§ Mr. Bruce Millan (Glasgow, Craigton)I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the National Health Service (Functions of Health Boards) (Scotland) Order 1981 (S.I., 1981, No. 106), dated 28 January 1981, a copy of which was laid before this House on 9 February, be revoked,In my enthusiasm for the previous debate, I almost forgot this motion, but not quite. The order deals with private practice within the National Health Service in Scotland. It is right that this issue should be discussed, especially as the Government have repealed the legislation introduced by the Labour Government that would have achieved the gradual phasing out of pay beds not only in Scotland but in England and Wales. I regret deeply that the Government introduced that legislation. The Opposition will ensure that the next Labour Government take up where the previous Labour Government left off and that they provide for the phasing out of pay beds from the National Health Service.We are now, however, in a different situation. Our first question is, what is the present situation over pay beds? How has it changed since 1979? What are the Government's intentions?
This is a difficult period for the Health Service in Scotland. If the hour had been more propitious, a wider debate would have been useful. Despite the protestations of the Minister on numerous occasions that Health Service expenditure is being maintained—I believe that he has gone so far as to claim that it has been slightly enhanced—the reality is that severe cuts are being imposed in many parts of the National Health Service in Scotland. New beds are not being brought into use because of shortage of funds. Difficult situations prevail in many of the health board areas.
At a time when the basic service finds difficulty in surviving due to the financial stringencies that have been imposed by the Government, it would be intolerable if there were a build-up within the National Health Service of private patients in terms of pay beds, usage of outpatient facilities or in any other way. There must be a danger, when the service finds difficulty in making ends meet, that it will try to solve some of its problems by encouraging more private patients to come within the National Health Service. That would be entirely undesirable and disagreeable. The next Labour Government will take the necessary steps to see that the separation between private and NHS practice takes place.
It is difficult to understand what the Government are trying to achieve through the order. One reason for the debate is to ask the Minister what its provisions mean. An accompanying circular was issued to secretaries of health boards on 17 February. I recognise that Scottish Office circulars are not always masterpieces of clarity, but this is one of the most obscure circulars I have ever read. I make it a practice these days not to read Scottish Office circulars unless it is absolutely necessary. I cannot make head nor tail of the circular.
§ Mr. Dennis Canavan (West Stirlingshire)We cannot make head or tail of the Minister either.
§ Mr. MillanWe should give the Minister a chance. He will perhaps explain the order so that hon. Members may know what it means. We live in hope. We shall hear he says.
There seems no rhyme or reason in the order to explain which powers over use of National Health Service facilities for private purposes are delegated to health authorities and which are retained by the Secretary of State.
There seems to be some intention in the circular to give rather more power to health boards in the private sector. We oppose that in principle, but if it is to happen the Minister is under an obligation to tell us exactly how, and how he sees the effect of the order increasing—if that is the intention—the use of Health Service facilities by private patients.
For example, in article 2(2)(a), on the use by private nursing homes of diagnostic and other NHS facilities, we see that everything is now to be delegated to the health boards—the use of the facilities, the terms under which they are used, and the general provision of the facilities. Why is that now delegated to the boards?
We see in article 2(2)(b) that, although the use of amenity beds is delegated, as is the recovery of the charges, the fixing of the charges is not. That is to continue to be controlled by the Secretary of State. Therefore, there is a difference between the use of the diagnostic facilities and the amenity beds.
When we come to private in-patients there is another pattern. The authorisation of the extent of the use is not delegated, nor is the determination of the charges. The only matter that the boards seem to have delegated to them is getting the money from the patients once they have had treatment in the hospitals.
We need clarification from the Minister as to exactly what is happening. Is he authorising more use of Health Service facilities for private patients? Are beds being set aside? What are the numbers involved? What has happened? There is nothing in the order or the circular that gives us any idea what the Government are doing. We need more information about that.
The same is true of private out-patients. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) has mentioned to me the use of facilities. He has told me of a chiropodist using NHS facilities. The whole question of the use of NHS facilities, whether by medical practitioners, dental practitioners or professions supplementary to medicine, needs a good deal of careful consideration. Many of us believe that it is very odd that people in private practice have the extensive use of NHS facilities. It is anomalous at the best of times. We want to know whether it is the Government's intention in the regulations to encourage more use of NHS facilities by private practice. If that is their intention, considerable justification is needed.
