Commons Sitting of 20 January 1982

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

    Local Government Finance
    Mr. Cadburyasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to complete consultations arising from his Green Paper on local government finance.
    Mr. Chapmanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received in the last month on reform of the domestic rating system.
    The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Michael Heseltine)Comments have been invited by 31 March. By Monday 18 January, 10 representations had been received advocating a variety of solutions.
    Mr. CadburyBefore my right hon. Friend completes his consultations, will he bear in mind that the burden on the ratepayer has been greatly exacerbated by the present two-tier system, which involves two levels of local government competing over the spending of ratepayers' money? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the daunting task facing him and his colleagues in the reform of the rating system would be made much easier if the upper level of local government were abolished and we returned to the unitary system?
    Mr. HeseltineThere are pressures to look at the structure of parts of local government. Those pressures would be reduced if some authorities were less free with their spending policies. The Government's immediate priority is to deal with the financial aspects in the Green Paper.
    Mr. ChapmanSince domestic rates bring in only 16 per cent. of total local authority revenue, and as they are an inherently unfair tax, does my right hon. Friend agree that their replacement by a tax, or taxes, collected nationally would not be detrimental to local government freedom, because local government has never had any financial freedom?
    Mr. HeseltineMy hon. Friend will recognise that that is a controversial assertion. However, there is merit in the underlying argument. I must ask him to wait until the end of the consultation period before expecting me to reach any conclusions.
    Mr. SeverDoes the Secretary of State recognise that many of the representations on local government finance
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    that he has received and will receive boil down to the fact that he is starving local government of sufficient funds to carry out the duties for which its members believe they have been duly elected? Will he give prime consideration to ensuring that local government receives more money?
    Mr. HeseltineIt is difficult to square that with the thought that the first investigation into an alternative method of financing local government was held when the very reverse policies were in practice.
    Mr. SquireNotwithstanding the observations of try hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman), does my right hon. Friend recognise that for many years local government has been able to determine its level of spending and has been answerable to the ratepayers for any excesses? In the consultations, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the importance of speedy legislation—preferably in 1982–83?
    Mr. HeseltineI am sure that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not intrude into the debate between him and my hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Chapman). When we have reached conclusions, it will be important to advance with dispatch.
    Mr. WardWill my right hon. Friend continue to consider the problems of commercial and industrial ratepayers, who are mentioned briefly in the Green Paper, who bear a high proportion of local government finance? They are being threatened out of existence by some local authorities.
    Mr. HeseltineI hope that my hon. Friend will not misunderstand me when I say that it is difficult for me to avoid considering the problems of all ratepayers. I am aware that great concern is being expressed by commercial and industrial ratepayers, who find themselves paying ever increasing rate bills without any form of direct representation on authorities. The Government's main concern is to deal with alternatives to, or the reform of, domestic rates. In that context, I shall have to consider the implications for commercial and industrial rates.

    Ratepayers (Protection)
    Mr. Heddleasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what measures he proposes to protect ratepayers in high spending local authorities during 1982–83.
    The Minister for Local Government and Environmental Services (Mr. Tom King): The ban on supplementary rates and precepts provided for in the Local Government Finance (No 2) Bill will protect ratepayers from unexpected additional rate demands after the start of the financial year. Ratepayers will also benefit from the continued efforts of the Government to encourage local authorities to achieve greater economies in their expenditure.
    Mr. HeddleDoes my right hon. Friend accept that the Government's measures will receive widespread support throughout the rate-paying electorate, especially from industrial and commercial ratepayers, who have no vote or voice on the way in which high-spending authorities are spending their money? Does he agree that the only way to protect the ratepayer against extravagant Labour-controlled high-spending authorities is to increase accountability of councils to their electorates.
    Mr. KingI am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting the first part of his supplementary question. There is no doubt that this year some supplementary rates have caused enormous distress and real difficulties for private ratepayers and for business and industry. We wish to encourage accountability and more information about council activities, costs and expenditures. I know that my hon. Friend supports that approach.
    Mr. FosterHow does the right hon. Gentleman intend to protect tenant ratepayers in St. Helens, Auckland, who have lost their homes, most of their furniture and most of their clothing because they could not afford to have their heating on all day and suffered burst pipes as a result of the freeze? Is he aware that the local authority faces a bill of almost £500,000? Will he undertake to send one of his colleagues to St. Helens to see the position and to say how the Government will protect the ratepayers to whom I have referred?
    Mr. KingThe hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot answer off the cuff a detailed question about his constituency. The best way in which he can represent his constituents' interests in the serious situation that they face is to approach my Department. It may be a matter for my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction. I know that my hon. Friend will wish to consider the facts.
    Mr. MajorIs my right hon. Friend aware that the actions of high-spending authorities are of concern also to ratepayers within the areas of low-spending local authorities? Will he assure such ratepayers that they need not fear a contraction of their services next year as a result of the imposition of financial penalties because of the actions of high-spending authorities?
    Mr. KingI am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising an important issue. There is a cash limit on the rate support grant. Under the practice of the Labour Government, high-spending authorities could attract more grant for themselves at the expense of prudent low-spending authorities. That is a practice that we have been determined to change. The previous Government imposed holdback on local authorities across the board. The advantage of our proposals, as set out in clause 4 of the Local Government Finance (No. 2) Bill, is that no longer will holdback be across the board. It will no longer apply equally to the prudent as well as to the extravagant.
    Mr. Allen McKayDoes the right hon. Gentleman accept that some of the high-spending authorities are those in greatest need? The Government have closed schools and old people's homes and removed welfare benefits. Does he further accept that the judgment on a local authority should come from the electors, not from the Government? Does he appreciate that the Government are removing the freedom of electors to elect the representatives that they want to form an authority?
    Mr. KingNo hon. Member could ask that supplementary question without revealing a failure to study even the most basic local authority statistics. If the hon. Gentleman studies them he will find, regardless of political persuasion, that Labour authorities in areas of high need are able to provide adequate services without the levels of expenditure of other less efficient authorities which fail to provide adequate services. The hon. Gentleman should
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    study some of the comparative statistics on the performance of authorities. If he does, he will appreciate the degree of inefficiency in some authorities.

    Rented Accommodation
    Mr. Crowtherasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received from housing associations about the allocation of resources for the provision of rented accommodation during the next financial year.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir George Young)We have received a number of representations from housing associations about the importance of making continued provision for rented accommodation. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction said in reply to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) yesterday, the Housing Corporation's 1982–83 development programme for England will include provision for new fair rent schemes about 20 per cent. higher in real terms than in the current year.
    Mr. CrowtherDoes the Under-Secretary agree that housing associations have carried out an extremely useful job in supplementing local authority housing provision? Therefore, will he assure the House that the high level of resources will continue, at least throughout the lifetime of this Government, until a new Government are elected, who will do the job even better?
    Sir George YoungAs chairman of the Acton housing association for seven years, I endorse what the hon. Gentleman said about valuable role of housing associations in tackling housing need. We have increased the resources available to the Housing Corporation for next year in recognition of the valuable role that it plays and will, I hope, continue to play.

    House Building
    Mr. Gwilym Robertsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what are the latest figures available for the number of local authority housing starts and completions; if he will take steps to increase these numbers; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. John Stanley)In the first 11 months of 1981 there were 20,000 local authority and new town housing starts in England and 52,000 completions. As announced by my right hon. Friend on 21 December, the gross provision for local authority housing capital expenditure in 1982–83 shows an increase in real terms on the current year.
    Mr. RobertsWill the Minister now come clean and admit that the Government's policies have destroyed local authority housing programmes and all hope for hundreds of thousands of desperate people on council housing waiting lists?
    Mr. StanleyI do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. Far from the Government destroying all hope, the hopes of many of achieving owner-occupation have been fulfilled. The Government have also made a considerable contribution to the rented sector. I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman has been corresponding with the Department about the area represented by the local authority within his constituency. If he wishes to accuse

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    the Government of not making sufficient capital investment available to his own local authority, I am sure that he will want to ask why the Cannock Chase district council has spent only one-quarter of its allocation, plus receipts, halfway through this financial year.
    Mr. DurantWill my hon. Friend tell the House what capital receipts have been received from the sale of council houses, and will he urge councils to spend those capital receipts on housing before the end of the financial year?
    Mr. StanleyWe estimated at the beginning of the financial year that there would be housing capital receipts in excess of £400 million. That estimate looks like being fulfilled, if not exceeded. I agree with my hon. Friend that it is imperative that local authorities make every possible attempt to utilise to the full the substantial housing and non-housing capital receipts which represent an addition to the allocation itself.
    Mr. Douglas-MannDoes the Minister agree that the figures that he has announced are below those forecast by the Select Committee on the Environment and that on present trends nearly 500,000 families will be suffering from homelessness, low standards of accommodation, overcrowding or inability to form households by the end of this Parliament? Does he accept that the actuality will be even worse than the forecasts of the Select Committee on which the Conservative Party had a majority?
    Mr. StanleyThe figures that I have quoted refer to the public sector. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will wish to welcome the increase of about 22 per cent. in private sector housing starts in the first 11 months of 1981, despite the recession.
    Mr. WinnickAn increase on what?
    Mr. StanleyBefore the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mr. Douglas-Mann) becomes too critical of the Government's housing policy, no doubt he will reflect on the fact that the Social Democratic Party, which he has recently joined, has no housing policy.
    Mr. HeddleDoes my hon. Friend agree that perhaps the best way to restore hope to the hundreds of thousands who are on council housing waiting lists is for the Labour Party to withdraw its blind and dogmatic objections to the Government's shorthold proposals and give people the right to rent homes?
    Mr. StanleyMy hon. Friend is right. If the right hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) had not entered the particular commitment to repeal shorthold on behalf of the official Opposition, many thousands of additional properties to rent would be available now.
    Mr. KaufmanIs it not a fact that the number of new council houses started in 1981 was the lowest for 70 years? The allocation for 1982, with a reduction of 4 per cent. on the Government's phoney inflation rate of 8·9 per cent., will mean that 1982 will be worse than the disastrous 1981. Will the Government now increase HIP allocations by £1 billion, put 120,000 building workers to work and halve homelessness?
    Mr. StanleyIf the right hon. Gentleman is concerned about housing the homeless, he should immediately withdraw his objection to shorthold.

    Playing Fields
    Mr. McNallyasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what representations he has received from national sporting bodies on the present and future provision of playing fields by local authorities.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Neil Macfarlane)The Football Association has written to me about the possible sale of school playing fields by local education authorities. I am aware also that the Sports Council and the Central Council for Physical Recreation have expressed concern on this issue. One of the national newspapers has given me a list of allegedly threatened playing fields, which I am having checked through the regional councils for sport and recreation.
    Mr. McNallyWill the Minister state whether it is the Government's intention that local authorities should sell playing fields for building speculation? If not, will he meet a delegation of interested Members and representatives of sports associations who are worried about the implications of the regulations? Having listened to their representations, will he discuss with the Secretary of State for Education and Science an amendment to remove that threat to school playing fields and other recreation facilities?
    Mr. MacfarlaneIt is not the Government's intention to sell off those premises and facilities. I shall try to acquaint the House with the background. The Department of Education and Science regulations merely set new minimum standards for school playing fields. In some areas that could lead to increases in schools' usable sports facilities. I am as concerned as are the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members. That is why I have asked the regional councils for sport and recreation to check on what is happening in those counties. I shall reserve judgment on whether further meetings are necessary until I have that information. A number of authorities have sold land in recent months, just as they have in recent years. That is nothing new. The regulations set new minimum standards.
    Mr. Alan ClarkWhat representations have been received from national sporting bodies, or would my hon. Friend like to tell us a little more about the extraordinary episode last month, when he tried to exert pressure on the secretary of the Football Association to drop the bulldog logo as our World Cup emblem, on the ground that the Spaniards might find it provocative? Does he agree that, even on the most generous interpretation, his responsibilities for sport are somewhat amorphous and that excessive zeal in defending foreign sensibilities is not among them?
    Mr. SpeakerOrder. It is up to the Minister whether he answers that supplementary question. It is a little remote from the original question.
    Mr. MacfarlaneBy your leave, Mr. Speaker. I have had no representations from the Football Association on the reports in the press. I admire my hon. Friend's versatility in introducing that subject.
    Mr. Denis HowellIf the Minister does not believe that the new regulations and another set on selling playing fields in higher education establishments will lead to the sales of those facilities, why did he tell the conference of the Central Council for Physical Recreation that he expected the new document to lead to the sale of the

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    playing fields at such schools? Is he not alarmed at the evidence? We welcome the fact that he is consulting the regional councils, but will he ensure that no playing field is sold if it is capable of dual use, especially in areas of deprivation? Will he also ensure that the National Playing Fields Association's standard of six acres of playing field per 1,000 population is applied in all cases and that no playing field is sold if that standard is not met?
    Mr. MacfarlaneI endorse the right hon. Gentleman's remarks about the importance of dual use. At the conference in Bournemouth I stressed the importance of dual use. I said that the Department of Education and Science had conducted a 10 per cent. sample survey to try to find out the extent of use throughout the 105 local education authorities. I want to make it clear that the regulations merely set new minimum standards.
    Mr. John CarlisleDoes my hon. Friend agree that it ill behoves the former Minister with responsibility for sport, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell), to talk about dual use of local authority pitches, when the Labour Administration did nothing to help? Does he also agree that part of the reason why local authorities' school pitches cannot be used at weekends is the attitude of narrow-minded school caretakers and their unions?
    Mr. MacfarlaneMy hon. Friend must look at what is happening in many local authorities in the country. I am enormously encouraged by what I have seen. Many local education authorities have put themselves out greatly in the interests of the community. I pay tribute to them. I should like to see more of that coming on stream.
    Mr. Roy HughesIs the Minister aware that there is a considerable shortage of playing fields and that his present policy has united in opposition the Sports Council, the Central Council for Physical Recreation and all the teachers' organisations? Why does he not reconsider the matter?
    Mr. MacfarlaneIt is not a question of reconsideration. If the hon. Gentleman has any examples in his constituency or in the surrounding counties, he should let me know. I shall draw them to the attention of the appropriate regional council for sport and recreation.

    Industrial and Commercial Rates
    Mr. Marlowasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will introduce legislation to provide for a ceiling on the level of industrial and commercial rates.
    Mr. KingI have no plans to do so. Legislation to set a ceiling on increases in business rates would not necessarily achieve our aim of getting high-spending local authorities to reduce the level of their spending, and could in certain circumstances lead to intolerable burdens on the domestic ratepayer.
    Mr. MarlowWill my right hon. Friend change his plans—if he has nothing to do at the moment—because the Government had proposed that there should be a cut-off point for rate increases that could be imposed on business and commercial ratepayers? That would have made local authorities that were seeking extortionate rate increases impose them on those who, by their votes, could get rid of those authorities, rather than on the commercial and industrial ratepayer, whose only recourse is to go out of business.
    Mr. KingMy hon. Friend will understand that our earlier proposal involved transferring the burden to the domestic ratepayer, who had the opportunity to register his opinion through a local poll. We felt that without that protection, it would not be fair to transfer that burden to the domestic ratepayer. Business and industry will benefit considerably from protection against supplementary rates, which did great damage last year. Indeed, there was a prospect of further supplementary rates being demanded this year.
    Mr. Stephen RossDoes the Minister accept that there is a case for some industrial derating, particularly for new small businesses in areas that are not assisted in England and Wales? For instance, there is still industrial derating in Scotland. Why cannot that apply in parts of England and Wales?
    Mr. KingThere are always arguments for exemptions and reliefs. They have been considered by successive Governments at different times. We conducted experiments in the form of enterprise zones in which we provided total relief from rates. We are monitoring those experiments closely.

    Right-to-buy Applications
    Mr. Squireasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many right-to-buy applications have now been processed by housing authorities.
    Mr. HeseltineI estimate that, by 30 September 1981 local authorities and new towns in Great Britain had received 440,000 applications. Some 48,000 sales had by that date been completed or, in the case of Scotland, reached the stage when missives had been concluded.
    Mr. SquireI congratulate my right hon. Friend on the success to date of that policy. Does he, none the less, accept that in a number of areas, including Conservative-controlled authorities, thousands of tenants have been waiting for over a year for the completion of the purchase of their homes? Will he consider sympathetically an amendment to the 1980 Act that would impose a timetable on all the stages, including completion, and not just on the start of the purchase?
    Mr. HeseltineI am aware that tenants throughout the country, many of whom are in contact with my Department, are concerned about the speed with which the legal processes are advancing. I hope that local government, as it becomes familiar with the techniques of conveying such housing, will make the processes advance faster. That will make it unnecessary to amend the legislation.
    Mr. DobsonIn the light of the exhortation of the hon. Member for Reading, North (Mr. Durant) that councils should sell council houses to raise money to build more council houses, will the Secretary of State confirm that, on average, the sale of 12 council houses will be required to finance the building of one?
    Mr. HeseltineThat is a completely meaningless statement. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] The hon. Gentleman must be aware that what large numbers of local authority tenants want is the proper management and maintenance of their houses, better use of existing stock and a more rapid turnover in existing vacancies.
    Mr. CartwrightWhat action will the Secretary of State take about councils, such as Greenwich, which deliberately penalise tenants who express an interest in buying their houses by denying them improvements, decorations and repairs for which they have paid in their rent? However angry Labour councillors may be about being forced to sell council houses, does he agree that they should not vent their anger on tenants who have done no more than exercise their legal rights?
    Mr. HeseltineI am very much in sympathy with that view. It is unjustifiable for a large public body to use the resources at its disposal against the relatively limited resources of individual citizens who have clear legal rights.
    Mr. ViggersHas my right hon. Friend yet been involved in discussions about giving the right to buy to Ministry of Defence tenants? Does he believe that the idea has merit?
    Mr. HeseltineThe Ministry of Defence needs to maintain a stock of houses for its strategic purposes, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence has discretion to dispose of surplus homes.

    Outer London Boroughs (Rates)
    Mr. Dykesasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has as to the likely effect of grant-related expenditure adjustments on the rate levels of the outer London boroughs.
    Mr. KingRate levels are determined primarily by authorities' expenditure decisions. For 1982–83 outer London boroughs can expect increases in grant-related expenditure in line with those applying nationally and an increased share of the block grant if they meet their expenditure targets.
    Mr. DykesAs there are anxieties that basic services may have to be reduced, depending on the outer London borough concerned, how much money does my right hon. Friend believe might be involved in adjusting the formula for the percentage reduction of spending to the real rate of inflation, as opposed to the theoretical lower rate of inflation?
    Mr. KingI could not answer that detailed question without notice, but I shall give my hon. Friend the information.
    Mr. PavittDoes the Minister recall the Secretary of State's assurance to me in the House about the London borough of Brent, which has inner city problems and the highest number of ethnic minority residents of all the London boroughs? Will he ensure that any adjustment in the rate support grant, and so on, in the coming year takes those factors into account?
    Mr. KingThe proposals will shortly be contained in an order to be laid before the House. If the hon. Gentleman studies the proposals he will see that in the GREA the London borough of Brent, for some of the reasons that he gave, has benefited significantly.

    Housing Starts and Completions
    Mr. Hooleyasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what is the estimated number of housing starts in the Yorkshire and Humberside region in 1981; and how this compares with the figure for 1979.
    Sir George YoungFigures for the last quarter are not yet available, but about 10,000 dwellings were started in the region in the first three quarters of 1981, compared with 13,000 in the same period of 1979.
    Mr. HooleyIs not the massacre of the housing programme one of the Government's most stupid policies? Will it not have serious social consequences, particularly in areas like Yorkshire, which still has many pre-First World War houses? Will it not also have disastrous economic consequences, as it seriously damages the private and public sectors of the house building industry?
    Sir George YoungWhen the hon. Gentleman talks about the massacre of the house building programme, he might reflect on the figures for the region from 1976 to 1979, when they fell from 22,040 to 13,255. We have increased the HIP allocation for Sheffield by 4·5 per cent. in real terms for next year. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to see more money spent in Sheffield to tackle housing problems, perhaps he will persuade the local authority to sell its homes to the 4,000 tenants who have already established their right to buy. That would bring in about £5 million and increase by about 25 per cent. the money that Sheffield has to spend on housing.
    Mr. John H. OsbornBearing in mind the level of public housing in the past, will my hon. Friend give us the recent figures for private housing starts?
    Sir George YoungThe private sector figures that I have for the region for the three quarters of last year are 2,121, 2,928 and 2,486. I am happy to say that for the past two quarters the figures show a useful increase over the same period in 1980.
    Mr. Edwin WainwrightWill the Minister bear in mind that thousands of houses, especially in South Yorkshire and the Yorkshire area generally, are crying out for modernisation? Where the local authority has no money to improve them, will the Government help financially?
    Sir George YoungThe hon. Gentleman's question shows that it does not make sense for Opposition Members to concentrate their attack on starts. Housing conditions can also be improved by modernisaton and other work. We have introduced a new system whereby local authorities have absolute discretion to spend the money that we give them as they wish. If they wish to spend it on improvement they can do so. The region that the hon. Gentleman represents could get an extra £60 million if it sold to council tenants the homes that they have applied to buy.

    New Towns (House Condition Report)
    Mr. Dormandasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he expects to receive the report of the National Building Agency relating to the condition of houses in certain new towns.
    Mr StanleyOn present plans my right hon. Friend expects to receive the report by the end of May.
    Mr. DormandIs the Minister aware of the massive problems facing Easington district council relating to Peterlee new town? Is he aware that one estimate of the cost of repairing houses in the town is £40 million? How can he expect local people to bear that cost? When the report is received, will Peterlee have first priority,

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    especially as one of the Minister's colleagues admitted a few months ago that its plight was worse than that of all the other new towns? As Easington district council was told to get on with the repairs and that some money would be refunded, why has it not yet received a penny?
    Mr. StanleyI am aware of the problems facing Easington district council. The hon. Gentleman strongly represents the council and his constituents. In making the HIP allocation to the authority we have borne in mind the problems created by the defects in the Peterlee new town houses that have been transferred to Easington. Despite our decision to wind up the National Building Agency, we have this morning signed an agreement under which the new town defects contract will be transferred to a private sector consultancy formed by former NBA staff.
    Mr. Philip HollandBy what date does my hon. Friend expect the NBA to complete all its tasks and be wound up?
    Mr. StanleyAs my right hon. Friend said, we are working to a wind-up date of March 1982.
    Mr. FosterAs the £16 million repair bill that the Sedgefield district council will have to meet as a result of repairs in the new town of Newton Aycliffe will have risen by at least 12 per cent. as a result of the year's delay occasioned by the Minister referring the problem to the NBA, what does he intend to do?
    Mr. StanleyOne of the main reasons for the delay was that we were unable to agree with representatives of the Association of District Councils on the basis for a settlement. That led to a reference to the NBA. The association, through its various authorities affected by the problem, has bid for a substantial sum of public money and it is incumbent on us to establish the exact technical nature of the problem and to cost it as accurately as we can before payments are made.

    Royal Parks (Fishing)
    Mr. Jesselasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what recent representations he has received on fishing in lakes and ponds in Royal parks.
    Mr. MacfarlaneI have received from my hon. Friend a petition signed by about 800 people protesting against the prohibition of fishing in 1981 in three ponds in Home park, Hampton Court.
    Mr. JesselAs fishing is a healthy outdoor activity which should be encouraged, will my hon. Friend consider carefully what has happened in Hampton Court park at the Wallpond and two other ponds, where for 30 years people have been fishing without hindrance in large and ideal ponds, but now a keen new inspector has been appointed and he is turning everyone away merely because the three ponds are not listed on the permit alongside five other ponds in Hampton Court and the neighbouring Bushey Park? Provided that there is reasonable provision for the conservation of wildlife, will my hon. Friend consider sympathetically extending the permits to the other ponds, especially the Wallpond?
    Mr. MacfarlaneI am well aware of my hon. Friend's anxiety, as he came to discuss the matter with me a few weeks ago. It is the problem of conservation and sensible management of wildlife, to which he referred, and the fact
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    that the ponds have been fished for some 30 years which leads to the need perhaps to rotate fishing in the eight ponds so that it may continue in five of them. I am certainly prepared to have studies carried out.
    Mr. JayHave the Government any proposals to privatise the Royal parks?
    Mr. MacfarlaneIf we may rely upon the right hon. Gentleman's support, we may well consider it.
    Mr. ChapmanDoes my hon. Friend agree that fishing rights should be like planning permission, and that if people get away with it for four years they should have established-use certificates?
    Mr. MacfarlaneThis is becoming a most constructive exchange. I take note of my hon. Friend's point.
    Dr. David ClarkMay I add to the constructive nature of the exchange and ask the Minister whether he is prepared to enter into discussions with the Royal parks authorities and with bodies such as the National Anglers Council for management schemes in the Royal parks, which might include the use of lead-free weights and so on? In view of the desperate shortage of fishing opportunities in urban areas, will the Government press ahead with a scheme to create urban fishing areas?
    Mr. MacfarlaneI am meeting the National Anglers Council on Friday and these are matters that will be discussed.

    London Dockland
    Mr. Spearingasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what will be the method of administration of funds made available under the Inner Urban Areas Act in the London Dockland and adjacent areas.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Giles Shaw)The Docklands local authorities will continue to have the power to give loans and grants under the Act, and will continue to receive an allocation of resources for such projects outside the urban development area. Within the urban development area, the London Docklands Development Corporation has the same powers.
    Mr. SpearingDoes the Minister agree that within the area covered by the LDDC, the boundaries of which are somewhat arbitrary, it would be for the benefit of all if the LDDC listened to the local authority and thus fulfilled the universal wish that it should act in co-operation with local authorities and in accordance with local wishes?
    Mr. ShawI take the hon. Gentleman's point, but he will agree that in many of its activities the LDDC has already shown great co-operation with the local authorities and in many cases has entered into joint operations. I have every confidence that that atmosphere will continue.
    Mr. SquireWill my hon. Friend confirm that the leader of the local authority sits on the LDDC? Will he also undertake to give greater publicity to the considerable achievement of the LDDC already, and our great expectations for even greater achievements in the future?
    Mr. ShawI entirely endorse my hon. Friend's view. In its relatively short life the LDDC has achieved a great deal. I believe that the first show houses are to be opened at Beckton by my right hon. Friend on 26 February.

    World Cup
    Mr. Canavanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment when he will meet the football authorities to discuss arrangements for the World Cup.
    Mr. MacfarlaneI met the chairman and secretaries of the Football Associations of England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales on 1 December last to discuss the general problems of hooliganism abroad by British football supporters and the possibility, in particular, of hooliganism in Spain during the World Cup series.
    Mr. CanavanWill the Minister congratulate Scotland and Northern Ireland on qualifying for the World Cup finals—and, of course, England, which managed to scrape home by the skin of its teeth? What steps are being taken to ensure that football fans receive a fair allocation of tickets without being subject to exploitation by unscrupulous ticket touts and travel agents? What steps are being taken to warn all football fans in advance to be on their best behaviour in Spain, especially in view of some of the recent examples of hooliganism on the part of English football fans abroad, who may be even more incensed when they see Scotland win the World Cup?
    Mr. MacfarlaneI shall refrain from speculation about the outcome. One might have hoped that the hon. Gentleman would include some commiseration for the Welsh, who did not quite make it but who, by all rights, should have been there. I am deeply concerned about the problems to which he referred. My officials are in Spain now, visiting all the centres with Spanish representatives. One of my officials also chairs a working party comprising representatives of the Football Association, the Foreign Office and Sports World Travel. All of these matters are under discussion, and I shall personally visit Madrid on 4 and 5 February to discuss these matters further.
    Mr. McQuarrieWhen my hon. Friend meets the chairmen of the various associations, will he endeavour to persuade them to give a larger allocation to the National Federation of Football Supporters Clubs, as it is the most responsible supporters' body covering the whole of Great Britain? Does he agree that it was proved at the last international that its allocation of tickets to supporters was most satisfactory, in that there was no hooliganism?
    Mr. MacfarlaneI shall certainly look into that point. It is one of the matters that we shall be discussing in the next few weeks.

    Local Authorities (Rate Demands)
    Sir William van Straubenzeeasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what information he has as to the extent to which local authority pay settlements so far agreed will affect the rate demands of these authorities.
    Mr. HeseltineI cannot know how individual local authorities will budget for wage settlements already agreed. Nor can I know what judgment they will make of forthcoming settlements. If their views of forthcoming pay settlements are excessive the Government will look to local authorities to make the economies necessary to keep within their cash spending targets.
    Sir William van StraubenzeeIs it not, nevertheless, the case that restraint in wage demands has a direct effect
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    on the eventual outcome for the hard-pressed ratepayer? Will my right hon. Friend keep that constantly before the general public?
    Mr. HeseltineI am grateful to my hon. Friend. Restraint in wage settlements will, of course, help the ratepayer. Moreover, it will actually help those employed by local government, as the more modest the settlements, the greater the number of people who will be employed.
    Mr. Arthur LewisI find that most of my constituents favour cuts in expenditure, provided that the Government set an example. They object to the Government seeking cuts in public expenditure when people such as the chairman of British Rail receive increases of 25 per cent.
    Mr. SpeakerOrder. Only yesterday the hon. Gentleman drew my attention to the fact that a question was irrelevant. He has not even asked a question yet. He has been making a statement.
    Mr. LewisI was following up the reply to the previous supplementary question relating to wages, Mr. Speaker. Relevant to that, will the Secretary of State ensure that Mr. De Lorean and others receiving public funds are also told to cut their expenditure?
    Mr. SkinnerSort that out.
    Mr. HeseltineI shall do my best to sort that out by referring the matter to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.
    Mr. Nicholas WintertonI shall relate my question entirely to local government, Mr. Speaker, for very good reasons. Does my right hon. Friend agree that although local authority wage settlements have a direct relation to the level of rates, the paramount factor is the efficiency of local authorities and their co-operation with the unions in their sector? Will he give an assurance that councils such as the Macclesfield borough council, which has not increased its precept on the ratepayers of the area for four years and will not do so this year, will not be penalised by high-spending authorities, as it has been in the past?
    Mr. HeseltineI am grateful to my hon. Friend. He will know, as he supported the measures that we introduced, that low-spending authorities are now not penalised as a consequence of the penalties that we have to apply to high-spending authorities.

    Housing Starts
    Mr. Winnickasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what was the total number of local authority and private housing starts in 1981; and how many of the local authority starts were for sheltered and other forms of special type accommodation.
    Sir George YoungIn the first 11 months of 1981 there were 20,000 starts for local authorities and new towns and 97,000 for the private sector in England. Of the 17,000 local authority and new town dwellings started in the first three quarters of 1981, 1,900 were dwellings for the chronically sick and disabled. Figures of starts on dwellings for the elderly are not readily available but will be published in "Housing and Construction Statistics" this year.
    Mr. WinnickWhen will the Government recognise that these miserable, pathetic figures will result in a

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    formidable housing crisis in the country and endless heartbreak and tragedy for hundreds of thousands of people waiting to be rehoused? I ask the Ministers responsible for housing when this Tory vendetta against council dwellings will end?
    Sir George YoungThe position would have been infinitely worse if we had adopted the policy advocated by the Opposition of freezing council rents. If that had happened, there would not have been a capital investment programme.
    Mr. Frank AllaunIs the Minister aware that the pitiful figure of 20,000 that he quoted compares with 87,000 only three years ago? Is the hon. Gentleman aware, further, that this morning hon. Members received figures from the building trades employers showing that only 19 per cent. of their firms were fully or nearly fully employed? Would it not be more sensible to take 440,000 building trade workers off the dole and have those firms working at 100 per cent. capacity?
    Sir George YoungIt is partly for that reason that we have increased the local authority housing investment programme next year, for the first time since 1974–75. If the hon. Member talks about cuts, I remind him that the figure for public sector starts fell from 173,000 in 1975 to 81,000 in 1979.
    Mr. AltonOn the basis of the figures just given by the Minister, how long will the 1 million people still living in houses without inside toilets, running hot water or bathrooms have to remain in those properties? Will he also say whether he agrees that, if the number of sheltered homes were increased, more family dwellings could be made available to people on waiting lists and that it would also get off the dole queue many building workers whose potential contribution is being wasted?
    Sir George YoungIf the local authority in Liverpool would make faster progress in selling council houses, more money would be available with which to tackle the problems mentioned by the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Alton indicated dissent.
    Sir George YoungThere is no point in the hon. Gentleman shaking his head when I say that. Real resources are available with which to tackle these problems.
    Mr. DurantWill my hon. Friend remind the hon. Member for Liverpool, Edge Hill (Mr. Alton) that if local authorities used their capital receipts they could do a great deal more to improve their properties?
    Sir George YoungThat is the point that I was trying to make. Now that the point has been reinforced by my hon. Friend, I hope that it will go home.
    Mr. Hardyasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many local authority homes he now expects to be built and how many improved during 1982.
    Mr. StanleyThis will depend on the decisions of local authorities on the spending of their single block capital allocations and their capital receipts.
    Mr. HardyWill the Minister tell the House of any peace-time year since the brick was invented when fewer houses were built than will be built in 1982 or were built in 1981?
    Mr. StanleyThere has been a reduction in starts on the local authority side, but there has been a significant increase in private sector starts in the course of 1981. As for 1982, I go back to what was said previously. There is still substantial scope for local authorities in the present financial year to spend more on housing. I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the example of Rotherham council. The position there is that capital expenditure on housing half way through this financial year was only just under one-third of the allocation and its receipts.
    Mr. Kenneth CarlisleAs I understand it, a council can spend only half its receipts from the sale of council houses on building new ones. Will my hon. Friend consider allowing councils to spend all their receipts in this way so that council house building may increase?
    Mr. StanleyI assure my hon. Friend that the other half is not lost. It is taken into account in making allocations nationally. The local authorities retain all the cash. But if sales of council houses scored 100 per cent., the net allocations would be smaller. I remind my hon. Friend that there are other receipts that score 100 per cent. All sales of land score 100 per cent., and there has been a substantial increase in allocations this year as a result of land sales made by a number of authorities.
    Mr. Kaufman rose—
    Mr. HardyOn a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the Minister's lamentable failure to show—
    Mr. SpeakerOrder. If the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Hardy) gives notice of his intention to raise the matter on the Adjournment, he will prevent his right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman) from being called.
    Mr. KaufmanWhy do the Minister and his colleagues consistently mislead the House with the claim that they have increased the housing investment programme allocation for the coming year? Is it not a fact that on the figures that the Minister gave me, the housing investment programme allocation is reduced by 4 per cent., and that that 4 per cent. reduction is based upon a phoney 9 per cent. inflation figure?
    Mr. StanleyThe right hon. Gentleman is living in the world which ended on 31 March 1981. From 1 April 1981, all local authorities have been able to add their capital receipts to their base allocations. The facts are that the gross provision for housing—the allocation plus receipts—represents an increase in real terms next year.
    Mr. KaufmanIs that not a completely phoney comparison? We are talking about the allocations in the information that the Minister provided to me. These are allocations, not notional capital receipts, and on these allocations the Government have reduced housing investment programme allocations by more than £70 million. Will the Minister stop misleading the House?
    Mr. StanleyIt is the right hon. Gentleman who is misleading the House. He knows that every local authority has been told in explicit terms in a different document that it is able to add its capital receipts to its allocation. This represents several hundreds of millions of pounds extra nationally which local authorities can add to their housing programmes as from 1 April this year.
    Mr. HeddleDoes my hon. Friend agree that there are ways of meeting housing needs other than by building new

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    homes, including the promotion by local authorities of shared ownership, low-cost ownership and building for sale?
    Mr. StanleyMy hon. Friend is right. I am encouraged by the fact that there has been a significant response in the past six to nine months to the very important range of low-cost home ownership initiatives introduced by the Government.
    Mr. HardyI am sorry that I was a little premature in rising on my point of order just now, Mr. Speaker. I was extremely shocked by the Minister's display of his complete ignorance of the problems of local government. I beg to give notice that I shall seek an early opportunity to raise this grossly unsatisfactory matter on the Adjournment.
    Mr. ThomasCox asked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many (a) council and (b) private houses are now under construction in the Greater London Council area.
    Sir George YoungAbout 13,000 local authority and 14,300 private dwellings were under construction in London at the end of September 1981.
    Mr. CoxIs the Minister aware that those figures are an appalling indictment of two and a half years of Tory Government? In view of the enormous housing problems in London, why cannot the Government start to put into employment the thousands of building workers whom they forced to go on to the dole and get the local authorities to start to tackle these problems? The hon. Gentleman knows that they have to be tackled. Surely now is the time to start doing it.
    Sir George YoungI hope that the hon. Gentleman will get some comfort from the fact that private sector housing starts in London in the third quarter of 1981 were nearly double the number in the comparable period of 1980. The 1982–83 HIP allocation for London is £558 million, compared with £549 million this year. London will receive a HIP allocation equivalent to more than £200 per household compared with less than £100 per household for the rest of the country. We are trying to tackle London's housing problems.
    Mr. MajorTo put the matter in context, how many council houses in Greater London are empty and have been empty for many months?
    Sir George YoungOur latest figures show that there are 32,814 local authority dwellings empty in London.

    Owner Occupation
    Mr. Robert Atkinsasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what measures he proposes to increase owner occupation in partnership areas and other inner city stress areas.
    Mr. HeseltineAll the measures we have taken to promote low-cost home ownership are relevant in inner city stress areas. Additionally, as announced on 9 December—[Vol. 14, c. 865]—a special allocation of £5 million will be made available for low-cost home ownership schemes in 1982–83. We have invited authorities to submit schemes which involve a high ratio of private to public sector finance.
    Mr. AtkinsI am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that very detailed answer. What is happening to the pepper potting scheme for building homes on small sites in urban areas?
    Mr. GrahamIt is being assaulted.
    Mr. HeseltineI am grateful to my hon. Friend. A number of volume builders in local authorities have been working together to explore how these small, vacant urban sites can be developed economically to provide low-cost housing. The first project in Bolton has been completed successfully and several others are planned or are under way across the country.
    Mr. Stan ThorneWhat will the Secretary of State do about the problem, in Preston and many other areas, of small children still living on the fourteenth floor of multi-storey housing blocks that cannot be demolished because of lack of finance for housing?
    Mr. HeseltinePerhaps the hon. Gentleman did not listen to what was said by my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Construction. Local authorities have some £400 million of underspent housing capital allocations available to them this current year, which they could have spent in the manner suggested by the hon. Gentleman.

