Commons Sitting of 6 May 1981

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  PRIVATE BUSINESS
    BRITISH RAILWAYS (PENSION SCHEMES) BILL
    Considered; to be read the Third time.
    WESTERN ISLES ISLANDS COUNCIL (BERNERAY FERRY) ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
    Considered; to be read the Third time tomorrow.
Oral Answers to Questions
  ENVIRONMENT

    Water and Sewerage Charges
    Mr. Marlowasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what progress he has made in considering alternative methods of charging for water and sewerage.
    Mr. R. C. Mitchellasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether, in view of the special burden of the large increase in water rates on low-income families, he will now consider alternative methods of charging for water.
    Mr. Lofthouseasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received for the inclusion of water rates in the rebate scheme.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Giles Shaw): With permission, I will answer this - question and questions 8 and 10 together.
    The National Water Council has concluded that the best way to alleviate the present sense of unfairness about the charging system is to extend optional metering to domestic households. Where this option does not exist at present the council recommends that water authorities should draw up a timetable for its introduction in the next few years.
    The council also concluded that, despite the representation which both it and the Government had received, the present legislation does not allow means-related rebates for water services and it reaffirms its belief that assistance to consumers should remain with the social security system.
    Mr. Marlow: Many people will look upon that answer as disappointing, because it costs £60 to instal a meter and a large amount of money to service it. Does my hon. Friend agree that water rates are the unfairest burden of an unfair rating system, that the water authorities are not sufficiently accountable democratically and that the
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    Government are committed to doing away with the present abhorrent rating system? Will he, as a start, consider the possibility of transferring the water rates to general taxation where the cost will amount to less than 1 per cent. of VAT? That would prove far more reflective of people's use of water, because those who bought most would use most. At the same time the water authorities would be put under a better system of democratic control.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Question Time must not be used to argue a case. It is unfair to other hon. Members.
    Mr. Shaw: The Government share my hon. Friend's concern to see water rates reduced. As a result of our action in the spring, water charges estimated for the following year were reduced by £87 million in consumer terms. We are also seeking to implement a fairer system of charging based on voluntary metering. A transfer to general taxation would be inconsistent with the Government's policy of seeking to make regional water authorities more accountable. It would indicate less efficiency, and there would be a significant increase in value added tax.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I propose to call first those hon. Members who have tabled questions 8 and 10.
    Mr. Mitchell: I thought that it was customary to notify hon. Members if their questions were being linked with others.
    As the increased water rate imposes a heavy burden on widows, pensioners and those on low incomes just above the supplementary benefit level, will the Minister reconsider his decision and include water rates within the rate rebate scheme, which would at least help poorer people?
    Mr. Shaw: It has been the Government's policy to see that water, like other energies, is charged for according to consumption. The difficulties of those who are unable to meet the charges should be alleviated through the supplementary benefit scheme. I fully understand the hon. Gentleman's anxiety.
    I apologise for failing to notify the hon. Gentleman of the bracketing of the questions.
    Mr. Chapman: As many people, rightly or wrongly, believe that a metering system would be fairer than the present system, does my hon. Friend agree that the real cost is not that of the water itself, but that of getting the water from its source to the home? It therefore matters little, if charges are levied through a metering system, whether a household uses 10 gallons or 1,000 gallons of water a day.
    Mr. Shaw: My hon. Friend is right. That is why we favour optional metering, which provides a choice. In many cases that might not be a desirable solution. My hon. Friend is also right in saying that the cost of what comes out of the tap is less than the cost of the capital works involved.
    Mr. Stephen Ross: Although metering might be the long-term answer, surely the Government can do something about people who, like myself, have to pay a water rate for a building that has no water or sewerage system, but only water coming off the roof into the drains.

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    It is nonsense that one has to pay the full rate for that service. Cannot some legislation be arranged to prevent that?
    Mr. Shaw: I accept that the hon. Gentleman has a point about the disposal of surface water only, but he will appreciate that the water authority that operates in his area, as in others, has to pay for the disposal of foul water, from whatever source.
    Mr. Garel-Jones: Does my hon. Friend accept the argument of the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Mitchell) that elderly people, particularly those living on their own, find the present method of charging for water grossly unfair? Since the best that my hon. Friend seems able to do is to offer voluntary metering, will he consider making a grant to elderly people who wish to install meters?
    Mr. Shaw: The best and fairest solution seems to be to change from the basic rateable value system to payment by other means. Gas, electricity and water should be paid for on the basis of consumption, and the benefits available under the social security system should be used for redress.
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: As there is a combined charge for water and the disposal of sewage, does the Minister suggest that sewage disposal should be metered? Is it not crazy that many of my constituents pay twice as much for their water and sewage disposal as for their general rate because the rebate applies to one and not the other?
    Mr. Shaw: The hon. Gentleman will be interested to know that some water authorities propose, by some means, to measure sewage and effluent discharges from houses. There are ways in which that can be done, although not in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests. We must ensure that the consumption of water and the disposal of foul water is charged for realistically, but I appreciate the difficulty.
    Mr. Durant: Will my hon. Friend consider using new technology for metering? Is he aware of new systems that would make metering much cheaper? Will he also consider establishing a water consumers' council? If we are to be chained to the present system, should not the consumer have a voice in what happens?
    Mr. Shaw: My hon. Friend will recall that the majority of the members of water authorities are from elected bodies. The Government believe that the needs of the consumer are met in that way. However, I note my hon. Friend's suggestion. I accept that there are many aspects of the problem. The Water Research Centre is examining the new technoloy.
    Mr. Graham: When the Minister considers how water authorities should bill consumers, will he reflect on the outcome of the recent diktat by the Secretary of State? Will he also reflect on the words of the chairman of the Thames water authority when he complained that the Secretary of State had insisted that more risks should be taken and that standards of service were no longer sacrosanct? Will he condemn the policy that forces authorities to jeopardise the health of consumers as the price for fiddling the books?
    Mr. Shaw: I repudiate the suggestion that to reduce consumer charges from a 19 per cent. increase to a 13 per cent. increase is fiddling the books. It is a genuine attempt
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    by the Government to ensure that consumers get a fair deal and value for money. We shall continue to pursue that policy.

    Council House Sales
    Mr. Allan Robertsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many council houses have been sold since the passing of the Housing Act 1980; what is the average discount given to those who have purchased them; and what percentage of the total are flats.
    The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine): Figures are collected quarterly. In the second half of 1980, 34,100 local authority dwellings in England were sold at an average discount of 40 per cent. It is estimated that nearly 2½ per cent. of the dwellings sold were flats. Figures for the first quarter of 1981 are not yet available.
    Mr. Roberts: Do not the figures reveal that few flats are being sold? Does the Secretary of State accept that only the best council houses are being sold at give-away discounts? Is he aware that that is creating ghetto housing, since the worst houses are being left in the public sector?
    Mr. Heseltine: The figures show nothing of the sort. They show that up to now completions for the sale of flats under the right-to-buy policy have not taken place. Under the earlier enactment of that policy few councils sold flats. I understand that many right-to-buy applications are for flats. If the hon. Gentleman is so concerned about our policy of selling council houses, he should accept that it is a popular policy with people who want to buy their homes. The real criticism should be made of Labour-controlled authorities which are trying to frustrate the Government's mandate.
    Mr. Adley: Does my right hon. Friend agree that Parliament has given tenants the right to buy and that it is intolerable and undemocratic for local authorities to seek to frustrate that right? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that any local authority tenant has the right to apply to buy his council home? Will he ensure that tenants' rights within the law are upheld?
    Mr. Heseltine: Tenants' rights within the law will certainly be upheld. Any council tenant can apply, and a large proportion of them have the right to buy. That right to buy was enshrined in the mandate under which the Government came to power.
    Mr. Frank Allaun: Is not the Secretary of State forcing tenants to buy by raising rents? Secondly—and I ask the Minister to answer—does he intend to impose an additional rent increase beyond the current £3·25 by a further removal of subsidy?
    Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman is aware that each year the Government reach conclusions about the public expenditure balance. The Government will continue to do that, just as the previous Government did. Today is not the right time to discuss the relative balance between one factor and another. The hon. Gentleman is aware that the policy of selling council houses has nothing to do with future levels of rent increases. The Labour Party is always calling for improved standards of maintenance for council houses, without realising that rent payments have to be made to cover the costs.
    Mr. Squire: In support of my right hon. Friend's earlier statement, may I ask whether he is aware that in the London borough of Havering the majority of tenants applying for purchase live in flats? Does he agree that that is evidence that the premise behind the original question is false?
    Mr. Heseltine: I agree. The first indications are that there has been a significant increase in the number of applications to buy flats, which were not previously available for sale.

    Council House Rents
    Mr. Dormand asasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received on the Government's statement on council rents increases for 1981–82.
    The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. John Stanley): Some 570 letters on the subject of council house rent increases have been received since my right hon. Friend made his housing statement on 15 December.
    Mr. Dormand: Why has the Secretary of State been so strangely and untypically quiet recently, particularly about rent increases? Could it be that, although county councils have no direct responsibility for rents, he believes that what is said on the subject might rub off and have an effect on the county council elections tomorrow? Will the Minister come clean and be honest and admit that the vast increases in rents, which many people in the Northern region will find difficult to meet, are due entirely to Government policy?
    Mr. Stanley: The hon. Gentleman must realise that the previous Government's policy was to increase rents in line with earnings and that they failed to discharge that policy. In four out of their five years the increase in rents was below the increase in earnings. As a result, the relationship between earnings and rents is now one of the lowest on record. In 1980–81 rents were 6·5 per cent. of earnings. If the hon. Gentleman is exercised by the number of letters that we have received—about 570—he should know that we have received nearly 10 times that number from council tenants wishing to buy their council homes. That suggests that council tenants are less concerned about the level of rents than about being frustrated by Labour councils in their right to buy.
    Mr. Heddle: Will my hon. Friend confirm that at least 45 per cent. of council tenants do not have to meet any rent increases in full, and that 25 per cent. do not have to meet any increase at all?
    Mr. Stanley: My hon. Friend is correct. About 46 per cent. of local authority tenants receive help with their rents. Of those, more than 1¼ million will have to pay no increase in rent because they receive supplementary benefit. More than 1 million tenants will have about 60 per cent. of any increase met because they receive rent rebates. The Government extended the rent rebate system in the Housing Act 1980. More recently, we increased the maximum ceiling for rent rebates in London to £35 a week and to £30 a week outside London. That provides real protection for people on low incomes.
    Mr. Joseph Dean: On the subject of council house rents, will the Minister reflect on an answer that he gave during the previous Environment Question Time, on 1
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    April, when he said that last year Manchester provided £37 million for its housing revenue account from the rates? As a Manchester ratepayer, I know that that figure is wrong by £10 million. The figure is £27 million. Will the Minister take this opportunity to correct that error?
    Mr. Stanley: I assure the hon. Gentleman that I shall look into the matter, but the figures that I gave were closely checked by my Department. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the burden of rates in Manchester over many years has had a serious effect on small and medium-sized businesses in that city.

    Local Authorities (Planning Departments)
    Sir William Elliottasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will advise local authorities to review their staffing establishment in their planning departments.
    Mr. Heseltine: I am constantly reminding local authorities of the need to review their staffing levels and make reductions in all departments, including planning, if the Government's expenditure targets are to be met. The net effect of the changes that we have introduced to make the planning system more efficient should be a reduction in the overall numbers of staff required.
    Sir William Elliott: Does my right hon. Friend recognise that ratepayers, particularly in large cities, will welcome any reduction in the extent and scope of planning procedures? Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that private firms are being used sufficiently by local authorities in their planning procedures?
    Mr. Heseltine: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. There are many opportunities in the public sector, including local government, to use the private sector on a larger scale. I agree that the extent to which local government keeps down rates will have a direct beneficial effect on investment and job creation. One cannot help noticing that Labour authorities are largely bent on increasing rate levels to unjustifiable levels.
    Mr. Steen: Is my right hon. Friend aware that East year about 8,000 houses in the principal towns and cities were demolished because of planning approval, and that at the same time, according to the second land utilisation study, about 60,000 acres of good agricultural lard were destroyed because of urban sprawl resulting from planning decisions? Is my right hon. Friend happy about that arrangement?
    Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend raises two important issues. There is, unavoidably, a certain amount of demolition of old and inadequate housing, particularly in urban areas. There is no way to escape the irreducible minimal destruction that takes place. Wherever possible, we want property to be restored. That is happening with the new freedom that local government has to apportion its housing allocations more to renovation and improvement than to the new build that characterised earlier programmes.
    On the second question, I am aware of my hon. Friend's concern about land in the countryside that could be protected if better use were made of urban land. He is aware of the initiatives that have been taken by the Government to put mechanics on the statute book, for the

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    first time, to enable much publicly owned land to be driven into the market place, where more profitable use can be made of it.
    Mr. James A. Dunn: Is the Secretary of State aware that, although some of us share his apprehension about what has happened, we hold his Department partly responsible because when a clearance order for demolition is submitted it must always have his Department's permission? Can the Secretary of State assure the House that when planning matters are being considered every effort will be made to ensure the complete impartiality of those who are employed as servants and agents of councils?
    Mr. Heseltine: I have no doubt that this country enjoys as impartial a Civil Service and local government service as it is possible to find anywhere in the world. I would defend that statement against all arguments. However, we all realise that the demolition of large parts of our inner cities went too far. With hindsight, we should probably have pursued other policies. I believe that we are right to have moved the emphasis away from demolition to rehabilitation.
    Mr. Lyell: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the number of planning staff that are required to monitor our elaborate building regulations? Can he say what measures are being considered by his Department to simplify the regulations?
    Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend will be aware of the announcements that we made about the simplification of the planning system and the new regime that we propose to introduce for building regulation procedures. I have not sought to give specific directions to local government about the ways in which it should seek to economise on staff. I have given general directions. I think that it is right for individual authorities to pursue their own staff economies as their local priorities demand. I have no doubt that there is still room for considerable economies.
    Mr. Hardy: Will the Secretary of State advise his hon. Friend that good agricultural land is consumed and developed, not because of the existence of hundreds or thousands of planners, but because of the demand that exists because agricultural land may be cheaper than inner urban land? The planning legislation is grossly inadequate to afford proper protection for good quality land in many areas.
    Mr. Heseltine: I do not agree that planning procedures are inadequate to protect land. A rigid system of planning constraint exists, particularly for green belt land—and rightly so—and it is administered by my Department. However, another phenomenon causes even greater concern, namely, that it is easier to use agricultural land because it has few constraints or past dereliction associated with it. Too often we have gone for the easy option of agricultural despoliation, as opposed to reclamation in inner cities, where large acreages of publicly owned land have not been used because of the apparent difficulties of using it. I want to reverse that policy.

    Allerdale District Council
    Mr. Campbell-Savoursasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will undertake a review of the housing investment programme allocations for Allerdale district council.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg): No, Sir. Allerdale district council was given a fair share of the housing resources available for 1981–82.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Is the Minister aware that the HIP allocations to Allerdale have been cut since 1979, when they were £5·6 million, to just over £3 million this year? Is he further aware that that has destroyed the new start of the Allerdale district council's construction programme, cut to shreds its improvement programme and greatly damaged the possibility of Allerdale being able to provide for the 2,170 people who desperately need accommodation?
    Mr. Finsberg: We understand what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Allerdale's allocation for 1981–82 is generous in the difficult circumstances of the year. Its percentage share of the regional total has increased significantly, and it could be topped up with right-to-buy receipts.

    New Towns (Defective Houses)
    Mr. Newensasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to receive a report from the National Building Agency on claims made by new town authorities under section 10 of the New Towns (Amendment) Act 1976, in respect of design defects in houses transferred to them; and when he anticipates he will be in a position to come to a settlement on this issue.
    Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mr. Murphy) on 27 April.
    Mr. Newens: Does the Minister recognise that as councils cannot remedy all the defects in new town houses, which are causing great inconvenience and hardship to many residents, his reference of the matter to the National Building Agency means that those defects will have to go unremedied for several years? Does he accept responsibility for that? As he is so anxious to save public money, will he say how much this study, which is merely a delaying action, will cost?
    Mr. Finsberg: I have told the hon. Gentleman ad nauseam that we are discussing this matter with the Association of District Councils. I have said over and again in the House that we have made it clear that if authorities proceed with urgent repair work it will not prejudice their claims for assistance.
    Mr. Newens: How much is it costing?
    Mr. Foster: Is the Minister aware that it is costing Sedgefield district council about £15 million to do all these repairs, and that such money is not available to a district council? Is he further aware that there is a widespread belief in all the district councils concerned that he is dragging his feet? When will he draw these negotiations to a close?
    Mr. Finsberg: The hon. Member doubtless chooses to forget that these defects did not occur during the past two years. He also chooses to forget that my Labour predecessor delayed making a decision because no Government could accept at face value all the claims without an investigation of the public interest.
    Mr. Michael Morris: Is my hon. Friend aware that the reference to the National Building Agency is welcomed by

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    the majority of Members who represent new towns? Does he realise that, at the end of the day, when the transfer takes place, there may be some unforeseen defects in the properties—for example, the problems with cladding that have occurred after 10 years with the tower blocks? Will there be some safeguards to deal with any unexpected defects?
    Mr. Finsberg: We shall consider my hon. Friend's point. However, it is right to say that the houses were handed over by the Government to local authorities at an advantageous price.
    Mr. Graham: Is not the saga of the frustrated section 10 claims a disgrace and a scandal? Should not the Minister shoulder a major share of the blame for the delays caused by his continual attempts to restrict the criteria for claims? How does he expect new town councils to deal fairly with inherited problems when they have been dealt with so unfairly in the HIP and rate support allocations?
    Mr. Finsberg: With limited exceptions, the criteria for judging claims were those laid down by the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Barnett).
    Mr. Dormand: Does the Minister realise that it is almost two years since he and I discussed this matter in an Adjournment debate? Does he recall that during that debate he conceded that Peterlee new town in my constituency was the worst affected new town in Britain? Is that not evidence of a scandalous dragging of feet? Does he also recall telling the Easington district council that it would be reimbursed and could get on with its work? Is it not true that it has not yet received a penny? Is not the answer to set a target date for the report, so that some resources can be made available to the new towns?
    Mr. Finsberg: The hon. Gentleman is aware that I have already said that the National Building Agency report will be available next May. We shall take a decision as soon as possible thereafter.

    Council House Sales (Sheffield)
    Mr. John H. Osbornasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will take steps to ensure that the Sheffield metropolitan district council no longer obstructs and threatens council house tenants who wish to purchase their homes and carries out the steps and requirements of recent legislation designed to promote the sale of council houses.
    Mr. Stanley: I refer my hon. Friend to the statement I made in the House on 15 April. The Department wrote to Sheffield on the same day to give formal warning that my right hon. Friend is contemplating using his powers of intervention and seeking by 13 May the latest information on progress by the authority. If it then appears to my right hon. Friend that Sheffield's tenants have, or may have, difficulty in exercising the right to buy effectively and expeditiously, a notice of intervention will be served on the council.
    Mr. Osborn: I welcome the statement made on 15 April. Has my hon. Friend had time to study the dossier given to him by Conservative councillors outlining the appointment of people to dissuade tenants from buying their houses and also dealing with the difficult issue of the intimidation of those who want to buy their council homes? What reaction has he received from Sheffield?
    Mr. Stanley: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has not yet received a definitive reply from the city of Sheffield. We have been assured that it will be sent to us by the due date. The papers referred to by my hon. Friend have been studied. As I have said, if a local authority can recruit staff to dissuade people from exercising their right to buy, it must have sufficient staff to help people obtain their legal rights.
    Mr. Flannery: Does the Minister remember that I recently sent him a petition with 20,000 signatures about council house rents? Does he remember saying that he had nothing to do with the matter and that local councillors raised rents? Did he think that we would accept that? Does he recall that the council has repeatedly pointed out to him that it has 27,000 people on the housing list, that the list is developing, and that he has cut down its staff while expecting it to have sufficient staff to sell council houses? Cannot the council legitimately complain that it costs money to obtain staff? Does he accept that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Osborn) has no contact whatsoever with council house tenants and just does not understand the issue?
    Mr. Stanley: My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Osborn) is as closely associated with his electorate as the hon. Gentleman is with his. Because of my hon. Friend's representations, we are aware that almost 4,000 tenants in Sheffield have applied to buy their homes. The latest figures available from the local authority show that at the beginning of April precisely five houses had been referred for valuation, no offer notices had been served and no completions had taken place. That is why a letter has been sent to the Sheffield city council saying that the Sectretary of State will intervene if satisfactory replies are not received by 13 May.

    Council House Sales
    Mr. Dobsonasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is his estimate of the total income from council house sales in 1980–81 that councils will be able to devote to new house building.
    Mr. Stanley: It is for individual local authorities to decide what proportion of their accumulated unspent housing and non-housing capital receipts at 1 April 1981 they devote to new house building in 1981–82.
    Mr. Dobson: Does the Minister realise that his response is misleading? Is he aware that if we allow for a 40 per cent. average discount—as the Secretary of State mentioned earlier—for the 50 per cent. of the takings which are trousered by the Government, and take into account that 60 per cent. of council tenants seek a council mortgage to buy their properties, that means that less than 10 per cent. of the total proper valuation of the houses sold is available to councils to spend on new house building and rehabilitation?
    Mr. Stanley: That does not match up with my figures for receipts of certain local authorities from the sales of council dwellings last year. Six authorities had more than £2 million each from the sale of council dwellings during the first nine months of last year. They are all Conservative authorities. That shows vividly that the Labour authorities which failed to sell during the last financial year have suffered a self-imposed cut in their housing programmes.
    Dr. Mawhinney: Does my hon. Friend agree that if the colleagues of the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson) were to encourage their tenants to buy council houses, rather than try to obstruct them in doing so, they would have more money available for new house building?
    Mr. Stanley: My hon. Friend is right. It is not only the question of the sale of houses to sitting tenants, but the possibility of selling land which scores 100 per cent. if a local authority wishes to increase its capital receipts. There are considerable examples of large areas of valuable land throughout Britain in local authority ownership which could be sold. That fact has been exposed by the land register that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is compiling.
    Mr. Alton: Does the Minister seriously believe that sufficient funds are coming in from the sale of council houses to compensate for the loss of homes caused by public expenditure cuts? Has he had time today to read the report of the Catholic Housing Aid Society about the state of Liverpool's housing stock? Does he believe that the money collected in receipts in Liverpool alone will be sufficient to compensate for the loss of money available to local authorities?
    Mr. Skinner: You voted for the sale of council houses.
    Mr. Stanley: I hope that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. Alton) will make every effort to ensure that in Liverpool and elsewhere the sale of council houses progresses as rapidly—[Interruption.]—as possible.
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) really must try to restrain himself. It is discourteous and unfair to other hon. Members if he continues to talk as I heard him talk.
    Mr. Skinner: I was just pointing out—
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    Mr. Stanley: Every possible effort should be made in Liverpool to dispose—
    Mr. Heffer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) merely said to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. Alton)—
    Mr. Speaker: When an hon. Member has been called, any sedentary interruptions are out of order. We have allowed a great many to pass, but it is unfair when they are constant.
    Mr. Douglas-Mann: Will the Minister—
    Mr. Heffer: My hon. Friend said it was hypocrisy and it is.
    Mr. Douglas-Mann: Will the Minister come clean and tell the House to what extent he challenges the assumptions made by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson)? Does he disagree that only one-third of council house sales will be funded by other than local authority mortgages? Does he disagree that the average discount will be 40 per cent.? If he does not disagree with those assumptions, how can he dispute the figure put forward by my hon. Friend that only 10 per cent. of the proceeds of council house sales will be available for investment?
    Mr. Stanley: If the hon. Gentleman reads the written answer that I gave to the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson), he will note that there is a detailed breakdown of the assumption for housing capital receipts for the financial year 1981–82. It is a breakdown of £413 million. That was based on the assumption that about 120,000 sales would be completed in that financial year. By 31 December 1980 120,000 right-to-buy applications had been received. If local authorities do not complete those sales, the responsibility will be that of the authorities.
    Mr. Lofthouse: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have been in the House since 9 o'clock this morning, but it was not until 10 minutes to 3 o'clock, when I arrived in the Chamber, that I was notified that my question, No. 10, would be coupled with No. 1. I have not had the opportunity of speaking to question No. 10.
    Mr. Cryer: Scandalous.
    Mr. Speaker: If the Department of the Environment did not notify the hon. Gentleman in time, I shall allow his question to be called at the end of Question Time.

    Planning Applications
    Mr. Chapmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he is satisfied that local planning authorities generally are adopting positive attitudes in determining planning applications, with particular reference to the location of new housing sites.
    Mr. Heseltine: I am satisfied that many authorities are adopting a positive approach but there is still much scope for improvement.
    Mr. Chapman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is strong evidence that certain local planning authorities have been far too negative in exercising development control procedures? Does he agree that, once it is accepted that a particular development should be on a particular site, planners could be much more positive in meeting applicants and making decisions on vehicle access points or the width of pavements? This assumes even greater importance when the planning applications relate to houses or housing estates.
    Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend has great knowledge of the working practices of individual authorities when dealing with these issues. It is impossible to give a general answer to his question because working practices are so different. However, I am concerned about the general issues that he has raised with me. I hope that he will accept my assurance that I shall consider what he has had to say sympathetically.
    Mr. W. Benyon: Is my right hon. Friend aware that one of the least positive attitudes in planning concerns the change of use for buildings for industrial purposes? Does he recall that this was the subject of circular 22/80 from his Department? What is really infuriating is that this negative attitude appears to be taken by the inspectors appointed by my right hon. Friend's Department. Will he bring to their attention the need, at a time of high unemployment, to give the maximum assistance to change of use for industrial and commercial premises?
    Mr. Heseltine: I hope that my hon. Friend will be kind enough to let me have any examples where he feels that

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    the inspectorate is not complying with the circular that I issued. It is my intention that my inspectors should uphold the policies set out in the circular.

    New Towns (Housing Assets)
    Mr. Hal Millerasked the Secretary of State for the Environment whether he has yet determined the financial terms for the transfer of housing assets in second generation new towns; and if he will make a statement on the issues so far unresolved.
    Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: My right hon. Friend is considering the position in the light of the Association of District Council's reaction to the proposals we put forward. Our intention is that transfer should not place a major burden on the receiving authority and it is largely a question of deciding how this should be done in the light of the new housing subsidy system.
    Mr. Miller: I thank my hon. Friend for the constructive remarks and positive attitude that he displayed this morning on repairs and staff. Does he accept that news of his proposals has not, for instance, reached the Redditch district council? There is great concern about the terms and time of transfer. Will he take this opportunity of confirming that he would approve of an agency agreement in the absence of any agreement on terms of transfer being reached in the near future?
    Mr. Finsberg: Negotiations take place between the Government and the Association of District Councils. I cannot say what communications the association has had with individuals, although one member of Redditch council is a member of the committee that negotiated with me. I can only assume that the association has not yet put a view to individual authorities. I have already said to my hon. Friend that we would not oppose agency agreements as a transitional stage.
    Mr. Newens: What guarantee can the Minister give that the same disgraceful delay will not take place over the settlement of the financial arrangements for second generation new towns as has taken place over the settlement for the transfer of houses in first generation new towns, to which we have already referred during Question Time in respect of section 10 grants?
    Mr. Finsberg: There are two reasons why this will not happen. First, we anticipate that the overwhelming bulk of the stock will be in good condition when it is transferred. Secondly, we firmly believe that if the association had accepted the offer that I made to it several months ago the issue could well have been settled.

    Empty Domestic Properties (Inner London)
    Mr. Michael Morrisasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the latest estimate of the number of empty domestic properties owned by local authorities in inner London.
    Mr. Geoffrey Finsberg: The latest estimates of the number of empty council dwellings owned by local authorities in inner London are contained in the authorities' HIP returns for 1981–82 and they show the position as at 1 April 1980. A copy of each authority's HIP return is in the Library.
    Mr. Morris: Is my hon. Friend aware that I have not had the chance to go to the Library to look up the figures?
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    However, I am aware that they run to several thousands. Is he aware that the Labour Party's GLC manifesto calls for a massive programme of new building? Is not that a hollow policy when there are thousands of empty properties controlled by Labour councils in inner London?
    Mr. Finsberg: I am sure that my hon. Friend will, wish to spend the early hours of the morning reading the HIP returns. It might help him if I remind him that Lambeth had 3,100 empty properties, that Islington had 2,800, that Southwark had 2,700 and that Hackney had 2,300.
    Mr. Jay: Has the Minister any powers under existing legislation to compel the Wandsworth borough council to rent the many council homes that it has been holding empty for many months in a futile attempt to sell them?
    Mr. Finsberg: Wandsworth has had a remarkably good housing record and I see no reason to join in criticism of it.
    Mr. Squire: Does my hon. Friend agree that, in the unfortunate event of a change of control of the GLC in the near future, one possible slight benefit might be that the leader of Lambeth council, who has such a great knowledge of managing empty properties, will be in an excellent position to do something similar within the GLC because of his party's rates policy, which will lead only to more empty properties in London?
    Mr. Finsberg: If the leader of Lambeth council does to the GLC what he has done in Lambeth, Heaven help the ratepayers of London.
    Mr. Cartwright: Will the Minister accept that many of the vacancies result from the lengthy delays on the part of many local authorities of all political persuasions in reletting empty properties? Will he acknowledge that this causes great resentment among those on waiting lists? Will he take steps to try to encourage local authorities to cut through their bureaucratic processes? Finally, will he accept that we might get a better use of the existing housing stock if tenants are given a greater element of choice so that they are able to live in properties in which they wish to reside rather than have local government officers telling them what they should have?
    Mr. Finsberg: I remind the hon. Gentleman that quite recently the housing services advisory unit produced a report called "Reducing the Number of Empty Dwellings''. It is a constructive document dealing with how the number of vacant properties could be reduced. Of course, local authorities could follow the excellent homesteading scheme that was introduced by the GLC.
    Mr. Graham: The Minister has given us the figures of empty domestic proerties in Labour-controlled Lambeth and Islington. What is the number of such properties that are owned by the Tory GLC?
    Mr. Finsberg: I cannot answer that question without notice.
    Mr. Dobson: There are 6,000.
    Later—
    Mr. Clinton Davis: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May I advert to the answer to question 16?.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Member has a point of order that I can rule on.
    Mr. Davis: I hope so, but it remains to be seen. How can the House be protected from deceptive answers? The Under-Secretary of State must have known that 6,000 houses were empty.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. It is unfair to try to score points on a bogus point of order.

    Rate Support Grant
    Dr. Edmund Marshallasked the Secretary of State for the Environment by what percentage he estimates that the shift of rate support grant from district to county councils will increase the total grant paid to county councils in England in 1981–82 compared with 1980–81.
    Mr. Heseltine: Block grant is paid to each authority individually. In 1980–81 most of the previous grant nominally paid to districts was passed on to counties through the precept. When this is taken into account, there has been a shift of an estimated 0·47 percentage points from districts to counties in shire areas and 1·08 percentage points in metropolitan areas.
    Dr. Marshall: Is not the shift in Government grant in favour of the county councils, which is equivalent to county rates of as much as 78p in the pound in Lancashire and Northumberland and 80p in the pound in Cumbria, deliberately designed to coincide with the county council elections and to disguise bad financial management by outgoing Tory county councils?
    Mr. Heseltine: The hon. Member will be aware that the Labour Government took £350 million from the provinces to concentrate it in London. I have readjusted that balance this year, as I believe it to be fair in the light of the new measured needs of individual authorities. The hon. Member will be interested to learn that Humberside was a grant loser and has still managed to reduce its rate levels in a way that Conservative authorities have proved is possible.
    Mr. Rhodes James: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been called to the decision by the valuation court in the matter between Westminster council and Imperial College, London, whereby the rateable value of Imperial College has been substantially increased? Has he realised the serious implications of that for all universities and colleges of higher education?
    Mr. Heseltine: That is a most important matter. I shall take an early opportunity to consider those implications with my other colleagues, who will be as interested as I in the outcome.
    Mr. Kaufman: Why is the right hon. Gentleman deliberately concealing the information which he has locked away in his Department about the number of Conservative-controlled county councils which have budgeted to overspend on his spending targets and which could be liable to his penalties? Is not he conducting that discreditable cover-up to prevent the voters in the county elections learning that, because of those prospective penalties, a vote for the Conservatives tomorrow means higher rates, because there will be a claw-back through those penalties, worse services and more redundancies than have so far been brought about by all the Tory councils?
    Mr. Heseltine: Obviously the right hon. Gentleman has woken up to the fact that there are some elections
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    tomorrow. He must be aware that Labour parties that are trying to take over the control of councils are already planning supplementary rates to finance inflationary policies which have done so much damage to the areas already controlled by the Labour Party. He must already be aware that I have not sought to conceal figures. The right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) must be aware that I would have been able to provide more information about the level of expenditure in local government in the present budgeted year but for the fact that when I examined the detailed figures in the last few days I found that some authorities had still not sent in their returns. I discovered which authorities were involved. The principal authorities were Labour-controlled Leeds and Hackney. I asked whether the returns of those authorities had come in and discovered that they had come in that day. The outstanding authority that came to my mind at that time was Bolsover.
    Mr. Kaufman: As the right hon. Gentleman now admits that he has the returns from every Conservative-controlled county council, will he tell us about the budgets of those councils? How many have overspent his 5·6 per cent. target, and how many will be subject to his penalties? Do not voters tomorrow have the right to the information which he is suppressing?
    Mr. Heseltine: The voters tomorrow will know all too well that the increases in rates this year in Labour authorities have been at twice the rate of those in Conservative authorities. The one thing about which voters tomorrow can be sure is that if they want their rates to increase they should vote Labour.
    Mr. Durant: Will my right hon. Friend tell Labour Members that high rates cost jobs?
    Mr. Heseltine: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is no faster way to ensure the destruction of the industrial economy than to put up the rate burden to a degree which industry cannot afford.
    Dr. Marshall: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

    Sporting Activities (Gleneagles Agreement)
    Mr. Roy Hughesasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what arrangements are made for consultation between Her Majesty's Government, the Sports Council, the Central Council for Physical Recreation and the governing bodies of various sports when sporting events are planned that might contravene the Gleneagles agreement.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Hector Monro): Responsibility for arranging sporting events lies with the independent governing bodies and/or their member clubs. All are familiar with the terms of the 1977 Commonwealth statement and know that the Government will always offer advice on its relevance in particular circumstances. There is no formal consultative machinery.
    Mr. Hughes: Is it not time that the Minister realised that merely going through the motions of quoting the Gleneagles agreement is beginning to be regarded as a wink and a nod to go ahead? Is it not time for more

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    attention to be paid to the political and economic ill effects upon this country of those sporting links, let alone the possible loss of the Commonwealth Games—or are free Christmas holidays in sunny South Africa now regarded as being more important?
    Mr. Monro: I do not know what was the point of the hon. Gentleman's final remark. The governing bodies and the clubs know the position relative to our duty under the Commonwealth statement. Since the Government came to power we have reaffirmed the position and made it clear where we stand. There is nothing more to be done except for the governing bodies to take advice.
    Mr. Stokes: Does not my hon. Friend agree that it might be better for everyone concerned and that it might also save the taxpayer money if those bodies were closed down altogether?
    Mr. Monro: My hon. Friend has misunderstood. One cannot close down the Football Association and the Rugby Union. That is not the way sport works in this country.
    Mr. Ioan Evans: I appreciate that the Minister has written to the Welsh Rugby Union criticising the possibility of the Welsh Academicals going to South Africa. Will he contact the Ministers in the Welsh Office, who do not appear to have been informed of this, as they have allowed representatives of the South African rugby organisation to meet in the Welsh Office?
    Mr. Monro: The hon. Gentleman is misinformed. I have been in touch with the president of the Welsh Rugby Union and he knows the Government's views about the Welsh Academicals.
    Mr. Brotherton: Is my hon. Friend aware of the widespread satisfaction that the Irish Rugby Football Union has refused to be bullied by the Irish Government and is continuing with its policy of sending a team to South Africa this weekend? Is he further aware that in this instance Ireland is united—the 26 counties of the South and the six counties of the North?
    Mr. Monro: My hon. Friend is entitled to his opinion, but it is not one which I share.