There is no doubt that NHS facilities are used by private patients at the expense, to a greater or lesser degree, of the ordinary NHS patient. It was part of the purpose of the Labour Government—by, for example, the introduction of common waiting lists—to ensure that no private patient, simply because he was paying money into the Health Service, had priority over the ordinary NHS patient.
I think that the common waiting lists have been abandoned. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that, and tell us how, in those circumstances, it is ensured that the use of NHS facilities by private patients is not at the expense 770 of the ordinary NHS patient. I believe that that happens on a considerable scale at present. The Government's actions and the order will have the effect, directly or indirectly, of increasing that discrimination in favour of the private patient.
The NHS should be adequate for the needs of the majority of ordinary patients, who in Scotland are nearly all NHS patients. I am glad to say that the extent of private practice in Scotland is considerably smaller that it is in England and Wales. During the period of office of the previous Labour Government the extent of the use of the service by private practice for pay beds was being diminished still further. It was not a problem of great controversy even within the medical profession in Scotland. Unfortunately, the present Government, with their doctrinaire attitudes, changed the legislation and have been trying to increase the use of the NHS by private patients.
We deplore that trend, and it is therefore right that we should be debating the order. which will have a significant effect on what happens to private practice within the NHS, and expressing our displeasure at what the Government are doing, even if we have to do it at this unearthly hour of the morning.
§ Mr. Robert Hughes (Aberdeen, North)When I first read the order it was in the cold light of day and when I was considerably more awake than I am now. Even then, I found it obscure and difficult to follow. On re-reading it at this time in the morning, I am left even more confused.
I direct the Minister's attention to article 2(2), which states:
Every Board shall exercise the functions conferred upon the Secretary of State by the provisions of the Act which are specified in the following sub-paragraphs of this paragraph, but only with respect to the matters and to the extent so specified. namely:—(a) by section 50(1)(b) with respect to allowing persons to make use of any accommodation or services provided under the Act"—which seems reasonable enough—deciding the terms upon which they may do so"—which seems reasonable enough—and providing such accommodation"—which again seems reasonable enough, except that it continues—of services to an extent greater than otherwise necessary".The order states that services are to be provided and accommodation is to be providedto an extent greater than otherwise necessary.I hope that the Minister will try to explain what this provision is all about. If the hour were earlier, I should read other sub-paragraphs, all of which are equally obscure and all of which make little sense.The basic purpose of the Act is to extend the facilities available to private practice. We are totally opposed in principle to private practice being carried out within the NHS. The previous Labour Government made real progress in ending private beds in NHS hospitals. The Government have reversed that trend because they have a different philosophy. We should say to those in the Health Service "You either work in the service or you work outside it; make up your mind one way or the other."
The way in which the system operates was aptly and vividly described by a friend of mine at the Scottish Labour Party conference at Perth last weekend. Gordon 771 Craig of ASTMS said that consultants in Britain are the only craftsmen who do homers in company time on company premises using company tools and company staff. That expresses exactly what the consultants are doing. I know that many of them work full time for the Health Service, but those who do not, want their bread buttered and jamed on both sides. There is no place within the Health Service for private practice. It should be stopped. The regulations are an abomination and should be rejected.
§ Mr. John Maxton (Glasgow, Cathcart)My hon. Friend's quotation was apposite. Gordon Craig is also a friend of mine and a member of my constituency party. He is knowledgeable about the Health Service. He worked and negotiated in it for a long time, as I am sure the Minister is aware.