Wales (Weather Conditions)
3.30 pm
Mr. Ray Powellasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the latest situation in Wales arising from the extreme weather conditions, in particular with regard to future water supplies.
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Nicholas Edwards)The recent weather conditions created severe problems in many parts of Wales, but life in the Principality is now returning to normal. I have already paid tribute in the House to all of those who have had to cope with the emergency and I have made clear the basis of the Government's financial support for local authorities.
As the thaw developed, the problems that had been created by the snow were replaced by the problems of burst pipes and interruptions to water supply. But the water supply position generally is improving and the vast majority of consumers are being supplied with properly treated water at normal pressures. The water resources are entirely adequate, but there are local problems due to leaks in distribution systems. All those problems are being attended to as quickly as possible by the Welsh water authority. In some parts of Wales properties are still without water and every effort is being made by the Welsh water authority to reconnect the areas affected.
There will obviously be appreciable financial consequences of the emergency, in particular for the local authorities which had the primary responsibility for dealing with it, and for the farmers. It is far too early to make a realistic assessment of those consequences. We shall continue to assess the position as information about the costs incured by all concerned becomes firmer. Early on, however, the Government announced that the standing arrangements for financial aid to local authorities in an emergency would apply on this occasion, and I have already described those to the House.
Mr. PowellThank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing the private notice question to be asked. The statement of the Secretary of State does not cover all the issues that should be discussed in the House, and time should have been made available for a full debate.
Does the right hon. Gentleman share the widespread concern about the statement on Monday by the Welsh water authority that unless severe restraints are imposed, Wales could lose its entire water supply within a matter of days? Is he not aware that water is gashing out from burst pipes faster than it can be replaced in the reservoirs? Is he aware that areas in West Wales, Anglesey, the Heads of the Valleys and elsewhere are in a desperate position? Will he assure the House that there is no danger from the pollution of water supplies? Will he promise the Welsh water authority Government financial aid to meet the additional costs of repairs and replacement of water treatment and pumping operations?
Will the right hon. Gentleman ensure that industry and workers receive financial help to sustain the financial losses due to the weather conditions and the snow storms? Is he aware that in my constituency of Ogmore people made special efforts to accommodate and feed more than 1,000 stranded people for the best part of a week? Will he express justifiable thanks to them for their commendable efforts?
Mr. EdwardsI have already expressed appreciation in the House to all those, including private citizens, who helped to keep industry and life running in the Principality. I repeat my thanks and include the private individuals in the Bridgend area who were so generous.
On the hon. Gentleman's main point about water, the Welsh water authority was wise to warn of possible difficulties because of the loss of water from burst pipes. The normal consumption of water in the hon. Gentleman's area is 400,000 gallons a day. However, during the past few days consumption has risen to 1 million gallons a day because of numerous burst pipes. The hon. Gentleman greatly exaggerated the general position. The water supply is now under control and the water is fit to drink. Although I have details of certain areas where the water supply has not yet been connected, they are relatively few and reconnection is taking place quickly.
Mr. Geraint HowellsWill the Secretary of State confirm reports in today's newspapers that financial aid will be forthcoming from the EEC emergency fund?
Mr. EdwardsThe Government submitted a prompt claim to the EEC Commission, which is being urgently assessed. Although the statement in the Western Mail this morning is inaccurate both on the amount of aid and the timing, it is hoped that the Commission will make an early announcement. I hope that aid will be forthcoming from that source.
Mr. Delwyn WilliamsIs my right hon. Friend aware that Powys, which has the greatest mileage per head of population in Britain, has received nothing but co-operation from the Welsh Office during the emergency? Is he further aware that none of its emergency services has been curtailed? Will he note the concern— [Interruption.] We would prefer the exclusive rate formula—[Interruption.]
Mr. SpeakerOrder.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. SpeakerOrder. I was simply trying to restore order so that the hon. Member for Montgomery (Mr. Williams) could finish his question.
Mr. WilliamsIs my right hon. Friend aware that the weather guru, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Howell), is still remembered with some bitterness for the way in which he refused retrospective aid in emergency conditions?
Mr. EdwardsI pay tribute to the Powys authority which, throughout the winter, has been remarkably skilful in keeping the roads open. I speak from personal experience of the way in which it operated snow ploughs in appalling conditions, even in rural areas. I have praised it elsewhere, and I have pleasure in doing so again in the House today.
On the question of Government financial support, I confess that I do not recall the details of the timing of the previous announcement, but the special Government financial provision this time is intended to apply to the whole of the emergency period.
Mr. Alec JonesI join the Secretary of State in paying tribute to all those organisations and individuals in Wales who helped recently. It is not much use the Secretary of State simply saying that he is proposing the

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same levels of aid as those given by the Labour Government in 1978. Conditions now are far different from what they were then. In 1979 we did not face such severe weather conditions, and local authorities and others were not expected to meet the same problems.
Throughout Wales there is a feeling that the right hon. Gentleman has been less than generous. Those words were used to describe the Government's proposals by the Tory deputy leader of the Mid-Glamorgan county council. Will he confirm that that council will have to spend the equivalent of a 2½p rate before it receives any Government assistance? Should not that matter be reconsidered when up-to-date figures are available?
Wales has been concerned about the water supply, and I am glad to receive the semi-assurances of the Secretary of State. They are only semi-assurances because he cannot possibly know every individual aspect of the water position, and nor can the Under-Secretary. Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that the water authority has sufficient staff and resources to restore a full supply as soon as possible?
Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us how he proposes to spend money from the EEC fund? Will it be given to individuals and local authorities? Finally, will he tell the House of the effect of the bad weather conditions on industry in Wales?
Mr. EdwardsThe level of aid depends on the extent of the damage and the total costs. The Government have made it clear that they will pay 75 per cent. of the cost of the emergency over and above a 1p rate inclusive of grant. If the costs are large, the Government's contribution will be that much larger. We will pay an appropriate share, and that seems right. It also seems right that local authorities should make some contingency provision every year for emergencies that always arise. That is the basis of the provision in regard to aid in excess of 1p rate inclusive of grant. That is exactly the system employed by the Labour Government in 1978–79 and local authorities needed to have no doubts about it, because it was clarified in a circular in December 1980. The product of a 1p rate inclusive of grant in Mid-Glamorgan is about £950,000.
The water authority is quickly restoring supplies. I am satisfied that its resources are adequate and I see no problems arising from that.
As for EEC aid, it would be right to have a detailed assessment of where costs have fallen and who has suffered most before we make final decisions on the distribution of EEC assistance. It would be useful to know the level of the assistance before making those decisions. We shall certainly look at the precedents and see what is the best way of distributing help if we obtain it.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. SpeakerOrder. I remind the House that this is a private notice question and not a statement. It is an extension of Question Time. Exceptionally, I will call two more hon. Members before we move on.
Mr. Dafydd WigleyIs the Secretary of State aware that many of those who have suffered additional costs need money urgently? Can he give an assurance that money for farmers will be forthcoming quickly and that local authorities will know exactly where they stand—with no chance of a cash cut-off—before they set the rates for next year, bearing in mind the legislation affecting rates that is going through Parliament?
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Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, as well as farmers and local authorities, many individuals and families have suffered, particularly pensioners who have had to incur additional heating costs? Will he look at ways of helping them as well? As all eight counties in Wales had extremely severe incidents in a difficult period, we could have had a national state of emergency in Wales. Did he consider declaring such a state of emergency, as a Welsh Parliament would certainly have done, and did he approach any international agencies, apart from the EEC, for aid?
Mr. EdwardsI am interested in the hon. Gentleman's view of what a Welsh Parliament would have done. Local authorities know their responsibilities perfectly well. For a considerable period, they have laid snow emergency plans with the Government. Those plans are ready for implementation at any time and the responsibility for implementing them lies with local authorities. The one lesson that clearly emerges from the emergency is that it is right that the responsibility should be at a local level and the Welsh Office should primarily carry out the role of a centre of communication and information, directing resources when specifically asked for. One of those in charge of a county emergency department made it clear to me that even the emergency headquarters had to act in that way and that decisions had to be taken close to the ground.
Farmers understand that they have to accept the general burdens falling on them from adverse weather conditions, but I have agreed to see the NFU later this week to discuss the issues. Sir Richard Butler has confirmed to me that it is much too early to make any assessment of the costs falling on farmers. I confirm that the additional financial assistance from the Government arising from the emergency is not cash limited.
Dr. Ifor DaviesThe Secretary of State is aware from his flying visit, for which I thank him, that no area suffered greater damage than the Gower peninsula, which was cut off for nearly 10 days, but is he aware that the provision of foodstuffs was ensured only by sea landings through the valiant efforts and initiatives of local people? Is he aware of the general feeling that much damage would have been avoided if the help of the forces had been ensured earlier? I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will learn the lesson that in any future crisis direction and leadership from the centre are necessary. The right hon. Gentleman has acknowledged the help given by local authorities, but that is not enough. Help and direction are needed from the centre, and that involves the Welsh Office.
Mr. EdwardsWhile expressing sympathy for the hon. Gentleman's constituents who suffered severely, I should say that the first task of the Welsh Office was to establish at the start of the emergency that troops would be available whenever required. I was in touch with the GOC Wales on the Saturday morning and we were in continual touch throughout. Whenever a local authority asked for them, troops were made available, as were Service men generally. However, the responsibility for asking for troops lies with local authorities, which know whether help is needed. Officials in Cardiff cannot know whether troops are needed in a village in Gower. When a local authority asked for troops the Welsh Office ensured

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that they were available, and I congratulate the GOC Wales on the arrangements that he made to ensure that troops were provided.

Pressurised Water Reactor (Sizewell)
3.46 pm
The Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. Nigel Lawson)With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about the public inquiry into the application by the Central Electricity Generating Board to build a pressurised water reactor at Sizewell in Suffolk. As the House will know, the Government are committed to holding a full and wide-ranging inquiry into the Sizewell application. In a written answer on 22 July last year, my predecessor set out the issues which the Government regard as relevant to consideration of this application. My right hon. Friend also announced the appointment of Sir Frank Layfield, QC, as inspector to the inquiry.
I wish to give interested parties the earliest notice of the date of the inquiry. I also wish members of the public and their representatives to have adequate opportunity to study the extensive information and documentation which will be provided. I therefore propose that the main hearing of the public inquiry should begin early in January 1983.
I have reached this view following recent consultations with those on whom the burden of preparing the principal documentation rests. The chairman of the CEGB has told me that the board expects to publish its pre-construction safety report at the end of April. Dr. Walter Marshall, as chairman of the PWR task force, will continue to co-ordinate the efforts of all the parties involved in the preparation of the report and will keep me informed of progress. The CEGB also intends to issue at the end of April a full statement in support of its application.
The Nuclear Installations Inspectorate of the Health and Safety Executive has told me that it expects to publish a report on safety issues by the end of June. There will, therefore, be an extended period for the study of both CEGB documentation and the NII report.
Earlier preliminary hearings will be held by the inspector at which those parties that wish to put their views before him on the general arrangements for the conduct of the inquiry and the scope of the evidence can do so at a time well before the main inquiry begins. The main hearing, and at least one of the preliminary hearings, will take place in Suffolk. I hope that arrangements can be made for the main hearing to be held within easy reach of the Sizewell area. An announcement on this will be made soon.
The Government are convinced that nuclear power has an increasingly important role to play in electricity generation in Britain. Nevertheless, any specific proposal has to be judged on its own merits. The arrangements for the Sizewell inquiry which I have just described will ensure that the CEGB's application is thoroughly and properly examined.
Mr. Merlyn ReesThe House is aware that the Select Committee on Energy published a report nearly a year ago on the Government's statement on the new nuclear programme and that the Government's response was published six months ago. Given today's statement, is it not a pity that there has not been a debate on those documents, which are relevant, both in general and in particular to the inquiry into the proposed PWR at Sizewell? Whenever a debate takes place—and it should be soon—it will be in the context of today's statement, but

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it will be too late. For example, a section of the report deals with the public inquiry and we have not discussed it.
I note with satisfaction the right hon. Gentleman's concluding words that any specific proposal must be judged on its merits, for there is a strong case for having another AGR rather than a PWR. Does he not agree that American experience of the PWR is a cause for concern and that experience in the United States ought to be considered carefully during the inquiry?
Will cost factors be included in the inquiry, including environmental costs? Does the right hon. Gentleman regard the written answer of 22 July last year as carrying out the recommendation of the Select Committee—that he should publish the issues relevant to his consideration of the application? Is that what it was meant for? Does he accept that, because of the nature of nuclear power, with its horrific military antecedents and hazards that are intangible and invisible, the standard set should be far higher than for other industries? Will the CEGB statement include design details?
Mr. LawsonI agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it would be desirable to have an early debate. I am sure that that is also the view of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. I disagree that this will be too late. Indeed, I believe that it will be more valuable because it will take place after the Government have made their statement. As a result, we shall be able to take into account both the Select Committee's report and my statement. In making my statement, I have taken into full account the views of the Select Committee in its report.
Cost factors, including environmental costs, will certainly be taken into account by the inquiry. My predecessor who replied on 22 July made it clear that the three main areas to be covered by the inquiry as he envisaged it would be safety, environmental and economic.
The right hon. Gentleman somewhat inappropriately linked the military nuclear question with nuclear power. They are separate issues. Indeed, it is significant that much of the early impetus behind the desire to have a peaceful nuclear power programme was the desire of those involved in the war to beat swords into ploughshares—a wholly commendable endeavour. Indeed, that is what nuclear power can promise this and many other countries.
Of course, it is vital that our own high standards of safety should be fully satisfied. As I said a moment ago, that will be one of the main matters at issue in the inquiry.
Mr. Michael AncramMany Conservative Members will welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement of the date of the inquiry. Does he not accept that, in the light of the tragic smelter closure at Invergordon, and the apparently disastrous miscalculations on the cost of AGR-produced power, there is now an urgency to look at safe and cheaper ways of producing power, both in the interests of domestic consumers and, perhaps more importantly, of industry?
Mr. LawsonI entirely agree with my hon. Friend. May I hark back briefly to a further point made by the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) which I did not answer? He asked "Why a PWR application rather than an AGR application?" In the context of what my hon. Friend
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has just said, we felt it sensible to develop the option of an economic and safe nuclear alternative to the existing gas-cooled reactor.
Mr. Tony BennWill the Secretary of State give a clear undertaking that before the inquiry takes place he will publish all the information available to him, some of which was available to me as Secretary of State, including serious doubts about the inherent safety of the PWR design? Will he make all that information available? Secondly, will the inquiry be broad enough to allow people to argue that the money involved would now be better spent on insulating homes which would create jobs, save lives and save more energy than a PWR—even if it worked, which I doubt—could generate in the programme that he has in mind?
Mr. LawsonThe right hon. Gentleman's prejudices are well known. I am delighted to see him in the Chamber, particularly as he was unfortunately unable to be present yesterday when we debated a matter close to his heart.
A massive amount of documentation will be available—the pre-construction safety report, the NII report and the CEGB's statement of case. I believe that together they will provide a greater weight of documentation than has ever been provided before. All the other matters the right hon. Gentleman mentioned will be part of the subject matter of the inquiry.
Mr. John HannamDoes my right hon. Friend accept that one of the reasons why it is vitally important to preceed with nuclear power for electricity generation is the whole question of providing electricity at low cost to industry? Has not the French experience shown that they are able to undercut us because they have embarked on a nuclear power programme? Will he therefore ensure that there are no long delays in the inquiry and in any subsequent follow-up to the building of a PWR if it is shown to be safe and cheaper to construct?
Mr. LawsonMy hon. Friend is right. The world has more experience of operating PWRs than any other reactor type. We must see whether this technology can be harnessed to our own domestic requirements, including our own high safety standards. I do not know whether my hon. Friend meant that we should get the inquiry over as quickly as possible. If so, I understand his views, but I cannot share them. In any case, it is for the inspector to decide how long it is necessary to take in order to have a full and thorough inquiry. He will take as long as is necessary for that purpose and no longer. I cannot say what will happen thereafter, because that would prejudge the outcome of the inquiry.
Mr. David PenhaligonWill the Government give financial aid to those who will object in order to ensure that they do not lose their case through lack of funds?
Mr. LawsonWe have no plans to do so, and I know of no precedent for it. I am quite sure that there will be a full opportunity for those who object to make their case and have it fully and properly judged.
Mr. Nigel FormanI welcome the Government's deliberate and cautious approach to this matter. Will my right hon. Friend say more about the NII? Is he now satisfied that it has enough qualified manpower to fulfil the vital safety tasks involved in such a project?
Mr. LawsonYes, I am satisfied. My hon. Friend may like to know that I understand the NII will be making a statement later this afternoon.
Mr. Peter HardyShould not the right hon. Gentleman's statement have been made either during or after the House had debated the Select Committee's report? When can we have that debate? Either then or before, or even now if the Secretary of State is prepared for it, will he say what the surplus capacity of the CEGB is?
Mr. LawsonI thought that I had answered the hon. Gentleman's first point when I replied to the right hon. Member for Leeds, South. Both I and my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House recognise that there is a case for an early debate and that the House would welcome it.
It is not for me to prejudge the economic case. That is one of the matters to be discussed in the inquiry. We are looking some way ahead and a number of existing power stations will be coming to the end of their lives by that time.
Dr. J. Dickson MabonIs the Secretary of State aware that the announcement of the date is fair, in view of the timetable prior to the inquiry, for all the representations to be made, not only by the governmental agencies but by other bodies, some voluntary and some private?
The Government, if they are still in office, will presumably follow the precedent set by the Labour Government and have a debate—with, I trust, a free vote—after the publication of the report and before a final decision is made. As that will be some time ahead—perhaps as long as two years or 18 months—will the Secretary of State reconsider the question of the House having a debate on the report of the Select Committee? It is important to have clarification.
Mr. LawsonI think that there has been a slight misunderstanding. I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's endorsement of the timetable that I have announced. He speaks with some knowledge and expertise in these matters. Although it is not a matter for me, I shall bear in mind the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion of a debate. I have already told the right hon. Member for Leeds, South that we shall have a debate on the Select Committee report as soon as possible.
Mr. T. H. H. SkeetAs the Secretary of State is aware, there will be an open-ended inquiry, possibly followed by a debate in the House of Commons, followed by a seven-year construction period, which will bring us into the 1990s. Will the Secretary of State bear in mind the urgency for nuclear power? We shall have to move on to compete with France, as my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) pointed out.
Mr. LawsonI am keenly aware of the urgency of the matter. A sad element of all this is the years wasted by the Labour Government. Nevertheless, however great the urgency, I am not prepared to foreshorten the time needed for the consideration of the papers that will be published, nor am I prepared to rush the inquiry, which must be full, fair and thorough.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. SpeakerOrder. If hon. Members will be brief, I shall try to call all those who have risen.
Mr. Arthur LewisThe Minister announced the chairman but not the members of the committee of inquiry. Will he let us know who the members will be? Will he consider Mr. Joe Gormley as one of them?
In addition to the safety of the establishment itself, will the inquiry consider the question of danger from terrorism, in view of what has happened in France in the last couple of days? It is important that we realise that an installation such as this is a sitting duck for terrorists.
Mr. LawsonIt is up to the inspector to decide whether a detailed examination of the issue of terrorism would be appropriate to the inquiry. He may or may not so decide; it is up to him. The hon. Member will be aware that there have been no such terrorist incidents in the United Kingdom.
As to whether Mr. Joe Gormley should be a member of the inquiry, there is one difficulty: there is no committee of inquiry and therefore there are no members of it. There is an inspector—Sir Frank Layfield—who has a secretariat.
Mr. Keith StaintonAs the Member for the constituency immediately adjacent to the proposed site, I feel obliged to press the Minister for a firm commitment to a parliamentary debate before he reaches any conclusion on the matter. A clear precedent for that is the Windscale inquiry. My understanding, as a result of correspondence that I have been having almost continuously for the past 12 months with his Department, is that such a debate will ensue, but the Minister has rather avoided the specific obligation this afternoon.
I am disappointed and concerned at the lack of funding for objectors. I well understand that there is no precedent for this, but I put it to the Minister that his ingenuity is such that it might be possible to find a way of funding via the CEGB, perhaps through a board of trustees. Not only must justice be seen to be done, and not only will this be a long, complicated and highly technical inquiry, but unless the matter is disposed of with some certainty at Sir Frank Layfield's hearing it will raise its head on each successive occasion that other PWRs are proposed.
Mr. LawsonI fully recognise my hon. Friend's concern for his constituency. I have had representations not only from him but from my hon. Friend the Member for Eye (Mr. Gummer), who has been deeply concerned with the issue.
I shall bear in mind my hon. Friend's request for a debate before the final decision is taken, although, as I said earlier, it is not a matter for me. I appreciate the force of my hon. Friend's case.
With regard to funding, my hon. Friend mentioned the CEGB. It is for the CEGB to say whether it is prepared to do it. I was asked earlier whether the Government were prepared to do so. We have no such plans.
Mr. Bob CryerIs not the inquiry to be started because of the CEGB's application? Knowing that the Government are extremely sympathetic towards a Three Mile Island type PWR, is it not absurd to embark on this path when the CEGB has a vast over-capacity for electricity generation, when it is closing down plant after plant which are coal-fired, and when we have between 300 and 400 years of coal supply? Is it not nonsensical for the Government even to contemplate embarking on a further

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programme of nuclear electricity generation, with all the potential dangers which this involves? Is it not really a first step in carrying out the Government's nuclear policy?
Mr. LawsonThe Government are interested in seeking to provide the cheapest possible electricity for our people. I am sorry that that is not an objective shared by the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Norman AtkinsonHas not the CEGB already decided to fund people attending the inquiry? Therefore, will the Minister reconsider his answer about the objectors who will be going to the inquiry? He is incorrect in suggesting that there are no precedents. There are precedents for funding objectors at public inquiries. It was suggested by an overwhelming majority of the participants in the debate in this House that that funding should be available. As I understand the position, the Minister's predecessors have also made recommendations about financial assistance being given to some of those who will be attending the inquiry as objectors.
Does the Minister agree that if the Government are to establish confidence in their nuclear programme they should be seen to be holding inquiries of this kind with the widest possible base, and that such inquiries need funding?
Mr. LawsonI am not persuaded by the hon. Gentleman's argument but. as I have already said, it is my hope that there will be an early debate. I am sure that this question will be much discussed during that debate.
Mr. John RymanDoes the Minister contemplate that this will be one of a series of inquiries? He will be well aware that the CEGB is contemplating an application to build a similar power station at Druridge Bay, Northumberland? Does he envisage a situation in which no final decision will be made by him and the Government, as a result of the recommendation by the inspector in the Sizewell inquiry, before other inquiries relating to applications in other parts of the country have been completed?
Mr. LawsonAs I see it—I hope that this will reassure the hon. Gentleman—the first step will be to conduct a thorough inquiry into the Sizewell application. Only after the outcome of that inquiry will further decisions fall to be taken.
Mr. Dennis SkinnerIs the Minister aware that, in addition to the points that have been made so well by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) and other hon. Members, there is a large and rapidly growing body of opinion—not confined to the mining industry, in which I have a deep and abiding interest—in
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favour of running down our dependence on nuclear power rather than uprating it, as would happen if the proposed PWR were to go ahead? Would it not be more sensible, when we have more than 3 million unemployed, to concentrate on those areas where we have plenty of energy, especially in the pits, where there are vast reserves of coal and where more people could be employed provided that subsidies were on a par with those in West Germany and Belgium? If that were so, we could produce energy more cheaply for industry and therefore help in the fight against inflation. If that sort of attitude were adopted by the Government, it would be more welcome to the country at large and would reduce our dependence on nuclear power.
Mr. LawsonThe Government are satisfied that a safe and economic nuclear power programme is in the interests of the people of Britain and in the interests of employment. That is also the view of the trade union movement—even though the hon. Member is characteristically idiosyncratic.
Mr. CryerHow can the right hon. Gentleman know? He has not had the inquiry. He is prejudiced.
Mr. Tam DalyellIn answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Blyth (Mr. Ryman), the Secretary of State said that this would be the first step and that various events would follow. What is the time scale envisaged? The Secretary of State must know very clearly that the nuclear manufacturing industry has a great problem in relation to time for orders. This affects not only the construction industry but many of our technological and science-based industries.
Mr. LawsonThe nuclear industry is not in as healthy a state as it might be, largely due to what happened in the wasted years under the Opposition, to which I referred earlier. Indeed, the announcement I made today will be welcomed by the nuclear power industry.
Mr. DalyellWhat is meant by "first step"?

Pressurised Water Reactor (Sizewell)
  BILL PRESENTED
    STOCK TRANSFER
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer, supported by Mr. Secretary Biffen, Mr. Nicholas Ridley, Mr. John Bruce-Gardyne, Mr. Adam Butler and Mr. Malcolm Rifkind, presented a Bill to amend the law relating to the transfer, registration and redemption of securities, and for purposes connected therewith: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 50]

Data Protection
4.11 pm
Mr. Michael MeacherI beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make provision for the protection of data in accordance with the European Convention.
The Bill would enable in particular the setting up of an independent data protection authority as recommended by the Lindop committee in 1978.
The need for control over the collection and use of personal information has grown enormously over the last decade. I pay tribute to my many hon. Friends who have been active in this cause over several years and, in particular, to my hon. Friends the Members for York (Mr. Lyon) and Nuneaton (Mr. Huckfield), both of whom have presented Bills to meet this need.
A previous White Paper revealed that no fewer than 220 different functions of Government involve computerised personal information about identifiable individuals. Most of these computerised Government data banks contain anything from 10,000 to 1 million names. In addition, as the records become computerised, separate systems can be linked so that, for example, Government officials could have almost instant access to all the information now held separately on one individual—for instance, information about family relationships, previous and present addresses, criminal records, income tax and VAT returns, medical treatment including any history of mental ill-health, credit rating, social work reports, political and trade union activities and so on. I submit that legislative controls are needed to ensure that any Government, present or future, do not abuse the new technology in the name of efficiency or security.
That is, however, by no means the only danger. Computerised data banks are particularly vulnerable to espionage, eavesdropping and error. However, manually stored data banks can equally threaten the individual's privacy in several disturbing ways. Information on him may be collected unlawfully, by underhand means or without his consent. The information may be inaccurate, incomplete, out of date or irrelevant. Other people may have access either to some or to all of this information that he thought was stored confidentially and that they ought not to have. Information given for one purpose, wholly legitimately, may be transferred without his consent, and perhaps even without his knowledge, for an entirely different and perhaps highly embarrassing and damaging purpose.
This matter is serious because a person may suddenly find that, for totally unjustifiable reasons of which he may not even be aware, he is suddenly prevented from acquiring a credit card or he may be denied hire-purchase facilities. More seriously, information about criminal records going back several years, an investigator's report based on malicious gossip, or speculation about an individual's politics or sex life can suddenly block promotion or lead to abrupt dismissal.
Worst of all, simply wrong information being fed in, against which the individual at present has no defence, can do irreparable damage. I quote the case, recently reported in the newspapers, of Mrs. Jan Martin. While she and her husband were motoring on the Continent, a lorry driver saw them at a cafe in Holland and thought that he
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recognised Mr. Martin as a member of the Bader-Meinhof gang. The lorry driver reported this to the Dutch police, who passed the information to London. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Martin suddenly found herself barred from a job with a film unit under contract to a company that had by one means or another gained access to the information. It was only because her father happened to be a senior police officer with contacts at Scotland Yard that the whole truth came out.
I would add only that the National Council for Civil Liberties, to which I pay a warm tribute for its long-standing campaign for the right to personal privacy, has dozens of individual case histories of persons who have had similarly damaging experiences but have not had the benefit of such high-level and fortunate contacts.
One other relevant matter to which I draw particular attention is the police national computer, which now holds over 36 million entries, and the Scotland Yard computer, which by the middle of the 1980s will store information equal to that on one fifth of the population of the whole Metropolitan police area. As hon. Members will know, there have recently been several highly damaging leaks reported from these records.
It is interesting to see what the Lindop committee said about this. It was denied access by the Home Office to the plans for the Metropolitan police special branch computer. The Committee concluded:
"We do not have enough evidence to give a firm assurance … that the public need not be unduly alarmed by the use of computers for police purposes."
Its scepticism has been corroborated by the report a week ago that persons were being entered on special branch files in Devon and Cornwall and, I presume, everywhere else, for such wholly inappropriate reasons as that they were anti-nuclear campaigners, that they opposed blood sports, or that they were members of the anti-apartheid movement. While, of course, one must insist that individuals cannot have access to criminal intelligence and genuine security files, I believe that we should consider the Swedish system whereby a duly authorised security-cleared person could inspect such files to ensure that they do not contain improper data.
Against this background, the Bill would aim to remedy the major threats against privacy which arise from several sources. For example, the use of most bugging devices and telephone taps is not at present illegal. It is not a criminal offence to obtain confidential information by deception or to release that information to others who should not have it. There is almost no right to bring an action for damages against an invasion of privacy. There is, with one exception, no legal right for the individual to see files kept on him or her, and criminal records are far from being entirely secure against the intrusions of private agents or employers.
Not only personal privacy but Britain's economic interests need safeguarding. The commercial director of Lucas Industries has recently been reported as saying that unless the Lindop committee recommendations are implemented urgently, British industry will be unable to move computer data freely between Britain and abroad and, therefore,
"The British balance of payments will suffer dramatically."
For those reasons alone it is vital to bring Britain up to international standards in this respect
The Bill would do that because it is wholly in line with the Council of Europe convention for the protection of

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individuals with regard to automatic processing of personal data, which the Government have signed but not yet ratified.
In outline, the Bill would establish an independent data protection authority. I should like to make it clear that I strongly reject the view that has been floated that the Home Office itself should be the watchdog body for privacy legislation. That is wholly unacceptable.
The Bill would incorporate the substantive principles of the convention as I have indicated them. Specifically, it would give individuals the right to see and, if necessary, challenge and correct the contents of personal records held on them. It would require the operators of data banks, both manual and computerised, to register with the authority, and place a duty on the authority to issue statutory codes of practice, giving detailed guidance on how to comply with these principles. I emphasise that the voluntary codes of practice, which I gather the Government may be considering, are wholly unacceptable if the serious abuses that have been revealed are to be effectively redressed. The British Medical Association and many other bodies have rightly refused to countenance voluntary codes of practice. It would also give the authority the power to investigate complaints and ensure compliance with the codes of practice, with the power to de-register data banks that failed to meet the standards.
I believe that the Lindop recommendations command widespread support in this country. For too long Government have done nothing. I hope that all those who believe that personal privacy should be protected against the increasing encroachments of an authoritarian State will support the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Michael Meacher, Mr. Tony Benn, Mr. Andrew F. Bennett, Mr. Reginald Freeson, Mr. Les Huckfield, Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk, Mr. Ian Lloyd, Mr. Alexander W. Lyon, Mr. Michael Marshall, Mr. Christopher Price, Mrs. Renée Short and Mr. Richard Wainwright.

Data Protection
  DATA PROTECTION
  Mr. Michael Meacheraccordingly presented a Bill to make provision for the protection of data in accordance with the European convention: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 29 January 1982 and to be printed. [Bill 51.]

  Orders of the Day
  Mr. Teddy TaylorThe right hon. Gentleman has mentioned people who are in prison for offences such as drunkenness and soliciting. Can he tell the House how many are in prison for such offences?
  Mr. HattersleyNot only could I tell the House that, but I told the House on 2 December. I said that I did not for a moment suggest that that would make a massive difference to the prison population—it would be between 4 per cent. and 5 per cent. However, at a time of gross overcrowding, a small percentage is a benefit as it is a move in the right direction.
  Overcrowding is not the only issue. Those people should not have been sent to prison in the first place. If the
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  Home Secretary has the power to release them, as I understand from the Bill, I hope that he will do so as soon as practicable. If that is not what he has in mind, I hope that he will tell us what clause 26 is for.
  Clause 26 does not concern me half as much as clause 25. I can imagine circumstances in which I might welcome the existence of clause 26, but clause 25 is a different matter. It raises a dilemma that is similar to that which I described about the alternative ways in which the detention centre procedures could be operated. Clause 25 introduces powers envisaged under section 47 of the Criminal Law Act 1977. In the Home Secretary's words, the clause makes those powers "more flexible".
  I know that the Minister of State will be able to answer these questions in detail as he is the true begetter of that part of the Act. As a humble Back Bencher, faced in Committee by a Government with no majority, he proposed and carried that clause. That is to his credit. I do not criticise him in any way. Substantial problems may arise from the permanent introduction of the proposal. The House knows well what they amount to. Sentences of over three months may in part be suspended by the courts. All but 28 days of those sentences may be suspended by the courts.
  It may be that persons previously in prison for long periods will, as a result of the proposal, be in prison for 28 days, chastened by their brief and unhappy experience, and will sin no more. If that is the way in which the provision operates, no one will be more happy to acknowledge the wisdom of the Minister of State than me.
  Mr. WhitelawI will.
  Mr. HattersleyWe will all join in our mutual congratulations. There will be a triumphant triumvirate. The Secretary of State, the Minister of State and I will be delighted that the provision is operating in that way. However, one of us will be more surprised than the other two because the possibility again arises that the 28-day provision may be used where in previous years a non-custodial sentence was imposed.
  I offer to the Home Secretary a quotation that he knows well:
  "There is reason to believe that it"—
  that is, this proposal—
  "would increase the numbers of prisoners detained for short periods."
  Those are not my words but those of the previous Minister of State in the Home Office who is now Chief Secretary to the Treasury. His fears about the proposals now advanced by his Government were expressed in starker terms in the Home Office review for last year. Referring to section 47 of the Criminal Law Act 1977, it stated that it has
  "not been activated because of the fear that the new sentence would be used to give a taste of imprisonment in cases, where, at present the courts would impose a fully suspended, or non-custodial sentence."
  According to the Home Office, the prospect becomes worse:
  "Inevitably, too, in a proportion of cases the suspended part of the sentence would be subsequently activated."
  According to the Home Office, the prospect becomes worse still:
  "Thus there can be no certainty that implementing section 47 would achieve any reduction of numbers in custody and would not confer any advantage in the treatment of individual offenders."

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  We need a better explanation than the one that we received today about why the Home Office, as personified—not simply represented—by the Home Secretary, has changed its mind over these two years. The Home Secretary has said that that was the result of consultation. I may be wrong, but it is my recollection that consultation did not so much endorse and support the implementation and continuation of section 47 as object to and, as some people would say, prevent the implementation of the alternative scheme.
  No doubt the Minister of State will tell me if I am right to say that the consultation process did not produce support for that theory, but simply opposition to the alternative that until a year ago the Government supported with enthusiasm. That was the supervised release scheme. A sentence would be divided into three equal parts—one in custody, one under supervision and one on full parole. That scheme undoubtedly would have reduced the prison population dramatically and continually. The Government have changed from initial support of the scheme to strong opposition. Mythology blames the judges for that change, with the Titanic battle of old Etonians in another place on whether the Government had accepted the advice of the judges or whether they had been blackmailed by the judges. It is clear from judges' letters to The Times that had the Government chosen to introduce the scheme—we should not be surprised by this—the judges would have done their best to operate it, as is their duty.
  The supervised release scheme was destroyed not by the judges but by the Conservative Party conference. On the other hand, the Labour Party has remained constant in its support of the scheme. The Home Secretary, as a consistent man, will be pleased to know that we propose to table an amendment in Committee to reintroduce the scheme which he has advocated in the House and outside. We look forward to hearing a convincing explanation of why the scheme has been superseded by something nearer to the Government's heart.
  In the meantime, before we table these important—one might argue, fundamental—amendments we propose, at least at this stage, to give the Bill an unopposed passage. However, for that spirit to continue and for the agreement to prevail, the Government must respond to the wholly constructive suggestions that we propose to make in Committee. I hope that they will.
  5.31 pm
  Mr. Edward GardnerI do not intend to go into Committee particulars in reviewing the Bill, but it is one of the most important of its kind to come before Parliament for a long time. It reflects the work of many Committees on which some of us, including my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, Home Office, have served. The aim of the Bill is to arm the courts with new powers to deal more effectively with the increase in crime and thereby to reduce the figures for both adult and juvenile crime.
  The Bill provides for penal reform and for changes in the law. I welcome most the fact that the Bill also recognises that the protection of the public and help for the victims of crime are as important as the punishment of offenders. The anxiety of the whole House, in common, I like to think, with that of the whole country, has been aroused in a most unusual way by the appalling number of crimes of violence.
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  Whatever the statistics may suggest—sexual offences are not classified as offences of violence against the person—rape is undoubtedly a crime of violence. It is a mindless, frightening form of violence which needed, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, the good sense of the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of Appeal last week to remind the country that, except in wholly exceptional circumstances rape must be punished by imprisonment.
  For such crimes, in contrast to non-violent crimes for which alternatives to imprisonment are proposed in the Bill, no one will be over-worried if the result is that the cost of our prisons becomes greater than the cost of our police force. Most people believe that for violent crime, even for first offenders, the only proper sentence is one that includes a loss of personal liberty. It is not just a question of punishing the offender. It is also a question of giving the public the maximum protection that the law can afford.
  With that question arises another which has been brought to the surface of debate by the fact that recently for the offence of rape a heavy fine was imposed instead of a sentence of imprisonment. I do not wish to suggest whether that sentence was right or wrong. The question which I should like to deal with, and which affects the future of the Bill, is whether, where a sentence is manifestly mistaken in its leniency or in its character, we should allow the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) to have power to increase a sentence. A Bill as wide as this one would seem to be the proper vehicle for such a power to be introduced in the law.
  Arguments about a power to increase sentence have been thoroughly rehearsed in the past, especially by the Donovan committee in 1965. The House will remember that in those days the Court of Criminal Appeal had a power to increase a sentence of imprisonment or the severity of any other sentence. It was rarely exercised, but it could be exercised when the appellant asked the Court of Criminal Appeal to reduce his sentence.
  Mr. GrieveMy hon. and learned Friend will perhaps remind the House that the power then exercised by the Court of Criminal Appeal could be exercised only when the sentenced person had himself appealed against sentence. He appears to be suggesting that we should consider allowing the Crown to appeal against sentence in certain cases.
  Mr. GardnerNo. I am suggesting that the question of any power to increase sentence, whether it comes from an initiative by the Crown or from the court, should be rejected as thoroughly unsatisfactory. I rely for my authority on what the Donovan committee found and concluded in 1965—that the power to increase sentence had undesirable features, inseparable from the existence of the power, although in those days the power was rarely used. I believe that that was the right conclusion. We should be guided by it. We should not allow hard cases—if, indeed, the recent sentence was a hard case—to make bad law.
  It remains a sad truth, of which all right hon. and hon. Members are continually reminded when they return to their constituencies, that the fear of violence is a daily fear with which the elderly all too frequently live. It is a fear of rape, robbery, assault and murder. It is a fear, unhappily, which is not confined to cities and towns, but which has spread into the countryside.

