Commons Sitting of 2 February 1983

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  Oral Answers to Questions
  Mr. Speaker: I have no wish to appear foolishly optimistic, but brief questions would be a great help.
  Oral Answers to Questions
    SCOTLAND

      District and Regional Councils (Expenditure)
      Mr. Dewarasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what reduction, in percentage terms, would have to be made in expenditure by district and regional councils, respectively, if they adhered to the guidelines for 1983–84 as against the budgets of 1982–83 adjusted for inflation on the basis assumed for the current rate support grant settlement but allowing no increase in spending.
      The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. George Younger): As the settlement is in cash, its implications for the level of services provided by local authorities will depend on the rate of inflation. Provision in the 1983–84 rate support grant settlement for relevant current expenditure is 9 per cent. more than in the 1982–83 settlement.
      Mr. Dewar: Does the Secretary of State accept that COSLA's figures show that if we assume budgets at a standstill level and take the basis of inflation on which the rate support grant was calculated, it means a reduction in expenditure of 7·2 per cent. for regions and 11·8 per cent. for districts? Will there not be severe and savage cuts in services if these artificial guidelines are to be met?
      Mr. Younger: What is artificial is that the hon. Gentleman is not comparing like with like. Comparing the settlement of last year with the settlement for this year, there is an increase of 9 per cent. in what the Government have provided. By any terms that is reasonable.
      Mr. Ancram: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Lothian ratepayers are looking for a further substantial reduction in their rates this year, based on the expenditure plans of the Conservative group on Lothian council? Will my right hon. Friend assure ratepayers that their aspirations will be protected, if necessary by the legislative powers available to him, and that spending in the Lothian region will be kept within reasonable, not excessive, bounds?
      Mr. Younger: I fully appreciate my hon. Friend's feelings about the matter. Before taking selective action I should have to be satisfied that planned expenditure was excessive and unreasonable, after taking into account the statutory criteria, which include the burden on ratepayers, to which my hon. Friend referred.
      Mr. Grimond: I understand from the Government's expenditure plans that they expect local government expenditure in 1983–84 to exceed the guidelines and are making available in extra £1·3 billion in that year. By how much do the Government expect the guidelines to be exceeded in real, not percentage, terms?
      Mr. Younger: I hope that local authority spending will be brought under better control this year and be much nearer to the guidelines, and I gave £120 million extra to what the settlement would have been to make it easier for them.
      Mr. George Robertson: Is the Secretary of State aware that the only consequence of further cutting back the expenditure of local councils will be to reduce further the services for the weakest people in the community and to drive even more people out of work? If this is all part of the Prime Minister's belief in the Victorian ethic, when shall we see the return of the workhouse?
      Mr. Younger: That sounds grand until one bears in mind that local authorities have not yet succeeded in making any real reduction in spending. Local government expenditure in 1981–82 at constant prices was still above the level of 1977–78. I do not recall the hon. Gentleman then saying that services were cut to the bone.
      Mr. Henderson: Is not education the largest single item in a local authority's budget? As school rolls are falling, should not local authorities, particularly regional councils, have substantially more to spend this year than in any of the years of the Labour Government?
      Mr. Younger: Even with falling school rolls we are still able, in the rate support grant settlements, to allow for better teacher-pupil ratios than before.

      Dundee
      Mr. Gordon Wilsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give financial help to retain manufacturing jobs in Dundee.
      The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Alexander Fletcher): The Government are providing massive financial help for Dundee. The city is part of a special development area attracting the highest rates of grant for industrial development, and the proposed Tayside enterprise zone may include sites in Dundee.
      In addition, the Scottish Development Agency is contributing £24 million over three years to projects in Dundee to stimulate business development and attract high technology industries.
      Mr. Wilson: The Minister has not mentioned the crisis at Timex. Is he aware that Dundee is to lose hundreds of manufacturing jobs with the phasing out of watch and camera manufacture? Is he aware that 11 million watches were imported into the United Kingdom in 1982, so there should be a market available? Furthermore, has he made any inquiries into the availability of work to sustain increased employment at Timex beyond that anticipated by the Timex corporation in its plans for Dundee?
      Mr. Fletcher: I am aware of the difficulties that have been facing Timex in recent months and of the 1,900 redundancies that have been announced. My right hon. Friend and I have spent a great deal of time talking to the company, the work force, Mr. Fred Olsen, Mr. Clive

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      Sinclair and others. The company is making every effort to continue a programme of diversification, particularly into electronics, so that the future of the Dundee factory may be assured.
      Mr. Ernie Ross: Will the Minister take this opportunity to refute the suggestion by Graham Dowson, the vice-president of Nimslo, that the loss of the production of the 3-D camera at Dundee had something to do with the inability of the work force to produce the camera at the quality and production levels that were required?
      Mr. Fletcher: I am aware of the remarks to which the hon. Gentleman is referring, but I see no benefit to Dundee in repeating what the Nimslo management is alleged to have said. What matters to Dundee is that existing customers are retained. Mr. Olsen and the management of Timex are confident that they can produce high-quality products at Dundee, as they have done for many years and look forward to doing in the future.
      Mr. Bill Walker: Does my hon. Friend agree that the work force at Dundee has a reputation that it does not deserve, because, given the opportunity, it is hard-working? Does he further agree that it is unfortunate that trade union leaders and others sometimes make imprudent statements which give the impression that the work force is more militant than it is, and that that consequently has an adverse effect on potential investment?
      Mr. Fletcher: There is no doubt that the events of the past few weeks have shown a readiness on the part of the work force at Dundee to try to clarify the situation, understand the problems, and do their utmost to ensure that the company will succeed.
      Mr. Millan: In view of the magnificent record of the work force in turning out the Sinclair computer, why does the Minister not repudiate the unwarranted slur on the workers at the Timex factory? Are we to take it from the Minister's statement after his meeting with Mr. Olsen that he has given up all hope of recovering any of the 1,900 jobs? If he has, we have not. Lastly, when talking about Government aid being available in future, is the hon. Gentleman referring to specific projects which are in prospect, or is it simply a general statement of what might be available if something were to come along?
      Mr. Fletcher: It is fairly obvious to all hon. Members that the market for mechanical watches has drastically reduced. That was the main Timex project at Dundee, and that is why there have been so many redundancies.
      As to the future and electronics, the company has a number of projects in mind. When the company is ready to talk to us about the details of the projects, we shall be more than happy to advise on the amount of Government assistance that can be made available.

      Long-term Unemployment
      Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the increase on long-term unemployment in Scotland.
      Mr. Younger: On 14 October 1982, the latest date for which information is available, 127,837 people in Scotland had been unemployed for more than 12 months.
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      I am very concerned about the high numbers of the long-term unemployed. It is for this reason that the Government have greatly expanded the resources of the community programme to help them.
      Mr. Hamilton: Is the Minister not ashamed of those figures? Does he accept that the White Paper on the Government's expenditure plans for the next three years shows that they expect an increase of about 280,000 unemployed next year in the United Kingdom? Does that not mean an extra 50,000 in Scotland, which would take the figure beyond 400,000? Is that not a disgrace? Does it not call for a radical change in the Government's policies?
      Mr. Younger: It is certainly a matter of great concern that unemployment figures have reached the level that they have and that they have been rising for many years. That is common ground. I think it is generally agreed by almost all economic commentators that it would be sheer cruelty to pretend that in future unemployment will come down rapidly, because it simply will not.
      Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: Is not the paradox of public funds in excess and public funds in stringency at the beginning of the year the reason why long-term unemployment in Scotland is bound to increase unless the Government return to Keynesian principles of investment?
      Mr. Younger: If the right hon. Gentleman means that the Government should expand public spending and thus risk high interest rates, he will get a chorus of "No" to that from everyone in industry.
      Sir Hector Monro: Does my right hon. Friend agree that in the present world recession one of the many outstanding achievements of this Government has been to get inflation down to 5 per cent? Does he further agree that that puts us in a much better position to attract new industry than if we continued with the 25 per cent. inflation bequeathed to us by the Labour party?
      Mr. Younger: My hon. Friend is right. The greatest enemy of jobs in every industry is continued inflation at the levels that the Labour Government seemed content to allow. This Government's great achievement is sensationally getting inflation down to very low figures.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: Is the right hon. Gentleman not concerned about the number of long-term unemployed teachers in Scotland? Will he speculate and estimate the numbers of extra teachers who could be employed in Scotland if regional education authorities were given the grant of £5,000 per child that is available to children of Common Market civil servants?
      Mr. Younger: I am not sure about the latter point. If the hon. Gentleman will put down a question on the matter, I am sure that one of my right hon. or hon. Friends will answer it.
      I am concerned about the numbers of unemployed teachers. However, it should be remembered that teachers are paid out of the public purse, and ratepayers have great difficulty in finding the sums that are now asked of them, let alone any extra sums.
      Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Is it not true that the effective cure for long-term unemployment in Scotland is not merely to encourage industry to be competitive but to encourage small businesses? Will my right hon. Friend

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      take up their representations with my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer before the Budget so that their problems may be taken into account?
      Mr. Younger: I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has received many representations about small businesses and, as we all know, has already done a vast amount to help them through a difficult period. However, the most important way in which to help small businesses is to get down inflation and to avoid interest rates being pushed up again. I am sure that every person involved in small business would agree with that.
      Mr. Millan: Is not the appalling aspect of yesterday's White Paper not only that the Government are forecasting an increase in unemployment of nearly 300,000 in 1983–84, but that that increase will continue up to 1985–86? Is not the real cruelty that the Government are continuing with policies that are causing appalling hardship to the Scottish people?
      Mr. Younger: It depends on what the right hon. Gentleman feels is the responsible action to take. He might care to reflect whether it is better to tell the truth than to voice wholly unjustified and wild aspirations for huge reductions in unemployment, which everyone, including Labour Members, knows could not be brought about by any future Labour Government.

      European Regional Development Fund
      Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what percentage of total European regional development fund grants to the United Kingdom has gone to Scotland in each of the past three calendar years.
      Mr. Alexander Fletcher: The percentage of the United Kingdom quota committed to projects in Scotland was 17·7 in 1980, 35·8 in 1981, and 25 in 1982.
      Mr. Knox: Does my hon. Friend agree that those figures suggest that Scotland is doing very well out of the European regional development fund? Is he satisfied that the grants are sufficiently well publicised and that the public know about them?
      Mr. Fletcher: I agree that Scotland is doing very well out of the European regional development fund. My hon. Friend never loses an opportunity to publicise the fact that Scotland is more and more dependent on grants from, trade with and exports to Europe. Opposition Members should not sneer at that.
      Mr. Carmichael: Does the Minister agree that any contribution to Scotland from the European development fund is deducted by the Scottish Office from the money that would otherwise come from the Treasury, so that ultimately it comes out of the same pocket?
      Mr. Fletcher: I disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The money that comes from the regional fund adds to the total amount of regional assistance not only for Scotland but for the whole of the United Kingdom. Regional development funds which go to local authorities are extremely helpful in reducing borrowing charges and interest rates.
      Sir Russell Fairgrieve: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind the number of jobs that would be at risk in Scotland if we pulled out of the Common Market and that the synthetic remarks made by the right hon. Member for
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      Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) and by the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) are trivial compared with the effect on unemployment if such a disastrous policy were ever invoked?
      Mr. Fletcher: Yes, Sir. Scotland would lose tens of thousands of jobs if the Labour party ever succeeded in withdrawing the United Kingdom from the European Community. I am convinced that most Labour Members are aware of that, although for some reason they are scared to admit it.
      Mr. Harry Ewing: If all that aid from the European regional development fund is being of such help to local authorities, why did the Minister agree to cut Government regional aid to Scotland by 30 per cent. in the financial year 1979–80?
      Mr. Fletcher: As the hon. Gentleman may know, Scotland is still the priority area in the United Kingdom. The largest single special development area in the United Kingdom is in Strathclyde. There can be no question but that Scotland benefits from the Government's regional policy and from the EC's regional fund.
      Mr. Roy Jenkins: I agree that Scotland does very well in relation to the United Kingdom and Europe considering the size of its population. However, does not the Government's refusal to apply the strict principle of additionality—allowing the money to be additional to what would otherwise be spent—reduce the advantage and militate against us obtaining even more from the European regional development fund?
      Mr. Fletcher: I am surprised that that comment should come from a former President of the Commission. The right hon. Gentleman will know that the policy that we have adopted is the same as that undertaken by most—if not all—of the other countries in the Community.
      Mr. Myles: Does my hon. Friend accept that areas such as Banff, Buckie and Keith in my constituency find it a bit hard that the regional development grant has been withdrawn and they cannot now benefit?
      Mr. Fletcher: I sympathise with my hon. Friend, but, as he knows, the regional policy is applied throughout the Community in areas that have been allocated for regional development. He will also be aware of the assistance that is available to his area, particularly from the agricultural fund and other EC sources.

      Public Sector Housing
      Mr. Norman Hoggasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many public sector houses have been built in Scotland since 1979; and how many have been withdrawn from the public housing stock.
      The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Allan Stewart): The number of houses reported as being completed in Scotland between 1 January 1980 and 30 September 1982 for the public sector is 17,300. A further 3,500 houses were financed by the public sector through housing associations. Nearly 28,500 houses were sold—about 27,000 under the right-to-buy—and 5,500 were demolished during the same period.
      Mr. Hogg: Do not these figures show the reality of so-called Tory choice? What hope can the Minister hold out to the many people who wish to be housed by local

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      authorities? Given the massive housing loss represented by the figures, what steps is the Minister taking to initiate a massive house-building programme in Scotland?
      Mr. Stewart: Those figures do not represent a loss to the housing stock. The sale of council houses has no effect on the total housing stock or on the prospects of those seeking houses and transfers. During that period there were about 53,000 new house completions in Scotland. As an owner-occupier in Cumbernauld, the hon. Gentleman may be interested to know that, as a result of the sales policy, more than 1,300 tenants in Cumbernauld became owner-occupiers during that period.
      Mr. Ancram: How many empty houses are there in the public sector in Scotland, and how many of them could be rehabilitated for use? Does my hon. Friend agree that in the present economic climate rehabilitation would be a better and cheaper way of dealing with housing waiting lists than a much lengthier and more costly new house-building programme?
      Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend is right. The Government are concentrating resources on rehabilitation. There are about 29,000 vacant public sector houses in Scotland, according to the last census figures.
      Mr. Dewar: How can the Under-Secretary of State have the brass neck to say that the diminution in the size of the public sector housing stock, which is amply illustrated by the figures, has no effect on the prospects of those on waiting lists? Does the hon. Gentleman not know that every week constituents who are trapped in houses that are unsuitable to their needs and in areas that they do not like make representations to all hon. Members, because their choice has been destroyed by the Government's housing policies? Is it not true that by 1985–86 there will have been a cut, in real terms, of over 20 per cent., and that that is illustrated by the figures in the White Paper published yesterday?
      Mr. Stewart: The sale of council houses to sitting tenants has no effect on the prospects of those currently seeking houses or transfers, for the simple reason that, if tenants do not buy their houses, they are likely to carry on renting. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that last year improvement and repair grants in Glasgow amounted to about £6·5 million and that Glasgow district council estimates its expenditure next year to be between £40 million and £50 million. Even the hon. Gentleman cannot define that as a cut.

      Western Isles (Psychogeriatric Services)
      Mr. Donald Stewartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will take steps to improve psychogeriatric services in the Western Isles.
      The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John MacKay): Responsibility for services in the Western Isles is a matter for the Western Isles health board in the first instance. I have, however, undertaken to discuss with the right hon. Gentleman any suggestions he may care to make.
      Mr. Stewart: I thank the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that doctors and hospitals in the area are deeply concerned about what they describe as a "crisis point", and that it is against current psychiatric practice to fly patients away from their homes to Inverness, where they are out
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      of reach of visits from their relatives and friends? When considering the allocation for the Western Isles in the plans for Craig Dunain hospital, will he try to ensure that a hospital is built instead in the Western Isles?
      Mr. MacKay: I share the right hon. Gentleman's view that the arrangement is not ideal, but, after many years of considering the planning, it has been decided that it represents the best use of available resources. As the right hon. Gentleman probably knows, the health board has submitted a request for approval of a post for a consultant psychiatrist, and we are considering that.
      Mr. Dalyell: Do Ministers recollect the telegram that was sent by the imaginative Labour candidate for Western Isles, Brian Wilson, which said "Send Shackleton here"? How do Ministers justify the hypocrisy that when money is needed in the Western Isles or for investment in West Lothian, £684 million has been earmarked next year for West Falkland?
      Mr. MacKay: The relevance of that question almost escapes me. If the hon. Gentleman considered the whole sphere of psychiatric care in the Western Isles, he might begin to understand the health care patterns there. Perhaps I am being a little optimistic, given that the hon. Gentleman does not understand the needs of the Falkland Islanders.
      Mr. Robert Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that I should like to raise a point of order at the end of Question Time as a result of an answer given by the Under-Secretary of State.

      Children (Pre-school Facilities)
      Mr. Strangasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what guidance he has given to regional councils on the provision of children's centres, nursery and playgroup facilities for pre-school children.
      Mr. John MacKay: None, Sir.
      Mr. Strang: Is the Minister aware of the damage being done to young children in Lothian as a result of the cuts that have already been made in nursery education? Does he support the provision of full-time pre-school education, and does he recognise that the children in greatest need suffer most from the cuts?
      Mr. MacKay: Nursery education is a matter for my hon. Friend the Minister responsible for education, and the provision of local services is a matter for the local authority. However, the Government are keen to encourage the various types of pre-school attention that can be given to young children. We are particularly keen to help the Scottish Pre-school Playgroups Association, to which we have given £89,000 to enable it to carry out some of its headquarters work.
      Mr. David Steel: The Minister's answer is surprising, as his Department has given no guidance on these matters to local authorities. Will he undertake to ask the Department to examine the regulations that each region in Scotland has published on the subject and to consider the wide variations in them? Will he ask the Department to note that in the Lothian region, for example, the regulations result in extremely high fees for day nurseries—sometimes more than £50 a week? Will he encourage the voluntary participation of parents through the playgroup scheme?
      Mr. MacKay: We shall do everything possible to encourage voluntary participation through the playgroup scheme. Neither the present Government nor the previous one have felt it necessary to give the guidance for which the right hon. Gentleman has asked. It is up to each local authority to examine the needs of its area and decide how best to provide for pre-school playgroups.
      Sir Hector Monro: Does my hon. Friend agree that since the publication 11 years ago of the White Paper that encouraged nursery education and pre-school playgroups, such provision has been exceptionally valuable to children? Will he think again about making a strong recommendation to education authorities to do all that they can, especially for pre-school playgroups?
      Mr. MacKay: At the risk of repeating myself, I must say that the Government would like to and do encourage the pre-school playgroup movement. Adding to nursery education is a matter for my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, North (Mr. Fletcher), and it should be considered in the light of whether we want to reduce the school starting age. I sometimes think that that is what some of the advocates of that policy want.
      Mr. O'Neill: Does the Minister agree that there is considerable value in pre-school education in all its forms and that the Government made a grave mistake by removing the statutory obligation on local authorities to make such a provision under the Education Act 1980? Does he accept that pre-school provision in Scotland is an accident of geography and that it is no fault of the children or their parents that they are unable to benefit from such a provision throughout the country? Does he agree that a great deal more needs to be done?
      Mr. MacKay: At the moment, 80,000 children all over Scotland benefit from pre-school provision of various types. My view and that of the Government is that the preschool playgroup, involving parents and children as it does, is the best way to improve that provision.

      Unemployed Construction Workers (Glasgow)
      Mr. Maxtonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what are the latest figures he has for the number of construction workers who are unemployed in the Glasgow travel-to-work area.
      Mr. Allan Stewart: In May 1982, the date of the last industrial analysis of unemployed workers, 14,390 persons who had last worked in the construction industry were registered as unemployed at employment and careers offices in the Glasgow travel-to-work area.
      Mr. Maxton: Is the Minister prepared to give a guarantee now that if Glasgow district council comes to him with an urgent request for funds to pay for damage that has been done by the storms that swept the west of Scotland on Monday night, he will deal with that request speedily and ensure that some of the construction workers who are at present unemployed are given at least temporary employment and that the many people who are suffering from the damage will be given quick relief?
      Mr. Stewart: We have been considering arrangements for emergency provision. I shall of course consider any representation that we receive from Glasgow district council, or any other district council, with the necessary urgency.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Does my hon. Friend appreciate that many of the people who are attempting to recruit construction workers from the dole have found it impossible to persuade them to leave the dole to entertain jobs?
      Mr. Maxton: Rubbish.
      Mr. Stewart: I am interested to hear my hon. and learned Friend's views on these matters. However, with regard to Glasgow, perhaps I should point out that the district council has responded positively to the Government's attractive financial package of improvement and repair grants which the council calculates will create between 2,000 and 3,000 new construction jobs next year.
      Mr. James Hamilton: Will the Minister ignore the slur that his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) has cast on construction workers? Is he aware that my constituency is in the Glasgow travel-to-work area? Is it not time to have an expansionist policy to ensure that we get men back to work in the construction industry, with all the benefits that will follow from that? Will he co-operate with the abolition of labour-only subcontractors, who are eating into the construction industry by not paying taws or insurance contributions?
      Mr. Stewart: The hon. Gentleman will agree that Glasgow is receiving a fair share of the £1,000 millon or so of public expenditure on construction that will be spent in Scotland this year. The Glasgow area continues to benefit from major public and private investment, such as the Scottish exhibition centre and the St. Enoch's complex. With regard to the hon. Gentleman's detailed points, he may be interested to know that I shall discuss the state of the industry with the Scottish construction industry group on Friday.
      Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: Is it not regrettable that so many construction workers are unemployed when the Government have money, but unfortunately make it available late in the day so that these schemes in Glasgow have difficulty in catching up? Will Ministers shake themselves up and make the money available at the beginning of the financial year, rather than trail away at the end of the year, trying to find people to carry them out?
      Mr. Stewart: The money to which the right hon. Gentleman refers is available until the end of the next financial year. I should have thought that that was ample time.
      Mr. Corrie: Does my hon. Friend agree that many more construction jobs would be created in Glasgow if local authorities released land for private house building? Is there nothing that he can do about that?
      Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend has made a valid point. It is encouraging to note how much land in Glasgow has been released for private construction in the GEAR area. In co-operation with the local authorities, I inter d to consider land that is held by them and the rest of the public sector to see whether we can make progress in the direction that my hon. Friend suggested.
      Mr. McQuarrie rose—
      Hon. Members: Call Albert.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. That is a pleasure deferred.
      Mr. McKelvey: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I had thought that, as Kilmarnock is in the Glasgow travel-to-work area, I might have caught your eye.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. Glasgow is a very big city; it is bigger than Cardiff. I cannot call every hon. Member from Glasgow, but I shall watch the hon. Gentleman as the afternoon progresses.