Although I was present for most of the previous debate, I went out for a quick cup of coffee. Lying on the table was a copy of The New Standard, with the "Stars" uppermost, telling me that today:
Nothing appears to be simple and straight forward any longer, mainly because no one will give you a direct or honest answer.That is appropriate in view of the previous debate. I hope that the Minister will give us straight answers on this obscure proposed legislation.It is disgraceful that a prayer dealing with important changes in principle in the use of NHS facilities can be debated only for a short time at this late hour. That is not the way to enact legislation. We deplore the extension of private medicine into the NHS.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Graigton (Mr. Millan) mentioned chiropodists. They are paid by the NHS but use their own facilities in the greater Glasgow health board area. An old-age pensioner receiving chiropody services asked me to take up her case with the health board. The service from her private practitioner was being withdrawn and she was being asked to attend a clinic. It would not be fair to name the chiropodist. The letter from the board stated that the chairman was not altogether surprised that the chiropodist had asked his patient to raise the matter, as in 1980 he was paid £23,000 for NHS fee-for-service patients, apart from anything that he may have earned from private practice.
There are 22 other practitioners in a somewhat similar situation.The board is therefore paying about £529,000 altogether for the service.Fortunately we are now in a position to recruit chiropodists to fill NHS chiropody sessions in health centres and clinics. This is certainly much less expensive than paying private chiropodists to treat NHS patients on a fee-for-service basis, and it also gives us the opportunity to exercise some control over the quality of the service provided.That shows that already the NHS in that area is having to pay large sums that it could use to treat more patients considerably more cheaply. The legislation will allow practitioners making such large sums to move into clinics provided by the NHS. They may have to accept a slight reduction in their income from NHS patients, but they will be able to use all the NHS facilities—equipment, lighting and heating and presumably the services of the receptionist—and to treat their private patients in the 772 clinic. That is a disgraceful situation. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) that it is grossly unjust.People in the National Health Service must make up their minds. I hope that when the Labour Party returns to power this will be done once and for all. Either people practice medicine privately and are paid for it, or they operate in the National Health Service. It should be one or the other.
If this kind of legislation continues, it seems to me that it could be argued under article 2(2)(b) that health boards may charge fees even to National Health Service patients
for part of the cost".I may be misreading the provision, but I hope that the Minister can clear this up. Private medicine is moving in more and more. This will eventually lead to gross discriminations in the National Health Service whereby poorer patients receive poorer service. Labour Members are not prepared to tolerate that.
§ Mr. Dick Douglas (Dunfermline)I shall not detain the House for long at this late hour. I should like the Under-Secretary of State to address his mind to one or two points, particularly in relation to recent happenings in the Fife health board area. Some time ago, the Minister was kind enough to meet my hon. Friends the Members for Kirkcaldy (Mr. Gourlay) and Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) and myself to go over the rather squalid events in relation to Mr. Spence. We were given an undertaking that once the Minister had received a report from the Fife health board certain pronouncements would be made by him in relation to those events.
I draw the attention of the House to that episode for this reason. The situation with regard to Mr. Spence came to light through a chance telephone call from Private Patients Plan to the health board authority which indicated that Mr. Spence had given special treatment to someone coming from abroad into the Fife area to whom he should not have given treatment at all on an emergency basis. The Fife health authority, obeying the strictures, had no private patients at all. Yet in that situation, this individual was capable of giving special treatment to someone coming in from abroad.
What concerns me about the loosening of control is that there is apt to be, to put it as generously as possible, a Goschen law whereby bad medical practice coming in will drive out the good. It is unfortunate that the Government are allowing this. Many good consultants in Scotland will feel dissatisfied because of this loosening of the legislation by the Government. Bad medical practice and bad practice in relation to private patients will drive out good practice in the public sector.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North referred to the situation put to the Minister again by ASTMS. As a trade union, ASTMS put a very cogent case to the Minister with particular reference to the use of laboratory facilities by consultants and others. That case has been put in the press and in the media generally. But to the best of my knowledge, the Minister has taken no opportunity to answer it. If ASTMS' case is not worthy of consideration, the Minister should say so. If there is substance in the case, people have a right to know whether consultants and others are indeed misusing National Health Service facilities in this way.
773 I hope that the Minister will address himself to the points that I have raised.
§ The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Russell Fairgrieve)Although the hour is late, this has been a short but interesting debate. Although the order deals with various matters in addition to private beds and private practice, it was on those points that the discussion concentrated. Discussion on these matters between the two parties tends to be lively. Perhaps it could have been livelier, but it is a rather late hour.
I am indebted to the four hon. Members who have spoken. They have obviously considered the matter in some detail. I hope that I shall be able to answer most of the points raised.