    House Building
    Mr. Skinner: asked the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the latest house building figures, starts and completions; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Heseltine: The seasonally adjusted figures for England for the three months December 1980 to February 1981 show that there were 32,500 housing starts and 48,900 completions. The number of starts showed a 14 per cent. increase on the figure for the previous three months.
    Mr. Skinner: There is bound to be an increase on the worst figures which we have had during the past 50 years. [HON. MEMBERS: "Question".] Is the Minister aware that those scandalous figures are set against a background of 300,000 building workers in the Tory dole queue, about 600 million bricks in stock and brickworks closing down amongst the 7,000 firms which went bankrupt last year, and at least 1¼ million families looking for a roof over their heads? What a way to run a Department and a country. Do not those figures show that the Government are more concerned about inciting people to buy nuclear shelters than about providing families with roofs over their heads?
    Mr. Heseltine: No, Sir.
    Mr. Dover: Does the Secretary of State agree that the private sector house building figures are more important than the public sector figures? Will he confirm that there is a 25 per cent. increase in the number of private houses started this year?
    Mr. Heseltine: The House will be pleased to note the forecasts of the house building industry, to the effect that house building in the private sector will rise by 20 per cent. this year and is likely to rise by a further 20 per cent. in the following year. The House will understand that the figures for new construction in local authorities may be disappointingly low, but that is because local authorities are now spending more money on renovating their existing stock.
    Mr. Kaufman: Will the right hon. Gentleman draw aside the veil over the information that the Under-Secretary of State refused to give about vacant council properties in London and reveal to the House that the Tory-controlled GLC has 6,000 vacant properties? As the right hon. Gentleman is ready to accept forecasts about private building, will he tell the House whether council house starts in England in 1981 will be as many as 15,000 or whether the number will be the worst for 60 years?
    Mr. Heseltine: The right hon. Gentleman will have heard clearly what I said. House builders have only forecast their figures. Individual local authorities make their own judgments and will make their own forecasts. If the right hon. Gentleman is concerned to see a larger council house building programme, I would welcome his support in persuading those Labour authorities that are denying themselves the resources by not selling houses to speed up the process.
    Mr. Speaker: I promised to call the Minister to answer question 10, standing the in the name of the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse), at the end of Question Time.

    Water and Sewerage Charges
    Mr. Lofthouseasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received for the inclusion of water rates in the rebate scheme.
    Mr. Giles Shaw: The National Water Council has concluded that the best way to alleviate the present sense of unfairness about the charging system is to extend optional metering to domestic households. Where this option does not exist at present the council recommends that water authorities should draw up a timetable for its introduction in the next few years.
    The council also concluded that, despite the representation which both it and the Government had received, the present legislation does not allow means related rebates for water services, and it reaffirms its belief that assistance to consumers should remain with the social security system.
    Finally, I apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) for not advising him of the bracketing of his question.
    Mr. Lofthouse: Will the Minister accept that his answer will disappoint my constituents, particularly the lower-paid workers? Is he aware that if the change to

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    metering will cost the tenants money, the lower-paid will not be able to afford it? Will the hon. Gentleman therefore consider replacing the water authorities with a democratically elected body?
    Mr. Shaw: We have no intention of abolishing the water authorities. The majority of the members of the authorities, including the Yorkshire water authority, are drawn from elected bodies. Any problems that the lower-paid may have over the cost of changing to metering are best left to the social security system. The change to metering will be a slow process, but the choice will be offered.
    Mr. Dormand: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) said earlier that he had not been notified that his question was to be grouped with other questions.
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    You will recall that much the same happened to me recently when my question was No. 9 on the Order Paper. Hon. Members frequently have other matters to attend to before coming to the Chamber for Question Time. Are the Government being inefficient and incompetent, or are they following a deliberate policy? Such problems did not arise under the previous Government. Should not Departments notify hon. Members whenever questions are to be taken together?
    Mr. Speaker: It is in everyone's interests for hon. Members to be notified when this happens. Normally, they are, but human errors do occur and sometimes the notice does not arrive.
    Mr. Shaw: I repeat that it was an error by my Department, for which I have apologised. It was not deliberate, and we shall do better in future.

Local Authority (Empty Properties)
3.34 pm
Mr. Allan Roberts: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to give local authorities and certain other public bodies a duty to maximise the use of empty residential property in their ownership and to prohibit the demolition of buildings before public inquiries.
Having listened to Ministers during Question Time, I expect their support in the Lobby if there is a Division on this motion. The proposed Bill tackles the scandal of houses being empty when there are many homeless families. Clause 1 would read:
"It shall be the duty of every local authority to consider the short-term or temporary or emergency housing needs of their district and for that purpose to use or facilitate the use as living accommodation of vacant property held or acquired for development, rehabilitation or non-housing purposes."
Many local authorities and other public bodies own residential properties which are empty awaiting improvement or demolition and which could be occupied until required. Local councils purchase property in advance of road, educational or city centre development and homes stand empty, sometimes for years, if the schemes are delayed or even cancelled. With limited expenditure, such property could be used by single people, co-operative housing groups or even homeless families.
The problem is more acute now than ever before. The Government's cuts in housing expenditure and their recent moratorium on house building and improvement mean that many more properties that have been acquired by councils and housing associations are standing empty. There is suddenly no money to improve them, because the Government have switched off the tap. In 1980, 100,000 publicly owned houses in England and Wales were empty, waiting to be altered and redeveloped. About 30,000 were in London, and about 23,000 were empty for more than a year. In that year, 30,000 families—which is a massive number—were accepted as homeless by local authorities. About 6,000 are living in bed and breakfast or hostel accommodation. To keep a family in such accommodation costs £100 a week, and these families could easily be accommodated in short-life housing, saving the ratepayers a considerable sum.
Councils may ask where the money is to come from to unbrick, repair and upgrade empty properties, but in the end it would save money as it costs about £3,000 a year to keep a house empty, including lost rates and rent and the cost of boarding up.
Local authorities are rightly concerned about standards and do not want single people or homeless families to be housed in substandard accommodation. Unfit houses should be demolished if they cannot be satisfactorily improved, but many empty public properties would provide decent accommodation. They are often acquired not because they are unfit to live in but because of development schemes. Many can be put into a decent condition with minimum expenditure. Grants for short-life houses are still available from the Housing Corporation, although, regrettably, even that money has been cut by the Government, whose only answer seems to be to keep public housing empty until it can be sold. Consequently, houses stay empty.
Councils are also concerned about obtaining vacant possession when the properties are needed for the purpose for which they were acquired, but the Housing Act 1980 allows licences to be issued for short-life houses instead 154
of establishing tenancies in certain circumstances. The Housing Emergency Office, which is a Shelter-backed organisation, states that it has always been possible to guarantee vacant possession of properties let on short-life terms.
In addition to putting a duty on councils to consider using empty property and to develop short-life housing schemes, the Bill would outlaw prior demolition—that is, where councils acquire houses in order to demolish tern for some development scheme to go ahead and actually demolish, gut or break up the houses in advance of the Secretary of State's public inquiry to consider whether the development should go ahead. In this way, councils destroy good housing in an attempt to pre-empt public inquiries. If the proposed development is then not approved by the Government, we have derelict, tinned-off sites and houses are needlessly demolished. The unnecessary destruction of good homes is as scandalous as houses being kept empty when thousands of people have nowhere decent to live.
I shall give some examples, first, of the type of people who could benefit from short-life housing schemes, and, secondly, of properties acquired and kept unnecessarily empty. Seventy single men in Kensington and Chelsea will soon be in need of housing because the local authority is about to make them homeless. Within the authority's area is a hostel, owned by the GLC and managed by the Stonham housing association, which currently provides accommodation for 70 single men. Money has been promised by the Housing Corporation for modernisation of the hostel in 1982–83, but the local authority has decided, at a closed meeting, to develop the site for commercial purposes. Kensington and Chelsea could have had a hostel free. Instead, 70 men will be homeless.
Where can those people go? They could find houses empty in my constituency of Bootle. In the centre of the old town, further city centre redevelopment was cancelled in 1973 and 1974 and houses are still standing empty as a result. They could go to Liverpool where, after 7 May, when the Labour county council cancels the inner ring road, residential property now standing empty can be used. In London, among the many houses standing unnecessarily empty are numbers 1–11 Lockside Cottages, Narrow Street, E14. Those six cottages, owned by the British Waterways Board, have been empty since 1970, when the nearby lock was filled in, and left to rot, as they are now doing. The 70 people being made homeless could live in Bromley Street, E1. The GLC acquired that street, with more than 80 houses, in May 1971. After constant bureaucratic muddles and mistakes, which seem to be a speciality of the GLC, those properties—now grade II listed buildings—still stand empty awaiting improvement.
I hope that all Members will support the proposed Bill, which is designed to destroy the problem of empty properties existing side by side with homeless families. I do not pretend that, if implemented, it would solve the nation's housing problems. Waiting lists are growing; homelessness is increasing. Only a sustained programme of council house building and improvement can solve the nation's housing problems. But the Bill would make a contribution to the solution.
There is nothing more annoying for people who want homes than to see houses standing empty. I hope that on this occasion the Government will put their support and their votes where their campaigns have been. They have criticised Labour local authorities, but some of the worst

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local authorities keeping properties empty are Tory controlled. The Government have not yet taken action to ensure that empty properties are improved and used because the money has not been available.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Allan Roberts, Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk, Mr. Jack Straw, Mr. K. J. Woolmer and Mr. Frank Dobson.

Local Authority (Empty Properties)
  LOCAL AUTHORITY (EMPTY PROPERTIES)
  Mr. Allan Roberts accordingly presented a Bill to give local authorities and certain other public bodies a duty to maximise the use of empty residential property in their ownership and to prohibit the demolition of buildings before public inquiries: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 19 June and to be printed. [Bill 137.]
Orders of the Day

  Finance Bill
  (Clauses 1, 4, 19, 23, 27, 29, 88, 89 and 122; and schedules 1, 2 and 11.)
  Considered in Committee [Progress 5 May]
  [MR. BERNARD WEATHERILL in the Chair.]

  Finance Bill
    Clause 1

      SPIRITS, BEER, WINE, MADE-WINE AND CIDER
      3.45 pm
      Mr. Jack Straw: I beg to move amendment No. 53, in page 1, line 21, leave out '"£18·00" and "£0·60"' and insert '"£15·00" and "£0·50".'.
      The effect of the amendment would be to increase the excise duty on beer by 15 per cent., which is roughly the rise in the cost of living in the relevant period. It would add about 1½p to the price of beer compared with an increase of 4p announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget. As hon. Members are aware, the Chancellor announced an increase in the duty on spirits of 60p and in the duty on wine of about 12p per bottle. The increase of 4p on a pint of beer is staggering in terms of the percentage rise that it represents. The 60p per bottle on spirits represents an increase of just under 15 per cent., the 12p increase on wine about 17 per cent., but the 4p per pint on beer represents an increase of no less than 38 per cent.—twice the rate of increase on wine and spirits.
      The amendment, which seeks to index the duty on beer as well as on wine and spirits, would achieve fairness as between those three categories of drink instead of being wholly discriminatory against beer. The Committee will know that beer is by far the most popular drink in this country. It is drunk by people of all social classes, but unquestionably it is the drink of working men and women— the same working men and women whom the Prime Minister and her colleagues so assiduously courted from 1974 to 1979. They were promised substantial cuts in direct taxation and no doubling of value added tax. Indeed, they were promised more jobs, as the hon. Member for Horncastle (Mr. Tapsell) reminded the Chancellor only last Thursday.
      Yet, with the exception of the unemployed, it is those same working men and women who have been hit hardest of all by the activities of the Government. The Government have forced up indirect taxation. Yesterday we witnessed an extraordinary performance by the Financial Secretary, wriggling as usual and trying to pretend that the increase in VAT from 8 per cent. to 15 per cent. did not amount to nearly doubling VAT. In seeking to prove that proposition to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook), the Financial Secretary had the extravagance to include in his calculation not only those goods which before the Budget were taxed at 8 per cent. and at 12½ per cent., but even those which were not taxed at all. He said that if one included goods that were not taxed at all before, and those which were not taxed at all after, the May 1979 Budget, then with some arithmetical gymnastics, and presumably some "massaging" through the Treasury computer—I

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      understand that that is the vogue word in the Treasury nowadays—the increase was not a doubling but only from 5 per cent. to 8 per cent.
      The British people, particularly working people, know differently. They know that the increase was virtually a doubling. In addition, they have had to suffer an increase in direct taxation and substantial increases in the price of essentials. Their rents have increased by at least £3 in the past year and more the previous year. There have been increases in their mortgages, despite the recent welcome reduction in interest rates. There have been increases in the price of domestic fuel—in gas, electricity and heating oil—as well as in the price of petrol and in fares.
      Living standards for all working people on average wages have been squeezed dramatically by the Government, and they will be squeezed even more. For the additional 1 million people who have lost their jobs during the past year, living standards have dropped catastrophically, not only because of the increased prices of essentials, which unemployed people still have to buy—Conservative Members seem all to often to forget that—but because of the cuts in the real level of benefits.
      On top of all those increases in prices and in direct and indirect taxation which have hit working people and the unemployed, the Government seek to tax and tax again one of the few pleasures that are left to them under Conservative rule in 1981. The price of drink in the pub, a club or at home has been forced up and up. Last year, the Government imposed an increase of 2p a pint on beer, and this year they have increased it by 4p. We do not know whether that 4p increase is only the first instalment, because during the last week's debate on diesel fuel the Chancellor announced a concession which will cost £85 million. He said that the country would have to pay for it. Despite repeated efforts by many hon. Members to discover how the Chancellor intended to meet that £85 million shortfall, no information was forthcoming.
      Will that shortfall of £85 million be met by another 1p on a pint of beer? We remain perplexed. When Conservative Members gave notice that they might rebel on the petrol and derv increases unless there was some concession, the Chancellor had from 16 March until last Thursday to work out the concession as well as how to pay for it. However, he offered no information on how the concession would be paid for.
      Perhaps the Minister of State will now say whether the Government intend to add another 1p on a pint of beer, because conveniently that would bring in another £95 million which would pay for the concession which the Chancellor has made. Alternatively, do the Government propose to add another 17p on a bottle of wine? That would also bring in the £85 million which the Chancellor now says he needs.
      As a result of the increase in the price of beer which has already been announced, and other cost increases which have fallen on brewers and other industrial companies, the price of a pint in a public bar has rocketed. In May 1979, in the halcyon days of the Labour Government—by God, they look like a golden age compared with the hell experienced under this Government—a working man could buy a pint for 36p. By last year, the Tory Government, who claim to work in the interests of the country as a whole, had forced up the price to 44p. By November, it had gone up to 51p, and now my friends who go into public houses tell me that a typical pint cannot be bought for less than 56p or 57p.
      Mr. Donald Thompson: The hon. Gentleman will be lucky.
      Mr. Straw: Well, perhaps in the hon. Gentleman's area beer costs even 60p a pint. I bow to his superior judgment. In two years, the price of a pint has risen by 20p, from 36p to 56p—an increase of at least 60 per cent. The beer drinker has consistently been hit twice as hard as the wine drinker or the spirits drinker. Beer drinkers have been discriminated against not only this year, but in previous years. Overall, the duty on beer has increased by 66 per cent. in two years, while the increase in wine and spirits has gone up by less than half that figure.
      Let us compare the Conservative Government's record with the Labour Government's record. The Labour Government were concerned to protect domestic industry, such as the brewing and whisky distilling industries, and during their period of office the duty on wine rose significantly more than the duty on spirits and beer. If we take an index of 100, in 1974, spirits went up by 160, beer by 188 and wine by 237.
      When Labour Members claim that the Conservative Party is a narrow, class party, Conservative Members hold up their hands in innocence and refuse to recognise the image that we offer of them. We accept that some Conservative Members still believe that the ghost of Disraeli is around the corridors of Conservative Party headquarters. However, a party must be judged on its deeds, not on its words, history or fantasies, and in every area of economic decision making we find that the Conservative Party has acted in its narrow, class interests and has taxed the poor to help the rich.
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I hope that the hon. Gentleman realises that many Conservative Members drink beer and that many Conservative supporters outside also drink beer.
      Mr. Straw: Of course I realise that, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman accepts that drinking habits tend to be a matter of social class. I can assure him that not much wine is drunk in the working men's clubs in my constituency. I dare say that not much wine is drunk in the working men's clubs of his constituency. If the hon. Gentleman is saying that drinking habits are homogeneously shared across social classes, that is an even greater argument for the equal and fair treatment of beer alongside spirits and wine. There can be no argument on fiscal or other grounds for discriminating against beer.
      As I was saying, in every area of economic and fiscal decision making, the Conservative Party has favoured the rich and hurt the poor. It has given massive tax handouts to the rich at a time when in area after area it has taxed those who are least able to afford it.
      Sir Frederick Burden: The hon. Gentleman has alleged that at all times the Labour Party cares for the poor and the Conservative Party cares only for the rich. In case he does not remember, I remind him that in 1975–76, the Labour Party refused to pay old-age pensioners their £10 Christmas bonus.
      Mr. Straw: The hon. Gentleman should not swap tales about Labour's record on old-age pensions compared with the record of the Conservative Party. I distinctly remember the Labour Government refusing to pay the £10 bonus. I also remember that in July 1974 the Labour Government gave pensioners the largest increase in pensions they had

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      ever received. I remember, too, that in 1975 it was written into the law that old-age pensioners should receive an increase in line with prices or earnings, whichever was the greater. I remember that the present Government shamefully removed the link between earnings and prices and the old-age pension.
      In addition, they have extended 52-week years to 54-week years. On old-age pensions, above everything else, our record stands up to examination compared with the record of the Conservative Party.
      I am not saying that the Conservative Party has never cared about working people. There was a time when it followed the advice of Disraeli and was concerned about one nation—for example, under Harold Macmillan. However, the Conservative Party has now become an extremist and doctrinaire party which has retreated into representing its narrow, class interests.
      One consequence of the higher tax on beer has been a drop in consumption and less employment in the brewing industry. In March 1981, there was a drop in brewing of 17½ per cent. compared with the same month in 1980. That has meant a drop of one-fifth in the number of bulk barrels produced. If we take the quarterly figure this year and compare it with last year we find that there has been a drop in production of 6½ per cent., and that is before the full effects of the Budget increases are taken into account.
      Almost weekly, we read of pubs closing, working men's clubs in difficulties and jobs being lost in the brewing industry. Brewing is an important industry, especially to many working people for whom it is their livelihood.
      4 pm
      In 1979, 68,000 people were employed in breweries. The big 10 national and regional breweries employed ¼ million people. However, employment in the brewing industry, as narrowly defined, has dropped by 10,000 since the general election. that is a drop of 13 per cent. in the number of those employed in the brewing industry and compares with a 4 per cent. drop during the five years of the last Labour Government.
      Mr. Chris Patten: What about brewers?
      Mr. Straw: Of course, brewers are yet another group of industrialists who have discovered that their least successful investment was the one that they made in the Conservative Party. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Patten) should know about brewers because I believe that he worked at Conservative Central Office and the brewers paid his wages. No group of industrialists has been more generous or consistent in its donations to the Conservative Party. Indeed, of the top 10 regional and national breweries, only three failed last year to give anything to the Conservative Party. One brewery, Allied Breweries, gave £62,000 to the Conservative Party and to its various front organisations.
      I am proud to say that one of the breweries that failed to give a penny to the Conservative Party was Matthew Brown, which is based in my constituency. It is also one of the few breweries not to have declared any redundancies. It is interesting to note the relationship between the amount of money invested in the Conservative Party by brewers and the increase the following year in their profits. Indeed, a new economic law can be
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      pronounced, namely, the more money that a brewery puts into the Conservative Party, the less well the shareholders do. Greenall Whitley did not give any money to the Conservative Party and showed a 40 per cent. increase in its pre-tax profits. Matthew Brown showed a 17·1 per cent. increase in its pre-tax profits. However, Allied Breweries put massive sums into the Conservative Party and showed a measly increase of 0·6 per cent. in its pretax profits.
      Sir Frederick Burden: Is not the hon. Gentleman clearly illustrating that the Conservative Party pays less regard to the money that it receives from brewers and acts more in the interests of the country? It would be a good thing if the Labour Party adopted the same attitude towards trade unions.
      Mr. Straw: I had expected that reply from a Conservative Member. None of the brewery company directors who put money into the Conservative Party in 1979 and few industrialists anticipated that the economy would go this way. Indeed, on 12 June 1979 the CBI said that the Budget was one of opportunity that would lead to a regeneration of British industry. The directors were fools to put their money into the Conservative Party, just as they were fools in their judgment about the Government's likely performance.
      Having established that the increase is highly discriminatory against beer drinkers it is important to examine the reasons for it. One argument in favour of increasing the price of alcohol by disproportionately raising the tax on it is to try to achieve a drop in consumption in the interests of health and of securing a reduction in alcoholism.
      I am sure that all hon. Members are concerned about the rise in reported alcoholism over the past few years. They will also be concerned that new groups, which were not high in the league tables, appear to be coming into them. I refer particularly to young people and to women. That is a matter of genuine concern.
      It is argued that the real price of alcohol should be increased or brought up to the level that existed some years ago. We accept that the real price of alcohol has dropped. It is argued that raising the price would deter heavy drinking. Indeed, there was a debate on that subject in last year's Finance Bill Committee. A notable contribution was made by the leader of the Scottish puritanical party, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central. He spoke powerfully about the need to check the growth in alcohol abuse by raising prices.
      We understand that the Government are concerned about the relationship between the price of drink and alcoholism. In a leak to The Sunday Times of 14 November 1980 we were told:
      "A consultative Green Paper will be issued early next year, aimed at arousing public concern and support for tougher action … To remedy this increased ease of purchase, much stiffer taxation policy is being urged. As Mrs. Thatcher is strongly opposed to direct tax rises in next year's budget"—
      we knew about that, but despite our opposition such rises have taken place—
      "indirect taxes look increasingly certain to take the strain, with alcohol and tobacco in the forefront."
      It is said that pricing policy is considered crucial. The leak promised that there would be a Green Paper. Perhaps the Minister will tell us where it has got to. The Government have become so leaky that they now regard a chat with a Lobby correspondent as equivalent to a Green Paper.

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      Some of us prefer to get our Green Papers from the Vote Office than from the cuttings service of the Library. I hope that the Minister will reply.
      We know that the Government are concerned, just as we are, about this matter. There is some evidence to show that in other areas such as Scandinavia, efforts have been made to control the consumption of alcohol by price. However, it should be borne in mind that the Scandinavian experience is not unequivocal. Scandinavia has a serious drink problem, although there is a law that requires the price of alcohol to be raised in line with general prices.
      Earlier today I had an opportunity to talk to a Swedish trade union leader. He said that the Swedes had been so worried about the drink problem that the measure was one of the few that had had all-party agreement for many years. Between 1922 and 1955 alcohol was rationed and each person was issued with a ration book entitling him to three litres of hard spirits a month. That amount seems unlikely to deter the heavy consumption of spirits. Even in the House of Commons with its slurred reputation for drink, there are few hon. Members who get through that amount. However, I exclude my Scottish friends from that statement.
      Whatever view one may take about the relationship between price and alcohol consumption, and even if it is unquestioningly accepted that the price of alcohol should be increased to deter heavy consumption and ill health, there is no justification for this increase. It doubles the increase on beer compared with wine and spirits. If the price of alcohol is to be increased on order to deter consumption and alcoholism, it is only logical that the price of the harder forms of drink—wine and spirits—should be increased more severely than beer. However, perverse as usual, the Government are placing far more duty on beer than on wine and spirits.
      Mr. Ron Leighton: From my hon. Friend's reading of the reports of the proceedings on last year's Finance Bill did he notice that the Minister admitted that the Government were increasing the tax on beer to a greater extent than that on wine because of a decision of the EEC court? As a result of a complaint from the French, the court invited the British Government to even up the taxes. That is why the brewers have been treated in such an ungrateful manner.
      Mr. Straw: That is one reason. However, there is another. Increasing the duty on beer raises much more revenue than increasing the duty on wine. The Government are avaricious and are ever ready to take hard-earned money out of people's pockets and to put it into the Exchequer. The hon. Member for Hertford and Stevenage (Mr. Wells) may laugh. He and other Conservative Members went round the country preaching Conservative propaganda about tax cuts. I have not had the benefit of reading his election address to the people of Stevenage, but I am sure that he said that if the Conservative Party was returned to office income tax would be cut and VAT would not be doubled.
      If I am wrong the hon. Gentleman will correct me. That was written in the Conservative manifesto, but in reality the Government have increased income tax and direct taxes far more than previous Governments. Moreover, they have taxed the poor savagely, so that people now come into the income tax thresholds when they are
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      receiving only 38 per cent. of average earnings. That is far below the figure achieved in any year of the Labour Government.
      Mr. Bowen Wells: In my election address to the people of Hertford, Stevenage and Ware I did not refer to VAT. The hon. Gentleman will recall that that discussion was initiated by his party. An accusation was made, too.
      The hon. Gentleman implied that we misled people at that election. In sharp contrast to the aim and objectives of the Labour Party, which is avaricious in its taxing policies, the aim of our party is to reduce taxation. However, we have increased taxation in the Budget. Does that not prove to the hon. Gentleman that, far from being dogmatic, the Government are pragmatic in dealing with the problems that they face? I invite him to agree with that even though it is against the objectives of the Government when they came to power.
      Mr. Straw: I have heard many arguments for the Government's twisting and turning record for the past two years, but that takes the biscuit. If the hon. Gentleman is so proud of the pragmatic nature of the Government—I cannot say that I have noticed their becoming pragmatic—why did he not say in his election address "We might increase taxation or reduce it. We might double VAT or reduce it. We are not sure. It all depends"?
      Sir Frederick Burden: On a point of order, Mr. Weatherill. The debate should be taking place on a comparatively narrow point. It is being extended far beyond the amendment.
      The Chairman: Order. I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's help. The amendment refers to duties on beer. The hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) was deflected by allowing an intervention. He should return to discussing the amendment.
      Mr. Straw: Order is a matter for you, Mr. Weatherill, but it hardly lies in the mouth of the hon. Member for Gillingham (Sir F. Burden) to complain about our getting back to the point when he raised the issue of the Christmas bonus and pensions. If the Government accept our amendment—as we expect that they will—they may say that they want to raise income tax even more. The Government's election manifesto, on which the hon. Member for Hertford and Stevenage stood, said:
      "We shall cut income tax at all levels to reward hard work, responsibility and success; tackle the poverty trap; encourage saving".
      They have tackled the poverty trap: they have made it deeper and wider.
      The Chairman: Order. That is what I was hoping would not happen. The hon. Member must return to the question of the duty on beer.
      Mr. Straw: I shall, of course, get back to that matter, Mr. Weatherill.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) made an intervention which was directly in order. There are two reasons why the Government have been forced to increase beer duty. One is that because of their economic policies they decided that they were strapped for revenue and increasing the duty on beer was one of the few ways in which they could raise money. There is no doubt that taxing beer is an easier way to raise revenue than many other methods.

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      I hope that the Minister will explain whether the estimates of yield given by the Chancellor in his Budget Statement on 10 March take into account the already substantial drop in beer consumption. What estimate does he make over the next 12 months about the elasticities involved? Also, will he explain a strange sentence in the Chancellor's speech when he said that the yield of the various increases in drink duties would yield £500 million in 1981–82 and £515 million in a full year? The Budget took place before the fiscal year 1981–82 began. I do not understand how the figure is £500 million for one full year and £515 million for the following year. What is the Government's estimate of the yield? In the light of the 6½ per cent. drop in consumption so far, is it likely to drop further, especially if there is a bad summer?
      4.15 pm
      In our view the rates should be increased only in line with inflation. The difference, which would be about £200 million, should not be made up elsewhere. We object to the deflationary nature of the Budget. Any decision of the Committee that moderates the deflationary nature of the Budget, together with the fact that £5,000 million will be taken out of the economy, is to be welcomed. However, if hon. Members decide that the extra £200 million should be found, there are other ways that would hurt the better-off rather than those who are poor and would be far better than taxing beer. It would be better to load the tax on wine rather than beer because, on the whole, wine is consumed by people in higher income groups and, moreover, is not made in this country.
      The Government cannot, however, load duty on wine, despite the fact that that is the fairest and most sensible action to take for British drinkers and British industry, because of the Common Market's harmonisation rules and the Government's failure to stand up for British interests in the EEC institutions. In one sphere after another the Government claim stalwartly to defend British interests, but behind all the rhetoric the reality is concessions and humiliations all down the line. We see it in agriculture where the British Government have allowed other countries, especially France, to get away with near murder.
      Sir Frederick Burden: On a point of order, Mr. Weatherill. The hon. Gentleman is wrong to talk about agriculture under a clause dealing with beer.
      The Chairman: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his help. I am listening carefully and the hon. Member for Blackburn is deploying an argument.
      Mr. Straw: I accept that I may have strayed a little earlier, but my remarks are germane and central to our argument. The Government have accepted all sorts of humiliations on agriculture. The Minister of Agriculture has not told us how the French Government, in clear contradiction to article 93 of the EEC treaty, last December announced aid of 4,100 million francs to French Farmers over and above the assistance provided by the common agricultural policy. In clear breach of the EEC rules those aids were announced by President Giscard D'Estaing to gamer the votes of French agricultural workers. Those aids are still being paid.
      Ministers have not told the House how the French and Belgians are still going ahead with massive schemes of aid
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      to their textile industries—again, in apparent breach of EEC rules. However, the Minister of State told us how the Government will comply abjectly with the initiative on harmonisation on wine. That was debated in the House on 3 December.
      The Chairman: Order. The hon. Gentleman should deploy these arguments on clause stand part. They will be more appropriate when we deal with wine and other items.
      Mr. Straw: My comments are central to the argument because the harmonisation initiative requires that the ratio of the rates of duty on wine and beer should be reduced from 5:1, as it was before the Budget, to 3:1. That means that the Government had to reduce the rate of duty on wine or increase the rate on beer. The Government increased the rate on beer in order to comply with the harmonisation rules.
      In the debate on 3 December the Minister of State made it clear that the Government were moving towards compliance with the ratio which is based on an assessment of the alcoholic content of wine and spirits. The EEC claims, under its ridiculous rules, that because the alcoholic content of beer and wine is in a ratio of 3:1, the duties should therefore be in the same ratio.
      My right hon.Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) questioned the Minister of State about the effects of accepting that ratio. The Opposition said that the clear effect would be to add 4p to the price of a pint of beer. The Minister of State replied:
      "The right hon. Member for Llanelli misunderstands the position. It could happen on certain broad limits on the beer-wine ratio … there are about three or four possible permutations."—[Official Report, 3 December 1980; Vol. 995, c. 606.]
      An article in The Economist at about the same time said that, according to the Minister of State, the ratio could be put into effect in one of three ways—by raising the duty on beer by 4p a pint, which would yield an extra £440 million to the Treasury, by cutting wine duty by 19p a bottle, which would cost £50 million in lost revenue, or by raising beer duty by ½p a pint and cutting wine duty by 17p a bottle, which would be financially neutral to the Exchequer. The article concluded:
      "But there should be no panic buying of beer, or popping of champagne corks in celebration. Whichever solution is adopted, it will be phased in over seven years."
      The Government tell the House and the British press that they will stoutly defend British interests. Indeed, as late as 17 April we read in the excellent Agence Europe reports from Brussels that the Government had asked for a further delay in the consideration by the European Court of Justice of the cases involving the high tax charged on wine in the United Kingdom compared with that charged on beer, so that the Government could present reports. The Government have been making noises in Brussels and telling British newspapers that they will stand up for British interests and have offered soothing words to the brewers, saying that the increases will be phased over seven years, but during that time they have been preparing, and are now implementing, the full increase, not in seven years and not even in seven months.
      The Government said that it would take many years to implement the harmonisation initiative, but they have implemented it with a vengeance and in a way which causes the maximum harm to British drinkers and British industry and the maximum benefit to the drink industries of Italy, Germany and France. That might just be bearable,