      Constitutional Reform
      Mr. Home Robertsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress has been made with the intentions of Her Majesty's Government to hold discussions about the future government of Scotland.
      Mr. George Younger: Discussions about the future government of Scotland have been held and changes were introduced in the procedures of this House affecting the Scottish Grand Committee, including provision for meetings in Edinburgh.
      Mr. Home Robertson: Will the right hon. Gentleman reflect on the declarations of a Tory commitment to devolution that were given by Lord Home, the right hon. Members for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) and for North Angus and Mearns (Mr. Buchanan-Smith), and even the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs? Does he believe that road shows of Committees of the House are any substitute for Scottish devolution?
      Mr. Younger: The hon. Gentleman does not do much service to the people who work in Parliament for Scotland if he suggests that meetings of the Scottish Grand Committee are not worth having.
      Mr. Donald Stewart: They are a waste of time.
      Mr. Younger: All previous Governments, including the Labour Government, maintained that such meetings were impossible, yet the Government have achieved it.
      Mr. Grimond: Can the Secretary of State tell us whether the Government are in favour of Scottish devolution and there being some real power in Scotland? Or are they against it, or are they waiting to be told what to do by some other party?
      Mr. Younger: It depends on what the right hon. Gentleman means. If he means an extra layer of government, and taxes on the Scots to pay for it, I am against it and I believe that most of Scotland is, too.
      Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: As we have serious economic problems, does my right hon. Friend agree that this is not the time to contemplate a major upheaval?
      Mr. Donald Stewart: That is why we need it.
      Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Will my right hon. Friend do everything in his power to encourage further decentralisation, such as has happened with the headquarters of the Forestry Commission, which now operates extremely successfully from my constituency?
      Mr. Younger: There is a great deal of responsibility that can be devolved in that way. I detect little interest in Scotland in a new round of vast and interminable constitutional arguments when there are much more important things to do.
      Mr. McKelvey: Will the Secretary of State consider supporting the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) on the future of the Scottish Parliament?
      Mr. Younger: The hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. Canavan) is not here to speak to his Bill, but I am bound to say that such a Bill supported by the hon. Gentleman is not likely to get much support from me.
      Mr. Gordon Wilson: As the Secretary of State in Cabinet and the Labour party in Scotland have lost the battle with English colleagues over the proposed dilution of industrial incentive schemes in Scotland, does he not now think that it is time that Scotland had a Parliament equipped with industrial and economic powers, and with access to the oil revenues that are Scotland's by right?
      Mr. Younger: I do not know how the hon. Gentleman has the cheek even to raise his head on the subject of devolution, considering that his party is the one party that is resolutely opposed to every conceivable form of devolution because it wants to break Scotland off from the rest of the United Kingdom.
      Sir Russell Fairgrieve: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, despite the furore and interesting views expressed in the past decade on devolution, if his constituency is anything like mine, at present there is no interest in that subject?
      Mr. Younger: I agree with my hon. Friend. As I have said, I do not detect anyone in Scotland who is keen to pay extra taxes for an extra layer of government.
      Mr. Harry Ewing: Does the Secretary of State not regret that his first act as Secretary of State was to take the Scotland Act of the statute book? Is he aware that the people of Scotland now appreciate that their only chance of a Scottish Assembly is when a Labour Government come to power? Is he further aware that when the Labour party comes to power after the next election it will set up a Scottish Assembly, which will meet in Edinburgh?
      Mr. Younger: I was interested in the hon. Gentleman's forecast. I shall leave a note for my grandson so that he can notice this, when a Labour Government come to power. The hon. Gentleman should be careful about making any commitments on devolution. He must know as well as everyone else in the House that he has no chance of carrying all the members of his party with him on that subject.

      Geriatric and Psychogeriatric Beds (Kirkcaldy)
      Mr. Gourlayasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many additional geriatric and psychogeriatric beds, respectively, are to be provided in the Kirkcaldy area; and when he expects them to be available for patients.
      Mr. John MacKay: Sixty additional geriatric beds, 90 additional psychogeriatric beds together with 30 short-stay psychiatric beds and 80 day places are being provided in the new Whyteman's Brae development. Building work is expected to be completed in March and Fife health board intends to admit the first patients in June or July of this year.
      Mr. Gourlay: The Minister's reply will help to alleviate the tragic conditions faced by many elderly

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      people on the waiting list. Nevertheless, the position of those who are still waiting to use the day facilities to which he referred will be seriously aggravated because of the Government's refusal to give the necessary finance for the eight additional ambulances required to convey those patients to and from hospital. What action does the Minister intend to take to remedy that position?
      Mr. MacKay: Of course, new day hospitals place a heavy demand on patient transport. At present the ambulance service can fund two additional vehicles for Kirkcaldy. Further provision for taking the patients to the day centre is being examined.
      Mr. Henderson: Is my hon. Friend aware that people in Fife much appreciate the extent to which the Government have made a positive contribution, both in works under way and authorised, to medical care? Does he recognise that geriatric and psychogeriatric care needs continuing attention in Fife, as in some other parts of the country—
      Mr. Speaker: Is Fife in Kirkcaldy?
      Mr. Henderson: No.
      Mr. McQuarrie: Kirkcaldy is in Fife.
      Mr. Speaker: I apologise.
      Mr. MacKay: My hon. Friend is right in saying that, not just in Fife, but throughout Scotland, we must give a higher priority to the needs of the elderly, who are a growing section of our population. In 1981 the Fife health board made available 60 new geriatric beds. Over the next few years a further 360 beds for geriatric and psychogeriatric patients will be available in Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy. When those beds are available, Fife will have moved a considerable way towards meeting the desirable standards of provision for the elderly.
      Mr. Harry Ewing: Contrary to what the hon. Member for Fife, East (Mr. Henderson) said, is the Minister aware that the Whyteman's Brae development is the Labour Government's proposal? Construction work began when the Labour Government were in office. Is the Minister further aware that his record in all areas of medicine, whether psychiatric, geriatric of paediatric care, is an absolute disgrace, because he has not yet announced the laying of a new brick in any new hospital building programme in Scotland? He is the last person who should come to the Dispatch Box and claimed credit for any improvement in the National Health Service. No one has done more to damage the NHS than the Minister.
      Mr. MacKay: The hon. Gentleman ought to know that the planning of hospital development takes a long time. Advanced works are under way for the new West Lothian district general hospital at Livingston and there are contracts for the first phase of work at the Western general hospital. A number of relatively smaller projects keep going on. If we get to the hon. Gentleman's question on the Order Paper, I shall state what development there has been in Falkirk. [Interruption.] In response to the seated interventions, when hon. Members asked me about developments in Scotland, I explained the developments in Fife.

      Unemployed Teachers
      Mr. James Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many teachers are unemployed (a) in Scotland, and (b) in the Strathclyde region.
      Mr. Alexander Fletcher: On 9 September 1982, the latest date for which information is available, 3,851 people were registered for employment as teachers in Scotland, of whom 1,657 were registered in Strathclyde.
      Mr. Hamilton: Does the Minister recognise that those are not accurate figures, bearing in mind that many teachers are working in more menial jobs? Does he also recognise that it is now opportune to reduce the pupil-teacher ratio from 33:1 to 25:1? Does he agree that the supply of clothing and footwear for needy children should be a matter for the DHSS? If that were transferred back to the DHSS, Strathclyde alone could employ 125 more teachers. Will he pull his finger out and get cracking.
      Mr. Fletcher: I am happy to say to the hon. Gentleman that the pupil-teacher ratios in Scotland are the best ever—14:1 in secondary and 22:1 in primary.
      Mr. Maclennan: Why has the Secretary of State been so dilatory in bringing forward proposals to provide for a graduate teaching profession in Scotland? Why is he not protecting Scottish teachers, who will be disadvantaged and excluded from teaching in England and Wales as a result of the regulations introduced by the Secretary of State for Education and Science early last year?
      Mr. Fletcher: The hon. Gentleman is questioning why my right hon. Friend should be carrying out careful consultations with the teaching authorities before making any announcement on the matter. If, as is unlikely, the hon. Gentleman ever has any responsibility for education in Scotland, the first thing that he will learn is the importance of such consultations.
      Mr. Bill Walker: Does my hon. Friend agree that it was unrealistic over many years, with declining school rolls because of the decline in the birth rate, to continue to have teachers trained when there was no prospect of them ever finding jobs? We should use the opportunity now to weed out those who should no longer be teaching.
      Mr. Fletcher: My hon. Friend is absolutely correct on his first point. If we had taken the advice of the Labour party, we would be producing more teachers today in the face of declining school rolls. The number of unemployed would be higher. However, the Government and the local authorities have taken a much more sensible view.
      Mr. O'Neill: Does the Minister agree that yesterday's White Paper suggests that the teacher-pupil ratios in secondary education will deteriorate over the next three years? Instead of allowing for a reduction in teacher training there should be an increase, especially when one takes into account the challenges facing the teaching profession, with Munn and Dunning and so on. Is it any wonder that the report published at the weekend, reported in the press, stated that morale in the teaching service in Scotland is at its lowest ebb for 30 years?
      Mr. Fletcher: That report was not particularly authoritative on that subject. The Government are taking fully into account the impact on teaching of, for example, the Munn and Dunning proposals. There is no getting away from the fact that the pupil-teacher ratios are the best

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      ever, and that in Scotland there are the best opportunities this year, next year and in the years thereafter for improving the quality of education of our children, which is what the House wants.

      Closures and Company Liquidations
      Mr. David Steelasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many closures and company liquidations there have been in the area covered by the Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles constituency in the past six months.
      Mr. Younger: Comprehensive statistics of factory closures and liquidations are not available by area. However, there has been one instance of redundancy notified to the MSC involving 10 or more workers and arising in the context of closure during the period August 1982 to January 1983.
      Mr. Steel: Is the Secretary of State for Scotland aware that people in my constituency, as elsewhere in Scotland, become increasingly depressed when they read in their local papers week by week of partial or complete closures of companies? Is he aware that the CBI industrial trends survey published yesterday forecast that over the next six months investment in manufacturing industry would decrease further? Will he use his leverage in the Cabinet to get the Chancellor of the Exchequer to produce a Budget that will be of real help to investment in industry?
      Mr. Younger: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is extremely discouraging to see reports of jobs being lost and firms being closed. However, it is also encouraging when one sees expansions and success stories, as he has had, for example, in his constituency with Fiber Materials Incorporated, Exacta Circuits and BEPI Electronics. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is desirable that the Government should continue their important work in making life easier for industry, particularly by reducing the national insurance surcharge, introduced capriciously by the previous Government and acknowledged by them as having done nothing useful.

    SOLICITOR-GENERAL FOR SCOTLAND

      Armed Trespass
      Sir Hector Monroasked the Solicitor-General for Scotland if he considers the law on armed trespass is working satisfactorily.
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland (Mr. Peter Fraser): Few difficulties have arisen in connection with enforcing the provisions of section 20 of the Firearms Act 1968, which deals with armed trespass. Problems arose when proceedings were instituted in 1981 in two cases of alleged armed trespass in an area known as the "Merse" in my hon. Friend's constituency. These cases gave rise to questions of a civil rather than criminal nature.
      Sir Hector Monro: Does my hon. and learned Friend realise that there is anxiety about the implementation of the Act in relation to wildfowling in the Merse and on the foreshore? Will he try to resolve the matter without relying on private litigation?
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: This offence of armed trespass can be tried only summarily in Scotland. Difficult civil issues arise out of the ownership of the land
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      and who is entitled to go out to that part of the Merse. The matter can be resolved only by the owners raising an action of declarator.

      Social Security (Investigations)
      Mr. McKelveyasked the Solicitor-General for Scotland how many prosecutions are being pursued in the Kilmarnock area as a result of the investigations by the special investigation team attached to the Department of Health and Social Security.
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: None, Sir.
      Mr. McKelvey: I am glad to hear that answer, because it vindicates the honest people of Kilmarnock. Does the Solicitor-General agree that the Government could spend their money better by seeking those who are not being paid the benefits due to them, particularly the elderly and the handicapped, either because they are not claiming the benefits or they have been refused?
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The matter that the hon. General has put to me is one with which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would have to deal. I should be involved only if there were cases reported to the procurator fiscal that suggested that there had been criminal fraud in relation to social security.
      Mr. Hugh D. Brown: Has the Solicitor-General's attention been drawn to the fiasco that took place in Oxford, when the legal rights of many citizens were trampled on? While recognising the difficult job of the DHSS in preventing fraud and checking on possible theft, can he assure us that he will not allow similar circumstances to arise in Scotland?
      Mr. Fairbairn: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Assuming that Fife is in Kirkcaldy, is Oxford in Kilmarnock?
      Mr. Speaker: I have not yet absorbed the first geography lesson.
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I am obviously aware of the action that was taken in Oxford. I draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that in Scotland, as he is aware, we have the procurator fiscal system. If there were to be any allegations of fraudulent activity involving social security, they would need to be reported to the procurator fiscal if any action were to be taken in court.
      Mr. Harry Ewing: Will the Solicitor-General obtain a copy of the booklet issued by the DHSS as instructions to social security fraud investigators and consider those instructions with a view to deciding whether they amount to harassment of the suspect?
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I shall certainly look at that matter, but I am not aware that any complaints have been made to the procurators fiscal in Scotland of harassment of claimants.

      Prosecutions (Alcohol Offences)
      Mr. Ancramasked the Solicitor-General for Scotland how many prosecutions have been brought by his Department for offences involving alcohol over the Christmas and new year holiday periods; and whether these figures show a decrease or increase on the figures for comparable periods in the previous year.
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: It is not possible to provide figures of the type requested by my hon. Friend. What I can say from the information available to me is that prosecutions this year for offences committed in the relevant period directly relating to the abuse of alcohol, such as drunk and incapable and drunk and disorderly are at the same level as the same period in 1981–82. Provisional figures for drink-driving offences over the recent holiday period show a small rise over the comparable period in 1981–82.
      Mr. Ancram: I thank my hon. and learned Friend for that reply. Does he agree that the statistics are still disturbing and that this anti-social, if seasonal, crime requires a greater degree of Government control? Will he consult his right hon. and hon. Friends in the Scottish Office to see whether there are ways of impressing upon people, before the next festivities, that that type of crime will be prosecuted vigorously? In that way it may be that people will be deterred.
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: My hon. Friend will be aware that in Scotland over the Christmas period chief constables made a particular effort to ensure that drunken driving did not occur. From his experience in the Scottish courts, I am sure he will appreciate that all too often the excessive consumption of alcohol is a prime factor in the unfortunate level of crime that we experience.
      Mr. Tom Clarke: Is the Solicitor-General aware that many people believe that this matter is so important that it calls for a massive advertising campaign? Will he therefore consult his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, as, apparently, there is a great deal of money available for such purposes?
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I should certainly be prepared to consult my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland who, I believe, is regrettably all too well aware of the problem of the excessive consumption of alcohol in Scotland.
      Mr. Maxtonasked the Solicitor-General for Scotland, against how many persons charges related to drunkenness were brought by his Department in each of the last two years for which figures are available.
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The number of persons proceeded against in such cases is as follows: for drunkenness offences under the Licensing (Scotland) Acts and so on in 1980 the figure was 14,459 and in 1981 11,579; for drink-driving offences the figure in 1980 was 12,779 and in 1981 11,460.
      Mr. Maxton: How many of the people who have been picked up by the police for drunkenness have been referred to a designated place under section 5 of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980? Is he satisfied that the police are making proper use of that section? Is he satisfied equally that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is providing sufficient money to establish proper designated places?
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the provisions under section 5 came into effect on 1 June 1981. As he clearly realises from the terms of his quetion, the matter is one for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, but even then the responsibility for the provision of designated places is for local authorities and other bodies. Proposals
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      have been received for designated places in Aberdeen, Clydebank, Inverness and Glasgow. I share his anxiety that designated places should be provided where appropriate.
      Mr. Maclennan: Does the Solicitor-General keep statistics that show not just the charges relating to drunkenness but where drink was a factor that led to the commission of the offence?
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: No, although I believe that the hon. Gentleman is correct. Far too often excessive drinking is at the centre of much of Scotland's crime. It would be impossible to keep statistics in all cases that would show whether drink was involved. He will appreciate, from his experience in the courts, that drink can be a prime factor, in crimes ranging from murder down to simple acts of vandalism.
      Mr. Arthur Lewis: I apologise for taking part in Scottish questions, but as this is a national problem, may I ask the Solicitor-General to discuss with various Departments the equally dangerous habit of drug-taking and driving? Many people who have taken drugs do not know that they are a danger on the road. Could they be told to be careful when taking drugs? They take drugs for colds and other illnesses and the doctors do not advise them of the dangers.
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: Although the matter is not primarily my responsibility, I accept that if people take drugs and drive it can lead them into circumstances where they will not only be in breach of the road traffic legislation, but may commit other crimes.

      Procurator Fiscal (Perth)
      Mr. Bill Walkerasked the Solicitor-General for Scotland when he next expects to meet the procurator fiscal of Perth to discuss prosecution procedures.
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I have no immediate plans to meet the procurator fiscal of Perth.
      Mr. Walker: When my hon. and learned Friend meets the procurator fiscal of Perth and other procurators fiscal, will he discuss with them the problem of those who plead guilty on second diet and see what he can do to ensure that the procurators fiscal persuade them to plead guilty on first diet, before public funds must bear the cost of bringing police officers and witnesses to court, when the individual has decided to plead guilty without going to trial?
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: I know that my hon. Friend is worried that there are too many cases where a plea of guilty is tendered on the day of the trial. However, I emphasise that my noble and learned Friend the Lord Advocate has given instructions to the procurators fiscal that it is part of their duties to meet defence solicitors to discuss the evidence available to the Crown, to arrange minutes of admissions of evidence and to give defence solicitors copies of statements of witnesses whose evidence is regarded as formal or technical. I hope that defence solicitors will take up the initiative, which should result in many members of the public, both witnesses and jurors, being allowed to stay at home and not be required to attend court.
      Mr. Dewar: Is it not a little surprising that the Solicitor-General and his colleagues should be so worried

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      about this problem, when they legislated for it in the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 1980 with intermediate diets and judicial examination procedures? Is the reason for the anxiety the fact that those provisions have been only a limited success, or even a failure?
      The Solicitor-General for Scotland: No, it is not. The hon. Gentleman told me himself that there is surprising success in the use of judicial examinations.
      Mr. Gregor MacKenzie: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I hesitate to raise such a point of order, and I believe that it is the first that I have raised in my 18 or 19 years in the House. You will recall, Mr. Speaker, that we have dealt with only 12 Scottish questions today. You may respond, properly, by saying that perhaps the questions, or the answers, were too long. However, my point is that there are more than 40 Labour Members, three Liberal Members, two Scottish Nationalist Members and three SDP Members on the Opposition Benches, and more than
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      20 Members of the Conservative party here. In calling hon. Members, as you do properly, on a geographical basis, it gives the Conservative party an advantage of 2:1 over thase of us who represent Labour interests in the House of Commons. Although I do not ask you to make a judgment now, perhaps at some stage you will consider this real problem for those of us who sit on the Opposition Benches.
      Mr. Speaker: One advantage of having been in the House for a long time is knowing that whatever happens now has happened before. When I had the great privilege of speaking on Welsh affairs in the House, one side of the House had 32 Members representing Welsh constituencies out of 36 and the other side had four such Members. None the less, the Speaker of the day felt obliged to hold the balance in the political sense and to cross the Floor both in the Welsh Grand Committee, of which I was chairman, and here. But of course, I shall consider what the right hon. Gentleman said.

Right Hon. Member for Devonport (Speech)
3.33 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I hesitate to raise a point of order again, but I wrote to you this morning about the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen), who last Tuesday made very serious statements that were contradicted by the former chief of defence staff. I draw to your attention the fact that the newspaper report to which you referred yesterday is, on scrutiny, extremely ambiguous. The right hon. Member for Devonport has some obligation to come to the House and make a personal statement.
Mr. Speaker: I received the hon. Gentleman's letter this morning, but I must tell him and the House that it is no good believing that raising repeated points of order will cause a right hon. or hon. Member to be called to make a personal statement. I cannot intervene in this matter, and I hope that the House now understands that.

Prime Minister's Question Time
3.35 pm
Mr. Bob Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is a matter with which you are concerned. I have read the Hansard report of your statement yesterday, for which the House is grateful, in which you said that you would call a conference of all the parties
"to consider the outrageous way in which Prime Minister's Question Time is being ruined."—[Official Report, 1 February 1983; Vol. 36, c. 144.]
You may recall, Mr. Speaker, that that followed a point of order raised by me when I suggested that there could be a better way of distributing the opportunities to be called at Prime Minister's Question Time. Obviously, the most effective and fair method of doing so must be discussed, because it will always cause some controversy.
I suggested giving priority to those who had taken the trouble to table questions to the Prime Minister. I hope that you can confirm that, when you call the conference with the parties, my original suggestion, made also by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis), that a new method should be adopted and that we should eradicate the privilege that attaches to Privy Councillorship in this place, as is widely believed, will be considered by the conference in addition to the point that you made.
Mr. Andrew Faulds rose—
Mr. David Winnick rose—
Mr. Arthur Lewis rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I can enlighten the House. I hope that the respective parties will meet in Speaker's House today. Of course, we shall discuss broad issues. I am not trying to bulldoze anything through the House, but I wish to know the will of the House. We shall not resolve the matter here with points of order—although if they are reasonable I shall not discourage them—but we shall meet later today and talk. Nothing will be done without the House being made fully aware of it, because the House's special pride is Question Time.
Mr. Lewis: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I thank you for your kindness in advising the House of this meeting. If the meeting is to take place today, although it may be difficult, would you take it amiss if an hon. Member were to pass a note or a letter into your office stating his ideas and suggestions? In the past, Speakers have not been so prompt in dealing with ideas and suggestions such as you have mentioned. Does that preclude hon. Members from going to your office even today and handing in a note or letter? Several hon. Members have come to me with ideas and suggestions and I have said, "Drop a note into Mr. Speaker's Office"— [Laughter]—Yes. "Drop a note into Mr. Speaker's Office, because if Mr. Speaker does not know, he cannot consider it."
Mr. Faulds rose—
Mr. Winnick rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Before I take any further points of order, I shall answer the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis), who always makes reasonable points. Hon. Members will be very welcome to come to my Office one at a time or to put in their written points

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of view, which I should be glad to receive. As for the hon. Gentleman telling people to write to me, from time to time, when I have received a flood of correspondence about the appalling noise during Prime Minister's Question Time, I have advised many people to write to their Members of Parliament.
Mr. Winnick: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will understand that, whatever system is used, because of the number of hon. Members who wish to catch your eye at Prime Minister's Question Time, it will be very difficult for an hon. Member to be called. I hope that you will bear it in mind that there are advantages for Back Benchers in the open question as opposed to another type of question, and bear it in mind that we must table oral questions two weeks in advance. If we put down a question for the Prime Minister that is not relevant two weeks later, we are stuck with that question. There are advantages in the open question for those who are not Privy Councillors.
Mr. Speaker: I am much obliged to the hon. Member.
Mr. Faulds: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. As my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Cryer) has pointed out, you stated yesterday that you would convene a conference to discuss the "outrageous way" in which Prime Minister's Question Time was "being ruined". That was reported in c. 144 of the Official Report. That statement arose out of two points of order, one by my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and the other by my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) on the abuse of their privileges by Privy Councillors. I am rising to ask—this is an extension of this matter—whether a related matter could be examined by the conference at the same time. Privy Councillors have the first call on catching your eye in every debate. Perhaps we ordinary Back Benchers must just learn to endure that.
When we have a series of debates, such as we had on the Falklands, and not just a single debate, is the practice fair of giving priority in every debate to Privy Councillors? The House had to endure during those debates a small bunch—it was a small bunch—of Privy Councillors who abused their privilege by speaking, some every time and most of them a number of times, in those debates, so effectively debarring a larger number of Back Benchers from being called.
Could the conference consider whether it is proper that a dreary parade of Privy Councillors should impose their predictable views on the House when there is a running series of debates on one issue? Some Privy Councillors seem so arrogantly self-important that they are incapable of a considerate self-denying ordinance when the opportunity presents itself.
Mr. Speaker: I understand that the hon. Gentleman has expressed an opinion that is the feeling of a great number of hon. Members. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] What I can do about it is another matter. I shall consider the matter. I think that it is a matter for the Select Committee on Procedure rather than for me if we are to change conventions in the House.
Mr. George Cunningham rose—
Mr. Speaker: I shall come to the hon. Member for Islington, South and Finsbury (Mr. Cunningham). I do not want to rush, because as a rule we do not rush deciding our conventions. That is why I did not want to take the decision on myself. I wanted to have the feeling of all the parties, which I shall do later today.
Mr. Cunningham: Might there not be some difficulty if the so-called conference is made up primarily of Privy Councillors who would be dealing with the point that has been made. Could you throw light on this, Mr. Speaker? When the House makes use of a Speaker's Conference for other purposes, the result of that Speaker's Conference is normally put before the House and implemented by the House without going through any intermediary body such as a Select Committee. Indeed, the Speaker's Conference is seen as an alternative to putting a matter to a Select Committee. Is it not the intention of the conference that you are to begin today that it should make recommendations to the House for implementation without those matters being considered by the Select Committee on Procedure, which, of course, would have to be set up, because the present Select Committee on Procedure is not authorised to consider these matters?
Mr. Speaker: Quite right. It would be much wiser if the House awaited the informal discussions, whose title has been elevated into that of a conference, that I shall have later this evening with representatives of each of the parties. I shall come back to the House to see whether any action is proposed, but it will be a matter for the House itself.
Mr. Robert Maclennan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would you clarify what you delivered by way of an obiter dictum in reply to the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis)? When referring to the tiresome issue of noise in the House, you said that you advised correspondents who wrote to you in large numbers to write to their Member of Parliament? Could you say when you do so that you do not suggest by implication that the individual Member of Parliament is responsible? It is well known to the House that the source of noise is extremely limited and that very few are responsible for it.
Mr. Speaker: I think it right and proper for the House to know that the public is appalled by the noise in the House during Prime Minister's Question Time. The House might as well realise it. I have often told hon. Members that I am trying to get order. Therefore, it is to Members that the public ought to write. Every citizen of this country has a Member of Parliament of his own. I encourage people to tell their Members what they think of this matter and not to tell me. I know what I think about it.
Mr. Faulds rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall hear the last point of order from the hon. Gentleman, because this is developing into a conversation.
Mr. Faulds: I enjoy conversations, Mr. Speaker. Would the answer to the problem of noise in the House which so offends the public be very simply resolved if we were to decide as a House to get rid of these damned microphones?
Mr. Speaker: Order. That is another question for the House.