First, we had the introduction by the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan). During my remarks I shall reply to the point about pay beds in Scotland. However, only about a week ago, I issued details of the funds available to health boards in Scotland for the forthcoming year.
§ Mr. MillanToo little.
§ Mr. FairgrieveThe right hon. Gentleman says "Too little". The fact remains that the figure is up on the current year.
§ Mr. MillanIn real terms?
§ Mr. FairgrieveIn real terms, I shall also explain what the Government are trying to do and why we have now delegated these matters to health boards. From what I say, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will realise that nothing is at the expense of the NHS patient.
The right hon. Gentleman said that private practice in Scotland took place on a small scale. I agree. But that is something which we Conservatives regret. He asked why the Secretary of State controlled the charges for amenity beds. The general charges are settled by the Secretary of State, who also settles the charges for pay beds. The right hon. Gentleman also said that common waiting lists were being abandoned. I shall shortly say how they are not being abandoned, but strengthened.
The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) said that he found the order obscure, but he also said that it was late at night. The order is no different from many other orders, but the obscurity was possibly caused by the hour. He mentioned his opposition to private practice in the NHS. I presume that that does not accord with certain parts of the Labour Party's remaining philosophy, which I believe once accepted the mixed economy. All that we are saying is that it should also accept the mixed economy in health.
§ Mr. MillanThe mixed-up economy.
§ Mr. FairgrieveThe right hon. Gentleman, again from a sedentary position, says "The mixed-up economy". I call it the same mixed economy as we are trying to achieve elsewhere.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned article 2(2)(a) of the order and asked why it should include the phrase "greater than otherwise necessary". Broadly, the same provisions are contained in the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978, which allows boards to make provision for private facilities to an extent greater than ordinary NHS facilities.
774 The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) told us about his stars. He also said that this was an obscure piece of legislation. I again put that remark down to the lateness of the hour. I intend to mention our views on the use of NHS facilities by private practice.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline (Mr. Douglas) mentioned the question of the loosening of controls. I think that he will see from my remarks that in fact there will be a tightening up of controls. He probably saw the parliamentary answer which I gave recently about the use of laboratory facilities.
The hon. Gentleman brought a delegation to meet me about Mr. Spence. This matter is not relevant to the order, but currently, to our regret, there are no private beds in Fife and we are awaiting the report from the Fife board on the matter.
I was asked to make clear what the order is about, but before dealing with it and the main points raised by hon. Members I want to make the Government's position on private beds and private practice clear. Our general philosophy is that people who wish to do so should be free to make arrangements for their private medical treatment. It is the Government's intention to encourage greater co-operation between the NHS and the private sector to the ultimate benefit of both. This co-operation includes, on the one hand, the provision of pay beds in NHS hospitals where there is a clear demand for them and where the interests of the NHS patients will not be prejudiced. That is our policy and we made it perfectly clear in our election manifesto.
On the other hand, our policy includes the use by the NHS of facilities in the private sector. There is nothing new in that. Health boards already have the use of some 969 beds in private hospitals and nursing homes, to which homes NHS patients are admitted. About 800 of these beds provide much-needed accommodation for geriatric and psychiatric long-stay patients. They make a valuable contribution to NHS resources and we are asking health boards to consider whether they might not make even more use of such facilities.
I turn now to the order itself. In going over its provisions, I hope that I can clear up some misunderstandings which clearly exist in the minds of hon. Members opposite. The essential purpose of the order is simple. It merely delegates to health boards certain functions which the Health Services Act 1980 conferred on my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. By no means all the functions conferred on him have been delegated. In particular, I should make it clear that he himself retains the power to authorise pay beds or private outpatient services. I shall say a little more about that in a moment.
§ Mr. Robert HughesPlease do.
§ Mr. FairgrieveAll hon. Members who spoke in the debate asked me to explain the order in some detail; and that I am trying to do.
§ Mr. MillanI am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman heard, but I asked him about the numbers of pay beds. Can he give us some answers on that?
§ Mr. FairgrieveThere are, I believe, about 96 pay beds in Scotland, and I hope that that number will increase.