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  This week I was invited to a village in my constituency where an elderly woman died of a heart attack after her house had been raided at midnight by intruders. The cry from that village is, "Come and save us from the fear of this thing happening again." Apparently, there is nearby a probation hostel. I do not think that I shall be saying anything improper if I disclose to the House, as has been disclosed publicly, that the police are looking for two men who escaped from that probation hostel.
  We hardly need statistics to underline the growing use of violence in crime. Perhaps the most disturbing of all features of violent crime is that more and more young people are responsible for that violence. The most chilling statistics about juvenile crime are contained in the criminal statistics for 1980. The document is written in a language that I can only suppose is intended to discourage anyone from reading it or certainly from reading it to others. Even so, I take the risk of doing so, since it is brief. It says:
  "Throughout the 10-year period 1970 to 1980 the highest rate of known offending per 100,000 population was among males aged 14 and under 17, for whom the rate in 1980 was 7½ per 100,000 population."
  I assume that that means that there are more offenders aged 14 and under 17 per 100,000 population than there are in any other age group. The other statistics—one becomes rather dazzled if one presents the whole list—which are equally chilling, are the percentages of serious offences involving violence committed by children between 10 and 14 and between 14 and 17 years.
  For years the Children and Young Persons Act has been under criticism from magistrates and others who have the duty to deal with these children and young offenders. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has explained how difficult it is to come to the right decision. I am perfectly satisfied, and I believe that many others are equally content, with the view that where one has persistent offenders of a very young age, from 14 to 17, or even from 10 to 14 years, one must look at the need to give the courts powers which enable them to deal effectively with that sort of crime and with that class of offender.
  In this respect, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) seems to display a somewhat negative attitude to the new powers introduced in the Bill. He seems to have very little faith in the courts' ability to make up their minds about the appropriate remedy when these people—these children—repeatedly return. It is no answer for the right hon. Gentleman to say that if we deal with them in any way other than, for example, by a care order, which, as he knows, is the usual method, we shall increase local expenditure, which could otherwise be focused on their treatment under such an order.
  It is a tragedy that it happens, but there comes a time when the courts and the public have to say to young criminals, "Enough is enough. We want protection".
  Mr. John RymanWhile the need for immediate imprisonment may, unhappily, be justified by the facts of a particular case and the antecedents of the, defendant, is not the harm in the present law that the Bill seeks to remedy to some extent the fact that the judges' hands are tied and that they have no discretion in imposing a sentence of imprisonment on a young person because under the existing legislation they must impose either a relatively lenient sentence or one that may be far too excessive? There is no discretion under the present
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  legislation to give a sentence of between six months and three years, discretion which the facts of the case may justify.
  Mr. GardnerI entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is one of the purposes of the Bill to iron out that anomaly and to ensure that in future the judges do not have their hands tied in this intolerable way.
  Finally, I shall make a few comments about the way in which the new powers will, in my view, affect the children and young offenders who come before the courts. I believe—and I think that this is generally accepted—that the Children and Young Persons Act, fortunately for most young offenders, works. It is really only for those persistent offenders who come back to the courts and for whom there is no other remedy that it becomes necessary to discover and, indeed, to give the courts, powers that the Bill will undoubtedly give them.
  In spite of the obvious difficulties that surround the clause, I particularly like the power that is given the courts to fine the parent or guardian of a child and, furthermore, to order compensation from that parent or guardian. However, this matter disturbs me. It was also raised by the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) in a short intervention. I must tell my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that, as far as I am able to discover, there has been a loss of faith, certainly within the judiciary, in the effectiveness of fines because so many fines are not paid or recovered. No doubt, these are matters for the Committee to consider.
  As a whole, the Bill is an excellent piece of legislation aimed at putting right something that up to now has been very wrong. I wish it well.
  5.50 pm
  Miss Jo RichardsonI begin by taking up what the hon. and learned Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) said at the beginning of his speech about the recent publicity surrounding rape cases. I say "cases" because, when one is revealed, as happened recently in the Ipswich case, others are revealed where the women concerned have found it difficult to come forward. In many respects, it is good that women are gaining courage, coming forward and revealing what has happened to them.
  I was glad to hear the Home Secretary discuss the problem of sentencing in rape cases. I hope it means that he will use the Bill to ensure that rapists are given custodial sentences. After all, they have committed crimes of violence, and that must not be forgotten. Women must be able to walk our streets unaccosted. They ought not to see those who rape or otherwise abuse them given absurdly light sentences—to say nothing of the derogatory remarks likely to be levelled against women making allegations about rape—because these are an offence to the dignity of women.
  I want also to comment on the information that has been coming out in our newspapers about the Scottish rape case in 1980, where a woman was raped and very badly cut about, with the result that she required nearly 200 stitches in her face and body, but where, because it was considered that she could not give evidence, those who confessed to the crime got away scot-free.
  I am not and do not profess to be an expert in Scottish law. What is more, I am not sure whether the same is true of English law, but it seems to me that we should be able to use a Bill of this kind—after all, it is entitled the

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  Criminal Justice Bill—to clarify these matters and to ensure that such people are brought to justice in the proper way. I do not know, for instance, now that the woman has said that she would have been willing to come forward, whether it is possible for the youths concerned to be recharged. These are matters upon which I hope we shall have some clarification. In any event, I feel that we should use the opportunity of this Bill to clarify the law if that proves to be necessary.
  In general, there is much that is wrong with the Bill, and there is relatively little in it that is welcome. It is this Government's major piece of criminal justice legislation. As such, it reflects not only a lack of vision and hope but, I am sorry to say, the Home Secretary's loss of courage. It does not go to the root of the problem to see how we can ensure that our prisons are not overcrowded. Nor does it explore other ways of dealing with offenders and improving our penal system.
  I am not surprised that those who are involved in trying to reform the penal system—social workers, probation officers, prison governors, and so on—view this legislation with sinking hearts. The Bill has not grasped the opportunity that people hoped it would.
  The Bill covers a number of areas. I concentrate briefly on two of them. The first is the likely effect of the legislation on the state of our prisons and the likely impact of its provisions on young people who get into trouble and on the communities from which they come. It is important to remember the effect on the community of young people and the way that they behave.
  At the end of last Session, the Select Committee on Home Affairs, of which at the time I was a member, produced a report on the prison service. Members of the Select Committee went through sitting after sitting hearing a great deal of evidence about the dreadful conditions in our prisons, the overcrowding, the impossibility of doing anything constructive with prisoners in our squalid local prisons, the difficulty of keeping workshops open, and the low morale of staff in the face of deteriorating conditions. All the main groups involved in giving evidence, including the Magistrates Association and the Justices Clerks' Society, told the Select Committee that the use of imprisonment should be kept to a minimum. The Home Secretary himself told the Committee:
  "on the evidence it would appear that there could be a substantial fall in our use of imprisonment without any significant rise in the threat to individual safety."
  The Select Committee produced a unanimous report, making a number of recommendations about ways of reducing the prison population without endangering the public. The Government's reply to that report gave no encouragement to us or to others working in our hard-pressed prison system. Now we have a Bill that contains nothing to suggest that the Government are even basically aware that there is a crisis of overcrowding in our prisons, that we still require many prison staff to work in conditions that would be outlawed if the prisons were not immune from the health and safety at work legislation, that we submit many prisoners to conditions that can only make them more anti-social and criminally inclined, and that we are disrupting the lives of the families of prisoners, because we should never forget the effect on the families of people committed to prison.
  The only part of the Bill that even addresses the question of prison overcrowding—a problem that has been identified as a priority in numerous official reports, even
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  before the Select Committee studied the matter and endorsed that view—is clause 25 on partly suspended sentences. I describe the clause as addressing the problem because it is certain that the provision will not solve it. All the evidence available to us suggests that this half-hearted compromise measure either will have no effect on the overall prison population or could even lead to a slight increase in it.
  The Bill is irrelevant to the problem that is at the centre of the prison system, and that is our over-reliance on prison sentences. I am sure that every hon. Member could think of different ways of dealing with some people who at present are committed to prison. I happen to believe, for example, that it is absurd to continue sending prostitute s to prison again and again. In my view, we should take the opportunity—I know that it has been done before by one of our Select Committees—to look into the treatment of women in prison, especially of young women offenders.
  Mr. Matthew ParrisUnlike the hon. Lady, I think that this is an excellent Bill, but I agree with her about imprisonment for prostitution. Is she aware that the Civic Government (Scotland) Bill, which is at present in another place, abolishes imprisonment for soliciting in that part of the Kingdom? Does she agree that that is an added reason for considering in Committee whether we should not do the same in England?
  Miss RichardsonI agree, and I hope that in Committee it will be possible to insert a suitable provision. If I am fortunate enough to serve on the Standing Committee, I shall try to do so. That is only one example—there are others—of where we should follow Scotland's lead.
  The Bill is also irrelevant to the problems faced by young people who get into trouble with the law, to say nothing of the problems facing their families and the difficulties presented to local authorities which have to provide services for them. We know of plenty of evidence of the connection between juvenile delinquency and unemployment, overcrowded housing, the lack of facilities for young people, educational disadvantage, and so on. I should not expect those problems to be tackled in a Criminal Justice Bill, but we cannot go ahead as though they do not exist. The youth custody sentence, the shorter detention centre order, the residential care order, the supervised activity order and the stiffened sanctions against parents who do not pay their fines will not have much effect on the reality facing families in areas such as my own constituency of Barking where there are cuts in social services, cuts affecting people who need housing, cuts in education involving a worsening of conditions, especially for very young children, and cuts in the youth services.
  It is little consolation to a hard-pressed family to be told that the social services do not have sufficient resources to support them in their troubles with their difficult teenage children, or that if the children appear in court and are fined, they will be required to find the money. It is little consolation to local authorities to read of the Government's earnest wish to reduce the numbers in custody, and to listen to their exhortations that local authorities should develop other methods of dealing with youngsters, such as intermediate treatment, but to be given no money to do so.
  Mr. John CarlisleDoes not the hon. Lady agree that it is little consolation to the victims of crimes perpetrated by youngsters, possibly in circumstances that she has outlined, to know that those young offenders will get away with unpaid fines and that the court has little power to enforce them?
  Miss RichardsonI have every sympathy with the victims of crimes of violence—not only rape, but other cases. I said so at the beginning of my speech. However, I cannot believe that someone whose attacker has been given a heavy prison sentence or a heavy fine feels very much better. That does not get to the bottom of the problem with which we are trying to deal.
  Even those parts of the Bill that show an intention to move forward in penal practice and keep youngsters out of custody for as long and as often as possible, do not go far enough. It is widely accepted that custody does little good, and may do harm. When the Bill is passed we must educate people about why sentences are being reduced. If the Bill had gone further in trying to revise the penal system we would have had to explain why that should be done, and then many people would have understood.
  Although it is widely accepted that custody does little good and may do harm, and although the Bill contains the proper words, there is nothing to back them in provisions for local authorities or the probation service. Therefore, there will be no growth in intermediate treatment, community facilities, or in experimenting with ways to keep youngsters out of trouble. The prisons, education centres and new youth custody centres will be filled to bursting.
  The Bill is irrelevant to the main issues of the real problem. It will not help our prisons. One prison governor called them penal dustbins. That expression applies now, and will continue to apply even after the Bill becomes law. It will not reduce or prevent crime among youngsters. It will lead to a generation of youngsters from disadvantaged areas for whom the prison and detention centres will be finishing schools. A criminal career is all that lies before them.
  Mr. Vivian BendallThe hon. Lady spoke of social deprivation. Why is that, despite the increase of the Welfare State since the war, crimes of violence among youngsters have increased drastically?
  Miss RichardsonThe hon. Gentleman should produce figures to back his glib statement. I agree that during the past two or three years crime has increased, but much of that can be attributed to the fact that there is a large and growing number of unemployed youngsters who will never have a job. They have been cast on to the streets and on to their own devices. The better the Welfare State the greater the employment and the better the education, the less crime there will be because there will be more to occupy people's minds. The sharp decrease in the Welfare State that we have seen during the past two years tempts people to vandalism and the other acts carried out by young offenders
  The Bill will leave the prison population exactly as it is. I hope that the Opposition will offer many improvements to the Bill so that it will be used as it should be used, that is, a vehicle genuinely to improve the penal system. That will be a hard job because the Bill is limited.
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  I hope that the Opposition will attempt to improve it and I hope that the Government will be sympathetic and listen to what we say.
  6.6 pm
  Mr. Percy GrieveI hope that the hon. Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) will forgive me if I say that she left me with the clear impression that prison was an appropriate way to deal with rapists—
  Miss RichardsonI said that it was appropriate to deal with crimes of violence.
  Mr. GrieveI am in complete agreement with the hon. Lady, but she left me with the impression that she did not think prison an appropriate way to deal with anything else. If I understood her accurately, she said that the centre of our problem was to empty the prisons. I believe that the centre of our problem is to catch criminals, to deter them from their evil acts and, if possible, to reform them.
  The first duty of the Home Secretary and the Government is to defend us from our enemies abroad. Their second duty is to maintain the Queen's peace on the streets of our cities, the lanes of our countryside and in our homes. No sensible person could controvert my view that the Bill is a positive step forward in dealing with the centre of our problem. It has my full and almost unreserved support.
  I wish to deal with one other point made by the hon. Lady. She was interrupted by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Bendall). She said that all the evils of crime stem from social deprivation, unemployment and so on. That is rubbish. I am older than the hon. Lady, and I must not speculate on her age. However, those of my age who saw the unemployment and grim poverty in our cities in the 1930s know that crime then did not compare in scale, violence or quantity with that which we are seeing in society today—and not only in our society, but worldwide. There has been a breakdown in the elementary disciplines that, at one time, helped society. I fear that one of the root causes is the breakdown of discipline in the family and the lack of responsibility of parents. I shall return to that point when I deal with the clause in the Bill that places some responsibility on parents. I felt bound to make those points having listened attentively to the hon. Lady.
  I believe that the Bill is a step forward in a grim situation. The Government took office in 1979 having pledged themselves to do their best to restore a greater measure of law and order in our country. The Bill implements a great many of those promises. Yet, as was shown by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner), the crime statistics in 1980 make grim reading.
  The report of her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary for 1980, dealing with crimes outside the Metropolis, showed that the number of recorded offences had risen from 1,979,000 in 1970 to 2,104,000 in 1980. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde said, the involvement of young people in crime is one of the most serious problems besetting society. Half of those found guilty or cautioned for crimes outside the metropolis between 1970 and 1980 were under 21. Among the crimes that most affect a citizen, apart from sexual crimes, burglary—the ravishing of his dwelling house—increased by 15 per cent. and robbery by 18 per cent.

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  The London figures are no better. The report of the Commissioner of Police of the metropolis shows robberies up from 6,232 in 1979 to 7,585 in 1980. Burglaries increased from 116,873 in 1979 to 125,806 in 1980. A total of 60 per cent. of those arrested for robbery and 67 per cent. of those arrested for burglary were under 21.
  Mr. Kilroy-SilkWhat are you going to do about it?
  Mrs. Jill KnightWill my hon. and learned Friend give way?
  Mr. GrieveThe hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) has been making a lot of noise from a seated position. Perhaps he would like me to give way to him. It appears that he does not. Therefore, I gladly give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight).
  Mrs. KnightIn my hon. and learned Friend's collection of statistics, has he looked at the rate of detection, particularly in burglary cases, because that is a part of the statistics?
  Mr. GrieveI am obliged to my hon. Friend. I was moving on to that very topic and as she has led the way I shall do so without the preliminaries that I had planned. In London last year—
  Mr. Kilroy-SilkWill the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
  Mr. GrieveNo. I am embarked on a passage. I am dealing with a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston. If the hon. Gentleman wishes, I shall give way to him later.
  Outside London only 179,165 of the 495,336 burglaries were cleared up. Only 2,795 of the 7,421 robberies were solved. The percentage is very low and the London figures are even worse. Only 7,162 of the 75,043 burglaries—less that 10 per cent.—were cleared up and only 1,527 of the 7,585 robberies were solved.
  I realise the appalling problems of overcrowding in our prisons. I am the first to admit that our nineteenth century prisons are a blot on our society, and it is time that we started a major programme of prison building. What would be the state of our prisons if the police were more efficacious in bringing criminals to book? It hardly bears contemplation. If the police cleared up not 10 per cent., but 20 or 30, 40 or 50 per cent., our prisons could not hold all the offenders.
  I am not criticising the police. I admire and support the Government's policy of upholding the morale and strength of the police. We have done all that we can to support them, but we have to face the fact that, as the figures show, the police are not winning the war against crime.
  The Bill is concerned not so much with the war against crime—the Government are dealing with that by supporting the police—as with the ways of dealing with criminals, especially juveniles whose contribution to criminal activity has been underlined by me and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde and will, no doubt, be underlined by my colleagues throughout the debate.
  The courts have been hemmed about by restrictions in dealing with juveniles. One of the most welcome provisions of the Bill is the repeal of section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 1961. I have the honour to sit as a recorder and I have seen case after case in which the restriction of either under six months or over three years
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  or—when a person has been in custody before—under six months or over 18 months has hamstrung the court in doing what it believes to be right.
  When a court is dealing with those under 21 it seeks, above all, to give them a chance of reform, though one sometimes meets young people in their late teens who have appalling criminal records. Bearing in mind the number of cases cleared up, compared with the number committed, one is forced to conclude that many of those young people have offended on many occasions before being brought to justice.
  Mr. BestFrom my much more limited experience in the courts, I endorse what my hon. and learned Friend has said. Does he agree that another criticism of borstal is that it was a "school for scandal"? My hon. and learned Friend has mentioned the numbers who have been to borstal and reoffended within a short time. Does he agree that it is important that the new concept of youth custody should have a radically different regime from the borstals? It will be no good replacing borstals by youth custody if it means the same thing.
  Mr. GrieveI agree with my hon. Friend. I welcome the concept of youth custody. It is right that the courts should, in the light of all the matters brought to their attention—not only the crime committed, but the antecedents of offenders—be able to decide a determinate sentence for those under 21, just as they would for those over 21.
  I hope that the Home Office is busy seeing that the buildings are ready to receive those who will be dealt with under the new scheme and that matters do not drag on for years. So often, when new ways of dealing with offenders have come into operation, the institutions and buildings to receive offenders have not been available. If that happened, the new concept would be an empty provision, and it must not be empty, because the situation is far too grave.
  No doubt the Bill will be considered in great detail in Committee. I therefore shall not go into the particularity that it contains, but there are several other points to which I must refer. I unreservedly welcome clause 25, dealing with partly suspended sentences. I know that there has been a great argument about whether that will result in fewer or more people in prison. I think that there will be fewer.
  A judge, either because the defendant has not been to prison before or for reasons of leniency, must ask himself "Shall I impose a prison sentence, and if so, shall I suspend it?" Sometimes the public is offended by what has happened. I always remember the phrase used by the late Lord Goddard, that one of the functions of justice was to salve the conscience of society. Therefore, a judge may feel obliged to send such a person to prison. This clause provides another option to make the sentence more lenient than the public might think merited by the length of sentence imposed. Far from increasing the prison population, I believe that this provision will diminish it. I certainly do not believe that it will increase it greatly.
  Bearing in mind the way in which we must deal with crime today, this extra way of dealing with offenders is useful and valuable.
  I also unreservedly welcome clause 22, which deals with sanctions against parents and guardians. A person is

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  responsible for straying animals, such as his dog. Surely parents must accept some responsibility for their children—
  Mr. Kilroy-SilkPut them on a leash.
  Mr. GrieveThat is the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, not mine.
  Undoubtedly, one of the causes of crime is the breakdown in family discipline. If parents are made aware that they may be responsible financially, that may be a substantial deterrent against letting young people roam the streets in bands after dark, making a nuisance of themselves and sometimes much worse.
  I am not wholly satisfied with the way in which the Bill deals with fines, but that is a Committee point. Generally speaking, it is right to update fines, but I am not sure whether they are updated quite enough.
  Part of clause 27 appears to perpetrate gobbledegook, no doubt due to a misprint. Clause 27(2) states:
  "Where this section applies, a person guilty of such an offence shall be liable on summary conviction—

  (a) to a maximum fine of an amount not exceeding the greatest amount;

  (b) to imprisonment for a term not exceeding the longest or only term,

  to which he would have been liable before this section came into force if his conviction had satisfied the conditions required for the imprisonment of a fine of that amount or imprisonment for that term."
  I suspect that the word "imposition" should appear, and no doubt that will be put right.
  When the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) spoke about fines, I detected an extraordinary fallacy. He said that my right hon. Friend ought to empty the prisons of people who were there for non-payment of fines. As the only sanction against nonpayment of fines is to send people to prison, how on earth does the right hon. Gentleman think that the fines will be paid or that people will be compelled to pay them? Time and again, the courts do their best to fine rather than imprison, but there must be a sanction, such as three, six or nine months in default. If, as soon as a person goes to prison for default he is released, he will be cocking a snook at the law. I suspect that there would be even more crime than we have already, and heaven knows that is quite enough.
  I give a wholehearted welcome to the Bill. I have not dealt with many other points that have my support, but I commend it to the House.
  6.24 pm
  Mr. William PittThe hon. and learned Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve) may have lived through the 1930s, but I remind him that unemployment is now at almost the same level. If he wants to see deprivation of a real kind, he should go to any of the inner London suburbs, possibly the South London suburb where I worked for six and a half years.
  The Bill seeks to remedy a situation that does not exist. If the prisons are full, it appears that there is no crime, and if there is a massive amount of crime, the prisons should not be full. Yet we have an enormously high and growing crime rate and an enormously high and growing prison population.
  Over a number of years since the war, the remedy that we have sought has been institutionalisation. I remind the
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  House of the recidivism figures—84 per cent. for borstals and 75 per cent. for detention centres. Further institutionalisation is not the remedy for the growing crime rate, because as soon as people are taken into custody, they will probably learn the trade inside, come out, carry out the same offence and be reinstitutionalised. We are merely institutionalising recidivism.
  In general, the Liberal Party welcomes certain parts of the Bill, but is critical of certain clauses. Having said that, it is not our intention to divide the House.
  Clause 26 amounts to an amnesty in the hands of the Home Secretary, but that is starting at the wrong end of the scale in view of the prison population problem. If the prison population is so high that, effectively, we must exercise an amnesty, we are not using a creative measure to reduce that population. I suggest that the Home Secretary looks at this problem from the other end of the scale and tries to prevent people going to prison rather than cutting their sentences once they are inside.
  Claue 42 allows for a remand in custody without an appearance in court. That has certain advantages, in that it saves the time of prison officers and the continual trekking to and fro of prison vans to courts to bring accused in front of magistrates for only two or three minutes while the remand is re-enforced.
  A view to which I subscribe is that if people are not there to see justice being done, but are presented in vacuo week after week, that is not what our law is about. To a limited extent I can support the clause, but its provisions should be limited to only two or three weeks, after which—[HON. MEMBERS: "It is."] In that case, I have misread the Bill. We must avoid having people represented in vacuo without their being able to see justice being done.
  The treatment of young offenders is perhaps the most important part of the Bill. In this case, provision should be sought principally within the community, and I do not believe that there is sufficient provision within the community to create an atmosphere in which crime among young persons can be reduced. As to the age of young people who will be sent to youth detention centres, I do not think that we have looked sufficiently at the age range of young people in relation to their experience. They change schools at 11, they leave school at 16, and they become adults at 18. Therefore, it puzzles me why the Bill should fix the arbitrary age of 17.
  There is discrimination between male and female. Of the crimes committed by young men, 80 per cent. are theft or burglary. Of the crimes committed by young women, 81 per cent. are theft or burglary. Therefore, it is rather strange that there is specific discrimination between the age when a female enters youth custody—17—and the age when a male enters custody—between 14 and 17. The age should be the same for young men and young women, that is, 17 or, preferably, 18. That is the age when they reach adulthood and can be deemed to be responsible for their crimes.
  With regard to detention centres and youth custody centres there should be a specific commitment—which there is not in this Bill—to training. Far too often young people go into prison or detention of whatever form and stay there and vegetate, either because it is decided that the custodial sentence is too short or because there are insufficient facilities for training. If we are to provide the proper and creative climate for young people to be trained,

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  or purged of their crime, and enabled to come out and serve society usefully, they must be trained in the establishments in which they are put.
  Furthermore, there should be a commitment to 30 hours a week of training in long-term cases of detention. The people involved in this training should not necessarily be prison service staff. It would do young people a power of good if they were trained by people for outside. There is far too much use of prison service staff in training when people from the local community could come in and train the young people in trades such as painting and decorating or in reading or commercial activities.
  Mr. John CarlisleIn the rather nice establishment which the hon. Gentleman is describing, where young offenders are trained, would there be any time in the curriculum for some form of punishment for the offences that they have committed?
  Mr. PittI refer the hon. Gentleman to the beginning of my speech and to the recidivist rate of 84 per cent. We have had enough of straightforward punishment that does not work. If a creative attitude is adopted toward the detention of young people and they are trained to lead good, useful lives—
  Mr. Arthur LewisSend them on a trip round the world.
  Mr. PittThat is a good idea. Perhaps the hon. Member would care to accompany them.
  We should adopt a creative attitude and train these young people. One of the reasons for football hooliganism is that people are leading aimless lives, and they are leading aimless lives partly as the result of the policies of the Government and other Governments, who have failed—
  Mr. BendallDoes the hon. Gentleman not realise that one of the greatest problems of violence at football matches comes from young people still at school? Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that they are leading aimless lives?
  Mr. PittThe hon. Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Bendall) was once a member of a council that is notorious for its appalling education facilities—the council for the London borough of Croydon.
  The provisions for alternatives to custody for young offenders are welcomed by the Liberal Party because they are a small step in the right direction. Intermediate treatment schemes have a failure rate of 20 to 30 per cent. Those schemes should be emphasised in comparison with the recidivism figures for detention centres that I have already mentioned.
  Clause 21, which deals with care of juveniles, is one of the most important clauses and should be looked at closely in Committee. It will place an increasingly heavy burden on local authorities. Recently, both Scotland and Northern Ireland have divorced their care procedures from criminal ones on the grounds that they are two different processes with different aims. To involve criminal proceedings with civil ones, which deal with the problems of children who have never even thought of committing a crime and who may be in care for no fault of their own, is considered appallingly wrong by many practitioners. Care and criminal proceeding will become inextricably one. Already, being branded "in care" is enough. To be branded in care on the basis proposed is to be branded a
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  criminal. Families may be irrevocably broken as a result:, and local authority homes will find it difficult to cope with the problem of having two sorts of client. Courts may take advantage of the situation and put a child into care when a more useful and creative attitude towards the child's sentence may be required.
  We must look carefully at the whole Bill and what facilities we are to provide for useful training and treatment of young offenders. Young people who have offended for the first time—or even for a fourth or fifth time—are at the moment on a promotion structure They may begin with probation, they may then have a detention sentence, such as a short sharp shock, after that they will have borstal training or its equivalent under the new Bill, and after that they will go to prison. This is a structure we have to stop and we have to make sure that these young people are not sent on the path of recidivism, which is a damning factor and one of the things that fills up our prisons. Our prisons are full of people who are completely institutionalised and who continually go in and out of prison.
  Government funds should not be directed to custodial sentences but to provisions for young offenders within the community. We must look at the imposition of prison sentences on people who should not be in prison. It is worth repeating in the House—although it has already been mentioned by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley)—that vagrants, prostitutes, alcoholics, the mentally ill and debtors—at least we have stopped the debtors' prison—should not be imprisoned.
  I welcome the Bill. It is somewhat like the curate's egg, although unfortunately the good parts are not as large as those that need attention. It is not the intention of the Liberal Party to divide the House tonight but I ask the Government to look closely at the Bill in Committee so that we can, from the basic framework, have a creative attitude to the provision for young offenders that will give us a good basis on which to work.
  6.37 pm
  Mrs. Jill KnightAt this stage I still have some misgivings about the Bill. I hope that in the course of the debate, particularly when the Minister replies, my misgivings will be wiped away.
  I accept a number of the provisions in the Bill, and welcome them. For example, I accept the need to relieve the pressures on the prison system.
  The Select Committee on Home Affairs has studied this matter with great care. We have been impressed, as has everyone who has looked at the problem, with the appalling overcrowding in our prisons. However, there is a need to recognise that we have to exert enormous care when we are trying to empty the prisons. There is one major reason for that. The crime may not be severe. For example, I do not know how one judges the crime of kleptomania. Is it a mental condition when the crime is committed under mental pressure? It is important to realise that when offenders are in prison the public are at least being protected, and I am anxious about how much more protection the public will be given when the Bill becomes law.
  Mention has been made of mentally handicaped offenders, or people who offend because of their mental condition. If, instead of going to prison, they go to a hospital institution, it is not always easy to ensure that they

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  are locked up and unable to commit crimes. However much we may feel that they could not help what they were doing because they were mentally ill at the time, we must remember that other people suffer gravely from crimes—particularly burglary—committed by such offenders.
  In emptying the prisons we have to make absolutely certain that those who are released early will not be a danger to the public. That point has not yet been made in the debate, and it is important to bear it in mind. We do not, in a measure such as this, look only for the emptying of prisons and the different treatment of prisoners; we look for actions that will give the public greater protection.
  Probably the protection that may lie within the Bill has not yet been properly explained. I have read the Bill carefully and I want to be assured that it contains some hope for the public, because there certainly has never been a time in this century when our people have been so frightened of the danger of personal attack.
  I find it pathetic that the elderly should have to come to my surgeries, or write to me, explaining that they are frightened to leave their homes and that sometimes they have to lock themselves in them as though those homes were fortresses. There is a great deal of fear, and this House should turn its mind to how best we can relieve people of the fear of attack. Does the Bill meet the need and the right of the public to be protected?
  I sometimes find it difficult to understand the way in which people's minds work when they draft legislation. I hope that too much publicity will not be given to clause 1, because I find the first two subsections of it almost impossible to understand. Clause 1(1) reads:
  "Subject to subsection (2) below, no court shall pass a sentence of imprisonment on a person under 21 years of age or commit such a person to prison for any reason."
  Then subsection (2) reads:
  "Nothing in subsection (1) above shall prevent the committal to prison of a person under 21 years of age who is remanded in custody or committed in custody for trial or sentence."
  That sort of wording is immensely confusing. If the main message of the Bill were to be contained in those subsections, I am sure that many people would be alarmed at the thought that there was to be no prison and no borstal training for those under 21. Instead of borstal training we have a training regime. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State spoke of it, and I want to know precisely what is involved. Is it to be harder or easier than the present system?
  It is all very well to talk about recidivism. I was recently visited by a constituent who complained—I think with some justification—that she could not afford to give her children as much pocket money as the youngsters had in the corrective establishment in which she worked. She spoke of the bad behaviour there, particularly at meal times. Is the new training regime to differ drastically from the present system? I want to know exactly what will happen to those subject to it. I am sure that the public will also want to know.
  The Bill speaks of other methods of dealing with criminals. I realise that there can be several other methods, but I want to know what they are and how they will work.
  Rape has been very much in the news recently. Clause 2(1) states that where
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  "a male offender under 21 but not less than 14 years of age is convicted of an offence which is punishable with imprisonment in the case of a person aged 21 or over … the term of such a sentence should be no more than 4 months".
  What does that mean? Some rapists are under 21, and even under 18. What will happen to them? Are they to be dealt with under one of the other clauses, such as clause 5, which states that a court may impose a sentence up to the maximum permitted for an adult for the same offence? That seems to contradict clause 2, and I should like to know exactly where the Bill stands in that respect.
  The present level of juvenile crime is horrendous. Reference has been made to it and figures have been given. We are all aware of it. We have to face the fact that the more lenient we have become in dealing with offenders, the more crime we have suffered. No one can possibly pretend that, with all the enlightened ways in which young offenders are treated today, we have succeeded in preventing them from offending. Far from the system of less and less harsh treatment being a bright star of hope, the experience is that, the easier the treatment, the more certain it is that there will be a further rise in the rate of juvenile crime.
  Mr. Edward LyonsThere is no provision in clause 2 limiting imprisonment to four months. The Bill provides that if the sentence is no more than four months, it shall be in a detention centre. If it is more than four months, there is youth custody, which is another name for youth imprisonment. The hon. Lady is basing her argument on a complete misapprehension of what the Bill contains.
  Mr. Kilroy-SilkThat is not unusual.
  Mrs. KnightI have asked for clarification of the clause. I do not know what it means. We have not been told. Surely it is not unreasonable to seek clarification. Clause 2(2) reads:
  "If the maximum term of imprisonment that a court could impose for an offence is less than 4 months, the maximum term of detention it may specify for that offence in a detention centre order is the same as the maximum term of imprisonment".
  The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons) may well look baffled, because it is a baffling clause, and I am seeking clarification. At least I am pleased to note that he does not in any way seek to argue with my contention that with more leniency being shown we have had more crime.
  I am neither a vindictive nor a revengeful woman, and I have always been against corporal punishment. My reason is that, with our appeal system, it is possible for a long time to elapse between a sentence of corporal punishment and the carrying out of that sentence. Corporal punishment is effective only if it is carried out within a very short time of the crime having been committed.
  I have not been able to stomach the pictures and details of exactly what happens when a person has to undergo corporal punishment. However, I cannot stand either the pictures of pitiful, elderly people who are kicked, robbed and beaten outside their homes or, indeed, sometimes inside their homes. Although I would dislike the adoption of a sterner form of punishment, we must weigh the needs of those who suffer from such crimes.
  Clause 44 refers to compensation. It is not enough to refer to compensation for the victims. Potential victims want protection, not compensation.
  Clause 22 is to be very much welcomed because it is right to hold parents responsible for the actions of their

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  children. Mention was made of this on the news this morning, and the standard line was trotted out; a hard case was brought to the attention of the public. We were told that social workers were against this because some people would not be able to pay for the crimes of their children. It has already been said that hard cases make bad law, but they are absolutely no excuse for doing nothing. In the past years we have taken responsibility away from parents time and again. We must find a way to reinstate that responsibility.
  A lady interviewed on the news programme said that she could not control what her children did on the way home from school. But, if children are brought up correctly to understand that certain behaviour is not acceptable, they are much less likely to do anything bad. We are not just referring to youthful peccadillos. Any child can get up to those. However, to shrug off all the responsibility for a child's behaviour shows that the child has not been correctly brought up. One of the responsibilities of all parents is to teach their children that they have to live in a law-abiding manner and to keep the laws of the land. Clause 22 states clearly that that is the parents' responsibility. It is an excellent clause.
  I welcome also clause 42 and schedule 8 on the alteration of remand rules. I do not know whether anyone has ever assessed the enormous amount of money that is wasted on bringing remand prisoners into court every eight days. There can be no doubt that the cost is absolutely fantastic. We could put that money to a better use than paying prison officers to take people all over the country. As the House will know, the distances involved can be very great. There are problems of escorts and transport. Therefore, I believe that we should do something about this. My worries are whether this clause is the best way of doing it or whether specifying a longer period between remand appearances would not have been better and, if the decision is to be left solely to the person involved, whether he or she will opt for turning up in court. We must seek to save money there. We need to build more prisons, and that is one way to get an enormous amount of money.
  Will the Bill improve standards of law and order? That is the acid test. I recognise the need to make changes in court procedure. I support a great deal of the Bill, but I would be grateful to hear that there is, within the framework of the Bill, a gleam of hope for those who, these days, are extremely frightened people.
  6.54 pm
  Mr. Robert Kilroy-SilkLike other right hon. and hon. Members who have spoken in the debate, I welcome many of the provisions of the Bill. However, my main feeling is that the Bill is a major disappointment, for two important reasons.
  First, the Bill does nothing to prevent the present trend of the increasing incarceration of young people and juveniles. Secondly, the Bill does nothing to tackle the serious, increasing and continuing crisis of overcrowding in our adult prison system. Those are the two disappointments about which I wish to speak.
  On the problem of young offenders, the House will know that the overwhelming opinion of those who are knowledgeable, informed and concerned, is that there should be a major shift of emphasis and resources—to use almost the words of the Expenditure Committee two years ago—away from custodial measures to treatment and care in the community, that is, to non-custodial alternatives.
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  That is also the message of the Government's White Paper entitled "Young Offenders", published in October 1980. However, that is not the actual practice today, nor has it been in the last decade. Over the last decade we have seen an increasing use of custodial measures for juveniles to the extent, for example, that the percentage of juveniles convicted of indictable offences subject to a term of imprisonment, borstal or detention centre treatment, has increased from 6 per cent. in 1970 to 12 per cent. in 1980.
  In the White Paper the Government pointed to what they called the disturbing trend in sentencing practice in relation to young offenders over the previous 15 years. Even though the Government have pointed to this "disturbing trend", there is nothing in the Bill that will in any way help to alleviate the problem or to reverse the trend towards an increasing use of custodial sentence for a large number of young people.
  There are, of course, some sensible and welcome proposals in the Bill. Like my right hon. and hon. Friends, I welcome the combining of the sentence of borstal training and the sentence of imprisonment for young adult offenders into the new determinate youth custody sentence. I welcome also the determinacy that is injected into all sentences for this age group. That is an important and extremely welcome step forward.
  I also endorse and welcome, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), the provision that the time spent on remand in custody shall be counted towards sentence, whether that be a new youth custody sentence or a detention centre sentence. That happens now in the adult prison system.
  I welcome in principle the proposal that the courts should have the power to pass shorter sentences on those sent to detention centres, but I have one great fear, that is shared by my right hon. Friend and by professionals outside the House who are concerned intimately with this aspect of the welfare and care of young offenders. My fear is that the application by the courts of this provision will mean an increase in the number of those sent to detention centres above the number of those currently incarcerated.
  This was a fear expressed by the conference of chief probation officers in their comments on the White Paper. They felt that if this provision was made available to the courts, the courts might start using it for those who, at the moment, are not given a custodial sentence of any kind. It is a fear that was echoed by the prison and borstal governors' branch of the Society of Civil and Public Servants in its comments on the White Paper. Both organisations have expressed the view that this proposal will be wrongly used by the courts, with the result that a larger number of juveniles, and at a younger age, will feel the taste of imprisonment that is now made available because of the shorter sentence.
  I accept, as the Home Secretary has intimated, and as the Minister of State will no doubt say when he winds up, that this is a matter of judgment; the Government have made a decision; it is right—I agree in principle—to enable the courts, when they see fit, to pass shorter sentences. That is to be applauded and welcomed. Let us hope that the courts do not use the power to increase the number to whom it is applied. I hope that my fears and those of my right hon. Friend, which have been reiterated by the prison and borstal governors and by the probation officers, are not realised in practice. Of course, I know that that is not the Government's intention. Indeed, the Government, in paragraph 3 of their White Paper, put