Education in Prisons
3.45 pm
Mr. Harry Greenway: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require the provision of educational facilities in prisons and other custodial institutions; and for connected purposes.
The purpose of the Bill is to ensure by law the development of a range of educational facilities in prisons so that prisoners may, according to their different needs, have the opportunity of experiencing to their betterment a purposeful and positive aspect of life. I speak as one who has regularly visited prisons and other penal establishments for more than 20 years.
The reality of imprisonment in 1983 is that we are allowing men and women to live in conditions that increase their disaffection and inadequacy. By doing that we increase the chances that when they are released they will fail to cope with the world outside and so return to prison. Present conditions in prison are helping to produce recidivism. I should be very wary of saying that on my own authority, for I know that I shall be accused of exaggeration. What I have just said is simply a summary of the analysis of the situation given by the Chief Inspector of Prisons in his report for 1981, which is the latest one available.
The factor in the present prison regime that is doing the damage is idleness and lack of occupation for the prisoner and stimulation for his mind. Lest I be accused of exaggeration, let me quote the words of the Chief Inspector of Prisons about what he found in several prisons:
"Prisoners locked up for 22 hours a day, or more, for days on end with nothing to do all day."
About training prisons, he said:
"One training prison with a population of 745 had 200 men locked up in their cells all day because of lack of work."
Some prisoners who were recorded as being at work were really idle. He said:
"Domestic work in particular was occupying so many at some establishments that there was very little for any individual to do."
All that is verbatim quotation.
Ideally, of course, everybody would want thriving prison industries, offering a good day's work to the prisoner and some profit to the taxpayer to offset the cost of prisons. But, alas, this simply is not possible. There are too few orders. In 1981–82, out of a total of 305 prison workshops, 212 worked for less than half time or at less than half capacity. The chief inspector is too clear about this matter for comfort. He said:
"It may well be sensible to accept that production for sale must cease entirely until the market picks up".
How can we occupy prisoners and prevent their descent into inadequacy and dependence if there is no industry? The only real alternative is education. The chief inspector states this just as clearly.
Let me deal at once with two arguments that will certainly be put against what I have said. The first is that prisoners do not really work at education—that it is a joke to them and an excuse to shirk and gossip. I have received many letters from ex-prisoners that tell me otherwise, and hon. Members may see them if they wish.
There is, however, more general and objective evidence—examination results. Good examination results are not achieved without hard work, and prison education departments get very good examination results indeed. I take one set of examinations at random—the City and
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Guilds of London examinations. In 1978, nearly 1,000 students from prisons took those examinations and the pass rate was 88 per cent. I am told that it has been even better since. To say that prisoners do not work at education is against the evidence.
The second argument is that prisoners are sent to prison as a punishment, not to get qualifications. I should imagine that most people feel some sympathy with this argument, but what is our sensible course of action? Is it to continue to support the kind of imprisonment that will make it more likely that the criminal will continue in his criminal ways, or is it not only in his interests but in our own and those of society that he be improved? Our aim must be to offer him an avenue to better occupation so that he may live a more useful life.
If we want to rehabilitate an offender, one of the really difficult things is to break the bonds that tie him to the society of other criminals—to the criminal sub-culture. If we fail to do that, we have failed altogether. Prison strengthens those bonds. If shut up with other criminals, the prisoner talks and thinks crime and becomes more attached to crime.
Let me tell the House briefly by example about the writer of one of the letters that I have mentioned. A witness in the Strangers Gallery today will confirm what I say. [AN HON. MEMBER: "Order".] The writer was in prison with a history of violent crime. She had been on drugs and her child was in care. She knows herself that her old ways and her old friends had not lost their attraction for her, but through her interest in education classes she had formed other relationships, which she trusted, with her teachers. On the day of release she sought the help of one of her tutors.
As she walked through the prison gate, one of her old associates was waiting for her in a taxi with a "fix", but so was one of her tutors prepared to escort her back to her parents' home if she would go. She tells me in her letter that she did not make her choice without some hesitation. It was a case of pull devil, pull baker. Luckily, the new and better relationship won. She now has a job and has her child back. Had she not formed that new relationship, the old bonds would surely have pulled her back into the old ways.
I do not tell that story to extol the virtues of the tutor, though I might well do so. I would certainly say that every branch of the prison service has its share of humane and committed people. I am saying that through education in classes we have a context uniquely valuable in the prison setting for the prisoner to form relationships that will tie him or her to a better world than the world of crime.
Why do I ask the House to consider this subject at this particular time? The answer is twofold—the expense of the operation is alarming and the rate of increase of expenses even more so, and in return the taxpayer gets fewer of those services that might help the offender to rehabilitate himself.
The cost of keeping one prisoner in a training prison in 1978–79 was £12,000;, in 1979–80, £16,000 and in 1980–81, more than £19,000. What is the taxpayer getting in return in the form of services that might help the prisoner to rehabilitate himself? I again quote the words of the chief inspector:
"A rapidly diminishing possibility of access to recreational, educational and other facilities".

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It must be said that in most prisons 80 per cent. of the prisoners return after release. Can we allow this leaping expense and diminishing hope of any usful outcome to continue?
This Government have given the surest proof of their concern for the prison situation. They have allocated a large sum of money to the building programme. I am grateful for the concern shown to me in the sympathetic reply that I received in an Adjournment debate in November 1980. I am also grateful for the time which, since that date, two other Ministers of State and the Home Secretary himself have generously given to advise me on this matter.
I am not suggesting an immediate increase in expenditure beyond the practicalities of the present time. I am asking the House to establish, with the authority of primary legislation, the position of education in prison, because it is the one activity in prisons that can quickly and cheaply be used to help solve one of our most intractable national problems—that of providing an effective role to take the criminal out of his criminality and into a useful life.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Harry Greenway, Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas, Mr. A. J. Beith, Mr. Richard Crawshaw, Mr. Martin Flannery, Mr. Charles Irving, Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk, Mr. David Madel, Mr. Chrisopoher Price, Mr. Chris Patten, Mr. Neil Thorne and Mr. Nicholas Winterton.

Education in Prisons
  EDUCATION IN PRISONS
  Mr. Harry Greenway accordingly presented a Bill to require the provision of educational facilities in prisons and other custodial institutions; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 11 February and to be printed. [Bill 71].

Youth Training Scheme
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lang.]
3.57 pm
The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Norman Tebbit): I am delighted that on this Adjournment motion the House has an opportunity to discuss the youth training scheme. I am only sorry that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Morrison), is not able to be present. He is unwell as a result of a slipped disc. I say that because my hon. Friend has been closely associated with much of the hard work involved in getting the scheme organised and on its way. He would have liked to open the debate. However, his absence gives me the pleasure of substituting for him.
The youth training scheme is a major reform of the greatest importance for youngsters leaving school for work—indeed, for our future as a trading nation—which the House has not yet had the opportunity fully to debate.
As hon. Members will recall, the origins of the scheme lie in the new training initiative, a consultative document issued by the Manpower Services Commission in May 1981 and backed by the Government. It proposed three interrelated objectives for training in the 1980s—to remove unnecessary restrictions on skill training; to open up widespread training opportunities for adults; and to move towards a position where all young people under the age of 18 should have the opportunity either of continuing in full-time education or of planned work experience coupled with work-related training and education.
The youth training scheme represents a means towards achieving the last of those objectives, but it will also help towards the other two as well.
The scheme has been launched at a time of distressingly high unemployment and, of course, to some extent it eases the problems of the young unemployed, but it is not a short-term expedient dreamt up to cope with unemployment. It has been built on the experience of the youth opportunities programme, and I am grateful to my predecessors, not least the right hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker), in the Labour Government, who pioneered that scheme. However, YTS is different. It is an integral part of our policies for improving our levels of industrial training and performance.
Britain's record on training is not good enough, and the deficiencies are most glaring in our provision for young people who do not go into further education after school. For many years the early school leaver—the 16 or perhaps 17-year-old—has not had a fair crack of the whip, either in his last years at school or, all too often, in the opportunities for training afterwards. While 80 or 90 per cent. of young people in France and West Germany get systematic vocational preparation, the proportion in this country is less than half.
The scheme has been developed with the support of all interested parties—employers, trade unions, local authorities, the education service, voluntary organisations and others. Without that backing it would not have been possible to reach agreement on the scheme in the first instance or to develop it with the speed that has been required. Now, seven months later, all systems are go for launching the first schemes at Easter and getting fully under way by September.

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The scheme will provide a bridge between school and work. It will provide all the youngsters who take part with a better start to working and adult life, through an integrated programme of training, education and work experience. In due course, as we explained in the White Paper, we would like to be able to include every youngster under 18 in such a scheme, but Government resources that we can make available for training, although enormous, are not infinite. The scheme will therefore focus primarily on 16-year-olds and will guarantee an early offer of a place to all unemployed 16-year-old school leavers. That guarantee will effectively eliminate unemployment for 16-year-olds in their first year out of school. I cannot offer quite so strong a guarantee to 17-year-olds, but I expect that the resources will be sufficient to cover unemployed 17-year-old school leavers as well.
In the first year of operation of the scheme we shall make available £1 billion, which is about twice as much as we are spending on the youth opportunities programme this year and represents more than eight times the expenditure, in real terms, on the youth opportunities programme in the last year of the previous Administration.
Mr. Frank Dobson: As the right hon. Gentleman tells us that the Government are providing so much more money than the Labour Government provided in 1979, will he tell us the cost per youth involved?
Mr. Tebbit: I do not have the figure here, but when my right hon. Friend the Minister of State replies to the debate he will be happy to provide it.
The increase in cost is very considerable. The increase is not just to cater for the increase in the numbers of youngsters in the scheme—on the contrary, numbers may be a little smaller—but to provide the improved quality of training that the new scheme is all about.
Employers have argued for a long time—certainly since the last century, and possibly earlier—that youngsters leave school ill-equipped to make their way in the world. Trade unions have complained that training has been inadequate and badly directed. Tragically, we have let those complaints go unheeded for far too long. The new scheme will be a major step towards meeting those basically well-founded criticisms.
The scheme, however, must be rigorously practical. Training is of no value just for its own sake. The scheme must be employer-based. I hope that 300,000 of the 460,000 youngsters in the first year of the scheme will receive training with employers. The closer they are to real commercial life, the better for them. Direct experience of the workplace and an understanding of its disciplines combined with a range of basic skills may not necessarily enable them to go off and earn their living straight away, although many of them will, but it will give them a foundation that their predecessors have mostly had to do without.
Here is a practical reform, on the verge of implementation, in an area in which every party has wished for reform but none was previously quite able to find the resources to turn that thinking into effective action.
Of course, the scheme has its critics. Miss Clare Short, for example, writes almost daily in The Guardian. Yesterday she wrote regretting that the scheme is the way it is, and said:
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"Not that we should or can ignore YTS, but we should expose the scheme for what it is and demand something better."
How should it be better? "Educators", she says, "must … get control". I wonder whether that is necessarily the best way forward.
Just the other day I noticed that there was criticism of the scheme in my local newspaper. The hon. Member for Waltham Forest (Mr. Deakins) will no doubt have seen it, as we share the same borough. There was criticism by prospective employers of the standard of preparation provided by schools in the borough. I suspect that some of the criticism was overstated. Certainly the headlines were somewhat sensational. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that the educators may not necessarily have done all that should have been done for youngsters leaving school.
I notice that Miss Clare Short also said of the YTS yesterday:
"In the days of full employment this would have been a great step forward, but in those days governments were unwilling to find the resources. Resources have now been released".
I am very pleased that she has recognised that.
The right hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Williams) is a little more practical. She was generous enough to admit that she would have liked to do the same when she was in government but had rather less success with her Cabinet colleagues than I have had. Nevertheless, I am grateful to her for helping to prepare the way by arguing that this should be done. Even if she did not actually achieve it, her efforts made it easier for me to do so.
Some will say that the scheme does not go far enough and will ask for it to be extended to young people in higher age groups. To them I say that we must not try to run before we can walk. This is a massive step in the right direction and it will help those youngsters who are most in need.
A further initiative to help our young people prepare for employment is the scheme announced by the Prime Minister in November, giving financial support of about £25 million to technical and vocational education. Mr. David Young, chairman of the Manpower Services Commission, is presently preparing the way for 10 pilot projects, each catering for 1,000 youngsters of all abilities to receive, on a full-time basis, integrated courses of technical and vocational education starting at 14 years of age and continuing through to 18. I regard this as a most important and long overdue development in our secondary education system.
Mr. A. J. Beith: Does the right hon. Gentleman think that this, too, should be kept out of the control of educators?
Mr. Tebbit: I think that it would be best if control were broadly shared between those concerned with training and those concerned with education. The scheme, in the form in which it seems likely to proceed, will be within the education service, but I hope that there will be a very strong input from employers and others who have the closest interest in the standard of training and vocational preparation provided for the youngsters concerned. I hope that the education service and educators will benefit from that experience.
The hon. Member for Bedwellty (Mr. Kinnock) seemed to be tutting a little, if that is the right expression, when I referred to this development. I know that he does not altogether approve of it, but I hope that he will consider it on its merits and accept that it is perhaps something that

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should have been done years ago. We may not get it absolutely right at first, but I am sure that we should try to improve our standards of technical and vocational education.
Mr. Neil Kinnock: I concur with the Secretary of State's remark that he is in favour of improved standards of technical and vocational training for all youngsters. I was tutting while reflecting on the fact that if the Government had committed the resources that they are now willing to commit through the youth training scheme and the technical vocational initiative to the schools that are already practising proper vocational preparation for youngsters—by using teaching expertise that is under democratically accountable local education authorities—we might get even more value for the money that the Government are willing to spend, having stolen it from education.
Mr. Tebbit: I notice that the hon. Gentleman has his own views on what would be appropriate to be taught in such schools. In the magazine "Teaching London Kids", he said that every secondary school should have a teacher responsible for "peace studies". When he was asked if that amounted to political indoctrination, he replied:
"No head, as far as I know, has stormed into a history classroom and upbraided the teacher for teaching war".
I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman meant, but presumably his ideal of a technical and vocational college would be one with teachers teaching peace studies rather than teaching subjects and skills that would be useful for youngsters in earning a living.
Mr. Kinnock: I shall not prolong the debate by talking at length on that point, as we shall have a future opportunity to discuss it, but we are used to distortion on that scale from the right hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Tebbit: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman thinks that to be quoted is to be distorted.
The new initiatives build on the youth opportunities programme, which has grown from sound but modest beginnings, to show what work experience can do for youngsters. Between April and Christmas last year more than 300,000 school leavers took part in the programme and the target of providing a place for all last year's school leavers has been substantially met. That is a massive achievement and I congratulate the Manpower Services Commission and all others who contributed to it.
Of course, no Government can simply provide young people with jobs—[Interruption.] Only employers can do that. Governments can get in the way and Governments can create inflation, which puts the products of our industry and commerce out of the market, allows imported goods to be substituted and loses our export markets. Equally, the Government can help to control inflation—[Interruption.]—and help us to price our goods competitively and put our people back into jobs.
The Opposition Whip—the hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton)—would like to turn the debate into one about economics rather than about the YTS, which is the debate which the House wishes to have. He must not be so naive as to think that customers who have been turned away for many years will suddenly be turned on again over night. Progress is being made and he must
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be content to wait a little longer for that progress to become substantial. In the meantime, I suggest that he concentrates on the debate on the YTS.
The recession has destroyed many tens of thousands of jobs and made the employment market for youngsters in particular much more uncertain. School leavers have been especially hard hit, and for two basic reasons. First, they have, in general, few skills to offer in an already highly competitive labour market. Secondly, they have been encouraged to price themselves out of jobs. Of course, that is not their fault, but they suffer for it none the less. I therefore believe that the youth training scheme will help, not just in the short term, but in the long term, by providing school leavers with a more secure position in the labour market.
Mr. Dobson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Tebbit: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, but this is a short debate and he will wish to contribute before long.
The Manpower Services Commission has been hard at work getting its machinery geared up to deal with the scheme. It will begin on 1 April, and we are looking for 460,000 places by September. Some of the places needed by September will be achieved by building on existing places in the youth opportunities programme. We set ourselves a target of 100,000 such places by Christmas, and the target has now been reached. We intend the new scheme to be primarily employer-based and the Manpower Services Commission's advertising campaign to attract employers to come forward has only just begun. Even before the campaign started, we had lined up more than 50,000 places which had been offered by major employers.
The House may be interested to know reaction of the employers to the advertising scheme. I am glad to say that literally thousands of people have responded to the MSC's advertisement during the last few days, by telephone calls and letters. Doubtless the House will have noted one advertisement which could broadly be called the "hypocrisy" advert. It first appeared on 26 January, and in the following five working days more than 2,000 inquiries were received.
Mr. Dobson: What date?
Mr. Tebbit: It was on 26 January. Again I say that the hon. Gentleman must be patient. In addition, about a dozen anonymous or critical comments were received as well as three angry telephone calls from people who, after discussing the advertisement with MSC staff, asked to receive more information.
The first "city-gent" advertisement appeared on 18 January and is still attracting about 500 daily inquiries.
Mr. Barry Jones: Which company handles the advertisement brief?
Mr. Tebbit: I do not mind advertising a good advertising agency. It is Saatchi and Saatchi. [Interruption.] I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman knows a better agency, but it won in a competitive run-off under the normal terms by which contracts for Government services are placed.
The scheme begins on 1 April, but even before the advertisements appeared in the press we had lined up more than 50,000 places in addition to the 100,000 offered by major employers. The special programmes unit of the CBI

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has played a very important role in attracting the interest of industry, and I wish to record my thanks to it. The MSC has made a good start and, with continued help and cooperation, I am confident that targets will be reached.
Mr. Dobson: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Tebbit: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not doing so.
This is a massive scheme, with ambitious targets, and we must develop administrative machinery of an entirely new kind to develop it. We have rejected the model of bureaucratic scheme controlled rigidly from the centre and are going for maximum local involvement and responsibility, both in putting together and operating the schemes. The great majority of schemes will be run, not by the MSC, but my managing agents, who will coordinate contributions by individual employers, colleges and others to enable groups to participate in the scheme without having to accept individual responsibility for the whole package.
The area manpower boards being set up by the MSC will approve and monitor schemes. Those boards will include representatives of employers, unions, local authorities, colleges and voluntary bodies, and will, I hope, develop into a forum for exchanging information and attitudes on the whole spectrum of local training needs and provision, and not just for young people.
The boundaries of the area manpower boards will follow those of local education authorities, though because of their greater size some boards will include more than one local education authority in their area. That means that for the first time it will be possible to consider together both training and education provision for young people. The MSC has reorganised itself so that a single division now deals with all training matters, with a new network of area offices to mesh with the area boards.
Most of the financial and other details of the schemes have now been cleared up and employers will know precisely what is involved. The CBI has negotiated with local education authorities rates for provision in colleges of further education which reflect a one third discount on normal rates. Private sector sponsors will be paid monthly in advance, which should help to overcome their cash flow problems. Employers can recruit young people direct if, having consulted the careers service or the jobcentre, they expect problems in finding suitable youngsters through those agencies. I urge employers who have been thinking about the scheme but have, perhaps, held back because of uncertainty about what is involved, to contact the MSC as soon as possible.
There remains the matter of the allowance paid to trainees. When the scheme was announced last June, we accepted that an allowance of about £25 would be appropriate for the introduction of the scheme, though we shall not reach a final decision on that, or the matter of excess travel costs, until the summer. In the meantime, I notice that in one area of industry a new form of apprenticeship has been agreed between the unions and the employers. First-year apprentices will be paid £28 a week as wages, which will be subject to the normal deductions.
We are not seeking to foist a Government scheme on employers and young people. The scheme was drawn up by all those with a stake in what happens to our school leavers. It will depend for its effectiveness mainly on those who implement it at local level in firms and colleges. I am
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happy to acknowledge the efforts that the CBI, the TUC, officials in my Department, the MSC and local authorities have made to get the scheme off the ground. It is now for individual employers, trade unions and trade unionists to back the scheme. It is an outline, not a blueprint or a boot print. None of us can afford to see the scheme falter at this stage. It must and will be a success. Indeed, our youngsters leaving school this year will not forgive us if we let them down by making anything other than a success of the scheme.
4.22 pm
Mr. Harold Walker: We have seen a rather different Secretary of State this afternoon from the one to whom we have become accustomed. He gave an uncharacteristically emollient speech, and I wish that he would show that side of his personality more often—especially when we are debating industrial relations or changes in labour laws.
I share the right hon. Gentleman's sympathy for his Under-Secretary. I send my best wishes to him for a speedy recovery from what must be a painful and disabling condition.
During the past two or three years we have had a cascade of reports and reviews of our training arrangements. There was "Outlook on Training—Review of the Employment and Training Act 1973" in 1980, "A Framework for the Future" a year later and "A New Training Initiative: An Agenda for Action" published by the MSC in 1981. Last year, there was a report of the task group. All the reports have been lengthy and complex documents proliferating with jargon. None of them, as such, has been debated by the House. Together they provide a confusing and muddled background to the debate.
The Government's White Paper "A New Training Initiative" emerged in the wake of those documents. It must strike many people as extraordinarily odd that a policy statement that proposes £1 billion additional expenditure, which was produced more than a year ago and is now to be implemented, should not have been fully discussed in the House. Even today, we are having only a short debate on one section of the White Paper proposals. I admit that it is the most important section.
If the White Paper purports to be a comprehensive approach to the reform of industrial training, the House should discuss its proposals in a comprehensive manner, not piecemeal. The Secretary of State seeks to put up for debate only those parts of the White Paper that he thinks might have some political sex appeal. If the Government really believe that their policies are good and effective, they should not be afraid to put them before the House for debate.
Glad as I am that we have an opportunity to discuss the new training scheme, we cannot realistically do so in isolation and without reference to the wider training context and the general background. The Secretary of State properly and fairly touched upon a background of soaring unemployment which, in accordance with the public expenditure statement published only today in the Vote Office, is bound to rise by hundreds of thousands. A heavy responsibility for that must be borne by the Government for their deflationary policies and the enormous loss of productive potential involved. Those things are blighting the lives of an entire generation of youngsters.