May I now indicate exactly what the order does? First, it delegates to the health boards certain powers of the 775 Secretary of State under section 50 of the 1978 Act. This allows health boards to allow persons or bodies outwith the NHS to make use of NHS facilities and to charge them for doing so. I emphasise that this has nothing whatever to do with pay beds or, indeed, with private patients of NHS consultants.
The kind of arrangements it makes possible in the provision of laboratory tests by NHS hospitals at the request of and subject to payment by a private hospital. Some food-processing firms make similar arrangements to use NHS testing facilities. For the future, health boards will not require authority to make such arrangements, but the order requires them to make an economic charge for the service.
The second function is related to the provision of amenity beds in hospitals.
§ Mr. MillanWhere does this order provide for them to make an economic charge? It merely says that they can decide the terms themselves. It does not say that they have to be economic.
§ Mr. FairgrieveAs I have said, the Secretary of State lays down the charges and the boards are also enjoined to make an economic charge, which, as the right hon. Gentleman must realise, is a charge that covers their costs. That is clearly laid down.
§ Mr. MillanIf the hon. Gentleman is still talking about article 2(2)(a), he will see that it does not say any such thing. It says that the terms shall be decided by the boards themselves. It has nothing to do with the Secretary of State and it does not say that the charge has to be economic.
§ Mr. FairgrieveI do not accept that. The boards know their responsibilities under the Act. In furnishing their accounts, and in being accountable to the Secretary of State, it is their duty to charge an economic commercial price for the services that they carry out.
The second function is related to the provision of amenity beds in hospitals. These are the arrangements that provide a NHS patient, on payment of a small charge, with the facilities of a single room or a bed in a small ward. To date, the number of such beds has been authorised and fixed by the Secretary of State. Under this order health boards will be able to decide for themselves how many such beds they require. I expect no complaint about that from Labour Members. They have advocated the provision of more beds of this kind for NHS patients.
It is the third function of the order that deals with private patients in NHS hospitals. As I have already indicated, the 1980 statute gave the Secretary of State the power to authorise pay beds or out-patient services for private patients in NHS hospitals. All that the order does is to allow health boards to make local arrangements for using the pay beds or to provide out-patient services after the Secretary of State has authorised such facilities to be made available to private patients. It is on this part of the order that Labour Members have to some extent concentrated their criticism this evening. Their criticism derives from their basic opposition to private beds, and I accept that as their belief. I have already indicated the Government's basic policy on this matter. Let me indicate briefly how the authorisation of private beds will work.
It will be for health boards to put proposals for the authorisation of such beds to the Secretary of State, and 776 before they do that they have to carry out extensive local consultations. Only if the Secretary of State is satisfied that there will be no significant prejudice to NHS patients will he agree to authorise such beds. There is, moreover, no question of the Secretary of State's authorising private beds in the absence of proposals put to him by health boards.
§ Mr. DouglasCan the hon. Gentleman say which bodies the health boards will have to consult? Will the Secretary of State describe these bodies to the health boards, or will the boards be given a free hand?
§ Mr. FairgrieveThe health boards are continually in discussion with health councils, the medical profession, nurses and all the people for whom they are responsible on all these matters. They are in continual consultation with both private and public bodies that are interested in these matters.
We are just as anxious as are Labour Members to avoid prejudice to the rights of NHS patients. That is why, as I have said, beds will be authorised only when there is no significant disadvantage to NHS patients. Further, the Government have reached agreement with the medical profession on a code—which I have here—of six principles to govern private practice within NHS hospitals. We announced this during the passage of the legislation last year. The code is intended to provide additional non-statutory safeguards for the NHS patient. Perhaps the most important principle is the provision that paying and nonpaying patients should be on a common waiting list in cases that are urgent, where the patient is seriously ill or where the patient requires highly specialised diagnosis and treatment.
§ Mr. MillanIf the Government are keen on common waiting lists, why did they, by the 1980 Act, take out the specific provision for that in the 1978 Act? Why did they repeal the section about common waiting lists?
§ Mr. FairgrieveI suggest that they did not, and the provisions now laid down in the six conditions make it absolutely clear that the order of admission of such patients should be dictated solely by clinical needs.