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  forward a very important statement of philosophy as to when imprisonment is appropriate when they said that a custodial sentence would be appropriate where the individual was a danger to the community or was unwilling or unable to respond to non-custodial penalties. This was a very important statement of principle, so important that the parliamentary all-party penal affairs group, of which I have the honour to be the chairman, took that as its starting point in consideration of policy for young offenders.
  In our report published last year—"Young Offenders—A Strategy for the Future"—we laid down that future legislation should indicate that courts, when passing a custodial sentence, should be required to give reasons why such a sentence had been passed, either because the offender was a danger to the public or because it had been clearly demonstrated that all other alternatives had failed.
  That seemed to us a reasonable suggestion, particularly in the light of Government's own comments, yet we do not find in this Bill any criteria of that kind that would prevent my fears and those of the governors and the probation officers from being realised. That is to be regretted. Nevertheless, it is something that will be rectified in Committee and I hope the Government will feel able to accept the amendments that will be put down at that stage.
  Clause 21 of the Bill introduces what has become known as the residential care order—a very different order, fortunately, from that which was provided in the Conservative election manifesto. No doubt the watering-down of the provision has had a great deal to do with approaches made by the organisation. New approaches to Juvenile Crime, under its very distinguished chairman and my friend, Baroness Faithfull. It is, no doubt, the representations of that organisation and of that individual to the Government that have made this proposal slightly more sensible in the Bill than it was in the Tory Party manifesto.
  What is now proposed is that courts will have the power, when a child is taken into care, to impose a provision that he shall not return home, when in care, for up to six months. What is important in the Bill now is that at least he can be located in a foster home and that legal representation is mandatory when the care proceedings are actually under way.
  Nevertheless, having said all that and having accepted that it is now a watered-down version which is slightly different from, and certainly more welcome than, what was originally proposed, it is still true that this provision is a monumental irrelevance to the needs of juveniles and young offenders, that it will do nothing at all to prevent them re-offending, nothing at all for the recidivist or reconviction rate, nothing at all to deal with the frequently deep-rooted social problems that have to be solved in the community, and that it will do a great deal of damage to those increasing numbers of young people who will be incarcerated in uncaring, unhelpful, unconstructive institutions.
  The Government say they are against the increasing use of custody for juveniles and young people. This proposal itself will lead to hundreds more young people being held in community homes with education, homes which, as the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Pitt), speaking for the Liberal Party a moment ago pointed out—have a reconviction rate of about 76 per cent. It is
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  nonsense for the Government to pretend that they are dealing with juvenile crime and with the problems of young offenders in a constructive and positive manner when their only response, in this context at least, is to put them in institutions which, as all the evidence has shown, do not deal with their problems and do not help us produce, as we all wish to do, law-abiding, decent, reliable citizens.
  There are some proposals in the Bill for alternatives to custody, which themselves are welcome. The extension of the power of Crown courts to pass attendance centre orders is to be welcomed and encouraged; it is something that I and the penal affairs group have long called for and supported. We also welcome the long-awaited extension of community service orders to 16-year-olds, which has been argued for extensively. We certainly welcome the provision for supervised activities schemes, although I must point out to the Government, and particularly to the Home Secretary, that there is no point at all in passing legislation, however well intentioned, as this particular proposal is, to give greater confidence to the courts in passing non-custodial alternatives of supervised activities within the community unless, at the same time, sufficient money is given to those voluntary organisations providing schemes such as intermediate treatment, for example.
  It really is rather silly for the Government to spend £5 million on the new residential care order, which everyone accepts—even the Government—is a nonsensical irrelevance and at the same time fail to give much-needed money for the intermediate treatment schemes, particularly when the evidence is that their reconviction rates are 25 to 35 per cent. as opposed to the 76 per cent. reconviction rate of the community homes and the 86 per cent. rate of detention centres and borstals. The Government, therefore, must be prepared to give far more resources nationally to the voluntary organisations, and also now to the probation service, so that they can provide proper, constructive, worthwhile intermediate treatment schemes.
  If part I of the Bill dealing with young adult offenders is a disappointment, part II is extremely depressing, dealing as it does with overcrowding in the prison system. The Home Secretary will know very well that we have an enormous crisis in the prison system at the moment when, at one point last year, the figure of 45,000 was reached in accommodation that can only properly take, with even some notion of civilised conditions, 37,000. One third of those 45,000 are having to live two or three to a cell built for one in Victorian times, locked up for 23 hours out of 24, and with no access to even minimal standards of sanitation or decent civilised standards.
  The Home Secretary has drawn attention on many occasions to this problem, not least in his speech on 21 September in Cumbria, when he spoke, not just of the existing scandal of overcrowding, but of his fear that, unless something was done to reduce the prison population, and done quickly, the crisis would get worse and we might have a figure of 46,000 by the spring of next year.
  The Home Secretary also pointed out in that speech that there could be no hypocrisy—and it was his word, not mine—about conditions in British prisons. He said that it was not possible to provide minimum standards of human decency under present conditions.
  Like the Home Secretary, the prison and borstal governors have frequently drawn attention to the conditions in prisons, most recently on 2 December, when

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  the prison and borstal governors' branch of the Society of Civil and Public Servants drew attention to the serious position in a series of dramatic statements. It said:
  "Prison conditions are actually getting worse. Governors, staff and prisoners are living and working in growing squalor as many prisons become festering slums. Human degradation on this totally unacceptable scale stokes up the fires of inmate discontent and may bring about a breakdown of the penal system."
  That was and is the opinion of the governors and of their staff who have to work, and often live, in those conditions.
  In order to overcome this, the Home Secretary canvassed, in the document "Review of Parole in England and Wales", published in May of last year, a proposal for reducing the prison population. The proposed system of automatic supervised early release of short-term prisoners, which would have immediately reduced the prison population by up to about 7,000 and would have had a continuing impact on reducing the prison population.
  The right hon. Gentleman canvassed that proposal avidly, and obtained the unanimous support of the all-party Select Committee on Home Affairs and the Parliamentary all-party penal affairs group, both of which said that they wanted the measure, not simply because of the contribution that it could make to reducing overcrowding in prisons but because of its intrinsic merit. Yet, regrettably, it is nowhere to be found in the Bill.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook has promised—perhaps threatened—that he will table an amendment, supported by the rest of the Opposition, to put the measure back into the Bill. I hope that those Conservative Members who signed the report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs—the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) was one—and the report of the penal affairs group will feel able to support that amendment. Neither the Home Secretary nor his Minister of State has been able to give any good, solid reason why that sensible and constructive proposal should not be in the Bill.
  It was suggested that perhaps the judiciary had torpedoed the proposal. However, as Lord Justice Lawton's letter in The Times said, while the judiciary was opposed to the proposal, it loyally agreed to abide by it if Parliament introduced it. In the debate on 2 December the Home Secretary—as reported at col. 291 of Hansard —reiterated that the judiciary had made it quite clear that while it was opposed to the proposal it would implement it loyally and properly should Parliament so decide. Therefore, that could not have been the reason.
  Now a new reason has been put forward by the Minister of State. He told us on another occasion that the Government had gone back on the introduction of automatic parole on the basis of a strange, almost subtle—certainly tortuous—argument, that they wanted to give the voluntary approach a chance, that the average length of prison sentence had declined in the past year because of the voluntary measures that the Home Secretary had enjoined upon the judiciary. The Government say that any attempt to legislate a measure in the form proposed—the automatic review of parole—would in some mysterious way jeopardise the voluntary efforts.
  It is true that the average length of sentence in 1980 went down compared with 1979. But it is also true, unfortunately, that the number of people sent to prison in 1980 was 4,000 more than in 1979. That completely wiped out any beneficial effect that a reduction in the average length of prison sentence might have had.
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  Moreover, whatever marginal effect—and it is only marginal—the reduction in average sentence length can have on the prison population, it is as nothing compared with the significant and profound effect of the reduction by 7,000 that would have resulted from the introduction of an automatic early supervised release of short-term prisoners. It is a cause for great regret that that is not in the Bill, and it is a cause for some joy that my right hon. Friend has committed himself and the official Opposition to table an amendment to put it back into the Bill.
  The Government have come forward with a partly suspended sentence, the Minister of State's hobby horse, which he got on to the statute book during the passage of the Criminal Law Act in 1977, when the Government of the day did not have a majority. In principle, I support the partly suspended sentence. Any measure to reduce the number of people in prison or the length of sentence imposed is laudable and to be welcomed. But my fear is the same as that expressed by my right hon. Friend and many people outside the House—that it will be used in substitution for the suspended sentence or a non-custodial sentence. I fear that those who would now be given a non-custodial or suspended sentence will in future be given a partly suspended sentence, with the result that more people, will end up in prison and the numbers there will increase.
  The Government know that very well, because exactly that point was made by the former Minister of State in the House on 13 December 1979. He said:
  "there is reason to believe that it would increase the number of prisoners detained for short periods."—[Official Report, 13 December 1979; Vol. 975, c. 1519.]
  Indeed, as recently as last May, paragraph 58 of the Home Office "Review of Parole in England and Wales" said of section 47 of the Criminal Law Act:
  "That section has not been activated because of fears that the new sentence would be used to give a taste of imprisonment in cases where at present the courts would impose a fully suspended sentence or non-custodial sentence. Inevitably, too"—
  this was in a report penned by the Home Secretary—
  "in a proportion of cases the suspended part of the sentence would be subsequently activated. Thus there can be no certainty that implementing section 47 would achieve any reduction in numbers in custody".
  Yet Ministers now talk about the same scheme as if it would reduce the prison population by 4,000. That was the figure quoted on another occasion by the Minister of State, the progenitor of the measure. In all honesty he should stress that, as he knows, the 4,000 is an ultra-optimistic figure and that the much more reasonable and sensible estimate is that the measure will increase the prison population by 8,000.
  As the Home Secretary said, it is a matter of judgment either way. The Government have made their judgment. We shall have to live with it and find out what the consequences will be. What we know is that there is a risk. We may reduce the prison population by 4,000, as the hon. and learned Gentleman says and perhaps believes. We may also increase it by 8,000. We all know that if we had chosen the other option of the automatic early supervised release of short-term prisoners we should have reduced the prison population by 7,000, not increased it.
  The only gesture that the Home Secretary and the Government have made towards reducing the prison population is the inclusion in the Bill of the emergency powers that were contained in the Imprisonment (Temporary Provisions) Act 1980, to be used at an unspecified date for an unspecified reason.

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  It is only once in a Parliament that we have the opportunity of a Criminal Justice Bill of this kind. The present Home Secretary has perhaps been more highly regarded than many of his recent predecessors for the intimation that he has given that he is likely to do something effective to reduce the prison population. He has talked about it repeatedly, with knowledge and feeling, and he has said that he at least is prepared to take effective action.
  The real test of the Home Secretary has come today with the Bill. It is his only lasting opportunity to be effective in penal reform and to reduce the prison population dramatically and immediately. The right hon. Gentleman has failed that test. There is nothing in the Bill that will help in any way to deal with the crisis that confronts us and prison staff. I must say with regret that there is nothing to deal with the intolerable and scandalous conditions in which remand prisoners are contained in our local prisons. They are people who perhaps are kept in the worst, most degrading and disgusting conditions. Yet they do not get even a mention, let alone any sympathy, in the Bill.
  There is nothing in the Bill, either to remove altogether from the prison system or the criminal justice system those individuals to whom my right hon. Friend referred—people such as prostitutes, vagrants, drunks, drug addicts and the mentally ill and mentally disordered, none of whom should have entered prison in the first place, all of whom would be better catered for in, and should be treated in, the appropriate facilities in the community, and all of whom represent a glaring blot on an allegedly civilised community. Our only response to their problems and needs is to incarcerate them in institutions described as penal dustbins, rather than dealing with them as they should be dealt with—elsewhere.
  There is a great deal in the Bill to be commended to the House. There is much that is extremely disappointing. On the two crucial issues that confront us and that the Bill confronts—removing from institutions the increasing number of young people that we put into them and dealing with the crisis of overcrowding in the adult prison system—the Bill fails, and the Home Secretary has failed.
  With my right hon. Friend and hon. Members of all parties, I hope that we shall have the opportunity to put forward amendments along the lines of the report of the Select Committee on Home Affairs and the parliamentary all-party penal affairs group's report, to improve the Bill, to make it an important, positive and constructive landmark in penal reform.
  7.20 pm
  Mr. John CarlisleHon. Members will forgive me if I do not take up the argument of the hon. Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk), for whom many on both sides of the House have a great deal of respect and who has done an enormous amount of work in this field. He is an old adversary of mine since November 1980 when he spoke against a Ten-Minute Bill which I attempted to introduce to amend the Children and Young Persons Act 1933. Unfortunately, the House declined to give me leave to bring in my Bill largely because of the eloquence of the hon. Member.
  This Bill will be best dealt with in Committee because of the detailed matters to be discussed. Consequently I
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  shall not detain the House for many minutes because I know that there are several hon. Members, certainly on this side of the House, who wish to speak. I am disappointed at the attendance on the Opposition Benches, and indeed on the Government Benches, because this is a very important subject which I and many of my hon. Friends feel we have been sent to the House to do something about.
  I endorse the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) who referred to the fear in the hearts of many constituents that the streets of our towns and cities and, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner) said, of some villages are not safe places to walk at any time. It is right that the House should be dealing with this subject and that a Bill of this type should be brought before us.
  I support most of the Bill and welcome its provisions. The number of people in prison is a national disgrace for which we must all take some responsibility. If ways and means can be found of reducing the prison population, while the protection which it deserves and to which it has a right is still afforded to the public, that is the road that we should go down. I had an interesting experience before Christmas when I visited the penal dustbin, as it is described by the governor, of Wormwood Scrubs. The four hours which I spent there taught me a lot about the overcrowding in that prison and in other prisons.
  I welcome the provision on additional detention centres. I hope my right hon. Friend will not take too much notice of the remarks of the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Pitt), who seemed to be putting forward the idea that detention centres should be almost holiday camps. When young offenders are brought before the courts there must be some form of punishment. I have listened carefully to the debate and at no time have I heard the word "deterrent" used. This must be an integral part of the Bill and of the policy which we put forward today.
  The Conservative Party has fulfilled much of its manifesto pledge in supporting the police, in increasing the numbers, and in supporting community policing and policemen on the beat. That is to be welcomed. We are pleased that those numbers were such when we had the troubles last summer. This is the other half of the manifesto pledge that was left out; it is certainly needed and will be welcomed by constituents throughout the land. The people look to the Government and to the House to offer them protection. We have not provided that protection as we should have done in the past. The riots of the summer, both here and in my constituency, proved that. If the Bill goes some way to providing that protection, we will have done the work which we were sent to do.
  Some 15 months ago, as I have already said, I attempted to introduce a Ten-Minute Bill to amend the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 to put fairly and squarely upon parents the responsibility for the payment of fines. Therefore, I was delighted to see this in the White Paper on young offenders which came out in the autumn of 1980 and to see that it has been included in the Bill. It is significant that of all the clauses which have been discussed by various Members on both sides of the House clause 22 has probably had the most discussion. It will probably have most discussion in Committee.
  I was particularly interested in clause 22 because my county council initiated a working party two years ago which considered the statistics of crime in the county. Sad

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  to say, in my constituency the crime rate for a town of its type is the second highest in the country. That county council and many others were concerned about the various crimes being committed. They were also concerned that in many cases parents were not taking full responsibility for the offenders. The county council will certainly welcome this measure. I should like to quote what I said about the working party:
  "Its report emphatically laid much of the blame upon poor parental control, public apathy and lack of co-operation with the police."—[Official Report, 11 November 1980; Vol. 991, c. 213.]
  It is that parental control to which I wish to speak briefly. One speaks about it from a sad background of vandalism increasing and some £100 million plus going out of the public purse to deal with it. In my constituency there are few schools where some form of vandalism has not occurred. I would guarantee that one could not find in Luton a tower block or any public building where the walls are not desecrated with some graffiti. New buildings seem to suffer more. As I said in the debate in November 1980, very few nights pass in Luton without the sound of breaking glass; very few public telephones work; and, of course, we have constant problems with football hooligans who come to the town in various ways, many by rail.
  Mr. Arthur LewisI am sorry that my hon. Friends always walk out when they have made their speeches because I should have liked them to have heard this. Is the hon. Member aware that some of my hon. Friends who claim to be do-gooders say that the cause of the trouble is the Government, the high unemployment, the social welfare conditions and so forth? I remember the days when we had 3½ million unemployed, no social security, no unemployment benefit and far worse conditions than now, yet anyone could find a telephone that worked or go on a train without any of this trouble. Would the hon. Member explain that it has nothing to do with social conditions, because if that were the case it would have been happening in the 1930s?
  Mr. CarlisleI am grateful to the hon. Member, whose words are a breath of fresh air. He has said what many hon. Members on both sides think. He has had the courage to say it although he has had little support in this debate and in the past from members of his party. Social conditions in many towns are far better now than they were in the 1930s, of which the hon. Gentleman has spoken with experience and deep feeling. It is no excuse to say that because unemployment is high or because certain facilities are not available the only alternative is to break the law. I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member, as the House will be, for his remarks.
  The cost to the public purse of such offences and vandalism is horrific. Old people are being terrorised and Britain's streets are no longer the streets that they used to be, as many hon. Members know better than I. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve) pointed out, the chief culprits are the 14 to 17-year-olds. I do not intend to produce any figures, but the statistics that have been given prove that.
  We must never shrink from laying the blame, because it must be laid in certain areas, but the House has responsibility to take what measures are possible to correct such a terrible situation. Too many easy excuses, like those that the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) described, are put forward. It is said that parents
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  cannot cope with their children and that their children are beyond their control. It is even said that the social worker does not understand how a particular child behaves. Someone else is always to blame. The schools are an easy target for blame, although I accept that discipline in some schools leaves much to be desired. The environment and so-called poor housing conditions are also blamed. Of course, the police come in for some blame for carrying out a job that many hon. Members would shirk. The councils are blamed for not providing enough facilities.
  The State is blamed for providing easy access to social benefits. I was well reminded of that by a West Indian constituent who came to me not a week ago and who said that he arrived in Britain in 1950, had fought his way through and bought a house. He said that he had built up a family but that he could not control his sons aged 17 and 18. He said that that was my fault, because I was a member of a State system that had given his sons no incentive to work or to keep within the law.
  The important point is that, as a result of the Bill, blame can be laid at the parents' door. There is nothing old fashioned about saying that we regret the loss of the family unit and the fact that many parents have absolved themselves of their responsibility. The commitment that families—notably those from the Commonwealth, particularly Asians—show to their children is not being shown, as it used to be, by British families. Society's moral decay and the increase in the number of divorces, in the number of single-parent families and so on, are beginning to break down the family unit. That is the root of the trouble and that is why clauses 22 and 23 are right.
  We must not be afraid of saying, as the Bill does, that magistrates have not used the existing powers to the extent that they should have done. I have spoken to many magistrates on this subject—
  Mr. RymanI am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but is he suggesting that the Executive should intervene in the imposition of sentences by the judiciary at any level, whether magistrates' court or Crown court level? Is the hon. Gentleman seriously saying that Parliament, through the Executive, should in some way seek to direct the judiciary about the sentences that should be imposed?
  Mr. CarlisleParliament has a duty to suggest that certain powers available to magistrates should be used. The Bill tells magistrates that they should use the powers that they have but which many of them have not used. Perhaps it is to our shame as politicians that we must enact a Bill that gives magistrates such guidelines.
  Mr. Arthur LewisIs it not a fact that only the other day, as a result of one case. the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice suggested what magistrates and judges should do?
  Mr. CarlisleI agree with the hon. Gentleman. Hon. Members have a duty to reflect their constituents' opinions and that has been borne out by several recent cases. As an Executive, our duty may sometimes have to extend to giving magistrates guidelines when we feel that they are not using the law to the full. That is why I welcome the spirit of clauses 22 and 23. They tell magistrates—with a small get-out provision—that they should use the law as it stands, and hopefully will stand, with parents bearing their responsibilities.

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  In the past few weeks I have been saddened to notice on the sports field—of all places—that the parental attitude towards children is beginning to reflect the violence and aggression that many hon. Members have mentioned.
  Many hon. Members will know of my interest in sporting activities. I attended a mini-rugby match between some of my constituents and members of another club. Children of 10 and 11 years of age were playing rugby. Some of the behaviour of parents on the touchline and some of the "encouraging" words that they used—particularly when many team members from my constituency were black—were horrific. When people tell me that parents are not taking any responsibility for their children, I wonder whether they realise that it is not only 14 to 17-year-olds who are involved but 10 to 11-year-olds. If parents show aggression to children at that age, those children will begin to reflect such aggression in their late teens.
  Let it be said that at least £25 million stands in unpaid fines and that compensation for the crime is often quite inadequate. It is a shame that the hon. Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) is not in the Chamber, but it is understandable that victims are bitter when light sentences are imposed, particularly if a fine is not paid. The Bill is right to ensure that parents pay the fines and that responsibility is not shirked. Sympathy is no compensation to the old woman who has been mugged and who has had her handbag snatched by some thug.
  I welcome the Bill, which is sensible and reasonable. Many of its provisions will directly benefit my constituents and the people of Britain. The Bill should be endorsed, and I am glad that the Opposition have said that they will give it a clear passage. I hope that it has a reasonably smooth passage in Committee. We need such a Bill, and I commend the Home Secretary for having introduced it.
  7.38 pm
  Mr. John RymanIn a short speech, I shall simply make several points that occurred to me after having listened to several speeches. I give the Bill a cautious welcome. To be fair, I feel that the Government have shown ingenuity and ability in dealing with a difficult subject in an interesting way.
  I have detailed criticisms about certain clauses, but I shall not trouble the House with them because they will be considered in Committee. From some of the speeches made, I detect a total lack of realism from both sides of the House. This is not an easy subject, and it has been commented on by many people who know very little about it; they have talked at inordinate length without any practical experience of the difficulties that arise. I humbly suggest that there are many considerations that ought to exercise hon. Members' minds, and about which the Government should think before the Committee stage.
  The majority of right-thinking people, of course, want to do everything reasonably possible to reduce the prison population, but an obsession with that is surely wrong. It is not right to say that each measure must be judged simply on that basis. On the other hand, some hon. Members seem to suggest that harsher sentences should be imposed in particular cases, especially those involving violence.
  The principle that must pervade the administration of criminal law is that sentencing policy should be exclusively that of the judges. Parliament can by all means
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  prescribe maximum sentences in legislation, but there should not be the insidious tendency by the Executive that has been evident in recent months and years to encroach on the judiciary's field and bring pressure on it to reduce prison sentences. That is a wrong departure and approach because experience has shown repeatedly that one must trust the judges.
  If one seeks to impose legislation on the judiciary which ties its hands, the results can be very unfortunate. An example is the Children and Young Persons Act 1969. When a judge sentences a defendant within a set age group for a serious offence, he must impose a six-month or three-year prison sentence and has no power to impose a sentence in excess of six months or less than three years. That has troubled the courts for many years because, in the administration of justice, when the case facts and defendant's antecedents are considered, a longer sentence than six months but shorter than three years is shown to be required. Many judges have often said that to impose a six-month rather than a three-year sentence is far too lenient. Parliament has forced the judiciary into that position because the alternative would be to impose far too harsh a sentence. That difficulty has troubled the courts for many years.
  The Bill is excellent in parts and is certainly a step in the right direction. However, it should not impose restrictions on the judiciary, but should act, broadly speaking, on the principle that one must trust the judges and give the courts sufficient discretion to impose the appropriate sentences, considering the case facts and defendant's antecedents. It is against that general principle that I shall examine—shortly the House will be relieved to hear—some of the points already made.
  Obviously, the protection of the law must be equally if not more directed at the victims rather than the perpetrators of crimes. It goes without saying that under criminal law the paramount concern is the public's protection. We often hear platitudes from sincere but misguided people telling us how we should deal with those convicted of serious offences of violence. They show a total lack of realism, given the appalling injuries and shock inflicted on victims of crime.
  It is idle to say that the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board can, in appropriate cases, grant compensation. Those who have experience in these matters—I disclose an interest as my home has been burgled thrice in two years—know that the shock of burglaries and offences that do not involve violence being perpetrated on the victims, are very far-reaching. It is of paramount importance when considering cases of aggravated robbery or other offences of violence that the public must be protected. That is the proper criterion that should be behind the Bill.
  While Parliament must do everything possible to encourage the Government to deal compassionately and fairly with young and disadvantaged persons, we should never lose sight of the fact that the law exists to protect everybody, irrespective of sex, colour or religion. It is against that background that the proposals must be examined and tested.
  I have misgivings about any proposals that whittle away at the judiciary's full discretion when imposing sentences about mandatory obligations on courts to impose shorter sentences than a judge wishes to pass. For example, when the prison officers' industrial dispute occurred, the Home Secretary openly, honestly and frankly used language in

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  the House which was tantamount to advising the judiciary to impose more lenient sentences because of the crisis faced by the prisons.
  I fully understand why the Home Secretary made those speeches, and I know that he acted responsibly, sincerely and honestly. However, it is wrong for any Home Secretary to advise judges on what sentences to pass or to seek to influence the judiciary when imposing sentences. That may well be the function of senior judges, but it is certainly not the function for any member of the Executive.
  The parole board's position has not yet been mentioned. It has a great role to play in the legitimate desire to reduce the prison population. There is much to be said for extending the parole board's powers and to make those subject to shorter sentences eligible for parole. My impression is that the board is doing a very good job but that the ambit of its activities could be vastly extended.
  The House will know that parole is restricted to sentences of a certain length. When the Minister replies, I shall be interested to hear whether the Government contemplate extending the powers of the parole board—it could be done in the Bill—in a way that will make defendants serving shorter sentences eligible to make applications to the board after the appropriate period has elapsed.
  The provisions that will order parents to pay fines for offences committed by their children are prima facie a good idea. I share the views that the breakdown of the home, the loss of family units, the breakdown of responsibility of the churches and other similar factors have contributed to juvenile delinquency. Although prima facie the proposals for parents are attractive, I suggest that in practice they will be difficult to implement and enforce. Are we spending a great deal of time discussing a concept which, if it reaches the statute book in the present form, will be unenforceable and of no practical value in the fight against juvenile crime?
  In my constituency the average unemployment rate, taking the minimum and maximum figures, ranges between 12 and 17 per cent. The parent provisions will bring before the courts parents of children who have committed offences. Many of those parents will be unemployed and forced to live on public funding. They will receive fines that can only be paid out of public funds. Is it suggested that the provisions will influence parents to control their children more strictly to prevent them from committing further offences?
  Mr. John CarlisleI remind the hon. Gentleman that provisions already exist for children under the age of 10 years whereby their parents are obliged to pay fines. I remind him also that the Bill contains a clause that provides that in special circumstances a fine does not have to be levied on the parent. If that clause did not exist, the hon. Gentleman would be expressing a justifiable fear. As it does exist, perhaps his fear is groundless.
  Mr. RymanI am indebted to the hon. Gentleman for making the point. He is saying that a safeguard appears in the Bill to obviate the circumstances that I have been describing. Obviously we shall want to consider the safeguard. I am merely asking whether the provisions that will order parents to pay fines are enforceable in practice. Very often Parliament inserts attractive clauses in Bills and
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  when the measures eventually appear on the statute book the courts find that in enforcing them there are practical difficulties that were not originally envisaged.
  I give a cautious welcome to the Bill and to many of its provisions. I am attracted to the idea of parental responsibility in respect of children who commit crimes. However, I foresee genuine difficulties, despite the intervention of the hon. Member for Luton, West (Mr. Carlisle).
  I deplore some of the emotional speeches that have been made on this subject. The administration of criminal law should not be a matter for emotion, nor should it be a matter for seeking to make cheap party political capital. It is a most serious issue that in the course of this excellent debate has attracted attention from hon. Members on both sides of the House. In the past, successive Governments, whatever their political colour, have dealt completely fairly with the administration of criminal law. The previous Labour Government enacted the Criminal Law Act 1977. Labour Government enacted a great deal of useful legislation in the realm of criminal law, including criminal law and criminal justice Acts in the late 1960s. We should get together, representing our constituents, to try to put on the statute book the best measure that we can to deal with the serious problems that face us.
  I commend the Bill to the House. I have reservations about certain clauses that I hope we shall have the opportunity of discussing in Committee. I hope that the House will support the various measures in the Bill. When the Minister replies I hope that he will answer my specific questions.
  I end my short speech by asking the Minister to give us the assurance—I know that he will do so if he can—that the tenor of the Government's policy on the administration of criminal justice will continue to be to safeguard the independence of the judiciary from any interferenceby the Executive. I hope that he will say also that the Government will not take any steps to seek to tie the hands of the judiciary in imposing sentences other than setting a maximum sentence in a particular clause. Finally, I hope that he will say that the Government will take steps to remove existing anomalies in the criminal law that tie the hands of the judiciary. The judiciary has often said in public that in many instances the anomalies have a counter-productive effect and force judges to impose sentences that ideally they would not have wished to pass. For example, a judge has no discretion within the six month and three year provision to impose a sentence of intervening period.
  7.58 pm
  Mr. Vivian BendallAt the beginning of this Parliament, in 1979, the country faced something of a law and order crisis. Part of the crisis stemmed from extremely low police pay and police morale, especially in the Metropolitan area. It is all too easily forgotten that one of the first actions of the Government was to introduce the recommendations of the Edmund-Davies report and to deal with police pay. That has resulted in increasing numbers of police throughout the country. I am sure that the whole country, as well as the House, is indebted to the Home Secretary.
  The second problem with which we were faced at the beginning of this Parliament was the increasing rise of crimes of violence, especially among young people. It seems that over the years the young people who commit

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  crimes of violence have become younger. I wonder where we shall end up. Will 3 and 4-year-olds end up being as badly behaved as 8, 9 and 10-year-olds are now on the football terraces?
  I should like to take up the theme that has been put forward continuously in the debate—many hon. Members have not referred to it directly, but it has been the underlying current all through the debate. If one is to have a democracy, two things are absolutely essential for the preservation of that democracy. The first is the defence of the land in which people live as a democracy. The second is law and order. If there is a breakdown of the second, the democracy could go to the wall. That is where I believe that the parent has a great responsibility.
  I make no apology for echoing what has been said earlier. It is true to say that people often deserve what they get. If people in society are not prepared to accept responsibility, there will be problems. I regret that what has been happening in our society for a long time is that people are not prepared to accept responsibility. That responsibility should be taken on by parents when the children are at an early age. Unless we have discipline, guidance, kindness and understanding in our homes, there will be problems later on. I am sad to say that over the past 15 or 20 years we have been developing the society of the latch-key child, the child who has little guidance and for whom parents often have little time. It is against that background that the problems that society has today are bred.
  I very much agree with what the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) said earlier. He said clearly that he did not believe that some of the problems of today, such as housing and unemployment, were entirely or in part to blame for crime. If one examines what happened 30 years ago, when there were approximately the same unemployment figures, one sees that there was no comparison with people's standards of living today. Today there are not the Jarrow hunger marches. In those days there was not the concept of the Welfare State. We did not have today's education system or the Health Service. However, we did not have in those days as much extreme violence as we have today. That begs the question: "Why?"
  The answer lies in three areas. It lies in the responsibility of the parents at home. It also lies in sensible discipline at school and in a proper form of punishment within the law. If those three are out of tune, there will be problems. What has eroded our society for a long time is that those three things have been getting out of balance and out of tune. If at school a teacher administers reasonable discipline, the parent will often complain. Often if a parent takes what he assumes to be reasonable disciplinary action, he will be reported. That is where our problems lie. Unless we tackle those problems at the roots, we shall never resolve the problem of increasing crime.
  I find it strange to think that the crime of rape does not involve violence. Most of the cases of rape that we have heard about recently have involved extreme violence against the person who has been subjected to that crime.
  One area of the Bill gives me a little concern. Before I move on to that, I wish to say something about parents being made responsible for the actions of their children. It is right that we should embark on that course. We must look at new areas and avenues, and new ways to resolve
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  our problems in a changing social world. I accept the arguments about parents who are unemployed. However, if it will help to make 25 to 30 per cent. of parents responsible, that will have an effect on the present serious situation. Therefore, I welcome the Government's ideas in that direction.
  I am a little disturbed about clause 26. I hope that when the Minister of State replies, he will satisfy me with some assurances. Clause 26 makes provision for the Secretary of State to take powers, by special order, to release people who are serving sentences of from six months to three years. The clause talks about not releasing those who are serving a life sentence. Where does it stand on those who have been convicted for crimes of violence, who are serving sentences that may be slightly less than three years? I am disturbed because I believe that on first-time offences, it is important that people should have a short, sharp shock. If they are not dealt with in that way, they may embark on a life of crime, whereas a short, sharp sentence may often give them second thoughts about going back to such a place.
  I am concerned that the Home Secretary, or a future Home Secretary, might have powers to start releasing people who have committed violent crimes earlier than the judiciary, which sentenced them, would have wished. Like the hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Ryman) I believe that that is a difficult area. I have always been led to believe that the place of Parliament is to make the laws and that it is the judiciary that administers the laws. That being so, I am a little concerned that we are beginning to move into the area where the judiciary should play the full role.
  When the Minister replies, I hope that he will be kind enough to try to clear up those points for me. I am concerned because in certain circumstances we could release people who have committed violent crimes before they have served their full sentence. I would be quite against that in view of the serious rise of crimes of violence in recent years. Perhaps sentences for some crimes of violence could be heavier than they are now. However, having said what I did about the judiciary, I would believe it to be wrong to move into those areas. We must leave them to the judiciary.
  When the Minister winds up I shall be interested to hear what he says about those areas because, other than having that concern, I fully support the Bill. I wish it well. I hope that it will start to bring a realisation to the British people that if they want to preserve their democracy they must take on the responsibility not only of their children but of the society in which they live.
  8.9 pm
  Mr. Edward LyonsThe debate takes place against a background of overcrowded prisons, increasing violent crime, particularly among young people, a shortage of resources and cuts in education and the social services.
  The Bill is a five-year update of the criminal law as seen through the eyes of the Government. It is an opportunity for the Government to bring into effect measures that they believe will improve the penal system. The Bill tends to be a miscellany of measures. In a sense, it comprises a number of Committee points.
  We are all aware of the need to ensure that people who commit violent crimes, and others who may be tempted to do so are deterred from terrifying their fellow citizens; but we cannot send those people to prison if there are no

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  facilities to take them. In 1977 the Advisory Council on the Penal System unanimously declared that many sentences, especially in the short and medium band, were longer than they need be. In view of the unanimity, we should go further and agree with Lord Justice Waller, who said that prison spaces were in short supply and courts should be careful not to waste them. He did not believe that courts should disregard the availability of prison facilities. Whatever one's view about the length of sentences, we must bear in mind the capacity of the system to sustain the load. That factor has made the Home Office more responsive to the views of prison reformers.
  There are good provisions in the Bill, such as the abolition of borstal sentences and the fact that sentences for detention and youth custody will take account of time spent in custody before sentence is passed. In addition, the early release power gives greater flexibility to the Secretary of State. The House has to approve by affirmative resolution the use of that power. I should like to know the circumstances in which the power might be used, but it is a helpful measure, because of the flexibility that it provides.
  There are also bad provisions in the Bill. I criticised in a debate a few weeks ago the proposal to introduce partially suspended sentences and I make no apology for renewing my attack on the proposal, which will mean that more people will go to prison. It was never proposed at the outset to introduce such a measure in the Criminal Law Bill. It was introduced by the present Minister for State, Home Office, when he was in Opposition, and, inexplicably it was accepted off the cuff by the Labour Minister of State. I alone spoke against it, and what I said did not fall on deaf ears.
  After the House passed the provision, the Home Office ensured from 1977 onwards that it did not come into effect. A Conservative Home Office Minister of State has sharply criticised the provision. The Home Office did not like it. It is on record as stating that it is likely to increase the number of people in prison, yet, hey presto, that view is reversed. We cannot have great confidence in the Government's views about how good the measure will be when the clause has not been implemented since it was introduced in 1977 and the Home Office has criticised it.
  I am also disturbed about the proposal to increase the periods between pre-trial remands. In practice, half the people remanded are eventually either acquitted or given non-custodial sentences. They are kept in old prisons often in poor conditions. When they come up for remand they see their solicitor and are sometimes given bail. If they are brought up for remand only at intervals of three of four weeks, they will not get bail in the intervening period. The numbers in prison will increase and, in practice, the opportunities of accused people to see their lawyers will be diminished. I hope that the Government will think a little more about the matter.
  Some of the opportunities lost in the Bill could be put right in Committee. No one has yet mentioned the subject of mandatory sentences for murder. It has been treated like a hot potato. Everyone has steered clear of it. Life sentences for murder were condemned in 1975 by the report of the Butler committee on mentally abnormal offenders. They were also condemned by the Advisory Council on the Penal System in 1978. The Criminal Law Revision Committee, in its fourteenth report, was evenly divided on the matter. It is, therefore, astonishing that no one has mentioned it.
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  We all know that a life sentence does not mean what it says. In every other case the judge decides the sentence. The Bill proposes to extend a judge's power to determine sentences for the young, instead of leaving them indeterminate—for instance, as in the old borstal sentence. The law is swinging into line to give judges the power to fix the term of nearly all sentences, but they have no power to fix the length of a sentence for murder. A life sentence merely passes the buck to the parole board.
  The parole board has a primary sentencing role for murder cases because it takes over once the jury has convicted. When the judge says "life sentence", he really means "I am not allowed any discretion in this case". He may think that in a domestic case the person ought to serve four or five years, but he is not allowed to say so, and the parole board will decide in private what the sentence should be because it will decide when the person should be released.
  It is true that judges are allowed to recommend—but not to impose—a sentence in cases which they consider to be particularly bad. It is a recommendation. It is not appealable, and it is a heavily criticised procedure. We need a much more rational approach to life sentencing.
  About 1,500 people are now serving life sentences. Most of them are domestic murderers—not what we consider to be usual criminals, but husbands, wives, sons, daughters, cousins, brothers and lovers. Judges would do something about that, but they are not allowed to do so. An enormous amount of time is wasted in the courts by people basing defences on provocation or diminished responsibility simply to get round the impossibility of judges exercising their discretion. The whole object of getting a manslaughter verdict by using such a defence, is to enable the judge to fix his own sentence.
  It is time that the Government summoned up the courage to bring this kind of sentence into line with sentencing generally and to give judges the right to impose the sentences that they think appropriate. At a stroke, we should not only cut the length of some sentences for murder, although sometimes the judge would give a longer sentence than the parole board would have given. We should also bring the sentencing procedure for murder into the open, instead of leaving it to the back room in which the parole board operates.
  An enormous amount of court time would be saved. All the doctors now called to testify against one another about diminished responsibility would not be needed. The trials on provocation which now take place because that defence must be a matter for the jury would not need to take place if the definition of the offence were changed to that of unlawful homicide. A House of Lords judge and the Law Commission are on record as recommending that we should define it as an offence of unlawful homicide. The charges of murder and manslaughter and all the special defences would go and there would be fewer ridiculously fought murder cases. People who were guilty would be more likely to plead guilty. Judges could consider the facts and say in open court why they were imposing particular sentences, which would then be open to appeal. It would be a far better system.
  I hope that something will be done about that in Committee. If it is not, I propose to table an amendment along those lines.
  Finally, the possibility of deferring the start of prison sentences, the reduction of the period of sentence after which parole can be given and the right of judges to give

