisations and those trying to use the talents and energies of so many of the unemployed. Will my hon. Friend carry out an urgent review, jointly with his hon. Friends at the Department of Health and Social Security, to ensure that the extraordinary and strange anomalies are removed from the benefits system as soon as possible? Will he also ensure that the benefits offices and the jobcentres are briefed in the clearest terms, that the Government encourage voluntary work by the unemployed and those in receipt of various forms of benefit, and that that benefit can be given within the defined bands that will be decided after the review? I am most grateful for the opportunity to raise the matter.
1.11 am
The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Peter Morrison): I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Neale) has raised this important case this evening. As he knows, we have discussed it, he has written to me about it, and I take the matter seriously. Without sounding pompous, I wish to say that he has put his case in a fair-minded way. He has not concentrated exclusively on the case of Miss Beverley Woods, but has related her unfortunate experience to the more general issues that it raises. I am sure that that is right, because it is never safe to look at individual cases in isolation, and because the issues that the case raises are important.

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I want to comment on the case of Miss Woods in a moment, although I say straight away that, having looked, relooked and looked again at the case, I believe that, regrettably, errors of judgment were made, for which I offer Miss Woods and my hon. Friend my most sincere apologies. First, I shall spend a short time on the general issues. I say a short time because, from what my hon. Friend said, it is clear that there is a substantial area of agreement between us. I would go so far as to say that there is no disagreement.
I start from the assumption that voluntary work is to be encouraged—that is, voluntary work by anyone, whether he be a school leaver, a student, an ex-student, a middle-aged person or someone who has retired. I believe that many people who have the misfortune to be unemployed would wish to put their skills, a term that I use in its widest sense, to the benefit of the communtiy through voluntary work. Although there can be no question of compulsion, I believe that the Government should not only remove as many obstacles as possible so that the unemployed can participate in voluntary work, but should help wherever they can do so.
My hon. Friend will appreciate that the whole question of the relationship between entitlement to unemployment and supplementary benefit and voluntary work is a complex area, which is the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services. My hon. Friend raised some important, specific and intricate issues, and I shall ensure that they are considered by my right hon. and hon. Friends. I hope that he will agree that we could not depart from the principle that those receiving unemployment or supplementary benefit should be genuinely available for work. Thus, the existing rules should not discourage the unemployed from participating in voluntary work. The reverse should apply. Indeed, the Government are proposing a number of changes that will help to ensure so far as possible that those who undertake voluntary work do not lose their unemployment benefit as a result.
I come to an area that is closer to my own responsibilities—the community enterprise programme. As my hon. Friend appreciates, it is run by the Manpower Services Commission. The programme does not discourage voluntary work. Its aim is to provide temporary employment for the long-term unemployed on projects of community benefit. Those aged 25 years and over who have been unemployed for at least 12 months, or those aged 18-24, which is the category in which Beverley Woods falls, who have been unemployed for at least six months, are eligible for places on the programme. Voluntary work would not be considered as employment for the purpose of establishing an individual's eligibility for the programme. As my hon. Friend will appreciate, there are sometimes difficulties in defining the exact nature of voluntary work, as the case of Miss Woods demonstrates. I assure my hon. Friend that the principle of voluntary work is quite clear.
My hon. Friend referred specifically to the case of Miss Woods, a graduate, who is one of his constituents. Miss Woods, who is a botanist, graduated in June 1980, since when she has been unable to find a job, although from August 1980 she worked with the Spastics Society at the Churchtown farm field studies centre in Bodmin, where she was given full board and accommodation and £7.50 a week, which was subsequently raised to £15 a week.
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As I said, I have spent a considerable amount of my own time reviewing this case. I accept that mistakes were made. The mistakes flowed from one crucial misjudgment, which was the decision that Miss Woods's work with the Spastics Society was normal employment. I hope that my hon. Friend will accept that there were grounds for that view. After all, Miss Woods was living at the centre. She was receiving full board and lodging and a wage, albeit, I accept, a small wage. However, my hon. Friend raised the matter with me in his recent letter. That gave rise to an investigation, the results of which I examined. I am satisfied that Miss Woods was a volunteer with and not an employee of the Spastics Society.
In April this year Powys county council and the University of Wales institute of science and technology decided to undertake a series of botanical and ornithological surveys on the banks of Mid-Wales rivers. They applied for Manpower Services Commission sponsorship under the community enterprise programme. The MSC area board considered that the project was of community benefit, and approval was given for six botanists and six ornithologists.
Meanwhile, the project sponsors had already advertised in the New Scientist for one botanist. No mention was made of CEP funding. Eighty applications were received and the project sponsors decided to select people for their funded posts from among the applicants. This was clearly contrary to the rules of the programme, since it is intended to be of help to local long-term unemployed people. However, the MSC did not wish to appear to be unduly bureaucratic and agreed to ignore this breach of the rules.
Miss Woods was one of the successful applicants and confirmed with the project sponsor that she had been unemployed for at least six months. However, the MSC had already taken the view that Miss Woods had been in employment while working at the spastics centre and, under those circumstances, it refused to accept her as eligible for the CEP. She was not able to take up a place on the project.
To complete this chapter of accidents, Miss Woods was refused unemployment benefit on the ground that she had left her previous employment voluntarily. This was a reasonable conclusion to draw, given the assumption that Miss Woods's work with the Spastics Society was employment. We have now altered that assumption, although whether or not Mess Woods is entitled to unemployment benefit will depend upon her contribution record.
I shall sum up. It was the nature of Miss Woods's work with the spastic centre that was at the root of the problem. That was originally regarded as normal employment by MSC officials, and I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that in this case it was not simply a black and white decision. With hindsight, I can accept that Miss Woods was a volunteer. Any judgments in such complicated cases are bound to be borderline. I hope that my hon. Friend agrees with that.
My hon. Friend is understandably and rightly anxious to avoid such an error happening again. I assure him that I am just as anxious as he is. I will look at ways and means of doing that. However, I am bound to say that. I am not attracted by the idea of an absolute definition of voluntary work. That is because I believe that if we were to give an absolute definition of voluntary work, those who were volunteers as he and I would understand them to be might fall without that definition and, therefore, we would not

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be doing them justice. Such a definition might and probably would cause more problems than it would solve, for voluntary work is a little like the proverbial elephant—it is easy to recognise but hard to define.
I can reassure my hon. Friend that the Government are at one with him on the principle that voluntary work should
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not jeopardise eligibility for the community enterprise programme. The Government are wholly committed to those who wish to give of their hours and service to the community as a whole. We are wholy committed to voluntary enterprise.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes past One o'clock.