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      even to those of us who object to our membership of the Common Market, if other members of the EEC had played the game. But in February 1980 the European Court issued a decision against France, Italy, Ireland and Denmark, saying that their excise duty regimes discriminated heavily against whisky.
      The court may pronounce, but only domestic Governments can act. As far as I have been able to ascertain, the decision of the court, taken well over a year ago, has still to be implemented. It is said that Italy has changed the State prices of strong spirits, but France has adopted measures, including only a partial change this year, that will take two years to come into effect. The changes proposed by Denmark are still the subject of discussions with the Commission.
      Another aspect that is often overlooked is that, despite the requirement of the EEC directive that there should be a clear ratio between the duty on beer and that on wine, I understand that there is no requirement on countries to have a duty on wine. It is only if they impose such a duty that there has to be a ratio between that and the beer duty.
      At the end of last year, Germany and Italy were insisting that we should raise our duty on domestically produced beer, but they had no duty on their domestically produced wines. Is that still the case? Does the Minister of State agree that it is a scandal and an outrage that Germany and Italy should insist that we increase the price of beer to our consumers, causing great damage to our drinkers and our domestic industry, while those countries are allowed to get off scot-free, because there is no requirement on them to tax their wines?
      Mr. Arthur Lewis: My hon. Friend is right to ask the Minister of State for that information, but should he not also ask the absent Liberal Party and the one SDP Member who is in the Chamber to point out that, as they are 110 per cent. pro-Common Market, they are 110 cer cent. in favour of the rooking of the British public? My hon. Friend should blame not only the Government, but the SDP and the absent Liberal Party.
      Mr. Straw: The Liberals are well represented by their surrogate, the hon. Member for Gateshead, West, (Mr. Horam) who will no doubt speak for them. It will not lie in the hon. Gentleman's mouth to complain too much about a further iniquity of the Common Market, since he was one of those who forced us into it.
      Mr. John Horam: As a matter of historic record, I voted against entry into the Common Market.
      Mr. Straw: I am pleased to hear that the SDP is as catholic as the Labour Party, but I wonder why the hon. Gentleman joined the SDP. I shall look forward with interest to finding out whether his party follows his advice rather than that of the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen).
      The 40 per cent. increase in beer duty is wholly unjustified. It hits at one of the few pleasures left under this Government and puts up the cost of living. It has been forced on the Government partly because they prefer to tax working people to pay for tax cuts for the rich and partly by their slavish adherence to the Common Market and their refusal to stand up for British interests. We shall oppose the increase and we invite other hon. Members to do so.
      Mr. Eric S. Heffer: The intervention of the hon. Member for Hertford arid Stevenage (Mr. Wells) intrigued me, because I was born in Hertford and I had relatives in Ware in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. I remember that when I was a lad the great thing about Hertford was the number of pubs in the town. In Maidenhead Street there was a pub next to a shop next to a pub next to a shop next to a pub. It was that sort of street and most of Hertford was like that.
      I doubt whether the people of Maidenhead Street and Fore Street in Hertford will be loudly singing the praises of the Government's decision to put up the price of beer by 4p a pint. Like other workers, they like their pint after a hard day's work, and that is the important point which my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) was making.
      Beer is the drink of most ordinary working men on building sites, in coal mines, in shipyards, on the roads and in the fields.
      When they come back from a hard day's work they like to wet their whistle and they go into the pub on the corner for a pint or two. There is nothing wrong with that but it is a bit grim when they are faced with an increase of 4p per pint, because that is what it means.
      4.30 pm
      It has been said that Conservatives also drink beer. Of course they do. I do not think those Conservatives are enthusiastic about it either. I am sure they will be just as angry and fed up as beer drinkers who vote Labour.
      The whole thing is a conspiracy against the Labour Party. [Interruption.] Some hon. Members say, "Ah". The brewers have been great contributors to Tory Party funds. Rather like the builders, they must be a bit fed up and wonder what they are getting for their contributions. There are Labour clubs throughout the length and breadth of the country. Although we get a political levy from trade unions, much of the finance for the Labour Party at local level comes from contributions from Labour clubs. If the price of beer is increased, less is drunk and smaller contributions are made to Labour Party funds which makes it much more difficult for us to fight the Conservatives. That is what is behind this increase in duty.
      In all seriousness the increase in duty will affect Labour clubs. The people who go there are not buying as much beer because they cannot afford it. We must consider the 2½ million unemployed. Those who come from areas of high unemployment are finding it difficult anyway to buy their pint; with the increase of 4p it becomes even more difficult for them.
      I am not going to join in the debate about the Common Market. I do not like talking about it and I wish we were not in it. It would be much better if we did not get involved in such discussions. What I am concerned about is the effect of the increase in beer duty on the lives of ordinary working men and on those who have retired. There has been a reference to the effect on pensioners who watch television and then go off to the local pub or Labour or Tory club to have their pint. As each pint costs 4p more, the pensioner has not two, but only one.
      That is the sort of answer which the Government have to economic problems. They wish to place the burden on the shoulders of ordinary working men and women. I am not a great beer drinker; I have never taken much to beer. I do not mind paying a few pence more for what I drink. If I am going to have a glass of wine I am happy to pay

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      the extra. But this is an added burden for the working chap who is suffering because of the policies of the Government. I hope that every Member, including all the Conservatives who drink beer, will stand up for the working class and support the amendment.
      Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I thought the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) sparked off an interesting debate leading to interventions. Rutland is famous for its independence and because it used to be a county. What is not so generally known is that it is also famous for its beer. We have a very good small brewery, Ruddles. Its beer can be bought in London and it is infiltrating all over the South of England. It has not yet found its way into the House of Commons. I put in a claim for it but I am told that there are so many different beers in the House of Commons put there at the request of Members that there is hardly any room for more kegs.
      Mr. Heffer: Is it better than McMullans, which is made in Hertford? That is a very good beer.
      Mr. Lewis: I have never had McMullans. Ruddles is better than some of the lagers which are frequently advertised on television. We do not need television advertising; we can sell it without any difficulty. It is available even in supermarkets.
      I lean towards the beer drinker. I like a beer myself. I intervened earlier because I thought the hon. Member for Blackburn was being grossly unfair when he said that hon. Members on this side of the House do not drink beer. Plenty of them drink beer. Millions of Conservatives will be going to the polls tomorrow to vote Tory; they will be having a beer before they go or after they have voted. Whether they will be having a few beers on Friday to cheer themselves up or to drown their sorrows we are not sure; we will wait and see. I would rather my right hon. and learned Friend had been able to manage his Budget without putting 4p on beer.
      The one thing the hon. Member for Blackburn did not tell us was where the money was going to come from if the amendment was passed. I think the cost would be £200-odd million. When the Chancellor gave the concession to those of us, including myself who tabled an amendment in relation to duty on derv, he announced that in due course there would be a replacement tax. We do not yet know what it is going to be. The hon. Gentleman said that it might be 1p more on beer. I hope not. He also said that it might be 1p on one-armed bandits which would affect Labour clubs, Conservative clubs and other clubs. In so far as people would be spending more on one-armed bandits, they would have less to spend on beer, so either way it would hit them.
      When there is a large public sector borrowing requirement, if the Government want to avoid increasing income tax or putting up national health insurance too much they have to get revenue somewhere. We fought the election on the principle that people should have more money in their pocket in take-home pay and should have to pay more in tax on what they spend rather than the other way round. I stick to that policy, although it has slipped a bit. The Government are moving in the right direction.
      The Government have been in office for only two years although it may seem longer. As long as my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor can promise me that in the
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      next three years we are going to have further reductions in income tax so that people have more in take-home pay, we will not object to an increase in the duty on beer.
      The official Opposition would have done almost the same if they had been in Government. They might have had to put twice as much on the price of beer, because the extra expenditure that they present to the Government week by week would require such a large increase in revenue that the tax on beer would have to be increased rather than reduced.
      I am as unhappy about increased taxes, including the increase on beer, as anyone else, but if there has to be an increase in taxes, it is better for it to be on optional expenditure than on necessities.
      Mr. Horam: I must remonstrate with my former colleagues on the Opposition Front Bench, particularly with the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) who moved the amendment. It is disappointing to go through all these conventional hoops all over again. What have the Opposition done during this series of debates on the Finance Bill?
      The right hon.Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) in his speech on the Budget put forward a whole raft of public expenditure proposals—with some of which I agree—which would involve higher public expenditure. In the debate on the Finance Bill the Labour Opposition have promoted a series of measures to decrease taxation. First, they wanted to bring down the petrol and derv duty to 8p in the pound. Then they wanted to index the tax threshholds fully and to reinstate the lower rate band. That was a controversial measure in the previous Labour Government; there was considerable disagreement between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister at that time. Now they come on to beer. Where is the arithmetic? When shall we know the arithmetic behind this massive increase in public expenditure on the one hand and this series of attempts to decrease taxation on the other hand?
      Nothing so far has been said about whether the arithmetic adds up or does not add up. The hon. Member for Blackburn will recall the speech made by his right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar on the Budget. That was followed by a speech made by the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) who commented on the way the bill was added up. He invited the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar to intervene and tell him what was the arithmetic. He speculated that the proposals put forward by the right hon. Gentleman on that occasion would add £15 billion to the public sector borrowing requirement, and he asked the right hon. Gentleman to say whether he disagreed. But the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar did not comment.
      Mr. Robin F. Cook: It was a specious speech.
      Mr. Horam: It was not. The hon. Member for Down, South made a very telling point. No attempt was made by the Labour Party to give any details of the arithmetic. All the Opposition say is that there must be vastly increased public expenditure and greatly decreased taxation. They never say what the final sum will be. When challenged to do so by the right hon. Member for Down, South in a negative but brilliant speech, the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar sat mum. He may be acting under instructions. I remember, when I was sitting on the

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      Opposition Front Bench during a debate initiated by the Liberal Party, the Shadow Cabinet could not make up their minds about an incomes policy, so I was not allowed to speak in the debate. I was roundly condemned for being like a Trappist monk. The right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar may be in that position; he may not be allowed to say what the figures are.
      It is time that the Labour Opposition made some comment on this aspect. I am making this point not in favour of the Conservative Party but on behalf of ordinary people who want to know how this adds up.
      Mr. Heffer: Am I to assume, on the basis of the argument of the hon. Member for Gateshead, West (Mr. Horam), that Professor David Marquand, who used to be a member of the House of Commons, is right in saying that the hon. Gentleman's views are not similar to Mrs. Williams' views, because she argues the case that is being put forward by the Prime Minister?
      Mr. Horam: That is a poor intervention by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer)—
      Mr. Heffer: Is it true?
      Mr. Horam: I am not arguing—
      Mr. Heffer: The hon. Gentleman is arguing—
      4.45 pm
      Mr. Horam: I am seeking to reply to the hon. Gentleman. I am not arguing in favour of the Government's policies. I have spoken against them in this series of debates, as have other hon. Members from the Liberal Party and the Labour Party. All I say is that it is about time we got away from the conventional game we always have in debating the Finance Bill of asking for cake and wanting to eat it at the same time.
      Mr. Straw: Does the hon. Gentleman still agree with the view he expressed last year in Committee on the Finance Bill when he said that he was certain it was a badly chosen time to increase Excise duties as the Government had done. I know that the hon. Gentleman wore a different hat last year, but he was the same person. Does he still take that view?.
      I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Opposition are under no instructions to remain silent about our alternative policies. There is no reason why the hon. Gentleman should study the press releases which I put out, but with my colleagues in Opposition I have issued several statements about alternative policies and they have been tasted and worked through the Treasury's economic model. Whenever we seriously attempt to work out the costings we are derided by Government supporters. Serious efforts are being made by the Opposition and inside the Labour Party to cost the proposals
      There was no reason why my right hon. Friend the Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) should reply to the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). What the right hon. Member for Down, South said was so self-evidently preposterous that it needed no answer. The right hon. Member for Down, South will admit, if it is put to him, that he was taking the cost of an expansionary Budget over four or five years and suggesting that that would be the cost in one year. That is how he reached his figure of £20 billion.
      Mr. Michael Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Weatherill. I am listening to the debate
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      to see what is the difference between the Social Democratic Party's view of beer and the Labour Party's view of beer. I am worried that no one else seems to be able to join in this private discussion.
      The Chairman: That is perhaps a long enough intervention.
      Mr. Horam: I feel that I have been generous in allowing such a long intervention.
      If the hon. Member for Blackburn has these figures, why does he not bring them out in the debate? I have seen no costings, although I have looked back through all the debates. I have been present at most of the debates since the Budget. The arithmetic of the Opposition's amendments, combined with their expansionary proposals, has not been presented to the House of Commons in a thoroughgoing manner. I see nothing in Hansard to contradict that.
      I will give the hon. Member for Blackburn credit for being an improvement on his Leader. He said that he would wish to increase the impost on wine to make up for the revenue that would be lost on beer if the amendment were carried. He must know that that is a preposterous proposition, because wine is a much smaller source of revenue than beer. The amount raised from beer could not be raised from wine. It is not a practical proposal. He also has to consider buoyancy.
      The hon. Gentleman referred to that matter but the Committee has heard nothing profound from him. Has the hon. Gentleman done any calculations? Is he simply not telling the House about them because they do not sound very good? The proposal that he put forward does not bear examination. The Labour Party is refusing to make choices.
      I supported strongly the case made yesterday about the Government's failure to index the tax threshold. That is the most serious consequence of the Bill. It will have devastating effects on low-paid workers. I thought that the Opposition combined well to make a forceful case against the Government. Ministers have not replied to the real charge about the increase in the tax burden that results from this and previous Budgets. The Government have failed lamentably to answer the real challenge on the extent of the tax burden and the degree to which it has fallen on the shoulders of those least able to bear it.
      However, the revenue for the expansionary measures supported by the Opposition—I agree with some of them—has to be raised somehow. A choice has to be made of the measures to be taken to raise the revenue to pay for the expenditure. Hon. Members have not heard from the Opposition where their choices lie. The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) was challenged directly yesterday by the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. The right hon. Gentleman refused to reply when he was asked whether the Opposition would have foregone the attempt to raise the threshold on income tax if their amendment on the petrol increase, which I supported, had been passed. The Opposition were not making choices.
      If we are to have honest debates which fill the Chamber more than this debate, and more than yesterday's debate did when the main Opposition party had to whip in people to speak, and which command the attention of people both inside and outside the House, we should discuss matters more frankly The Opposition are simply going through the motions. I know that the Opposition have a new team.

      171
      I was a member of the old team last year. I had hoped that the new team would be more original than simply to go through the hoops of putting forward amendment after amendment which do not add up to a convincing policy.
      Mr. Cook: I should like gently to draw the hon. Gentleman back to the subject of beer. He has mentioned that he was a member of the old team. I presume that I was a member of the old Back Bench team. Last year, we debated a similar issue. I made a speech in which I chided the Minister for not putting up Excise duties by more than the amount he proposed, particularly in relation to spirits. If the opportunity arises, I may make some remarks about wine later this evening.
      In last year's debate the hon. Gentleman said that it was an extraordinarily badly chosen time to increase Excise duties. If the hon. Gentleman is to make a speech attacking the official Opposition, he has an obligation to explain what great revelation has occurred to him between last year and this year that transforms what, last year, was an extraordinarily badly chosen moment into what he now says is the correct time to increase Excise duties.
      Mr. Horam: The hon. Gentleman must be aware of the answer. We argue that there should be increases in public expenditure to deal with the present economic problems. We want to be less deflationary than the Government. We believe, like the Labour party, that there should be an increase in public sector projects. Those projects have to be paid for. I have stated in the House that I would have raised the standard rate of income tax to pay for some of these projects. That would be more expansionary and prove more helpful to industry than the Government's deflationary methods. The hon. Gentleman cannot argue the point he has made.
      The Chairman: Order. I am sorry to interrupt again, but we are getting away from the amendment, which is concerned with beer and not the general Budget strategy. Will the hon. Gentleman please return to the question of beer?
      Mr. Horam: Certainly, Mr. Weatherill. I believe that the argument about the EEC is a little spurious. The Government have increased the tax on beer by the amount in the Budget because they needed the revenue. That is the brutal truth.
      Mr. Cook: Does the hon. Gentleman support it?
      Mr. Horam: If one has to raise revenue, I would rather raise it by this means than by failing to index the tax thresholds. I voted in favour of the Labour Party amendment yesterday. If I have to choose between the two—
      Mr. Cook rose—
      Mr. Horam: I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman. You are already looking at me askance, Mr. Weatherill. The hon. Gentleman has already intervened.
      The Chairman: Order. It will help everyone if the hon. Gentleman addresses me and confines himself to the subject of beer.
      Mr. Horam: The argument about the EEC is thin. It is obvious that the Government raised the tax on beer because they needed the revenue. If the Labour Party had
      172
      won the last election and had been confronted with the same problem of EEC harmonisation, I doubt whether it would have behaved very differently from the Government. These identical problems arose over tobacco taxation in the lifetime of the previous Labour Government. For the Opposition to pretend that they would have behaved in a radically different manner when confronted with these problems is less than honest. I do not think that it is a good point to raise the EEC issue. We have to face reality.
      If hon. Members, like me, want higher spending on public sector projects to help to reflate the economy—I am prepared to accept a higher public sector borrowing requirement than the Government—the fact still remains that revenue has to be found somewhere. I am more prepared to find it by increases in some Excise duties than through a failure to index the income tax thresholds. I supported the main Opposition yesterday, but I see no case for supporting this amendment today.
      The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Peter Rees): I am a little diffident about intervening in what has become an interesting and perhaps even perceptive and illuminating debate involving the hon. Member for Gateshead, West (Mr. Horam), representing the Social Democratic Party, and various Opposition Members. I believe that the hon. Member for Gateshead, West, with all the detachment that he can now bring to the debate, was able, in his encounter with the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook), to illuminate some of the central problems that bedevil the Opposition.
      I hope, Mr. Weatherill, that it will not be taken as a criticism of the Chair when I say that we have had a fairly wide-ranging debate. At times, it might have escaped the attention of the Committee that we were debating amendment No. 53, designed to reduce the proposed increase in Excise duty on beer to 15 per cent., which would have involved, as the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) stated, an increase of 1½p instead of 4p on a pint. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was disposed to emphasise that this would have involved a loss of revenue of £240 million. The hon. Gentleman candidly admits that fact.
      As the hon. Member for Gateshead, West reminded the Committee, we have to consider the revenue implications of these amendments. I emphasise to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis) that no hon. Member, certainly none on the Government side, is particularly anxious to introduce any tax or duty. There may occasionally arise external reasons for doing so. However, our Finance Bill debates are essentially concerned with the balance of taxation. As the requirements of Government increase and since we are less ready to borrow than previous Administrations, we must scratch around for increases in revenue. One of the areas that we chose was the duty on alcohol and in particular on beer.
      5 pm
      The hon. Member for Blackburn phrased his attack in three ways. He said that the increase would hit one of the few pleasures left. That was a slightly apocalyptic view of what is happening in Britain. The hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) could tell the hon. Gentleman a thing or two about the pleasures left throughout our happy isle. The hon. Member for Blackburn was partly supported by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), who

      173
      always makes powerful contributions to our debates. However, he has a romantic view of British life. His emotions are fixed where Wat Tyler's were before he was struck down. The hon. Gentleman regards beer as the prerogative of the ordinary working man. I have news for the Labour Party. The ordinary working man—and I resent the narrow interpretation of that phrase—has broadened his tastes. He is enjoying wine, and I am delighted.
      We are not aiming at the ordinary working man, but we must consider how best, in a difficult time. We can increase our revenues. It might be thought that we are singling out beer. The proposal in clause 1 increases the duty by 38 per cent. I remind the Committee of what the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) did in April 1975 since I want to demonstrate that there is noting socially divisive about our proposals and that we are not singling out any group of our fellow countrymen.
      The right hon. Gentleman increased VAT. He increased the basic rate of income tax from 33 per cent. to 35 per cent. He increased the duty on beer by 2p—a 40 per cent. increase. The increased duty on beer in 1975 was proportionately perceptively greater than the increase proposed this year.
      Mr. Joseph Dean: What was the 40 per cent. a proportion of?
      Mr. Rees: It was a 40 per cent. increase on the previous duty.
      I shall remind the Committee of the Labour Administration's curious record. For example, the duty on beer was increased by 35·7 per cent. in 1974. In 1975 it was increased by 46·2 per cent. We propose an increase of only 38 per cent. I concede that the increase tailed off in 1976–77 and that there was no increase in 1978–79. We are redressing the balance. We are bringing back the real rate of duties to what it was under the Labour Administration.
      Let us put the problem in perspective. The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) will recall the increase in beer duties which he supported. In his Budget Statement the then Chancellor, in the ringing phrases to which he is prone, said:
      "Now, however, when I am forced to call for general sacrifices, when rich and poor alike face increases in essentials like rent and rates and fuel prices, it would clearly be wrong to leave untouched such forms of consumption as smoking and drinking, when the effective tax burden on them would otherwise continue to fall. Instead of changing the rate of VAT on these goods, I have decided that the duties should be increased to give precise effects on the bar or retail prices of all these goods across the board. I hope it will be appreciated that the size of these increases reflects the fact that in the circumstances of this Budget the alternative to them would have been either a higher target for the revenue from direct taxation or an increase in the standard 8 per cent. rate of VAT."—[Official Report, 15 April 1975; Vol. 890, c. 305–6.]
      Mr. Heffer: Is the Minister of State aware that some Government Back Benchers at that time thought that their Ministers were not listening enough to their own supporters?
      Mr. Rees: History might vindicate the hon. Member for Walton, who has always taken an idiosyncratic line. I shall leave him to justify his part in supporting or not supporting the Labour Administration. I want to put the problem in its true historical and political perspective.
      Mr. Robert Sheldon: In putting the problem in its true perspective, the Minister quoted the
      174
      former Chancellor of the Exchequer. We are objecting not only to the increase but to the particularly heavy impost on beer.
      Mr. Rees: The right hon. Gentleman is entitled to say that we are proposing a 31 per cent. increase in the duty on fortified wine, 17 per cent. on table wines and 14½ per cent. on spirits. He will remember that under the Administration of which he was a distinguished ornament the balance of duties was distorted. For example, the duty on wine was increased by 98 per cent. in 1975 and by 66 per cent. the previous year. There must be a balance. I assume that the right hon. Gentleman does not want his fellow countrymen to concentrate exclusively on beer. He will want them to sample wine so that the pleasures of life may be widely diffused.
      The hon. Member for Blackburn made a trumpery point and said that the increase was to subsidise cuts in tax on the rich. He will find it hard to find such cuts. Perhaps he is thinking of capital transfer tax. The current year's cost of the reliefs proposed is only £5 million. The hon. Member's argument does not stand close scrutiny.
      The hon. Member for Blackburn said that we are imposing the tax because of our slavish adherence to the European Community. That view was echoed by some of his hon. Friends. Proposals have emanated from the Commission to harmonise throughout the Community the duties on alcoholic drinks. We have been the subject of infraction proceedings before the European Court. Neither the Commission's proposals nor the infraction proceedings have been brought to a firm conclusion. We had an interesting, if short, debate in December last year about the proposals. I explained the Government's position then. It remains the same.
      The Commission's proposal is that the ratio between wine and beer duties should move over seven years to the ratio of 3:1. If the increases in beer and wine duties encapsulated in clause 1 find favour with the Committee, the ratio will be 4·2:1. There is no slavish adherence.
      Mr. Les Huckfield: The Minister does not understand the central issue of my amendment, which has not been selected. Cannot he understand that under the Labour Government the ratio between beer and wine went up to 5:1? As a result of the Budget judgment, it is being reduced to nearly 4:1. Is the Minister saying that his right hon. and learned Friend's attitude and proposals have not been influenced in any way by the infraction proceedings? Is he saying that this has nothing to do with the European Commission and the court?
      Mr. Rees: It would have been perverse of the Government, in the face of the court's interim judgment and in the face of what we know about the proposals, to have tilted the balance still further against wine.
      Mr. Huckfield: It is still there.
      Mr. Rees: The ratio that is implicit in clause 1 will only put back the ratio to what it was when we entered the EEC. I want to rebut the absurd suggestion—the point may have escaped the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield), who usually has a quick and agile mind—that clause 1 has been introduced by this Government in slavish adherence to the EEC proposals.
      Mr. Straw: Does the Minister of State accept that if the EEC initiative had not been made the Chancellor

      175
      would have had a greater discretion in deciding on the balance between the increase in duty on beer and that on wine and spirits?
      Mr. Rees: It is a statement of the obvious if the hon. Gentleman is saying that there might have been no infraction proceedings and that therefore those proceedings could have been totally disregarded. I am concerned to rebut the frivolous suggestion that we are slavishly adhering to a proposal that is not yet Community law.
      I hope that my proposition will find favour, if not with Opposition Members, at least with the people who follow our debates outside the Chamber. It is not for me to enter the domestic debates between the hon. Member for Blackburn and his former colleague, the hon. Member for Gateshead, West. On close examination, the three bases on which the hon. Gentleman mounts his case fall apart. The real question, to which he did not address himself, was properly drawn to our attention by the hon. Member for Gateshead West.
      I have costed the various amendments that have been put forward so far by the Opposition. First, we debated an amendment to reduce the proposed increases in the duty on petrol and derv. That amendment, if carried, would have cost £700 million. Yesterday we debated an amendment that was designed to reintroduce a lower rate band, which would have cost £1,100 million. Later yesterday we debated an amendment fully to valorise and index personal allowances. That would have cost £2,200 million. Today's amendment, if it found favour, would cost £240 million. I am bad at mental arithmetic, but I am told that the total cost of the Opposition amendments would be £4,240,000,000. At a rough calculation, that would involve an increase in the basic rate of tax of over 5 per cent.
      Mr. Robert Sheldon: The argument that the Minister is using has been used on many previous occasions. It was demolished best by the late Iain Macleod, who said, in reply to an intervention of that kind, that if he were in Government he would be able rationally to produce an alternative Budget but all that he could do, knowing that some of his amendments would fall, was to table those amendments that he would like to be debated and, if the amendments were successful, the time would come to look at those matters again.
      5.15 pm
      Mr. Rees: If the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne had said candidly "These amendments are in the alternative", his intervention might have carried more weight. As it is, we have been confronted with an irresponsible and frivolous series of amendments.
      Cynical observers of our debates outside would say that there is an irreducible minimum of humbug in democratic adversarial politics, but on this occasion the Opposition, lashed to a synthetic frenzy by the imminence of the county council elections, have gone beyond the irreducible minimum. How synthetic their frenzy has been can be demonstrated by the palpable lack of support on the Opposition Benches. The amendment demonstrates, if demonstration is needed, how utterly frivolous and irresponsible the conduct of affairs of the Opposition would be. I ask my right hon. and hon. Friends to reject the amendment with total contempt.
      Mr. Straw: I have to work myself into a synthetic frenzy, but I need lessons from the Minister of State on how to do that.
      The central issue raised by the hon. Members for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Lewis) and for Gateshead, West (Mr. Horam) and the Minister of State is how to pay for the amendments that we tabled today and earlier. The Minister and the hon. Member for Gateshead both know that the role of an Opposition in tabling amendments to a Finance Bill is necessarily different from the role of the same people presenting a Budget. That does not mean that an Opposition should be irresponsible, flippant or frivolous—to use the Minister's words—in tabling amendments; it means that if we were sitting on the Government Benches we should have the weight of expert advice, and would be able to offer a comprehensive judgment of the state of the economy. When the Minister of State was recently asked what level of public sector borrowing requirement he had in mind in his alternative policies to those of the Labour Government, his answer was:
      "Our answer then was what the market would take".—[Official Report, 12 March 1981; Vol. 1000, c. 1089.]
      He consistently refused to put a figure to the alternative economic policies of the Conservative Opposition.
      We have expressed both here and outside our views about the scale of reflation. In summing up in the Budget debate on 12 March, I mentioned the TUC's proposal for a £6 billion reflation of the economy. That is not necessarily what we would adopt if we came to power tomorrow, but it is the kind of reflation that is desperately needed. The figure is more than the total of our tax amendments, which the Minister put at £4,240,000,000.
      The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Nigel Lawson): Will the hon. Gentleman explain what he means by a £6 billion reflation? What public sector borrowing requirement would that involve for the coming year?
      Mr. Straw: I shall be delighted to explain that. One interesting fact that has emerged from the work done by the Library is that if the economy is reflated by £6 billion the increase in the public sector borrowing requirement is only about £3 billion.
      Mr. Lawson: Rubbish.
      Mr. Straw: The work is available in the Library. It has been done on the Treasury's own computer model. If the Financial Secretary thinks it is rubbish, let him have it analysed by his own economists who are responsible for the equations in the Treasury model, and then come back to the House with his comments.
      Mr. Lawson: It is an illusion.
      Mr. Straw: The right hon. Gentleman says that it is an illusion. I referred to it in my speech on 12 March, but not a word has been said about it since then. I hope that he will now study the matter. That run on the Treasury's model showed that if demand was increased by £6,000 million, the PSBR would go up by only £3,000 million. We are arguing for substantial reflation. If we were sitting where the right hon. Member is sitting we would be able to argue for that in terms not only of reductions in income tax but of increases in public expenditure.
      Mr. Horam: The House does not expect the main Opposition party to have available the full research facilities which produce a full Budget in the same way that

      177
      the Government have such facilities available. That would be ludicrous. However, surely the hon. Gentleman could have produced at least a list of priorities. Does he think that reducing the increase in beer tax is more important than reducing the petrol duty? How do income tax reductions fit into the general picture?
      Mr. Straw: This is a specific debate about an amendment relating to the increase in beer duty. It would not be appropriate to make the points suggested by the hon. Gentleman. However, I accept his general point. If he had bothered to listen to what we have been saying he would know that we have put forward a coherent and costed alternative. If he has any doubt about that he should read Hansard of 12 March.
      We tabled the amendment because we object to the way in which the beer drinker is being heavily discriminated against. He is bearing a 38 per cent. increase compared with a 17 per cent. increase for wines and spirits. Even within the Government's economic strategy it would have been possible to raise the same revenue by placing an equal amount on wine, beer and spirits. The Government did not do so because of the so-called initiative of the EEC. The Minister's remarks about that initiative were wholly unconvincing. He said that it would be perverse to tilt the balance against wine. I took that as an admission that the Government had been forced to tilt the balance against beer. If he is saying that the EEC initiative has nothing to do with the Government's decision, it is an extraordinary coincidence that only in December he said that it could be applied in Britain by raising duty on beer by 4p. Only four months later, the Chancellor announced an increase in beer duty of exactly 4p. That may be coincidence, but we believe it to be more than that.
      Because we find the Government's arguments about the EEC directive unconvincing, and because we believe that the overall increase on beer is discriminatory against beer drinkers and the domestic beer industry, we shall vote for the amendment.
      Question put, That the amendment be made:—
      The Committee divided: Ayes 234, Noes 285.

      Division No. 173]

      [5.25 pm

      AYES

      Abse, Leo

      Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

      Adams, Allen

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

      Allaun, Frank

      Cohen, Stanley

      Alton, David

      Coleman, Donald

      Anderson, Donald

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Archer, Rt Hon Peter

      Conlan, Bernard

      Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

      Cook, Robin F.

      Ashton, Joe

      Cowans, Harry

      Atkinson, H.(H'gey.)

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

      Barnett, Rt Hon Joel (H'wd)

      Craigen, J. M.

      Beith, A. J.

      Crowther, J. S.

      Bennett, Andrew(St'kp't N)

      Cryer, Bob

      Bidwell, Sydney

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Booth, Rt Hon Albert

      Cunningham, G. (Islington S)

      Boothroyd, Miss Betty

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

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

      Davidson, Arthur

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)

      Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

      Davies, Ifor (Gower)

      Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

      Davis, Clinton (Hackney C)

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

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

      Buchan, Norman

      Deakins, Eric

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

      Dempsey, James

      Campbell, Ian

      Dewar, Donald

      Campbell-Savours, Dale

      Dixon, Donald

      Canavan, Dennis

      Dobson, Frank

      Cant, R. B.

      Dormand, Jack

      Carmichael, Neil

      Douglas-Mann, Bruce

      Carter-Jones, Lewis

      Dubs, Alfred

      178

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      McMahon, Andrew

      Dunn, James A.

      McNamara, Kevin

      Dunnett, Jack

      McTaggart, Robert

      Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

      McWilliam, John

      Eadie, Alex

      Magee, Bryan

      Eastham, Ken

      Marshall, D(G'gow S'ton)

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

      Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole)

      English, Michael

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

      Ennals, Rt Hon David

      Martin, M(G'gow S'burn)

      Evans, loan (Aberdare)

      Mason, Rt Hon Roy

      Evans, John (Newton)

      Maxton, John

      Ewing, Harry

      Maynard, Miss Joan

      Faulds, Andrew

      Meacher, Michael

      Field, Frank

      Mellish, Rt Hon Robert

      Fitch, Alan

      Mikardo, Ian

      Flannery, Martin

      Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

      Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

      Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

      Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

      Mitchell, R. C. (Soton Itchen)

      Foot, Rt Hon Michael

      Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

      Ford, Ben

      Morris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)

      Forrester, John

      Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

      Foster, Derek

      Morton, George

      Foulkes, George

      Moyle, Rt Hon Roland

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

      Mulley, Rt Hon Frederick

      Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

      Newens, Stanley

      Freud, Clement

      Ogden, Eric

      Garrett, John (Norwich S)

      O'Halloran, Michael

      Garrett, W. E. (Wallsend)

      O'Neill, Martin

      George, Bruce

      Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      Palmer, Arthur

      Ginsburg, David

      Parker, John

      Golding, John

      Parry, Robert

      Gourlay, Harry

      Pavitt, Laurie

      Graham, Ted

      Pendry, Tom

      Grant, George (Morpeth)

      Penhaligon, David

      Grant, John (Islington C)

      Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

      Grimond, Rt Hon J.

      Prescott, John

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

      Price, C. (Lewisham W)

      Hardy, Peter

      Race, Reg

      Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

      Radice, Giles

      Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

      Rees, Rt Hon M (Leeds S)

      Haynes, Frank

      Richardson, Jo

      Healey, Rt Hon Denis

      Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

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

      Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

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

      Roberts, Gwilym (Cannock)

      Home Robertson, John

      Robertson, George

      Homewood, William

      Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

      Hooley, Frank

      Rooker, J. W.