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  bail pending appeal do not appear anywhere in the Bill, so there are plenty of opportunities to improve it. Regrettably, the Government have so far not shown enough courage. In my view, the provisions as drafted will achieve no reduction in the prison population, a considerable amount of injustice will continue to be done and a considerable number of people will remain in prison longer than they need to remain.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill)Before I call the next hon. Member, I should tell the House that five more hon. Members have intimated that they wish to take part in this important debate. I understand that the winding-up speeches will begin at 9 o'clock.
  8.24 pm
  Mrs. Sheila FaithI am pleased to speak after the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), and I hope that the House will heed his remarks about the indeterminate nature of life sentences.
  I welcome the Bill because it will give better and more suitable powers over young offenders. I am sure that we all agree, however, that prevention is better than cure—I should say attempted cure, probably—or punishment and that the first principles of discipline must be given to young people when at school and in the family. Everything must be done to stop truancy, which is often the first step towards delinquency.
  I welcome the provision that extends parental responsibility. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Bendall) that family discipline is most important and that the breakdown of family life a prime cause of crime.
  I ask my right hon. Friend and the House to take note of a recent report by the Society of Conservative Lawyers on the future of marriage, which points out the dangers and the prevalence of delinquency among children who experience the breakdown of their parents' marriage. Special note should be taken of suggestions made to parents of young children to be more aware of the possible consequences to their children if they should divorce. The decision to divorce is taken far too lightly. If there were fewer one-parent families, fewer young people would be brought before the courts.
  Because the Bill relates mainly to custodial sentences, I welcome the fact that the Government have made it clear that other measures such as supervision, attendance centres and intermediate treatment in general should always be the first choice of the courts. Like other hon. Members, I hope that the Government will see that sufficient funds are given to local authorities to improve these facilities. Community service has been of great value, and I welcome the fact that children under the age of 16 will be able to participate in this scheme in future.
  Unfortunately, however, all young people do not fit into these—to be preferred—home-based schemes. Unfortunately, the courts, after complying with stringent conditions, still have to deprive young people of their liberty. I do not believe that the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 was right to say that junior detention centres should be phased out, although admittedly they do not always cure or deter. But there are still many difficult boys from deprived homes for whom they are a suitable treatment.
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  I want to refer to Foston Hall, a detention centre in my constituency where a pilot scheme for the new short, sharp shock treatment regime started in September 1981. I visited the centre last year both before and after the introduction of the regime. I did not find it to be a finishing school for crime, as one hon. Member suggested these detention centres were. Unfortunately, these youngsters can always learn their tricks in their own schools and homes.
  The original role of detention centres was to give people a short, sharp shock in the hope that it would stop them in their tracks and make them change course and live a more sensible life in the future. However, gradually the sharp lines were blurred and it was thought to be punishment enough to remove boys from their home environment. Although there is truth in that, it is important to take the opportunity to give some discipline to boys in the centres.
  When I visited Foston Hall, the warden said that for many of the boys it was their first taste of discipline. Their schools had given them no work training and they had no way of applying themselves properly. He believed sincerely that their time at a detention centre was well used in encouraging an application to work. Even before the new regime commenced, I saw that sterner measures than when I had visited a detention centre in the early 1970s were being introduced gradually, and I was impressed by the way that the boys responded. Their bedding was laid out neatly and the ordered atmosphere was very impressive.
  I arrived in time to see the boys participating in physical education. After watching their drill, I felt that they had a sense of achievement as their performance improved. I was about to say that my impression was that they gained a sense of satisfaction that they had never had before. I felt that they would be mentally as well as physically better for the stimulating exercises. The warden confirmed that many of the boys had said that they would continue to keep fit and that they would join sports clubs after leaving Foston Hall and therefore that there was some hope of developing in them a more healthy and constructive attitude to life.
  I welcome the new shorter sentence of three weeks and a reduction in the maximum sentence. The warden told me that, as in prisons, the first few days in the centre had the maximum impact. I think that that is generally accepted.
  I welcome the fact that magistrates have said that they will not increase the number of youngsters whom they send to these institutions and that shorter sentences will be given only where a longer term at a centre would have been ordered previously.
  I believe judges and magistrates will not abuse the powers given to them. For some time, magistrates have realised the need for shorter sentences. However, when the Bill becomes law, its workings must be closely watched to ensure that more youngsters are not sent to centres than would have been the case previously. Courts cannot send to detention centres youngsters who appear before them a second time. The next stage is a prison sentence. Some consideration should be given to the possibility of a second term at a detention centre of more than a few weeks duration.
  I do not believe that detention centres are degrading or demoralising in the same way as prisons undoubtedly are. The short, sharp shock treatment will make an important contribution to penal policy. I hope that it will be

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  instrumental in deterring youngsters from a life of crime. I shall watch the pilot scheme in my constituency with great interest. I am glad that there will be no vote against the Bill on Second Reading. I wish it a speedy passage through the House.
  8.31 pm
  Mr. Arthur LewisI had not intended to participate in the debate until the hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), who reneged on the Labour Party, made his speech and was reluctant to give way. I note that he walked into the Chamber, was called, made his speech and then walked out. That now appears to be the practice of most hon. Members on both sides of the House. Is that not strange behaviour when we are discussing good customs and practices? It has been the good custom and practice of the House for many years that hon. Members should listen to at least the following speaker, and preferably the following two speakers, before leaving the Chamber. No one takes any notice of that rule now. Yet we decry those outside for not doing the normal, decent thing. If only hon. Members would occasionally set an example. There is a little law which says that we should not throw papers on the Floor. It was introduced by the House. Let hon. Members look around the Chamber and see the litter.
  The House always finds good reasons for helping the poor prisoner, the poor offender who has committed a crime and the poor prisoners living three to a cell. All the do-gooders say what a terrible thing that is. They complain that the prisons are overcrowded and insist that we reduce their numbers. They make good speeches and then rush out of the Chamber, not waiting to hear anyone who might criticise them.
  Of course it is not good to have overcrowded prisons, but instead of reducing the numbers we should take the advice of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) and keep people out of prison by preventing them from committing crimes. We can do that by making the penalty, punishment, deterrent, or whatever one wishes to call it, such that they will never commit the crime again.
  The House sets up Committees to look into the matter. I gamble that, whatever the Committee, it will be filled with lawyers and do-gooders, and that few of those who have been mugged and attacked will be sitting on the Committee. The old lady who has been knocked down in her home will not be there. The Committee will be filled with well-paid, well-sinecured or well-expensed Members, often from the legal fraternity, telling us how to reduce the prison population. I do not want to see many people in prison, or prisoners living three to a cell. But I know that it will cost a great deal of money to improve existing prisons or build new ones. I know that old-age pensioners who have had to earn a living for 40 years, possibly being unemployed for part of that time, are living in deplorable conditions that are worse than those of prisoners living three to a cell.
  I have seen some of our prisons—warm, relatively cosy, pictures on the walls, radio, television, lovely communal facilities, food—all the things that our pensioners do not have. The sick, the disabled and pensioners cannot afford these facilities.
  I do not believe all that I read in the papers, but I read last week, and it is probably basically true, that it costs £7,000 a year to keep a person in prison. That is paid for
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  by people such as the lady who was raped recently and by the Scottish lady who was raped. In that case the police are refusing to charge the three blokes who did it. There is talk about sympathy for such offenders. I would shoot them; I would willingly take the gun and do it if, as I am told, at least one of those involved in the Scottish case has confessed that he did it. We are, and have been, much too lenient with such people.
  What I have to say is not based on what I have read or what I have been told by other people or by glorified committees. I shall say what I know from experience and I challenge any man or woman in Britain to deny it.
  In the 1930s there was more unemployment than there is today, there were no social or welfare benefits, no community relations officers and little housing accommodation. Conditions were deplorable. It was normal to leave school at 14. There was no question of staying on to 16 or 18 or going to university.
  Since then we have had the intervention of that renegade political crook, Roy Jenkins, who fled from this House to take up a sinecure in the Common Market at £60,000 a year tax-free—having spent most of his life saying that we should have an incomes policy. As the Home Secretary, he initiated the so-called easier society.
  In the 1930s, my mother and father, my brother and sister, my uncle and aunt and I, could and did walk in any part of London, particularly the dock areas, at any time of the day or night without fear. Thanks mainly to Roy Jenkins' liberalisation there are many parts of London where people cannot walk in safety, even in daylight.
  Not only old people are mugged. Mugging attempts are made almost daily and the muggers have had a so-called good education. They have certainly been at school until 16 and many had the chance to stay on or go to university—all paid for by the sick, the blind and the disabled.
  We often say that things are paid for by the taxpayer. I wish that we did not refer to "the taxpayer", because every man and woman in Britain pays taxes. Some people think that only the rich pay taxes, but, in fact, the rich are relatively better off.
  I am talking about the blind man or woman, or the man or woman with only one or no legs. Virtually every time they go out or buy anything, they pay tax, even if it is only VAT. If they buy a packet of cigarettes or a drink, they pay tax. They are the people who pay to give these youngsters a good education, good opportunities and good social welfare conditions. What happens? They bite the hand that feeds them. One cannot find a public telephone in working order virtually within a 10-mile walk of London. If someone has an accident or urgent need, he cannot find a telephone.
  The Bill will not improve that. It will make it easier for the criminals and thugs to get away with it. Why should they? Lord Harris, the chairman of the parole board, is another one who has reneged. He gets about £20,000 a year and has several other sinecures. I do not object to discussions with him, but what discussions have been held with Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Black or Mrs. Blue who have been knocked about, raped or attacked? How many persons who have been robbed or knocked about have been consulted about the Bill?
  We have heard about the length of trials. I am not being disrespectful to the Minister of State, but the lawyers do well out of it. They get well paid, and the longer a case

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  continues the more money they make. Only recently, a judge said that he was disgusted at the length of time trials now take.
  In the main, it is again the ordinary man or woman in the street who pays—the poor, the sick and the disabled. They will pay for the provisions of the Bill of which I am not enamoured. I look forward to the time when we can go back to the situation in the 1930s, when people could walk about without any trouble.
  Two or three times on each day of the week I hear of people being knocked about, including children. That never used to happen. I know the toughest areas of London where in the 1930s the crooks and the thugs used to rob banks. They used to say "We are going on a job, but no shooters". I was told that by a professional burglar whom I could name. He told me "The first thing we did was to search one another to make sure that there were no shooters, but once they did away with capital punishment we decided to carry shooters because if we were caught or arrested by a policeman or anyone else, we shoot him, get away and stop him giving evidence. In any case, if we are then caught the sentence is the same."
  The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West referred to life sentences. He ought to talk to some of these criminals. How many times have hon. Members picked up a newspaper and read that X bank or Y factory was robbed and sawn-off shotguns used? They are sawn-off because the pellets can spread wider and do the most damage to most people, but thanks to Mr. Roy Jenkins making it easier for them, if they are caught they will receive the same sentence.
  If there were a death penalty, things would be different. Bill Sykes may not have worried about the death penalty but he had friends and relatives, and thugs had mothers, wives and relatives who warned them not to do this or that because "You may be topped". That was the expression that they used. However, now it does not matter, as there is only a prison sentence. Even if the sentence is for life, it never lasts for life. Now there is talk of cutting sentences further and easing off.
  The hon. and learned Member for Bradford, West spoke about remand, and I agree with him on that point. It is a scandal. I have had a constituent who has spent two years on remand in Wormwood Scrubs. Through no fault of his own he has been awaiting trial in prison, even though he has not yet been found guilty of any crime. He is still in prison, and even if he is found guilty of the crime with which he may be charged, his prison sentence will be shorter than the period for which he has been awaiting trial. Yet a self-confessed, convicted criminal who happens to be a friend of a peer, or of a top commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, may, if found guilty, not even go to prison. He will go to an open prison from which he can go home, and to which he can have his meals sent. He can do literally what he likes. If we want to save room in prisons, why do we not let those remanded in custody go to open prisons, and let people such as Lord Kagan and Commander Drury, who have been found guilty, go into the closed prisons? Why should not the convicted criminal go into the closed prison and the person who has not been found guilty go into the open prison? That would help to ease overcrowding.
  That will not happen because there is one law for the rich and one law for the poor. There is one law for those
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  who are in the Establishment and one law for those who are not. The Bill does not even attempt to deal with the ordinary person in the street. A dear old lady who steals a bottle of milk and a loaf of bread will have the full vigour of the law operated against her. There will be no mention of whether it will be a traumatic experience or whether giving evidence will upset her.
  There was a case in Scotland where a woman was raped and slashed with a knife, so that she had to have 200 stitches, yet the authorities did not prosecute because they said the experience might upset her. They did not ask what she wanted or whether she would give evidence. I know that this is a mattter for the Scottish Office, not the Home Office, but the same principle applies. We are too easy on vicious thugs and criminals.
  I have seen and heard thugs laugh at suspended sentences, which do not mean a thing. The proof is that criminals commit the same crimes again. Community service does not mean anything either—they do not do it. Fines are also useless. Millions of pounds worth of fines are outstanding and are never paid. A short while ago a constituent of mine showed me 65 parking fines that he had never paid and which go back five years. He said that he wanted to be sent to prison, and asked me to do something about it, to see that the police followed up the fines. No one worries.
  My point is that these wicked professional criminals could not care less. What is more, the House sits late at night to see what can be done to make things easier for them. I am not enraptured by the Bill. I shall not support it, because I do not think we are doing enough to get at the criminal classes. We are encouraging them.
  8.45 pm
  Mr. Nigel FormanI welcome the Bill as part of the Government's continuing efforts to fulfil the Conservative Party's manifesto pledges on law and order.
  I should like to refer briefly to something said by my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State when the House last debated law and order:
  "It is always welcome to this Government that the House should debate questions relating to the maintenance of law and order, and the preservation of liberty. There is no subject to which this Government attach more importance. It ranks equally with the defence of the realm."—[Official Report, 26 November, 1981; Vol. 13, c. 1015.]
  I applaud that statement, which is a useful bit of background to the Bill.
  I also applaud what the Government have done so far in increasing public spending on the police, in improving police pay and conditions, and in building more attendance centres, detention centres, and so on. The Government's record so far on law and order has been good and the Bill helps to complement that record.
  The manifesto said that violent criminals and thugs require tough sentences, and that it is equally right that a wide variety of sentences should be available to the courts. Those are two of the purposes to which the Bill is directed, and I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary for introducing it in this Session.
  The first 24 clauses deal with young offenders, and I am particularly glad to see the new idea of youth custody, with powers for the courts to determine the length of sentences. I welcome the possibilities in clauses 2 and 3 for courts to give detention centre orders of as little as 21 days and four months for males between 14 and 17. The

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  deterrent effect of custodial sentences is obviously greatest in the earliest stages of the sentence, and that is an argument for short sentences of that kind.
  I also welcome the provision in clause 6 that the Government should be seeking to require the courts to pass life sentences on those between 17 and 21 years of age who have been convicted for offences which with adults lead to the imposition of life sentences. I do not think that the offence in such a case is any less serious, and the punishment should be no less just because the offenders are under 21.
  I welcome the extended use of attendance centres, as proposed in clauses 15 to 18.
  With regard to the stronger sanctions on parents and guardians of children, it is right that fines or compensation should be the responsibility of the parents, with whom so much of the responsibility lies. I am aware of the difficulties, and several of my hon. Friends have mentioned them today.
  It is equally right that under clause 44, much later in the Bill, it should be made possible for courts to make, both instead of and in addition to other penalties, a compensation order on offenders in order to benefit the victims of crime. It is sensible for us to be seeking to amend the law on fines in general in part III of the Bill, and to be trying to improve the mechanisms for enforcing those fines.
  I have some reservations concerning clauses 25 and 26, dealing with the partial suspension of sentences and the possibility of early release. Of course, there are people in prison who should not be there, as many hon. Members have said in the debate. Of course, the shock effect of a prison sentence can wear off with time. Of course, there will be circumstances in which it is right and safe to provide for early release. Nevertheless, none of those considerations means that it would be wise to encourage or require the courts to pass shorter sentences, especially for violent crime. In such cases sentences should, if anything, be longer, for the benefit of the law-abiding general community.
  If there is a problem with overcrowding in our prisons, the answer is to build more new prison accommodation, as the Government are rightly intending to do, and I pay tribute to the Home Secretary's achievement in getting the decision to start six new prisons between now and 1984.
  By all means let us give the courts greater flexibility in the sentencing options available to them, but let us make no changes in the law that would discourage long, salutary prison sentences where they are appropriate—for instance all the crimes of violence, including rape. Public opinion expects Parliament to give a lead in that direction for the greater protection and satisfaction of the community.
  If we fulfil our side of the bargain, as lawmakers, by giving through the Bill a wider range of more flexible powers to the courts, and if the Government give a proper lead in encouraging a more disciplined approach to life in the family, in schools and in the community, and in the media, which have a special responsibility in these matters, we can reasonably ask for the full support of the public for the police, the courts and all who strive, under the leadership of the present Government, to make the maintenance of law and order once again a hallmark of our times.
  8.56 pm
  Mr. Warren HawksleyIn the few minutes that are left of this debate, I should like to cover some of the commitments made by the Conservative Party in its 1979 election manifesto. In that document, we devoted four pages to the rule of law. We stated that that was a subject we believed to be very important. This Bill is the answer to those commitments.
  It does not go far enough. In part, it answers some of our problems, but I fear that it echoes the Home Secretary's recent outburst against those of us who believe—I openly admit my belief—in capital and corporal punishment. It possibly shows a "sensitive and understanding way," to use the Home Secretary's word. However, I question whether the Bill goes far enough. I suggest that it does not.
  The country expects the present Government to provide a very tough and hard line. The country believes that the current crime wave is a matter of great concern to most people. The people believe that they deserve protection by tough deterrents and tough penalties.
  The Bill does not do enough to protect the elderly, the person who is robbed, beaten up or carved up—often merely for a few pounds. It is not as though we are talking about major criminals. Most of the increase has been in violent crime among young hooligans in particular.
  In the few minutes available, I wish to confine my remarks to part I. There are four main reasons why a child becomes either a law-abiding citizen or a criminal. All these reasons supplement the Bi11 to some extent. First, the influence of the parents is very important, as is, secondly, the influence of the schools. The third reason—which the Bill directly affects—is the deterrent effect of any treatment given to young offenders, particularly on early occasions when they appear before the court. The fourth reason concerns the attitude of society and whether we accept mugging and vandalism as an inevitable way of life. I regret that many people are now moving towards that position.
  The influence of parents is dealt with in the Bill. That is right, although the problems of collecting fines or compensation that may be awarded against parents have been pointed out. However, it is right that we should ensure that parents are responsible financially for the acts of their children and that they will take a financial interest by concerning themselves about the whereabouts of their children at all times.
  I turn to the influence of our schools. We have heard criticism of a school which one hon. Member was known to be supporting. I regret that some schools do not teach the difference between right and wrong. We have teachers who believe that self-expression, on occasions, is desirable. They do not believe that children should be persuaded that to support the agencies of the law is the way to move forward. There are some teachers who take part in protests, who shout and march, and who commit illegal acts themselves. What kind of example is that? We need a more professional approach within our teaching profession.
  We must also support those within our schools who wish to retain use of the cane. It is a deterrent. It probably does more within our schools to help to ensure that youngsters go down the right road than anything in the Bill will do.

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  I wish to comment mainly on the deterrent effect of sentences passed on youngsters, particularly in the early days of a life of crime. The Bill fails in this respect because it accepts the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, which moved away from punishment and deterrent towards the view that social workers should be involved to a greater extent and that the problem could possibly be dealt with in another way. That experiment has failed. I believe that a very small number of children benefit from being under the care of a social worker and yet many care orders are being made which result, on many occasions, in community service or possibly a person going into a community home. I believe that we should repeal the sections of the 1969 Act which do that, but unfortunately this Bill supports the principles of that Act.
  As a county councillor in Shropshire, I spent some time as a member of the social services committee studying community homes and was frightened at what I saw. Admittedly we had in our county at that stage one of the worst. I claim some credit for having it closed. However, after visiting community homes from Lancashire in the North to Surrey in the South, I realised that the old approved schools had been changed into schools in which discipline was not retained. The community homes did not have the discipline that the old approved schools used to have.
  In Borreatton community home in Shropshire, the school which was closed, the boys did exactly what they liked. Whether they got up in the morning was a decision they themselves made. They were not made to get up. If they absconded, they were not reprimanded. If they did not want to show respect to the agents of law and order, they were not encouraged to do so. When they appeared in court, not surprisingly, they begged to be sent back to the Borreatton community home because they enjoyed the life there. It was a life of luxury. I think it was the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) who said that these homes were like holiday camps. In the Borreatton community home none of the children was a waif or an orphan. All had been committed for criminal offences and all had fairly long records before the courts.
  We should move to a tougher regime. The short, sharp shock treatment which the Home Secretary is introducing is correct, but I wish that we could do more to make sure that the community homes also instil in the people there the difference between right and wrong.
  It is important that we should, as a party and as a Government, do everthing we can to support the agencies of law and order and toughen the Bill in Committee, because there will be no vote, I gather, tonight. I hope that we shall see in Committee a move to make sure that the requests of our constituents for tougher action are taken into account. The public have had enough of wishy-washiness in the Home Office. They want a tough policy to be implemented, and if the Bill is toughened in Committee I believe it will reflect people's views.
  9.3 pm
  Mr. Matthew ParrisIn the few minutes that remain to me, I shall whittle down what I planned to say to two basic points. I am sorry, therefore, if I should sound a little staccato in my delivery.
  The Bill provides for the setting up of youth custody centres. It also announces that borstals are to be abolished.
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  A somewhat unworthy thought has occurred to those of us of a slightly sceptical turn of mind. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will be able to dispel it in his summing up, if he is lucky enough to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker. I welcome almost all of the Bill, so if I limit my remarks to a couple of unhappinesses it is simply because of the shortage of time.
  I should like to follow up a point made by, I think, the hon. Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) about prostitution and soliciting. Nothing in the Bill abolishes the penalty for soliciting for the purposes of prostitution. The hon. Member for Hammersmith, North (Mr. Soley) moved a Ten-Minute Bill last year which was unopposed and which sought to do just that. I believe that there is a broad measure of support on both sides of the House and in the country for doing this. My hon. and learned Friend gave a sympathetic answer but said that he would prefer to await the Criminal Law Revision Committee's recommendations on this. I hope that he will not give us that answer tonight. Since then, for instance, homosexuality in certain circumstances has been made legal in Scotland without awaiting the findings of the Criminal Law Revision Committee. The Indecent Displays (Control) Act became law without the House awaiting the Government's final reactions to the Williams committee.
  The change to which I am referring is a sensible and modest one about which there should be no further prevarication. There are in prison now 238 prostitutes, a quarter of them for non-payment of fines. I do not think that anyone suggests that the prison sentence for non-payment of fines should be abolished. Everybody agrees that there must be a final resort if people will not pay. But that leaves about 180 unfortunate women in prison for prostitution.
  Everybody knows the effects of imprisonment on a family, and a prostitute is more than usually likely to have a family. There was a report recently of a most unfortunate case in Scotland of a woman who was breastfeeding her child being sent to prison.
  What has been the Government's reaction as regards the Scottish law? The Civic Government (Scotland) Bill, now in another place, abolishes the penalty of imprisonment for prostitution in Scotland. It is a sensible measure, which we should now be prepared to follow in England.
  I very much hope that this matter will be raised in Committee. If it is not, it should be raised on Report. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider it seriously and that we shall get further in Committee.
  9.6 pm
  Dr. Shirley SummerskillAt no time has it been so urgent and necessary for the House to consider a major Criminal Justice Bill and to grasp the opportunities that it presents for changes in sentencing and treatment of offenders. The Bill comes at a time when the incidence of crime is increasing and when we are locking up three times as many young people under the age of 17 as we did 20 years ago.
  One of the many effects of the Bill should be to bring about both a significant and permanent reduction in the total prison population, in order to improve the uncivilised and degrading conditions of so many prisons. To do that would mean a shift of emphasis from custodial measures to treatment in the community, a shift that must be encouraged not only by the House but by the courts, which still show a lack of confidence in non-custodial methods.

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  That change of emphasis is justified by the conclusions of research over many years and by those who work with offenders, both young and old. They have shown that a short custodial sentence is as effective as, if not more effective than, a long one in the majority of cases and that the effect of any custodial sentence for the less severe crimes is questionable, because in the majority of cases a further offence is committed.
  Does the Bill respond to those findings? Will its measures produce a significant and permanent reduction in the prison population? Regrettably, the answer must be "No", as has been confirmed by the speeches of several of my hon. Friends. An opportunity for radical change has, sadly, been missed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) said, the Bill shows a lack of vision. It misunderstands the nature of the offenders with which it deals and their needs. Instead of concentrating on an extension of probation and all forms of non-custodial sentencing, the Bill replaces one set of custodial sentences with another.
  The proposals in the Bill represent a substantial and regrettable departure from the policy underlying the two Children and Young Persons Acts, with their emphasis on prevention and welfare. One of the Acts referred to young persons who, by committing criminal offences, showed themselves to be in need of care and control. There is now to be a move away from the concept of welfare for a young person in trouble.
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) emphasised, the whole philosophy of the past 10 years has been to try to limit the use of custody for young offenders. The director of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders has rightly described the proposals as a leap into the past for our penal system.
  The Advisory Council on the Penal System in 1974, after four years, reported that there should be a new sentence of custody and control with early release to supervision in the community. The suggestion was to replace the three sentences of detention centre, borstal and imprisonment with a single sentence of determinate length. This view was repeated in the 1978 Green Paper published by the Labour Government which suggested a single undifferentiated generic sentence of youth custody and supervision. This was generally welcomed.
  As the Green Paper said, it would relinquish the existing nominal distinction between offenders on the basis of the regime to which the form of sentence directed them and would substitute a more realistic distinction based on the length of sentence considered appropriate by the court, taking account of all the circumstances of a case, including the seriousness of the offence and the need to deter others. Although we welcome a custodial sentence being imposed only when no other method of dealing with the case is appropriate, as is said in the Bill, we do not welcome the rejection of the single undifferentiated sentence, apparently on the grounds—so we have read but not heard in the debate—of the great differences of regime and conditions which mean that we need to have a range of penalties. This, surely, is an excuse for not implementing the one undifferentiated sentence.
  The creation of a single sentence would remove the need to maintain three separate types of establishment, three different regimes. It would offer greater flexibility in the use of accommodation and a huge practical advantage in administration. More emphasis could be
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  given to education and training for all young offenders at a critical time in their lives. This is the opportunity that has not been grasped in the Bill.
  The White Paper made sympathetic noises in favour of non-custodial methods, yet the Bill has completely ignored the main recommendation of the independent Advisory Council on the Penal System. The Government have even disbanded the council, which shows what little respect they pay to its valuable contribution to penal affairs.
  Probably one of the most retrogressive aspects of the Bill is the preservation of the detention centre order and all we know that implies. The only reason the Government must have for preserving detention centres is to retain a short, sharp shock treatment experiment to satisfy the punitive lusts of the Conservative Party conference. The so-called experiment was and is totally unnecessary. In 1970 the Advisory Council or the Penal System, which the Government clearly ignore, reported that it had analysed the effect of the short, sharp shock approach that accompanied the setting-up of detention centres in the fifties and sixties. It was totally discredited then as it is now.
  It is a negative policy that is no good either to offenders or to the staff who are compelled to operate it. There is no statistical evidence to support either its deterrent effect on others or its effectiveness on offenders. Detention centres are notorious for their high conviction rates. Their regimes may even exacerbate the anti-authoritarian attitudes of young people and may be a factor in increasing their total alienation, with more crime as a result.
  When he opened the debate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) pointed out that although superficially we might welcome the proposals to reduce the maximum sentence and the minimum period of detention this might well lead to magistrates sentencing more young people to detention centres and increasing custodial sentences. Have the Government consulted people who give these sentences as to their attitude to the reductions in the maximum and minimum sentences?
  Before the Government ask the House to endorse detention centres and to allow them another long period in existence, they should justify their continuation. We have not been given any figures about the experiment taking place. Surely there are some preliminary figures. Some boys have gone through the short, sharp, shock experiment. What level of recidivism has there been among those who have undergone such treatment? The Minister has an obligation to justify continuing detention centres in the Bill and to give some figures showing why they are to be perpetuated. The three regimes do not seem to offer anything new. They are the same as before, but are being perpetuated under different names. The regimes, particularly the detention centre, have been tried and found wanting, having failed to cope with the increase in crime and more serious crimes, especially those committed by young offenders.
  The Bill has not taken the opportunity to eliminate discrimination between boys and girls. At present, a boy can be sent to a detention centre, but a girl cannot. No custodial sentence under four months is available to a girl who is under 17 years of age, but such a sentence is available for a boy. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook said, ideally no boy or girl under the age of 17 should be placed in custody. The Bill provides for

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  a 15-year-old girl to be placed in a youth custody centre with women aged over 21, although it ensures that boys do not mix with adult male prisoners. The opportunity should have been taken at least to treat boys and girls similarly.
  The Bill's great omission is that it has failed to offer increased remission or reform of the parole system. We would have been sympathetic to automatic parole after, for instance, one third had been served of a sentence that was less than three years. The Government have not explained why they dropped such a provision like a hot cake. We have read only occasional articles in newspapers. Did the magistrates and judges tell the Government that they would not accept such a provision and that they would increase sentences? If not, why has it been dropped? What is the explanation and why have the Government backed down? Perhaps we could be told, instead of having to read a letter in The Times from Lord Chief Justice Lawton. Indeed, that letter has been cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk. We should like to hear the answer from the horse's mouth and we should like to know why the parole system has not been reformed.
  We have a poor substitute. Instead of doing what they wished to do in the first place, the Government have resorted to a reduction of the prison population through partly suspended sentences. Yesterday's edition of The Guardian quoted the Minister as having said some most extraordinary things about the proposals. I doubt whether he will repeat them today, but he may have to agree that he said them. He said that he was taking a gamble and that it was an informed guess that the new power would be properly used. To say that the Bill is a "gamble" and an "informed guess" is an unsatisfactory way of trying to gain support for it in the House. I have never heard a proposal put forward with such certainty and conviction in the House. I must say that he is honest, but he does not give us great confidence in the proposal about partly suspended sentences.
  The proposal is merely an exhortation to the courts not to give somebody a partly suspended sentence unless they are satisfied that a wholly suspended sentence would be inappropriate. It is hoped that the courts will obey that exhortation. However, will the clause result in a significant reduction in the prison population when it simply reminds the courts of the possibility of imposing partly suspended sentences?
  The parole board opposed the measure when reviewing parole last year. It admitted to fears that the sentence would be used to give a short taste of imprisonment in cases where at present courts impose fully suspended or non-custodial sentences. The report states that there can be no certainty that implementing the clause will achieve any reduction in the numbers in custody and it seems that this measure is a shot in the dark by the Government.
  Mr. Clive SoleyWill my hon. Friend agree that the problem about partly suspended sentences is that courts use them in the belief that it will reduce the prison population? However, the evidence is that those who return to prison frequently are the least likely to think out the consequences of their actions before they commit them. They may, for example, be drunk
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  before committing offences. Suspended sentences, partial or otherwise, are useful only for those who think out their actions in advance.
  Dr. SummerskillI agree with my hon. Friend. The onus is on the Government to persuade Parliament and the courts that the measure will reduce the numbers in custody.
  There is a serious risk, as expressed by those who are informed, that the measure could have the effect of greatly increasing the numbers of those in custody. Why has the Home Secretary gone against the considered view of the parole board? It is not only the parole board or the Opposition who hold this view. It is shared by the previous Minister of State, probation officers, NACRO members, the Advisory Council on the Penal System and the Justices Clerks' Society. Therefore, it is only the Government who seem to have any confidence that the measure will reduce the prison populatiom.
  If the Government have that confidence, whom have they consulted? Have they consulted those who will impose the sentences and who they hope will use the measure? We have so far heard of no basis for the Government's confidence.
  Mr. GrieveThe hon. Lady has dealt with the matter purely on the basis of the effect that it will have on the prison population. Does she not consider that the measure is valuable when dealing with those convicted of offences?
  Dr. SummerskillIt is not a valuable measure when there are non-custodial measures that we and the Government are trying to urge. The Home Secretary and the Lord Chief Justice are trying vainly to urge this measure on the courts. We are all united in trying to reduce the prison population.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook mentioned "early release" and I ask the Home Secretary to deal with that when he replies. In his opening speech, the Home Secretary said that he would use "early release" only as a last resort. If that is so, what sort of resort will that be? Does the right hon. Gentleman mean that he envisages using it only in the event of another industrial strike by the prison officers? Does he mean that it will be used when the prison population has risen to an even more unacceptable level than now? If that is so, to what level must the figures rise before early release is used?
  If the early release aspect is to be included in the Bill, the House must know what the criteria are for its use. When is the last resort in which it will be used? If used only in a dire emergency—if prison figures are allowed to rise indefinitely—it will be a useless measure to include in the Bill because the Imprisonment (Temporary Provisions) Act 1980 was not used in that context.
  There have been several criticisms about people remanded in custody. In another place Lord Elwyn-Jones argued that the regular appearances of unconvicted accused is an ancient and necessary safeguard against injustice and abuse.
  An appearance every 22 days is not enough. There is no substitute for the regular appearance of a defendant in court, preferably with his legal representative. If the proposal takes hold, it will become the regular, general and normal procedure for a defendant to appear only every 22 days. There will be less of a sense of urgency by the courts to deal with cases if they know that an appearance every 22 days will beome the automatic procedure rather