§ Mr. MillanThere is no point in the Minister's saying that his Government did not do something when they did. Section 68 of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1978 dealt with common waiting lists. It was repealed by the 1980 Act. That is a fact. Why did the Government do it?
§ Mr. FairgrieveIf the right hon. Member persists in that statement I merely say that I will look into the matter and give him a clear answer on it. But we have now agreed the six principles on common waiting lists.
The code of six principles was drawn up only last year. The new arrangements for dealing with private practice—including the emphasis on safeguarding the NHS patient—were promulgated by my Department only in January. The functions order which we are debating tonight and which gave effect to the main provisions came into operation only on 2 March. They need to be given a fair trial. If, after that, it can be shown that the position is unsatisfactory I and my right hon. Friend are prepared to review the matter to see whether anything else needs to be done.
The fourth and fifth functions which the order confers on health boards are related to general practice and not to 777 hospitals. The fourth function allows health boards to decide for themselves when to provide houses and surgeries for doctors in remote areas. Before the inception of the NHS in 1948, the Highlands and Islands medical service provided houses and surgeries for doctors in the very remote areas as a means of providing a service to the population. After 1948, these arrangements were continued by my Department. We think the time has come to leave health boards to take such local decisions themselves.
Finally, the order will allow health boards to exercise the function now performed by the Secretary of State to allow general practitioners who use Health Service accommodation, such as health centres, to carry out a limited amount of private practice in those premises. This right was guaranteed to general practitioners by the Labour Government in the Health Services Act 1976.
This somewhat petty and doctrinaire prayer is a symptom of a sickness which now grips the Labour Party. It attacks freedom of choice in the health service as it has attacked the parents' charter in education and the right of the council tenant to buy his house in which he has made his home.
To the Marxists who are now leading the Labour Party by the nose, freedom is anathema. Choice in health, in education, in housing, militates against the total State control they want for everyone and everything in the land. Their tactics are revealed by the level at which they have pitched their attack. They are not interested, for the moment, in the bloke who can afford full private medical treatment and expensive surgery—not unknown to some Labour Members—nor the person who can send his son to Eton, or even Westminster, as Lord Stansgate did for his son, nor property and land-owners like the hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson). They can be isolated and picked off later.
Labour Members are after the chap—perhaps a middle manager, a foreman or a trade union official—who was sent by his parents to a modest fee-paying school and who now, as a result of his own hard work and saving, wants to thank those parents by giving them a little extra privacy in illness. That is the target area. [Interruption.] It would appear that Labour Members do not like the truth when they have to listen to it.
Many ordinary people want to spend their money on these things, and in the process they ease the load on the State services. They do not ask for a rebate on rates and taxes, which go to fund the National Health Service and State education. They want to do this because they care about their parents and their children. Labour Members see that as a crime.
So now we know. In the Marxist State that the new real Labour bosses want in Britain, it would be criminal to care for one's own family in health, education or housing; criminal to be generous to anyone but the State. It is all right for people to spend their money on booze, baccy or betting, but not on other things.
Regrettably, human aspirations are the scourge of Marxism. Freedom of choice and the right of the individual to dispose of his hard-earned income as he thinks fit are all against the principles of total State control.
The British people want pay-beds. At the last election they said so. They are going to have them. Labour Members, in opposing this measure, demonstrate, as they have done so often, that they are totally out of touch with 778 reality. They must know that they cannot take the same line with freedom of choice in this country as the Russians are taking with Solidarity in Poland.
I am sure that what I have said will reassure the House that the provisions of the order are eminently reasonable, and I ask the House to reject the motion.
§ Question put:—
§ The House divided: Ayes 43, Noes 104.