      Howells, Geraint

      Ross, Ernest (Dundee West)

      Huckfield, Les

      Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

      Hughes, Mark (Durham)

      Rowlands, Ted

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

      Sever, John

      Hughes, Roy (Newport)

      Sheerman, Barry

      Janner, Hon Greville

      Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

      Jay, Rt Hon Douglas

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      John, Brynmor

      Short, Mrs Renée

      Johnson, Walter (Derby S)

      Silkin, Rt Hon J. (Deptford)

      Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

      Silkin, Rt Hon S. C. (Dulwich)

      Jones, Rt Hon Alec (Rh'dda)

      Silverman, Julius

      Jones, Barry (East Flint)

      Skinner, Dennis

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Smith, Rt Hon J. (N Lanark)

      Kerr, Russell

      Soley, Clive

      Kilroy-Silk, Robert

      Spearing, Nigel

      Lambie, David

      Spriggs, Leslie

      Lamborn, Harry

      Stallard, A. W.

      Lamond, James

      Steel, Rt Hon David

      Leadbitter, Ted

      Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

      Leighton, Ronald

      Stoddart, David

      Lewis, Arthur (N'ham NW)

      Stott, Roger

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Strang, Gavin

      Lofthouse, Geoffrey

      Straw, Jack

      Mabon, Rt Hon Dr J. Dickson

      Summerskill, Hon Dr Shirley

      McCartney, Hugh

      Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

      McDonald, Dr Oonagh

      Thomas, Jeffrey (Abertillery)

      McElhone, Frank

      Thomas, Dr R.(Carmarthen)

      McGuire, Michael (Ince)

      Thorne, Stan (Preston South)

      McKay, Allen (Penistone)

      Tilley, John

      McKelvey, William

      Tinn, James

      MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

      Torney, Tom

      179

      Urwin, Rt Hon Tom

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

      Varley, Rt Hon Eric G.

      Williams, Sir T.(W'ton)

      Wainwright, R.(Colne V)

      Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E)

      Walker, Rt Hon H.(D'caster)

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

      Watkins, David

      Winnick, David

      Welsh, Michael

      Wright, Sheila

      White, Frank R.

      Young, David (Bolton E)

      White, J. (G'gow Pollok)

      Whitehead, Phillip

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Wigley, Dafydd

      Mr. James Hamilton and Mr. Joseph Dean

      Willey, Rt Hon Frederick

      NOES

      Adley, Robert

      Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Eggar, Tim

      Alexander, Richard

      Elliott, Sir William

      Amery, Rt Hon Julian

      Eyre, Reginald

      Atkins, Robert(Preston N)

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

      Baker, Kenneth(St.M'bone)

      Fairgrieve, Russell

      Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

      Faith, Mrs Sheila

      Banks, Robert

      Farr, John

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Fell, Anthony

      Bell, Sir Ronald

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      Bendall, Vivian

      Finsberg, Geoffrey

      Bennett, Sir Frederic (T'bay)

      Fisher, Sir Nigel

      Benyon, Thomas (A'don)

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

      Benyon, W. (Buckingham)

      Fletcher-Cooke, Sir Charles

      Berry, Hon Anthony

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Best, Keith

      Forman, Nigel

      Bevan, David Gilroy

      Fraser, Rt Hon Sir Hugh

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Fraser, Peter (South Angus)

      Biggs-Davison, John

      Gardiner, George (Reigate)

      Blackburn, John

      Gardner, Edward (S Fylde)

      Blaker, Peter

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Body, Richard

      Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Glyn, Dr Alan

      Bottomley, Peter (W'wich W)

      Goodhew, Victor

      Bowden, Andrew

      Good lad, Alastair

      Boyson, Dr Rhodes

      Gorst, John

      Braine, Sir Bernard

      Gow, Ian

      Bright, Graham

      Gower, Sir Raymond

      Brinton, Tim

      Grant, Anthony (Harrow C)

      Brittan, Leon

      Gray, Hamish

      Brotherton, Michael

      Greenway, Harry

      Brown, Michael(Brigg & Sc'n)

      Griffiths, Peter Portsm'th N)

      Browne, John (Winchester)

      Grist, Ian

      Bruce-Gardyne, John

      Grylls, Michael

      Buchanan-Smith, Alick

      Gummer, John Selwyn

      Budgen, Nick

      Hamilton, Hon A.

      Burden, Sir Frederick

      Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury)

      Butcher, John

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Butler, Hon Adam

      Hannam, John

      Cadbury, Jocelyn

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Carlisle, John (Luton West)

      Hastings, Stephen

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

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

      Hawkins, Paul

      Chalker, Mrs. Lynda

      Hawksley, Warren

      Chapman, Sydney

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Churchill, W. S.

      Heddle, John

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

      Henderson, Barry

      Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Clegg, Sir Walter

      Hicks, Robert

      Cockeram, Eric

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Colvin, Michael

      Hill, James

      Cormack, Patrick

      Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

      Corrie, John

      Holland, Philip (Carlton)

      Costain, Sir Albert

      Hooson, Tom

      Cranborne, Viscount

      Hordern, Peter

      Critchley, Julian

      Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Crouch, David

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

      Dean, Paul (North Somerset)

      Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

      Dickens, Geoffrey

      Hurd, Hon Douglas

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Irving, Charles (Cheltenham)

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

      Dover, Denshore

      Jessel, Toby

      du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Dunn, Robert (Dartford)

      Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

      Durant, Tony

      Kershaw, Anthony

      Dykes, Hugh

      Kimball, Marcus

      Eden, Rt Hon Sir John

      Knight, Mrs Jill

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      Knox, David

      Renton, Tim

      Lang, Ian

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Langford-Holt, Sir John

      Ridsdale, Sir Julian

      Latham, Michael

      Rifkind, Malcolm

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)

      Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

      Roberts, Wyn (Conway)

      Lee, John

      Rossi, Hugh

      Le Marchant, Spencer

      Rost, Peter

      Lester, Jim (Beeston)

      Royle, Sir Anthony

      Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Lloyd, Ian (Havant & W'loo)

      St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.

      Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

      Scott, Nicholas

      Loveridge, John

      Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

      Luce, Richard

      Shaw, Michael (Scarborough)

      Lyell, Nicholas

      Shelton, William (Streatham)

      McCrindle, Robert

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Shepherd, Richard

      MacGregor, John

      Shersby, Michael

      MacKay, John (Argyll)

      Silvester, Fred

      Macmillan, Rt Hon M.

      Sims, Roger

      McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

      Skeet, T. H. H.

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

      Smith, Dudley

      McQuarrie, Albert

      Speed, Keith

      Madel, David

      Speller, Tony

      Major, John

      Spence, John

      Marland, Paul

      Spicer, Jim (West Dorset)

      Marlow, Tony

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Mates, Michael

      Sproat, Iain

      Mather, Carol

      Squire, Robin

      Maude, Rt Hon Sir Angus

      Stainton, Keith

      Mawby, Ray

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Mawhinney, Dr Brian

      Stanley, John

      Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

      Steen, Anthony

      Mayhew, Patrick

      Stevens, Martin

      Mellor, David

      Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Stewart, A.(E Renfrewshire)

      Miller, Hal (B'grove)

      Stokes, John

      Mills, lain (Meriden)

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      Mills, Peter (West Devon)

      Tapsell, Peter

      Miscampbell, Norman

      Taylor, Robert (Croydon NW)

      Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)

      Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

      Moate, Roger

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      Montgomery, Fergus

      Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

      Moore, John

      Thompson, Donald

      Morgan, Geraint

      Thorne, Neil (Ilford South)

      Morris, M. (N'hampton S)

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

      Townsend, Cyril D, (B'heath)

      Murphy, Christopher

      Trippier, David

      Myles, David

      van Straubenzee, W. R.

      Neale, Gerrard

      Vaughan, Dr Gerard

      Needham, Richard

      Viggers, Peter

      Nelson, Anthony

      Waddington, David

      Neubert, Michael

      Wakeham, John

      Newton, Tony

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      Onslow, Cranley

      Walker, Rt Hon P.(W'cester)

      Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

      Walker, B. (Perth)

      Osborn, John

      Waller, Gary

      Page, Rt Hon Sir G. (Crosby)

      Walters, Dennis

      Page, Richard (SW Herts)

      Ward, John

      Parris, Matthew

      Warren, Kenneth

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Wells, John (Maidstone)

      Patten, John (Oxford)

      Wells, Bowen

      Pawsey, James

      Wheeler, John

      Percival, Sir Ian

      Whitelaw, Rt Hon William

      Peyton, Rt Hon John

      Whitney, Raymond

      Pink, R. Bonner

      Wickenden, Keith

      Pollock, Alexander

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Porter, Barry

      Wilkinson, John

      Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

      Williams, D.(Montgomery)

      Price, Sir David (Eastleigh)

      Wolfson, Mark

      Prior, Rt Hon James

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Proctor, K. Harvey

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Pym, Rt Hon Francis

      Raison, Timothy

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Rathbone, Tim

      Mr. Robert Boscawen and Mr. Peter Brooke

      Rees, Peter (Dover and Deal)

      Rees-Davies, W. R.

      Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
      5.30 pm
      Mr. Cook: I am slightly hesitant about rising to exercise the Opposition's constitutional right to challenge the Government's legislation, because of the Minister's most recent speech. I assure him that I am not required to lash myself into a synthetic frenzy, as there are no local elections in my constituency tomorrow. We satisfactorily disposed of many Conservative councils last year in Scotland and no doubt we shall dispose of some additional ones next year without any synthetic frenzy on our part.
      Three issues raised by the clause were not dealt with fully and comprehensively in the preceding debate on amendment No. 53 on beer. These issues deserve to be aired in the House of Commons and the Committee is entitled to some response from the Treasury Bench.
      The first of these issues is the rate of duty on spirits. The Bill increases the duty on spirits by 14 ½ percent. That is virtually 15 per cent., and that is the percentage by which it would have been necessary to increase personal allowances to carry out the terms of the Rooker-Wise amendment. That would have been necessary for the full uprating.
      The Opposition accept the case for revalorisation for spirits. We accept it also for uprating personal allowances. If an explanation is required, it must come from the Treasury team, which accepts the argument for revalorisation for spirits but rejected the very same principle when it considered uprating personal allowances.
      I understand why the Treasury team accepted one case and not the other. It would cost revenue to uprate personal allowances and it increases revenue to uprate and revalorise the rate of duty on spirits. The Opposition will not let any such self-serving considerations cloud their logic. We pressed for the uprating of personal allowances, as the hon. Member for Gateshead, West (Mr. Horam) was kind enough to remind us, and we accept the requirement for an uprating of the duty on whisky and other spirits in line with inflation. I said last year in Committee that I had been a member of the Select Committee on Expenditure that submitted a report five years previously on preventive medicine. The committee recommended
      "that the price of alcoholic drink should remain at the same level relative to average incomes".
      In the four years since the report was lodged, earnings have increased by three-quarters. The retail prices index has increased by two-thirds. The duty on spirits has increased by only one-quarter. The level of duty on spirits and the overall price of spirits has fallen relative to income and to the RPI. That has resulted in an inevitable increase in consumption. It has faltered slightly over the past year but the level of spirit consumption stands 25 per cent. higher than in 1977 when we submitted the report.
      I am aware that in the right quantities spirits can be a life-enhancing force. I shall not suggest what the right quantity is. Each member of the Committee will have his own idea of what the right quantity is for him or her. Nevertheless, it is plain that we cannot sustain this growth in total consumption without spirits being consumed increasingly in the wrong quantities.
      Therefore, it is inevitable that the House should accept the case for increases in duty as a contribution to stabilising the consumption of spirits. Therefore, the Opposition accept the case for increasing the duty on
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      spirits in line with inflation. I appreciate that within that overall increase in consumption, there has been a change in drinking pattern which has affected many of the hon. Members whose constituencies produce whisky.
      There has been a shift within the overall consumption pattern to increasing consumption of white spirits—vodka and gin. I find that pattern incomprehensible, particularly as I note that those who drink the gin and vodka can only bring themselves to drink such spirits by adding other substances to obscure the taste. Nevertheless, that pattern has undoubtedly created difficulty in the whisky industry. It is right to serve notice on the Minister that, when in Standing Committee we debate clause 11, which makes some fairly sweeping changes to the arrangements of Excise on whisky, some of the Committee, particularly Scottish Members who represent distilleries, may want to draw attention to the anxiety about the state of the whisky industry.
      That is the first point raised by the clause, to which we did not refer in detail in the preceding debate. The second point was touched upon in the preceding debate by way of comparison and contrast to what was being done with the rate of duty on beer. That is the rate of duty on wine.
      I regret that the hon. Member for Gateshead, West has absented himself from the Chamber because I hoped that he might be here to support and sympathise with the thrust of my general comments. [Interruption.] I shall not speculate whether he was dealing with wine, beer or spirits, but it was hard that he should have tackled the Opposition Front Bench for being under instructions when he was obviously well briefed on the case against increasing the tax on wine.
      As the Minister will be aware, the duty on wine proposed in the Finance Bill is to be increased by 17 per cent. That is not even one half of the increase of the duty on beer. The Committee is entitled to ask why. Earlier, I developed the general social case for uprating the level of duty on alcoholic drink in order to try to stabilise consumption. If we attach weight to that argument, there is a much more compelling case for increasing the duty on wine faster than the duty on beer because over the last five years consumption of beer has been static. There is no social case for using the price signal to try to stabilise the consumption of beer—it is stable. The consumption of spirits has risen by 20 per cent., but the consumption of wine, in the same five years, has risen by 35 per cent.
      Therefore, if we attach weight to the social argument—the requirement to try to stabilise the consumption of alcohol—that case applies with greater force to wine than to beer. In the Finance Bill, logically we should expect to find a proposal for a rate of increase in the duty on wine which is higher, not lower, than the rate of duty on beer. We find instead the reverse.
      That brings me to the third point that must be developed during the debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) said in the previous debate, some of us nurse the suspicion—perhaps it is unworthy, and the Minister may be able to remove it when he responds—that we can detect, in the curious preference for wine rather than beer and the curious penalty on the beer drinker rather than the wine drinker, the unseen hand of Brussels once again drafting our fiscal policy.
      In response to the previous debate, the Minister said that it would have been perverse, in the light of the discussions in the Common Market, to increase the rate of duty on wine faster than the rate of duty on beer. With

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      respect, in our amendment in the preceding debate, we asked him not to do that but to increase the rate of duty on beer by no more than the increase in the rate of duty on wine—in other words, that there should be a comparable increase. That would not have been perverse; it would have preserved the status quo. I should have thought that such an argument would have carried some weight with a Conservative at heart. We are not asking for the sort of change which the Minister implied in his response.
      There was a debate on that matter last December. Around that time, the Minister made a number of statements to the papers which were properly interested in and anxious about that matter. He said to The Times that as a result of the EEC pressure,
      "he thought it extremely unlikely that the beer duty would be sharply increased, contrary to what has been claimed by the British brewers."
      5.45 pm
      The Minister said to The Economist:
      "Whatever solution is adopted, it will be phased in over seven years."
      In the House on 3 December, he said that the requirements of the Commission could be achieved if he were to reduce the rate of duty on wine by 17 per cent. and raise the rate of duty on beer by ½p on a pint.
      A mere five months after that relaxed attitude to the requirements of the EEC, we have suddenly lurched in with a sharp increase—the sort of sharp increase which the brewers feared last December—and on the Minister's sums, we are already half way to achieving the ratio which was required by the EEC. We have moved from 4.9:1 to 4.2:1. Our target is about 3.5:1. That is the ratio which the Minister is arguing for in Brussels.
      It is as well to remind the Committee that the movement in the ratio is not in the interests of the British economy. Therefore, it is perhaps unfortunate that we should be faced with a Treasury team which is making a move towards that ratio in the Finance Bill at the request of pressures which are not responsible for the British economy. One of its colleagues the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) said in the debate in December last year that if that change took place—in other words, if the duty on beer were increased or if the duty on wine were decreased—and if we believed in capitalism, more wine and less beer would be drunk. The hon. Member probably slightly confused his terms. Presumably he meant to say, "If we believe in market forces". However, it was plain what he expected to happen. Without wishing to subscribe to the same credo of the belief in capitalism as the hon. Member for Southend East, I entirely agree that that is what one would logically expect to result from such a shift. People would drink more wine and less beer.
      Britain imports the bulk of the wine which we drink. Some wine is produced in England and is excellent in its own way, but it is a small fraction of the total amount of wine consumed in Britain. One of the reasons why the Commission is anxious to make the change is so that we can drink some of the confounded wine lake which has been the result of the common agricultural policy. Even in that matter, the Continent's aggressive agricultural policies find their way into influencing our fiscal policies.
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      The other side of the coin is that, just as we import almost all the wine we drink and therefore an increase in consumption of wine will result in pressure on the balance of payments, so we produce the great bulk of the beer which we drink in Britain at home. It is domestically produced. A shift from the consumption of beer to the consumption of wine will result by that token, in a reduction in employment in our economy. Those are two results from such a change in fiscal policy which are adverse to the interests of the British economy and which should be of concern to the Treasury team.
      I do not make that statement to prove that our membership of Europe has not been in the best interests of the British people and the economy. That is so self-evident that it no longer requires frequent repetition.
      If, as a result of our membership of the EEC we must truckle to the Community even in the matter of fiscal policy about where we put excise duty on beer and wine and if in the course of so doing we must penalise the beer drinker as against the wine drinker, surely we should at least be seeking the economic advantage which we can obtain in return. The obvious place to look, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn said, is to the removal of discrimination against our whisky exports in other member States. It continues in France, Italy and Denmark, despite our having secured a court ruling.
      It is interesting to contrast the attitude of other Governments to pressures for EEC harmonisation with our ready submission. The French Government were challenged before the European Court last year about discriminating against whisky. Not only is it taxed at a heavier rate than brandy, but the French will not allow it to be advertised with the same freedom as cognac. When pressed, the French advocate stated that, since whisky and gin are drunk as aperitifs, on an empty stomach, they are dangerous, whereas cognac, drunk after the meal as a digestif, is safe. One can only applaud the commitment to national self-interest that can produce such a tenuous argument with a straight face. If other governments indulge in procrastination and delay over harmonising excise duties, why should we rush with indecent haste to implement the Excise duty regime required of us, even before the final outcome of the proceedings before the European Court?
      I await with eager anticipation the Minister's axplanation of why, in deciding which Excise duties should be increased to produce a given amount of revenue, the Government have chosen to favour wine at the expense of beer? I hope that he can state a logical and rational principle to defend the choice.
      Mr. Albert McQuarrie: The hon. Gentleman said that the increased consumption of spirits in the United Kingdom may be as much as 25 per cent., but much of the 25 per cent. increase was exported outside the EEC. The increase has helped those rural areas in which distilleries are the only source of employment. If we over-tax spirits, employment will be lost and those areas will become depopulated.
      Mr. Cook: The figure that I quoted was for consumption within the United Kingdom. I was not talking about increased exports. It was a crude figure for the increase in consumption of all spirits, which conceals a shift from whisky to other spirits. For social reasons, the increased consumption is regrettable and should cause us

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      concern, but the consumption of whisky has declined, which will concern the hon. Gentleman's constituents. As a patriotic citizen, I am doing my best to reverse the pattern. The employment in distilleries is important, and we shall be pressing the Minister on the matter when we debate clause 11, which proposes relaxing the Excise regime for bonded warehouses and which will cause a significant number of redundancies. If we did not have such high unemployment, that might be bearable in the central belt in major urban areas, but it would have a major impact on small rural populations, where only a few redundancies can run down the local economy. I am ad idem with the hon. Gentleman on that point.
      I was coming to a conclusion, I hope without lashing myself into a synthetic frenzy. I hope that the Minister will not dwell on EEC pressure, but will give us a logical and rational explanation of why the increase in duty on beer it so much higher than that on wine. I hope that British economic interests will not once again be surrendered to Brussels pressure.
      Mr. Paul Dean: I wish to make two points—and I declare an interest.
      First, the law of diminishing returns will continue to operate in the current financial year. That is clearly shown in the figures for the production and sale of beer, which, in turn, affects Excise duty and VAT. Exactly the same is true of spirits. In the 1980 Budget forecast, the revenue expected from duty on spirits was calculated as £1,270 million. The figure was revised down by £110 million, and even if the revised figure is achieved, there will be less revenue in real terms from spirits in 1981–82 than in the previous year, and there is likely to be a further loss in 1981–82.
      Governments of all political colours have used tobacco and drink as a convenient milch cow to raise additional revenue, but the reliance on an almost automatic increase in revenue from those sources is becoming doubtful. I hope that the Government will take account of the serious revenue implications of the trend.
      Secondly, the increases in duty in clause 1 highlight the need to defer duty on wines and spirits. Every time that the duty increases, the trade has to borrow more to finance payments. The Government hope to simplify the revenue control on wine and spirit warehouses, and a later clause deals with some aspects of that.
      The Government have a wholly welcome objective of saving Customs and Excise and Inland Revenue staff and simplifying procedures, as outlined in the discussion paper put out by the Customs and Excise in September 1980. In terms of that objective, the proposals are no doubt very welcome, but we must accept that they will almost certainly transfer to the trade concerned some of the cost and administration now carried by the Customs and Excise. It is therefore reasonable to suggest that if the trade is to co-operate with the Government in trying to introduce simpler procedures, a reasonable quid pro quo for that should be the credit period for duty. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State will be able to give us information on the progress being made in negotiations in this regard.
      6 pm
      Mr. J. Grimond: I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Dean), who has drawn attention to the diminishing returns caused by
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      increases in duty on beer and spirits. The Committee should be reminded of the immense contribution that the whisky industry in particular makes to the Revenue. It also provides valuable employment in parts of Scotland where diversity of employment is often difficult to achieve. The industry now faces considerable difficulties. Among them, as has been mentioned, has been the high rate of interest and the general recession.
      Chancellors of the Exchequer are apt to treat whisky as though it came out of some bottomless well in Revenue terms. Indeed, they seem as addicted to increasing charges on whisky as others are to drinking it. The industry is an considerable difficulties, at any rate in some parts. To illustrate the contribution made to the Revenue, I point out that the Highland Park distillery in Orkney has, in current stock, whisky that will pay £40 million to the Revenue. The Scapa distillery in my constituency, on the other hand, has reduced its production from 13,000 gallons per week to 1,000 gallons per week. That is an extremely serious reduction.
      We are apt to underestimate the importance of the whisky industry both to certain parts of Scotland and to the Revenue. When one takes into account the tax that it provides, from the point of view of my constituency it is a more valuable resource than oil. For a start, it is renewable. It has been made for 200 years and will continue long after oil has run out. Even at this moment there is whisky worth £40 million to the Revenue lying in barrels in one distillery in my constituency.
      I do not altogether begrudge Chancellors what they can get from the industry, as it is clearly a very easy touch, but I beg Ministers to take care, as the old saying goes, not to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. It would be disastrous for my constituency and for other parts of Scotland if the industry were seriously contracted.
      I therefore ask the Minister, when he winds up the debate, to tell us how firm the Government's expectations are. As has been pointed out, last year they overestimated. If the duty were reduced consumption and revenue might well be increased, although some might argue that that would be dangerous in that it might encourage drinking. How firm are the Treasury estimates?
      Secondly, what are the Government's expectations with regard to exports? As we all know, whisky is an extremely important export. One cannot conduct an export industry without a firm home base. There have already been difficulties about whisky in the Common Market. Johnny Walker Red Label has had to be withdrawn from the home market owing to difficulties in selling it abroad. What do the Government feel about the export prospects of the industry?
      My general plea, which I think was also the plea of the hon. Member for Leeds, West, is therefore that the Government should carefully monitor the state of the industry and not take it for granted that they can get out of it just as much as they want in order to balance their books. They should recognise that the law of falling demands may come into play if the industry is too heavily taxed. Above all, they should remember that all this takes place against a background of depression and of very high interest charges which are only now beginning to fall.
      Mr. Les Huckfield: I hope that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) will forgive me if I do not follow him in what he said. I wish to refer to the amendment that I put down but which, unfortunately,

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      was not selected. That is, of course, no reflection on you, Mr. Weatherill. The subject of that amendment and the main burden of my remarks appertain to a matter already mentioned several times today—the European Commission's proposals as subsumed in its consultative document 7854/79. Before proceeding to that I declare an interest, in so far as an interest needs to be declared, in that I have recently been re-elected as political secretary of the National Union of Labour and Socialist Clubs, which represents nearly 150 Labour clubs affiliated to the Labour Party. As such, they have a very definite and specific interest in the matters under discussion in amendment No. 53 and, indeed on clause stand part.
      The part of the Budget that traditionally clobbers the working man is the part that we have been discussing this afternoon. The Chancellor's proposals this year, however, have not only clobbered the working man by increasing the duty on beer more than proportionately to the increase in duty on wine. There is also a rather sinister twist. The Government are in fact making him pay even more towards the cost of supporting the common agricultural policy, because that is the basic aim of the consultative document to which I have referred.
      I oppose the increases and I support the Opposition amendment. The purpose of my amendment was to highlight the relationship between the duties on beer and on wine. I ask the Committee to bear with me while I explain briefly the historical backround to the points about the relationship and the ratio that I seek to make.
      The history of the Commission's endeavours to harmonise beer and wine duties is best and most succinctly explained by the European Communities Select Committee in another place in the 1979–80 Session, in its sixty-fifth report, entitled "Taxes on Alcoholic Drinks", document 7854/79. As that report makes plain, we are now disussing a European Commission compromise because its initial attempts at harmonisation in 1972 failed. It is therefore on the compromise proposals submitted by the Commission in 1977 that I suspect that the Government intend to base much more of their progress than the Minister of State would admit today.
      The essential ingredient of the Commission's compromise, as embodied in the document to which I have referred, is, first, that all member States of the European Community should have the same rates of VAT on alcoholic drinks, but, most important—and this is the point that we have tried to bring out today—the ratio between wine and beer duties should not exceed 3:1. That is based not on the volume or quantity, but on the alcoholic strength.
      The Commission's compromise also suggests that beer excise duty should be based on final volume. That would also have implications for our industry, but I shall not dwell on that this evening. The essential point is that, much more precisely than ever before, the Commission's compromise tries to tie the hands of the Government by specifying excise duties and the ratio between them, particularly with regard to beer and wine.
      The Minister of State cannot deny that. That is the intent of the document and its proposals. It seeks to fetter the hands of the United Kingdom Government by specifying the relationship between those two sets of duties.
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      I do not accuse the hon. and learned Gentleman of deceiving the Committee, because he used a rather nice turn of phrase in what he said, but he said that the Commission's proposals did not seem to matter that much. I suggest that they matter a great deal. In fact, they very much influenced what the Chancellor did in the Budget.
      Paragraph 14 of the report from another place states:
      "The Commission takes the view that the Council's failure to act in the alcoholic beverages sector is particularly serious, since this is an area in which there are infringements of the directly applicable provisions in Article 95 of the Treaty."
      In other words, the Council and the Commission must take those proposals seriously because they appertain to article 95 of the treaty. That is why the Commission started infraction proceedings and why we had the interim judgment of the Court in February 1980.
      I do not wish to dwell upon the Court's judgment against France, Italy and Denmark, except to say that I would not mind betting that both the Court and the Commission would welcome the swift adherence of those countries even to its interim judgment in the same fashion as the British Government propose to respond. This is only an interim judgment, yet the United Kingdom Government have responded almost with alacrity and keenness. That has not been the attitude of the other countries to which I have referred, and they have a final Court judgment against them.
      Even if the hon. and learned Gentleman pretends not to be that concerned about it, his right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor was when he wrote to me—this must have been uppermost in his mind when framing his Budget—on 6 February and said:
      "The allegation"—
      that is, the allegation made by the Commission and the Court—
      "is that the level of duties indirectly protects home-produced beer against imported wine".
      That is what the Chancellor thinks the Commission's proposals are all about, but page 2 of the main Commission document states
      "The Community's policy must be to secure some reduction in the overall level of taxes levied on wine in order to improve outlets for wine production".
      There is no doubt in the mind of the Commission or the Court about what that consultative document purports to do.
      The Customs and Excise memorandum of 24 April last year said:
      "The Court's interim judgment found beer and wine to be in competition"—
      I do not accept that they are in that direct kind of competition—
      "and felt that the evidence supported the view that duty movements in the United Kingdom since accession showed 'a protective trend' against United Kingdom imports of wine."
      That point was further reinforced in the Customs and Excise prepared memorandum of 17 November last year,which said:
      "The Commission has alleged that by charging a lower duty on beer than on wine the United Kingdom is indirectly protecting the United Kingdom beer industry against imported wine and that this amounts to a breach of Article 95 of the Treaty of Rome".
      That memorandum went on to suggest how that could be remedied by an increase in beer duty, a decrease in the duty on wine or a combination of both.
      I must refer to the Minister of State personally, because in our debate on December 3 he replied on behalf of the Treasury. That speech was remarkable for giving no indication at all of how the Government would respond to

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      those proposals. Although on that occasion he did not give the House any indication of how the Government would respond, I suggest that the Government had already decided how to respond to that Commission document—by an increase in beer duties. The Government want to make that adjustment as speedily as possible because the hon. and learned Gentleman will have to attend a ministerial Council meeting on 4 June, and he will want to be able to say that the United Kingdom has already made the adjustments so that the Council of Ministers, the Commission and the Court have nothing more to worry about. I suggest that that is what is behind the increase in beer duties in the Finance Bill.
      What worries me about the keenness and speed with which the Government want to move into conformity with the Commission document and Court judgment is that if the duties on beer protect our beer industry, they also protect the people who drink the beer. If we impose a duty against wine to protect the beer industry, that duty also protects beer drinkers. That is why I am concerned that, without telling the House of Commons, the Government have already made up their minds about how they will respond to that document. They ought to have made a statement to the House before announcing these increases in duty, and that was the purpose of my amendment.
      6.15 pm
      The Select Committee was clear in its recommendation about how the Government ought to respond to the Commission, when it said in paragraph 31
      "In the United Kingdom case, the Committee consider that excise duty should be brought into this ratio by lowering duties on wine, not raising those on beer".
      The Government have done exactly the opposite. No wonder the hon. and learned Gentleman would not commit the Treasury in that December debate. In fact, in an excellent speech, my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) pointed out that the Germans and Italians did not have duties on their native wine and asked why we should have this imposition forced on our beer industry.
      My right hon. Friend also pointed out that, by what he seemed to say, the Minister of State was almost proposing that many of the Chancellor's powers should be stripped and taken away. In fact, the hon. and learned Gentleman went almost as far as to admit that. My right hon. Friend accused him of being forced to negotiate under duress, and he replied:
      "We are concerned to try to harmonise the structure of Excise duties. Of course, to a degree that involves a circumscription of the rights of the House and the Government."—[Official Report, 3 December 1980; Vol. 995, c. 605–6.]
      In other words, the hon. and learned Gentleman actually admitted that he was about to cave in. Even if the Minister of State now pretends that in some way the Commission's directive and document do not matter that much, he was certainly paving the way for the great sell-out when he made that speech before Christmas.
      The effect of the increase in beer duties and the less than proportional increase in the duty on wine is that we have now reverted to the ratio position prior to our accession to the Community. In other words, the "protective trend" that the Court and the Commission were worried about—the holding down of a beer duty that protected the beer industry against imported wine—has been abolished by the Government. The Government have carried out precisely what the Commission document sought to correct and
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      what the Court judgment sought to implement. To say that it "would have been perverse to have done otherwise" is to conceal and fudge what the Government have achieved. The Minister could almost go the Council of Ministers meeting on 4 June and stick out his chest with pride because of the speed with which his Government have conformed with the directive.
      I am worried because, having abolished the protective trend—which was the Commission's concern and the Court's accusation—the Minister must go further if he is to implement the directive completely. He knows that the directive's ultimate aim is a 3:1 ratio. Currently, as has been said, there is a 4·2:1 ratio. The ratio is to be based on alcoholic strength. If wine has an alcoholic strength of about 12 per cent. and beer has one of 3·5 to 4 per cent., there is some way to go before we achieve full harmonisation. In future, there may be even steeper increases in the duty on beer.
      I tabled an amendment, but it has not been selected. I do not blame you, Mr. Godman Irvine, for that. It sought to expose the Chancellor of the Exchequer's strategy. I suggest that the Government have made up their mind about their response to the Commission's directive. They have put themselves in a position that will enable a pronouncement to be made at the Council of Minister's meeting to the effect that the Government have already conformed because they have already sold out. The Government have clearly caved in as a result of European pressure.
      For the sake of European harmony and harmonisation, I wish that the Danes, the French, the Italians and others would cave in speedily as a result of that pressure. Indeed, the Government have gone further. They have surrendered, yet again, the tax-gathering powers that the House has fought to retain over the years. One of the fundamental reasons for the existence of the House is demonstrated by the fact that over the years it has defended its tax-gathering powers. The hon. and learned Gentleman and the Government are busy selling out those powers.
      Such steps have been taken in order to help the owners of French and continental vineyards. Members of Labour clubs and working-class men in pubs will be asked, once again, to subsidise those who are far better off and who live in France, Italy and so on. A double burden will be imposed on the working man. A burden will be placed on him to raise money not only for the Government, but to protect well-to-do and traditionally well-heeled French vineyard owners.
      Once established, what else will the mechanism be used for? With the accession of Greece to the Community, the price of assistance to retsina producers will be another 1p on the pint. No doubt every country that joins the EEC will insist that its vineyards, wine-producing industries and wine lakes deserve assistance. By putting more duty proportionately on beer, the mechanism could be used for such protection.
      Many Labour Members are worried because there have been one or two leaks from the Treasury to the effect that because it had to make a concession on diesel—which it was well advised to do—it may be tempted to make the amount up by putting even more duty on beer. The Government have caved in to European pressure. They are making the working man pay, as he has always had to. However, this time the situation is more sinister, because working men are also paying for the wine lakes of the Common Market.
      Mr. Roger Sims: I declare an interest in the affairs of the Scotch whisky industry. For several reasons I am disappointed that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has responded to the representations made on behalf of the industry and by hon. Members by increasing the duty on spirits by about 14·5 per cent. That seems to maintain the disparity between the duties levied on various types of alcoholic drink.
      We have heard a good deal from the hon. Members for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook) and for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) on the difference between the duties levied on beer and wine. I draw attention to the difference in the duties on beer, wine and spirits. The duty and tax on a 10oz drink of beer is about 6·3p. On a comparable measure of imported table wine, the duty and tax is about 9·5p. On a similar measure of imported sherry the duty and tax amount to about 8·2p. However, the duty levied on a comparable measure of Scotch whisky is nearly 15·5p. I hope that we can move towards some form of harmonisation or rationalisation of the rates of duty on the various forms of alcoholic drink instead of maintaining such a disparity.
      It is fair to point out that spirits are taxed disproportionately compared with other products. I wonder whether 82 per cent. of the retail price of any other product goes to the Government by way of duty and VAT. I wonder how many of those who pay about £5·85 for a bottle of whisky realise that only just over £1 of that sum goes to the industry. The amount of tax is disproportionate.
      I doubt whether the proposed increase will be effective. My hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean) has given figures which show that the point of diminishing return on spirits has been reached, and probably passed. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) suggested that there might be an interesting effect if the duty were lowered. The right hon. Gentleman has no need of speculation. Curiously, that happened. In 1973, the excise duty on Scotch was reduced in order to compensate for the introduction of VAT, which is levied on both the whisky and the duty. The net effect of that action was to knock only a few pence off the retail price of a bottle of whisky. That year, the Government's revenue from duty on Scotch whisky rose by 14 per cent. Needless to say, the Government increased the duty again the following year. Therefore, one does not necessarily have to increase the duty in order to increase revenue.
      Mr. Cook: In Britain, the consumption of spirits this year is 15 per cent. higher than for the year following that cut in excise duty, which was 1974. That gives rise to other considerations of social policy. Is the hon. Gentleman happy to contemplate an indefinite increase in the consumption of spirits in order to assist the Government's revenue?
      Mr. Sims: In terms of assisting Government revenue, I should have thought that on purely fiscal grounds there was no argument against that. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central raised another question. I hope that the Government will not be unduly influenced by what the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central refers to as social arguments. I suspect that he means health arguments, but he seems to think that it is inherently bad that more alcohol is being consumed. If certain individuals are consuming
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      more alcohol than is good for them, of course, that is bad. However, if more people are drinking a moderate amount—as I suspect—that is not especially bad. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State will not be persuaded by ill-founded arguments.
      6.30 pm
      Alcoholism is a serious problem. I do not underrate it, as it is a subject in which I have taken a great interest. It must be tackled in various ways, but I am not persuaded that raising the price is one of them. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will not accept the health argument as a reason for increasing the price of alcohol. I do not see why we should penalise the 98 per cent. of purchasers of alcohol who use it properly simply because less than 2 per cent. abuse it. If prices are increased the addict will not reduce his consumption but will continue to buy as much alcohol as before and spend less on the necessities of life, such as food. Alternatively, he will buy an inferior quality of alcohol with all the harm that that involves. The problem of alcoholism is not a straight price problem.
      Another aspect of the increase in duty is the level of unemployment. The Government should encourage rather than discourage the creation of more jobs, yet last year the whisky industry had to reduce its work force by nearly 9 per cent. The industry fears that the duty increase in clause 1 will further reduce consumption, and it is already forecasting a reduction in jobs in the coming year of about 4 per cent. We would all regret that. If the Government believe that it is essential to make the increase they could help the industry by agreeing to deferment of duty, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North referred. That facility is enjoyed by providers of other forms of alcohol in the trade. It is not necessary for me to develop the arguments in favour of the facility being extended to the Scotch whisky industry. My hon. and learned Friend will be familiar with that. The case is irrefutable. However, I am sure that we shall be told, "It costs money. We canot afford it this year." That is always the argument against it.
      If the Government insist on placing a further burden on the industry by the imposition of yet more duty they could help the industry, if not by introducing deferred duty now, at least by holding out some hope that it will be introduced in the near future.
      Mr. Joseph Dean: I shall develop further the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield). I want to bring into the debate the part of our social life that the increases affect heavily and, in some cases, dramatically.
      I hope that the Minister will seriously reconsider the problem before the Chancellor recoups the concession made on derv by placing a further burden on beer drinkers. There are already leaks in the press that he might do that. Before I came into Parliament I was the secretary of a large Labour club. I speak not only from that experience, because since I have been the Member for Leeds, West I have visited local working men's clubs in the little time that I have left from my political and constituency business. I am a member of a number of working men's clubs in my area.
      I hope that the Government will look seriously at the effect on clubs of continuing increases in taxes on the most popular drink in those clubs. I know that it will be said that the members, rather than the club, are paying the increase, but the members are the club. I do not know how clubs