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At the same time, Britain has one of the least trained work forces in the industrial world. The position varies from sector to sector, but only slightly more than half our youngsters receive any systematic vocational or educational preparation for work, compared with 90 per cent. in West Germany and 80 per cent. in France. About 35 per cent. of 16-year-olds enter jobs that offer no training, and a further 18 per cent. receive hardly any training at all. Girls fare worse, as we all know.
When employment is available, it tends to be in the service industries, with less training and lower standards. As the Secretary of State acknowledged, the position has grown worse in recent years. Whereas in the 1960s, 40 per cent. of 16-year-olds obtained apprenticeships, in the 1980s only 20 per cent. entered jobs that provided systematic training.
The number of apprenticeships in manufacturing declined from a peak of 236,000 in 1968 to less than 150,000 in 1980, and has declined even further to about 100,000 now. The numbers of manufacturing employees receiving any form of training fell from 210,000 in 1968 to 90,000 in 1980, and fewer still in 1981.
Education and training opportunities for both youngsters and adults have been falling fast. Employers have cut back hard on training, investment and apprenticeships. The Government have hacked away at the education service and inflicted damaging cuts on the MSC's mainstream employment and training services. At a time when the employment, education and training needs of youngsters have been growing to meet the faster pace of industrial and technological change, the resources and investment necessary to meet it have declined.
Despite the intervention of special measures, notably the youth opportunities programme, unemployment among under-18s multiplied five times between 1975 and 1982. The immediate prospects are even worse. The MSC estimates that without policy interventions, 57 per cent. of 16-year-olds and 48 per cent. of 17-year-olds will be unemployed in September 1984.
In 1983–84, of slightly more than 500,000 16-year-olds leaving full-time education, a mere 200,000 are likely to find jobs. It is obvious that the immediate training and employment prospects of youngsters are grim. It is against that background that we must assess the White Paper and the youth training scheme.
The scheme has been presented jointly by Ministers and the MSC. They both addressed themselves to the same documents and to what are put forward as joint concepts. I wonder whether the underlying motives are the same in both cases. Is the scheme intended to help youngsters to fulfil their hopes, aims and ambitions? Is it intended to be a serious contribution to meeting the future skilled and trained manpower needs of industry and commerce to help capture Britain's lost markets? The MSC might modestly claim that, in its view, the scheme might help towards those ends.
Is the scheme born of some desperate need to be seen to be doing something, no matter what, in the present desperate climate to help the young unemployed? Is the reason for it the fact that, even though there will be no job at the end of the scheme, it is still better to spend a year learning something in a work environment, being subject to the disciplines of industry, than hanging around the discos or the streets? Perhaps the MSC and the Secretary
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of State share that view. I understand it, and share it also. But the Secretary of State will know that there are many who believe that his commitment to the scheme—as revealed in his speech—springs only from an anxiety to massage further the unemployment figures. Unhappily, it might yet be his track record—his lack of credibility in these matters—that proves to be the scheme's biggest handicap.
The real Secretary of State—the man whom we all know—was exposed in an interview last September with Mr. John Fryer, the labour editor of the Sunday Times, headed:
"Tebbit backs cheap youth labour"
Mr. Fryer wrote:
"Norman Tebbit, the Employment Secretary, is backing a controversial proposal by which jobless teenagers on his £1,000 million youth training scheme will make cheap products for sale. Tebbit has been having confidential discussions with one company which reckons that if it set up a special state-subsidised factory, in which youngsters were paid £25-a-week, it could undercut imports from the Far East.
Tebbit describes the idea as 'super' and has asked officials at the Department of Employment to work out details. It is clear that once approval is given other firms will be encouraged to follow suit."
Perhaps the Secretary of State will tell us whether his officials have fouled it up, whether he has given approval and whether other companies are following suit.
Mr. Tebbit: Perhaps I can enlighten the right hon. Gentleman straight away. A good deal too much was made of that particular case, where a company made the observation to me that it thought that it was tragic if youngsters were merely employed to make exhibition components which had no good use, and suggested that it had ample facilities where youngsters on this type of scheme could, as part of their work experience, make genuine components which could be sold into the main company and substitute for components which were bought from the far east.
I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman thinks that an immoral thing to do and that it would be better to throw those components into the sea or if this is a reasonable idea. In my view, most people would think it quite reasonable.
Mr. Walker: Doubtless the House will be grateful for that explanation, long overdue, from the Secretary of State, but I must tell him that it is rather different from what Mr. John Fryer said. Of course, we all learn in this House very quickly not to pay too much attention to what we read in the public prints, but in this case Mr. Fryer claimed that what he had reported was on the basis of a personal interview with the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State is nodding, confirming that it was an interview.
I am bound to say that what the right hon. Gentleman has said to the House now is different from what Mr. Fryer reported. I hope the Secretary of State is prepared to tell Mr. Fryer that the report was wrong. Otherwise the Secretary of State is misleading us, because the article went on to say:
"The employment secretary"—
this is presumably what the Secretary of State told Mr. Fryer—
"has been having a series of top-level meetings with companies to secure backing for the youth training scheme."
It goes on to talk about the reluctance but says:
"But setting up special factories"—
plural—

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"will give employers a fresh incentive."
The Secretary of State is telling us that it was a particular, one-off case but here we are talking about factories in the plural.
"Tebbit will not disclose the name of the company with whom he has been having discussions, but he says: 'At the moment it is buying components from Korea and Taiwan. It will now be able to make them itself at Korean and Taiwanese prices'."
These are remarks attributed in quotation marks, by the way, not in direct reporting. The article goes on:
"'Instead of trainees making things which are broken up after training exercises, the main company could actually buy components produced by the special factory. It is a sensible idea. You can't first go on training people without making a product.'"
The Secretary of State then said:
"I instance this as part of the ingenuity that is being devoted to finding new concepts."
If the Secretary of State says he was misreported or that it was not like that, we will accept it, but I am bound to say that all that, no matter how much or how little truth there is in it, is a long way from what the director of the MSC is saying about the scheme. In an article in Industrial Society of December, Mr. Geoffrey Holland says that the new training scheme covers a time during which
"young people can move from dependence to independence"
with the soldering iron, making plug boards or whatever to compete with the people in Taiwan and
"learn and acquire a broad foundation of skills, knowledge and experience which will enable them and their future employers to survive in what will inevitably be an age of uncertainty … the foundation must be broad and must result in a young person acquiring and being able to use a range of practical and transferable skills, knowledge and experience."
I very much hope that the scheme is the one that is being described by the director of the Manpower Services Commission and not the one Mr. John Fryer attributes to the Secretary of State, because they are not the same thing at all. If there was reason to believe that it was what the Secretary of State described to Mr. Fryer, I would be advising this House not to debate this matter and let it pass without a Division tonight but to vote against it. However, I am prepared to give the MSC the benefit of the doubt of my support in this matter.
If the Government themselves see the new training scheme, no matter what they say in the House or elsewhere, as primarily a device to reduce the number of young people registered as unemployed, there will inevitably be a temptation to accept standards lower than those at present described by the Manpower Services Commission. That is what happened with some of the youth opportunities programme schemes. If that happens, the new training scheme will inevitably and progressively fall into disrepute.
Mrs. Angela Rumbold: Successive Governments have been trying to work through unified vocational programmes and so on, introducing work experience for young people from 16 to 19 and older. Certainly the previous Labour Government were interested in this. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell me how it would be possible to have work experience without young people actually going into manufacturing and service industries in order to acquire that basic experience?
Mr. Walker: Perhaps the hon. Lady has not been listening. I am saying that the new training scheme, as set up by the Manpower Services Commission, with its work experience and work discipline elements, deserves the support of the House. The point I was making is that it is very different in character and quality from the scheme
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describe by the Secretary of State to Mr. John Fryer of the Sunday Times. If the hon. Lady does not understand, I can only ask her to obtain a copy of the Sunday Times for 12 September 1982 and look at what the Secretary of State apparently said to Mr. Fryer, and then consider what the director of the MSC is saying. They are two different schemes.
Mr. Nicholas Lyell: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. He knows perfectly well, does he not, that the Manpower Services Commission reports to the Secretary of State and that the Secretary of State is the man who has been the impetus behind this scheme? Why is he wasting such a lot of this debate on one newspaper article which seems to be somewhat inaccurate?
Mr. Harold Walker: Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman was not in the House when the Manpower Services Commission was set up by a previous Conservative Government, who said the MSC in future would be the focus of manpower policy and would initiate policies of this kind. I deeply regret that the Secretary of State has sought to use the MSC as his poodle. If the hon. and learned Gentleman had listened to the list of documents I gave at the outset he would have known of the genesis of all these schemes and of their development from the days of the special measures introduced by the last Labour Government.
I have been describing the developments that may lead the scheme into disrepute. It is no less certain that if young people are persuaded to take part, in the belief that their job prospects will be enhanced, and if, despite that, the jobs continue to be unavailable, we will only have bred cynicism and disillusion. If hopes are raised, and reasonably raised, only to be cruelly dashed on completion of training, the scheme again runs the risk of becoming discredited.
We are told that the youth training scheme is a bridge between school and work, but if the work is not there at the other end of the bridge the bridge itself is turned into a pierhead going nowhere or, worse still, a gangplank into the dole queue. Obviously, hand in hand with the scheme, if it is to be meaningful, should go a positive economic strategy that justifies the investment in training and offers a real prospect of jobs in the end. Instead, under this Government, the real dole queue—not that created by Saatchi and Saatchi but the one already a thousand miles long—will get even longer and the hopes of young people will diminish even further.
As the Secretary of State admitted, the new training scheme has been received with some scepticism and criticism—not least, as he rightly said, from the educational interests. Because of the inevitable restrictions on our time, I shall leave it to others to pursue those criticisms. Despite my own reservations, I hope the scheme has a fair wind but I seek some assurances and answers from the Minister who is to wind up the debate.
Many of us were glad that the Secretary of State responded positively to the proposals of the task group. One recommendation on which the right hon. Gentleman has not made a statement is that contained in paragraph 20 of part 7, that the young workers scheme should be wound up and the money put to better use. I wonder whether the Secretary of State has now considered this matter and if he can now give his response. Will he also give a

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categorical assurance that the scheme will continue to be voluntary, as the task group recommended, and that he will not seek to reintroduce any element of coercion as he previously intended? Will he say that young people will be free to reject any course that does not accord with their wishes and career aims?
How many places have been offered by Government Departments? My attention has been drawn to an article in The Guardian of 18 January which refers to the reluctance of the Prime Minister to accept young people undertaking the new training scheme into Government Departments. The chairman of the Manpower Services Commission is quoted as saying:
"I know of no reason why the Government should not be coming into the scheme. I hope they will be able to."
The article goes on:
"But Mrs. Thatcher is known to believe that training and work experience is better carried out in commerce and industry, if places can be found there, rather than in the Civil Service."
The House is entitled to some explanation. It is extraordinary if the Minister, who advocates the scheme to the rest of the country, says that it would be inappropriate to allow young people into the Civil Service to gain work experience. I hope that the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Mrs. Rumbold) and the hon. and learned Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mr. Lyell) will say something about this, in the light of their earlier comments. One would have thought that the Government would be trying to set an example.
I recognise that there have been difficulties because of the attitude of the Civil Service. I could have understood the position if the Prime Minister was saying that there would have to be discussions with the Civil Service in order to obtain agreement. She is apparently not saying that. The report states that the Prime Minister believes that training is better carried out in commerce and industry, if places can be found, than in the Civil Service. If that is a valid argument, it can be used by every local authority and every part of the public sector providing services. I hope that the Minister will say that the Government wish to set an example and that they want to help to make the scheme effective for young people.
Mr. Bernard Conlan: Before my right hon. Friend reaches his peroration, if he is going to reach his peroration, I should like him to refer to the industry from which he and I come, the engineering industry. When the Government took office, there was an intake of between 30,000 and 40,000 apprentices a year. Now, only three and a half years later, it is down to less than 10,000.
Mr. Walker: My hon. Friend is right. I shall be referring to this aspect of the White Paper before I reach my peroration.
Mr. Tebbit: The right hon. Gentleman has stated that one should not believe everything one reads in the press. The right hon. Gentleman should not believe, every time he sees views attributed to a Minister or, indeed, to a member of the Opposition, in the press, that those views are the views of the person concerned. I hope that we shall be able to find suitable places within the Government service for these trainees. I believe, however, that the
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greater number of them who can be placed directly in industry and commerce the better. I hope that the Government will play their part, too.
Mr. Walker: With that denial, we have Mr. John Fryer knocked down and are told that Mr. John Ardill is misleading us. The heavy press is being discredited at a rapid rate this afternoon. Is the Secretary of State giving a categorical denial of the report? Is he saying that it is wrong? Is he saying that the Prime Minister has not expressed this view, that she does not hold this view and that the Government will be taking new training service trainees into the Civil Service?
Mr. Tebbit: The right hon. Gentleman is an old enough hand in this place to know that if Opposition spokesmen or Ministers were to spend their time confirming or denying everything that is written in the papers, we would never have time for any other business. I shall deny myself from time to time the privilege of asking the right hon. Gentleman whether everything I read in the papers about what goes on inside his party is true. The right hon. Gentleman may deny himself the opportunity of always assuming that what is written in the papers about the Government is true.
Mr. Walker: The House will make up its own mind. Hon. Members are entitled to know from the Minister what Government policy is. I have asked the right hon. Gentleman straight. Is it the Government's intention to take these trainees into the Government service? Is the Prime Minister incorrectly quoted? Is this not the Government's view? We are told that we cannot spend our time denying what appears in newspaper reports. The House will make up its own mind.
Mr. John Grant: The Secretary of State cannot deny that the reason behind the suspicion among some Civil Service unions about giving their cooperation is the decision taken by the Government on Civil Service manpower limits and especially the decision of the Cabinet—I have in my possession a document to which I shall refer if I am successful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in catching your eye—on 16 December that Departments should aim to contract out much more of their work.
Mr. Walker: The House will take note of what the hon. Gentleman says.
I wish to deal now with another aspect of the White Paper. I should like the Minister of State in his reply to clarify the position of traditional apprenticeships in relation to the YTS. Will he clarify the co-existence of traditional apprenticeships with traineeships, because this is a potential source of tension? Many people have pointed out that there will be a strong temptation, especially where trade union organisation is weak or non-existent, for employers to evade national agreements on pay by substituting trainees under the scheme for apprentices.
Where the so-called "additionality principle" applies—the requirement that an employer, in addition to his normal apprentice intake, should take on trainees under the scheme in the ratio of 3:2—there may be difficulties about pay disparities. I hope that the Minister will explain what steps are being taken to eliminate possible friction. No less may there be tensions where trainees take educational courses alongside students still at school who receive no grants or allowances. These are difficulties to be overcome. They cannot be ignored. Hon. Members are

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enitled to hear from the Government what they have thought about these matters and the action they propose to take.
Ministers will know that, under the present youth opportunities programme, anxieties have been expressed about the non-eligibility of trainees for social security protections, particularly industrial injury and disability benefits. I understand that there are explanations but it would be helpful to have them on the record from the Minister's lips. It would also be helpful if the Minister were to say more about the level of allowances. What the Secretry of State has hinted at is welcome. I hope, however, that the Minister will be able to say that a periodic review will take place to ensure that the allowances maintain at least their real value. It is the Opposition's view that they should be enhanced.
The Minister may care to make some remarks about the rights of trade unions where trainees are taken on under the youth training scheme and about the rights of trainees to become members of trade unions. I am assuming that they will have the right to become members and to seek trade union protection. It would be useful to have the matter clarified and, I hope, confirmed by the Minister.
Equally, concern has been expressed about the status in law of trainees. Since they are, for legal purposes, neither workers nor employees, I wonder where they stand regarding the requirements and protections of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 or the Employment Protection Act 1975. This is not something new. The same must have arisen under the former youth opportunities programme.
Another problem to which I wish to draw the attention of the House faces local authorities which might wish to support the scheme actively. It is best illustrated by a letter of 1 February sent to one of my hon. Friends by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities:
"Local government is keen to be involved in the YTS both as a provider of off-the-job training in colleges and as a sponsor/managing agent. In many areas the local authority is the largest single employer, so it has duties in that role. Further, the local authority acting as sponsor/managing agent could co-ordinate the efforts of a large number of small employers in the area. Thirdly, local authorities feel they should set an example."
I wish the Government would feel that way. The letter continues:
"But because of the system of Rate Support Grant—with its expenditure targets and grant penalties—participation in this Government initiative can cost ratepayers disproportionate sums."
The letter then cites the case of Bradford:
"In Bradford, the Council estimates that to operate the YTS could require expenditure of 1·6 million. The cost to ratepayers does not end there. The system of grant penalties means that Bradford could suffer a reduction in grant of about £1·4 million to £1·6 million of expenditure which will cost Bradford £3 million on the rates. Bradford, together with many other authorities, is having to consider very hard whether to participate in YTS when faced with this sort of financial burden. This is not just a metropolitan problem but many authorities all over the country are faced with a similar dilemma."
I must resist the temptation to speak about the stupidity of the Government in relation to local authority expenditure and the rate support grant. If that letter is correct, the Secretary of State will be concerned that local authorities should not be penalised when seeking to support the scheme which he and the Manpower Services Commission are commending. I hope that he will clarify that or seek to discuss the matter with the Secretary of
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State for the Environment to ensure that local authorities are not penalised if they want to spend money on supporting the scheme.
When does the Secretary of State expect to get the outcome of the Manpower Services Commission study on the future financing of industrial training?
A matter which relates to the new training scheme but has a wider relevance is the setting up and monitoring of standards. Last evening I had the pleasure of listening to the senior officer of the engineering industry training board explaining how it was responding to the scheme and integrating it into its programme. What he said was positive and, at least in regard to the YTS, encouraging. The employers and the unions together within the board are thrashing out a policy on standards and monitoring. That is how it should be.
What about the industries where there is not an industrial training board or anything comparable? This is a further example of the foolishness of abolishing the great majority of industrial training boards, the very bodies which would have had such a useful role in applying the scheme in the testing times ahead. The White Paper itself says:
"Better vocational preparation in school and in the first year of working life will lay the foundation for a more flexible workforce. But urgent reform is also needed of the arrangements for training in craft, technician and professional skills, both for young people and for adults."
Yet the White Paper is silent on the means by which this reform might be achieved. In the engineering industry the training board is showing the way ahead but in many other industries the potential of the industrial training boards, not least as a forum for bipartisan discussion and decision, has been removed because the boards have been abandoned senselessly by the Government.
The Government have spelled out the need; what are they doing to satisfy it? While the White Paper rightly draws attention to the fact that increasingly job opportunities will be for the higher skilled and that the demand for the unskilled and lower skilled will diminish, it is silent about the decline in apprenticeships in the skilled trades and crafts whose services we shall need in future. Attention has already been drawn to the sac decline in engineering apprenticeships over the last few years. I do not know whether there is a similar decline in other industries which produce and use skilled labour. The Government seem to be paving the way for a shortage of skilled workers, which will be scandalous if the economy starts to recover.
The Secretary of State is cynical about what is printed in the press, but in a leading article on 18 January The Guardian, commenting on the decline in engineering apprenticeships, said:
"While the Government fails to tackle this problem, rather than aggravate it by abolishing many of the Industrial Training Boards, there will remain the sad suspicion that it is rather more interested in cosmetic effects on the dole queues than in remedying long-standing deficiencies."
The White Paper makes a vague acknowledgment of the long-term skill problems in paragraph 48 but then it pins its hopes on retraining the existing labour force as though it takes less time to train an unskilled adult than an apprentice. I have no doubt about the need to retrain adult workers and give them new opportunities. But when the Government say in the White Paper:
"This is primarily a matter for industry",
it would be helpful if they were to tell the House what this means. Is it intended to be some kind of apology for