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  than the courts regularly and automatically seeing a defendant whenever they conduct remand proceedings. The Law Society and the National Association of Probation Officers are opposed to the abolition of appearances every eight days. This is an issue that we shall have to consider carefully in Committee.
  Perhaps there should be a clear time limit to guarantee that detention before trial is not indefinite. In Scotland there is the 110-day rule. A time limit is another matter that I hope we shall have the opportunity to consider in Committee. The provisions in the Bill will lead to a longer procedure rather than a shorter one, when there are remands in custody. The excuse is that the cost of a different procedure would be too great. It will be a false economy if the process of justice is slowed when the Bill is enacted.
  In clause 7 there is provision for the detention of young offenders of 17 to 21 years for the non-payment of fines. As has been said many times by my right hon. and hon. Friends, we want to reduce the prison population in general, and especially the number of fine defaulters who are in prison. The locking up of fine defaulters is the fastest growing sector of the prison population. Fines have the advantage of being flexible and cheap to administer. If a fine cannot be paid, the taxpayer incurs the cost of maintaining the offender. Therefore, the use of imprisonment for the defaulter is an admission of defeat.
  The hon. and learned Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve) said that prison is the only sanction against a fine defaulter. There are many other sanctions including non-custodial options, and those are the very ones that we are trying to encourage. A fine must be reasonable when related to the income of the offender and his ability to pay, as well as to the gravity of the offence. If the fine is so excessive that the offender cannot pay, the punishment is self-defeating because the taxpayer has to pay in the long run.
  I draw the attention of the Minister of State to clause 21, which deals with offences committed by those who are subject to a care order because of previous offences. The clause has been welcomed by several hon. Members but it is strongly opposed by the British Association of Social Workers and the Association of Metropolitan Authorities. Those organisations have said that they expect between 500 and 1,000 more juvenile offenders a year will, as a result, have to be removed from their own homes. They have said that there is no evidence that this helps young people in trouble or protects society from their crimes. The removal of more children from their homes is surely a policy of despair.
  The final part of the Bill deals with financial and manpower implications. If we are to bring about a shift from custodial measures to treatment in the community, there will clearly be increased pressure upon local authority social services, and especially upon the probation service. Bearing in mind that it costs £7,000 a year to keep an offender in prison, it would be economically wise to bring about a shift from custodial to non-custodial sentencing and increased training and educational facilities for young people. The Bill is extremely vague about its financial and manpower implications, which is a sad commentary upon its future effectiveness.
  We are told that the amount of money needed for probation and after-care services cannot be quantified. That is in the explanatory and financial memorandum. We are told in regard to clause 25, the partly suspended
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  sentence clause, that the extent of the reduction of the prison population is "uncertain". We are told that the increase in staff in local authorities and in probation and after-care services that will be needed to implement the Bill cannot be quantified.
  We are told that £8 million a year or more will be needed for the local authorities to implement the Bill. I am glad to learn that, but I hope that the Department of the Environment has also been informed that £8 million a year will be spread between the local authorities because the probation officers are dependent to some extent upon the taxpayer and to some extent upon the ratepayer. Therefore, unless adequate finance is put into all those measures, they will not get off the ground. I should like to have seen more detail in the explanatory and financial memorandum about the financial and manpower effect.
  We believe that the Bill will rely very much for its effectiveness upon the fullest possible co-operation of the courts in implementing its proposals. Otherwise, unfortunately, the proposals could have the reverse effect of that intended. The changes in the legislation or in the practices of the courts will not solve the problem of increased crime, but we hope that, when the Bill is implemented after it has been thoroughly changed in Committee, it will at least help to reduce crime among young people and in society in general.
  Therefore, we give a cautious welcome to the Bill. I hope that the Minister of State can answer some of the extremely important questions that have been raised by the Opposition.
  9.33 pm
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Patrick Mayhew)I am extremely glad that the hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) at the end identified her speech as representing a cautious welcome because, without that assistance, we should not have recognised it as such. It was about the only assistance that the hon. Lady gave in what has otherwise been a distinguished, instructive and helpful debate. Few matters worry our constituents more than the level of crime and the extent to which they are exposed to it.
  Many hon. Members have spoken about that subject in the debate, including my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fylde (Mr. Gardner), my hon. Friends the Members for Belper (Mrs. Faith), Ilford, North (Mr. Bendall) and Luton, West (Mr. Carlisle) and the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis). This has been one of the occasions when the House has spoken for its constituents.
  The speech of the hon. Member for Newham, North-West had much more practical, down-to-earth good sense, although I did not agree with all of it, than the speech by the hon. Member for Halifax. There is less excuse for that on her part because she held office in the Home Office in the Labour Government. She should know of the intractable problems that face any Government dealing with crime and in particular of the especial need to provide forms of custodial sentences for offenders from whom the public requires to be protected.
  The hon. Lady said that the detention orders should have been wound up. Here we are making further provision for detention orders. The Children and Young Persons Act 1969 made provision for the abolition of detention centres for juveniles. What happened from 1974 to 1979 when the hon. Lady held office?
  Dr. SummerskillThe Green Paper.
  Mr. MayhewWhen we have a Labour Government we have a Green Paper. One might have suspected that the Green Paper would have preceded the 1969 Act and the provision to abolish the detention centres. But after five years of a Labour Government, graced by the hon. Member for Halifax in the Home Office, all we had was a Green Paper.
  The hon. Lady spoke at length on the need to deal with overcrowding. She said that the Bill must produce, above all, measures to reduce overcrowding in our prisons. I had to remind the House in our debate before Christmas of what happened under the Labour Government. They cancelled building project after building project in the prison service so that thousands of places were lost.
  The hon. Lady then says today that we should have more non-custodial sentences and that more should be done for the probation service. In the debate before Christmas my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced that we had secured provision for another 150 probation officers in the next financial year. The difference between a Conservative Government who have to tackle these intractable problems and the previous Labour Government is that we get down to it.
  The Bill establishes a fair balance between the need for the public to be protected by the provision, through the law, of custodial sentences—sometimes very long—and the need to keep offenders within the community where possible. At the same time we must try to rehabilitate them.
  The Bill reflects three principles to which the Government firmly hold. The first is that severe prison sentences must always be available for the courts to use against really violent offenders—professional criminals and others who are a serious danger to the public—and that the use of prison accommodation must reflect that. Secondly, the courts must have a wide enough range of sentences available that do not involve sending the offender into custody so that, if in their discretion the courts consider that there is no need to do so, they shall not find themselves, nevertheless, obliged to send someone into custody simply because the range of sentences provided by Parliament is not wide enough. The third principle is that the victims of crime, too, have interests that should be served by the criminal law.
  No one who seriously considers these grave problems can fail to subscribe to those principles. Naturally enough, therefore, they represent what the public—our constituents—expect from Parliament. The Government are committed to them by our manifesto and each of them is implemented by the Bill, which essentially fulfils the manifesto.
  The manifesto stated that for violent criminals and thugs tough sentences "are essential". We are sure that that is so.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) made a moving and practical speech. I shall come to the questions that she asked in more detail later. But I tell my hon. Friend that the Bill leaves untouched the present severe sentences available to the courts for dealing with such offenders as she described. That is why we have rejected arguments that maximum sentences should generally be reduced. We believe that they should not be reduced. The existing maximum terms are generally severe.
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  Naturally enough the subject of rape has featured widely in the debate. The maximum sentence for rape is life and I would not argue that that sentence as a maximum should be reduced. It is perfectly proper that for the small minority of people who commit that offence in really bad circumstances—it is hard to imagine any circumstance that cannot be a bad one for that offence—the life sentence should be available.
  On the contrary, the Bill removes at long last the bar upon the courts passing certain custodial sentences for young adults between the ages of 17 and 21 which was imposed by section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 1961. At present the courts can only generally award sentences of six months or less or three years or more for the young adult. The provision has been widely condemned for long enough, and the previous Government did nothing about it.
  Mr. Kilroy-SilkThe Tories introduced it.
  Mr. MayhewIt came from a time when it was widely believed that the courts could not be trusted and should be given the benefit of Parliament's superior wisdom as to how each case should be dealt with. The Bill at last sweeps the provision away.
  There is a hard core of young and generally violent offenders who, although they may not deserve three years in custody, should certainly get more than six months. Under the present law, however, only the indeterminate sentence of borstal training is available and, in practice, that is generally served for only eight to nine months. we promised that we would get rid of the provision and we have.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Fyled condemned section 3 as intolerable. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve) and others have particularly welcomed its abolition. We believe that questions of custody are, subject to parole procedures, best determined by the courts. The hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Ryman) asked whether we subscribed to that principle. We do. We do not believe that it is generally right to circumscribe the discretion, freedom and judgment of the courts in determining the right sentence, within, of course, the statutory maximum.
  We believe that the courts rather than the executive determine those matters best. That belief has led us in the Bill to ensure that no young offender shall serve a custodial sentence, the length of which has not been fixed by the court. Life sentences and detention during Her Majesty's pleasure are the only substantial exceptions. I am glad that the proposal was welcomed by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) when he opened for the Opposition.
  In the White Paper we said that the element of indeterminacy in borstal training has not been shown by experience to justify itself in providing a more flexible response to an offender's needs or a more effective alternative to fixed terms of imprisonment in diminishing further criminal behaviour. In the new youth custody sentence those serving terms of up to 18 months will be guaranteed training in a designated training establishment.
  The right hon. Gentleman asked what the training would be and what would the resources be for young offenders who are outside the limits for the guarantee of training. Wherever possible they will go to youth custody centres, where they can take advantage of training regimes

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  in the same way as other young offenders. It will he a question of priority, and that will be given to juveniles and those serving life or long determined sentences, especially if they have little or no previous criminal history. Others will for the present have to serve their sentences in young offenders' wings of local prisons. That is most likely to happen to 17 to 20-year-olds serving sentences of under four months, because they are not fit for detention centres for one reason or another. They will stay for only a relatively short period, especially if they have already been in custody or in remand.
  Our ultimate objective is still to achieve a system of custodial establishments for sentenced young male offenders which will be self-contained and separate from the prison system for adults. The present building programme provides about 500 extra places for young offenders within the next year or so and a further 700 later in the decade.
  I believe that the more flexible custodial sentences and the use of the wider non-custodial sentences resulting from the Bill should mean that the training resources of the custodial system are no longer so overburdened; indeed, not overburdened.
  I should like to mention briefly some of the more general points made, before passing on to the subject of non-custodial sentences. My hon. Friend the Member for Edgbaston spoke of the fear of the public. I entirely agree with her about that, as we all must.
  My hon. Friend asked what hope there was for better protection for the public. I point her constituents to the fact that the courts will, in respect of that minority of young offenders who are hardened thugs, now be able to give longer youth custody sentences, with the sweeping away of the six months or less or three years or more barrier. I point also to the fact that the Bill must be seen against the background of the great increase in the police service which has resulted from my right hon. Friend's honouring of the Edmund-Davies award. There are now 7,500 more police officers in the service. No package of custodial or non-custodial sentences will avail the courts unless the police are able first to catch the criminals. That should be remembered.
  The youth custody sentences that the Bill provides, with the ability for a court in a proper case to send a young offender for as long a sentence of youth custody as an adult would be sent to prison, if the court believes that that is right, should accord her constituents some reassurance.
  My hon. Friend also asked what kind of training regime there would be. It will be designed to ensure that people are taught a worthwhile occupation and are trained in fairly hard circumstances to prepare themselves for release and, when they are released, to be decent and worthwhile members of the community. It will not be in the nature of a holiday.
  My hon. Friend asked about the 14-year-olds, who cannot have youth custody. Regrettably, as she said, there are 14-year-olds who commit grave offences. The Bill expressly preserves the operation of section 53 of the Children and Young Person Act 1933, which allows a court when dealing, for example, with a 14-year-old guilty of a grave offence to send that young person into custody for as long as an adult may be sent to prison.
  I hope that those points will reassure my hon. Friend. She spoke with characteristic self-effacement of those who suffer burglaries, without mentioning that, regrettably, she
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  is one of them. Of course those people suffer gravely and it is the Government's determination to do as much as we can to protect them from crime.
  I turn to the provisions that widen the range of non-custodial sentences. We believe that the security and protection of the pubic must always weigh very heavily in the balance. Subject to that, however, we believe that, wherever practicable, offenders should be dealt with out of custody and within the community. That is reflected in clause 1, which stipulates that no offender under 21 shall be sentenced to a detention centre, youth custody or life custody unless the court
  "is of the opinion that no other method of dealing with him is appropriate",
  and the magistrates' courts must so certify in terms if they send somebody into costody.
  If the courts are to make full use of these provisions, they must have full confidence in the non-custodial options that we provide for them. In the last decade, there has been a marked decline in the use of supervision orders and an increase in the use of custody. Lack of control over the supervision to which the young offender will be subject has too often led to loss of confidence in the supervision order and those who administer it. Therefore, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary explained today, clause 19 gives the court power, in consultation with the supervising officer, to make requirements which become part of the order itself. I was glad that the hon. Member for Ormskirk, who knows more about these matters than most hon. Members, welcomed that provision. If there is a breach, a fine or an attendance centre order are made available by the Bill. I believe that this provision will restore the confidence of the courts in the supervision. order.
  I can tell the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook that he is quite wrong when he describes the residential care order as representing a custodial measure. Its purpose is to give the courts, which are faced with young offenders already in care who have committed other serious offences and who have been living all the time at home, an alternative to sending them away into custody. They really have no alternative to that today. It enables them to make residential care orders so that offenders may be placed in the care of foster parents, boarded out or sent to some children's community home. It is in order to avoid sending them into custody that that provision is included in the Bill. It has long been asked for by the Magistrates Association, and we believe it to be right.
  I am glad that there has been a general welcome to community service orders being extended to 16-year-olds and to the measure that we have taken in respect of attendance centres. All these are important and valuable measures.
  I refer, a little out of context, to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mrs. Faith). I was glad to hear what she said, and I was grateful for her comments about the staff of the detention centre at Foston Hall in her constituency. My hon. Friend has the experience of being a magistrate, and it is of great importance to us that she was able to form the favourable impression which she described.
  The hon. Member for Halifax (Dr. Summerskill) must know that no sufficient period of time has elapsed for any worthwhile figures showing reconviction rates. We shall not know them for at least another year following the experimental tougher regime in the detention centres.

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  I come to the provisions dealing with partly suspended sentences. They reflect the belief of the Government that generally it is better that the courts should have the say about what happens when they are dealing with offenders—and I speak here of adult offenders, because young offenders are exempt from these provisions by reason of their special characteristics.
  Partly suspended sentences have long been Conservative policy. I do not accept the sole responsibility that has been very kindly pressed upon me for section 47. The then Conservative Opposition moved that amendment in 1977 because we believed that there were very strong penological arguments for it.
  The hon. Member for Halifax spoke in glowing terms of the advisory council on the penal system. I remind her of the advantages that the council saw in partly suspended sentences. First, they enable a court to pronounce a sentence commensurate with the nature and gravity of the offence but one that does not need to be executed fully. Secondly, there is a double deterrent effect consisting of an initial period in custody with the balance of the sentence providing postponed deterrence during the suspension period. Thirdly, any deterrent effect in the suspended part of the sentence may be enhanced by the immediately preceding period of custody, which may well be more effective if that period is sufficiently short, at least for those who have not previously been sentenced to imprisonment, to avoid getting acclimatised to the conditions. Fourthly, partial suspension provides an opportunity for the court to impose a shorter period in custody than it might, knowing that on release from prison a specific contingent liability to imprisonment will remain. Fifthly, it fills a gap between full suspension, which in some cases may represent excessive leniency, and full immediate imprisonment, which may be unnecessary. Those are the views of the advisory council whose virtues the hon. Lady lauded.
  I recognise that the partly suspended sentence can be misused. I hope that I shall never say that any proposal is a certainty when honesty compels me to admit that it is a probability or perhaps only a possibility. There is no doubt that it can be misused. There are those who say that it is likely to increase prison numbers. However, those with experience of the courts do not share that view. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Birmingham, Solihull (Mr. Grieve) said that in his opinion it would reduce the numbers. It is one more option once the decision is taken that a prison sentence is unavoidable.
  The Opposition cannot have it both ways and say that the judges will use the partly suspended sentence to increase the numbers in prison and then reject the evidence of an hon. and learned Member who says that he is one of the judges.
  Mr. HattersleyIs it not true that until 18 months ago that was the view of the Home Office, as expressed in its annual report? When did the Home Office cease to hold that view, which is now derided by Ministers?
  Mr. MayhewWe take advice from those immediately affected in these matters. The House knows that during the summer we floated a proposal that would, without doubt, have saved 7,000 prison places on the best results. Having consulted widely, not least with the probation service, we found that there were grave risks with the supervision that
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  could be given. The judiciary said that, of course, any provision made by Parliament would be loyally enforced. However, where there was so great a gap between what would be served and the sentence passed by the court there may have been cases where the courts, believing that it was their duty to local communities, passed a longer sentence. That would not be disloyal to Parliament as Parliament would have said only that one third of a sentence should be served. Therefore, it became clear that if the system was to work that there would have to be wide judicial discretion—but the wider the judicial discretion, the less would be the yield in prison places saved.
  It also became clear that there was a wider understanding among magistrates and judiciary of the dangers of giving a taste of prison, through using such a device, than had previously been supposed. We were wrong in that matter. We are now satisfied that partly suspended sentences, to which we committed ourselves in 1977, are not only penologically wise for the reasons I have mentioned and recited from the report of the advisory council—to which the hon. Member for Halifax attaches such importance—but hold out good hope of a reasonable saving in prison places. That is why we have decided to introduce that system.
  The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook asked me in what circumstances the reserve powers in clause 26 would be used. They will be used only as a last resort, if, for example, riots, a fire, or some other catastrophe means that the prison population becomes so great that it is unsustainable. At such a time, and under the close control of Parliament, the Home Secretary can say that he wishes to release a certain class of prisoner in a certain prison six months early.
  That point also answers the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Bendall) who, understandably, was worried about when such a power would be used. It would be used only as a last resort. I doubt whether any Conservative Home Secretary would use it to release violent offenders.
  I turn to fines and compensation orders. The public are rightly concerned about the position of parents whose children harm others. They believe that parents should feel a responsibility to do all that they reasonably can to influence their children's behaviour. I am sorry if the hon. Member for Halifax and the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook do not agree with that, but most of our constituents feel that way. They believe that parents have a responsibility. Most parents acknowledge that, but some do not. The courts should have the power to bring home that responsibility by making parents pay their children's fines, if it were reasonable to do so. It would not be reasonable if they could not pay them or if they had done their level best to make their children behave properly.
  Similarly, on the question of compensation orders, the victim is entitled to be compensated by the person who hurt him. There is a better chance that he will be compensated if the parent, again when it is reasonable, is made to pay. What is wrong with that? That principle has been established in law since 1933, but it has been decked out with such ancient language as "conducing" and so on, that it has not been used. We are strengthening that principle and making it simpler to apply.
  The Government have introduced a Bill that the public expect and national circumstances demand. It makes severe sentences available for the violent and those who, for other reasons, constitute a danger to the public. It

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  extends the range of non-custodial sentences for youngsters. It ensures that, except in the most exceptional cases, and then subject to the control of Parliament, options are left to the discretion of the courts. It offers good hope of reducing overcrowding in prisons. Those are worthy objectives which the country wishes to be achieved. It was failed by the Labour Government. It will not be failed by this Government.
  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).

  Orders of the Day

    Criminal Justice Bill
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Mr. SpeakerI must tell the House that a large number of hon. Members wish to participate in this debate.
    4.23 pm
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. William Whitelaw)The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. William Whitelaw): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
    This is a wide-ranging Bill, but most of its provisions relate in one way or another to the sentencing of offenders. Its primary purpose is to provide the courts with more flexible and effective powers for dealing with the diversity of offenders who come before him. This reflects the strategy with which the Government entered office and which we have pursued steadfastly.
    In our election manifesto, we recognised the need for
    "more flexible, more effective sentencing"
    to take account of the need for tough sentences in appropriate cases and shorter custodial sentences in others; the importance of effective non-custodial sentences in which the courts have the fullest confidence; and the need; of victims of crime. I should make it clear that in our judgment "appropriate cases" means, in particular, those violent offences that are causing so much worry at the present time.
    The Bill supports these aims. We have already carried out specific commitments, like the expansion of attendance centres and the experiment with tougher regimes in detention centres. The Bill gives us the opportunity to fulfil others.
    In the last couple of years we have received a series of major reports. These have included the report of the Expenditure Committee, the May committee of inquiry the Home Affairs Select Committee and the all-party penal affairs group. We have set out our approach in our responses to these reports most recently in last month's debate on the prisons, and in our reply to the Home Affairs Committee's report on the prison service. I shall concentrate today on the contribution that the Bill itself makes to our wider strategy.
    Part I of the Bill gives effect to the proposals that we published in our White Paper in October 1980, and makes long overdue changes in the sentencing structure for young offenders, those under 21. There is a great deal of public concern about criminal behaviour by young people. The Government share it. The courts in this country, and particularly the juvenile courts, carry out an immensely difficult task on our behalf. They must have a proper range of powers to enable them to do justice in the circumstances of each case, and to provide an apt response to public concern. They need flexibility. They do not have enough at present. We must have a sentencing structure which, while recognising that custody may be essential, secures that it be used only where necessary.
    To achieve these aims, part I of the Bill abolishes imprisonment for young offenders, and with it the much resented restrictions that section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 1961 placed on the passing of sentences of between six months and three years. It also abolishes the indeterminate sentences of borstal training. It replaces

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    them with a more flexible structure of detention centre and youth custody sentences whose length is, within statutory limits, to be determined by the courts.
    Our policy is clearly stated in clause 1 of the Bill. No court may impose any custodial sentence on a young offender unless it is satisfied that no other method of dealing with him is appropriate. By broadening and strenthening existing non-custodial provisions, part I will assist the courts to avoid a custodial sentence except where one is absolutely necessary.
    Let me remind the House that at present, if a court dealing with a youth of 15 or 16 comes to the conclusion that his offence is so serious that a custodial sentence is unavoidable, it has to send him to a detention centre for at least three months, or to borstal, which normally results in eight or nine months in custody. What we propose is a clear statutory prohibition on custodial sentences on offenders under 21 unless there is no other appropriate way of dealing with them. Additionally, we propose that in such a case a court will be empowered to impose a sentence of no more than three weeks. This gives effect to our policy that young people should be locked up only when it is wholly unavoidable, and then for as short a time as possible.
    Thus the new detention centre order provided by clause 2 will have a new minimum of three weeks. In place of borstal and imprisonment for the under-21s, clause 4 provides the courts with the power to impose a new sentence of youth custody for the precise period, over four months, which they consider necessary. This new structure means that it is for the courts, not the Executive, to decide for how long a person should be deprived of his liberty. And, for the first time, time spent in custody on remand will count towards both the major young offender sentences.
    The courts should as far as possible know what type of regime the offenders that they sentence will undergo. Under clause 10 a young offender with a youth custody sentence of more than four months but not more than 18 months will be detained in a youth custody centre. That guarantees a training regime, and it applies to a wider effective sentence band than the present borstal sentence. We do not yet have sufficient young offender training accommodation to give this guarantee to all youth custody trainees, but we are providing a framework that places as much emphasis as possible on training. It offers a choice to the courts, and it preserves the distinctive regime of the detention centre.
    I turn to the non-custodial provision in part I. Clauses 15 to 18 deal with attendance centres and they largely consolidate existing provisions, but they make some small changes that will be useful, especially at a time when we are continuing with our expansion of the attendance centre system. In particular, clause 16 will for the first time give the Crown court power to make an attendance centre order in cases tried before it.
    Clauses 19 to 24 contain most of the extremely important provisions that we intend to make to strengthen the confidence of the courts in non-custodial sentences for the under-17s. Clause 19 strengthens the supervision order. Existing powers enable substantial action to be taken by the supervisors—either local authority social workers or probation officers. We believe that supervision can be an appropriate way of dealing with juveniles, even
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    when they have committed quite serious offences. But the courts need to play a bigger part in the decision if they are to have confidence that a difficult youngster can be placed under supervision. Clause 19, therefore, gives the courts new powers under which they will be able, in consultation with the supervisor, to specify in the order itself what requirements the juvenile will be asked to comply with. There will, therefore, be discussion before the order is made between the bench and the supervisor about what is most appropriate for the offender, and the order itself will specify the activities in which the offender will participate.
    Mr. Teddy TaylorWhy has my right hon. Friend included the requirement that such conditions must be totally agreed to by the supervised person before the order can operate?
    Mr. Robert Kilroy-SilkThe order will not work otherwise.
    Mr. WhitelawThe requirement is included because it is important for the workability of the whole provision. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State reminds me that it is also the principle of the probation order. That also is very important.
    Under the provisions of clause 20, the local authorities will become responsible for the provision of facilities, in place of the children's regional planning committees. They in turn will be obliged to consult probation and after-care committees about the arrangements made. Facilities for the supervision of juveniles need better local co-ordination, and clause 20 will provide this. There is also provision in schedule 9 to enable the probation service, for the first time, to provide from its own resources facilities for juveniles under supervision.
    The Bill also tackles a problem that emerged almost as soon as the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 came into force and that has caused difficulty ever since. It arises when a child is made subject to a care order because he has committed an offence and then commits a further serious offence for which he is again brought before the court in criminal proceedings. Other than simply renewing the care order, there is little that the court can do to mark its further disapproval of the new offence, except, if he is aged 14 or over, to pass a custodial sentence. But our intention is to reduce the need for custodial sentences for young people. In these circumstances, too, we feel that the right way to achieve this is to give the courts more confidence in using the alternatives available.
    Clause 21, therefore, gives effect to our commitment to introduce a residential care order. It provides that where an offender in care commits a further offence the court can, if the circumstances make it desirable, add a condition to the care order for a fixed period of up to six months. The effect of this is that the local authority's discretion to place the child with a parent, guardian, relative or friend will not, for that period, be exercisable. In this way the court can ensure that the offender is not returned straight home, and that the removal from home will be seen, both by the public and by the offender himself, as a direct result of the commission of the further offence and the court appearance. This represents a significant addition to the various non-custodial disposals available, and it is a power for which the courts have been asking for a long time.
    These changes to the supervision and care orders will impose additional financial burdens on the local

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    authorities. It was made clear by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services some time ago that these provisions would be brought into effect only when the necessary additional resources were available. It is our intention to find those resources as soon as possible so that the local authorities can give effect to these new orders.
    The Bill also provides, in schedule 10, for the extension of community service orders to 16-year-olds. They will be subject to the conditions that already apply to offenders aged 17 years and over, except that there will be a maximum of 120 hours instead of 240. Community service has already proved its value for the older age group. The number of orders made has continued to rise since its introduction, and the figures for 1980 show a proportionate increase in the use of community service for those convicted of indictable offences. Careful preparation will take place before community service is introduced for this age group, and I shall have to be satisfied that the arrangements are adequate.
    I have often voiced our concern about the responsibilities of parents in relation to children who offend. There are at present rather complex provisions that enable the court to order parents or guardians in certain circumstances to pay fines, compensation or costs awarded against juveniles. We are convinced that the law can make a greater contribution. The changes made to these provisions in clauses 22 to 24 are therefore designed to strengthen and clarify the courts' powers.
    The court must order that fines, compensation or costs awarded against a juvenile should be paid by his parents or guardian unless, in all the circumstances, the court thinks that it would be unreasonable to make them pay. The parents have a right to be heard and a right to appeal against the order.
    There is also a useful power under which parents or guardians can be bound over for up to three years to take proper care of the child and exercise proper control over him.
    Mr. Douglas HoggI can clearly understand why parents or guardians of young persons who fail to comply with a fine order should be made to pay in default. In effect, they will be guarantors. But I am not so sure that I see why the parents or guardians should be primarily liable to pay the fine. My right hon. Friend might care to amplify that.
    Mr. WhitelawI must return to the point that it must be reasonable in all the circumstances. That underlies the position. It helps to show the parents and guardians their particular responsibilities.
    Mr. Arthur LewisI am not opposed to what the right hon. Gentleman proposes, but I should like a further explanation. At present, millions of pounds of fines have not been paid, and will not be paid, by convicted adult criminals. The Home Office refuses to do anything about the matter, and refuses to give the figures. What will happen if parents join the list and also refuse to pay the fines of their children?
    Mr. WhitelawIf I was to start to get into an argument with the hon. Gentleman on these matters I might prolong my speech, which would not be the wish of the House. The Minister of State will seek to reply at the end of the debate to what the hon. Gentleman said—
    Mr. Arthur LewisI knew there was no answer to that.
    Mr. Whitelaw—provided, of course, the hon. Gentleman is here at that time.
    Mr. John CarlisleI am a little concerned about the certain circumstances in which the magistrates will not impose a fine upon the parents. How different is this Bill from previous Acts under which the magistrates had a get-out, as it were? They still have one under this Bill. I fail to see how there is any difference.
    Mr. WhitelawThis is to be argued during the passage of the Bill. It is simpler, and expressed in a clear way that emphasises the responsibility of the parents for their children.
    Mr. Keith BestWould not my right hon. Friend accept that in this clause he is introducing a concept of vicarious responsibility of parents that has not existed before? Is he aware that this is the case?
    Mr. WhitelawI hesitate ever to enter the lists with lawyers, but I am assured that a principle of this sort has been in operation since about 1933.
    I will continue, I hope, from where I left off. If they enter into an undertaking of that kind, a recognisance can be set up to a maximum of £200. Clause 24 increases that to £500.
    Taken together, then, the custodial and the non-custodial provisions for young offenders in the Bill represent a major and overdue change in the sentencing structure, a change that is designed to ensure that for violent and other dangerous offenders custodial—and, if necessary, long—sentences will always be available. 1 share fully the concern that has been expressed by many hon. Members about the level of violent crime in out society. This is something that we cannot and must not tolerate. The maximum sentences already provided by law for crimes of violence are very severe indeed.
    As regards the type of sentence to be selected by the courts, I note that, for example, the Lord Chief Justice has made it clear that in all but wholly exceptional circumstances those who commit rape must expect an immediate custodial sentence. It is right that society should mark its horror of violent crime in this way. But at the same time the courts will be offered a more flexible range of non-custodial sentences for use where the justice of the case does not demand that the offender go into custody.
    We had a full debate before Christmas in which I explained the Government's policy towards overcrowding in the prison population. I do not need to go over that ground again. As the House knows, we intend to bring section 47 of the Criminal Law Act 1977 into force before Easter, when the necessary preparations have been completed. The new power will enable the courts themselves, in cases where a sentence of immediate imprisonment of six months but not more than two years seems inevitable, to reduce if they see fit the period actually to be served in prison. Clause 25 extends the scope and flexibility of section 47 to enable the courts to make maximum use of the power.
    We are convinced that section 47 will be used to reinforce the welcome movement that we have already seen towards shorter sentences. There is an important provision in clause 25(4) that will contribute to this.
    Mr. Kilroy-SilkCould the right hon. Gentleman tell the House what evidence he has that the introduction of a

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    partially suspended sentence will reduce the prison population that is different from the evidence available to the then Minister of State when he spoke to the House in December 1979 and which was available to him when he wrote the review of parole in May last year, on both of which occasions it was said that the introduction of such a scheme would lead to an increase in the prison population?
    Mr. WhitelawI did what I believe is right in a democratic system; I consulted widely all those concerned. The result of the consultations led me to believe that in the current climate of shorter sentences this would be the case. This is what those who impose the sentences, both judges and magistrates, believe. I have every reason to trust their judgment and I have done so. If it is to be said that I should not trust their judgment that would be a great mistake. I believe they will show that this power will work to the best advantage.
    In this country our whole approach to sentencing has been based on the principle that within the framework set by statute it is for judges and magistrates to impose the sentences they deem appropriate in each particular case. I pay tribute to the way in which our under-provisioned prison system has coped with the pressures that result. I believe that this Bill, by reinforcing the movement towards shorter sentences, will help to relieve them. But we must recognise that the stresses that can occur within the prison system are, of their nature, never predictable. Pressures could arise which made it necessary, as a last resort, to take drastic action to avert the breakdown of the system.
    Clause 26, therefore, incorporates in permanent form provisions for the early release of prisoners on the lines of section 5 of the Imprisonment (Temporary Provisions) Act, which it supersedes. The use of the powers, if, indeed, it became necessary, would be subject to firm parliamentary control, with any order for early release requiring the approval of both Houses. These requirements are in subsections (7) and (8). The clause is thus subject to extensive safeguards. It would involve the release of prisoners who are due to become free within six months in any case; and categories of offender who have committed particularly serious offences could be excluded.
    The Imprisonment (Temporary Provisions) Act also introduced a power to enable magistrates' courts to remand accused persons in their absence. I think that it is generally agreed that that provision, when it was in use during the industrial action in the prisons, worked well. Certainly, no evidence came to our notice that it caused disadvantage to defendants. Clause 42 and schedule 8 together amend the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 to make such a power a permanent part of our law, as I foreshadowed in answer to a question by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) on 18 June last year. The provision does not apply to juveniles.
    Remand hearings are very often short, with neither side making any application to the court other than that the case be adjourned and the defendant remanded. Where the defendant is remanded in custody, however, these weekly appearances in court are costly in terms of the police and prison manpower expended on escorting the prisoner to and in the court. A provision to remedy this was moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Chislehurst (Mr. Sims)
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    during the passage of the Criminal Law Bill in 1977. It was because of their concern about the resource implications of this aspect of remand hearings that both the Select Committee on Home Affairs in its report on the prison service and the parliamentary all-party group have suggested that provision be made that is broadly similar to my present proposal.
    Mr. Clinton DavisI am most grateful that the right hon. Gentleman is prepared so readily to give way. It is expected that it will be possible for an accused person not to have to appear for successive hearings. Does the right hon. Gentleman expect that in the interim it might be possible for the accused person to be represented? Given, I think, the Lord Chancellor's suggestion that unnecessary appearances by a lawyer might not be reimbursed, what is the position if the accused is represented under legal aid? If the accused's non-appearance is permitted under those circumstances, does it not follow that he is highly unlikely to be represented by a lawyer, particularly when that lawyer will not be reimbursed?
    Mr. WhitelawI think that my next remarks will deal with the points that the hon. Gentleman has raised. If they do not, the Minister of State will supplement my remarks later.
    Both groups of hon. Members would prefer to see only two successive remand hearings taking place in the defendant's absence. As the Government have explained in the recent White Paper, replying to the report of the Home Affairs Committee, we are more than ready to hear argument on this point, but it is reasonable to allow three successive remands without the defendant being present.
    Fears have been expressed in some quarters that the rights of the accused will in some way be undermined by the proposals. I think that that was the point made by the hon. Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. Davis). But, as provided in paragraphs 3 and 4 of schedule 8, a hearing in the defendant's absence will be possible only if he is legally represented and gives his consent. It will be open to him, after giving his consent, to withdraw it at any time and so secure his production before the court. I therefore see no reason to fear that a defendant's rights will be diminished. I hope that the House will support these proposals under which, if a reasonable number of defendants elect to take advantage of the provision, some much-needed relief will be provided for the hard-pressed police and prison services.
    The various provisions that make up the rest of the Bill reflect our commitment to strengthen the provision of alternatives to custody and to do more to meet the needs of victims of crime, who often feel forgotten. The probation service is the major agency for dealing with offenders in the community. In the debate on the prison service on 2 December I was able to inform the House that additional provision was planned for the service for 1982–83. We have all been encouraged by the increased use both of the probation order and of the community service order. If the probation service is to continue to respond to this challenge, it is right to allow greater responsibility at the local level. The Bill provides an opportunity to relax some of the controls over the service that are now exercised by central Government. These changes in clause 43 and schedule 9 have been agreed with the service organisations, and are intended to allow the

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    service to operate more flexibly and to be better able to use new opportunities. There are also minor changes in court procedures in connection with probation orders and community service orders, which should simplify the current arrangements. The Bill makes provision for the transfer of community service orders between the various jurisdictions in the United Kingdom.
    Parts III and IV deal with fines. The significance of the fine is clear from the fact that in 1980 fines were imposed on over half the offenders sentenced for indictable offences in magistrates' courts. The great majority of those sentenced for summary offences are fined. To keep the use of the fine at these high proportions, we must ensure that the maxima for individual offences are not so undermined by inflation that they become no more than tokens, causing the courts to look to other, and perhaps less cost-effective, sanctions. Fine enforcement machinery must be as effective as possible.
    Until now, the revision of maximum fines for summary offences has been a slow and piecemeal business. Criminal Justice Bills have brought some fines up to date, and others have been revised when there has been a Bill on the topic to which the offences relate. But a large number of fine maxima remain outdated, and the penalty structure for summary offences generally suffers from gross inconsistencies.
    Part III of the Bill for England and part IV for Scotland lay the basis for a more rational and cohesive penalty structure. They introduce a standard scale of fines for summary offences and assimilate all maxima in Acts to that scale. The Bill takes over the fine level scale established by the Criminal Law Act 1977, updates to it all maximum fines for summary offences in Acts unaffected by that Act or subsequent Acts, and assimilates to the levels on the scale all summary maxima so that they may be altered by order. Some adjustment of the broad effect of these provisions in relation to particular penalties is carried out in parts III and IV and in schedules 1 to 7.
    Clauses 37 and 38 make improvements in the law on fine enforcement procedures. Clause 37 gives effect to a proposal by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders working party on fine default that a magistrates' court should be able to set a time when a person ordered to pay a sum by instalments should appear before it if at that time any instalment remains unpaid. It also gives a court power to vary the number, amount and timing of instalment payments of a fine. Clause 38 provides for the reciprocal execution with Northern Ireland of warrants of commitment to prison for fine defaulters.
    The need to pay special attention to the victims of crime is an issue, as I have said, to which the Government attach the greatest importance. The Bill provides a timely opportunity to extend and to clarify, in the interests of the victims of crime, the general compensation power in section 35 of the Powers of Criminal Courts Act 1973. We consider it right that where an offender's means are limited and he cannot afford to pay both an appropriate fine and the appropriate compensation, the interests of the victim should prevail over the interests of the Crown and preference be given to the ordering of compensation. Moreover, if the court in a particular case sees fit to dispense with a fine completely, leaving the compensation order as the only sentence imposed, we think that it should be free to do so. That is already the situation in Scotland under the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980.
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    We also want to make it clear that the courts can order the compensation that they think appropriate in a particular case, without the precise value of the victim's loss necessarily having been agreed or proved. That will rectify the results of certain court cases, which have had restrictive effects on the use of the powers of the courts to make compensation orders. Clause 44 gives effect to those changes.
    I firmly believe that the Bill offers Parliament the opportunity to enhance the ability of the courts to deal effectively and flexibly with the offenders—especially young offenders—who come before them, in a way that should preserve public confidence in the ability of the system to deal firmly and fairly with offenders. Its provisions reflect strong commitments on the part of the Government. It honours pledges entered into in our election manifesto. The Bill is being brought before the House at a time of increasing public and parliamentary concern about the process of sentencing offenders. Wider and more informed discussion of these issues is very much to be welcomed. It is in that spirit that I commend the Bill to the House.
    4.59 pm
    Mr. Roy HattersleyThe Bill was published on 2 December and on that day we debated an Opposition motion concerning what we called the
    "crisis in the prison service."
    The Home Secretary properly used his speech on 2 December to set out some of the proposals of what was then the Government's brand new Bill. He will not quarrel today with the contention that 2 December was at least a prelude to a major part of the debate today concerning part II.
    I do not propose to repeat what I said six weeks ago to justify the assertion I then made that our prisons are an affront to a civilised society and that their overcrowding is a threat to the maintenance of law and order. On part II and the issue of custodial sentences, which must dominate our consideration of the Bill, I simply repeat what I said before Christmas: we send too many people to prison in Britain, and many of those who must receive custodial sentences are imprisoned for far too long. The corollary of those two contentions is that we continue to neglect at our peril paying proper attention to non-custodial sentences.
    I suspect that in general the Home Secretary agrees with all three particulars I have given. Yet, before Chistmas, he could not accept the Opposition's motion calling for action to reduce the prison population, and he gave two reasons why. First, he said that the prison population was beginning to fall and would continue to do so, and he gave some recent evidence for that. He said that the prospect of today's Bill was a justification for the contention that the fall was likely and perhaps even certain.
    The second point was that he said that he could not
    "directly reduce the numbers of people sentenced to imprisonment and the length of the sentences imposed."—[Official Report, 2 December 1981; Vols. 13/14, c. 286.]
    The Home Secretary's contention was clearly and obviously wrong. The size of the prison population is crucially affected by the length of sentences prescribed by law, the alternatives to prison that the law allows and provides, and also by the law's provisions on remand,