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      operate in the South, but working men's clubs in the industrial constituencies in the North are social centres for communities. During the Easter Recess I visited one such club that opens its doors on Tuesday afternoons, for a social function for elderly people from the area. A number of clubs do that.
      I should explain to the Minister what has happened over the past 20 years. When I was secretary of a club I liaised with, and knew what was happening in, all working men's clubs. Most clubs kept their heads above water financially by the bar takings. However, that can no longer happen. No working men's or political club that sells alcoholic beverages can keep its doors open without recourse to gaming machines and tombola, which have recently become legalised. In the old days, clubs had to survive on what came in over the bar. Due to inflation under successive Governments, the clubs would be in serious financial difficulty and would quickly go out of business but for the gaming machines and tombola, which contribute massively to the clubs' financial successes.
      Clubs are not just beer-drinking dens. Most working men's, Club and Institute Union and Labour clubs are well-appointed buildings with a variety of facilities for members, from a lounge where one can drink and chat, to a large games room with facilities for snooker and so on and a concert room for those who like that sort of entertainment. But all clubs must be subsidised by gaming machines and tombola.
      Putting 4p on a pint of beer will have serious consequences, because, although the bar takings in clubs have risen dramatically, the percentage of profits has reduced equally dramatically. The 4p paid on the pint looks good on the bar takings balance sheet on an annual basis, but the calculation of percentage of profit on gross sales dips remarkably.
      These organisations are social centres for their areas. In the main they are run or managed within the law as good examples of how people can organise themselves. The CIU clubs are run by men because they still do not accept women in their clubs. Some people have tried to make them progress, but there is little movement in that direction. Clubs are generally managed by officers and members of a committee on a honorary or amateur basis. There is a little remuneration in the form of expenses or honoraria, but that cannot compensate for the number of hours spent by those running the clubs. I know how the decisions of successive Governments to increase the price of beer are greeted by those who use working men's clubs.
      I do not want to get involved in a wider political argument, but I know one club, which is not in a highly rated area, that faces a £2,000 increase in its rates this year. That club will need bar sales of between £8,000 and £10,000 to meet that additional cost. In addition, there have been enormous increases under successive Governments in lighting and heating charges. I was appalled when I compared this year's balance sheet and expenses with the levels of seven years ago when I was secretary of that club.
      Club members and committees are becoming increasingly concerned and disappointed that Governments appear to regard them as the goose that lays the golden egg. I hope that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer is thinking about transferring the cost of the derv concession on to those who like a pint of beer, the Minister of State will convey to him the points that I have made.
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      It was claimed earlier that the Opposition were being parochial, political and class-conscious in wishing to protect the beer drinker rather than the wine drinker. I accept that the working-class are drinking more wine. Working-class people tend to buy the occasional bottle of wine to drink with a meal at home at weekends, but there is no doubt that beer from the pumps, supplemented by bottled beer, accounts for the vast majority of bar sales in working men's clubs and political clubs.
      I hope that the Government will take into account the effects of an increase in the price of beer and will not treat the issue too lightly. I am putting down a marker for the future, so that the subject will be considered.
      Mr. Peter Rees: We have had a temperate and far-ranging debate, moving easily from Brussels to working men's clubs. I assure the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Dean) that I listened to him carefully, and he will appreciate that his comments do not apply only to working men's clubs and Labour clubs. Members of Conservative clubs may express similar sentiments.
      It was interesting to hear from both sides of the Committee how many geese are laying golden eggs which the Chancellor of the Exchequer may be threatening My right hon. and learned Friend is acutely conscious of the supply of golden eggs and their source, whether it be the whisky industry, working men's clubs or wherever.
      It is a perennial concern of Chancellors to strike the right balance and to ensure that a fair proportion of revenue is extracted from various sources and that none is subjected to the law of diminishing returns. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Cook) asked why more duty was not piled on whisky. The answer came more eloquently and effectively that I could have given it from the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) and my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims), who has a well-known interest in, and experience of, the whisky industry.
      Whisky has contributed a fair proportion to our revenue over the years. The increased revenue as a result of the Budget will be about £60 million, and we are sensitive to the charge that if we increase duties unduly whisky will be subject to the law of diminishing returns.
      Our researches demonstrate that the elasticity of demand for whisky is greater than that for beer. The researches are not subject to total scientific accuracy, but they show that the elasticity of demand for whisky is 1·3 and that for beer is 0·2, which demonstrates the point made by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst.
      6.45 pm
      Mr. Cook: I remind the Minister of State, for the record, that I did not press for more duty to be placed on whisky or other spirits. I accepted and supported the Government's policy to revalorise duties in line with inflation as a step towards stabilising consumption.
      Perhaps I may fortify the hon. and learned Gentleman's resolve to take that step. He will recall that I quoted from a report of the Expenditure Committee in 1976 in which we recommended that the rates of duty on alcohol should keep pace with the rise in earnings. The hon. Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims) sat on that Committee, signed the report and did not dissent from that recommendation. I do not know why he dissents from it now.
      Mr. Rees: I am always happy to be fortified by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central, provided we are moving in the right direction. I hope that I did not give a wrong dimension to his remarks. I understood that the main thrust of his first point was that we should preserve the general pattern of excise duties that we inherited from the previous Government. However, that was a slightly distorted pattern. For whatever reason, the duty on beer had been allowed to diminish proportionately after the substantial increases in 1975, which went way beyond the increases that we propose.
      We have to take into account other factors, including changing public tastes—the public are acquiring enthusiasm for, interest in, and a taste for wine—and the future of the whisky industry, which has made a substantial contribution to our revenues and to exports.
      It was invited to comment on the export performance of the whisky industry. It has been remarkably successful. Exports have risen from 62 million proof gallons in 1970–71 to 107 million proof gallons in 1979–80. It may be encountering a period of slight difficulty. Tastes may be changing in Japan, Suntory whisky may have acquired a hold on the affections of the country that produces it—it is not for me to comment on its charms or otherwise—and the pattern of tastes in the United States may be changing. Such factors have to be taken into account. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland and my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst were right to remind us of the contribution of the whisky industry over the years, and I hope that nothing that I say will demonstrate any lack of concern.
      The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central asked me why the duty on wine had not been increased by more. He and his hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield) widened that point into a consideration of the harmonisation of duties within the EEC. I shall come to the more general point, but one cogent reason for not further increasing the duty on wine is that the duty was increased considerably in the first two years of the previous Labour Government. If we are looking for a pattern of duties, I must remind the Committee that in 1974 the increase in the duty on wine was about 66 per cent. and the increase in the duty on beer was about 35 per cent. The increase in 1975 was 98 per cent. for wine and 46 per cent. for beer.
      Mr. Les Huckfield: Can the hon. and learned Gentleman tell the Committee how he gets those figures? He said that that was the percentage increase on the previous duty. What does he think the previous duty was, to give increases of that order? Also, he is saying that the last Labour Government put big increases on beer and on wine. Which charge is he making?
      Mr. Rees: On the previous amendment a powerful attack was mounted from the Opposition Benches that we were discriminating against beer, which was alleged to be the drink of ordinary working men, although I think the taste for it is widely diffused. I said that that was a doubtful argument, given the record of the last Administration. I go a stage further and point out that, even by reference to the extraordinary increases in the duty on beer in 1974–75, there were yet more extraordinary increases in the duty on wine. If we are looking at the pattern, I do not think that we can necessarily freeze it on the basis on which we inherited it from the last Adminstration. Those are the only two points I wish to make.
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      I turn to the question of the harmonisation of duties under the aegis of the European Community. The hon. Member for Nuneaton, who made his case in more extravagant language than did the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central, was endeavouring to expose the strategy of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said that we succumbed with alacrity and too great a speed to the blandishments or threats—I do not know which—of the Commission or the European Court.
      We have to view the problem in a slightly different dimension. It could be that, with all his assiduity, the hon. Member for Nuneaton did not follow our debate last December—I do not recall his taking part; he may have had good reasons for not doing so—with all its nuances as closely as those who actually took part. I remind the Committee that we are a member of the European Community, and that to a degree that involves a slight circumscription of our national sovereignty. That may be a matter of regret to right hon. and hon. Members, not only on the Opposition side of the Committee, which includes the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore) who is well known for his views.
      This issue was a matter of negotiation and debate under a succession of Administrations, Conservative and Labour. It was put clearly to the country in the referendum organised by the Administration of which the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar was a distinguished member. I do not think one need go too deeply into all the principles underlying our membership. It is implicit in our membership that there will be a certain circumscription of our national sovereignty.
      There are corresponding advantages to be set against that. [HON. MEMBERS: "No".] I am coming to that in a moment. On the harmonisation of excise duties Labour Members have made it appear that harmonisation was designed—I cite the unattractive phrase that was used—to clobber the British beer-drinker. "A sinister clobbering of working men" was the phrase used uncharacteristically emotively by the hon. Member for Nuneaton. I do not know what has stirred him on this occasion. It may be that the synthetic frenzy to which I referred in the previous debate has been carried over into this debate. But for one or two uncharacteristic phrases, it was a temperate debate.
      One aspect of the harmonisation of duties is the introduction of a ratio between the duties on wine and those on beer. As I said, these are only proposals and no conclusion has yet been reached. There are other aspects which would be of considerable advantage to certain parts of the country. For example, if we could ensure that there was no discrimination duty-wise against whisky then I am sure that even the hon. Member for Nuneaton would recognise the advantages. Certainly they would be recognised by my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst and the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. We must look at the package when it finally emerges. It would be doing less than justice to the debate if the hon. Gentleman concentrated on one aspect.
      If clause 1 commends itself to the Committee, all that will happen is that the ratio between wine and beer duties will be 4·2, or slightly less, to 1, which was approximately the ratio when we entered the European Community. Therefore it is difficult for hon. Gentlemen to say that there has been a shameful sell-out to the Common Market. All we have done is to move back to the pattern that existed in 1972–73.
      Mr. Huckfield: I do not want to keep pressing this point, but it is the crucial one that we have all been talking about. The last Administration deliberately raised wine duty proportionately more than beer duty because they realised that there was a social implication and that beer and wine drinking were not directly in competition. The Government are reversing that whole policy. The hon. and learned Gentleman cannot pass it off just like that. There has been a quite dramatic reversal of policy which, I submit, has been caused because his Government have sold out to the Common Market.
      Mr. Rees: There has been a dramatic reversal of policy in many fields consequent on the decision of the electorate on 9 May 1979. For some reason the hon. Gentleman does not appear to have noticed the passage of years and the decision of the electorate. This is one of the consequences that he must face. We do not accept the social implications which his right hon. Friends affected to detect when they constructed their Budgets in 1974–75. The hon. Gentleman does not appear to have noticed that the social pattern and social tastes have changed. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central has recognised that there is a wider taste for wine. I do not think that we should be expected to express a moral view on that. We recognise it and it reinforces the pattern that we are endeavouring to establish by this budgetary measure.
      The idea that there has been undue deference to the Commission is false. We should have been absurdly perverse and had our heads in the sand if we had not taken some account of what was happening. There has been an interim judgment in the infraction proceedings. There has been no final decision yet, and the Commission's proposals have not reached finality. It may be that they will come up for debate in June. The hon. Gentleman assumes too much. These matters take a certain time to establish. May I remind the Committee and the hon. Gentleman in particular that what was proposed was a ratio of 3:1 over seven years?
      Obviously the hon. Gentleman has not paid close attention to the figures. If clause 1 commends itself to the Committee we will have a wine-beer ratio of 4·17:1. I do not notice the hon. Gentleman, who was in the House at
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      that time, object strenuously to a ratio of 4·2:1 back in 1972 or 1973. That was achieved independently of our negoiations for entry into the Common Market.
      Mr. Cook: Without putting too many charges of "sell-out" or otherwise, may I put to the hon. and learned Gentleman a simple question? If there were no Common Market or if this matter had not attracted the attention of the Common Market would he, of his own volition, have chosen an increase in excise duties on the same pattern as is contained in this Bill?
      Mr. Rees: That is a hypothetical question, but I shall endeavour to answer it. Yes, I suspect that we would. We shall be raising an additional £370 million of duty by the increase in the duty on beer. Sums of that order cannot be found from an increase in the duties on whisky and wine, or even on whisky, wine and fortified wine.
      As I said in the debate on the previous amendment, no one on the Government Benches, unless moved by temperance arguments, relishes increasing the duties, but the money has to be found. We can debate the balance and the pattern. It is dragging in a red herring to suggest that this is a shameful, dishonourable sellout to the forces of Brussels. The hon. Gentleman must use what language he likes, but it does not advance the level of debate to make that kind of point. There are perfectly sound fiscal reasons unconnected with the harmonisation proposals which led my right hon. and learned Friend to make these proposals.
      I hope that, on reflection, and having given the subject a full airing, the Committee will recognise that, although there is a change in the pattern of excise duties by reference to what we inherited from the Labour administration, there are sound reasons for adopting the new pattern and, in the absence of constructive suggestions as to alternative sources of revenue, I hope that the clause will commend itself to the Committee.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
      Schedules 1 and 2 agreed to.
      To report Progress and ask leave to sit again tomorrow.—[Mr. Peter Rees.]
      Committee report Progress; to sit again tomorrow.

  Supreme Court Bill [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read
  7.3 pm
  The Attorney-General (Sir Michael Havers): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  I do not know whether it is through the lack of sex appeal of the Bill or because tomorrow there are to be certain elections, but, with the exception of the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer), whom I welcome, the Opposition Benches are deserted. If it is the latter, perhaps we could have local elections more often to speed up the dispatch of the business of the House.
  The primary purpose of the Bill is to consolidate the existing statutory provisions governing the constitution, jurisdiction and practice of the Supreme Court, that is, the Court of Appeal, the High Court and, since 1971, the Crown court. It also contains a number of amendments to the existing law, where necessary to improve on that law in the light of current conditions. So it is not a Bill which could be passed through the House under the normal procedure for consolidation Bills, of which the House will be agog to hear there are two to be considered later this evening.
  A consolidation measure in the technical sense would not have been satisfactory, for two reasons. In the first place, many of the principal provisions relating to the Supreme Court date back to the 1870s, when that court was first created by the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873. Although those two Acts were consolidated with the subsequent Acts and other cognate provisions in the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act 1925, that Act was a pure consolidation, so that most of its provisions still in effect date back to the 1870s. Not only is a good deal of the language somewhat outdated, therefore, by comparison with more modern provisions relating to the Supreme Court, such as those in the Administration of Justice Act 1970 and the Courts Act 1971, but it contains many provisions which are now, after more than 100 years, no longer needed. It has, accordingly, become desirable to restate this body of law in shorter and more modern form.
  The second reason why consolidation alone would not have sufficed is that, in addition to restating existing statutory provisions, it is desirable to make a number of changes in the substance of the law. Before I describe the more important changes it might be helpful to the House if I outlined briefly the history of this important body of legislation providing, as it does, for the administration of justice at first instance and on appeal in all the more important cases, both civil and criminal, falling to be dealt with by the courts in England and Wales.
  Before the 1873 Act there were seven superior courts, each administering civil justice, with their jurisdictions overlapping and sometimes conflicting. It had been so for centuries, but the Royal Commission presided over by Lord Cairns which reported in 1869 proposed that the separate courts of Queen's Bench, Common Pleas, Exchequer, Chancery, Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty should all be consolidated into one Supreme Court, and this is what was achieved by the 1873 Act.
  That Act provided for the Supreme Court to consist of the High Court, to deal with matters at first instance previously dealt with in the seven old courts, and for the
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  Court of Appeal to hear appeals from the High Court and exercise several earlier appellate jurisdictions. The Act also provided for the abolition of appeals to the House of Lords. The latter provision was, however, deleted from the 1873 Act by the Act of 1875, passed before the earlier Act was brought into force and, in 1876, the Appellate Jurisdiction Act made fresh provision for appeals to the House of Lords. By then the modern edifice as we know it had been created. There was one Supreme Court consisting of the High Court and the Court of Appeal. The business of the High Court was allocated, for convenience, to five separate divisions, reduced to three in 1881.
  Since the 1925 Act, major institutional changes have been the creation of the criminal division of the Court of Appeal, replacing the old Court of Criminal Appeal, which was done by the Criminal Appeal Act 1966. It may be of interest to the House, although it is totally irrelevant to the Bill, to know that there were 35 attempts in Parliament to create a Court of Criminal Appeal before it was established.
  The major reorganisation of jurisdiction under the Administration of Justice Act 1970, which established the family division, created the post of vice-chancellor in the Chancery division and set up the Admiralty Court and the Commercial Court within the Queen's Bench Division and the Crown court as part of the Supreme Court.
  This last change was, of course, the result of the work of the Royal Commission on quarter sessions and assizes under the chairmanship of Lord Beeching, which perhaps bears some comparison with that of the commission under Lord Cairns which reported exactly 100 years before. The Beeching report, published in 1969, was radical in its analysis and practical in its recommendations, although those have not been altogether accepted by everyone connected with the law. Within well under two years of the report's being signed, the Courts Act 1971, establishing the Crown Court in place of court of assize and quarter sessions, had received the Royal Assent. More recently, the Patents Court was established as part of the High Court by the Patents Act 1977.
  In a Bill of this nature some degree of choice requires to be exercised over what should be included and what should be left out. There are two main classes of exclusions, as indicated in the second paragraph of the explanatory and financial memorandum to the Bill, which I am sure all hon. and right hon. Members will have read avidly and with the greatest care. These are matters that conveniently form a separate code of their own—for example, the existing provisions about funds in court in the Administation of Justice Act 1965 and the provisions for criminal appeals in the Criminal Appeal Act 1968. The memorandum draws attention to all the changes of any importance that are made by the Bill. I shall not take up the time of the House by rehearsing every one, but there are certain to which I feel I should refer. My hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General may refer to others when he deals with points raised during the debate.
  Perhaps the most important group of changes, which I welcome particularly, are those designed to facilitate the dispatch of business in the Court of Appeal in both its civil and criminal jurisdiction. The present pressure of business in the Court of Appeal, especially in the civil division, is very heavy. The waiting time between the setting down of a final appeal and the hearing is about eight or nine months. This is partly due to two other factors. First, restrictions on access to the Court of Appeal have not been

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  kept up to date. Secondly, there is no system whereby routine preliminary matters can be dealt with other than by the judges themselves.
  In December 1978 a working party under Lord Scarman recommended certain changes to help in these matters.
  The most important change recommended by the working party and implemented by the Bill is the creation of a new office of registrar of civil appeals. This appears in paragraph 9 of part II of schedule 2 and the provision in clause 58(1) whereby rules of court can give single judges and the registrar jurisdiction to deal with preliminary and incidental matters.
  The House will be surprised to hear that, at present, the Court of Appeal has no staff of its own except the clerks to the Master of the Rolls and the individual lords justices. Nor does it have any judicial officer apart from the Master of the Rolls and the lords justices who can deal with interlocutory questions and see that cases are properly prepared for presentation and made ready for the court to hear. The three divisions of the High Court all find it necessary to have judicial officers to deal with interlocutory matters. In addition, the criminal division of the Court of Appeal finds it essential to have appellate cases properly prepared. In this, the criminal division is well served by the registrar of criminal appeals and his staff. I pay a particular tribute to the registrar and his staff. I am convinced that the great deal of work that they perform is instrumental in speeding up the passage of criminal appeals.
  The new arrangement for the civil division will relieve the lords justices of work that does not require to be dealt with by them. I hope that the new arrangement will therefore make a contribution towards expediting civil appeals.
  Other changes in the civil division will be that applications for leave to appeal can be finally determined by a single judge under clause 54(6) and the Lord Chancellor will have power by order made with the concurrence of the Master of the Rolls and therefore subject to parliamentary control to extend the classes of case that can be determined by a two-judge court rather than a court composed of three judges. The types of appeal to be prescribed might include certain county court cases.
  Finally, in connection with the civil division of the Court of Appeal, schedule 3(10) enables the Lord Chancellor to prescribe by order classes of proceedings in which appeals from county courts to the Court of Appeal will require the leave of either the county court judge or the Court of Appeal. Appeals from county courts currently make up a third of final appeals outstanding. I was astounded to discover that the present limit on such appeals have not only stood a long time, but that the present limit is £20 on appeals on questions of law. One is not surprised to learn that this situation dates from the nineteenth century. The £200 limit on questions of fact dates from 1938. This power will again be subject to parliamentary control by negative resolution. It is the intention of my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor to bring forward an order under the new power to come into force with the Bill.
  In the criminal division of the Court of Appeal, waiting times for the hearings of appeals are far too long. For sentence appeals the average is 20 weeks, while for appeal against conviction it is 40 weeks. One is aware of the tremendous amount of work done by the judges in the criminal division of the Court of Appeal in trying to make
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  up the backlog. They have had substantial success. I would also like to pay tribute to the success of the Divisional Court in making startling improvements to the waiting time in that court.
  Mr. Ivan Lawrence:: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware of the enormous pressure put on the shoulders of the criminal judges, who often have to consider the subject matter of appeals in the late afternoon and evening, sometimes stretching into the night, after their daily work is done? That is not a desirable state of affairs. There may now be too much pressure on some judges in the Court of Appeal criminal division. I wonder whether my right hon. and learned Friend will examine the matter, to see whether the pressure can be relieved.
  The Attorney-General: My hon. Friend is right. When possible, as he will know, the Court of Appeal criminal division tries to arrange what is called a reading day, when the judges do not sit in order to enable them to catch up. It still means, however, that they have to sit, often at home, late into the night, reading. The burden on the single judge dealing with applications for leave is often impossible. My hon. Friend will notice that the Bill increases the number of High Court judges. I hope that this will enable more rotation and so avoid leaving judges with an excessive amount of work for an unnecessarily long period. The burden on a High Court judge, whether sitting in the court that we have been discussing or in a Crown Court, is far greater than ever before. This reflects the increase in crime and the increased time taken by so many trials. I would like to pay tribute to all those concerned with the administration of justice, who are doing so well against the odds.
  I was saying that the waiting time for appeals against conviction in the criminal division of the Court of Appeal is 40 weeks. One cause of delay is the need to wait for a transcript. This element of delay has been reduced by a third in the past year. There is a simple explanation. If a shorthand writer is in court all day, and will be in court again every day of that week, he has to try to produce the transcript when he gets home. It may be some distance between the court and his home. In the past, shorthand writers would not have been in court every day. They would have been allowed time off to prepare transcripts. The demand on shorthand writers has been great but they have responded magnificently and the delay has been reduced.
  If sentencing appeals could be dealt with by a court consisting of two rather than three judges, this would make a substantial contribution to reducing generally the delay in hearing appeals. Clause 55(4) accordingly extends the jurisdiction of two-judge courts to enable them to deal with appeals against sentence only. Such appeals are generally less weighty than appeals against conviction, but the Lord Chief Justice will retain the discretion to direct the use of a three-judge court for such cases as appear to be weighty enough to warrant it. It will continue to be mandatory for appeals against conviction to be heard by a court of not less than three judges. If there is any anxiety about what will happen when there are two judges who take differing views, the Bill provides that the appeal is heard by a full court of three.
  Another important change made by the Bill relates to the transfer of civil proceedings between the High Court and the county courts. Schedule 3(7) inserts two new

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  sections into the County Courts Act 1959 which both codify the existing miscellaneous powers to order transfer of cases from the High Court to a county court, and vice versa, and extend the power so that in future the court will have power to make such an order of its own motion instead of on the application of the parties as at present. The purpose is to ensure that, as far as possible, cases are tried in the forum appropriate to the amount in dispute or the degree of complexity of the issues. It is hoped, therefore, that there will be less reliance on the use of deputy judges in the Queen's Bench division.
  The Lord Chancellor is the president of the Chancery division, reflecting the historical fact that for many centuries the Lord Chancellor and the Chancery Court were practically one and the same. That position will be retained. However, nowadays the day-to-day administration is conducted by the vice-chancellor, who is a simple Chancery judge. That is perhaps an impolite way of expressing myself. He is nominated from among the Chancery judges by the Lord Chancellor. For all practical purposes the vice-chancellor is one of the heads of divisions, as are the Lord Chief Justice, the president of the family division and others. The Bill provides for him to be recognised as such. Thus, he will be appointed by the Queen and will be an ex-officio judge.
  The existing rights to trial by jury in civil actions in the Queen's Bench division, are reproduced in clause 69, with one signifcant change. That change clearly does not meet with total approval. At present, if a party to one of the types of proceedings in which a jury trial might currently be ordered—cases of fraud, libel, slander, malicious prosecution or false imprisonment—applies for jury trial, such a trial must be ordered unless it requires prolonged examination of documents or accounts or a scientific and local investigation that cannot conveniently be made with a jury. Responding to a recent trial and to feelings expressed for a number of years, the Bill adds a second ground. The court may refuse jury trial if it is satisfied that the probable length of the trial makes the action one that cannot conveniently be tried by jury. It will be within the discretion of the judge to whom the application is made.
  The change was made by an amendment in another place tabled by three members of the judiciary and accepted by the Government. They were prompted by the action brought against the Daily Mail by the Unification Church. Originally it was estimated that that trial would last for three days. It ran from early October to the end of March—nearly six months.
  The jury discharged its duty with great dedication, but it made representations to the judge that no future jury should have to suffer such a lengthy term of duty. It is intolerable that ordinary citizens should have their lives disrupted for such a long time for the purpose of determining a private dispute. Therefore, clause 69(1) gives the court a discretion to refuse a jury if the case is likely to take an exceptionally long time.
  The Bill contains a number of other detailed changes with which I shall not weary the House. If any cause anxiety, they will be dealt with later. The Bill was welcomed in the other place. I commend it to the House. It provides a coherent and economical restatement of an important body of constitutional legislation and contains some useful amendments to existing provisions.
  7.23 pm
  Mr. Peter Archer: I thank the Attorney-General for his kind references to me. He noted that the Opposition Benches were not exactly packed to suffocation. If he looks round he will see that his colleagues are not exactly in danger of suffering from claustrophobia.
  In the debate on the Supreme Court of Judicature Act 1873, Mr. Matthews, who was the hon. Member for Dungarven, made a speech. I quote from the 3rd Series, Vol. 216, c. 676 of Parliamentary Debates. In accordance with practice, reported speech was used.
  "Mr. Matthews said, the fact of the debate having been carried on in a very thin House was not encouraging to the friends of Law Reform, for though the Bill was one which vitally affected the interest of every subject of the Queen who had to go into a Court of Law, the debate upon it had been addressed to only 12 or 20 hon. Members."
  I referred to that passage on 14 January in the debate on the Courts Act 1971. I said that they had beaten our score. That is also the case tonight.
  I regret that not more of our lay colleagues are taking part in the debate. I wish that we could induce them to participate because they are concerned with the ways in which our legal system can better serve their constituents. They can bring their experience to bear on where the shoe pinches. The law is too important to leave to the lawyers. It is no great relief to lawyers that their lay colleagues write them a blank cheque.
  In a debate last week I criticised Government policy. This Bill offers less opportunity for controversy. It is an attempt to make the administration of justice as smooth, expeditious and fair as possible. We can approve of much of the Bill. Much of it is consolidation. Consolidation measures do not change the course of history or even provide the standard topic of conversation. They facilitate the task of busy people who have to administer the law. We shall not seek to discourage the Government from introducing consolidation measures.
  We read with pleasure some of the Bill's contents. The Attorney-General referred to the office of Vice-Chancellor being given statutory recognition among the heads of divisions in clause 4. In clause 10 the position is recognised as a royal appointment and it is included with ex-officio Court of Appeal status, in clause 2. That means that the work of Sir Robert Megarry, who has occupied that office with great distinction for some years, will now be recognised. That is right.
  We are also pleased that the Government have given thought to the problems of the Court of Appeal. They are only part of the wider problem of staying abreast of the volume of work which is always breathing down our necks and outdistancing the running which we have to do to stay in the same place, with a consequent lengthening of the time before cases are heard.
  One aspect has been much discussed recently and was referred to by the Lord Chancellor—the length of time occupied by some jury proceedings. I should be out of order if I embarked on a discussion about whether we should remove the right of jury trial, for example in criminal trials for fraud. The House will have other opportunities to debate how we reconcile the need to expedite cases with such important safeguards for individual liberty as the right to jury trial. I accept that if a jury is to consist of a typical cross-section of the