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continued cuts in the training opportunities programme and a justification for the threats that are hanging over some of the skill centres?
Before the Government took office in 1977–78 the throughput of the skill centres and colleges of further education that were participating in the training opportunities programme was 78,000 to 79,000. This year it has been reduced to about 61,000.
Given the facts of the present situation—the abysmal prospects for young people, the wasted potential, the latent social backlash that we have already seen erupt in places such as Brixton and Toxteth—there can be no doubt that we have to create a new deal for the nation's youth. The Government's proposals in the White Paper, seen in their totality, neither reflect the seriousness of the problems nor show much sign of understanding them.
My hon. Friends and I believe that the most urgent need is for a complete reversal of the Government's economic policies and the adoption of an alternative strategy that will give not only young people but all those who are unemployed and willing to work the hope and prospect of worthwhile and fulfilling employment. This should allow for the creation of a unified and comprehensive system of education and training for all in the 16-to-19 age group.
As I said earlier, we should give a fair wind to the new training scheme, as presented by the Manpower Services Commission. It should be strengthened and built upon to enable access for all 16 and 17-year-olds. It should be a broadened and reinforced two-year scheme, based on our concept of training for students with adequate allowances. I look forward to an early opportunity for the House to have a full debate and not a half-day debate on all the wider issues that stem from the White Paper. There should be a chance for us not only to expose all its inadequacies but to develop the positive proposals contained in the Labour party's discussion document "Learning for Life".
4.57 pm
Mr. Mark Wolfson: I am pleased to have the opportunity to follow the right hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker). It is better when the House hears his virgin thoughts than long repetitions of reports from newspapers.
I wish to deal briefly with two points relative to the youth training scheme and its contribution to society. I welcome the scheme, and I was delighted to hear the right hon. Member for Doncaster say that the Opposition would give it a fair wind. It is important to the nation and to the young people who are the key to all this that that commitment is followed up.
The first point relates to preparing those on the youth training scheme for the difficult task of finding permanent work when the year is over. Some will continue to be employed in the places where they have done their year's work, but others will be on the job market. I hope that the Manpower Services Commission will give considerable thought to the matter and take action that will ensure that, as part of the off-the-job training that all young people will get on this course, time will be devoted to teaching them the skills of self-marketing.
That is not for one moment to denigrate or lessen the problem of finding a job. I am not suggesting that self-marketing can overcome that in full, but, as part of that training, young people must understand that they can no
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longer expect the opportunity of working always for the same employer. Therefore, the problem of finding their first job, and of self-marketing may recur during their later career.
Attention needs to be paid to how to get that training across. It needs a major change in the thinking that has been done up to now on this issue. Some of those agencies involved in the out-placement of people, and in the placing of large numbers of redundant workers when there have been closures, can bring to bear views, ideas and experience of these circumstances of which the MSC should make use. It should be responsive to getting those involved in the off-the-job training of young people to put over an effective package. It needs video and audio training schemes, and the people who are doing the training should have an understanding of marketing techniques.
This is new and, to many of us, somewhat un-British. The British are not always the best at selling themselves. Young people need even more assistance in equipping themselves to do that, so that they can think in terms not just of what jobs are available locally, but of how each of them, as young persons coming on to the labour market with one year's training behind them, can look for and identify the type of local need that might enable them to persuade a potential employer, who is not at that moment looking for somebody else, to take them on because they appear to have something to offer. I hope that that can be fed into the scheme.
My second point relates to the necessity to increase the present low level of apprenticeships—a point that has already been referred to by the right hon. Member for Doncaster. There is a major problem here, and I should like to discuss it from the point of view of a part of the country known to me—Kent. I shall talk about the experiences of the Kent industrial training association, which is a young people's training association servicing, as many of these associations do in different parts of the country, the needs of small firms.
Let me spell out the problem. There are about 110 small firms in the membership of this association. In 1979 there were 105 engineering apprentice places. In 1980 there were 61, in 1981 there were 30, and in 1982 only 25. There is no ducking that problem. It is my view, and that of most of the people to whom I talk in industry, that, when the upturn occurs, we shall be in the same bottleneck circumstances again, caused by lack of skilled workers.
Those circumstances cause a number of problems, but two in particular. First, they will prevent us as a nation from making the best use of new opportunities to sell at home and abroad. Secondly, they will produce wages pressures again because an employer who has orders that he wants to get out of the door, or a service that it is essential to give, will pay anything to get people to do the job.
Therefore—I say this as a supporter of the new training scheme—we are looking for ideas and possibilities of linking the new training scheme to additional sponsored skill training. The Department should pay close attention to that. We have a problem for the future. If we are to make the best use of the pain and grief that has occurred in industry over the past three years, we must not be short of people when the boom comes.
Mr. Conlan: Does the hon. Gentleman believe that the new engineering training scheme to which he has referred, is any substitute for a proper apprenticeship?
Mr. Wolfson: I am not suggesting that. If the hon. Gentleman will be patient, as I develop my point further, I hope to answer his question.
There are four distinct groups of young people to whom the new training scheme offers an opportunity. First, there are those young people who know what they want to do and where they are going, and who have the ability and qualifications to achieve their ambitions, if given the opportunity, but some in that group will not be able to get jobs.
Secondly, there are young people who, like those in the first group, know what they want and have the inherent ability to achieve it, but unfortunately have not obtained the most appropriate academic qualifications.
The third group consists of those who are well or appropriately qualified, have a high level of ability, but unfortunately are not sure what they want to do.
The fourth group consists of school leavers who have no worthwhile qualifications and have no ideas as to the work for which they would be suited, and whose opportunities are therefore limited.
Groups three and four—the less well qualified who are not clear about what they want to do—are well suited to the new training scheme. It will give them the broad-based training that has been required in this country for far too many years, which several Governments have had the opportunity of tackling but have not done so far.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that those groups have had a particularly raw deal in Britain up to now. However, in present circumstances, groups one and two—the better qualified who are clearer about what they want to do—are also unable to get work. Therefore, they are available as candidates for the new training scheme and will be going into it.
I suggest that in many cases the new training scheme will not adequately meet the needs of persons in that group because they can take more than the training offers. Therefore, for that group, I should like apprentice training to be incorporated in the new training scheme.
I hope that by describing how the Kent industrial training association sees this being done, I shall answer the question put to me by the hon. Member for Gateshead, East (Mr. Conlan). The association maintains that training places in companies and in technical colleges, are not fully used. The association can offer 25 apprenticeships this year on the basis that, in the first year, those 25 young people spend 46 weeks on off-the-job training at a training college. Those places will not be with the firm. It might be possible to double that figure and make it 50. The trainees would then alternate, spending six months with the company and six months at the college. That would continue for the three or four years of apprentice training—preferably, the shorter time, based on the skill standards reached, not the time served.
Is that feasible? One person would be a company employee, and the other would be a sponsored employee from Government funding. However, there is a problem, because the Government-sponsored employee gets £25, whereas the apprentice gets £45. Perhaps the answer would be for the apprentice rate to come down to a more realistic and comparable figure. I think that £28 was the figure, now agreed by one union, stated by the Secretary
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of State, but without reference to the particular skill training. The gap is now narrower. There are other ways round the problem. Perhaps the company could be persuaded to make up the difference between the two types of trainee—that for the company employee and that for the Government-sponsored trainee—if the difference were smaller. We surely need to use these under-utilised training places in both technical colleges and companies.
It may be argued that there will not be any unused training facilities by the time the new training scheme is under way, but I suggest that those training places will not be utilised for the skilled training that can and should be given if we are to overcome the long-term lack of skilled people in our increasingly skill-necessary industry. I hope that the MSC will give enlightened consideration to both those matters.
The Kent industrial training association, which, accepts that it is a small group, could offer a pilot opportunity. It has a very real national application, and it is accepted by the engineering union. The union's response to the director of this industrial training association is as follows:
"Having given careful consideration to your document we are satisfied that your scheme meets the principles which our organisation could support and therefore we will be pleased to endorse your suggestions".
What about the EITB?
Mr. Conlan rose—
Mr. Wolfson: Perhaps I may continue. Its reply was positive:
"You ask for the support of the EITB. We would be willing to work with you on the development of your programme if it proves acceptable in principle to the MSC. It is not for us to say whether your proposals meet the current MSC criteria Put if you are able to reach agreement with the commission we shall be very happy to participate with you in order to ensure that a pattern of training in engineering skills is developed which we can support".
That support from both the engineering union and the EITB does not talk of the cost or of what people would be paid. It relates to the type of training offered, where two places would be provided instead of one.
Mr. Conlan: The hon. Gentleman mentioned the engineering union. He surely knows that there are many unions in the engineering industry. Which union is he talking about?
Mr. Wolfson: The Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers.
Mr. Conlan: Which section?
Mr. Harold Walker: Who signed it?
Mr. Wolfson: Mr. Gavin Laird. I wish to make it clear that the support relates not to wages, but to the scheme. I welcome such a positive response from the union, because it gives priority to the needs of young people and of the nation. It is surely on that basis that, even in this House, we can go forward together.
5.15 pm
Mr. A. J. Beith: The House has benefited from the practical experience of the hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) in trying to develop from the training initiative a scheme that is suited to employers and potential apprentices in his area. He underlined the fact that this scheme cannot possibly meet some of the skilled training needs of industry, and he stressed how much needs to be done.

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The best illustration of how far behind Britain has fallen in training is provided by the tables at the end of the youth task force report, which show quite clearly how badly our record compares with those of all our European industrial competitors. We therefore welcome the fact that this scheme has been brought forward. It is a considerable improvement on everything that has gone before. I shall criticise it and draw attention to the problems that it involves, but that should not detract from the fact that I am glad that more resources are to go to training, because that has been necessary for a long time.
The scheme presents a number of problems to which we should give attention. One problem which has been widely discussed relates to the financial support and the relationship between trainees on this scheme and those undergoing other forms of training and education. In the absence of a system of education maintenance allowances, there is an inevitable element of "bribing" in the scheme. If the scheme continues on the present basis, without a system of education maintenance allowances, we are in effect saying to young people at school, "Why not come on this scheme, obtain a regular allowance, get an uncertain certificate or qualification at the end, instead of staying at school, knowing that you can get a formal qualification, but with no financial support?." That is not satisfactory.
Similarly, those who are on the scheme in colleges will find themselves alongside further education students who have no financial support because of the drying up of discretionary local authority awards.
The House of Lords Select Committee on Unemployment made that point, and I do not believe that the Government have yet grasped its implications. The pattern of young people's decisions about whether they go for training or stay for education will be distorted by the financial support that is available. That is likely to become more apparent as families feel more keenly the impact of the recession. The lack of financial support for youngsters becomes more relevant than ever before to decisions about whether young people will stay at school, go into training, or remain on supplementary benefit without going on a training programme. The Government should pay much more attention to that problem than they have in the past.
That brings me to one of the other fundamental problems of the scheme, and that is its relationship with the whole education system. It is lamentable that no Minister from the Department of Education and Science is here and has not been here from the start of the debate. Are we to take it that the Department of Education and Science has been told that it must have nothing to do with the whole operation? Is it, as so many commentators have said, a simple vote of no confidence in the education system and an underlining of the fact that the Prime Minister is prepared to grant resources through the Manpower Services Commission, but not to have anything to do with the development of some of the same things through the edcuation system? To do it in this way will not avoid problems, but create them.
I had expected Ministers from the Department of Education and Science to be in the Chamber to listen to some of the problems and to work out the implications for their Department. In the attitude implicit in the opening remarks of the Secretary of State for Employment, there is a considerable danger. He said something about
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educators not being in control, and it suggested to me that he regarded the influence of educators in training as malign and undesirable. I do not share that view. I believe—as the right hon. Gentleman later corrected himself and said when I intervened—that there is a partnership between those with experience of industrial training and those in education. There are strands that can be brought together.
This country has developed certain education values that should not be thrown out of the window because we have suddenly realised, belatedly, that we should step up our training commitment. Some of those values are beginning to be threatened.
The MSC is a large national body and is organised quite differently from the local education authorities which are traditionally involved, and have to be, in the local communities. They are an arm of the local authorities. To the extent that the Government still allow local authorities any power or responsibility, those bodies are responsible for a whole range of services and for the health of the community. Therefore, they can bring to educational activity a knowledge of the community and its needs. However much a national body such as the MSC evolves its activities, it cannot do that.
The MSC has not absorbed some of the educational values that are important. One of those values is particularly relevant at present. We cannot train people in skills on the assumption that there will always be a demand for those skills. We must educate young people to be able to adapt to what is likely to be a changing industrial and technological climate. One of the aims of education has always been to ensure that young people can adapt themselves and have the ability to apply themselves to different situations, instead of being trained for a skill for which the market may have disappeared almost before they are ready to present themselves for a job.
If training values push out educational values altogether, it will do a disservice to training. Young people will not have the adaptability that they need.
Mr. Richard Needham: I am listening to the hon. Gentleman's speech with great interest. Does he agree that education may be successful for the top 30 or 40 per cent. of those who leave our school system but not for the bottom 30 or 40 per cent.? It is those at the bottom who leave without the necessary education and without any vocational training. How on earth can the hon. Gentleman believe that the education system can be changed so that those at the bottom end of the scale have the right education qualifications?
Mr. Beith: I share the hon. Gentleman's criticism of the way in which the education system has failed many children, such as those for whom the examination system was not designed. However, that is not an argument for removing those values. Those educational values are just as relevant to someone with limited academic attainments as to someone going to university. However, there is a strong argument for recasting the examination system and for ensuring that resources are invested in improving our educational provision for those who will not go to university and who perhaps will not even take A-levels, or whatever replaces them.
One can sense the MSC's attitude in other worrying ways. For example, the MSC clearly does not like political education. The Secretary of State spoke about peace

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studies. That may be a slightly controversial issue, but it has been accepted by the education system and by Her Majesty's inspectors, who published a report on the subject, saying that young people should understand how the democratic process works. That is why political education is given to young people. The MSC apparently does not think that its trainees should find that out, although it is a normal part of the curriculum in colleges of further education. That suggests a narrowness of outlook in equiping young people for life. Educational value is lost because the MSC has not been brought up with such things.
Mr. Harry Greenway: I think that I know what the hon. Gentleman means by educational values, but perhaps he could be a little more precise about how flexibility of mind, tenacity and all the other qualities in someone endowed with such values can be achieved?
Mr. Beith: To answer that question I should have to speak for far longer than hon. Members would wish.
Mr. Eric Deakins: I share the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) about educational values, but he seems to be criticising the scheme because young people at 16 who take part in it will not be given the educational values that he considers to be essential. Surely they should have acquired those educational values—irrespective of academic attainment—by the time they leave school at 16.
Mr. Beith: I agree with that to some extent, but, between the ages of 16 and 18, a young person's widening knowledge, understanding and maturity allow him to appreciate things that he did not appreciate when he was 14 or 15. We should not stop imparting educational values at the age of 16. There is another aspect of which our schools have become more aware over the years, but of which the MSC has not become aware.
By the time young people reach the age of 16, they begin to think that they should have some say in what goes on around them. However, provision for that is not apparent in the way in which the scheme is structured. Schools are increasingly catering for the participation of young people, through schools councils and through the way in which the school is organised. The MSC does not understand or appreciate that, and no way seems to have been found to associate trainees with the decisions that are taken about their work and courses. The Government should talk to bodies such as the British Youth Council, which has developed the case for the involvement of young people in the planning of courses. They should find ways of establishing trainee councils or other bodies that would give the trainee a chance to play a part.
As yet there is no clear procedure for dealing with the rights, problems and grievances of trainees. I refer to such matters as sickness, time off and disputes in the workplace. The trainee is in a slightly different position from an employee, because he may not have joined a trade union, and his legal relationship is not the same as that of an employee. That, too, is an area of concern. The local authorities should have played a larger role in the process. My party would like local education authorities to be the sponsoring body for youth training, setting up youth training committees to do the work which the area boards will carry out for the MSC.
That brings me to the issue raised by the right hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker) and to the problem
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of the cost to local authorities. One of my hon. Friends was approached by the Association of Metropolitan Authorities, and the case of Bradford was cited in particular, although the same is true of other authorities. The Government have the power to exempt local authorities from rate penalties for particular subjects and could apply that power to the youth training scheme. In the Local Government Finance Act 1982 there are provisions to exempt categories of expenditure from the targets and penalties. The Minister should either get his colleague to do that or should at least ensure that grant-related expenditure takes account of all this. The development in youth training was not envisaged when the figures now applied to local authorities were devised.
Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Gentleman has spoken in a way that would lead those who are not as familiar with the subject as he no doubt is to believe that local authorities are being asked to carry the cost. If they take on trainees, their costs are reimbursed in exactly the same way as a private sector employer. None of that expenditure is in any way accounted against their expenditure limits. Indeed, those expenditure limits are extremely generous. As the hon. Member for Waltham Forest (Mr. Deakins) knows, the London borough of Waltham Forest was in penalty a year ago. As a result of good management the local authority has managed to make a spectacular cut in the rates and has got out of penalty, because it is managed far better than ever before and because a Conservative leadership has taken over, with the support of alliance councillors.
Mr. Beith: The right hon. Gentleman also knows that there are Conservative-controlled authorities that now face penalties under the scheme.
The right hon. Gentleman might be satisfied that local authorities will incur no expenditure that will bring them on the wrong side of the penalty clauses, because they are reimbursed for trainees, but the role that they exercise will be much wider than merely taking on trainees. They may have to take on a great deal of the sponsoring work which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. The Association of Metropolitan Authorities is satisfied that a cost to local authorities will arise and it wants local authorities to take part in the scheme. I do not believe that those worries can be entirely unfounded. If the Minister can assure me that they are, I am sure that the Association of Metropolitan Authorities will regard that as good news and welcome it.
There is a problem about the certification of qualifications which young people will obtain at the end of their training. Little has been said about that today. We need to know more about the Government's thinking on the subject and where it relates to examination reform. We must take that seriously if we are to deal with the weakness of the education system for young people who do not go on to higher education. All these issues are closely interrelated. Many of us are not yet confident that the Government have found the answer to the type of qualification that young people can obtain at the end of their training and how it relates to potential reforms of the examination system.
Many people in education and local authorities and employers are putting a great deal of effort into making the scheme work. They are trying hard to get something out of it. For them to achieve the reward for young people for which they are striving, they must have co-operation and

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a commitment to go beyond this year. It is not possible to mount an operation on this scale for 12 months without implications for the future. They also require economic policies that give young people a fair chance of what the Prime Minister used to call real jobs. If they do not have that prospect soon, much of what we are discussing today will achieve very little.
At the beginning of my speech I said that Britain has lagged behind in its provision of industrial training. It is a criticism of us as a nation that it has taken high unemployment to generate the necessary heavy expenditure. We will have to do something about the level of unemployment if the scheme is to produce results, not cynicism and apathy among our young people.
5.32 pm
Mr. Richard Needham: When the right hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker) was not quoting from The Sunday Times at great length and then requoting from The Sunday Times at even greater length, he gave the impression that the major cause of youth unemployment was the Government's economic policy. He said forcefully that only an alternative economic policy, which he did not spell out, would help to solve the problem. The right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. and hon. Friends represent a party that has long believed that a controlled economy, planned economic policy and a social policy combined is the best way to solve the problems facing the nation.
I invite the right hon. Member for Doncaster to consider youth unemployment not simply as a problem that comes about as a result of recession, although it would be foolish not to accept that recession plays some part in it, but as one that comes from two other sources. First, unemployment arises from demographic problems. The people who retired last year and those who will retire this year were born during the first world war. It is understandable that few people were born then. However, those people who are now coming on to the labour market are the result of the baby boom and the mini-skirts of the 1960s when men were not undertaking the same types of tasks as their parents had to undertake.
I am sure that the right hon. Member for Doncaster accepts that those factors were well known in his Department when he was a Minister. I am sure that the same is true of the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Williams). The baby boom could have been foreseen, as could the drop in the numbers of people retiring. For every one person retiring last year and this year, there are two people coming on to the labour market. Ten years ago, the figures balanced.
Why, when the right hon. Member for Doncaster and his colleagues were planning the economy, did they not foresee that demographic problem and do more about it? The right hon. Member for Crosby said that she lost battles when she was at the Department of Education and Science. No doubt her colleagues did, too. Nevertheless, that is not good enough. It is impossible for any Government of any political party suddenly to come in, in a complete vacuum and resolve the problems that faced the present Government when they came to office.
I hope that the right hon. Member for Doncaster will agree that youth unemployment arises not only from demographic changes, but from real changes in the basis
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of employment. It was possible to foresee that 16-year-olds who came on to the labour market with the qualifications that the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) mentioned—the bottom 30 per cent.—would have the greatest difficulty in finding jobs in a changing economic climate. It was possible to foresee that the types of jobs that 16-year-olds have done hitherto would no longer exist.
It did not require an enormous forecasting ability by either party, especially the Labour party when it was in government during the 1970s, to see the scale of the problem that Britain would face, yet virtually nothing was done. It is therefore not good enough for the right hon. Member for Doncaster and his right hon. and hon. Friends to carp and complain about what the Government are doing. They had the chance, but they did virtually nothing.
The right hon. Member for Doncaster, the hon. Member for Flint, East (Mr. Jones) and I had the opportunity to visit Japan. The Japanese would have had exactly the same problems as we have if they had continued as we have done since the 1960s. However, in the 1960s they decided that they had to achieve a highly qualified and better educated work force. What did they do? They gradually expanded training and educational facilities so that whereas in 1960 about 60 per cent. of Japanese youngsters went straight on to the labour market, by 1982–83 94 per cent. of Japanese youngsters stayed at school until they were 18. Moreover, a further 45 per cent. go on from school to some form of university.
At a stroke, not only have the Japanese achieved a much larger and better educated work force, but they have dramatically reduced the size of the labour market. Because they have reduced the size of the labour market, they do not share our problems of youth unemployment. That is what the right hon. Member for Doncaster and his right hon. and hon. Friends could have foreseen but did nothing about.
Whatever faults the right hon. Member for Doncaster may say the Government have, they have applied their mind with a creativity and determination that has not been shown before. They have produced money and a system of training that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) said, will bring into training three of the four groups that previously had no training. The Government deserve credit for that. Nor is it possible, as the right hon. Member for Doncaster said, just to increase that level of training from 16-year-olds to 17-year-olds. He knows how hard it will be to ensure that we achieve proper verification and adequate standards for the 16-year-olds. It is not possible to find overnight the thousands of trainers who will be required in addition and to train them so that they can ensure that the youngsters get the proper and complete benefit from the scheme that they deserve.
The right hon. Gentleman should consider one other factor. He talked about a gangplank to the dole queue. He said that if a Labour Government were returned to power their policy would be to ensure that adequate jobs were there for those who had finished their course. With respect, I believe that that is a terrible confidence trick to play on many young people. I defy any Government in the world, forgetting our structural and social problems, overnight or even within a few months, suddenly to be able to provide the massive number of employment opportunities that this generation will require. To say that there is some simple economic strategy that can suddenly