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    parole and release. It is against the belief that the prison population should be reduced and that the Home Secretary can act to reduce it that we must judge the Bill.
    There is no doubt that part II and in some ways part I will result in young offenders not being in forms of custody exclusively intended for their age groups, but will result in some of them becoming part of the prison population.
    We must also judge the Bill against the limited criterion of its effect on the prison service and what is done about the gross overcrowding in the prisons. The Home Secretary has quoted the clauses on probation and fines which direct our attention to the alternatives to custodial sentences, but, by the Government's admission, most of the Bill is about custodial sentencing or residential care. Indeed, paragraphs 2 and 3 of the White Paper on young offenders—on which part I of the Bill was largely based—goes out of its way to state that, while imminent legislation will be concerned with custodial sentences and related matters,
    "the Government attaches the greatest importance to the use—in appropriate circumstances—of alternatives to custody as well as shorter sentences."
    Some provisions included at the back of the Bill move in that direction. However, in our view, they do not move far or fast enough.
    I propose to discuss not what I regard as the Bill's omissions but its contents, about which three things can be said. Some of the Bill's effects will be to reduce the length and extent of custodial sentences and some, I fear, will undoubtedly increase the number of persons detained in one sort of institution or another. However, numerically the most important section could reduce the number of persons in custodial sentences or increase it according to how the powers are used by the courts.
    In Committee we intend to table amendments to ensure that the new sentences, techniques, attitudes and proposals are, whenever possible, used to reduce the prison population by reducing the numbers sentenced to custodial sentences and reducing the length of sentences when they are inevitably imposed. It will be on the Government's reception of the amendments made with that specific intention that we shall judge the Bill on Report. We certainly do not propose to divide against the Bill, as it contains good aspects on which we believe it is possible to build, but our continued support depends on the Government's co-operating with us when we make what we hope are entirely creative suggestions for ensuring that the new sentences and powers are used in the way that I believe the Home Secretary and the Government intend.
    My comments refer largely, although not exclusively, to part II, but before I turn specifically to it I must tell the House of the Opposition's attitude to part I concerning the treatment of young offenders. I shall begin with the proposals concerning offenders under 17 years of age. The Children and Young Persons Act 1969 provided for the phasing-out of penal custody for children less than 17 years of age and that principle seems entirely right. We must, as far as we can, prevent the incarceration of children in institutions of any sort as a process of punishment. Yet the provisions of part I may result in the reverse of that process.
    The retention of detention centres for male offenders aged between 14 and 17, the youth custody sentences and,
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    particularly, the introduction of residential care orders, may combine to result in more 14 to 17-year-olds passing through some sort of compulsory detention than in the past. That is wholly undesirable, not least because we know about the effects of custody on that age group. In 1977, 76 per cent. of all youths leaving detention centres and 83 per cent. of all youths leaving borstal training were convicted again within two years. Those figures do little to convince us of the remedial effects of such institutions.
    Residential care orders are not likely to provide much better results. They are a concession to the belief that the best thing to do with disturbed or difficult children is to lock them away. I know that there is no organisation concerned with difficult children that approves of or supports the residential care order notion. Indeed, the local authority directors of social services who will have to operate the scheme oppose it root and branch in principle and in practice, not least because, as they rightly said, the scheme will cause the diversion of the most needed and necessary resources from the general work of social welfare.
    The Secretary of State, when dealing with these provisions, promised to provide resources as soon as possible. We all know that "as soon as possible" is often a very long time. It seems tragic, at a time when the social service departments of local authorities are dealing with more and more families and children in desperate need, and in view of the limited resources of local authority budgets, that money might be diverted to what I regard as a generally undesirable practice. However, I am even more concerned about the potential results of what is proposed for detention centres.
    I am deeply sceptical about the very concept of the short sharp shock. In so far as the new detention centre proposals are intended to facilitate such a regime, they are more the product of party politics than of careful penal research. That is probably common ground on both sides of the House. I prefer the approach that was proposed by the Labour Government in a Green Paper. They proposed one system of youth imprisonment and the same humane, educative and rehabilitative treatment for all offenders.
    Clause 2(5)(b)(i), (ii), (iii) and clause 3 seem in one sense to be an improvement on what has previously been proposed for detention centres because the maximum sentence will be reduced from six months to four months and the minimum sentence that may be imposed will be reduced from three months to three weeks. Clause 2(1)(b)(i) provides that such a sentence may be imposed by the courts when they consider
    "that the only appropriate method of dealing with him"—
    that is the sentenced person, and this provision applies only to males—
    "is to pass a custodial sentence".
    In describing the clause, the Home Secretary referred to it as a statutory prohibition, which seemed in the best use of the term to be strong language. He said that it meant that those in this category could be locked up only when it was absolutely necessary. That was a categorical description of the meaning of the clause.
    I am sure that all those who have had Bills drafted for them will be aware of the virtues of including clauses that rely on the judgment of the person who will operate them, the person who will do something which in his or her judgment is right. That is the sort of clause that appears in the Bill as clause 2(1)(b)(i). It is when the courts decide that a custodial sentence is the appropriate sentence to be

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    passed that such sentences are allowed. That allows the courts to send young men to detention centres unfettered by legislative guidance. It amounts to them making up their own minds with nobody being able to challenge them.
    As a result, two things may arise from the new shorter detention sentences. First, young men who are likely to benefit from detention centre regimes may receive a shorter sharp shock. I suppose that that is the logic of the White Paper, which provided that the deterrent effect of such a sentence is likely to diminish after the first few weeks. If the courts choose to use their powers in that way—I put it in the vernacular by describing it as a shorter sharp shock—some benefit will accrue. The young man will discover the salutary effects and he will perhaps return to sin no more.
    Mr. BestWhen did the right hon. Gentleman come to the conclusion that there was something arcane in giving to the courts the power not to send a young person to prison unless they were satisfied that it was the appropriate way of dealing with him? He knows that that is the way in which the courts have been dealing with young offenders for a long time. Where has been his opposition to that in the past?
    Mr. HattersleyThat is not quite how the courts have been dealing with young offenders. The courts have had prohibitions placed on their behaviour, part of which they have resented and part of which have been cleared up by the Bill. As I understand it, the Bill is supposed to be a general improvement. I am suggesting further improvements which implement what I understand the Home Secretary wants.
    If the intention of the detention order is that persons who would have received a short sharp shock are now to receive a shorter one, there is much to be said for what is proposed. However, if young men who previously would have received non-custodial sentences will now go to detention centres because the judges will say "Three weeks is not long in these men's lives" or "After all, 22 days may do them some good"—I paraphrase what the judges might say, but I accept that their language is more elegant than mine—the net result will be more young men passing through detention centres. That will be the result if a judge sends a young man to a detention centre for three weeks when he would not have dreamt of sending him to such an institution for three months. That will be wholly wrong.
    Are these provisions to be operated so that the same number of young men go to detention centres for shorter periods or are they to be operated in the way that was suggested in The Daily Telegraph of 4 December, which will lead to more young men going to detention centres? The second operation of the provisions would be undesirable not least because of the record of what happens to them when they leave the detention centres.
    Mr. Percy GrieveDoes the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that a period in a detention centre may now be a very short one and that the Bill abolishes detention centre sentences of six months which formerly prevailed? I always thought that it was a mistake to send anyone to a centre for six months. I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that there may be many who will be in detention centres for far shorter periods.
    Mr. HattersleyIf the hon. and learned Gentleman will cast his mind back a full two or three minutes, he will
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    recall that I said that that was the alternative. If the result is that young people are sent for this form of training and improvement for brief periods, I shall welcome the provisions despite my reservations about the concept of detention centres. The hon. and learned Gentleman must agree with me that within the powers of the Bill it will be possible for the courts to say "As we can send young men to these centres for brief periods of three weeks or a little more, we shall send them there for that period when prior to the enactment of the Bill we would not have dreamt of sending them to the centres for two or three months." That seems to be a mistake. That is what was described by The Daily Telegraph, which sometimes speaks for those on the Conservative Back Benches, as the intention of the clause.
    That is not the intention—I give the Government credit for this without a moment's hesitation—of paragraph 3 of the White Paper. That paragraph makes it clear that the preferable of the two options that I have described is what the Government intend and propose. To facilitate the Government's wish, we propose to table an amendment—assuming the Bill is given a Second Reading, we shall be able to do it tonight— which incorporates the idea that the shorter sentence will be imposed only when there is no other reasonable alternative. I hope that that will limit the number of potential detainees in detention centres.
    The ambiguity of the way in which the provision may be implemented is mirrored in part II, where in one important particular there is the option for the courts to apply a new proposal in two distinct ways, one of which might be of benefit and one of which would be of great detriment. Before dealing with part II, I have more to say about the section on young offenders. I ask the Minister of State to answer some specific questions if he catches the eye of the Chair at a later stage.
    I generally support the idea of one youth custody sentence as in a sense a move towards the single sentencing policy that was embodied in the Green Paper. I am in favour of the amalgamation of prison and borstal and the introduction of determinate sentences. I am obviously in favour, as are all my right hon. and hon. Friends, of remand time counting against sentences. However, a number of questions need to be asked.
    Paragraph 19 of the White Paper, on which this section of the Bill is based, reads:
    "all young adult offenders receiving short to medium term sentences of youth custody will be guaranteed a place in a training establishment."
    Obviously we support that, but what will happen to young adults who are sentenced to four months or less and ale judged unsuitable for detention centres? Are we to assume, as I fear they will, and as did 185 offenders last year, that they will go with adults into the debilitating, dispiriting and undermining regimes of our old prisons? What will happen to young adults who receive sentences longer than 18 months? The White Paper is specific about that category, or as specific as White Papers ever are. It states that places in training establishments, so far as vacancies permit, will be provided for them. However, it states that no individual, that is, an individual over 18, can be guaranteed such a place.
    I hope that the Minister of State will tell us that the Government are taking steps to match the resources to the aspiration of providing training for all those people. It is intolerable that a young man sentenced to more than 18 months should be sent to a prison where there are three in

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    a cell locked up for 23 hours a day and provided with no rehabilitative services. I hope that the Minister of State will tell us how the aspiration of the White Paper is to be made a reality.
    The resources that might be made available for that necessary training could be obtained more easily if money were not spent in the prison service on the unnecessary imprisonment of men and women who should not be there in the first place. Keeping men and women in prison is an expensive business. I said on 2 December that in our view there were many things that could be better done with the money.
    It is in that spirit that I turn to part II. I shall begin with clause 26. The Home Secretary said nothing about it other than acknowledging its existence. I do not complain about that because in such a discursive Bill Front Bench speeches are bound to be discursive. He will understand why I want to pursue the idea of clause 26 in a little more detail than he did.
    Clause 26 allows the Home Secretary to grant early release to persons of any class specified in the order, that is necessary to bring about their release. The Home Secretary is entitled to grant early release if he is satisfied that such a step is necessary
    "to make the best use of the places available in places for detention."
    He is limited only by his own judgment, apart from two requirements. One is that no early release is possible for men and women serving life sentences. None of us would disagree with that. The other is that release can be granted only within six months of normal release dates.
    Such power has been at the Secretary of State's disposal for almost two years. We need to know, if we are to take this part of the Bill seriously, the circumstances in which he envisages using that power. It has been stated by the Home Office that early release will be granted if there were such an outbreak of widespread violence that the prisons became intolerably overcrowded. I tremble for the Home Secretary who goes to the 1922 Committee saying that Britain is now so violent that we must start letting people out of prison early. That is a perverse proposal.
    My answer to the question is simple. The Secretary of State should use that power immediately. The people on whom he should use the power are those who should not have been in prison in the first place—those who are there for soliciting, vagrancy, drunkenness and fine or maintenance defaults. Those are the circumstances in which I should like to see clause 26 used. The time to use it is now. I fear that the Home Secretary will not agree with me.

  CRIMINAL JUSTICE [MONEY]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision as to the powers of courts with regard to the sentencing and treatment of offenders, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase in the sums payable out of such money under any other Act of Parliament which is attributable to the said Act of the present Session.—[Mr. Gummer.]

Minister for the Civil Service (Transfer of Functions)
10 pm
Mr. Alan WilliamsI beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Transfer of Functions (Minister for the Civil Service and Treasury) Order 1981 (S.I. 1981, No. 1670), dated 24th November 1981, a copy of which was laid before this House on 1st December, be annulled.
The order is the latest in a series of Prime Ministerial campaigns against the Civil Service and civil servants. It is paradoxical that we are discussing it in the week in which we have read in The Guardian that, much as the Prime Minister is known to despise civil servants, the new director of marketing for the Conservative Party intends to use the Civil Service—the Central Office of Information—to sell the Government.
Before coming to the substance of the order, I should tell the Minister of State, Treasury that I hope that he will make it clear to the new political appointee that any political use of the COI by the Government would be a major abuse of public resources and would inevitably lead to intense questioning and discussion on the Floor of the House.
In a way, it is appropriate that I should be present at the demise of the Civil Service Department, because as the Parliamentary Secretary in the now extinct Department of Economic Affairs, I was in at the birth of the CSD. I joined Lord Shackleton and the late Lord Armstrong in the preparatory work to the setting up of the Department in the 1960s.
It is clear to us that the debate and the order have little to do with the machinery of government and are a continuation of the Prime Minister's vindictive vendetta against civil servants. She is still smarting from the fact that they dared last year to oppose her unilateral tearing up, without consultation, of a 25-year-old agreement on how pay was settled in the Civil Service.
The order has to be seen, not in isolation, but in the perspective of other attacks made by the Prime Minister and her Ministers. Soon after coming to office she attacked the indexation of Civil Service pensions, discreetly ignoring the fact that the same privileges extend to the Armed Forces, the police and teachers. She stirred up a major public campaign against civil servants.
That action was an early warning of the Prime Minister's stubborn determination to get her own way with the Civil Service. Even after her contentions were rejected by the Government Actuary, she set up what she thought was a stacked committee—the Scott committee—which, in turn, rejected her prejudices and confirmed the advice of the Government Actuary on Civil Service pensions. From an early stage, we have seen the build-up to the order.
Indeed, we have even seen the ludicrous situation of the honours system being used by the Prime Minister as an industrial relations weapon. Like many of my hon. Friends, I do not believe that civil servants should expect honours as a right after so many years' service. They should be treated on the same basis as any other group in society. On the other hand, I disagree with the timing of
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the action, which is clearly an attempt to use the Royal Prerogative to underwrite Prime Ministerial spite towards civil servants.
This order is the right hon. Lady's response to the fact that the civil servants had the temerity to exercise their legal and democratic rights to oppose and resist her disastrous campaign to destroy without consultation existing pay procedures within the Civil Service. The order is an act of petty spite masquerading as a contribution to efficient Government machinery.
The Prime Minister is humiliated by the reality that as a result of her campaign against the civil servants, by the end of December interest charges on uncollected taxes alone cost between £400 million and £450 million. That is on the admission of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That result of the right hon. Lady's vindictiveness is increasing at the rate of between £50 million and £60 million each month.
The Minister knows as well as I do that a settlement could have been reached at a respectable level in the early days of the dispute, but by the end of this financial year the Prime Minister's vindictiveness will have cost the Chancellor more than £500 million in interest charges alone on uncollected tax revenue. When one thinks of what that could mean for expenditure on schools, education, hospitals, the Health Service or kidney machines for children and adults, one realises the magnitude of the Prime Minister's bitterness and understands the extent to which she is willing to push her vindictiveness when she gets involved in a campaign.
Nothing else explains why in January 1982 we are facing the absolute reversal of the position adopted by the Prime Minister in January and February last year. She then rejected any merger. Indeed, she said that if a merger went ahead
"all concentration would go on reorganisation rather than on dealing with the true problem".
If that were true of a straightforward merger, how much more true is it of splitting a Department's responsibilities, with all the overlap and anomalies that arise?
The only material change since the right hon. Lady made that statement is that we have been through the quite unnecessary and avoidable Civil Service dispute, calculatedly and deliberately stirred up by the Prime Minister who at a time of political pressure was in search of an easy victim that she thought she could bully into submission. The civil servants did not submit, and the country is still paying, and will continue to pay, the cost of her campaign.
The Prime Minister told the House that, despite her original thoughts on the subject:
"I have decided to strengthen and improve the existing organisation of the CSD"—
not to modify, change or split it—
"rather than merge the two Departments".—[Official Report, 29 January 1981; Vol. 997, c. 1070.]
A month later, having had time to consider the position even further, the Prime Minister could still see a "logical cohesion" in the role and functions of the Civil Service Department. Yet by November of the same year she had discovered that it had become increasingly difficult to separate control of expenditure from manpower. By November, on the Chancellor's figures, it had become between £360 million and £410 million more difficult to separate control of expenditure and control of manpower. All that was a result of the unnecessary dispute with the civil servants.

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The Prime Minister's confusion, her emotional involvement and irrationality in dealing with the issue were shown when she said that putting responsibility for manpower into the Treasury would lead to much greater efficiency. Yet she went on to say of the manpower and personnel office within the Cabinet Office:
"Much of their main work will be in improving efficiency".
Ambivalence and split responsibility pervade the whole of her conduct with regard to this aspect of policy.
Later the Prime Minister compounded the situation that she had created by saying:
"The unions will deal both with the Management and Personnel Office and with the Treasury, according to the matters involved in the consultations."
However, it has already been shown that there is such an overlap in the responsibilities of the two Departments, particularly with regard to industrial relations, personnel and manpower, that confusion and inefficiency are already creeping into the system of consultation.
The resulting administrative confusion only mirrors what emerges from the Prime Minister's statement to the House—her intellectual confusion arising from her emotional involvement in the issue of the Civil Service. Paradoxically, a little later on the same day the Prime Minister praised the Civil Service Department, which is being eliminated because of its efficiency, for reducing its staff. She said:
"In the past few years the CSD has reduced its own staff by about 10 per cent."—[Official Report, 12 November 1981; Vol. 12, c. 661-4.]
Those conflicting statements typify the confusion that the Prime Minister has created. The Minister of State has said that under the CSD the Government's plans for slimming the manpower of the Civil Service were being fulfilled ahead of schedule. The Minister may correct me later if I am wrong.
The lack of reality in the Prime Minister's position was shown in her answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) on the same day. As an ex-Civil Service Minister he said that now that the responsibilities had been transferred to the Treasury the Civil Service unions would not be happy with being diverted to junior Ministers; they would want to fight their campaigns right the way through to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It has been suggested that the Chancellor is a fairly busy man. Perhaps the Prime Minister sees some advantages in diverting the Chancellor from blindly meddling in the economy to becoming sunk in the morass of the problems in the Civil Service. However, she dismissed the idea that the civil servants would want to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer. She said that, after all, the Minister of State had just been transferred from the CSD to the Treasury.
I know that the Minister will not take my remarks in any personal sense, but he knows—as I did when I had similar status in the Labour Government—that at the end of the day people who disagree with what a Government are doing, no matter how good their relationships may be with a middle-ranking or junior Minister, will still want to persist and take the matter to the appropriate Cabinet Minister who has the power to take decisions.
As the Minister will be aware, in the recent dispute it was on occasions Lord Soames whom the Civil Service unions insisted on seeing, despite the fact that there is a good accord between the Minister and certain of the trade union leaders. Therefore, it is absurd to think that in the new circumstances the Civil Service unions will be fobbed
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off with seeing the Minister of State, or with seeing the new spokesman in the Lords, Baroness Young, who is now Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster but who will have no power or authority whatever in decisions concerning the Civil Service. They will want to see the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
It is well known that over the past 18 months the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been trying to avoid having the extra responsibilities of the CSD imposed upon him, because he feels that he will not be able to give adequate time and attention to the significant problems that will inevitably now land on his desk. So we have the absurdity, if we take an industrial parallel, of the finance director taking over responsibility for industrial relations.
The Minister of State must, with his own experience of the Civil Service, know very well that this is a situation which can only undermine whatever minute amount of good will may remain between the Government and the civil servants. Indeed, I doubt whether relations with the Civil Service have ever been as bad as they are now. There is no problem so bad that it cannot be made worse as a result of the right hon. Lady's determined attention to it.
By their action the Government have worsened their already deplorable relations with the Civil Service. The action was taken without any consultation. The Prime Minister said, in effect,"We cannot consult; we have to tell the House first". Yes, the House has the right to hear the decision, but the Civil Service unions have a right to be consulted. We are not asking that they be told the decision in advance, but there should be full consultation. In her arrogance and her contempt for the civil servants and those who represent them, she brushed them aside as though 600,000 of them did not exist, and as though the unions which represent them had no right of participation in policy involving their members.
The worsening of relations was exacerbated by the Prime Minister's comment. to which I have already referred, that it had become increasingly difficult to separate control of expenditure and control of manpower. Those words have an ominous ring in view of the fact that we are about to enter into a new regime concerning pay negotiations for the Civil Service. It must throw great doubt on the meaning and the significance of the Government's undertaking that, if necessary, they will go to arbitration this year on Civil Service pay. It is clear from line after line in the Prime Minister's statement that she is saying that in future negotiations on Civil Service pay—not other pay—will be subject to the whim of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That is the situation which in the 1950s a Royal Commission said was deplorable and should be avoided, and it said that a system to give objectivity to Civil Service pay should be introduced. The system that was introduced under a Conservative Administration and accepted by successive Administrations was wilfully torn up by the present Prime Minister.
By the change that the Prime Minister has introduced, through the greater control of the Cabinet Office over appointments, by the greater role that the Treasury will play in determining the pay levels of civil servants, by her alienation in the past 12 months of those who are normally instinctively loyal to Ministers of the day, the Prime Minister has taken steps which I suspect we shall subsequently regret and which are likely to lead to the

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greater politicisation of the Civil Service. That is a step for which no future Government of any political view will thank the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister's decision is a calculated snub to civil servants. It is a rebuff to the Select Committee which unanimously rejected the abolition of the Civil Service Department. It is a reversal of the Prime Minister's position of less than a year ago.
The final nonsensical words on the efficiency of the new system are that the Prime Minister and her Ministers have now, under their new regime, recently appointed a new chief executive for the Property Services Agency. Previously that position was held by a civil servant. It was held by a second permanent secretary at the high cost of £30,495 per annum. Under the new regime, introducing the greater efficiency that the Prime Minister is seeking, someone has been brought in from private industry. Instead of at the gross overcost of £34,000, we now have him available at the bargain price of £50,000.
10.23 pm
Mr. Teddy TaylorI should like to ask the Minister five brief questions about the order. I am grateful to the Opposition for giving hon. Members an opportunity to ask these questions.
The first and obvious question is: what benefit will result from the transfer of function which has been put forward in the order? It is not terribly clear. Despite the points made by the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), it would be helpful if the Minister could record what would be the advantage of this move.
Secondly, does not the Minister see a danger that in the absence of a separate Minister basically to fight the corner for the civil servants, they might feel that they were being treated worse than other Government employees? I would not suggest that the present Government or any other Government are not wholly united in coming to decisions. However, in practice, we know that if there are negotiations on the wages of teachers, teachers are usually reassured by the fact that the Secretary of State for Education and Science, although a member of the Government, is probably in a position to fight their corner and ensure that they get a fair deal by comparison with other people.
In the same way, nurses, who are generally upset by negotiations, know at least that the Minister for Health, although again a member of the Government and part of the collective team, is there to ensure at least that they do not suffer more than Government employees generally. I wonder whether there is not a danger in abolishing what was a separate Department of making civil servants feel that they do not have a separate person to fight their corner.
Thirdly, referring to the point raised by the right hon. Member for Swansea, West, will the Minister give a clear assurance that, as a result of the transfer of function, there will be no change in the terms of the agreement which was made after the troubles last year—the agreement which solved the basic problem over wages. One of the ingredients of that was that there would be a form of arbitration this year, although it was made clear that if the results of arbitration were unacceptable on important grounds of national considerations, it could be overturned.
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It would be helpful if the Minister could make it clear that this arrangement for arbitration will not be affected in any way by the transfer of function.
Fourthly, I wonder if the Minister could indicate whether the actual arrangements for this transfer will not hold up in any way the possibility of the parties arriving at fair arrangements for pay negotiations this year. I say this because, although there has been a pretty sharp recovery, particularly in the revenue-collecting sections of the Civil Service, a particularly good recovery from a problem which cost the Government a great deal of money, it would be a mistake to over-estimate the state of morale of the Civil Service at the present time. Whilst I am sure that they accept, like all sensible people, that no individual group in this community can expect to get extraordinarily high wages, it is very important, irrespective of any settlement reached, that there should be a feeling of fairness. My fear is that after the troubles and the cost to the Government of the strike last year, not having struck for such a very long time, they will have learned a great deal and the problems this year could be worse, if there were to be problems.
My final point is quite an important one. Because this Government, rightly, and, I believe, with the full support of the majority of people in the country, are trying to ensure that while private industry has had to reorganise itself to cut down on the numbers it employs and to become more efficient, the same criteria have been established for the Civil Service. This means that, as with private industry, it has experienced problems with reduction of numbers, vacancies left unfilled, and consequent reductions in promotion opportunities. Thus there are problems in the Civil Service which did not exist before.
In these circumstances, it would be helpful if the Minister, as I am sure he will do, will make it clear that, despite the problems of last year and despite the difficulties that might arise, the Government, like their predecessors, are very grateful indeed for the fact that we have generally a Civil Service which has the highest standard of integrity, honesty and efficiency in the world.
It is unfortunate that, because of the reorgansations we have had, the impression has been created in some quarters that some individuals do not fully appreciate the fact that, although I am sure there are many Departments which could become more efficient, particularly in view of problems in other countries, some far away and some closer at hand, we are very fortunate indeed in the standard of our Civil Service in this country. I hope that the Minister will make it absolutely clear that this Government fully appreciate the very high standards of integrity, efficiency and honesty which we have in this country and which do not exist in some others.
10.27 pm
Mr. Robert SheldonThe hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) is quite right to draw attention to the qualities of our Civil Service. It is because of this that it is so surprising that the Government are acting in the way they are. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) pointed out, we have a Government who are really against the civil servants of this country. This is the first time in the history of Britain that we have ever had a Government who really dislike the civil servants they employ. The Minister, who understands these things, well knows the problems he

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faces in trying to convince the civil servants that they have a future in the administration of this country of a kind not dissimilar to that which they have enjoyed for centuries.
The Prime Minister shows that day after day in her actions. She even declines to mouth the usual platitudes about the standing of civil servants which every Prime Minister automatically utters on coming into office and repeats at fairly regular intervals. For a Government that talk about the need for good industrial relations, the kind of relations they have at the moment with their own employees are really quite deplorable.
There is no advantage to the Government. My right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West spoke of the cost to the public sector borrowing requirement of the VAT and PAYE that have been lost. It is even more than he suggested. He was right to draw attention to the amount of interest charges that the Government have had to bear as a result of not bringing in the revenue that was expected, but the position is even worse, because some of the VAT that has been lost will never be obtained. The same is true of PAYE. When the Government are still trying after 12 months to obtain the money, some of it will inevitably be lost to the Exchequer. The Inland Revenue and Customs and Excise are familiar with the problem and are doing their best to mitigate it.
There has been much need for reform in the Civil Service. The difficulty in the past has been to interest Ministers, and particularly Prime Ministers, in the need. Any change in the Civil Service will take five or six years to bring into effect. The continual curse of government is that the immediate always has priority over the important. As a result, there is little ministerial input.
The present Prime Minister has given attention to changes in the Civil Service that is without parallel, certainly in this century. The great pity is that it has not been given to the important reforms that could have been made. The right hon. Lady is concerned only with numbers and the disciplining of a Civil Service which she believes has got out of hand. Her attention and interest might have met the need for concentration on the genuine reforms that could be made.
There has long been a need for a study of the tasks of the Civil Service. As the Fulton committee said, the basis of the examination of the work done by the Civil Service should be to look at the jobs and find the best and most suitable talents to do them. With only a small proportion of the energy that the Prime Minister had devoted to reducing the numbers in the Civil Service, she might have been able to do something about bringing the right kind of talents to bear on the right kind of jobs. She might have done something about making the Civil Service more open, ending some of the multiplicity of grades and reserved jobs, so that talents, wherever they may be found in the Civil Service, can be mobilised to deal with the particular problems to which such people are best suited.
The Prime Minister is not interested in reforms. She is not happy with the Civil Service. She is not happy with the numbers in it and wants to reduce them and to discipline the service.
I think of the tasks that could be done admirably by others. Let us take the Department of Industry as an example. How many civil servants in that Department come from industry and have an understanding of it? We need people from outside the Civil Service to come in at more senior levels than at present to give their expertise to various Departments, and then, having obtained an
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understanding of the Civil Service, to go outside, That necessary cross-fertilisation is not easy to achieve. What is needed is a determination which few Ministers have given to the study of these matters. The Prime Minister has the determination, but she is directing it in the wrong way, and to the wrong ends.
Mr. Anthony Beaumont-DarkI am sorry to interrupt my right hon. Friend's flow—[HON. MEMBERS: "He is not your right hon. Friend."] We served on the Select Committee on the Treasury and Civil Service together. Anybody who does that must be a friend to survive.
Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is proper for any Government and any responsible Parliament to concentrate on the fact that private industry has had to make sacrifices of numbers to be competitive? The right hon. Gentleman talks as though nobody should make any cuts in the Civil Service. It is essential to make such cuts if there is to be room for private industry to survive, let alone thrive.
Mr. SheldonI shall deal, not with the narrow point, but with the more general point that the hon. Gentleman has rightly made. The number of civil servants is always important. However, the Government give it such overriding importance that they are not interested in seeing the Civil Service's tasks and how they are related to the demands made on it and the things that can be done. They are interested only in reducing numbers and in restoring the discipline that they feel has been relaxed over the years. It is difficult to do that. The Civil Service Department should have been in the forefront, because it was set up to stimulate and reform the whole Civil Service machine. It did not work out like that, because of the lack of interest on the part of Ministers as a whole. Ministers have not been interested. The Prime Minister could have used her new-found interest to obtain the fundamental changes that are as difficult to achieve as those that she is achieving in a much more restricted area.
The Treasury and Civil Service Committee--of which I had the honour to be Chairman of the Sub-Committee for a while—came down against the merger and the Government agreed with the report. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West pointed out, between January and November there was a fundamental change of mind. The Government are not given to making U-turns, or at least not to publicising them. Why, then, did they make that change during those critical months? They came down firmly on one side and then moved in the opposite direction. We know that the answer is that the Prime Minister felt that she was dealing with an indisciplined body that had to be brought to heel. She could do so only by placing the functions of pay in the Treasury, where there are tough people who know how to deal with money. She was not much concerned about the rest and threw it into the Cabinet Office. The Treasury can deal with pay and numbers, but it will not do much to improve the Civil Service. The Treasury does not like man management and is not well equipped to deal with it. It has performed badly in the past. As the permanent secretary to the Treasury, Sir Douglas Wass, said, in a most enlightening answer to question No. 932 in the first report of the 1980–81 session of the Treasury and Civil Service Committee, when the iceberg broke—when the Treasury functions were split between its ordinary functions and

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Civil Service Department functions—he was happy to be on the right side of the iceberg. What does that mean? It means that his career would be in the interesting part of the Treasury and not in the dull and deadly part of dealing with the trade unions.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West is right. The morale of the trade unions is low. They are much more alienated than they used to be and they will not be satisfied with seeing the Minister, much as he may be admired by individuals in the Civil Service. They will not be satisfied with the Minister and will go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The buck will find no stopping place short of the Chancellor's overloaded desk. That is inevitable. The rest of the Civil Service will go to the Cabinet Office. The Cabinet secretary and permanent secretary to the Treasury will be joint heads of the Civil Service.
Mr. Ian WrigglesworthThere will be three.
Mr. SheldonHon. Members should not believe that. There will be only one head of the Civil Service, because the only job that matters at that level is the chairmanship of the senior appointment selection committee. He decides who the next permanent and deputy secretaries will be. In the past, that task has resided with the Civil Service Department. He had virtually no other power, yet that power is going to the Cabinet Office. He has an enormous day-to-day contact with the Prime Minister and controls the Cabinet agenda, the honour system, Civil Service promotion, the Civil Service college, Civil Service contracts and their security and is responsible for business appointments of those previously Civil Servants and he has control of the public appointments unit. What a great power to give to an individual. We are creating one of the most powerful men in Britain. We are only fortunate that we have Sir Robert Armstrong, a great public servant in the finest tradition of the service. We must ask how long these traditions can remain in the light of such power.
Mr. Charles R. MorrisMy right hon. Friend was right to refer to the power that certain permanent secretaries hold. However, ought he not refer to the glaring omission of the Statutory Instrument? That makes no reference to the fact that there are now two heads of the Civil Service where, hitherto, there was one.
This must be the first time in the history of the Civil Service when a Government, dedicated to cut back the number of Indians, have increased the number of chiefs.
Mr. SheldonI grant that in name there are two heads, but, in practice in terms of power in the Civil and Government Services and wider than that, we are creating one of the most powerful men in Britain who can make or mar any career in the public service, when he enters, takes part in or leaves that service. That is the danger we face and that power makes most of the United States White House Secretaries green with envy when they see the sort of power we are creating as a by-product—without thought or consideration—as a result of this order. Such a creation ought not to be made as an incidental to this transfer of functions.
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The Prime Minister has missed a great opportunity for reform which her energies allowed her to have. She has committed serious errors and I believe that the order should not be accepted by the House.
10.43 pm
Mr. John GarrettThe debate on this order is historic in its way, as it marks the end of the only serious attempt in 100 years to reform the British home Civil Service. With the passing of this order we consign to the archives the most radical public document put before the House since the Second World War—the Fulton Report of 1968. That is what the higher administrative Civil Service—the mandarins—have wanted and have striven for in the past 12 years since that remarkable report was published. They have won.
The power that matters has been returned to the Treasury; and all the great reforms proposed by Fulton, to make ours a more managerial, technically competent and more responsive Civil Service and a Civil Service capable of anticipating and meeting the challenges of the late twentieth century, have been brought to nothing. However, the issue will not rest there. The pressures and the problems which gave rise to the need for Civil Service reform and the need for a Civil Service Department to drive it through are building up again and I am sure that the measures set out—[Interruption.]
Mr. Alan WilliamsOn a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. An hon. Member has just meandered into the Chamber and he is clearly utterly uninterested in the debate and is carrying on a conversation as if he is still in the smoke-room. Could he not be asked to either listen to the debate or, at least, accord to hon. Members the courtesy to go back from whence he came?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill)Order. With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, that is a matter for me and I have not heard any conversation going on since I was talking.
Mr. GarrettI had noticed the tiny Tory teenybopper, the hon. Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), sitting on the Front Bench and I thought it best, as all hon. Members seem to do, to ignore him.
Mr. Roger MoateOn a further point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Could it be that hon. Members find it difficult to follow another hon. Gentleman who appears to be reading his speech verbatim? Will you rule, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether it is in order for the hon. Member to read his speech in that way?
Mr. Deputy SpeakerThe hon. Member for Faversham well knows the answer to that question. The debate must end at half-past eleven and the Minister said that he wishes to reply at ten minutes past eleven.
Mr. GarrettThe problems and pressures that gave rise to the need for Civil Service reform and the need for a Civil Service Department to drive it through are building up again. A future Government of any complexion will have once again to create a unified management structure for the Civil Service that the Civil Service Department represents.
I am sure that the measures that are set out in the order, which were introduced in a fit of pique by the Prime Minister over the success of the Civil Service strike, will be shown to be quite inadequate. In that event we shall have to reconsider the issue.

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It has been suggested in the correspondence columns of The Times that there was no need to create the Civil Service Department and that the Department did not spring from the findings of the Fulton report. It is said that they were wished upon the Fulton committee by the Prime Minister of the day, my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Sir H. Wilson). The proposal to set up the Department that appeared in the Fulton report arose from field research that was undertaken by the staff of the Fulton committee, of which I was one. There was no doubt that the conditions of management that we found in the Civil Service could be rectified only by the creation of a Civil Service Department.
How could the conclusion be otherwise? The Fulton investigations revealed longstanding and serious weaknesses in the management of the Civil Service which were attributable directly to Treasury control. A new direction was needed. A fundamental change in the people who ran departments was imperative. There was a need for a change of style from administrative to technocratic and managerial. That is what we found when we examined the Civil Service. There had to be less secrecy, more accountability and a new emphasis on training and developing talent.
These initiatives could not have sprung from the Treasury. It was the Treasury that had suppressed them in the years before. There had to be new and powerful machinery at the centre of Government to produce and implement them. The machinery was the Civil Service Department. It was made powerful because the permanent secretary at its head was called the head of the Civil Service and because the Prime Minister was its political head. Yet by 1970 the CSD had shown itself to be ineffective in implementing the reforms that had been proposed in the Fulton report and endorsed and supported by the then Government. In the first two years and for some time afterwards it did valuable and underrated work in improving efficiency and in training, but as an engine of reform it failed. It failed because no Prime Minister after 1970 understood the importance of its work, because successive Civil Service Department Ministers did not carry sufficient political clout and because it was sabotaged by the higher Civil Service.
I do not want to criticise the late Lord Armstrong. However, it is on public record that Lord Armstrong was chosen as the first post-Fulton head of the Civil Service to establish the weight and power of the CSD and to implement the Fulton reforms when he did not believe in the reforms. That was bad enough, but the sabotage was carried out by the permanent secretaries, who were outraged by the Fulton report referring to them as amateurs when for decades they had been calling themselves intellectual colossi. They were determined never to give up one iota of departmental autonomy to a central Department concerned with efficiency.
It is true that permanent secretaries and their clones—deputy secretaries and under secretaries—are the creme de la creme of the intellectual output of this country, but they are also managerial amateurs. The damage that they have done to Britain's post-war performance is incalculable. Oxbridge and public school historians and classicists who join the Civil Service at 21 years and never leave it—most of them fall into those categories—are by education, training and experience incapable of managing
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an advanced twentieth century State. They cannot grasp quantifiable techniques of management or technological or social issues.
The central crucial task of the CSD was to change that top management cadre—
Mr. Tam DalyellOn a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Does the House have no protection against the constant chat from the Government Benches? Those of us who want to follow the debate think that some manners might be shown.
Mr. Deputy SpeakerThat is a legitimate point of order. It is difficult for the Chair to hear chat that is carried on quietly under the breath of hon. Members. It would be appropriate if the hon. Gentlemen concerned carried on their conversations outside the Chamber.
Mr. GarrettThe urgent task of the Civil Service Department, in which it failed, was to change the top management cadre of the Civil Service. Fulton said that preference should be given in recruiting to the top management stream to people with relevant degrees in the social sciences, science and technology. The universities forced the abandonment of that recommendation. Fulton said that a unified grading structure should be created so that people with specialist qualifications could compete for the top jobs. The mandarins put a stop to that because they saw it as a threat. Fulton said that a powerful Civil Service college should be created, but the Civil Service college has been hopeless as a means of developing a managerial rather than an administrative style in management, although it has done excellent work at lower levels.
The first principal of the college, Professor Grebenik, told a moving story in the annual report of 1976, which he made on the eve of his retirement. He said that he had never been told what the college's objectives were supposed to be; it was a prime target for cuts in expenditure; its academic staff was treated as inferiors by its administrative staff; it had no support from Departments; its trainees were not given any opportunity to change things when they returned to their Departments; it was never entrusted with any research work and its only training of top management was a two-and-a-half day course for newly appointed Under-Secretaries.
With no effective move towards unified grading—I should like the Minister's current views on that issue—and no effective use of the college as an agent for change, it is no wonder that the top management staffing and structure of our Civil Service is as archaic now as it was before the Fulton Committee was set up.
There can be no comparable organisation in the world that has so eccentric a view on how to organise and staff its top management. The British Civil Service prevents technically qualified staff from attaining top management jobs. Administration trainees—the high flyers or crown princes—who are destined for top jobs, are still overwhelmingly public school, Oxbridge arts graduates, recruited on a model of excellence laid down by the Northcote-Trevelyan report of 1854. The situation is becoming worse.
The scores of engineers, technologists, architects, social scientists and accountants recruited every year by the Civil Service are recruited to separate career grades, so that, however good their qualifications and however

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skilled they are in management, they can never become permanent secretaries, deputy secretaries or undersecretaries.
Moreover, the Civil Service still has an organisation structure that separates the specialist and qualified staff from the administrative line, thus bearing out the traditional British nostrum of experts on tap but never on top. Worse still, in order to preserve the lay purity of the generalist admistrator, he is shifted from job to job so that he never masters the subject with which he is supposed to be dealing.
Our research for Fulton showed that administrators changed jobs at two-and-a-half to three-year intervals. Nowadays I understand from answers to parliamentary questions that the interval is 18 months to two years on average in a given job. However, the specialists—the advisers and technically qualified staff—stay in their jobs for a lifetime, so that they are always faced with the problem of giving advice on technical issues to lay generalist administrators who are newly arrived in a job, or about to leave for somewhere else.
The Civil Service Department failed in the promotion of efficiency. The Fulton Committee recommended high level audits of departmental efficiency. The Civil Service responded with management reviews. I was engaged on the first of them. Management reviews were studies of the efficiency of the Department controlled by the Department. It is no wonder that they never worked.
All that could have been changed. The Civil Service Department could have been made the engine of reform that Fulton intended. If Ministers had insisted that it set about the task of developing a new management and that it had the right to go into a badly-managed Department, make it efficient and reorganise it, the Fulton aims would have been realised. That could have been done when my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) was Minister for the Civil Service. It could still be done now. However, the present Minister has shown that he is unable to grasp those issues. A good example of that is the way in which the Wardale report was handled. It shows the way in which the establishment of mandarins is still leading the Government up the garden path.
Not long ago the Prime Minister came to the conclusion that there were too many levels or grades in the upper hierarchy of the administrative Civil Service. She was not original, but she was right. That fact had been pointed out before. She set up the Wardale committee to see whether certain levels could be omitted, but the mandarins drew up the terms of reference explicitly excluding staff in the specialist hierarchies. The main reason for too many levels in the administrative hierarchy is that they are not integrated with the specialist hierarchies. If one excludes the specialists, it naturally follows that there are not too many administrators. That is precisely the conclusion of the Wardale report.
How the Minister, who I understand was a technical civil servant and was, if he is not now, a member of the Institution of Professional Civil Servants, could allow the terms of reference to be written to such a disadvantage to specialists in the Civil Service amazes me.
The CSD is still the right machinery to improve the management of the Civil Service. The proposals are inane. How on earth can it be right to put pay in the Treasury and industrial relations in the Cabinet Office? How can it be
380
right to put manpower control in the Treasury and efficiency in the Cabinet Office, when efficiency is all about manpower control? How can it be right to put the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency under the Treasury when the Treasury has never shown any interest in innovation in computing? They are simply expedients. It is taking a hatchet to the machinery of government; letting one lot fall here and another there, without a rational analysis of the need.
The CSD should remain. Ministers could still use it to promote efficiency. Above all, Ministers should rebuild morale in the Civil Service by reinstating a system of fair pay based on outside comparisons. One cannot expect an organisation like the Civil Service to perform well when it is so often discriminated against in pay settlements and when it is known that its political masters despise it, loath its functions and want to abolish them as far as possible and have no interest at all in the welfare of the people who work in it.
The proposal is a gross error. It has been done on a whim. It has never been thought out. With the abolition of the CSD the Minister has thrown away the last chance that we shall have for some years for an orderly and systematic reform of the way that the Civil Service operates.
10.57 pm
Mr. Ian WrigglesworthThe functions affected by the measure have been the subject of debate for a long time. The striking feature of the Government's proposal is that it has never been suggested by a Select Committee, Sir Derek Rayner or anyone else. The Government have pulled the proposal out of the air for the reasons suggested and for others, and they are ending up with the worst of both worlds.
Although I do not agree with the argument, it can be said that the functions should be totally within the Treasury, as they used to be and as Sir Derek Rayner suggested. It can also be argued that there should be a separate Department. But we are ending up with a right old muddle, as the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) illustrated, by having some responsibilities in one Department and others in another. A proper personnel and management function cannot be carried in any organisation with such a split. I fear that the Government will go no way down the road towards the extra efficiency and cost cutting that they wish to achieve.
It has been implicitly or explicitly accepted by previous speakers that the CSD was not a success. It was not the engine of reform that it should have been. It did not carry the weight in Whitehall or among Ministers that it should have done, but that is not a case for abolishing it. I shall not further argue the case for the CSD, as this is a short debate. A Select Committee examined the matter in considerable detail and, after sifting through all the evidence, concluded that the Department should remain in being.
There is another alternative which could be a success and achieve some of the things that Fulton expected the Civil Service Department to achieve. I believe that there is a case for splitting the Treasury and having a finance Ministry and a Department responsible for expenditure and for the manpower functions of the CSD. The muddle created by the Government will not achieve the benefits either of retaining the CSD as a separate Department or of the arrangement that I have outlined.