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  community there must be a limit to how long we can ask 12 people, chosen at random, to devote each working day to something other than their normal occupation.
  In relation to the right to jury trial in certain civil proceedings, the Bill proposes an important change in the law. At present, each party has a right to jury trial in certain cases, particularly fraud and defamation. By the amendment in the other place to which the Attorney-General referred, that right is replaced by a discretion. I understand the reason for sparing jurors long periods of absence from their normal business, but the Bill removes, almost by a side wind, what has been considered an important constitutional right, and one which has proved itself in practice to be an effective institution worthy of the confidence that it has won from the community.
  The Attorney-General confirmed that it was a reaction to one case. We should like to be assured that it is not an over-reaction. We shall return to this matter. I hope that we shall be told, if the principal criterion is likely to be the length of the trial that a case is estimated to take, what, broadly, would be regarded as an unacceptable period. If other factors are to be taken into account, what will those other factors be?
  Mr. David Mellor: I support what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says. I draw his attention to the terms of the amendment that was proposed in the other place, which appeared to suggest that durations of four, six or eight weeks were excessive. Is that not rather disturbing?
  Mr. Archer: I agree with the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor). It would make what appears to be a serious inroad into a person's right to trial by jury.
  One other matter that puzzles me as a matter of logic is that the case referred to by the Attorney-General, and by the Lord Chancellor in another place, was one in which what went wrong was the failure to estimate the probable length of the case. The new provision can operate only if the probable length of a case is estimated accurately. When the length of a case is known with reasonable accuracy, potential jurors can be warned beforehand, and provision can be made for any problems that may arise. I do not see how the Bill will solve the problem of inaccurate estimates. We shall return to the matter later.
  I come back to the Court of Appeal. It has been an open secret for many years that the lords justices are among the most overworked officials in the country. They may be called upon to pass judgment in issues arising from any part of the law of England and Wales. Of course, the whole point of a court of appeal is that the legal system should develop as a whole, so that the reasoning in an issue of criminal law shall not be inconsistent with the reasoning in an issue of Revenue law or Admiralty law. The United Kingdom has deliberately chosen as a matter of policy to have a single Court of Appeal whereas, as Lord Wilberforce said in another place, many continental systems deliberately choose a multiplicity of courts of appeal.
  It follows that lords justices should be familiar with recent decisions across the whole field of law. That, as we all know, is a time-consuming exercise. But that is not all that we expect of them. Our judges should be men of the broadest learning, to ensure that the law does not develop in isolation from other disciplines—the natural and social sciences, literature, the arts, psychology, technology and all the other branches of learning.
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  Then there is the matter of keeping abreast of current news. In Standing Committee A, as the Attorney-General knows—at the cost of demands on his time—the Contempt of Court Bill is being considered. We are discussing whether our appellate judges should be protected from public discussion, even in specific cases which they may have to consider, or whether they may be positively helped to know how the current of public opinion is running. We say cheerfully that judges are spokesmen for the public in expressing condemnation of certain activities and the need to protect others. If that is true, it is vital that they should not be insulated from public opinion. But how can they remain abreast of opinion if no waking moment is available to them, when they have time to read current newspapers and journals?
  In another place, Lord Scarman recollected that his working party, which reported in December 1978, recommended that lords justices should be afforded one working day each week when they were free to write their judgments and prepare for forthcoming cases. That contrasted sadly with what was said by Lord Roskill, that lords justices work a seven-day week, 14 hours a day. How can we ask them to remain abreast of what is happening in the outside world when those are their working conditions?
  One possible solution is to adopt a procedure to admit of more expensive written submissions. That would effect a substantial saving of time in court—the long time that is spent, after opening the case, going through all the papers. I recollect spending a happy morning in the New York Court of Appeals, when they disposed in that one morning of three appeals, each of which in this country would have taken one-and-a-half to two days. Of course, that entailed a lot of paper work—written briefs, and many hours of work in chambers, but it achieved an overall saving in judicial time.
  We may not need to swing so far as that towards reliance on paper work and away from oral argument, but if we keep judges in court for the whole of each working day, we cannot expect that quiet reflection which should form part of their job. The standard of our Court of Appeal, compared with most other countries, is extremely high, but that should not mislead us into believing that our system is beyond improvement.
  The Attorney-General: One matter in the right hon. and learned Member's speech particularly interests me, as always happens with his speeches. On the matter of written briefs, does he have in mind the sort of arguments that one commits to paper—the outlines of one's case—as in a case in the House of Lords? Is that what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has in mind?
  Mr. Archer: That is exactly the sort of analogy that had occurred to me—not the detailed briefs that American jurisdictions are used to, but the kind of thing that happens here in the House of Lords.
  Among those who have directed their minds to the problem of judicial time in the Court of Appeal is a distinguished former lord justice, who presided over one division for many years, Sir John Megaw. In another place, my noble Friend Lord Elwyn-Jones mentioned the results of his analysis. He seemed to say, in essence—I had an opportunity to discuss the matter with him—that there are three ways of reducing the burden and speeding the hearing of appeal: we may reduce the rights of appeal;

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  we may increase the numbers of lords justices; or we may reduce the amount of judicial time spent on each appeal. None of those methods is particularly attractive, as Sir John Megaw readily recognised, and no one would recommend a drastic or dramatic attack on the problem at any of those points.
  I accept that the second solution is not likely in any event in the present financial climate, apart from the danger of diluting the standard of appointments or of denuding the present High Court bench and the legal profession. However, there is room for imagination in the other two respects. There are ways of reducing the amount of judicial time spent on appeals. One is to channel the interlocutory work, or much of the interlocutory work, elsewhere. As the Attorney-General reminded us, Lord Scarman's report included a recommendation for the appointment of a registrar of civil appeals. I echo what the Attorney-General said. It is incredible that at present the Court of Appeal has no staff other than the clerks to the judges. The Bill provides for a registrar. I hope that that will relieve the lords justices of much of their present interlocutory work and ensure that cases are listed when, and only when, they are ready for hearing. Perhaps an analogy will be the kind of role played with such distinction and success on the criminal side by Master Thompson and his staff. So that provision will be welcomed by Labour Members.
  What puzzles us is why it was necessary to make such a secret of the provision, when one would expect the Government to blazon it abroad. To find the provision, it is necessary to turn to clause 88, then to find paragraph 9 of part II of schedule 2. There, unobtrusively, stands the simple description of an office "Registrar of civil appeals". It transpires that he must be a
  "barrister or solicitor of not less than 10 years' standing".
  So, clearly, he is to be a person of some calibre. However, as Lord Scarman said, the Bill does not say what his powers or duties will be, or whether he will be provided with a staff, and, if so, how many No guidance is given as to any changes in the rules that are likely to follow. If the Solicitor-General can give us some information on the matter, we shall be most grateful.
  One other provision relating to the amount of judicial time spent on hearing each appeal is contained in clause 54(4), which sets out the circumstances in which a hearing may be by a court of two judges. The other provisions in that subsection are what we expected to find. However, there a power will be invested in the Lord Chancellor, with the concurrence of the Master of the Rolls, to prescribe certain descriptions of appeal which may be heard by a court of two judges.
  One factor that has led to the building up of the confidence now enjoyed by the Court of Appeal is that, in the first instance, the decisions of one judge are then considered by a court of three judges. We know in practice how the quality of the argument and the judgments is enhanced by the interplay of three minds. We hope that inroads will not be made lightly into that standard. We accept that the pressures have to be met and savings in judicial time have to be made. I hope that we may hear subsequently from the Attorney-General about the circumstances the Lord Chancellor has in mind when he will avail himself of that power.
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  One other question, to which the Attorney-General helpfully supplied the answer, is what will happen if the two judges disagree. It is a relief to know that there will not be a danger that rules of law will be established at Court of Appeal level which rest simply on a disagreement between two judges. That will be achieved by a rehearing of the case concerned before three judges. Although that may not happen frequently, some of the time saved will be lost by a duplication of hearings. So much for reducing the amount of judicial time spent on each appeal.
  On the question of reducing the number of appeals, we note that clause 145 and schedule 3 provide for certain amendments to the County Courts Act, 1959, as set out in paragraph 10, which states:
  "The Lord Chancellor may by order prescribe classes of proceedings in which there is to be no right of appeal … without the leave either of the judge of the County Court or of the Court of Appeal."
  We accept that the limits have not kept pace with inflation.
  There was some discussion in another place, based on the anxieties of people such as Lord Elwyn-Jones, about what would be the relevant criteria in deciding which classes of proceedings should be prescribed. I imagine that the House will wish to discuss each specific proposal when it appears in the form of a draft order. It follows that the orders should be subject to an affirmative resolution. We know the difficulties of negative resolutions, with the best of good will of all concerned. Of course, hon. Members may set down a prayer, but whether time is found to debate it is a Government decision. We understand that sometimes the Government consider that other pressures must take priority.
  Sir Graham Page: The right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to a draft order. We shall not see that. It is simply an annulment procedure in the House.
  Mr. Archer: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for correcting me. That is a further anxiety. Without wishing to prolong the length of my speech, while we are discussing the county court, I wish to seize the opportunity to tell the Government that some of us are profoundly disturbed by the proposal substantially to increase the jurisdiction of the county court across the board by reference to the amount claimed and without distinguishing the nature of the claim, and especially to increase substantially the limits to the costs sanction. I know that that proposal does not arise within the Bill, and if I embark upon a major discussion I shall be out of order. However, it forms part of the context of the Bill.
  As the Government know, there are those who are troubled about the proposal to extend the costs sanction to £3,000 in one jump in personal injury claims, especially industrial injuries. Issues are likely to arise in that class of case which are as difficult in a small claim as they are in a large claim—for example, the nature of the expert evidence, perhaps by an engineer, will be exactly the same. Therefore, the cost incurred would be the same. It is often easier for an engineer to attend the HighCourt—and cheaper for him to do so—than to go to a county court.
  I do not propose to embark upon a detailed discussion of that matter. The Attorney-General is no doubt aware of the anxieties of some trade unions and the correspondence between the Lord Chancellor's Department and Mr. Brian Thompson. He may be aware of the anxiety, for different reasons, of the Shrievalty Association about enforcement

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  procedures. We discussed that matter briefly during Question Time on 9 March. We are a little unhappy that those representations appear to have been totally ignored. There was no question of some compromise. The limit for the costs sanction increased from £1,200 to £3,000—an increase of 150 per cent. at one jump.
  I wish to raise two other topics. The Bill is similar to one which, in another context, the Lord Chancellor described as a collection of Committee points. During recent years the courts have developed a number of remedies to prevent dishonest defendants from avoiding their obligations. Two examples of that are the Mareva injunction and the Anton Piller order. For the benefit of our lay colleagues, the Mareva injunction prevents defendants against whom a claim for damages may be made from removing their assets from the jurisdiction so that, if a judgment is given against them, the successful plaintiff may find that there are no assets within the jurisdiction. That order can be served on a bank to ensure that money standing to a potential defendant's credit in a bank account will not be removed.
  That remedy is valuable. It shows the flexibility of our commercial jurisdiction because it developed without any assistance from legislation. In the process, certain problems arose. It might impose expense on people who were not parties to the proceedings and who were innocent of any offence. For example, the bank might have difficulty in identifying the bank account because the defendanct might have accounts at a number of different branches. That would entail expense. The solution was again developed by the courts themselves. It is exemplified in the decision of Mr. Justice Goff in the case of Searose Limited against Seatrade (United Kingdom) Limited. He made it a condition of the granting of a Mareva injunction that the plaintiff should undertake to meet consequential expenses. That demonstrates how such remedies are at an early stage of their development. They are essentially flexible, and illustrate the flexibility of the courts. They need further flexibility to tailor them exactly to the needs of litigants.
  In another place Lord Wilberforce expressed the anxiety that it may be premature to embody that procedure in a statute. However, we find it in clause 37. Admittedly, it is in wide terms, but it may transpire that, rather than assisting the courts, it will circumscribe their powers. But in this legislation we may need to deal with specific difficulties, where the courts have found a specific obstacle in their path. There is an example in the Anton Piller order. Once again, for the benefit of our lay colleagues, I shall explain that it is an order in proceedings for infringement of copyright authorising the search of defendants' premises before they have an opportunity to remove the evidence, and requiring them to answer questions. That order promised to prevent injustices in many cases, of a sort that are unhappily all too frequent in these days of the piracy of music, where it is difficult for the plaintiff to obtain evidence of piracy in any other way.
  In the recent case of the Rank Film Distributors Limited and Video Information Centre, another place held that that order offended against the right to protection against self-incrimination. That right is part of a body of law on which, historically, our freedoms are founded. Those freedoms are precious and we must ensure that they are protected as far as possible. Where they are abused, and perhaps even more especially where they are trivialised, they may bring
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  the rule itself into disrepute. I doubt whether they add to the total of the freedom of the community. Legislation to ensure that the rules are used for their intended purpose, and not as an unworthy bolthole for the dishonest, may benefit the cause of freedom.
  I accept that there are reasons in law for that decision, but the reasons are not binding on the legislature. We may wish to discuss possible amendments to the Bill in Committee to deal with that problem, bearing in mind the need to keep a proper balance of the interests involved.
  The Attorney-General: The decision of the House of Lords in Rank Film Distributors has been most earnestly and urgently considered by my noble Friend. I can assure the right hon. and learned Gentleman that it is under active consideration to ascertain whether an amendment to cover it should be dealt with in Committee. The issue has not been overlooked.
  Mr. Archer: I am most grateful for that indication that I might be pushing at an open door. I shall take up no more time of the House on that issue. I gather that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has issued an invitation to return to it in Committee.
  There is a matter that has become, perhaps, the subject of an unhappy dispute between the two branches of the legal profession. It may be that this is not the time for me to comment on it. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Abertillery (Mr. Thomas) will have something to say about it at the end of the debate. We all accept that there are certain tasks that should be carried out by those who are qualified by the nature of their training and experience. For example, no one may practise as a general medical practitioner except after certain training and experience in hospital wards. No one would normally be a craftsman except after obtaining certain qualifications and serving an apprenticeship.
  That should not be made a pretext for introducing unnecessary restrictive practices. However, it would be unfortunate if, in our anxiety to avoid restrictive practices, we overlooked the qualifications and experience that are necessary for a particular job. I shall refrain from further comment, but we may have to discuss the issue at a later stage.
  The Opposition will not seek to delay the Bill unnecessarily. On the contrary, we welcome it. We do not wish to discourage the Government from introducing measures of law reform, but there are a number of matters on which opinions may differ and where the weight to be given to one consideration as against another is a matter of judgment. I doubt whether any lobby on these issues is likely to occasion a major problem for the police in Parliament Square, but it behoves us as lawyers to sharpen the tools of our trade in a workmanlike, if sometimes an undramatic way. It is not lawyers who benefit from law reform but their clients, the general public.
  7.52 pm
  Sir Graham Page: It is a disappointment to me that in declaring an interest I shall not have the advertisement of full Benches. I declare an interest as a solicitor. The Bill's short title is the Supreme Court Bill. In the opening paragraph of the explanatory and financial memorandum we are told what the Supreme Court is. It is the Court of Appeal, the High Court and the Crown

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  court. The Bill deals with amendments to the law relating to those courts and the county courts. In the long title we are told that it seeks to amend that jurisdiction.
  We have to get as far as clause 146 before we discover what the Bill does about the county courts, and then we are referred to a schedule. When talking about facilitating the dispatch of business in the Supreme Court, I have the suspicion that the intention is to move a great deal of the present delay in justice in the Supreme Court to the county court, where there is already considerable delay, understaffing and overwork. I hope that that is not the intention. Unless the Bill—or another measure—amends the procedures in the county courts, we shall merely transfer delays in justice from the High Court to the county court. Delay in justice is a denial of justice in many instances.
  It appears from a consultative document that the Lord Chancellor wishes the jurisdiction of the county court to be increased to £5,000. In 1974 it was £2,000. In my days of practising in the county courts it was £100. At that stage I was in the county courts almost every day, and £100 was quite a substantial sum. It was £500 for Chancery matters, which was very important. The schedule gives the Lord Chancellor the opportunity by order to transfer cases from the High Court to the county court or from the county court to the High Court. The Lord Chancellor's intentions have not been hidden, because we all know what is contained in the consultative document.
  It is no good saying that in future the county court shall deal with cases up to £5,000, unless there is a procedure in the county court of equal efficiency to that in the High Court. There is no procedure in the county court for judgment by default or the order 14 procedure. In the county courts the clerks prepare the applications, the summonses and the notices, whereas in the High Court the solicitor for the party prepares his own and they may be issued on the same day.
  There is sometimes as much as a week's delay in some of the county courts in issuing summonses. The procedure for enforcement of county court judgments by the bailiffs is in disrepute. For that very reason there are many solicitors who would advise their clients to take proceedings in the High Court when they could be taken in the county court and to succumb to the no-cost order—to lose the costs because it is so much more efficient to have a sheriff's officer enforce the judgment than to leave it to the bailiffs. The procedure in the county courts needs reform in the same way as we are trying to reform procedure in the Supreme Court. It is no good pushing the business over to the county court in the present situation.
  There will be considerable resistance to the increase in the jurisdiction of the county court. It will be seen as an attempt to transfer matters from the High Court to the county court and to transfer the burden of work now in the High Court to the county court. There are many defects in the county court procedure, one of which was mentioned in another place. Promises were made by the Lord Chancellor to introduce an amendment in this place. I refer to interest on county court judgments. If those judgments are to be increased to as much as £5,000, and if the successful litigant can get no order for interest on the
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  judgment, he will take his action in the High Court. If he loses his costs, he will gain by getting interest on his judgment.
  It is extraordinary that the interest on judgments in the High Court dates back to an Act of 1838. The county courts came into existence in 1846, so they missed the bus on interest. We must ensure that there is an amendment to the Bill to put that right, as was promised in another place. There are several defects in the county court procedure which oblige the litigant to take his action in the High Court.
  I fear that if the Lord Chancellor is to decide by order the line of demarcation of jurisdiction between the High Court and the county court, the matter is being taken out of the hands of Parliament. If we are to have such orders merely under the negative procedure, it is stretching interpretation when my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General says that the matter will be kept within the hands of Parliament, as he said on the question of the order that the Lord Chancellor can make about appeals om the county court. That is a fundamental issue.
  Up to the present, Parliament has decided when appeals should be allowed from the county court to the High Court, to the Court of Appeal. It is true that the figures may be out of date, but I am not happy about them being put into an order that is just subject to annulment in the House. We know that a Back-Bench Member on the Government side has not a hope in hell of having a prayer debated. That is arranged through the usual channels. Unless the usual channels on both Front Benches want a prayer, no Back-Bench Member will be able to have it heard. Therefore, it is ludicrous to say that the matter will be kept in the hands of Parliament. The Bill goes too far in giving the Lord Chancellor those powers by order.
  I appreciate that many matters in the Bill are intended to facilitate the business of the courts. That is necessary now, even if it is only to facilitate the criminal business undertaken by the civil judges. The number of prisoners awaiting trial is becoming something of a scandal. We must improve the business of the criminal and civil courts so that the judges are used in the best possible way, or appoint more judges.
  I think that the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) mentioned the appointment of solicitors as judges. His argument that one must have certain skills to become a judge sounds more like an argument from the continental courts, where a judgeship is a career, and where one is trained to be a judge from one's earliest introduction to the law. One does not go through advocacy. Thank heaven that we do in this country. We go through the training of advocacy in the courts. I remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman that many solicitors in provincial towns spend their whole days in advocacy, either in the county court or in the police courts. They acquire the same skill in advocacy as does the ordinary counsel in court.
  Mr. Archer: I do not propose to engage in debate at this stage. One of the matters that was in my mind was that the Official Solicitor is probably better as a solicitor than as a barrister.
  Sir Graham Page: I agree. I would join the right hon. and learned Gentleman in putting down an amendment saying that a barrister or a solicitor should be qualified to become the Official Solicitor. I am not suggesting that the

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  Solicitor-General should be a solicitor. By statute, a solicitor is not allowed to be the Solicitor-General. The Official Solicitor carries out his work extremely efficiently and is always a solicitor. However, I see no reason why he should not be a barrister. I would give the alternatives throughout those qualifications for office that are set out in the Bill.
  Clause 10(3)(c) says that a puisne judge must be
  "a barrister of at least ten years standing."
  Since 1970 solicitors have been appointed recorders. As recorders, they are entitled to sit as circuit judges. My right hon. and learned Friend can correct me if my figures are wrong. I believe that there are now 19 solicitors acting as circuit judges. I have never heard any complaint about the fact that they are acting as judges. There is no reason why a solicitor, who must have had 10 years standing before he is appointed as a circuit judge, should not thereby qualify to be a puisne judge of the High Court.
  If we are to facilitate the business of the court, more judges will have to be appointed. Therefore, it is reasonable that we should widen the choice of the Lord Chancellor in appointing judges. That choice is not being widened far. We have proved that the person who is qualified as a solicitor, who has been appointed as a recorder and who has sat as a circuit judge, is sufficiently efficient at the job to qualify to become a High Court judge. The argument is difficult. There is a desire in some quarters to keep the two branches of the profession separate. However, when it comes to facilitating the business of the court and giving the Lord Chancellor a wider choice from which to draw judges, the House should assist in that way.
  There are many Committee points in the Bill. Most have been taken in another place, but we still have more to debate here. Apart from those Committee points, the principle of the Bill is right: that we must improve the business of the courts. I wish the measure well.
  8.8 pm
  Sir Walter Clegg: My right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Sir G. Page) has declared an interest and I shall declare a similar interest. He made my task easier by making more eloquently than I could have several points that I was going to make.
  There are one or two points of particular interest to my profession. One is to right an injustice to that profession. In a case in 1974 a solicitor who had costs ordered against him by a circuit judge in respect of an adjournment appealed to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal found that the circuit judge had not listened to what the solicitor had to say and that the solicitor had no responsibility for the adjournment. The Court of Appeal said that the solicitor had not received natural justice because of the failure of the circuit judge to hear him Nevertheless, the Court of Appeal could not order the circuit judge to reverse his order and destroy the order for costs against the solicitor. That was manifestly unjust. I understand that in the other place it was considered that an amendment should be brought forward in this House to remedy that state of affairs. Will my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General confirm that the necessary amendment will be forthcoming to prevent that injustice from happening again?
  Another problem affects many creditors who are seeking to enforce judgments. If the debtor has a deposit or current account with a bank, those accounts can be
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  garnisheed. However, if the accounts are with a building society or a trustee savings bank, no such procedure is available, or it is more difficult to obtain it. Since the last alterations in the law, the business of building societies and the trustee savings bank has changed greatly. They are now acting much more like High Street banks, and are used by the public as such. The trustee savings bank has, in effect, become a commercial bank. In the other place, the Lord Chancellor said that he would have discussions to bring forward an amendment to enable building society and trustee savings bank accounts to be garnisheed, which would help creditors seeking to recover judgment debts.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby made a valid point about interest on county court judgments. It would be unfair if no interest were paid, certainly on the increased amounts available in the High Court.
  Many litigants are vexed when a judge dies before he can deliver judgment and the case has to be reheard. Recently, a judge died before givng judgment, and the case was heard by another judge, who fell ill during the trial and later died. The litigants had to pay three sets of costs. The Lord Chancellor would not make a contribution from public funds to the litigants, who suffered through no fault of their own. It has been suggested that a suitors' fund be set up to deal with such eventualities, but the Lord Chancellor objects because that would increase public spending. However, the Law Society considers that the fund would be covered by a modest increase in the fees paid by all litigants, and perhaps in Committee we can reexamine the matter. People are enraged by having to pay lawyers' fees at any time, but it is a bit much if they have to pay two or three times through no fault of their own.
  Mr. Mellor: It is the habit in county courts to list two days' business in one on the basis that half the business will collapse. Lawyers attend court with brief fees and cannot be heard. As it is the court's fault that no forum is available, there should also be compensation for that.
  Sir Walter Clegg: I agree. There should be a fund to cover instances where the court is at fault. If courts realise that a financial penalty has to be paid from public funds, it may sharpen their administration.
  Many people inside and outside the legal profession are worried about the procedures in the coroner's court. The office of coroner is an ancient one, and his duty to inquire into deaths is a necessary safeguard, His powers are adequate in the vast majority of cases, but a certain range of cases casts grave doubts on whether the coroner's court is the correct tribunal to investigate the cause of death—for example, of people held in custody or where death occurs through a major accident or fire or where it is surrounded by great controversy. I do not believe that in such cases the coroner has the necessary powers for justice to be seen to be done. We have reports in the press of witnesses being hissed and booed or cheered, which brings the court into disrepute.
  At the discretion of the Attorney-General, certain categories of case should be taken away from the coroner's court and heard in the High Court. A High Court judge has not only greater powers but greater experience to investigate the circumstances surrounding death. Unles we establish a system that is universally respected—and the present system is not—the law will fall into disrepute. It would be a major undertaking to introduce such a reform in the Bill, but it would not be impossible under the long title.
  Sir Graham Page: If the coroner's court were made a court of record, so that the coroner had power to commit for contempt, that would help.
  Sir Walter Clegg: That is true, but I still believe that some cases require the skills of a High Court judge who is used to dealing with complicated matters that may last for weeks. It may also cut out the time spent on a further inquiry after the inquest. If the public were satisfied that there had been a thorough investigation by a High Court judge, there may be less demand for a further public inquiry.
  I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will consider the idea. If no immediate action can be taken on my suggestion, perhaps he will consider that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby.
  I welcome the Bill, although I shall raise further points in Committee.
  8.17 pm
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: I wish to raise a single point, of which I have given notice to the Solicitor-General. It relates to clause 36, which deals with the power of the High Court to issue a subpoena to run throughout the United Kingdom. Subsection (3)(b) provides for the service of such a subpoena in Northern Ireland. I should like to be assured that there is adequate reciprocity between the High Court with which the Bill deals and the High Court of Northern Ireland. It is a matter of much satisfaction to Ulster Unionists to know that the Attorney-General is also the Attorney-General of Northern Ireland. We appreciate the care and attention that he and his hon. and learned Friend give to matters in the Province.
  It will be obvious, as a matter of natural probability, that such a provision will be even more useful in the reverse direction, since, on balance, it is more likely that persons required in a court in Northern Ireland will be found in another part of the United Kingdom than vice-versa. I believe that I am correct in saying that inconvenience which would be met by this provision has, in fact, arisen in the High Court in Northern Ireland, particularly in matrimonial cases. I hope, therefore, that in his concluding remarks the learned Solicitor-General will be able to include an observation to confirm that there are reciprocal powers in this respect, or if not, to indicate that it is intended to provide them.
  8.20 pm
  Mr. Iain Mills: It is with some trepidation that I rise amid such distinguished and learned company as a mere humble industrialist. As the Attorney-General corrected his statement about judges, perhaps I should correct mine by saying that I am "merely a humble industrialist".
  I should inform the House that I advise the National Tyre Distributors Association, although I do not intend to reflect very much upon tyres.
  I draw to the attention of the House the opportunities—already mentioned by the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) who led for the Opposition, and responded to so ably by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General—offered by clause 37 to restore to British companies some of the rights that they appear to have lost as a result of the decison in another place on the Anton Pillar orders. I shall not detain the House long, but I wish to put on record some
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  of the most important points in this matter, which is the reason for an industrialist participating in a more learned debate than is his normal wont.
  It is perhaps inevitable, in a world in which international competition is increasing in scope, skill and complexity, that the counterfeiting of all types of product, packaging, trade marks and other assets should rapidly become a multi-million-pound industry. We believe that this concerns not only the obvious developing countries such as Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong, but even some of our partners in the EEC, as evidenced by the recent action by Hoover against Italian manufacturers of counterfeit Hoover washing machine spares.
  The Minister for Trade in a speech not long ago gave great reassurance to me and to the many companies involved not only in automotive parts and retailing but in many other British product manufacturing and distribution companies, when he commented:
  "My Government is backing international action to outlaw the counterfeiters. We are pressing for the widest possible acceptance of a GATT agreement on counterfeiting which will come into operation this year, and which would allow for the seizure of goods. We are encouraging manufacturers to obtain patent and trademark protection and we are taking up specific cases bilaterally."
  The achievement of those measures will therefore give considerable protection.
  The basis for proof of such counterfeiting, however, has been greatly undermined by the House of Lords decision on the Anton Piller order. It was therefore my view and that of others with industrial interests that it was vital to communicate to the House in more detail the concern that we and large parts of industry, particularly the automotive industry and the automotive component industry, feel about that decision.
  I have been informed by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders as well as by others that that decision will allow defendants to plead that disclosure would render them liable to prosecution for conspiracy to defraud and under the previous privilege against self-incrimination disclosure would not be granted. I am informed that as the defendants are then defined as criminals, suitable civil action cannot be taken. Such action would, of course, involve the seizure of documents and the request for disclosure of the suppliers in order to investigate an act through the distribution chain of supply.
  This is a serious matter. It has not so far taken either the media or the public by the throat as a matter of great and passionate concern, but to companies which have unusual assets in products and trademarks and the great names of British industry, it is a most serious matter.
  I quote a comment made to me by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, because I think that it brings home just how seriously such a body in industry—not a commercial concern which might have a particular row to hoe—regards this matter. The SMMT comments:
  "In the eyes of all those companies involved in the fight against counterfeiting, this case is an unmitigated disaster. The 'Anton Piller' order which has been developed recently as a form of civilian search warrant was the most useful weapon in our armoury against the pirates and one of the main reasons … why in the motor industry at least, penetration of counterfeits onto the home market has been limited. As soon as a case was discovered we could, in the past, seize documents and ask for disclosure of the suppliers and 'take out' the entire chain of supply.
  Now, because of this case, in every instance virtually, the defendants will be able to say that disclosure would render them liable to prosecution for conspiracy to defraud and so disclosure

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  will not be granted under the old privilege against self-incrimination. Thus, because they are criminals, we cannot touch them."
  The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West put this very clearly. Although the decision ensured rights in law, it has the necessary consequence, as the noble Lords discussed in finding for the defendants, of creating enormous and widespread difficulties for British companies.
  For the sake of brevity I merely quote from The Times Law Reports the words of the noble Lord, Lord Russell, who said that
  "inasmuch as the application of the privilege in question could go a long way in the present and other analagous fields to deprive the owner of his just rights to the protection of his property his Lordship would welcome legislation somewhat on the lines of section 31 of the Theft Act".
  Prior to that, the noble Lord, Lord Fraser, said:
  "Anton Piller orders, which had tended gradually to increase in stringency, had been found effective and had been made in England, New Zealand, South Africa, Australia and elsewhere. Now, for the first time, the defendants had objected to making discovery and to answering the interrogatories on the ground that by so doing they might incriminate themselves. If the objection was well founded, the usefulness of the Anton Piller type of order would be much reduced if not practically destroyed."
  A number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friends the Members for Rochester and Chatham (Mrs. Fenner) and Chorley (Mr. Dover) and myself, tabled a series of questions, initially to the Secretary of State for Trade but which were transferred and answered most ably by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, whose reply reassured us, as did his reply tonight, that the Government are cognisant of the seriousness of the situation and are considering what steps might be taken to correct it.
  I shall briefly suggest some possible steps that might be taken to restore the valuable nature of the Anton Piller order and to confirm that the matter is urgent. Consideration of legislation in a future parliamentary session would allow, in the intervening months or years, unacceptable losses to the British economy and to British companies. I therefore urge on behalf of myself and others that the Government take on board the need to give statutory force to the use of the Anton Piller type of order and to find some mechanism to grant a general exemption from self-incrimination in cases where such an order is granted.
  It has been suggested to me that this could be done in clause 37 by replacing all that lies after subsection (1) by a new provision. This would not substantially affect subsections (2), (3) and (4), which would be transferred later. I shall read this to the House, as I believe that it is important. I also put it to my right hon. and learned Friend that, if he feels that our suggestions go too far to be accepted as possible Committee amendments to the Bill, I would understand that the matter might need further discussion. But perhaps he will give an answer on the question of principle, on the need for urgency and on the use of the Bill as a vehicle to correct the problems created by the recent decisions.
  The suggestion is that clause 37 should be amended to include the following subsections:
  "(2) The High Court shall have the power at any stage in any proceedings to order the inspection, photographing, transcribing, recording preservation, custody, detention, taking of samples or carrying out of any experiment on or with any thing or process which is or may be the subject of such proceedings or which is or may be relevant to any issue arising or likely to arise in those proceedings or which includes or contains or may include or contain any such relevant thing.
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  (3) The High Court shall have the power at any stage in any proceedings to order any party to such proceedings to answer any question or interrogatory or to produce any document or other article which is or may be relevant to any issue arising or likely to arise in those proceedings.
  (4) A person shall not be excused, by reason that to do so may incriminate (that person or the wife or husband of that person) (any person) from complying with any order of the High Court but no statement or admission made by a person in compliance with any such order shall be admissible in evidence against that person or (unless they married after the making of the statement or admission) against the wife or husband of that person in any criminal proceedings [without the leave of the court which made that order].
  (5) For the avoidance of doubt proceedings for contempt of court or perjury shall not be treated as criminal proceedings for the purposes of subsection (4) above."
  Subsections (2), (3) and (4) would then become subsections (6), (7) and (8).
  I am no lawyer. I have not explored in sufficient detail the consequences of many of those suggestions. I shall fully understand if I am advised by my hon. and learned Friend that in some respects they do not meet the mechanisms that I have requested. I put those suggestions forward on that basis. However, they have been formulated by learned gentlemen in the motor industry, and, therefore, have that credibility and substance to them.
  This is an important matter for a number of British industries at a time when industries are beginning to turn up. Industrial resurgence will take place not only as a result of the activities undertaken by the Government but also through the ability of those industries to retain the intensely valuable nature of British product design, trade marks and names. The mere fact that our competitors in the developing countries see these as intensely valuable assets makes the point for me. I ask my hon. and learned Friend to act on that either in the Bill or as a matter of urgency hereafter.
  8.31 pm
  Mr. David Mellor: The Bill, which is of some importance in law reform, comes before a House comprised almost entirely of lawyers. I join those hon. Members who have said that it is unfortunate that a Bill that deals with one of the fundamental institutions of the State should be seen as fit only for those of us who at some point in our lives have practised the law.
  At best the Bill is a tidying up measure that brings up to date some of the language of the 1925 Act and its predecessor the 1873 Act. Some useful changes are also thrown in. In no sense is it what Lord Scarman said was necessary—a long look at the mechanics of our system of courts with a view to bringing the whole thing up to date. He suggested, and I agree, that we should take a fresh look at this question rather than base what we do now on what previously existed. I hope that the day is not too far away when either the Law Commission or a special commission looks at the mechanics of justice and produces a report that properly brings our judicial system up to date.
  I welcome a great deal in the Bill, particularly some of the new ideas which, although not necessarily revolutionary, will assist and commend themselves to most of us who practise in the courts. In particular, I commend what has been done to the Court of Appeal. I think that I am right in saying that ours is the only advanced legal system that has a centralised Court of Appeal. The penalty that we pay is an excessive work load on the judges and excessive delays in waiting for one's case to come before the courts.