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be deployed, which will give those kids worthwhile employment for the remainder of their lives, is plain nonsense. It suggests to those youngsters a future which, unfortunately, many of them will not have.
Of course, the 16-year-olds must be taken out of the labour market. The Government are to be congratulated on doing this. I think that the right hon. Member for Doncaster will agree that we must go down the route that the Japanese and others have taken, and improve the quality of the education and training of not only of 16-year-olds, but of 17-year-olds.
Mr. Harold Walker: I also advocate that we should follow the Japanese road, because the Japanese have a policy of jobs for life, certainly in the public sector, on the part of major employers.
Mr. Needham: The jobs for life analogy between the public sector in Japan and the public sector in Britain is about the only analogy that we can draw. By and large, there are jobs for life in the public sector in Britain, as there are in Japan. I am not sure that that benefits the British or the Japanese in terms of overall efficiency. However, we must continue to work towards a longer period of training for young people so that we do not end up with a significant proportion of 16 and 17-year-olds who are incapable of finding work because of poor educational standards.
Therefore, we must support the scheme wholeheartedly. We must accept that it is of great advantage, compared with any scheme that has gone before it. We must build upon it. However, at no stage must Conservative Members suggest that it is the only answer. It is not. We appreciate that. We shall do what we can. What we will not do is promise that which we cannot deliver. That is what is being done by Opposition Members.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bernard Weatherill): Order. This is an appropriate moment to remind the House that there is a great deal of interest in the debate on trade, which follows this debate. I understand that it is desired to bring this debate to an end at about 7 o'clock. Many hon. Members have been waiting all day to take part. Will those who speak tailor their speeches accordingly?
5.43 pm
Mr. Robert C. Brown: The hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Needham) will forgive me if I do not follow him right through his speech. He sounded exactly like the Prime Minister when he described what has happened since May 1979 and implied, as the Prime Minister does regularly, that it is everybody's fault except the Government's.
The greatest of the many betrayals of the Government is without a doubt the betrayal of the nation's youth. Our youth are the nation's seed-corn. Many Conservative Members are farmers. I am sure that none of them would deny that the destruction of the seed-corn would be nothing short of unmitigated disaster.
The thoughts of a generation growing up deprived of a basic human right, the right to work for a living, worries me no end, because of what the future might bring as a direct result. In the county of Tyne and Wear, part of which I represent, 25,066 school leavers have never had the dignity of a full-time job. In the city of Newcastle the
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figure is 2,853. In Tyne and Wear, 14,500 are on the palliative of the youth opportunities programme or community enterprise schemes.
I have a copy of a letter from Mr. Terence Finley, the general secretary of the Newcastle upon Tyne Council for Voluntary Services. In it he complains bitterly about the lack of consultation by various Government Departments on initiatives such as the community programme, which I am sure the Minister will agree is closely connected with today's debate.
We badly need the co-operation of the voluntary organisations, because we all know that local government is very much hamstrung and faces manifestly difficult problems. It is not good enough for Government Departments and Ministers to take it for granted that voluntary bodies will co-operate automatically without being given the fullest opportunity for genuine and meaningful discussion before Ministers' minds are made up.
I shall not burden the House with long quotations from Mr. Finley's letter to the Secretary of State for Employment, except for the penultimate paragraph, which reads:
"While voluntary organisations wish to contribute in relation to unemployment and its social consequences, the effect of different departmental initiatives and differing approaches to, for example, consultation can be bewildering. This was particularly so last year. So far there is little evidence that the Voluntary Services Unit at the Home Office has been able to facilitate a more co-ordinated approach by Government Departments to voluntary organisations."
I appeal to the Secretary of State to take Mr. Finley's letter seriously. Will the Government get their act together on this very important issue? It cannot be much of a show if the monkey is doing a tap dance on top of the organ without the organ grinder being present.
In essence, the youth training scheme is useful, if properly undertaken. However, there are serious reservations. The scheme is meant to be a bridge between school and work. It cannot be denied that as a principle it is useful. However whatever the good intentions of the scheme, the fact cannot be hidden that the Government are on the one hand committed to this form of training while on the other they are abolishing most of the industrial training boards. A suspicious soul, unlike me would suggest that it is yet another cosmetic powder-puff to cover the ever-growing problem of the numbers of the young unemployed.
The YTS sees the main problem of youth unemployment as lack of skill. If only there were the skills, the jobs would be there, goes the refrain. However, a glance at the numbers that the YTS is supposed to cover in its first year reveals that, whatever the merits of the scheme, it does no more than get 16-year-olds off the streets. I do not disagree with that.
The idea that by September 1984, somehow 500,000 jobs will be available for youngsters with only the broadest and most general training is nothing short of a chimera under the Government's policies. If 500,000 jobs for skilled or semi-skilled workers were to be available in the foreseeable future, the Government could claim that their policies were working. However, everyone, even the Government in their secret conflabs, knows that that is not true.
The engineering employers know that Government policies are failing their industry and, therefore, failing the nation. Engineering employers are deeply sceptical of the

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YTS. I have fact sheet No. 1 of the engineering industry training board dated January 1983. It makes utterly depressing reading. It states:
"Before the present recession redundancy was almost unknown for apprentices. Since September 1980 the situation has been very different. Large numbers of apprentices have been made redundant every month. In 1980–81 training year 2,959 were made redundant, an average of 246 per month. … In the next training year, 1981–82, although recruitment of apprentices was sharply reduced, there were another 1,468 redundant apprentices, an average of 122 a month. … In the current training year redundancies are running at around 150 a month despite an even greater cut in recruitment."
It gives me no satisfaction to quote that passage. It is a most depressing catalogue of what is happening in the productive engineering industry.
The YTS recruits in engineering will be working alongside first-year apprentices. They will be wearing the same overalls and caps and will be instructed by the same instructors. However, there is one essential difference: the first-year apprentice will have £50 a week and the YTS recruit will have £25 a week. There is a grave danger that that might arise. I am not suggesting that the major employers would be a party to it, but questionable employers in the engineering industry might well exploit the scheme.
There is a simple equation. An employer might want 10 apprentices. If he took those 10 apprentices, he would have £500 per week to pay, which is about £26,000 a year. Will there not be a grave temptation for that employer to take 20 YTS recruits at no cost? At the end of the year he can throw out 10 and keep the best 10 at no cost. He will then have 10 first-year-trained engineering apprentices. Fortunately, the redeeming feature of the YTS is that it will outlive the Government. When the next Labour Government come to power they will have an opportunity to put right some of the scheme's imperfections.
There is a crying need for quality training which would be a real alternative and supplement to the apprenticeship scheme. If the quality of the YTS is right, it can be useful, not just as a bridge between school and work, but to educate and retrain and update skills. My union's experience is that the quality that is being produced is, to say the least, variable. Improvements are made after negotiations, but what of the failures which the unions do not spot?
Another cause for worry is that there appears to be no mechanism for checking that the legitimate complaints made about the YOP, particularly in relation to health and safety, will be resolved under the new scheme. It is not sufficient to say, as an MSC spokesperson did on Radio 4 two weeks ago that "some slip through." It is too late to make improvements when limbs and even lives are lost. We have no guarantee beyond a pious hope.
The trainees are not employees and it will be extremely difficult to protect their rights in that vital respect. Clearly, unions will insist on safety representatives, but they have no legal right to do so for trainees. The better schemes and employers will be satisfactory. It is the small ones that are the worry. The relationship between the employer and the trainee will remain a worry. The latter has few rights. He or she has no redress against discrimination. That is an important safeguard, given the insistence on the voluntary nature of the scheme. That lack of rights is reflected
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clearly in the training allowance. It is set at the absurdly low level of £25 a week. I believe that that figure should be indexed.
A more serious point is that the scheme creates a two-tier system of trainees with rates of pay that differ from person to person according to whether the person is a trainee or an employee. In almost all cases the training allowance is less than the statutory minimum laid down by wages councils, and that is anything but a living wage.
One major criticism of the scheme, which has its merits, is that it pays lip-service to continuing education for the post-18-year-olds in changing skills. There is little plan for development in that vital area.
I make one further criticism of the scheme. David Young of the MSC talks of 500,000 places and says that at present 150,000 are available. Two points emerge from that. I understand that the full operating guidelines will not emerge from the Institute of Manpower Studies until April. That is four months later than expected originally. It makes it nonsense to talk about quality training when we do not yet know what criteria will be applied. Although there is a pilot scheme already, it seems that there will be a severe shortage of places. What will the Government do to remedy that?
The YTS is not an answer to the problems facing today's youth, nor is it an alternative to a decent economic policy. It can have a vital role to play, but only as part of an alternative economic policy.
5.58 pm
Mr. John Grant: I want to deal with the scale of the problem. We have heard from the Secretary of State that the Government are spending on and doing far more for youth training than has been done before in an attempt to combat youth unemployment. We have heard comparisons of YOP with the new youth training scheme. I want to make it clear from the outset that I am not knocking YTS, but there is no real comparison to be made. The youth opportunities programme was designed to deal with a position very different from the one that we face today. The programme has been utterly swamped—as the Secretary of State must acknowledge—by the appalling rise in youth unemployment.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Chippenham (Mr. Needham) is no longer in the Chamber, because I wish to comment on his remarks. The hon. Gentleman talked about demographic factors and gave disproportionate weight to them in his reasons for the increase in youth unemployment. No doubt he will read my remarks. I should have been more impressed by what he said had he and his right hon. and hon. Friends made those speeches before 1979, because those factors were apparent then.
Mr. Tebbit: My hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Mr. Needham) has had to leave the Chamber to attend a Committee. Perhaps my hon. Friend was a little harsh on the hon. Gentleman, who was a Minister in the Labour Government, and other Ministers in that Government, when he said that they should have done more and provided the money to set up a youth scheme such as the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Williams) wished. They were handicapped by the fact that the International Monetary Fund insisted that they made the most massive spending cuts that have been inflicted on Britain by any Government. Their economic policies landed them in the mess.
Mr. Grant: We could have a long debate about the economic policies of the Labour Government and the disastrous economic policies of this Government, but you would not encourage me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to go further down that road in the short time at my disposal. However, that does not alter my assertion that before 1979 the Conservative party did not make those points about the reasons for the rise in unemployment. It was high then, but only about half what it is now.
I shall underline the scale of the problem with some figures that I extracted from the Department of Employment about a month ago. Although they are a month out of date, they show that the position has worsened, not improved. The figures show that in Greater London the number of unemployed school leavers aged under 18 has increased by 897 per cent. since May 1979. It is probably better to use percentages because they avoid the difficulties that we now face after the Secretary of State's decision to change the method of collecting and publishing statistics. In the London borough of Islington, part of which I represent, the increase was 528 per cent. The number of unemployed under-20s in Greater London increased by 371 per cent., and the figure for the same age group who were unemployed for more than a year increased by 963 per cent. The comparable figures for Islington were 268 per cent. and 700 per cent. The Islington figures are lower, because we start from a different base.
I use those figures to underline the urgency of the problem. The Government have taken much of the credit for the youth training scheme, but it was devised by the Manpower Services Commission, and at one stage the Government appeared to be dragging their feet. However, it is a major step towards securing training opportunities for youngsters. The TUC has described it as a mighty step in that direction. That is a generous description, and I hope that it will prove to be justified. It would be churlish not to welcome the scheme, but we are still entitled to ask whether it is enough to meet the needs of young people. Last year one in two school leavers had no job to go to. The position is becoming worse, not better, and youngsters have a bleak prospect. More than 1·25 million under-25s are unemployed, and long-term or hard-core unemployment among youngsters is clearly becoming worse.
The "Jobs for Youth" campaign has made some sensible suggestions—for example, that places on the new youth training scheme that starts in September should be available to all 16 and 17-year-olds who wish to join. The Secretary of State said that that is his aim but that he cannot give us such a guarantee now. The campaign mentions an increase in allowances and says that those with special needs should receive more attention. The campaigners argue that young workers must be given training and education as part of their jobs and that apprenticeships must be increased and modernised. Overall, the demands are modest in our present position. I emphasise the special needs of young blacks and of the disabled, who face a double handicap. I know that the Secretary of State recognises that, but I ask for more attention to be given to their problems.
The Secretary of State said that he is confident that places will be found. I question that confidence and ask him whether he believes that commerce and industry will
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find 460,000 jobs from September, bearing in mind the depressed state of British industry. I need only refer to the latest CBI survey—
Mr. Tebbit: I hope that 300,000 places will be found in commerce and industry and that the remaining 160,000 will be what we call mode B places.
Mr. Grant: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for underlining that point, but it does not alter the fact that, whichever figure is chosen, I question whether he will be on target in view of our increasingly depressed economy. If the target is not reached—the lower figure that he gave was for those who will be dealt with by the local education authorities—the hard-pressed authorities will presumably be under even more pressure to take up the slack, which will cause difficulty.
It seems that some Civil Service unions oppose the youth training scheme because they fear that it will be used to cover up the Government's arbitrary staff cuts. The Manpower Services Commission wishes to have Civil Service participation, and the Secretary of State agreed with that this afternoon, although he did not deny the suggestion that the Prime Minister does not wish it. Perhaps his right hon. Friend the Minister of State will deal with that point in reply. It is not surprising that there are such suspicions. I hope that the Civil Service unions can overcome those suspicions, but the right hon. Gentleman cannot blame them for being worried about job substitution and cheap labour when one examines the guidance notes to Departments from the Government on privatisation and arbitrary manpower targets. It explains the unions' attitude fairly well.
The allowances for training and administration are inadequate. That comes back to the old argument that if the jam is spread too thinly, the quality may suffer. That, in turn, raises the point made by the right hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker) relating to adequate monitoring. The Social Democratic party is calling for a special training inspectorate. Are the Government prepared to give serious consideration to that suggestion?
The problem that concerns the British Youth Council, among others, is that managing agents in the private sector can recruit direct from the youth training scheme without going to the careers service. They may cream off the better equipped youngsters and leave others at a disadvantage and without a fair crack of the whip. However, those youngsters are most in need of help from the scheme.
There must be more direct representation of youngsters or their organisations on the area manpower boards. That is causing some anxiety. Is the Minister satisfied that there is sufficient cross-section interest on those boards and does he believe that young people are adequately represented?
We need a training system that is flexible and responsive to needs. We must ensure that youngsters have the opportunity of full-time education and training on or off the job, and we must move—there is no dissent from this in the House—from the traditional arrangements for time-served apprenticeships towards national standards. The YTS should be expanded to include all unemployed 17-year-olds. The courses will have to be lengthened.
I hope that the YTS will be highly successful. It should be a platform to build upon. Young people need real jobs. The Conservative party talked about that and constantly reminded us of it during the run-up to the 1979 election. Otherwise, the efforts will be wasted, however good the training schemes are.

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This is clearly not the time to discuss broad economic issues, but, in reply to the hon. Member for Chippenham, there is no suggestion of overnight or simplistic solutions from the Social Democratic party. Public investment, shorter working time and general economic regeneration must come. There must be a change of Government policy. Unless we get those things right, trained or untrained young people face the appalling prospect of growing old on the dole queue. That is the challenge that faces the Government, the House and the nation. I do not believe that the Government have measured up to that challenge.
6.12 pm
Mr. Eric Deakins: I apologise to both Front Benches for the fact that I will have to leave the House at 6.30 pm for a constituency engagement. I will be unable to hear the winding-up speeches. I look forward with interest to reading the remainder of the debate.
I echo, briefly, some of the criticisms that have been made about the youth training scheme. Criticisms have been made of the fact that there is no guarantee of a job at the end of the scheme, of the differentials between the training salary and the wages paid to apprentices, of the lack of any information about trade union rights and responsibilities and of the fact that the scheme will be seen by some people as an expedient to try to reduce the unemployment figures.
There was a hint in the Minister's speech that some employers, if they were quick off the mark, might be able to choose some of the trainees for particular occupations. That is all well and good. Will the Minister or his right hon. Friend give a little more detail as to how the trainees are to be matched with particular occupations?
It would be a great advantage to an employer in the engineering or electrical contracting industry to have a fairly bright trainee who might well at the end of a year's course have acquired sufficient knowledge to go on to a full apprenticeship. That would count towards his apprenticeship and reduce its length.
For many other young people who might benefit from such skilled training during their one-year course, there may not be the opportunities even under the 3:2 arrangement. How will the selection be made? Will the MSC say to employers, "You have agreed to take a dozen young people. Please take this dozen young people," or will it say, "Here are 100 young people in the local area. We know you want a dozen people. We know you are a good employer. Would you like to come along, see them and take your pick?"? More information is needed about that.
Secondly, and more important, if 300,000 trainees go into commerce or industry—that is very good—how will they be selected as distinct from the 160,000? Will it be on the basis of qualifications? That is not clear. A more important question for the 300,000 trainees going into industry and commerce is that they will be going into the existing pattern of industry and commerce. That is unavoidable, by the nature of the scheme.
What worries me about this scheme is that of the young people who get skilled training during their year, a number will be lucky enough to have decent employers and trade unions to help them. However, a number may be trained in skills of the past, not in skills of the future. Will there
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be any direction in the scheme so that more of the trainees are guided towards a growth industry rather than to the existing patterns that might not necessarily meet the needs of industry over the next five to 10 years?
Representatives of the microcomputer industry, for example, visit schools. As a result, many young people coming out of schools and taking part in this training scheme in the next few years will have some knowledge of and interest in skills of the future. If, however, such opportunities are not present and they are trained in the retail trade, for example—there is nothing wrong with that—their skills will be wasted. We must ensure that the scheme is weighted towards industries of the future rather than industries of the past.
Mr. Tebbit: We shall do our best to push industries of the future and get young trainees into them. Geography will sometimes resolve some of these questions, as opportunities in some parts of the country will be better than in others. Above all, this will be a locally based scheme under which local employers, trade unionists and other interests can identify the skilled needs of their area in the next few years.
Mr. Deakins: I take that point. The Labour party and I would go further and say that the Government ought to be playing a greater part in planning the direction of the economy in the future. If we had a different Government, there might be more direction so that young people got better advice both at school and during the scheme, even if there was no local industry. However, some attempt should be made to provide skills locally, which the young people could then use, not necessarily by getting on their bikes but by going elsewhere to obtain suitable employment. The points I have made are important, and I hope that consideration is give to them.
6.18 pm
Mr. Raymond Whitney: I accept, of course, that the hon. Member for Waltham Forest (Mr. Deakins) should approach the YTS in a critical and questioning manner. That is a reflection of the partisan way in which we tend to conduct our affairs in this place. It is also right to ask many questions about the complex issues arising from this inevitably new and ambitious scheme. I do not object in the slightest to the points that the hon. Gentleman made.
The hon. Gentleman and Opposition Members should accept that this is a genuine and sincere effort to deal with a long-standing problem. Reports came from Germany as long ago as the 1870s. The problem is more than a century old. We must be conscious that training in Britain has always been one of our weaker points.
In the past 10 or 20 years that realisation has been widespread throughout industry and, to a lesser extent than it might have been hoped, in the teaching profession and politics. The Labour party has issued a number of consultative documents about it. A document published in 1978 referred to the fact, that unless something was done, many workers in Britain would continue to be substantially less well paid than their counterparts abroad.
It is widely accepted that something new is needed. It is to the Government's credit that at such a difficult time in our economy they should embark on a scheme of this imagination and of cost. I hope that it will continue to receive the fair wind that it needs.

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The country must be told again and again that the new scheme is not just another YOP. It offers at least 13 weeks of genuine high-quality training and the opportunity, whichever mode is used, of continuous work experience. We all accept that the most demoralising thing for young people of 16 and 17 is the lack of the regular discipline of work.
When the scheme was first announced, I was somewhat distressed at the timetable, which seemed to be on the slow side. As the months have gone by, I recognise that the Government and the Manpower Services Commission have got their skates on. There is much more to do, but the Secretary of State will not need me to tell him that.
I am concerned that, for example, in my own constituency, local authorities have only just begun to tell me about the YTS. My reaction has been to ask why they have not heard of it before. I therefore hope that the Secretary of State and the MSC will pull out all the stops to give all the assistance needed by the local education authorities, local authorities generally and commerce and industry, which will play such a major part in the scheme.
I am sure that all hon. Members are concerned that we should give this new start to our young people. It is up to us to heighten awareness both of what is available and of the immense resources that are being offered. This is a good deal for employers, and it ought to be a good deal for our young people.
It is easy to suggest the possibility, not of fiddling, but of sailing close to the wind. Such a suggestion should not be taken too seriously. Any possibility of creating more training opportunities and a better work force must be for the good of us all and certainly for British industry. I hope that this issue will not degenerate into a party political dog fight. It is what the country needs. On the whole, both the trade unions and the employers recognise that.
The Government must ensure the final push so that by September we have a scheme of which we can all be proud. We must ensure that no longer will we spend a century looking at our overseas competitors and admitting that the standard of training in Britain falls below that available in other countries.
6.22 pm
Mr. Ken Eastham: I begin by referring to some of the Secretary of State's remarks. He said that training in Britain was not good enough. Labour Members have been saying that for many months. No more than 12 months ago we hotly contested the Government's proposal to curtail the activities of the industrial training boards in an attempt to save £50 million. During those debates we pleaded with the Government to recognise that the standard of training in Britain was not comparable with that of our European competitors. I am therefore encouraged to note that the Minister of State is now accepting that statement. My only regret is that he did not give voice to it some months ago when we tried to resist the curtailment in the activities of the training boards.
The concentration on 16-year-olds has aroused much suspicion, because some of our youth feel that that will be at the expense of 17, 18 and 19-year-olds. I seek an assurance that the funding for 16-year-olds will not be siphoned off from the funding of other age groups. Some clarification on that point is needed.
We must face the fact that many of our youth are cynical about the Government and do not trust some of the
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statements that are made. One Conservative Member referred to planning and said that Labour Members believed in it. We do indeed. He recognised that a lack of planning for the provision of skills would create manpower shortages with all its other consequences, and there are numerous examples of the consequences arising from the failure to make provision for any economic upturn.
I was delighted that another Conservative Member referred to Japan. He seemed to praise the Japanese education system. He said that Japanese youths were kept on for technical education and training, as a result of which Japan was better equipped to compete with the rest of the world.
To our great sorrow, the Government have consistently cut back on education. I have even heard it said that they might reduce the school leaving age to below 16. If Conservative Members really believe that the Japanese education system is so good, the ought to use their influence to persuade the Government to do likewise.
Mr. Greenway: The hon. Gentleman should bear in mind that it was the Prime Minister who, as Secretary of State for Education and Science, raised the school leaving age to 16. From my long and wide experience, I know of no school at which any pupil has been refused a place beyond the statutory school leaving age if that pupil has wanted one.
Mr. Eastham: I have no doubt that the raising of the school leaving age to 16 was a party obligation that had been entered into a number of years before the right hon. Lady took office as Secretary of State for Education and Science. It is hard to believe that the Prime Minister is so progressive that she wants to introduce advances in education, because if that were so she would be urging education Ministers to change the savage policies from which we are suffering at present.
Apart from the dreadful state of youth unemployment, another problem requires specialist attention. I am thinking about the many companies that have taken on apprentices and have then gone into liquidation. Many young people have begun four-year apprenticeships, but after two or three years have found themselves without a job. They have been unable to complete the full apprenticeship scheme. There are thousands of young people in that terrible dilemma. I assure the Minister that parents have written to me about this terrible predicament, and any special assistance to deal with that problem would be gratefully received.
The situation remains gloomy. I have read some of the glossy leaflets, but the White Paper makes three important references—to developing skilled training; to work-related training and education; and to updating skills and knowledge. Those are the three most fundamentally important aspects of training. I hope that those objectives will be achieved in some way or other.
There was much justifiable criticism of previous so-called training schemes, some of which were greatly abused. Young people said that they were being exploited as cheap labour, that there was no skill training and that they were being used to sweep floors and run errands. That is not training. I realise that a considerable amount of money—£1 billion—is washing around here. I sincerely hope that it will not be misused. We must be extremely cautious about unscrupulous agencies. It is important that skilled, trained, professional people in education should have a major say in these matters.