381
Another major criticism of the Government's arrangements should greatly concern the House itself, in that the allocation of ministerial responsibility is totally inadequate. The Prime Minister has overall responsibility and the right hon. and noble Lady the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is responsible for the management and personnel office and the Minister of State answers to this House both for the functions of his Department and for that large area of responsibility which lies with the Cabinet Office, with which, from answers that I have received from him, he apparently has no contact and for which he has no responsibility. There is therefore a whole area of vital responsibility within the Government which hon. Members have no clear opportunity to question or call to account in the House.
Mr. Charles R. MorrisWill the hon. Gentleman enlighten the House as to what the SDP thinks about having two heads of the Civil Service where hitherto there was one, bearing in mind the contraction that has taken place in the Civil Service in recent years?
Mr. WrigglesworthIt is even worse than the right hon. Gentleman suggests. There are in fact three heads of the Civil Service, as Mr. John Cassels is the second permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office; so there is the head of the Cabinet Office, the second permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office and the permanent secretary in the Treasury. in addition to all the spread ministerial responsibilities for these matters.
Finally, I believe that a major reason behind the change, apart from the kind of antagonisms that have been mentioned, is that the whole thrust of the Government's policy has been anti-Civil Service. They have pandered to and indeed built up public prejudice over a period and they wish to claim that they have not only cut the number of civil servants but actually abolished a Department. That may sound very good on presentation to the public, but they are simply masking the fact that they are creating a worse situation in the organisation of manpower in their own Civil Service.
Instead of concerning themselves merely with cuts, cuts and more cuts, the Government should consider how they might run their machine more efficiently and achieve the improvements to which the hon. Member for Norwich, South referred—better and more cost-effective management and more. cost-effective use of resources in Government. That will be achieved only if, like any other organisation, they have the personnel function in a separate department containing all the responsibilities within it rather than splitting them up as the Government propose.
I very much regret the changes that the Government have introduced. They deserve to be rejected today.
11.10 pm
Mr. Peter ViggersIf it was incorrect to accuse the Government of being anti-Civil Service before the debate, it is now quite preposterous to do so. We have listened to a diatribe read to us by the hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett). We have heard the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon) recommending more interchange between civil servants and people in industry and elsewhere. Preceding them both, the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) produced as his coup de grace—a little dead
382
rabbit from a crumpled hat—the fact that an appointment had been made at a senior level to the PSA, which fulfils exactly the requirement that there should be an exchange between senior civil servants and those in industry.
I agree completely that there should be such an exchange. In the United States, there are 2,500 appointed positions in Washington which allow considerable interchange between the views of those in the professions and industry and those in government. Those who have been in government go back and enrich and enliven the private sector. In France, it is recognised that the Polytechnique produces senior civil servants who quite often leave the civil service at a medium level and go into industry. That, too, is accepted. I have no complaint when senior or medium-level civil servants come out of the service and take senior positions in banking or whatever it may be. They, too, can be helpful to those industries. The right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne is quite correct, and the major argument of the right hon. Member for Swansea, West was quite wasted.
I wish to make only one point, and I put it to the Treasury Bench in the form of a question. The Civil Service is our biggest business and is perhaps the best candidate for improved efficiency by way of computerisation. There are two ways in which this improvement can go. Either the improvement can be accepted, with the Civil Service welcoming the opportunity to increase its efficiency by using new techniques, or the service can adopt a Luddite attitude and say that it will have computerisation and improved technology only if there is no loss of jobs, which would be a reactionary and unhelpful attitude.
My reason for making this point is that there is an article in this week's edition of The Economist in which it is said that
"the civil service unions have told the government they will not work any new technology equipment unless they receive an assurance from the cabinet that no civil servant will be laid off as a result … the treasury has been in favour of giving such an assurance in order to 'maintain goodwill'."
The article is either unhelpful or misleading, and it would be useful if my hon. Friend could comment on it.
11.12 pm
Mr. Richard WainwrightI, too, am grateful to the Opposition for enabling us to have this debate. But no amount of informed speeches can dispel the air of profound unreality which pervades debates on the control of the Civil Service. I felt just the same about the pleasant and stimulating sittings of the Select Committee under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon): although the issue was an interesting one to discuss, nothing that we decided would enable the uncontrollable to be controlled.
If any civil servant—apart from the top echelon—were asked to judge between control by a Lord President of the Council preoccupied, very successfully, with Zimbabwe, and a Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster preoccupied with the intricacies of leading the House of Lords, he would be tempted to use the words of an oriental potentate who was unwisely called upon to judge the finals of the Cleethorpes bathing beauty contest and dismayed the populace by saying "Both are worse".
In our present system of government, there is no political mileage in successful control of the Civil Service because there is not sufficient continuity in government to

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enable anyone to achieve demonstrable results. Until we have a system which provides some element of continuity between one Government and another, this matter will never be tackled seriously. Furthermore, until people have the humility, modesty and humanity to realise that a Civil Service on the scale of ours cannot be controlled en bloc by any Minister, there can be no change. If the Archangel Gabriel were made the Minister in charge of either of these functions in the Treasury or in the Cabinet Office, the scale of the operation would frustrate him.
This becomes clear when one goes locally to a splendidly run office with various sections and a good manager who keeps up local morale. That is fine. But as soon as one goes outside the purview of that office with a query and asks whether they can get some results out of another part of the Department, it becomes apparent that morale is at rock bottom. No one has the slightest faith in any part of a Department that is outside his immediate purview. Often people hold up their hands in despair and ask how they can get any sense out of a computer or a Ministry. Until we have a federal Britain with manageable units of Government, we cannot control the operations of public service.
In the remaining few moments, I wish to give two examples. It is clear that in public affairs we need a far more realistic approach to cost-effectiveness. Yet there is no provision for that in any Department of State, except defence where the constraints of NATO make it necessary that we somehow stagger into line with our more advanced NATO partners. Members of the Select Committee gained some satisfaction when, having been told by heads of Departments that cost comparisons with overseas countries, even as near as Holland and Belgium, were too difficult, we heard from the permanent secretary to the Ministry of Defence a clear acknowledgment that NATO must discover whether it is cheaper for the Dutch or the British to provide a frigate. It must make cost comparisons. Sir Frank Cooper concluded his evidence by saying about NATO:
"I can say pretty clearly by the time we come to a decision we are reasonably satisfied about the veracity of our own costs and the international ones."
The Civil Service has, at last, responded under the constraints of an international organisation. However, most domestic Departments regard with horror the very idea of comparing the costs of an operation with those of neighbouring countries with similar problems. Instead, all sorts of abstract concepts are established to try to measure cost effectiveness.
That will never be put right while the generalists, who were unfortunately described as amateurs in Fulton's language, take the attitude that management skill can be added late in life. It is insolent to suggest that six months at some management course will turn a generalist into a skilled manager. Even if we double their salaries and promise to make them dukes when they retire, we could not find people capable of being both full-scale generalists and skilled managers.
Because the order, which is already in force, offers no hope of solving the problem of turning the Civil Service into a management body under skilled control, I and my hon. Friends will vote with the Labour Party tonight.
11.13 pm
The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Barney Hayhoe)I wish to respond immediately to some of the comments of the hon. Member for Colne Valley (Mr. Wainwright). Under the Conservative Government, the Civil Service is more efficient, better managed, more cost-effective and slimmer. It is the smallest Civil Service since 1967. We are on course to achieve our 1984 target for a Civil Service of 630,000, which will then be the smallest Civil Service since the war.
I welcome this short debate about the reorganisation of Government Departments. However, many of the speeches had precious little to do with the transfer functions order as such. Some of the criticism appeared to be excessively contrived, and some of the opposition was directed not at what had been done but at how, when and why it has been done.
The arguments were confused. The right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) said that the whole thing was a terrible plot by the Prime Minister so that she could impose her vindictiveness on the service. The hon. Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Garrett) said that the mandarins were, as ever, getting their way and sabotaging the Fulton proposals. The Opposition cannot have it both ways. I reject the hon. Member for Norwich, South's attacks on senior civil servants.
In my criticisms of the way that much of the debate has gone, I exempt my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor), who made a constructive speech and asked whether I could give an assurance that the undertakings given in July about the 1982 pay negotialtions, their conduct and the access to arbitration, subject to a parliamentary override, had been affected by the change. I give him the absolute assurance that the change has made no difference at all. Those undertakings still stand.
Comments were made about the Government's general attitude to the Civil Service. We had a diatribe from the right hon. Member for Swansea, West about my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and I repudiate and reject his absurd allegations. His talk of spite and vindictiveness better described his remarks than the attitude of my right hon. Friend.
As I and other Ministers have often said, we are furtunate to be served so well by a Civil Service with high standards of integrity and a freedom from corruption which is much envied around the world. Civil servants are doing worthwhile jobs. They are carrying out the will of Parliament and the Government and they deserve our gratitude. It was noticeable that the only clear tribute to the Civil Service in the debate came from my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East.
Mr. Charles R. MorrisWill the Minister explain during the diatribe that he is reading out what contribution is made to the efficiency and effectiveness of the Civil Service by having two heads of the service when hitherto we had one?
Mr. HayhoeThe right hon. Gentleman made that point a number of times. I do not believe that it is fundamental. I accept that the arrangement is unprecedented, but that does not make the system unworkable or wrong.
Mr. MorrisIt is nonsense.
Mr. HayhoeKnowing the two individuals concerned, I am clear that they will be able to work closely together, and they will have separate responsibilities on a number of matters.
Mr. MorrisWhy do we need two?
Mr. HayhoeThe right hon. Gentleman must not get so excited. He knows better than his hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, Soul h the quality of our senior civil servants, and I am sure that the arrangement of joint heads will work out perfectly well.
Mr. Michael EnglishWhy did the Minister say that civil servants were not corrupt when it is clear that after leaving the Civil Service some of them take jobs that were offered to them while they were in the service?
Mr. HayhoeI do not accept that that is an indication that the individuals concerned are corrupt. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will regret those remarks tomorrow.
The Opposition should ask themselves what would be achieved if they succeeded in annulling the order. It would not undo the hardships that they may think have been caused by the change. On the contrary, it would make matters much worse, because it would create more disruption and uncertainty for those in the Civil Service who deal with the central Departments.
We have now had two months of working under these new arrangements. I assure the House that things are settling down pretty well—very much better than many who have seen major changes in the machinery of government could have expected.
The right hon. Member for Swansea, West asked why there was no consultation with the trade unions before the announcement. He seemed to think that the Civil Service unions had an absolute right to consultation. He knows very well that machinery of government matters are traditionally regarded as being not for negotiation but for the Prime Minister's decision.
Certainly, after a general election, when Prime Ministers are constructing their Administrations, never has the question arose that they must negotiate with the Civil Service unions about how they deploy their ministerial team. Elaborate arrangements were made to ensure that the staff affected were told about the reorganisation and as much as possible about how they would be affected at the same time as the Prime Minister was making her statement. As is normal, the union leaders were given advance warning of the statement so that they could prepare themselves for the questions that they would receive from their members.
A great deal of effort has been made to ensure that the interests of the staff concerned are well looked after. They are being allowed to express preferences as to which Department they eventually wish to work in, be it the Treasury or the new Management and Personnel Office. Proper career management will make sure that individuals do not suffer.
Mr. John GarrettWill the Minister give way?
Mr. HayhoeI shall continue because I am trying to answer other points that have been made. The hon. Gentleman knows that time is limited, and it is only fair that I should continue.
I was asked, why have a reorganisation last November which the Prime Minister had decided against about a year
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earlier? Reference was made to the report of the Sub-Committee of the Select Committee chaired by the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Sheldon). As he will know, that report said that it was a balance of argument. At the end of 1980, the arguments were finely balanced, but after about a year, seeing how things were working in practice, the Prime Minister decided, as she was fully entitled to do, that the advantages lay in uniting the manpower and expenditure aspects of resource allocation and control—giving a boost to efficiency and personnel management—by bringing the Management and Personnel Office and the Rayner unit under the same umbrella.
The hon. Member for Thornaby (Mr. Wrigglesworth) asked about hiving off the public expenditure sections of the Treasury and creating a "bureau of the budget" type solution. As he will know, because he follows these matters with care, this was referred to in paragraph 26 of the Select Committee report. The arguments there are persuasive, and although the matter was one for the Prime Minister, I believe that they were probably the determinant.
Questions have been raised about the effect of the Treasury now being more closely involved in pay issues; but the Treasury has always had an important say in Civil Service pay settlements. How could it be otherwise? There is no reason why the line should be altered in any way as a result of these changes. Major decisions on pay were never taken by CSD Ministers in isolation. Inevitably, and rightly, the Prime Minister and Chancellor, together with other Ministers, were involved. The new arrangements will not alter that in any way.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East asked about the Megaw inquiry into the future arrangements for determining Civil Service pay and whether these new changes in the central Departments would delay that work. I again give him the assurance that there should be no delay as a result. I hope that the Megaw committee, which has a formidable task before it, will be able to report at the time when the Government ask it, in the summer of this year, so that its recommendations can contribute to and perhaps be a determinant in the settlements for 1983 and onwards.
The right hon. Member for Swansea, West referred to industrial relations and the contacts between those responsible for the Civil Service in the Treasury, in the new MPO and in the trade unions. There will, of course, be close co-operation between the Treasury and the MPO on industrial relations matters, as there had previously been between the different divisions of the CSD and the Treasury.
With regard to the point made by the hon. Member for Thornaby, there is a very close liaison and a continued co-location between the MPO and the sections of the Treasury principally concerned. He asked about the way in which matters would be handled in this House. I shall be dealing with them. I sit in on important meetings in the MPO and I hope that I shall be able to demonstrate at Question Time and at other times in the House that I am very much involved and concerned with the matters for which I shall answer. It is not unusual for a Minister to answer in this House for matters which are the direct responsibility of a Minister in another place. The Law Officers have always answered in this House for matters concerning the Lord Chancellor.
Mr. WrigglesworthIs there a precedent for a Minister responding in this House for a Department for which he has no responsibility?
Mr. HayhoeI wish that the hon. Gentleman would listen. The Law Officers answer in the House for matters which are the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor.
I believe that a great deal of the criticism and of the fears and anxieties about which we have heard tonight are based on a combination of misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the motives and the details of the changes which have been made. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear in her statement of 12 November that there are advantages—they have been acknowledged by committees which have studied these matters—in brigading the control of manpower and the control of expenditure in the Treasury and in having a separate Department with distinct responsibilities for organisation, management and overall efficiency of the Civil Service, and for personnel management. It is wrong to think of the Management and Personnel Office as just the rump of the CSD now that pay and manpower matters have been transferred to the Treasury.
The MPO has clear, coherent and vitally important responsibilities which it will be able to pursue single-mindedly and with vigour. It is linked organisationally to the Cabinet Office, which helps to give a spread of vision to its aims across the whole workings of Government. The Prime Minister, as Minister for the Civil Service, continues to be responsible for the functions it discharges.
My right hon. and noble Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is in day-to-day charge. I believe that it will be seen as a Department with a lot of clout in Whitehall, and that it will be able to carry out a very important function concerning the future of the Civil Service. This organisation of the central Departments should give a more concentrated approach to control of resources at the Treasury, and a stronger and more active approach to the Management and Personnel Office to secure efficiency, and not just in terms of cutting costs.
My right hon. and noble Friend will be announcing and publishing soon an action document setting out the aims and strategies of the Department. This, I hope, will meet many of the detailed criticisms made by the hon. Member for Norwich, South. The Treasury is equally determined to use the opportunities afforded by the reorganisation to make improvements in resource management. Of course, the Treasury and the MPO must work closely together to achieve common aims, and I am happy to report that the transition has been smooth and that much credit is due to the individual civil servants who have made all this possible. No one would claim that the present arrangements are perfect, but they are working well, they will get better, and it would be wrong to slam the gears into reverse as the Opposition would have us do tonight. I hope that they will withdraw the motion. If they do not, I hope that the House will reject it.
Question put:—
The House divided: Ayes 51, Noes 107.

Division No.42]

[11.30 pm

AYES

Alton, David

Litherland, Robert

Beith, A.J.

Lyons, Edward (Bradf'dW)

Bennett, Andrew (Sf'kp'tN)

McKay, Allen (Penistone)

Booth, Rt Hon Albert

Marshall, D (G'gowS'ton)

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

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Morris, Rt Hon C. (O'shaw)

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Penhaligon, David

Cowans, Harry

Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

Crowther, Stan

Prescott, John

Cryer, Bob

Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

Dalyell, Tam

Skinner, Dennis

Dean, Joseph (Leeds West)

Soley, Clive

Dixon, Donald

Spearing, Nigel

Dormand, Jack

Strang, Gavin

Eastham, Ken

Wainwright, R.(ColneV)

Garrett, John (NorwichS)

Welsh, Michael

Hardy, Peter

White, Frank R.

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

Whitlock, William

Haynes, Frank

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

HomeRobertson, John

Winnick, David

Hooley, Frank

Woolmer, Kenneth

Howells, Geraint

Wright, Sheila

Hoyle, Douglas

Johnson, James (Hull West)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Lamond, James

Mr. George Morton and

Leighton, Ronald

Mr. James Tinn.

Lewis, Arthur (N'ham NW)

NOES

Alexander, Richard

Knight, MrsJill

Aspinwall, Jack

Lang, Ian

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Lee, John

Berry, Hon Anthony

Lester, Jim (Beeston)

Bevan, David Gilroy

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

Loveridge, John

Bottomley, Peter (W'wich W)

McCrindle, Robert

Bright, Graham

MacGregor, John

Brinton, Tim

MacKay, John (Argyll)

Brotherton, Michael

Major, John

Brown, Michael (Brigg&Sc'n)

Marlow, Antony

Bruce-Gardyne, John

Mather, Carol

Budgen, Nick

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Carlisle, John (LutonWest)

Mayhew, Patrick

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Chapman, Sydney

Miller, Hal (B'grove)

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

Mills, lain (Meriden)

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Moate, Roger

Cockeram, Eric

Murphy, Christopher

Cope, John

Myles, David

Cranborne, Viscount

Neale, Gerrard

Dorrell, Stephen

Needham, Richard

Dover, Denshore

Newton, Tony

du Cann, Rt Hon Edward

Onslow, Cranley

Faith, MrsSheila

Osborn, John

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

Page, Richard (SW Herts)

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

Parris, Matthew

Fookes, Miss Janet

Pawsey, James

Forman, Nigel

Price, Sir David (Eastleigh)

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Proctor, K. Harvey

Goodhew, Sir Victor

Raison, Timothy

Goodlad, Alastair

Renton, Tim

Griffiths, Peter Portsm'thN)

Rhodes James, Robert

Gummer, John Selwyn

Ridley, Hon Nicholas

Hawkins, Paul

Roberts, M. (Cardiff NW)

Hawksley, Warren

Rossi, Hugh

Hayhoe, Barney

Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

Heddle, John

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Shelton, William (Streatham)

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Holland, Philip (Carlton)

Sims, Roger

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

Skeet, T. H. H.

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Speed, Keith

Kershaw, Sir Anthony

Speller, Tony

Sproat, lain

Waddington, David

Stanbrook, lvor

Waller, Gary

Stevens, Martin

Ward, John

Stewart, Ian (Hitchin)

Watson, John

Stradling Thomas, J.

Wells, Bowen

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Wickenden, Keith

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Wolfson, Mark

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

Thompson, Donald

Tellers for the Noes:

Thorne, Neil (llfordSouth)

Mr. Peter Brooke and

Thornton, Malcolm

Mr. David Hunt.

Viggers, Peter

Question accordingly negatived.

Motorways (Sevenoaks and Swanley)
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jopling.]
11.41 pm
Mr. Mark WolfsonI am grateful for this opportunity of debating the subject of motorways in the Sevenoaks and Swanley area. I am aware that there is presently a High Court case on the matter, which requires that I be a little circumspect in the subjects that I cover under this general heading. I want to deal with five points. Two are specific and parochial to my constituency, and three have a wider relevance than to simply the Sevenoaks area.
I want, first, to talk about the M25 Sevenoaks Swanley link of the London orbital motorway. I have always supported the proposal for the completion of the motorway by that link, and I continue to do so, because I am not convinced that there is any alternative if we are to achieve a real improvement in the quality of life in the villages of Otford and Eynsford which are on the A225, currently carrying a considerable amount of heavy traffic.
The obvious disadvantages of taking the M25 through an area of outstanding natural beauty are outweighed by the valuable contribution that it will make to the quality of life in those two villages. For the greatest good for the greatest number, that link should be completed. There is a difficulty in this country in that we are perhaps too often concerned with maintaining the countryside. It is important that we should be concerned, but we are perhaps over-concerned about that compared with our appalling lack of concern for the quality of life in towns and villages. It is often forgotten that changed farming use can have, certainly visually, almost as dramatic an effect on the countyside as the advent of a motorway, without any of the corresponding environmental benefits.
The cost of continual delay in the completion of the motorway is great. The M25 around London is about 10 years behind its original schedule. On the most optimistic view, it is unlikely that the road will be completed before the end of the decade, although it was originally hoped to complete it by now. Only an uncomplimentary comparison can be drawn between our progress and that of the French on their Paris peripherique, which was built about 20 years ago, and on the additional orbital roads built since then. I support the Secretary of State's continuing moves to achieve the link.
I turn to the proposed slip roads from the M26 at Otford and the alternative to them. It is very helpful that my hon. and learned Friend should have a particularly clear and intimate knowledge of the area. As he knows, there is an alternative to the link roads at Otford, which could be incorporated in an existing interchange at Chevening. There is continuing concern among several of my constituents about the present proposals. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend understands that opposition to the proposals for slip roads at Otford comes mainly, not surprisingly, from the residents of Otford.
In correspondence, meetings and discussions with me, the residents have made it clear that their concern is deep and continuing and they have put their views to the Secretary of State. I share much of their concern. In developing our motorway system and the intersections

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between motorways and other major roads, it is vital to take a long-term view of a road system adequate for the year 2,000 and of a possible Channel tunnel.
My constituency is in a part of Kent that faces extreme and never-ending traffic pressure. It is vital to keep heavy through traffic on the motorway and major roads. Surely, interchanges should be made directly between major roads so that there is no risk of drawing traffic on to comparatively minor roads. The proposals for the slip roads at Otford will encourage traffic to come off the major roads onto minor roads. Entries into and exits from motorways generate traffic. In this case, they would also generate pressure to give up green-belt land for industrial and, probably, warehouse development.
In support of that contention, I shall refer to an article in the Financial Times, which clearly brought out the likely effect of the M25 in raising land values on territory adjacent to it. I accept that point. There must be continuing industrial and commercial development if future jobs in Britain are to be secured. However, in producing a road network, we must all be aware of what will flow from that. In the long-term view, it is important to keep heavy traffic on the motorways and major roads.
Local opinion manifested by the county and district planning authorities has so far supported the view of having slip-roads at Otford. However, in the light of a considerable number of my constituents' views, I must ask the Minister to hold a public inquiry into the proposal, which would also give an opportunity for the further consideration of my suggested alternative.
I appreciate that the alternative of an interchange as part of the existing interchange at Chevening would be more costly, but, taking a long-term view, such costs could be justified. By an innovative approach to ways of achieving the interchange, it might not need to be as expensive as originally thought. It is a matter of strategic importance, not only to Sevenoaks but also to the wider areas of West Kent, East Surrey and the outer suburbs of South East London.
My three remaining points have a relevance wider than Sevenoaks. First, I shall put to the Minister the importance of achieving more effective traffic management schemes. An example of that is where the M20 and M26 signposting has discouraged traffic from using the A225 and encouraged through traffic to use the existing motorways. That is only a signposted system and is not mandatory. However, evidence shows that, to an extent, traffic has been prepared to follow that signposted route.
I have experienced great difficulty in getting the local authority and the police to produce mandatory traffic management schemes which would keep heavy lorries off roads which are not built for them and, particularly, out of Sevenoaks High Street where there are now alternative routes. My support for the proposal to increase lorry weights is dependent on my being assured by the Secretary of State that there is scope for the Government to bring in much firmer measures to achieve mandatory traffic management schemes which could take care of the problem. There are examples in my constituency where that would achieve a major benefit.
Great progress has been made in recent years on the landscaping of motorways but noise from them is still an appalling environmental pollutant. I wish to know what research and effective action is being taken in that field.
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In my constituency, I am aware of a silent valley now filled with endless noise. It is not a hum but a persistent roar. I understand that tyres rather than engines cause a geat deal of the noise. What action can be taken and what action is being taken to deal with these problems nationally as well as locally?
Finally, I direct attention to the possibly unnecessary use of land in the take-up of land for the development of motorways. I make a comparison with Canada, a country where we would all accept that land is at less of a premium than it is in Britain. Yet from my own knowledge I know that intersections of motorways in Canada have a much smaller land take due to much tighter curves being used which require slower speeds from motorists. Are slower speeds to negotiate tighter turns wrong? What criteria are used in the construction of motorways in Britain and why have we taken the view that less sharp curves allowing greater speeds are necessarily the right approach? I use the example of the existing Chevening interchange, which appears to be very wasteful in the use of land.
10.57 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Kenneth Clarke)My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) has had a number of conversations with me, both formally and informally, about the roads in his constituency and he has discovered that I have the good fortune of knowing quite well some of the more attractive parts of his constituency. My wife's family come from Sidcup and, as a result, I know Sevenoaks quite well, including the area to which my hon. Friend has drawn attention.
Recently my brother-in-law took our respective families on a picnic outing near Polhill. When we had all settled down as two families to enjoy a picnic in a pleasant valley near Polhill, he told me that we were picknicking on the site of the proposed Swanley-Sevenoaks road with which he knew that I was concerned and which the Government are proposing to build. He brought me face to face with the dilemmas that confront the area. We are proposing to build a road that will have substantial environmental advantages, especially for the villages in the Darent valley but which will be built through an area of outstanding natural beauty.
As my hon. Friend said, the proposed road is part of the Government's scheme to build the M25 motorway as an orbital road around London. That is the Government's highest priority in the trunk road programme because of the great benefits that we see accruing to the economy and the environment. We are making good progress with the construction of the M25. The entire section from the A1 to the Dartford tunnel is now complete or under construction. When finished, the orbital route will, in effect, provide a giant bypass for the capital and will take a great deal of heavy traffic out of many communities on the fringe of London. It will speed up journeys for heavy traffic between industrial centres from Tilbury and the south coast ports and thereby give a boost to the revival of our industrial economy.
In the Government's opinion, the Swanley-Sevenoaks section is a vital link in the M25 orbital route. It represents good value for the taxpayers' money. I know that there is strong opposition to it and that that is largely inspired by the attractive nature of the countryside through which it has to run.

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There are those who suggest that as an alternative it would be satisfactory to leave traffic to find its way between Swanley and Sevenoaks taking the more round-about route via the M20 and the M26. We have considered that suggestion with care, but we cannot accept it. Some traffic—largely the traffic that did not know the area—would use the route but at considerable extra cost in terms of time spent and the running expenses of vehicles. Most of those who knew the area would try to avoid the roundabout route, and a great deal of traffic would continue to cut through on the unsuitable though much more direct connecting roads, such as the A225, which go up the middle of the Darent Valley and run through the attractive villages of Eynsford, Shoreham and Otford.
Those who are against the Swanley-Sevenoaks road are worried about the possible consequences to the environment. I concede, as my hon. Friend did, that it is difficult to fit a motorway into an area of such outstanding beauty, but I believe that the plans we put forward succeed in keeping the damage to that part of the Darent Valley to the acceptable minimum. The Darent Valley is affected, but as the inspector wrote in his report of the 1978 inquiry:
"Because the preferred route runs along the Western fringe of the Darent Valley, the impact on the valley is less than at first appears, and the impact on Polhill can be exaggerated."
Ministers taking decisions took those environmental problems very seriously and took a great deal of time over the landscaping that could be done to absorb the road into the top of the hill alongside the valley. I assure my hon. Friend and his constituents that everything possible will be done to lessen the damage by landscaping and planting, and concealing the road and its traffic as far as possible from the centre of the Darent Valley.
However, in the end we have been driven, as the inspector was driven, to the same conclusion as my hon. Friend, who I am sure is voicing the opinion of the majority of his constituents, that the unfortunate effects on part of the Darent Valley are outweighed by the considerable environmental benefits that the new motorway will bring to nearby communities including the town of Sevenoaks. The existing roads in the area such as the A225, A224 and the A227 will be relieved of much heavy traffic. Places such as Otford, Eynsford and Shoreham will become much pleasanter places to live in with less danger of accidents, less dirt, vibration and noise. About 1,300 properties fronting the existing roads will benefit from a significant reduction in noise once the heavy traffic can be taken on to the new road.
Therefore, we decided that there was a strong case for the new motorway. That case has been tested over a long process. In the mid-1970s there was a public consultation exercise, which showed overwhelming support by the public who responded for the route that we are still pursuing. There was a lengthy public inquiry from September 1978 to February 1979, conducted by a distinguished independent inspector, Sir George Dobry, who recommended that we should make the line orders for the road, having been satisfied on the evidence that he heard and exhaustively analysed in his report.
The Secretary of State accepted that report and made the necessary orders in January 1981. The objectors have challenged the basis on which the orders were made. There has recently been a High Court hearing into that challenge, which was heard only on Thursday and Friday last week.
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Judgment has now been reserved. I expect that judgment will be delivered in the near future, which will enable us to know whether we can proceed.
Given that we have been driven by the evidence to believe that the road is to the public benefit, we hope for a successful outcome of the current High Court proceedings. If the outcome is successful, we shall press ahead to deal with the compulsory purchase order, which was published just before Christmas. That will almost certainly require a further inquiry into the objections that I am sure we will receive. We shall organise that further inquiry as soon as we reasonably can.
If funds are made available—as I am sure they will be, as the Government have no intention of diverting funds from the M25—and if we make reasonable progress in the statutory procedures, we hope that construction of the link can begin early in 1983. I hope that the construction will be completed and the road opened by late 1985.
Given that we have just had a High Court hearing and are awaiting judgment, I cannot go further on the merits of the case. I can only reassure my hon. Friend and his constituents that the difficult and sensitive road has been considered with considerable care by Ministers over a long public process. We have been driven to the same conclusion as him, that the public advantage lies heavily in the construction of the route. We shall await whether the courts uphold us and confirm that we have given all the rights that we should to those who challenge that view.
My hon. Friend went on to the separate question of the proposed slip roads that we are now intending to build on the existing M26 at Otford. That again is an announcement that we made last year. I appreciate the fact that it has aroused controversy. I listened with considerable interest to my hon. Friend expounding at greater length the views that I know he holds that it may be an unwise decision. He shares his constituents' concern that it might be wiser to put the slip road at Chevening.
That is not a new feature of the road proposals for the area. It has a long history. It has been considered over some years. The decision not to put the slip roads at Chevening goes back to a public inquiry which was held in 1976, after which the then Secretaries of State decided that the high cost of the additional connections at Chevening were not justified by the low levels of traffic expected. If I may update the figures, to put in the alternative links at Chevening would cost about £5 million, whereas the proposals at Otford would cost about £1 million. It is five times as expensive to go to Chevening.
After the 1976 decision taken by our predecessors, a joint study was set up, conducted by the Department of Transport, Kent county council and Sevenoaks district council, to examine the case for additional connections at Chevening or at various alternative locations. As a result of the study, and with the agreement of the two local authorities, as well as the Government, it was concluded that there were greater benefits from putting in the links at Otford.
I have followed the concern that the announcement has aroused in the locality. It particularly concerns me when it is expressed by people who live in the villages along the A225, whom we are particularly trying to benefit by constructing the Swanley-Sevenoaks road. Again, the announcement and the publication of the draft orders only happened after careful consideration of the issues.
The aim of the new slip roads is to provide better access to traffic intending to go east from the northern side of

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Sevenoaks and the industrial estates in particular. We believe that that traffic will be particularly served by the proposed links. We do not believe that the links will attract additional traffic of significance on to the A225 north of the link road. The bulk of the traffic coming from the north comes from areas such as Bromley and Orpington. Once we have built the Swanley-Sevenoaks links and the associated Badger's Mount link, they of course will provide the best routes on to the M26 from the urban areas.
The purpose of the links is to provide, with reasonable value for the taxpayer's money and with reasonable benefits to the environment, good connecting links to the M26 for the traffic, particularly from northern Sevenoaks and the industrial estates. That is the basis on which we put forward the proposals.
However, objections are coming in to the published orders. It is obvious that we have aroused a considerable division of opinion in the area. My hon. Friend supports his constituents in expressing concern and also asks for a public inquiry into the objections. I am happy to confirm that, assuming that the present level of objections, or anything like it, is maintained by the local residents, there will of course have to be a public inquiry under an independent inspector, at which all the issues can be fully debated. No final decision will be taken on the links until the public inquiry has been held, the inspector's report received and the Secretaries of State have had an opportunity to consider the whole matter in the light of the evidence and advice that they will get from the inspector.
Thirdly, my hon. Friend asked for more effective traffic management measures to be taken in his area and for the Government to do more to enable his county council and the police to initiate traffic management measures. It is
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one of the main purposes of the Government's trunk road proposals that, when we build the modern purpose-built motorways for the heavy industrial traffic that an industrial country like this requires, it will make it easier for county councils to make orders to take the lorry traffic off the old, unsuitable rural roads which were never designed for it and where the heavy lorry is a menace going through villages and shopping centres.
Already local authorities have considerable power under the Dykes Act—a Private Member's Bill, sponsored by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) back, I believe, in 1973—to designate certain areas as banned to lorries above a given weight. There have also been proposals in the recent Armitage report for the wider use of lorry routes and the creation of lorry action areas. As I say, the county councils already have adequate legal powers, but it is the intention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport and myself to issue fresh advice to local authorities to assist them to make more use of the powers that they have to designate lorry routes and to begin the process of consultation required to establish lorry action areas.
I hope that we can adduce useful advice to enable my hon. Friend and his constituents to put propositions in their locality to divert lorries away from unsuitable roads and to make it easier for the Kent county council, which is the highway authority and which must make decisions on local matters of routing, and so on, to make the best effective use of its powers.
We—
The question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at ten minutes past Twelve o'clock.