779| Division No, 119] | [2,07 am |
| AYES | |
| Beith, A.J. | Lambie, David |
| Brown, Hugh D. (Provan) | McKelvey, William |
| Campbell-Savours, Dale | MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor |
| Canavan, Dennis | McTaggart, Robert |
| Carmichael, Neil | McWilliam, John |
| Cocks, Rt Hon M. (B'stol S) | Marshall, D (G'gow S'ton) |
| Craigen, J. M. | Maxton, John |
| Cryer, Bob | Millan, Rt Hon Bruce |
| Dalyell, Tam | Morton, George |
| Davis, T, (B'ham, Stechf'd) | O'Neill, Martin |
| Dewar, Donald | Powell, Raymond (Ogmore,) |
| Dixon, Donald | Ross, Ernest (Dundee West) |
| Dormand, Jack | Snape, Peter |
| Douglas, Dick | Spearing, Nigel |
| Eadie, Alex | Strang, Gavin |
| Foster, Derek | Tinn, James |
| Foulkes, George | Welsh, Michael |
| Hamilton, James (Bothwell) | Whitehead, Phillip |
| Harrison, Rt Hon Walter | Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E) |
| Haynes, Frank | |
| Hogg, N, (E Dunb't'nshire) | Tellers for the Ayes: |
| Home Robertson, John | Mr. Allen McKay and |
| Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N) | Mr. Hugh McCartney. |
| Johnston, Russell (Inverness) |
| NOES | |
| Alexander, Richard | Jopling, Rt Hon Michael |
| Atkins, Robert (Preston N) | Knight, Mrs Jill |
| Benyon, Thomas (A'don) | Lang, Ian |
| Berry, Hon Anthony | LeMarchant, Spencer |
| Best, Keith | Lester Jim (Beeston) |
| Bevan, David Gilroy | Lloyd, Peter (Fareham) |
| Biggs-Davison, John | Lyell, Nicholas |
| Blackburn, John | Macfarlane, Neil |
| Boscawen, Hon Robert | MacGregor, John |
| Braine, Sir Bernard | MacKay, John (Argyll) |
| Bright, Graham | McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury) |
| Brinton, Tim | McQuarrie, Albert |
| Brooke, Hon Peter | Madel, David |
| Budgen, Nick | Major, John |
| Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln) | Marlow, Tony |
| Chapman, Sydney | Mather, Carol |
| Clark, Hon A. (Plym'th, S'n) | Maude, Rt Hon Sir Angus |
| Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe) | Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin |
| Colvin, Michael | Meyer, Sir Anthony |
| Cope, John | Mills, Iain (Meriden) |
| Corrie, John | Moate, Roger |
| Cranborne, Viscount | Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes) |
| Crouch, David | Murphy, Christopher |
| Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J. | Myles, David |
| Dover, Denshore | Needham, Richard |
| Dunn, Robert (Dartford) | Nelson, Anthony |
| Dykes, Hugh | Neubert, Michael |
| Fairbairn, Nicholas | Normanton, Tom |
| Fairgrieve, Russell | Page, Rt Hon Sir G. (Crosby) |
| Fletcher, A. (Ed'nb'gh N) | Page, Richard (SW Herts) |
| Fraser, Peter (South Angus) | Pattie, Geoffrey |
| Garel-Jones, Tristan | Pollock, Alexander |
| Goodlad, Alastair | Proctor, K. Harvey |
| Gorst, John | Rathbone, Tim |
| Gray, Hamish | Renton, Tim |
| Griffiths, Peter Portsm'th N) | Rhodes James, Robert |
| Gummer, John Selwyn | Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon |
| Hannam, John | Roberts, M, (Cardiff NW) |
| Hawkins, Paul | Rost, Peter |
| Hawksley, Warren | Sainsbury, Hon Timothy |
| Henderson, Barry | Speller, Tony |
| Spicer, Jim (West Dorset) | Wakeham, John |
| Spicer, Michael (S Worcs) | Walker, B. (Perth) |
| Sproat, Iain | Waller, Gary |
| Stanbrook, Ivor | Ward, John |
| Stevens, Martin | Watson, John |
| Stewart, A. (E Renfrewshire) | Wells, Bowen |
| Stradling Thomas, J. | Wheeler, John |
| Taylor, Teddy (S'end E) | Wolfson, Mark |
| Temple-Morris, Peter | Young, SirGeorge (Acton) |
| Thomas, Rt Hon Peter | |
| Townsend, Cyril D, (B'heath) | Tellers for the Noes: |
| Trippier, David | Mr. Tony Newton and |
| Waddington, David | Mr. Donald Thompson. |
§ Question accordingly negatived.