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Employers sometimes criticise standards of education. When I was involved in education a few years before I came to the House, some employers were saying that the young people were doing badly in their entrance examinations and that standards were unsatisfactory. We investigated that complaint to discover what was going wrong. We found that although the metric system of measurement had been introduced into the schools, some of the employers were still using the imperial system. The education system had advanced but the employers—the critics—were not moving with the times. One cannot blame education for that. Employers have to tell educationists what they want. I am sure that educationists will then co-operate to try to meet employers' needs.
I should like to say more, but time is against me. I hope that the Minister will bear those points in mind, and I shall be grateful for any observations that he may make.
6.32 pm
Mr. Barry Jones: I am glad to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Eastham), who has had a distinguished career as an engineer and was a distinguished lay educationist in Manchester for some years.
Overall, the Secretary of State's speech was low key, low profile, candid and frank, but it was also an apologia for the current youth unemployment figures. We were disappointed to hear that the Minister has engaged the diabolical smoothies who conned the British people into voting Conservative for supposed full employment after 1979—the advertising agency of Saatchi and Saatchi—to sell the scheme to employers and parents.
Mr. Tebbit rose—
Mr. Jones: I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman. I assume that he will now be the apologist for Saatchi and Saatchi.
Mr. Tebbit: Ministers do not engage advertising agents for the Manpower Services Commission.
Mr. Jones: I fully accept that, but I conclude that the right hon. Gentleman believes that the choice was a right and proper one. We would contest that fiercely.
Mr. Arthur Lewis: My hon. Friend may be right to castigate the Minister who may or may not have been responsible, but surely it is better to give the account to a British firm than to an American firm? The pro-nuclear campaign is to be handled by an American firm, J. Walter Thompson. The Government are giving away £1 million. As the Prime Minister says, "Buy British, pay British."
Mr. Jones: I respect my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Lewis) for the patriot that he clearly is. Nevertheless, Saatchi and Saatchi is currently fulfilling the role of specialist cosmetician for the Conservatives in relation to unemployment figures that stink.
The Secretary of State in his approach and style today resembled a Samuel Smiles in a moral panic. His speech was that of a worried man with a sense of urgency and of a Cabinet Minister somewhat on the defensive.
Miss Clare Short was the subject of a studied attack by the Secretary of State. Clearly, her bulletin "Youthaid"
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and her correspondence in The Guardian have touched a raw departmental nerve, but committed, researched and informed criticism from a former member of the special programmes division may surely be helpful.
The critics of the scheme have had a hearing. They say that after 12 months' training one in two young people will return to unemployment and that that is not a better way to train people for work. The Government fanfare is that £1 billion is to be spent on the new training scheme and that £750 million has already been allocated this year for the YOP schemes. In the first year the YTS will cost about £900 million. The critics say that much of that would otherwise have been spent on supplementary benefit. They further argue that employers will recruit trainees rather then employ school leavers for wages so as to cut their wages bills. The critics also point out that the hours and holidays offered are inferior to those enjoyed by the average worker and that the allowance is declining in value. Others state that the advertising campaign for which Saatchi and Saatchi is being paid £1·5 million is in part being manipulated to help to allay public fears about youth unemployment.
Both sides of the House must agree that the debate takes place against a daunting backcloth of unemployment. Youngsters are told the truth that a job is the pivot of life, but in the next few years the number of long-term unemployed may rise to 1·5 million. If, as many forecasters expect, unemployment remains at about 3 million for some years, 35 to 40 per cent. of the total will be long-term unemployed.
As the hon. Member for Islington, Central (Mr. Grant) said, unemployment is increasingly hitting younger people and 60 per cent. of the total are under 45 years of age. Worse, the fastest growth in long-term unemployment is among the under-25s. At the last count 1,248,000 citizens in that age group were unemployed. Worse still, as recently as October 1982 the Under-Secretary of State for Employment, the hon. Member for City of Chester (Mr. Morrison), calculated that 263,000 16 and 17-year-olds had neither jobs nor training. That is the gaping hole in the Government's provision for youth. That deplorable statistic can incite only outrage and shame, and the Secretary of State openly conceded today that there was not so strong a guarantee in the scheme for the 17-year-olds.
Precisely how do the Government propose to help the great army of underprivileged youth? Will the new scheme come to the rescue of all unemployed 17-year-olds? The new community programme—supposedly the cheaper version of the old community enterprise programme—achieved only 40,000 places out of a possible 130,000 in November of last year. Ministers may bang the drum of departmental achievement, but they should hang their heads in shame about such statistics.
The hon. Member for Islington, Central referred to ethnic minorities. We want a clear statement on that issue from the Minister of State tonight. The Government should spell out their policy on the scheme as it relates to ethnic minorities. The new scheme should represent a new deal for them. As recently as November of last year the Commission for Racial Equality postulated that there was a 60 per cent. unemployment rate among black teenagers in our inner cities. The commission even alleged that discrimination existed. The Minister should tell us of his hopes in that sphere.

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The Minister should also be aware that researchers have found evidence of a lack of equal opportunity for females on YOP courses. He should guarantee that the scheme's staff will not segregate girls into traditional roles. The new scheme should ensure a widening of opportunities for young women.
Other hon. Members have mentioned the physically handicapped. How genuine are the Government in their declared promise to guarantee training for all unemployed 16-year-olds? How will the scheme cater for the physically handicapped? Does the new scheme need to be amended to achieve that? Should places be offered on the new scheme to those handicapped young people who remain in full-time education until they are aged 18 or 19? So far the Department's attitude to the scheme has been vague and unconvincing. Perhaps the Minister of State will go on the record today and reassure some of us about that attitude, just as he might reassure us on the subject of vouchers.
We should have a categorical denial that the Department is preparing to ask workers and the unemployed to pay for part of their retraining when they wish to keep or obtain jobs. That query is of relevance and interest to every youngster who is soon to embark on the new scheme. In an article in The Guardian on 13 December, the newspaper's social services correspondent said that, according to a report that is being considered by the Government:
"Workers would be expected to raise bank loans with easy repayment terms if they wanted to retrain for new skills."
I challenge the Minister to go on record today and kill that allegation and reassure the tens of thousands of youngsters who are about to embark on the scheme.
Last year the MSC urged the Government not to operate the £260 million young workers scheme, and especially not to operate it alongside the youth training scheme. The MSC pointed out bluntly that the young workers scheme did not encourage training for young people. It is disgraceful that the Government today seek praise and acclamation for their new scheme and for their public commitment to training, while at the same time they propose to pump £260 million into a widely advertised young workers scheme that is bereft of training provision. Arguably, that scheme is devoted to forcing down youngsters' wages.
The Minister should announce today that the moneys that are earmarked for the young workers scheme will be switched to the youth training scheme, as the MSC has urged the Department to do. There was a distressing catalogue of accidental deaths and amputations in last year's YOP scheme. How will the Department ensure that health and safety training and the protection of trainees in the new scheme can be enforced?
There has been some evidence of employers having a lack of faith in the new scheme. Indeed, it places too great a reliance on employers providing many of the facilities and much of the support for training. Sir Terence Beckett of the CBI commented that employers might find it difficult to give all the help they would like to give to the scheme unless company profitability improved and the economy showed greater signs of recovery. He made that statement early last year. Today, the front page of The Guardian surmises that the CBI sees that 90,000 jobs could be at risk, with no sign of the recession going away. On that basis, the Minister needs to assure us that the Government believe that they can obtain sufficient sponsors.
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The Opposition's fundamental criticism of the scheme and of the Government centres on the Government's unwillingness to reflate the economy. In the immediate years ahead, the mass unemployment level will probably still approximate 3 million. Many of our boys and girls may thus be doomed to joining the dole queues after completing their training year.
We know that 250,000 under-18s are without work or training. It may be said that the scheme, given a fair wind, could be a golden bridge between school and meaningful, secure and fulfilling work. But it might also be said, sadly, that the scheme will for tens of thousands of youngsters, be a gangplank from school to the humiliation and frustration of the dole.
The Secretary of State tonight set out one of the Government's election stalls. Clearly, they envisage the scheme—warts and all—being a vote winner. We all want the scheme to be successful, but, in itself, it will be useless if those who complete it successfully find themselves high and dry on the dole. They will be the best qualified school leavers, but nevertheless part and parcel of the monetarist-induced mass unemployment statistics.
The House must not forget that since the Government took office one in five jobs in manufacturing industry has disappeared. Most companies have ruthlessly slimmed their manning levels to stay alive. If the present economic strategy continues, the eager trainees will become a generation at risk. To doom them to the dole will be for the Secretary of State and his Government to engage in a moral crime.
6.48 pm
The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Michael Alison): The hon. Member for Flint, East (Mr. Jones) raised a number of points, some of which echoed those raised by his right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker) at the start of the debate. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to cover the points in a cornucopian manner. He made one reference to the community programme. He was a little unfair in quoting the figures that we had reached by December. They were not bad figures, because the scheme only began in October. We have full expectation that we shall achieve the 130,000 target by the end of the year.
The right hon. Member for Doncaster made an odd speech, with a curious Pavlovian aspect to it. He was clearly taken aback by his own pet stereotype of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. He was expecting a roaring lion prowling around seeking whom he could devour. Instead, my right hon. Friend performed like a dove. The right hon. Member came to the debate with a lion trap to trap my right hon. Friend, but he flew away. He made a constructive, entirely peaceful, informative, factual speech that was full of harmony. The right hon. Member for Doncaster was so surprised that all he could do was to wheel out the old blunderbuss with which one attacks lions. My right hon. Friend was not performing like a lion today, although he is a lion in Cabinet when it comes to getting money.
The right hon. Member for Crosby (Mrs. Williams) was quite right to say that she was unable to obtain the resources that have been given to my right hon. Friend. He has been able to do a job in securing resources for this programme which no former Minister on the Opposition side has come anywhere near doing.

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The right hon. Member for Doncaster, after spending almost the whole of his speech trying to shoot my right hon. Friend as if he were a lion, but getting the wrong target, then produced the most ludicrous case by way of a weapon with which to attack my right hon. Friend—a Sunday Times article of June 1982 about a truncated report of some interview on a particular training scheme in a particular company. Obviously, because he was expecting my right hon. Friend to have attacked everyone indiscriminately, this was his studied riposte and he spent about 20 minutes on it. It was entirely irrelevant.
As for Guardian articles that have been ladled out like gruel in the poorhouse to the House this afternoon, we will not scrape a drop from the carpet. It is all rubbish. A Sunday Times article is one thing; these endless drips from The Guardian, alleging scandals, are not worth the time it takes to read them. So I am afraid there will be no response to them.
It was a pity that the right hon. Member for Doncaster also had to bang the old party drum about unemployment—that is to say, that it is monstrous that we have unemployment under a Conservative Government, the implication being that it is something, like strikes or inflation or shortages of resources, which never happens under a Labour Government. He forgets that, if unemployment has doubled in the 1980s—we do not pretend it has not—it also doubled in the 1970s and in the 1960s. In both the 1960s and the 1970s it did so under Labour Governments. This "holier than thou" attitude towards unemployment is therefore particularly uncon-vincing in the Labour party.
The right hon. Member for Doncaster's patronising and superior tone of condescension about the youth training scheme is particularly damaging not to the Government but to the Opposition, because it comes from a member of a party which, having presided over two lots of doubling of unemployment, managed to come up with nothing further in respect of training than three consultative papers, the first of which was produced as late as 1978. That is the record of the Labour party whose members try to lambast my right hon. Friend today for having done something real and substantial to come to grips with unemployment, which was presided over by the Labour party for far longer than by the Conservatives.
Mr. Dan Jones rose—
Mr. Alison: Of course I will give way without hesitation to the hon. Gentleman in just a minute. I have carefully marked that he is to have a helping in this debate. I just want to point out that, to get the youth unemployment figures in perspective, it is worth reminding right hon. and hon. Gentlemen of a vivid and fair way of putting it which they may have seen in the extremely effective exhibition mounted in the Committee Corridor by the Manpower Services Commission.
Mr. Harold Walker: Where were you?
Mr. Alison: I was standing in for my right hon. Friend, who was sick.
As can be seen in the exhibition, for every 10 youngsters who reach the age of 16 at the present time, three continue at school and three find jobs. That is, the majority either find jobs or stay at school, and the
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minority—four out of the 10—are unemployed. That is the group we are seeking to garner and help by the youth training scheme. We expect that two of those four will get jobs at the conclusion so that eight out of ten school leavers either continue at school, get jobs straight away or get into the youth training scheme and only two at the end fail immediately to get work. That is not a bad record in relation to the real problem we have.
Mr. Dan Jones: Whatever might be said about the lions and the lambs, this is a constructive document. I am very pleased to tell the House that about two and a half years ago in Nelson, a neighbouring constituency to my own, I was asked to address a meeting of apprentices. I did so and found it a great pleasure because, having been in engineering for many years, I know that apprentices are the very basis of engineering. I am sure the Minister realises this as well. Out of politeness to him, I had to tell the resident Member, who is still a Member of the House, now on the Government side, that I had been there. We, seven Members from that area, collected nearly £400 which we gave to the people organising the apprentices. We asked them if they would tell the employers' federation that we had done it. We asked the employers if they would make a contribution as well. I wrote to the Minister in question, telling him what we had done.
Unless this is done, whatever money there may be in the next Parliament, without this type of personnel, not much will be achieved. I am very pleased that there is a place in north-east Lancashire for the people who began this on behelf of the engineering industry.
Mr. Alison: I have noted carefully the point made by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Jones) about apprentices and I will try to say a word about them. The House will recall that he is the hon. Member who once said in the middle of one of his own speeches: "I pause, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to interrupt myself." I hope he will remember my support when he gets to heaven.
Turning to some specific points made by the right hon. Member for Doncaster after he had finished his abortive attempt to attack my peace-loving and right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State, he asked a question about the young worker scheme. The expectation is that it will run parallel with the youth training scheme—that is, at least throughout 1983–84. Beyond that, no decisions have been taken. There are 145,000 applicants approved on this scheme so far. That was the figure at the end of December 1982. That is a large number of youngsters being helped in jobs.
Local authority expenditure on the youth training scheme which is reimbursed by the Manpower Services Commission will not count towards expenditure limits. This is the same arrangement as the youth opportunities programme. While we would not wish to see local authorities penalised as a result of additional expenditure incurred through participation in the new scheme, we should not consider an exemption for additional expenditure justified.
The right hon. Member asked about apprenticeship schemes. I hope this is where I can say something to encourage the hon. Member for Burnley too. I can understand concern that the scheme should not undermine in any way the quality of apprenticeship training in at least its opening year of operation, 1983–84. I can assure the right hon. Member for Doncaster, the hon. Member for

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Burnley and others who talked about apprenticeship schemes that there is no intention at all of overturning existing good practices, but rather of building on them. Managing agents will be able to run schemes on which some youngsters are treated as apprentices while others receive training in different skills, provided the youth training scheme standards are met in both cases. We hope many more young people will be given the opportunity to go on to specific skills training as a result of entering the youth training scheme.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stevenage (Mr. Wells) and I had the privilege of visiting the north of England not long ago when we saw an ICI scheme which the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Burnley may know about and my hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) may have heard of, which is an interesting apprenticeship scheme. There is a common first year for youth training scheme entrants and apprentices. There is a common wage, to which the company contributes. It is a consolidated figure. All the unions have agreed the scheme. I have welcomed it myself, as has my right hon. Friend. Apprentices will be selected from the total intake at the end of the first year. The skill attainment of the trainees will determine the apprentices taken on after the first year.
I have also visited schemes—Carreras Rothman in the north-east is one example—where there are two separate streams. The YTS stream is separated from the apprentice stream. Within that spectrum, there is a good deal of scope for variation.
The hon. Member for Newham, North-East (Mr. Leighton) is interested in the wage factor. I cannot generalise. In the ICI scheme, there is a consolidated figure. In the Carreras scheme, the apprentice rate continues alongside the YTS rate. I cannot generalise. It depends upon the particular scheme.
I have been asked about the protection of trainees. The existing YOP arrangements, which are, in effect designed to ensure that trainees are as much protected as full
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employees, will continue under the youth training scheme. The MSC will take out the necessary insurance cover which it will fund. At the end of the day, trainees will effectively be as fully protected de facto as those who are legally and technically employees.
The right to join trade unions is under examination. The right of local trade unions to have some say in a local scheme is being studied. The likelihood is that they will be consulted on it.
A number of hon. Members have made other comments. My hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Mr. Wolfson) was concerned about the extent to which life and social skills aspect might be dealt with in some training schemes being developed. All youth training scheme programmes which have a life and social skills dimension to them, and some of those I have visited, make a considerable amount of that element. They are designed to teach skills relevant to obtaining and retaining a job. To the extent that political training is relevant to the objective of the scheme, it can be included in off-the-job training. It is not only a matter of political realities. The Carreras Rothman scheme includes visits to prisons and to the police service.
Mr. Wolfson: My point was more specific. It would be part of the life and social skills training, but training specifically designed to enable those taking part to market themselves in finding jobs.
Mr. Alison: I am certain that this is regarded by those devising the modules and programmes as a crucial element. The schemes that I have visited—the Carreras Rothman scheme is a good example—included as a major element the part played by the trainee in self-assessment and measuring his own progress. I have tried to cover the points made by the right hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walker). If I have not covered every issue, in this short debate, I shall write to those hon. Members who have raised other points.

Trade
[Relevant documents:
Unnumbered European Community Document on common rules for imports of certain textile products originating in third countries.
European Community Document No. 11775/82.
Department of Trade memorandum of 13 December 1982.]
7.3 pm
The Minister for Trade (Mr. Peter Rees): I hope that the House will not find difficulty in switching its mind now to problems of trade. No one, I am sure, will question the appropriateness of a debate on trade. It is right that, in a period of world recession, the House should re-examine the principles by which we have ordered our trade policies for many years and assess the United Kingdom's performance under them.
I should like to make it clear at the outset that, notwithstanding the over-clouded sky of the world recession, the Government believe that the United Kingdom—and, indeed, the world—benefits, and will continue to benefit, from the maintenance, strengthening and extension of the open market trading system. Whatever disagreements there may have been at the GATT ministerial meeting in November, it should be noted that the 88 signatory countries, which between them are responsible for about 80 per cent. of the world's trade, reaffirmed their commitment to the principles of the open trading system and, in several areas, initiated work to strengthen and extend that system. That cannot have been an accident induced by the fatigue of five days of continuous discussion and debate.
Having been privileged to take part, I like to think that it was a sober and considered view. Indeed, in commiting themselves to the final communiqué, the Government were only reaffirming principles which have found favour with many previous Administrations. I cite, because he puts it so succinctly and attractively, the words of the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar (Mr. Shore):
"This country can only prosper if it is part of a world trading system in which we are able to trade freely with the other five continents of the world."
In case it should be thought that the right hon. Gentleman was speaking to some esoteric body, it was apparently a speech made to the Southampton constituency Labour party in June 1974. The right hon. Gentleman was addressing the grass roots. I have no doubt that his remarks evoked a warm response.
I refer also to the wise words of the right hon. Member for Lanarkshire, North (Mr. Smith) who, as Secretary of State for Trade, in December 1978, said:
"We in Britain remain convinced of the desirability of defeating creeping protectionism and of the benefits of maintaining, if we can, the open world trading system."
How right those words were then. How right they are today. I hope, therefore, that a strong consensus on these lines will emerge from the debate.
Leaving aside philosophic considerations, the facts and figures should, I believe, persuade us that the United Kingdom has not been doing badly under the present system. At a time when the volume of world trade fell significantly, the volume of United Kingdom exports increased by 1 per cent. The United Kingdom exported £37 billion of manufactured goods in 1982 compared with £35 billion in 1981. That is a creditable performance when the
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House recalls that world trade contracted by 3 per cent. It is hardly the sour fruit of an industrial wasteland as some hon. Members, although perhaps not those now present, are prone to describe this country at present.
Our trade in invisibles was about £31 billion in 1982—an increase of 6·5 per cent. over 1981 and an increase of 21 per cent. over 1980. Since over 11·5 million of our fellow countrymen are employed in the service sector, this must be reassuring news for them. Our current account surplus in 1982 was over £4·5 billion—almost as high as the record surplus in 1981, which came to over £6 billion. Our cumulative surplus for the last three years has been over £13 billion. That is not the performance of a country in irreversible decline.
Credit must, of course, go first to British exporters. However, as they would no doubt be the first to admit, there has also been a positive commitment by the Government to aid and support expanding exports. The British Overseas Trade Board deserves particular mention. Its export intelligence service alone provided opportunities which led to sales of £1 billion in 1982. In 1982, the BOTB supported over 340 United Kingdom joint venture stands at overseas trade fairs compared with fewer than 300 the year before.
The Export Credits Guarantee Department also provides a service as flexible and comprehensive as that offered by any other country. It is currently doing business worth about £30 billion a year by way of insuring and helping to finance United Kingdom exports. Despite all the risks round the world today, the ECGD's commitments to exporters stand at about £38 billion. Again, the aid and trade provision budget—that part of the aid budget specifically related to projects—has been increased from £55 million in 1982–83 to £66 million for the next financial year. I believe that this programme is good for the recipient countries since it is channelled into projects that they want, but that it is also good for the United Kingdom because it goes to support competitive bids by efficient United Kingdom companies.
Mr. Dan Jones: I think what has been recited so far is accurate, but has it been selective enough? Places which were predominant in the textile industry at one time have not got even a rag to manufacture. That is my point about being selective.
Mr. Rees: I hope the House will not think me churlish if I do not give way too often, but this is a short debate and I have much ground to cover. I shall be coming to the textile industry and to the importance of the multi-fibre arrangement.
The ATP programme, which is not relevant to the textile industry, since its inception, has been used to make aid grants and loans of £247 million associated with United Kingdom project business worth over £1 billion, and has created and sustained many thousands of United Kingdom jobs. I regard this as exceptionally good value for money.
While no one should doubt the Government's commitment to the open market system, I hope no one will regard this as stemming from blind ideological conviction. It is tempered by a pragmatic, not to say practical, concern for special cases and for special sensitivities.
The Government have recognised, as have previous Governments, and still recognise the special problems of the textile and clothing industries—the often painful process of readjustment which has involved shedding

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about 180,000 jobs in the last three years. That is why, to enable them to adjust to competition from low-cost suppliers and not inconsistent with the general principles that have influenced our trade policies, we have supported the European Commission in its prolonged negotiations for a tough multi-fibre arrangement—tougher, I must remind the House, than the MFA which preceded it and which was negotiated by the Labour Government. [Interruption.] I wonder. I think the storm clouds were there to see, judging from earlier debates in which possibly the hon. Gentleman did not take part.
I need hardly remind the House that the protocol was signed in December 1981, and 25 new bilateral agreements were entered into before the close of last year. As soon as they are formally signed, they will be laid in the Library of the House for hon. Members to study in detail. They cover the sensitive group 1 and the slightly less sensitive groups 2 and 3. Since the detail is enormous, I hope the House will forgive me if I do not attempt to summarise the agreements here tonight, particuarly because I made a full statement just before Christmas.
I should, however, emphasise that this MFA will involve a lower growth rate than under the previous MFA—in the case of group 1 just under 1 per cent.—a cutback on the dominant suppliers of around 7·5 per cent.; an anti-surge mechanism to prevent the rapid take-up of previously unused quotas; a basket extractor mechanism to enable new quotas to be opened; a special recession clause; and measures to deal with fraudulent imports. I believe that this MFA will provide a breathing space for these hard-pressed industries of which they will be able to take full advantage. Indeed, because I might appear to concentrate too strongly on the problems of these industries, I should like to congratulate them publicly on the level of their exports, which amount to about £2 billion per annum. That again demonstrates that there is a good deal of resilience, strength and entrepreneurial skill in those industries, and I do not think that we should write them down.
Of course, this MFA has a price. It is a price which has to be paid largely by the United Kingdom consumer. In all these cases a balance has to be struck between the interests of our consumers, producers and exporters and even of the developing world. If the developing world cannot sell into our markets, it will not be able to buy from us and it will not be able to service its debts. It is right that I should emphasise that.
Mr. Leslie Spriggs: The Minister has attached importance to the MFA. On what date will the new agreement be placed in the Library? Textile industries in St. Helens are waiting expectantly for it.
Mr. Rees: I understand the concern of the House and of the industries. The outlines are by now fairly well known. The industries have been keeping a watchful eye on the negotiations, as many hon. Members can confirm. I am afraid it does not lie with me to say exactly when the agreements will be signed. I have no doubt that it is a formality. None the less, I cannot lay these agreements until they have been formally signed and can be regarded as documents to be put before the House. I shall bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman said and will communicate his concern and that of the industries to the Commission.
Mr. Tony Marlow: My hon. Friend has talked about the textile industry. It is normal,
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when talking about the textile industry, to talk also about the footwear industry. I do not know whether my hon. Friend intends to come to the footwear industry. I think he is aware that the footwear industry has felt somewhat of a Cinderella industry in regard to its treatment by Governments over the last 10 years. It has been left on one side and has not had a fair crack of the whip. There has been a problem not only in Canada, Brazil, Australia and Japan, but within the Community, where we are supposed to have free trade. There is strong resentment that, for example, in Italy the industry does not carry the overheads and pay the taxes that our manufacturers have to bear. We import from Italy twice as much as we export to the rest of the world. What will be done within Europe against the Italians and the French, who, for one reason or another, compete unfairly with our industry which is suffering so severely?
Mr. Rees: My hon. Friend will no doubt have a chance to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is no: usual to debate the multi-fibre arrangement and the footwear industry in the same breath. I am well aware of the concern on this subject in Northampton. As my hon. Friend will know, there is a whole range of voluntary restraint arrangements to which the Government have given support. I understand my hon. Friend's concern. I shall be coming to the internal market, if I am given sufficient time.
Perhaps I may turn rapidly, and rather more succinctly, to Japan. It follows from our commitment to the open market that we expect other developed economies to accept the same obligations as we do. Our trade deficit last year with Japan—some £2 billion—may in part reflect the efficiency of Japanese industry in certain sectors, but we believe it also demonstrates very clearly that the Japanese market is not as open to our exports as ours is to its exports. Indeed, Japan's imports of manufactures, as a proportion of gross domestic product, are only half those of other developed countries, such as the United States and the countries of the European Community.
We have not hesitated to make our case robustly to the Japanese Government and to Japanese industry, not only bilaterally but through the Community. Indeed, the Community is now pressing its case against Japan before the GATT under article 23 and has asked for the case to be considered by a GATT working party. Commissioners Davignon and Haferkamp will again be in Tokyo this month. They are in no doubt about the need for identifiable progress on this front.
It would, however, be churlish not to recognise that the Japanese have taken a number of steps over the past year to help to improve access to their market. Of particular interest to our exporters was the reduction by 12 per cent. in the tariffs on confectionery, biscuits and chocolate. It seems, too, that gradual progress is being made towards eliminating other difficulties, such as onerous testing and inspection procedures. Furthermore, Prime Minister Nakasone has made a public appeal on the need for Japan to increase its manufactured imports, and we shall be pressing for some genuine follow up by action—for example, through major purchases of our aerospace and other capital equipment products. But I have to emphasise that we shall not be satisfied until we have secured a fairer deal for our exporters.
The Government are also concerned about the acute imbalance in trading opportunity between the United