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  Although the steps forward on the Bill are modest, they will be useful, particularly in relation to criminal appeals, which is an area that concerns many of us.
  I listened with great interest to what the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) said about the proposal that only two judges should sit on appeals against sentence. I accept his point that one does not want to water down the strength of the court that often has to deal with difficult issues. As the proposal is limited to appeals against sentence, I cannot see that that is an objection. I cannot understand why two judges cannot make as good a job as three judges of assessing the validity of a sentence.
  I do not know whether it is intended that the Court of Appeal—even when sitting with two members—should consist of a lord justice of appeal and a puisne judge instead of a lord justice of appeal and two puisne judges, as at present. There is no reason—particularly when an appeal is from a circuit judge—why we should not have two High Court judges sitting together as a two-member court. That would at least release a lord justice of appeal to do other work. I welcome that change.
  I also warmly welcome the decision to appoint a registrar of civil appeals, with the apparent implication that he will construct an office that is broadly similar to that run by the registrar of criminal appeals. For some years my wife has worked in the criminal appeals department so I know at first hand the work that it does. Judging from what has been said in the House and in the other place, I am glad to say that its work is appreciated. Trained lawyers can go through the papers and produce a brief or resumé of the relevant points in the files that have come up from the lower courts. They are of inestimable use to judges in enabling them to process the considerable volume of work that goes through the Court of Appeal criminal division day by day.
  It is extraordinary that for so long the Court of Appeal civil division has gone without such a system. The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West raised a point about what is meant by appointing a registrar of civil appeals. Like him, I hope that it means that the registrar will be able to take on qualified lawyers who can work with the court and assist it in its tremendous task.
  One matter which is not covered by the Bill but has been canvassed is the qualifications for appointment as a High Court judge. There is a danger that the profession will become polarised on this issue. I run the risk of being a renegade from my profession when I say that I see no earthly reason why a solicitor, who has served with distinction on the circuit bench, should not go on to the High Court bench if his service is regarded as suitably distinguished.
  I read carefully the report of the debate in the other place, and I have listened with care to what has been said in this Chamber. It is argued that because a barrister practises in the High Court he is the only category of person suited to be a High Court judge. That argument is wide of the mark. It should be borne in mind that a circuit judge will soon be able to deal with matters that have a value of up to £5,000. If a circuit judge proves himself in that work and deals with the type of heavy criminal work with which such judges deal, there is no reason why he should be debarred from becoming a High Court judge. It would be cruel to tell an individual that he was an excellent
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  circuit judge and that if only he had been in practice as a barrister he would have been made a High Court judge. It would be cruel to say, "Unfortunately, you are for ever tarred with the brush of having been a solicitor, and therefore you must remain on the circuit bench." That cannot be right.
  The idea that somehow the distinction between the circuit bench and the High Court bench is one of the complexities of the issues involved does not bear a moment's examination. Sometimes it is purely a matter of chance whether the precise legal circumstances lead to a major or a small loss. If someone is outstanding on the circuit bench, there is no reason why he should not also be outstanding on the High Court bench.
  I profoundly disagree with one part of the Bill. I refer to clause 69 and the proposal for jury trials in civil cases. I invite my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General to assist me on the precise extent of the discretion that is being left in the hands of a judge when he is asked to decide whether it is appropriate for a jury to be empanelled to hear a case, whether it involves libel or an allegation of fraud.
  It has been suggested by both Front Benches that it is a wide discretion, but that is not how I read the subsection, which says that
  "the action shall be tried with a jury, unless the court is of opinion … that the probable length of the trial makes the action one which cannot conveniently be tried with a jury".
  That does not give the judge an unfettered discretion to say that it is a matter of such importance that the case is one that a jury should try, or, for other reasons, that it is correct for a jury to try it. Convenience linked to time appears to be the only criterion. However, I do not think that that is a wide discretion as I understand judicial discretion. It is a fettered discretion.
  I am concerned about some of the things that were said in the other place when it was not realised that it would take the Moonies trial six months to wend its weary way to a conclusion. At that time four, six and eight weeks were mentioned, which is an altogether different kettle of fish. It is important that we should know what we are talking about when we speak about duration.
  It is significant that when the matter was debated in the other place the most senior and distinguished judges, not those sitting in the first instance, advocated the change. The only two practitioners who spoke were against it. The House of Commons—being more representative of practitioners than is the other place—might take a harder look at the change than did the other place.
  If someone is unlucky enough to be empanelled on a jury that takes a long time to try a case, that is unfortunate. There is a cast-iron case for saying that we should not put those people to inconvenience and trouble and not bother with a jury. However, I wonder whether we do any service to all the trouble and effort that it took to establish our democracy and our system of courts if we consider this further diminution in the role of the jury and public participation in our judicial process, merely in terms of convenience.
  Should we not take a rather more robust view? There are millions, probably tens of millions, of people round the globe who would be glad of the opportunity to serve on a jury in a free judicial system in a free country. Have we reached such a stage of apathy or of taking our privilege and rights so much for granted that we cannot put up with the inconvenience that may occur once in a lifetime, and

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  only to a few people, of having to sit on a jury for rather longer than was expected? Should we not recognise that that is one of the duties and obligations on citizens in a free society? I wonder whether we make a great mistake, if we allow ourselves to concentrate too much on small issues of convenience rather than on the overall significance of our system that involves ordinary people in the administration of justice.
  There are practical reasons why the change should be resisted. An allegation of fraud or a libel action deals with a serious accusation which reduces someone's alleged standing in the community. Who are the best people to judge whether certain words have the effect of reducing someone's standing in the community? As has been decided in criminal actions for centuries, the man and woman in the street, who are representative of the community as a whole, can decide in a way that, with the best will in the world, the High Court judge cannot. I wonder whether there are not a number of puisne judges who would rather avoid having to make decisions such as had to be made in the notorious Moonies' case.
  I have an interest in industrial relations law. It has often been said that judges should not be politicised and drawn into having to make decisions on contentious political matters. Some judges have said that. But what are we asking a judge to do if we put him firmly in the centre of the arena, as a judge of fact, in a libel case of any duration? He is being asked to make perhaps a political judgment of a sort that he may not relish.
  We have to ask ourselves the question that Lord Rawlinson posed with great eloquence in another place. Hard cases make bad law, and are we not being stampeded into making a change because of an isolated case? I hope that there will not be another case like that of the Moonies for some time. Indeed, one hopes that the case will have deterred such groups from taking action against the press when it is merely doing its duty in a free society.
  Is there such a major problem that we are justified in making a major change in the way that we have ordered things for a long time? In addition, should such a major change be made in such a piecemeal way?
  The Faulks committee reported five years ago on juries in such cases. It reached conclusions with which many of us did not agree and it took the view that, on the whole, juries should not be empanelled in such cases. It may be thought that that is the right approach, but should we not be considering such a change, if at all, in the context of a full-scale look at the way in which we deal with defamation jurisdiction, rather than attaching it at the last moment to a Bill that does not purport to deal with the whole range of issues that cause concern in defamation cases?
  I do not believe that we are proceeding in the right way. I am not satisfied that the debates in another place covered all the issues that concern us and I hope that the matter will be carefully considered in Committee. We should not trench any further on the jury system unless we are satisfied that it is overwhelmingly to the public benefit to do so. By public benefit I mean the benefit of society, in the context of the history of the development of our society and societies elsewhere, and not that someone may prefer to spend a few more weeks of his life in his normal job than to serve on a jury. I make no apology for repeating that that is one of the prices that one has to pay, and should be glad to pay, for living in a free society.
  8.47 pm
  Mr. Edward Lyons: The essence of the jury system is that a jury should be chosen at random, be representative of the community, provide a fair trial and ensure that defendants are not in the hands of a single judge who might be prejudiced.
  However, it is unfair to pretend that there are random juries, in the traditional sense, in long trials. The first thing that the judge does in a trial that is expected to last a long time is to ask which members of the jury will be inconvenienced by sitting on the jury for a long time.
  Before the oath is taken various jurors explain why they are not able easily to sit on the jury without loss or inconvenience or both. The result is that most of those who are accustomed to responsible jobs leave the jury because they cannot be spared from their executive positions for months—in some cases even weeks—on end.
  Therefore, the jury in long trials is not the random jury that sits in cases that are scheduled to last for only two or three days, but a jury from which every person capable of understanding, for example, complicated accounts in a fraud case has been removed. Sad to say, most of the people who have a high level of literacy may have departed. There is then the curious situation on average that the longer and the more complex the case the poorer is the quality of the jury. That is not satisfactory. I am a great supporter of the jury system.
  Mr. Jeffrey Thomas: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman advocating that what is proposed in the Bill for civil cases should apply also to criminal trials?
  Mr. Lyons: The hon. and learned Gentleman is precipitate. If I may develop my argument, first, we should maintain the jury system wherever possible but we should address ourselves to the problem of how to achieve for long and complicated cases a jury at least as competent as is achieved for shorter cases. It cannot be said that juries for long cases are satisfactory. I do not know what thought has gone into the question of how to induce people who are called for jury service and who find themselves on this sort of case to remain. The financial reward may have to be increased or a less sympathetic view may have to be taken and the person told that whatever the loss he has to do his public duty. Those may be ways of dealing with the problem.
  A third solution would be to dispense with the jury and not to leave it to a single judge but to provide assessors to sit with him. They might be paid and would have an appropriate level of expertise in a case involving accounts, for example. That is one alternative. I would be unwilling to see that happen in criminal cases but we are shutting our eyes to the reduction in quality of juries in long trials. I do not want to labour that further. No doubt we shall consider the proposal again in Committee.
  A different point concerns the age of retirement of High Court judges. In clause 11 the age of retirement is fixed at 75, as it has been for many years. I have never understood how one justifies a retirement age of 75 for a High Court judge, 72 for a circuit judge, although with an option to go on to 75, a maximum age of 72 for a recorder and lower ages for stipendiaries and the lower magistracy.
  There seems to be a curious assessment that when a barrister is picked from the throng and made a High Court judge his process of mental degeneration is somehow retarded so that he is fit to go on until 75, but the circuit

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  judge begins to lose his sway so that by the age of 72 he should surrender the seals of office. A recorder, who is in a lower position than either of the others, must become totally incompetent because he has no option to go on beyond 72. The irony is that the recorder is dealing with less serious cases than is the High Court judge. The more serious the case the older the judge may be. Should not we introduce an element of rationality into the question of the judicial retirement age?
  To make matters worse, the pension provisions for judges are so arranged as to penalise a judge who, because he feels tired or feels not as competent as he used to be, wishes to retire. If he has been a judge for less than 15 years and feels that he is below his best, although not seriously ill, he will lose his entire pension rights because he has not served for 15 years and his health is not so bad as to bring him within the provisions for ill-health and incapacity. Judges who feel that they should retire should have no impediment placed in their way.
  Is there not a case for bringing down the maximum age of the High Court judge to the age for the circuit judge, and providing the same option for additional service as is open to the circuit judge by which the Lord Chancellor has the discretion to raise that age to 75?
  Mr. Frank Dobson: Speaking as a non-lawyer I should like to ask the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) whether he is talking about the Supreme Court Bill or the Judicial Pensions Bill, which we are to consider later.
  Mr. Lyons: I am talking about the Supreme Court Bill. The two are tied together in this respect.
  The Bill contains several useful provisions. Those who will have the duty and responsibility of dealing with those provisions in Committee will have the opportunity to make a useful contribution towards the body of our law.
  There has been a continual increase in the number of High Court judges. That is inevitable and it is appropriate because we do not want a diminution in standards. With the larger number of judges at all levels, it is important that there should be in the, principal positions persons who are able to keep up high judicial standards, and that serious cases should have the attention of High Court judges. Recently, because of the inadequacy of numbers, there has been a tendency gradually to transfer serious cases to Crown Court judges or recorders.
  Sad as it is to see the increased cost to the Treasury, it is right that extra judges should be appointed. That is only one part of an assault on the backlog of trials. The other part—in the Bill—is to enable two High Court judges to deal with appeals against sentence. That is an inevitable course nowadays, having regard to the pressure of work. The Lord Chief Justice, since taking office, has managed to make considerable inroads in the Divisional Court. I hope that the provisions in the Bill will enable that improvement to continue, as to delay justice is in itself a great injustice.
  8.58 pm
  Mr. Ivan Lawrence: Whenever I hear that there is to be a major Bill of court reform I reach for my civil liberties. There is a danger in this sophisticated and complex time that administrative convenience occasioned
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  by pressure of time, delays and volume of work will become the touchstone of the development of our system instead of the freedom of the individual.
  Judged by that test, the Bill comes as a great relief. Only in one sphere is danger of the kind I have mentioned hinted at, and that is the hint of a restriction of jury trials. The right to jury trial in civil proceedings is to be limited by clause 69 on occasions when the probable length of trial means that the action cannot conveniently be tried with a jury. The test of convenience must fill all hon. Members with horror. I hope that the reassurance given by my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General will hold in practice.
  It is always stated that the problem with jury trials is their length. As the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) said, it is the wrong estimate of length that is the problem. The estimate is always wrong. This produces a reaction from the judiciary that something should be done as a matter of convenience to reform the whole system. That is the wrong approach to the matter. If convenience replaces what are the traditional safeguards of the liberty of the individual, the matter must be viewed with the greatest care by the House.
  One hears increasingly from judges, according to reports in the newspapers, the desire to restrict jury trials in fraud cases. I hope that the day will never come when jury trial is removed in fraud cases. That would be contrary to Magna Carta, of which hon. Members are the guardians. It is for this reason that our debates on these matters should include contributions from those who are not lawyers. When the lawyers reach high judicial office, they begin to talk about convenience. If too much reliance is placed on high-ranking lawyers, we shall lose some of the safeguards of our liberty.
  I have read repeatedly in the proceedings on the Bill in the other place such statements as that advanced by Lord Roskill when he said:
  "To my mind, the road to a solution lies along two routes. The first is to restrict the right of appeal in certain classes of case, however reluctant any appellate judge may be to see that happen."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 18 December 1980; Vol. 415, col. 1219.]
  The tendency to restrict rights for the sake of convenience has to be watched. I congratulate the Government on their resistance to the temptation to restrict appeals or even to restrict jury trials to a greater extent than that hinted at by the Bill.
  The Government have also successfully resisted the tendency to make bureaucratic the delicate development of our existing system of law. Enough has already been done in procedural ways to make criminal legal proceedings bureaucratic. I learn that it is now the habit of judges in the Court of Appeal criminal division to have the summaries of their cases compiled for them by civil servants and not, as was traditionally the case, prepared by practising members of the Bar who understood more accurately and sensitively the points that ought to be dealt with, and would be dealt with, in the appellate procedure.
  There has also been the attempt, fortunately resisted, to extend the right of solicitors to become High Court judges via the circuit bench. The claim, when solicitors became circuit judges, that this would be the thin end of the wedge, was denied.

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  The circuit bench does not provide the same disciplines as the Bar. That discipline enables banisters to become more effective judges in the Court of Appeal, in the Divisional Court and in the House of Lords.
  There are reasons why it is desirable under our system to maintain the separateness of the two professions. One has a close relationship with the lay client. The other has a more aloof relationship with the lay client and is less subject to the complaint of over-close association with clients. The solicitors' branch of the profession is honourable. Nothing should take away from the wonderful service that solicitors provide in our courts and as circuit judges. However, there is a strong argument for resisting the temptation to widen the wedge so that solicitors, who are closer to bureaucracy, become judges in the higher courts.
  Sir Graham Page: At least six judges started life as solicitors and switched comparatively recently to the Bar.
  Mr. Lawrence: That is the way that it should be done. There is a simple process by which solicitors can convert to the Bar and avail themselves of the wide experience of advocacy which will ensure that they become superb judges in the higher courts.
  Sir Graham Page: Surely a better way is that used by the 19 who have converted to judges already.
  Mr. Lawrence: Judgeship in the circuit courts does not guarantee the ability necessary for the wider role in the Divisional Court, the House of Lords or the Court of Appeal. I do not wish to be sidetracked, because I do not want to delay the Bill by discussing a proposal which was resisted by the Government. I commend the Government for not giving way to the temptation, however siren the voices.
  We must examine the scandal of delay, particularly in the criminal division of the Court of Appeal, and the scandal of the overwork of our judges. The solution is not to restrict appeal or to narrow jury trial. The solution is to have more appellate judges. Perhaps other action could be taken to speed up the process and to reduce the overwork.
  For example, perhaps the House of Lords should not shy away from deciding points of law which would more or less permanently decide the contentious issues which often arise and which, because they are not established by a House of Lords ruling, repeatedly are contended in the Court of Appeal. Perhaps if there were more authoritative rulings from the House of Lords fewer cases of appeal would go to the Court of Appeal. Perhaps if the single judge in the criminal division of the Court of Appeal gave reasons for refusing appeals that would reduce the number of appeals. There are many ways in which the heavy traffic could be restricted.
  Lest I am thought to be reactionary I repeat the radical change which I believe would do more than any other to reduce the delays in our courts. We should reform criminal trials by modifying the presumption of innocence which comes from silence and by introducing tape-recorded interviews. That would do more than anything to reduce the pressure on the criminal courts.
  Finally, may I ask, as this is a Supreme Court Bill, why on earth we keep calling the High Court the Supreme Court, when everyone knows that the House of Lords is the Supreme Court and that the nomenclature "Supreme Court" was given at a time when it was intended that the
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  appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords would be abolished? I believe that it was Mr. Gladstone who stopped that happening. It was probably the last time that the Liberals did anything sensible in this place.
  As a member of the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, may I say how important the job of that Committee is, and how much a contribution consolidation makes to the common sense of our law in this Bill? With more useful, sensible and moderate Bills of this nature—save only in the one matter about which I have some hesitation—this place would yield a greater respect in the land than it may have won for some of the Bills that we have passed.
  9.12 pm
  Mr. Frank Dobson: I do not apologise for speaking in the debate, even if I am the only non-lawyer to do so. Just as war is too important a matter to be left to generals, so the law is far too important a matter to be left to lawyers. It is on that principle that I oppose the Bill.
  The Bill proposes a further erosion of the intervention of ordinary people in the judicial system by imposing a further restriction on the involvement of juries in our judicial system. In my view, lawyers are not to be trusted, nor have they ever been worthy of trust. Judges are not to be trusted with our judicial system, nor have they ever been worthy of being trusted with it entirely. They will do their job only if they are properly restrained by statute law and by the effectiveness of the jury's intervention in most forms of trial on important matters.
  In the circumstances, it is thoroughly reprehensible that anyone should propose, for reasons of administrative convenience only—that is what we are talking about—getting rid of juries in any forms of trial where they are used at present. That is the basis of my argument, and that it all that I want to say.
  I shall oppose the measure at every stage, just as I shall oppose at every stage any measure which proposes in any way to curtail the effectiveness of jury service. Jury service is more important to the preservation of individual liberty and-the preservation of our judicial system than all the scurvy race of lawyers put together.
  9.14 pm
  Mr. John Wells: I apologise for having missed much of the debate. I am not a lawyer, but there is a small point about which I have already written to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General. Because I am not a lawyer I may stumble on the intricacies of the Bill, and I hope that my colleagues will forgive me if I make a lawyer's hash of the simple thoughts that I wish to put to the House.
  I understand that solicitors in this country are called solicitors of the Supreme Court. This Bill is intituled the Supreme Court Bill. I shall therefore say a brief word about solicitors.
  I wish to bring to the attention of the House the habit of in-house solicitors who are employees of large companies, nationalised bodies or quangos, of serving summonses on members of the public. I understand that, under the court rules, if I am in arrears with my gas bill and the fellow who signs the summons to hale me off to court to pay the bill is a solicitor of the Supreme Court, the gas board is entitled to draw £12, because the chap who scribbled his name on the bottom of a piece of paper is a

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  qualified solicitor. However, if he were just a nice guy who was the deputy under sub-clerk of the gas board, and who scribbled his name on an identical piece of paper, the gas board would be entitled to £4. That may be a misrepresentation of the facts, and I apologise if that is the case.
  I name the gas board only as a notional body. It employs charming people who never send anyone summonses, and who would never do anything like that. But the villian and rascal about whom I am speaking tonight is the Southern water authority, which has treated my constituents and the constituents of every right hon. and hon. Member in the southern part of our island in the most disgraceful manner. It has sent out summonses to the old and the stupid, and even to those more stupid than I—and I am pretty stupid when it comes to paying bills. They have been served by a solicitor of the Supreme Court, and the Southern water authority receives £12 for that. It has not happened to me, however, because I paid my bill.
  I wrote to my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General about the matter. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General, who lives not so far away from me and may also smart under the Southern water authority, will have listened sympathetically to my remarks. I hope that they will look into the matter.
  9.17 pm
  Mr. Jeffrey Thomas: This has been a short but highly interesting debate. I venture the hope that I shall be brief, but I cannot promise to be interesting. That does not mean that the Bill is not an interesting and important measure. Some of us would go further and say that it is a measure of great importance and is far from being what the Lord Chancellor described as a Bill without political interest or contentious issue.
  In some regards it is a measure of great contention. I shall come later to the contentious issues that have been touched on already by, among others, the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence)—I take this opportunity to congratulate him on his appointment—and the hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor). I refer to the attempt in another place to restrict the right of both plaintiffs and defendants in civil cases to trial by jury. The Opposition consider that to be a matter of signal importance. The matter was touched upon also by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson). His point was important.
  Apart from any constitutional issue, and apart from depriving citizens of their rights and liberties, the amendment that is now part of the Bill—although it came in by a side wind in Committee in the other place—deprives the public of the opportunity of participating in proceedings in which they should take part. They should be proud to take part in them as citizens, because they buttress the rights of others, and may buttress their rights at some time in the future.
  The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) referred to clause 36 and queried whether the same rules for subpoenas applied in Northern Ireland. The hon. Member for Meriden (Mr. Mills) referred in an interesting speech to the difficulties concerning Anton Piller orders, and we were reassured to hear what the Attorney-General had to say on the subject.
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  My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South and the hon. Member for Meriden tended to apologise for being present in the chamber, as if they were intruding on the privacy of lawyers in venturing to make their speeches. I am profoundly sorry that there are not more non-lawyers present to discuss the Bill. Unhappily, Bills of this sort are so often referred to pejoratively as lawyers' Bills or practitioners' Bills. Lawyers' Bills, as in this instance, often deal with matters that go to the heart of human liberties and of the liberties of the subject. I regret that there are not more right hon. and hon. Members present.
  The hon. Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) referred to solicitors who happen to have been appointed to the circuit bench becoming High Court judges. That was dealt with, too, by the right hon. Member for Crosby (Sir G. Page). I shall not say too much about the issue. It was canvassed at some length in another place. I have no doubt that it will be canvassed at length by hon. Members on both sides of the House, who will be briefed up to the hilt by the Law Society. It will be debated at length in Committee, and this is not the time for me to go into the issue in great detail.
  It is probable that all general practitioners of medicine would like to become consultant surgeons. The problem is one of experience. Experience of the lower courts, however great it may be, and however able the practitioner may be in the lower courts, is no real training for the High Court bench. It may be that a solicitor circuit judge, if I may use that clumsy phrase, is a first-class circuit judge. We all know solicitor circuit judges who are, with respect, first-class judges. However, the mere fact that one has been a first-class circuit judge is no proper experience for a High Court appointment. The solicitor concerned will have had no experience of the weighty case that is shared by members of the Bar who practise in the High Court. Whether we like it or not, we are a divided profession.
  Fusion was discussed quite recently and at great length by the Royal Commission under Lord Benson. It decided that, with all its faults and warts, the present system of separation of two great professions was in the public interest. The hon. and learned Member for Burton said that there was a simple way round the problem, if there is a problem. I suspect that it is not much of a problem. That way was for solicitors to become members of the Bar. In recent years, as a result of meetings between the Senate of the Bar and the Law Society, measures have been taken to facilitate the change from one profession to the other. It may be of interest to the House to know that in the last 12 months alone about 90 solicitors have taken advantage of that easy system. That is the way through.
  Mr. Mellor: The issue is not whether a solicitor in practice should be translated to the High Court bench, but whether someone who has proved himself on the circuit bench should be inhibited from going on to the High Court bench, when otherwise that would be an appropriate step, merely because in a previous incarnation he had been a solicitor. With the greatest respect, I am unconvinced by what the hon. and learned Gentleman says about the experience of a High Court judge who has been a barrister. For example, we know of the distinguished High Court judge who did well in the employment appeal tribunal and who had been a circuit judge sitting exclusively on criminal trials at the Old Bailey. We know of people who have had a Chancery practice, and have gone to the family division. We know of exclusively criminal practioners

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  who were expected to play their full part in the civil work of the Queen's Bench division. I do not want to speak at length, but I believe that the hon. and learned Gentleman understands what I mean. How is that any different from a man who has proven himself on the circuit bench?
  Mr. Thomas: I mean no disrespect to the circuit bench, but, in a sentence, it is the difference between Woolworths and Harrods.
  I hope that I can pass on from that contentious matter to consider the Bill not in detail, but generally. I promised to be brief, and I hope that I can keep that pledge. Our civil procedure has remained mainly unchanged since the days of Queen Victoria. There is no doubt that there is a compelling case for changes to be made. On the whole, the Bill meets those changes.
  However, one wonders whether there is now a case for an inquiry into the reorganisation of our civil court structure, which might explore, for example, the possible need for an integrated system comprising the High Court and the county court. One also wonders whether the Bill will do much to remedy some of the greatest mischiefs, such as the enormous and horrendous cost of litigation today and, equally important, the law's delays. Justice delayed is justice denied.
  Both sides of the House can agree about a serious flaw in the present system. I understand that a civil appeal now takes twice as long to come on as it did about 18 months ago. Therefore, the situation is serious.
  We very much welcome the appointment of a registrar of civil appeals. We hope that that will go at least some way towards remedying the present state of affairs. I join in the tributes that have been paid to Master Thompson. He and his colleagues in the Court of Appeal criminal division have done a magnificent job during the last few years. One only hopes that someone who is of equal calibre to Master Thompson will be found to fill that post. That is not to say that there is not a great deal of anxiety over delay in the criminal division. The Attorney-General told us that the average waiting time for appeals against sentence is 40 weeks and against conviction 20 weeks, which is unacceptable.
  Costs are equally important, and the Bill will not make a great deal of difference to the cost of litigation. We must always consider what a Bill does for the public. Will the Bill help litigants, or potential litigants, with costs? Will it deter people from pursuing proper litigation? Litigation is always difficult and uncertain, and the situation is aggravated by enormous costs. Even with the help of legal aid, ordinary people will soon be in jeopardy of not getting justice.
  We are concerned about the size of the judiciary, and we welcome the fact that the Lord Chancellor is increasing the number of puisne judges to cope with the enormous civil and criminal work load in the Court of Appeal. I regret that the amendment proposed in another place by Lord Foot concerning legal aid for appeals against refusal of bail by magistrates courts was not passed, and I hope that we can discuss the matter in Committee.
  I am troubled by what the Attorney-General said about the two judges in the Court of Appeal, criminal division. Perhaps the Solicitor-General will comment on the suggestion that, if there are to be only two judges, at least one should be a lord justice of appeal—preferably the Lord Chief Justice. It has been said that no two equals should sit together because it causes great difficulties. It would
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  be much more advisable when two High Court judges are dealing with appeals against sentence for at least one to be a lord justice of appeal, and that safeguard should he built into the Bill.
  Mr. Edward Lyons: As there will be only two judges, is it not more advisable for them normally to be equal. so that one is not overawed by the other?
  Mr. Thomas: They are dealing with the liberty of the subject. The men and women concerned may have been in custody for many months awaiting the determination of their appeal or application for leave to appeal against sentence. It would be a greater safeguard, and would save time in some instances, if we were to avoid the procedure of going to the full court of three, to have a lord justice of appeal sitting with a High Court judge.
  The crowning glory of our judicial system is the jury system, but we see the thin end of the wedge in the Bill. I would be horrified if our jury system, which has stood for centuries, were eroded in any way at all, and certainly if juries were to be withdrawn from fraud cases tried in criminal courts as opposed to the civil courts.
  When our liberties are taken away, the methods employed are neither instant nor dramatic. They are slowly eroded. It is done by stealth and by thieves in the night. I use that last expression in an objective manner. I profoundly believe that this is a great mistake. As I said earlier, men and women should welcome the opportunity to sit on juries. Although there are inconveniences from time to time, the Moonies case, which lasted a long time, was the exception that proves the rule. As has often been said in the past, hard cases make bad law. It would be wrong if any lesson were to be drawn from that case, but, as The Times pointed out on 2 April, the length of that case caused an amendment to be inserted in the Bill.
  The article went on to say:
  "It is argued that no jury should be required to sit for months on what was essentially (unlike a criminal trial) a private dispute. But there are good reasons why jury trials for libel should continue to be available when wanted.
  The very essence of a libel action is the issue of public repute. Has or has not the plaintiff's reputation been affected in the eyes of his fellow men and women? That is precisely the kind of question which should be answered by his peers. Who better than representatives of the public to decide whether his public esteem has been lowered? That argument is not affected by the length of the trial. The principle remains the same. In one respect, however, the functions of a libel jury should be changed. A jury is the right panel for deciding questions of public repute, but it is not a competent body to decide the damages to be awarded. That should be done by the judge, with the jury restricted to indicating how serious it considered the libel to be."
  I see the hon. Member for Putney nodding assent. The need to re-state the law in more coherent and modern language is necessary. To a large extent the Bill succeeds in doing so, and on the whole we welcome it. We would have preferred a measure that streamlined the system rather more, but, with the reservations that we have expressed, we wish it a fair wind.
  9.38 pm
  The Solicitor-General (Sir Ian Percival): I am grateful to those hon. Members who have contributed to the debate for the welcome that they have given the Bill and for the constructive approach which almost all of them adopted. I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) for setting the tone of the debate and for putting forward some useful

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  suggestions. He knows that they will receive the most careful consideration. I am grateful to the hon. and learned Member for Abertillery (Mr. Thomas) for winding up in the same tone.
  Many points of great interest have been raised, and it is my desire to cover as many as I can. However, hon. Members will realise that I shall not be able to cover them all. Therefore, I shall have to be slightly selective.
  There are two specific points on which I can give the assurances for which I have been asked.
  My right hon. Friend for Crosby (Sir G. Page) asked for an assurance on the question of interest in the county court. I can assure him that an amendment will be introduced. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) asked me a specific question. I am happy to give him the assurance that he sought—that these arrangements are reciprocal. The relevant provisions that ensure reciprocity are found in section 67 of the Judicature (Northern Ireland) Act 1978. In addition, I thank him for his courtesy in writing to me and for his most courteous observations about my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General and me. I hope that he, his colleagues and all in the Province know that we value our association with those in the Province. It is gratifying to know that the association is also valued by those in the Province.
  I echo what has been said by others and I am pleased that some laymen have taken part in the debate. Not enough laymen have taken part and they have not directed their remarks sufficiently to the substance of the matter. However, at least some took part. Indeed, one contribution was very much directed to an important point. It is clear that we shall have an interesting Committee stage, Four subjects have cropped up time and again. Because of their general interest, I shall say a word on each of them.
  Clause 69 introduces a new provision which gives a discretion to the court to dispense with a jury in certain circumstances. The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West and my hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence)—I also congratulate him on his appointment and on becoming learned in this House—the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson) and the hon. and learned Member for Abertillery made contributions on this point.
  The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South was not the only one to refer to administrative convenience. I assure hon. Members that the word "convenience" has nothing to do with administrative convenience. We have in mind the convenience of jurors. It never crossed my mind that the measure was being introduced for the convenience of judges, administrators or anyone else. Those summoned for jury service can be greatly inconvenienced. Indeed, that is a mild description of what they suffer. Therefore, the provision has nothing to do with putting administrative convenience above the rights of the subject to have a jury.
  Several points were made on this provision and they will no doubt be dealt with in Committee. The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West spoke of the difficulty of estimating the length of a trial. Of course it is difficult. However, as he knows, the courts are usually more practical in their approach to these problems than laymen give them credit for. The discretion will lie with
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  the judge until the start of the trial. It is not something that has to be decided at the summons for directions stage. It can be left until the last moment, when at least the best possible estimate can be made.
  I was asked whether we were thinking about four weeks or six weeks. I can only refer hon. Members to the wording. The only two elements that enter into the discretion are the probable length of time and the convenience, which I believe means the convenience of jurors. We have had great experience of four- and six-week trials, for which juries can be empanelled without great inconvenience to them. It would be surprising if it were argued that such a length of time automatically created inconvenience, so as to rule out jury trial. Those are points which we must explore in Committee.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) made a number of points about dispensing with a jury in certain cases. I remind him, and all others who spoke about inroads into one of our fundamental liberties, that we are talking of only a small number of cases—none the less important for that—in which the questions that will be introduced if the provision stands in the Bill can be considered with the greatest care by judge and counsel. These are High Court actions and everyone will have a chance to have his say before such an order is made. I do not belittle the importance of what we are doing but it is not anything dramatic about which we need to be alarmist although we need to be careful.
  The next subject referred to by many hon. Members relates to the burdens which rest on members of various divisions of the Court of Appeal. We are aware of those and I am sure that we shall discuss that further in Committee. We should remember that it is not only in the Bill that remedies are to be sought. For instance, the courts are constantly experimenting with ways of dispatching their business with greater speed and efficiency. Speed is not everything, however. One must not sacrifice the quality of justice for the sake of speed. One should do everything one can to speed up the business while maintaining its quality.
  Some hon. and learned Gentlemen will be aware that the Court of Appeal is experimenting on such matters as the reading day, to which my hon. and learned Friend referred in opening. The Master of the Rolls has agreed to mount an experiment for one term involving one division of the Court of Appeal sitting for only four days a week. That experiment will be closely monitored and, if successful, will be extended.
  In that context, I was asked a number of questions about the appointment and duties of the registrar. The idea is clear. It is to transfer to him all the duties that are carried out by the masters and registrars—where they exist. But there is no-one in the Court of Appeal. The duties will be defined by rules of court and the broad principle is as I have stated. However, the scope for experimenting within that framework is great.
  I am advised that, although the Bill does not require it, the appointment of a registrar of civil appeals, and the powers in clause 58 on incidental jurisdiction, would make the filing of written briefs possible, if that were generally desired. Once the enabling provisions are in force, the scope that that will give to those concerned for experimenting will be at our disposal for the first time. Nothing is permanent; there will be opportunities for

  233
  experimenting in all the ways to which right hon. and hon. and learned Gentlemen referred. That is why it is so important that those steps are taken.
  The next matter which attracted the attention of more than one speaker is the Anton Piller order. I am especially glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mr. Mills) contributed to that. He has acquired in a short time a good understanding of what an Anton Piller order is and does.
  It is important that courts should be able to assist those who are suffering wrongs, and unless they have the necessary instruments at hand they are apt to be brought into disrepute. The courts developed a practice that was given the name of the Anton Piller order, which enabled a person who had been severely wronged by pirating to protect himself.
  The court required a high degree of prima facie evidence that pirating was going on, because the powers of entry, search and so on given by the order are powers against which, on the whole, we set our face, for the same reason that we want to keep jurors. They are part of our protection of the rights and liberties of the subject, which, in the view of most of us, in the first object of the law.
  However, subject to certain safeguards and convincing proof that pirating was going on, the courts would use that means of assisting plaintiffs. It was proving effective, but it has come up against another principle that is as old as Magna Carta—that a person shall not be obliged to incriminate himself.
  A particularly unattractive aspect of the situation is that the more likely it is that a defendant is committing a serious offence the more likely it is that he will avail himself of that defence. In Rank Film Distributors Ltd. v Video Information Centre, it was held that, if answering a question disclosed certain minor infringements that would render a person liable, under the Act in question, to a penalty of £50, the principle would not be available to a person to enable him to refuse to answer questions. On the evidence in that case, conspiracy to defraud was being suggested and, unattractive as it is, that fact made it more likely that a person would avail himself of that defence.
  I hope that I have said enough to convince my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden that the importance and urgency of the matter are understood and I hope that he will appreciate that one cannot come to an answer as quickly as one can decide what one would like to do.
  Difficult considerations are involved and it would not be right for me to undertake that we shall be able to devise amendments in time for inclusion in the Bill. However, I assure my hon. Friend that the problem is well known within the machine and will be given urgent consideration. All those who wish to make representations should make them soon because the matter is being treated as one of urgency. However, that is the limit of the undertaking that I can give.
  The fourth subject that attracted attention from more than one hon. Member was the possibility of an amendment to make solicitors who had served as county court judges eligible for appointment to the High Court. We shall deal with that question if an amendment is tabled, but hon. Members who are solicitors know that I have never adopted the attitude that there are two halves of the profession and that we have our rights and will stick to them to grim death and that solicitors should stick to their rights.
  234
  Indeed, during proceedings on the Courts Bill I said that the time had come to reconsider the rights of audience, the rights of eligibility to be a recorder and so on. I start from that bus stop. I have never sought to hold to rigid lines. It is not a question of anybody being inhibited or being debarred from doing anything.
  The number of those who have been eligible to be appointed to the High Court bench has always been very small. The question now is whether it should be enlarged. Surely, therefore, we must have a close look at the qualifications. It is not just a question of skill as an advocate. We have to consider—I hope that all of us will consider it together in as helpful a spirit as we can—whether there is not something very special about High Court practice and about the relationship between bench and Bar or advocate and judge.
  Many who have had the experience of practising in the High Court would say that there is something special and important there for the administration of justice. These are the sort of things we must discuss if and when we have this amendment. I hope hon. Members will not take too rigid a position at this stage. Let us not allow it to develop into a polarised battle between the two halves of the profession. Far too many of us have been working too hard for years to try to get rid of that kind of difference to want to see any sort of niggle reversing all the good that has been done. I hope that we shall approach the matter in that spirit.
  There are many detailed matters about which I should have liked to say more. The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) asked about cost sanctions in the county court. We shall deal with that in Committee.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Sir G. Page) raised two important questions about delay. Delays in the county court happily are not long. I am told that eight to 10 weeks to bring a case to trial, if the parties are ready, is the availability of justice in the county court. Laymen do not realise that the reason why a case does riot come to trial in the county court for a year is often that the parties are not ready and are constantly asking for an adjournment.
  My right hon. Friend also referred to the enforcement of county court judgments. Here I have great sympathy. All of us are concerned that the process which leads up to the obtaining of a judgment must be complemented by an effective means of enforcing it otherwise it is a nonsense.
  I was asked about solicitors' costs by my hon. Friend the Member for North Fylde (Sir W. Clegg). The matter that he raised with me is currently under discussion between the Department of my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor and the Law Society. He also asked about extending garnishee proceedings to building society deposits. That too, is under active consideration and discussion with the bodies who would be affected by it.
  I regret that because of the shortage of time I have had rather to gabble through a large number of important points. I felt that at least something ought to be said on the points that I have dealt with. I look forward to developing all those points and any others that right hon. and learned and hon. and learned Members have in Committee. For the present I commend the Bill to the House and invite the House to give it a Second Reading.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a second time.
  Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

  Supreme Court Bill [Lords]

    SUPREME COURT [MONEY]
    Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
    Resolved,
    That for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to consolidate with amendments the Supreme Court of Judicature (Consolidation) Act 1925 and other enactments relating to the Supreme Court in England and Wales and the administration of
    236
    justice therein, and to amend Part VIII of the Mental Health Act 1959 and the law relating to county courts, it is expedient to authorise—

    (a) the payment out of the Consolidated Fund or out of money provided by Parliament of such salaries, remuneration and allowances as the Lord Chancellor may with the concurrence of the Minister for the Civil Service determine, being salaries, remuneration and allowances so payable under or in consequence of provisions of the said Act of the present Session;

    (b) any increase attributable to the provisions of the said Act of the present Session in the sums payable under any other Act out of that Fund or out of money so provided;

    (c) the payment of any sums into the Consolidated Fund. —[The Solicitor-General.]

    BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
    Resolved,
    That, at this day's sitting the Judicial Pensions Bill [Lords] and the Statute Law (Repeals) Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Brooke.]

  Judicial Pensions Bill [Lords]
  Considered in Committee.
  [MR. BERNARD WEATHERILL in the Chair.]
  Clauses 1 to 37 ordered to stand part of the Bill. Schedule 1 agreed to.

  Judicial Pensions Bill [Lords]
    Schedule 2

      TRANSITORY PROVISIONS
      10.1 pm
      The Solicitor-General (Sir Ian Percival): I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 32, line 10, leave out 'lst January 1957' and insert '16th July 1956'.
      The Chairman: It will be for the convenience of the Committee to take at the same time Government amendment No. 2.
      The Solicitor-General: Perhaps I may make this preliminary observation. I shall be happy to give any member of the Committee such explanation—short, medium or long—as he may wish on any of the amendments. But I shall wait to be asked. For the present, I content myself by saying that these two amendments correct a wrong date.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Amendment made: No. 2, in page 32, line 16, leave out '1st January 1957' and insert '16th July 1956'.—[Mr. Brooke.]
      The Solicitor-General: I beg to move amendment No.3, in page 34, line 17, leave out `14(1)(a)' and insert '10(4)(a)'.
      This amendment corrects a drafting error. I commend it to the Committee.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.

    Schedule 3

      CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS
      The Solicitor-General: I beg to move amendment No. in page 37, line 44, after 'or', insert 'a pension'.
      I have to make a longer speech on this one. This amendment is addressed to pensions of chairmen and deputy chairmen of the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. It makes it clear that the Pensions (Increase) Act 1971 applies to those pensions. I commend it to the Committee.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to.
      Schedule 4 agreed to.
      Bill reported, with amendments; as amended, considered.
      Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
      Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.

  Statute Law (Repeals) Bill [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  10.5 pm
  The Solicitor General (Sir Ian Percival): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  The Bill is so plainly worthy of being adopted by the House that, strictly speaking, it is unnecessary for me to say more, but I should be discourteous to the Law Commission if I did not say a word about it. We are very much indebted to the Law Commission for the work it does.
  The Bill is the latest instalment arising from the work of the Law Commission for England and Wales and the Scottish Law Commission to promote the repeal of obsolete and unnecessary enactments, thereby cutting out the dead wood from the statute book. It was annexed to the tenth report in the series of reports of the Law Commission in this task presented to Parliament in December last year. It proposes the repeal of 119 whole Acts and the removal of redundant provisions from 123 others. The nine previous reports have already resulted in the repeal of over 2,000 enactments, including 947 whole Acts. That represents a formidable volume of obsolete statutory material that has been removed from the record.
  Some of those present will know that this work is promoted by the Law Commissions. When they have drafted a Bill including all the provisions that they think should be repealed, the Bill goes to the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills. I often have the opportunity to express the appreciation of the House of the work done by that Committee. It relieves us of the burden of that work and does us a great service which I am happy to acknowledge on behalf of the House.
  The Bill was considered by the Joint Committee on Consolidation Bills, which reported—
  "They are of the opinion that the enactments proposed for repeal in the Bill are obsolete, spent, unnecessary or superseded, or are no longer of practical utility. The Committee approve the repeal of those enactments and consider that there is no point to which the attention of Parliament should be drawn."
  I endorse those conclusions and accordingly commend the Bill to the House.
  10.4 pm
  Mr. Jeffrey Thomas: I endorse what the Solicitor-General said about the Law Commissioners. I am sure that my hon. Friends will wish to join him in thanking them for the extremely arduous tasks which they undertake.
  One of the 119 Acts which are being repealed by this measure is the infamous Unlawful Oaths Act under which the Tolpuddle martyrs were convicted. It is ironic that it falls to the Conservative Party to introduce legislation to do away with that disgraceful statute. After much suffering the Tolpuddle martyrs were granted a free pardon and brought home at public expense. That case played a memorable part in the history of the Labour Party, and we welcome the Bill on those grounds.
  10.10 pm
  Mr. J. Enoch Powell: It is a matter of satisfaction to hon. Members representing Northern Ireland that the work of the Law Commission for England and Wales and of the Joint Committee on Consolidation extends to the consideration of statutes affecting Northern Ireland. In that connection, I wish to make an observation
  240
  of which I have given notice to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General. It is not, I must confess, the first time that he has heard me make this or a similar observation. When a section of the citizens of this country feels that it labours under a grievance, the House must not be surprised if reference is made, sometimes with tiresome iteration, to the existence of that grievance.
  The grievance to which I refer is that this part of the kingdom is not legislated for, in all respects, as is the rest of the United Kingdom. Part of the legislation that affects it—both the revision of existing law and the making of new law—is made by the process of Order in Council under the 1974 Act. Governments have hitherto insisted on maintaining this form of legislation because it is contended that there is something inviolate about the Northern Ireland statute book, that is to say, the totality of the enactments made by the Parliament of Northern Ireland within the scope of subjects that were devolved to that Parliament under the Government of Ireland Act 1920. Of course, that Parliament was suspended in 1972 and ceased to exist in 1973.
  Nevertheless, the fiction has been carried on from that time that we are about to witness what not everyone in the Province or anywhere else would wish to see, namely, the resurrection of such an institution. Therefore, these volumes, as they stand upon the lawyers' shelves, together with the new volumes added in the form of relevant Orders in Council, should not be tampered with by any other sort of legislation. Whenever we want to do anything in the House that falls within the purview of the no-longer existent Parliament and Government of Northern Ireland, we should not do it by Act of Parliament, which is the proper way of making and changing the law within the United Kingdom; we should do it by Order in Council.
  When hon. Members representing Northern Ireland, especially Unionist members, find exceptions to that rule, they take some delight in drawing attention to them and pointing out that a certain element in the Northern Ireland Office is contradicted out of its own mouth. The Bill now placed before the House does the undoable, dares the undareable and attacks the inexpugnable by actually touching legislation on Northern Ireland made by the Parliament of Northern Ireland.
  I should like to draw attention to those statutes affecting Northern Ireland which are repealed by the Bill. The first is to be found on page 9. Curiously enough, by a happy mischance, it is the House of Commons Disqualification Act (Ireland). This is a subject that most hon. Members did not suppose would become so actual as it is at present. I would point out, however, that it is the House of Commons Disqualification Act (Ireland) 1793—an Act of Grattan's Parliament of 1782 to 1800, now being removed from the composite statute book in which the totality of the statute law affecting Northern Ireland must be sought.
  Excited by that discovery, one moves to page 17 to find that the Matrimonial Causes and Marriage Law (Ireland) Amendment Act 1870 is to some extent being repealed. That is an Act passed in respect of Northern Ireland by the Parliament of the Union during a happy period, legislatively, in which between 1800 and 1922 this House legislated on all matters in respect of Ireland, as it did in respect of all other parts of the United Kingdom. That too is within the purview of the exalted bodies to which we owe this legislation and the Bill.
  I come to the pièce-de-résistance. It is to be found on page 18. It is an Act of the Parliament of Northern Ireland.

  241
  What from the point of view of the Northern Ireland Office are sacrilegious hands are being laid upon an Act of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, regardless of the alleged necessity of keeping that legislation untampered with and of dealing with it only in series by Order in Council so that a solicitor in Northern Ireland may be sure that, whatever law he wants will be found only in the Northern Irelandstatute book. The Government have dared to propose that the Children and Young Persons Act (Northern Ireland) 1968, of the Northern Ireland Parliament, now defunct, should be amended by the removal of two sections.
  I hope that nobody supposes that I am making much of little for the sake of doing so. It is serious that any part of this kingdom—and the years lengthen during which this has taken place—should have its law made by different processes from those by which the law is made for the rest of the kingdom. Not only do practical inconveniences, of which the Patronage Secretary is well aware, follow from that practice, but it is a mark of separation, placed and maintained on that part of the kingdom which contributes in no wise to stability and confidence in a province to which all parts of the House wish to see stability and confidence restored.
  Therefore, I have taken the opportunity once again—and I hope that the Solicitor-General has not begrudged it—of drawing attention to the fact that the House is capable conveniently, and with no loss of convenience to those practising the law in Northern Ireland, to make and to amend the law applicable in Northern Ireland as it makes and amends the law which applies to the rest of the kingdom.
  10.17 pm
  Mr. Frank Dobson: The Bill is a regular ragbag of measures that the House has approved in the past which, rightly, we are doing away with. I can declare a personal interest in one measure—the proposed appeal of sections 35 and 36 of the 1806 Act which prohibits the standing or plying for hire of hackney carriages in the vicinity of Bloomsbury Square.
  As I live close to Bloomsbury Square and have, on occasions, hailed and got in and out of hackney carriages in Bloomsbury Square, perhaps I should declare that I am an accomplice or conspirator.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Michael Jopling): Felon.
  Mr. Dobson: The Patronage Secretary should know since he moves among felons all the time.
  I understand that the legislation was introduced at the behest of the Bedford Estate, which did not want to lower the tone of the area by allowing hackney carriages to ply in the square. I suppose that because of the likes of me living in or near the square it is felt that the tone is already so low that stopping hackney carriages will make no difference. I am sure that my fellow residents welcome the measure as do the London cabbies who did not even know that the law existed.
  We cannot end the involvement of the House in the plight of the Dorset labourers without reference to what happened to them and to the disgrace that some measures that we are repealing brought upon the House, the establishment and the judicial system.
  The Patronage Secretary said that that is part of the Labour movement mythology. It is not. It is part of the
  242
  Labour movement historical fact. Although the Bill refers to the administration of justice, for the people who sought to combine to protect their interests in friendly societies and trade unions at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it was the administration of injustice and nothing less.
  We are being asked to repeal the Unlawful Oaths Act 1797. Apart from my general interest, in that I believe that the effects of that measure still affect the attitudes of the Labour movement, I have a special interest to declare—a constituency interest—in that the great campaign to get the Tolpuddle martyrs freed, pardoned and back from their seven years' transportation to Australia was mounted from Charlotte Street in my constituency.
  The six labourers whose names and problems featured in innumerable debates in the House—unfortunately, never resulting in a majority of that then unrepresentative House of Commons supporting those oppressed people—George Loveless, James Loveless, John Stanfield, Thomas Stanfield, James Hammett and James Brine, joined together, along with others, to try to establish a friendly society or trade union to raise their poverty level wages. As the result of an Act of Parliament, about which they knew nothing, the oppressive activities of Lord Melbourne and the then Government and what amounted to no more or less than a conspiracy between the Government and the justices in Dorsetshire—as it was then called—including a new judge who was trying to win his spurs, and a grand jury which included two relatives of Lord Melbourne, those poverty-stricken labourers were crushed by all the force of law, and lack of law, that could be obtained. Perhaps the Solicitor-General should check that the Cabinet still wants to remove these measures, which were intended to oppress trade unionism, from the statute book, in case they are needed again some time in the near future.
  Even if the Patronage Secretary describes the measure as mythology and even if we are getting rid of it, as I am glad we are, we should honour those six men and the people who fought to get them back from Australia and fought successfully to get them a free pardon. Perhaps we should dishonour the people who sent them there in an oppressive effort to keep themselves in privileged wealth at the expense of the poor.
  I can do no better than quote what George Loveless himself said to the court, when invited to speak by the judge before the sentence was pronounced:
  "My Lord, if we have violated any law, it was not done intentionally; we have injured no man's reputation, character, person or property; we were uniting together to preserve ourselves, our wives and our children, from utter degradation and starvation".
  Then they were found guilty, and possibly to quote the words of George Loveless is the most appropriate way to describe that sentence:
  "Not for anything we had done, or as he could prove, we intended to do, but as an example to others, he considered it his duty to pass sentence of seven years' transportation across His Majesty's high seas upon each and every one of us".
  All that arose because they swore that they would not disclose what they were doing in their friendly society. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) referred to open government. That happened at a time when the Duke of Cumberland administered unlawful oaths as a member of the Orange Lodge. Then, as now, there was a law for the poor and a law for the rich.

  243
  There are other measures intended to oppress working people when they combine that we are asked to set about repealing tonight, including other Acts relating to unlawful oaths introduced to oppress Luddites and others involved in the Captain Swing machine breaking on the farms. At the risk of breaching normal parliamentary etiquette, I must record that the Luddites referred to the hammers with which they broke the machines as "Enoch".
  It is also noticeable, and a lesson that we might draw from, that in the case of two laws it has taken 184 years for one and 170 years for the other before it has been decided that they are redundant and useless and should be repealed. That is how long measures intended to oppress working people stayed on the statute book. I contrast that with the speed with which Acts of Parliament intended to prevent criminal activity in Rhodesia were set aside by this Parliament. Rich and powerful people, Ministers of the Crown, senior civil servants and senior executives of international oil companies breached the Rhodesian sanctions. As soon as a settlement was achieved there was no question of allowing those clear statutory duties to remain on the statute book or to pursue those who had committed crimes by breaching the sanctions. About 20,000 people in Rhodesia were killed in a war which was protracted because of sanction busting. There was no question of that legislation staying on the statute book for 184 or 170 years.
  An amnesty was slipped through. The Lord Privy Seal denied that there was an amnesty in the legislation. Nevertheless, the amnesty took place and the people who had committed the crimes were cleared. It was a peculiar amnesty because one did not have to declare that one had done wrong before one was entitled to be cleared. That is what happened. We have learned the lesson that penal law can be repealed quickly—I suspect that that applies only to penal laws that affect the rich and powerful, whereas penal laws affecting the poor will no doubt remain on the statute book for evermore.
  A final lesson could be learned by Ministers—those who have managed to be present tonight—namely, that it was the clear view of everyone in the Labour movement at the time of the Tolpuddle martyrs and the writers in the radical newspapers that the oppression of the Tolpuddle martyrs and the six innocent labourers was an absolute godsend to the trade union, Labour and radical movement. The natural response of ordinary working people throughout Britain was to say "If you are going to push our sort around, we will push back. Even if we do not have the vote"—and they did not have the vote at that time—"we will get the wrongs put right." There is a final lesson in that for the Government.
  If the Government set about the trade union movement and try to reduce the living standards of working people, the working people will fight back. If the Government are trying to cut the unions down to size, as they see it, their actions may prove to have the effect of the pruning knife. If they attempt to cut back the strength of the Labour and trade union movement in the coming years, they will find that it will grow stronger because of their efforts and not weaker.
  10.30 pm
  Mr. Edward Lyons: The Bill evokes echoes of our history. It repeals a series of turnpike Acts
  244
  which governed access to about 11,000 miles in Britain as late as the 1830s. Those travelling along Britain's roads 150 years ago found themselves paying tolls, allegedly for the maintenance of stretches of road, before Governments and local authorities took it upon themselves to maintain the highways to a decent standard. We are getting rid of that part of our history.
  We are dealing also with two Acts which were famous in their time. The first Act was introduced in 1797 because of a mutiny at Spithead. The Act that was used against the Tolpuddle martyrs was introduced for a different purpose. It was improperly used to introduce severe punishments for taking secret oaths and making secret promises to do certain things. It is encouraging that attitudes have changed considerably since that Act was made law. It has been dormant since 1834. Presumably the main purpose of repealing it is to save paper by making it unnecessary to print it in future and to save lawyers reading excess pages of statute that no longer serve a useful purpose.
  The other Act—the Unlawful Oaths Act of 1812—was never implemented. Its purpose and likely effect were much worse than the Act under which the Tolpuddle martyrs were charged. The 1812 Act was introduced in response to Luddism, the wrecking of industrial machinery, and featured the death penalty for taking an unlawful oath. If a person promised to damage property, he could be sentenced to death. Happily the Act was never implemented, and in 1837 the death penalty for taking an unlawful oath was abolished.
  I have not read Hansard for 1837, but I imagine that some hon. Members strongly urged the retention of the death penalty for making an unlawful oath and opposed the reform. When a reform is proposed, the instinct of many of us initially is to react and to say "This is against the status quo. This has always been so. Why should we change it?" Laws are made to mirror contemporary attitudes. Attitudes that seem so permanent at the time appear ludicrous, harsh and inhuman to succeeding generations.
  Therefore, tonight we are celebrating the passing of those parts of our history. Those Acts were oppressive to ordinary working people and were inhumane and cruel in their intention against anyone who might have been charged under them. Acts such as the Turnpike Acts were relevant to our social history and to the way in which we lived our lives 150 years ago.
  It is right that we should express our gratitude to the people involved including the Joint Committee on Consolidation of Statute Law, on which I served for many years, for doing the work that was necessary to bring such Bills before the House. The Solicitor-General was on the Consolidation Committee with me for a long time. That Committee never receives publicity. What is said there is never quoted in the press. No pressman ever attends it. The work is done by diligent Members year after year, in an unsung fashion. Nothing is more irritating to members of that Committee than to be asked what they are doing in the House of Commons, when they know that they are spending many hours on such work.
  Therefore, I thank those who were responsible for doing the necessary work and for bringing the Bill before the House.
  10.36 pm
  The Solicitor-General: I shall comment on one or two matters. I am glad that everyone has acknowledged the work done by the Royal Commissions and by the Joint Committee. It is such a help to us in our work here.
  I am also glad that the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) approves of what is being done and that he was good enough to say so. I was amused by some of the lighter parts of his observations. If it means what I think it means, I am happy to attack the inexpugnable, but I am not sure what is the right word to use to describe the result. Inevitably one begrudges his taking time on those parts of his speech which are of serious interest, but, by the same token, I do not believe that the right hon. Gentleman would expect me to comment upon them on this occasion.
  We have heard the new mythology according to the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson). It is interesting to sit still and listen to history being rewritten. I shall not venture in any detail into what the hon. Member said, but I remind him that the Government about whose actions he complained so bitterly were weak—they were a Liberal Government. If the Act was to suppress the working class, I regard it as a feather in the cap of the Conservative Government that it has taken a Conservative Government to repeal it.
  I am glad that we have removed the restrictions on the movements of hackney carriages in the Bloomsbury Square area. I hope that in order to enable the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South to make early use of that change and to take a hackney carriage or some other sort of conveyance to Bloomsbury Square at an early moment, the House will give the Bill a Second Reading.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Goodlad.]
  Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported, without amendment.
  Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without amendment.

  Health Visitors
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —Mr. Goddard.
  10.40 pm
  Mr. Barry Sheerman: Listening to earlier speeches, I was reminded how appropriate it is to bring to the attention of the House a specific injustice. Like the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell), I hope that the House will not feel that I am making much of little for the sake of doing so.
  As was well said by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, South (Mr. Dobson), the House is concerned with the administration of justice and with injustice. He mentioned the Tolpuddle martyrs and the injustice to poor people who did not have a vote and who had very few rights in the eighteenth century. The injustices in the late twentieth century are as real, but are of a different nature. I hope that the House will pay attention to the injustice clone to Mr. Edward Myer of Dalton in Huddersfield. The cause is the complex bureaucracies that we set up by statute to run our affairs.
  I believe that at the end of my passionate pleading, the Minister will say that the matter is outside his province and that he cannot help, although perhaps I am being pessimistic and he will take action. After trying every other avenue, such as the ombudsman—although no ombudsman can help in this matter, because it concerns personnel—an Englishman has a right to ask his Member of Parliament for help. We have seen an array of lawyers here this evening. Recourse to the courts is expensive, especially in my constituent's complex case. As was the case 200 years ago, much of our legal system is not available to people of only modest means. But I make no great case of that this evening.
  I shall first trace the particulars of the case. My constituent, Mr. Myer, qualified in 1963 as a psychiatric nurse in the National Health Service. In July 1966 he became a registered mental nurse. In July 1968 he became a registered general nurse. Then, from September 1968 to September 1969, he took a specialised course to qualify as a health visitor. My constituent was one of the first men to become a health visitor. The House will recall that this was just before the time when we moved very much to change the law regarding the kinds of work that men and women could do and be reimbursed for doing. The course was for men and therefore excluded obstetrics because a male health visitor was not expected to be active in the delivery of infants.
  After qualifying, my constituent proceeded to work for five years as a very good and efficient full-time health visiting officer. Being an intelligent young man and keen to extend his education, in 1974 he took a course at Manchester University and received a master's degree in education. Being even more industrious than many of us, at the same time as he was working as a health visitor he was taking Open University courses, and in December 1974 he obtained a first class degree from the Open University. As the House knows, that is a very difficult course as the study takes place in one's own time.

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  My constituent, having been awarded a Master of Education degree in philosophy at Manchester University in December 1975, went on to take a doctorate in the philosophy of health education.
  It will thus be seen that I am describing a young man of tremendous drive who became a health visitor and then went on to the more theoretical side of his profession. He therefore left the practical side of his profession for some five years. Indeed, as well as the qualifications that I have enumerated, in August 1976 my constituent was awarded a graduate certificate in education at the Huddersfield Polytechnic Holly Bank campus, which is a very fine institution of education training. It is therefore clear that this man has undertaken a great deal of academic and practical education.
  In February 1980 the young man returned to his original profession as a health visitor and proceeded for six months to pursue that profession. Then, to both his own and the Kirklees health authority's astonishment, he was given to understand that he was no longer qualified to do the job for which he originally trained. Between 1974 and 1976, because of measures affecting equality of employment and legislation passed by the House, the whole nature of the health visitor's job changed. Men and women health visitors are now on an equal footing, so that men may now receive obstetric training and do exactly the same job as a woman health visitor, including the delivery of infants.
  Here a complication arises. Over a two-year period, the governing body responsible for the training of health visitors—the Council for Education and Training of Health Visitors—did not buy time in the media or space in the Nursing Mirror or advertise in The Times. It merely put out a press release. It also informed senior nursing officers in all hospitals that if a male health visitor did not take the small extra top-up in obstetrics, he could not qualify—after the two-year period—as a health visitor. A qualification had been undertaken in good faith. The man had passed the examination. Nevertheless, it would not be recognised by an employing authority if that condition had not been observed.
  My constituent did not know of the moratorium. During that two years he was busy in the groves of academe in Manchester university. He was pursuing a theoretical course. When he returned he did not read the Nursing Mirror. He did not attempt to see old students. As a result, although he has a qualification, has every right to pursue it and is willing to take the extra top-up in obstetrics, the governing body of the Council for the Education and Training of Health Visitors will not allow him to do so.
  There is grave cause for concern. There has been injustice as a result of bureaucracy. That bureaucratic creature is a little distant from this House, but in some ways it is responsible to the Minister. Therefore, I urge the Minister to use all the powers at his disposal to put right the severe wrong that has been done to a constituent of mine in Huddersfield.
  11.51 pm
  The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security(Sir George Young): The hon. Member for Huddersfield, East (Mr. Sheerman) has made a perceptive and well-researched case on behalf of his constituent, Mr. Myer, who comes through as a conscientious and energetic
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  individual, who has much to contribute to the National Health Service. The hon. Gentleman has been energetic in pressing his case on me and on my Department. I have a large file of correspondence on this subject.
  As the hon. Gentleman anticipated, I must tell him that no Ministers have at any stage beeen involved in the decisions regarding Mr. Myer's application to be registered as a health visitor; those decisions—as the hon. Gentleman knows—are assigned by statute to the Council for the Education and Training of Health Visitors. However, as the hon. Gentleman said, he has every right to ventilate his constituent's grievance in the House. I shall do my best to explain the position, as I understand it.
  Mr. Myer did a course in health visiting in 1968–69. I understand that he subsequently took up employment in the community nursing service, which at that time was still the responsibility of local authorities. It appears that he continued in that employment until August 1974. It is important to make it quite clear that Mr. Myer was not at that time employed as a health visitor. The hon. Gentleman said that Mr. Myer became a health visitor. Perhaps that was a slip of the tongue, because he did not. Furthermore, he could not become a health visitor, because he had not been admitted to the register of health visitors, which is an essential pre-condition for employment as a health visitor under the terms of the National Health Service (Qualifications of Health Visitors) Regulations 1972. Indeed, in the early 1970s, it was not possible for a man to become a health visitor, since no man could possess the part 1 midwifery qualification, which was then an essential requirement for registration. There have since then, been changes in this aspect. However, that was the position at that time.
  For the same reason, although Mr. Myer may, as a registered nurse, have been employed in the health visiting service, working alongside health visitors, he could not have undertaken the full range of health visitor responsibilities, which would be liable to include obstetric work, because he had not done the course in obstetrics. I emphasise that point. I do not question Mr. Myer's good faith, nor do I seek to belittle his efforts. However, I wish to make it clear that there is an important distinction between working as a registered nurse in the health visiting service and being employed as a fully-fledged health visitor.
  I understand that at the time in question a number of men had taken health visitor training courses but, like Mr. Myer, they could not become health visitors. Apparently some local authorities employed them in support of health visitors and gave them the job title of health visiting officer. I understand that that title did not have any formal status but was regarded as suitable for use in the circumstances.
  In 1972 the Council for the Education and Training of Health Visitors introduced a change to its training rules, which took effect from 1 January 1973. The purpose of that change was to enable men who had satisfactorily completed a health visitor training course to undertake a subsequent period of obstetric training to enable them to qualify for admission to the register as health visitors. That was a reversal of the normal pattern, which had always been, as it is today, that appropriate midwifery or obstetric experience was required before training as a health visitor. Until the early 1970s, it had not been possible for men to

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  gain the necessary obstetric experience, and it was for that reason that the council made a special provision to meet the needs of those men, such as Mr. Myer, who had already completed a health visitor course but who had not until then been able to qualify as health visitors.
  The rule change took effect from January 1973. I mention that because Mr. Myer was, apparently, at that time employed as a registered nurse in the health visiting service, where he continued for a further year and a half. It would have been open to him at any time during that period to seek to obtain the necessary obstetric training. I understand that that takes about 12 weeks. That would have entitled him to apply for registration as a health visitor. I mention this because I believe that Mr. Myer's failure at that time to take advantage of the opportunity that was then available to him—whatever may have been the reason for that failure—must have weighed strongly against him in his subsequent attempts to be admitted to the register.
  I referred to the 1973 change of training rules. I should mention that this is the one point at which there is ministerial involvement, as proposals by the council for rule changes require ministerial approval before they can become effective. But it is the council's responsibility to consider and propose the changes. The council proposes and the Minister disposes.
  In August 1974 Mr. Myer left his employment in the health visiting service to pursue his academic studies on a full-time basis. He clearly has pursued those studies with considerable dedication and commitment. One can only applaud the efforts that he has made in that direction.
  At the beginning of 1976 the council decided to terminate the special arrangement for men introduced by the 1973 rule change and to make a requirement that, with effect from the September 1977 intake for health visitor training, men as well as women should have obtained an acceptable prerequisite obstetric qualification prior to commencing health visitor training. At the same time, the council decided that those men who had undertaken health visitor training but who had not so far undertaken the necessary obstetric training must do so before the end of 1978 if they wished to make themselves eligible for the award of the health visitor's certificate. I understand from the CETHV that these decisions were widely publicised at the time in the nursing press.
  It was not simply that a press release was issued. The hon. Member queried that. I should refer to a letter that Dr. Turner, the principal administrative and finance officer of the Council for the Education and Training of Health Visitors wrote to Mr. Myer on 23 December 1980, in which he said:
  "Notice of these decisions was published widely in the nursing press at the time".
  Mr. Sheerman: We have asked many times for evidence that there had ever been that kind of advertisement. We have been given none. I have been combing the pages of the relevant press and I have been unable to uncover one advertisement.
  Sir George Young: That comment may be relevant to what I have to say later. I have it in black and white from the principal administrative and finance officer that notice of those decisions was published widely in the nursing press at the time. I should have thought that it was legitimate to ask Dr. Turner to produce copies of the relevant press releases.
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  By the time Mr. Myer became aware of the new position, which was in the latter part of 1980, it was too late for him to take advantage of the final opportunity in the transitional arrangements.
  No one could listen to the account that the hon. Gentleman has given without feeling considerable sympathy for Mr. Myer. The position is, however, that no matter how much sympathy I may feel—I am sympathetic—I do not have any powers in the matter. Since, following Parliament's enactment of the Health Visiting and Social Work (Training) Act 1962, the Council for the Education and Training of Health Visitors has been established, it is to that body that all responsibility for deciding questions of registration has been assigned.
  From the inquiries that I have made I understand that there is no formal right of appeal on registration questions from the decisions of the council. Anyone who felt aggrieved and wished to seek redress would have to do so through the courts. It would, however, be open to Mr. Myer to go back to the council and ask it to reconsider its decision in order to allow him to undertake currently the necessary period of obstetric training that would entitle him to apply for admission to the register of health visitors.
  I have no locus in that matter and would not wish to mislead the hon. Gentleman. I am not offering any hint regarding the possible outcome—it would be wrong for me to do so—but the case has had a substantial airing and I am sure that if Mr. Myer were to ask the council to review its decision it would take careful account of any representations that he might make. The hon. Gentleman might have a role to play in a request for a review by providing the council with a copy of the report of our debate.
  I have sought to explain as precisely as I can the reasons for Mr. Myer's problem. Before concluding, however, I should like to comment on the present position. Mr. Myer is not a health visitor, but he is a registered nurse. As a registered nurse, it is open to him to seek, and to obtain, employment with a National Health Service authority or elsewhere. Any authority employing him could quite properly, if it so wished, employ him in its health visiting service, not as a health visitor but as a registered nurse who has taken a health visitor training course, working in support of health visitors.
  The authority would pay him on a Whitley Council pay scale appropriate to the particular appointment. It could, if it chose, describe the post as a "health visiting officer" or could use some other appropriate designation. Any such designation would not have any formal status in Whitley Council terms, but that is not necessary. There are many job titles in use in the NHS nursing service which are not Whitley pay grade.
  I hope that I have made the present position clear. Mr. Myer can be employed as a nurse in the National Health Service and, indeed, in the health visiting service, Put not as a health visitor, since that is a formal professional designation which he does not hold and never has held.
  Mr. Sheerman: I thank the Under-Secretary for his comments. Is it not strange that the Council for the Education and Training of Health Visitors has no appeals procedure for a member of the profession? We are in a

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  dangerous position in many supplementary professions if we are developing a council that has no inbuilt appeals machinery.
  Question put and agreed to
  Adjourned accordingly at two minutes past Eleven o' clock.