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Kingdom and Spain, and in particular the tariff disparity that stems from the 1970 agreement between the Community and Spain. I am well aware of the concern in the west midlands on this subject. The disparity may have been justified by the relative backwardness of the Spanish economy in 1970, but it is now totally archaic. The problem is further exacerbated by Spain's failure to observe with any exactness its obligations under the 1970 agreement and by its vigorous policy of export promotion.
As in the case of Japan, we have taken action through the Community. The Commission is pursuing the matter with a greater sense of urgency with the new Spanish Government. Several sessions of talks have already been held—most recently in Brussels on Monday 31 January. The Commission made an interim progress report at the Community's January Foreign Affairs Council and a full report will be given to the February Council. We have made it clear that we need early and effective action in Madrid. We require early improvements in the opportunities for United Kingdom exports to Spain.
I should, in passing, emphasise that in all these areas our negotiating position has gained considerable strength from our membership of the European Community. I should be the last, in the aftermath of the south Atlantic conflict, to underestimate our capacity for national action. However, I have to point out that in trading questions our exposure to retaliation is diminished, our muscle is increased, and our opportunities enlarged by our membership of the largest trading bloc in the world.
Dr. John Cunningham: The matters to which the hon. and learned Gentleman has been addressing himself have, of necessity, been those of the broad brush and the large scale, and have therefore included some strengths and some weaknesses; and he has now mentioned Europe. Therefore, I should like to put two points to him about trade in Europe. The first concerns the chemical industry and the second the British paper industry, both of which are at present losing their share of the British market, mainly because of imports from European countries. This is particularly ironic as our trade surplus is based on energy exports, and it is the very cost of energy that these industries say is undermining their position.
Mr. Rees: I am aware of the concern about the petrochemical industry's overcapacity in Europe. If the hon. Gentleman can bring to my attention any cases of distortion of trade in this industry, I shall bring the subject up in Brussels. The paper industry's greatest concern is with imports from European Free Trade Association countries. Again, we are happy to look at any specific cases.
I know about the three large lay-offs in the north-west, which are matters for the companies concerned. I am concerned about these matters, but I notice that Wiggins Teape has a £9 million expansion programme in other parts of the country.
Yesterday I attended a Council of Ministers in Brussels. It was devoted exclusively to questions of the internal market of the European Community. This was the first such Council to be held and was largely prompted by the Government. It was designed to initiate a programe of measures to eliminate barriers to trade—to make internal trade easier—in the internal market of the European
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Community in conformity with the decision of the European summit held in Copenhagen on 3 December 1982.
The subjects discussed included third country access, a single administrative document for goods crossing intra-Community frontiers, information exchange about standards, reducing frontier formalities, and a system of postponed collection of VAT. The subjects are highly technical and complex, but they relate to the central theme of liberating trade in our largest export market.
Further meetings of the Council are likely to be held before the European summit in June this year. In particular, the Council will hope to begin consideration of questions relating to trade in services.
It is of the essence of the Community that there should be a free market for the exchange of goods, services, capital and labour. I hope that this and subsequent Councils will make a significant contribution to the attainment of this objective.
This leads me back to the grand theme of this debate. Last week the Leader of the Opposition, with both his shadow trade and foreign affairs spokesmen strangely silent, apparently sought to overturn this country's commitment to the open trading system in the event of a Labour Government being returned to power. His analysis of the problem and his prescription have the air of engaging eccentricity that increasingly marks his pronouncements on serious subjects.
I am sure that the House will have noticed the right hon. Gentleman's recent pronouncements at the Labour party rally in the MacLellan galleries, Glasgow, on Saturday 22 January. In case his lapidary words escaped the House's attention, I should like to refer to some of the more telling passages. In the first place, the right hon. Gentleman appears to have been rather badly briefed as he suggested that the Government
"have succeeded in losing a balance of payments surplus of £6 billion."
The figures that I have given to the House show that the trade surplus in the last year was over £4·5 billion and in the previous year £6 billion. Where he thinks the balance of payments surplus has been squandered or lost, he alone can say.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to say:
"They have squandered our foreign currency reserve and inflation will be rising."
On what facts he bases that extraordinary proposition, I do not know, but perhaps his hon. Friends taking part in the debate tonight will enlighten us further.
Admittedly, the December 1982 trade figures had not then come out, but, even so, it would have been possible for anyone who had studied these matters, with the vast resources of the Labour party's research department, to forecast that our current account balance would be well in excess of £3 billion. It was nearly £4·5 billion.
The right hon. Gentleman then said:
"Socialist France under President Mitterrand has shown us some of the answers".
I hesitate to comment on the policies of a friendly neighbour in the European Community, but to what can he be referring? The French current account balance? Surely not, since that is likely to amount to a deficit of 80 billion francs in 1982, equivalent to a deficit of £7·5 billion. Its rate of inflation? Surely not, since that it is now about 9·5 per cent. The stability of the Frence franc? But the slide in confidence has been halted only by a deposit of $4 billion by Saudi Arabia in Paris.

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The right hon. Gentleman then continued—this is worth studying as this will presumably be the basis on which the Labour party will go to the polls—by saying:
"What we have to recognise is that the present free trade system is an obstacle to world recovery."
The right hon. Gentleman cannot have consulted his right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey) when he said that. His right hon. Friend as recently as 13 November last year told us:
"Some Socialists were tempted to seek salvation through trade restrictions or competitive devaluation when they are faced with the difficulty of unilateral reflation … Such beggar-thy-neighbour policies if pursued on the scale required to offer any hope of escaping the dilemma are more likely to lead to a trade or currency war than to insulate their sponsors from the recession of the outside world."
How right his right hon. Friend was. What a pity that the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) does not talk more regularly to him, or, if he does, talks of other subjects. What a pity, too, that the right hon. Member for Stepney and Poplar did not talk to his right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, East before suggesting his 30 per cent. devaluation. Will the Opposition Front Bench spokesman confirm that that, too, is part of the Labour party's economic policy?
Mr. K. J. Woolmer: The Government have taken us half-way there already.
Mr. Rees: We shall see. I hope that we shall get some applause, although I do not claim any of the credit for that.
However, I revert to the Leader of the Opposition. The right hon. Gentleman seems to claim that his proposals for planned trade based on import controls are something entirely separate from old-fashioned protectionism. The difference is too fine for me to grasp. His major difficulty seems to be that the distinction is likely to be too fine for our trading partners also to grasp when they find trade barriers erected against the growth of their exports. If we can plan trade with them by controlling their exports, they can presumably plan trade with us in exactly the same way. That is still a trade war by any other name and still a risk to which a country that exports over 30 per cent. of its gross domestic product should not be exposed. It was the right hon. Member for Leeds, East who again, in a speech in March 1980, said:
"People talk of planned trade as the answer. But it takes two to tango, and trade can be planned only by agreements with one's trading partners."
How right he was.
Mr. Douglas Jay: Do the hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks this evening in praise of free trade apply to agriculture? Has he consulted his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food about this matter?
Mr. Rees: The right hon. Gentleman and I have had this exchange before in the context of my GATT statement. From his experience under the various Labour Governments, of which he was an adornment when we were outside the European Community, the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that no country fails to support its agriculture to some degree. If the Labour party is coming out against any support for agriculture, perhaps it had better incorporate that clearly in its election manifesto.
The truth is that the Leader of the Opposition's casual readiness to disregard painfully negotiated international agreements and treaty obligations, his conviction, in
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contradiction to almost all the world's leading international trade experts, that free trade is a major obstacle to, rather than an essential precondition of, world economic recovery, and his desire to withdraw first from Europe and then from the rest of the world behind tariff barriers must have already helped to raise doubts in some minds about our reliability as a trading partner. If such policies were to be implemented, they would be a disaster for our economy, a disaster for our consumers and a disaster for our exporters. The Leader of the Opposition appears to have forgotten the lesson of the 1930s when world trade in manufactured goods contracted by 40 per cent.
I hope that the House will unhesitatingly reject such reckless and ill-thought-out solutions and recognise that the trading policies of this country are best left in the practised and careful hands of the Conservative party.
7.30 pm
Mr. K. J. Woolmer: The words of the Minister for Trade, who is faced by the economic disasters that his Government have perpetrated in this country, fall ill from his lips. I shall say more later on that matter.
First, however, I shall say a word about textiles and clothing, as the hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned those matters in the early part of his speech. I know that the House would have liked to discuss these matters today in the light of the documents and details that we had all hoped would be available before this debate. Unfortunately, that information and the assessment of the implications of the agreements are not yet available. This is a regrettable delay, however understandable it may be, in the context of this debate. I need hardly remind the House that these industries have experienced a rapid decline in employment in recent years, and the remaining 600,000 workers will expect Parliament to look carefully at the latest agreements, when they are available. I hope that the Minister will tell us that time will be allowed for their proper consideration when the documents are available. In the meantime, I shall make a few brief comments and await that further consideration in due course.
I remain worried by the apparently considerable gap between actual imports last year and the quotas fixed for 1983. There is still considerable scope for significant import penetration if and when an upturn comes. The treatment of some clothing imports from eastern Europe and ASEAN countries is already causing concern.
Now that the agreements have been made, I shall put three important points to the Minister. First, there must be strict and thorough monitoring and control of imports, in line with the agreements, and they must be made to stick. Secondly, the potential advantage of the agreements must not be thrown away in dealings with other sources of imports, such as Turkey and China. Thirdly, we as a country must seek an early reduction in the unequal and often high tariff barriers that are put up against textile and clothing exports from this country in countries such as the United States, Spain, Australia, South Korea and Brazil.
The Government have now been in office for nearly four years, and the time has long since gone when they could blame others for the failings of their policies. Rarely have I heard Ministers claim so much credit for so little success, and disclaim responsibility for so many failures.

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It is difficult to know whether the damage that has been wrought by this Government is the result of intent, over-optimism, or incompetence.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, when in opposition, told The Times on 3 August 1978:
"Of course we"—
the Conservatives—
"should not want to proceed in such a way as to produce what some people would call a dramatic short term recession."
That was the pre—election promise. Since then, unemployment has risen by 2 million, our national income has fallen by 3½ per cent., manufacturing output has fallen by 19 per cent., manufacturing investment has fallen by one quarter, and the CBI economic report published only yesterday forecasts an unprecedented fourth consecutive year-on-year decline in manufacturing investment. How can the Minister come here tonight and criticise the Leader of the Opposition for putting forward policies, on the argument that they might cause a disaster to this country? Frankly, I do not understand his gall.
When the Prime Minister put her oar into the pre-election waters last time, she dropped this pearl of wisdom in Darlington in April 1979:
"Another Labour accusation is that the Tories plan to increase unemployment. But we Tories believe in policies that will create real jobs … We say Labour isn't working. They are the party of unemployment. We are the party of opportunity".
The truth is that 1,200,000 people have been unemployed for over a year now. If the Prime Minister went to Darlington now and told the unemployed there that hers was the party of opportunity she would get very short shrift. She should tell the story of opportunity to the record number of firms which have gone into liquidation and bankruptcy during the past year. She should look at what her party of opportunity has brought to the industrial regions of our country, the real wealth-creating areas of Britain. Since 1979, unemployment in the northern region has risen by over 100,000. The north-west has seen unemployment increase by 250,000. Yorkshire has seen an increase of 200,000. The west midlands, which 10 or 15 years ago was the bedrock of our industrial prosperity, has had an increase of unemployment of 250,000 under this party of opportunity. Even the south-east has had an increase of unemployment of nearly 500,000, and Scotland has borne its burden of 180,000 extra unemployed.
To be fair to Conservative Ministers, they at least have the virtue of consistency. They misled the country before they were elected, and they have continued to mislead the country since. The Prime Minister told the country in January 1981 that 1981 would be the year when results showed. Indeed, 1981 was the year in which results showed. Unemployment in this country rose by 764,000. The Chief Secretary to the Treasury told the country last May:
"the evidence of a start of a recovery is all about us and not even the most blinkered pessimist could fail to see it".
Unfortunately, 300,000 more unemployed people have failed to see the signs of upturn all around them.
The truth is that the economic policies of this Government have been a disaster for the industrial areas of Britain. Now, after four years of sitting on their hands and watching our industries suffer, trade Ministers have
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joined in the chorus of self-deceit. The Secretary of State for Trade, commenting on the trade surplus for 1982, said that the surplus
"means that Britain is making a success of itself".
How can 3½ million unemployed people, a fall in national output, a collapse of manufacturing investment, and a massive fall in manufacturing output in all honesty be called a success?
Emboldened by his gall in regarding the destruction of jobs, industry and investment as a success, the Secretary of State told a meeting as recently as 31 January:
"The task before us in 1983 is to lead this country out of recession".
We have heard that before. He said:
"The signs of success are already there".
We have heard that before. He said:
"We must build on that success".
If this is success, thank goodness the Government did not fail.
Unfortunately for the Secretary of State, the Government published their expenditure plans yesterday, and only one or two days after talking of success in the year ahead, those plans reveal that the Government expect unemployment to rise by another 280,000 in the current year.
What then has the Department of Trade achieved in its policies since 1979? Ministers have failed for far too long to face up to, and to oppose, the disastrously over-valued level of sterling on the foreign exchanges. For three and a half years British producers have had to operate in export markets as if they were carrying a huge tax on their prices and have had to face import competition that effectively received a substantial subsidy. The miracle is that so many firms have stayed in business. Under this Government it has been an achievement, not to succeed, but simply to stay in business.
The success of British industry has been despite and not because of Government policies. Ministers at the Department of Trade have been misled by their own rhetoric and by that of their over-optimistic economic Ministers. In a deep recession, one would have expected imports to have fallen in the past three or four years, but imports of manufactures have increased since May 1979. There has been increasing import penetration in addition to a lack of domestic demand. I could assume from the Minister's remarks that manufactures were doing well and thriving, but exports of manufactures have fallen by 10 per cent. since May 1979. The same picture of a fall in the volume of exports and a rise in the volume of imports is true of trade in all goods, other than oil.
That brings me to what has saved the Government. The real explanation of Britain's trade surplus and the Government's sham claim to success lies in the enormous benefit that the Government have gained from North Sea oil. North Sea oil should have been a source of new investment, new growth and prosperity, but it has been used as a crutch to prop up an economy laid waste by incompetent policies. It has been used to finance unemployed workers to stay at home, instead of being invested in new industry to provide new jobs so that they no longer needed to do that. North Sea oil has been used to conceal the failures of trade policy and not as a bonus to expand trade and industry.
During this Government's term of office, the balance on non-oil visible trade has deteriorated by £3 billion per year. The balance on oil trade has improved by £6·5 billion

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per year as North Sea oil has come on stream. Oil's contribution to the balance of trade has increased sharply in recent months. In December, oil exports were running at an annual rate of £12·5 billion. The net balance of trade in oil was running at an annual rate of £8 billion in December. It is little wonder that on 4 January 1983 the energy correspondent of The Guardian described our trade position not as a success—as the Government would have it—but as a current account cover-up.
What has happened to the bonus of North Sea oil and gas? What benefits have they brought this country and how have Government policies made that bonus work? How will it help the future and present prosperity of Britain? The Government have made it clear that their economic, trade and industrial policies stand aside from such problems as how to make the best use of North Sea oil and gas. The trade policy of the Minister and his friends has not ensured that oil is channelled into the positive development of Britain. Instead, the oil revenues have been frittered away and wasted. They should have been channelled into new industries and into our established industries, which will be needed when the oil runs out. However, a hands-off economic policy and a laissez-faire trade policy has resulted in our oil wealth pushing up the value of sterling for more than three years, thus bringing hardship and collapse to many of our home industries. The Minister did not want to talk about that. He only wanted to talk about what he called success.
Many people in the industrial areas have come to regard North Sea oil, and the Government's handling of it, not as a boon, but as a curse. For three or four years, of course, those in financial institutions were willing to welcome a high pound and to receive the high interest rates that the Government perpetrated on industry. It is only in recent weeks that the longer-term reality has begun to get through to financial markets. The pound has begun to move towards a more realistic level at which our industries can hope to compete in export markets and against imports. The House will have noted the article that appeared in the Financial Times on 1 February, which argued in some detail that sterling remained greatly over-valued against other currencies, such as the deutschmark and the yen.
The Labour party has not been apologetic in arguing that the value of the pound should be lower. Indeed, our arguments of the past two or three years have been justified. The Government are embarrassed to agree that they welcome the fall because it will give trade some chance of recovering. Trade Ministers have stood idly by, proclaiming the virtues of free market non-intervention; oblivious to the consequences for British industry and jobs, and oblivious to the wasted opportunity of North Sea oil and gas.
What of the future? What trade policy do the Government have to cope with the falling value of our oil and gas resources in the not-too-distant future? The City experts Phillips and Drew recently forecast that the output of North Sea oil would drop precipitously by 1990. We do not have to agree with the details of that forecast to accept that the broad thrust of the problem is clear for all to see. The company argued, with some justification, that the production of oil and the revenue prospects for the Government are likely to deteriorate fairly soon, which
"will cause major problems for the next Government, whatever the political party in power."
At the conclusion of the debate, perhaps the Minister will give us his assessment of the position in the next few
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years. How are we to replace oil revenues and exports, and how are we to continue to finance even the current level of imports? If we are to expand the economy and get people back to work, how will he cope with the increased level of imports that will result from present policies? The Minister made a meal of what he considered to be the views of the Labour party and the views put forward in our policy statements. However, the Labour party believes that the Government have a duty to put the right to 'work at the top of their priorities. That requires expansion, not continued deflation.
Private industry and commerce have as much to gain from expansion as the public sector. Trade policy must be closely aligned to an industrial policy. Taken literally, the so-called free trade system—the Minister was careful to use the words "open trading system" as perhaps more appropriate than "free trade system"—would rule out not only active trade intervention policies, but positive industrial policies as well.
In reality, many countries have clear interventionist Government policies towards industry and trade. Meanwhile, the British Government appear to be one of the few who are not willing to intervene on any systematic basis in industry. They are one of the few Governments who appear to play by the rules of the game.
My hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven (Dr. Cunningham) mentioned the paper industry. The Wiggins Teape group has closed the New Bury paper mills in Bury, Lancashire. When asked why that was so, management said that the work force could not be held responsible. The work force, in co-operation with management, had demanned, improved productivity, accepted redundancies and increased flexibility. Even if the work force had agreed to no wage increases for two years, the mills would have had to close—partly because of import prices and partly because of energy costs. The hon. Gentleman said that continental competitors often have advantages that we do not have. For example, they often have the advantage of low energy costs.
Many people in Britain cannot understand why that should be so when we are self-sufficient in energy. They cannot understand why we cannot tailor Government policies to industries, such as paper manufacturing, that are energy-intensive. Why, if we have energy, are we incapable of enabling our energy-intensive industries to compete on equal terms?
What type of free or fair competition is it when Italian firms that employ 30 or fewer people are relieved of paying social security contributions? Why does the chemical industry face import penetration that has risen from 32 per cent. to 40 per cent. while the Government have been in power, while production has fallen by 9½ per cent? Is there nothing that trade and industry policy can do? Are the Departments of Trade and Industry working together in the interests of our basic industries?
The Labour party believes that we must carefully examine the way in which the world economy is going. There are deep worries about the way in which the present international system operates. In some respects, the international trade system is supposed to eliminate discriminatory practices but not prevent interventionist policies. In practice, GATT appears to tolerate discrimination but to discourage intervention.
There is a dilemma here. In the present depressed state of the world economy, any country that tries to expand its economy and create jobs for its people, even at rates that

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were regarded as modest a few years ago, runs the risk of a balance of payments problem. There is a growing realisation that all countries would like to share in mutual expansion, but no one is clear about how to get it started.
The Labour party believes that the initiative to start Britain's expansion must lie firmly with the Government. It would be nonsense if that expansion were to be cut short by an unwillingness to control the growth of imports. That growth would benefit foreign producers and workers much more than the recession and depression policies of the present Government.
The Labour party wants an expansion of our economy and jobs, helped by sensible trade planning and industrial policies. The real danger that faces the world is that critical international financial problems, combined with inaction on policies for expansion, could lead to full-blooded protectionism of the type that the Minister for Trade mentioned.
The worst of all worlds would be if countries were afraid to expand their economies and tried to create jobs at home by shutting out imports. Simply working to prevent "beggar-my-neighbour" protectionism is not enough. The world's political leaders must inject a sense of urgency into measures that are aimed at promoting growth and employment.
Working within the present framework of thinking in GATT will not be adequate. Much has changed since GATT was established. There has been a wide spread of capital, technology, know-how and skills. There has also been a wide spread of the sophistication and mobility of financial capital. Moreover, there has been an increased sense of sovereignty and political equality in the multitude of nations that make up the world.
The Labour party believes that an adapted framework for international co-operation to expand employment, output and wealth is needed to come to terms with the world of the 1980s and 1990s. The Government came to office promising to be the party of opportunity. Instead, their policies have devastated industry upon industry, and region upon region. Unemployment has risen by 2 million, and this year it promises to rise towards 3½ million.
Government trade policy has thrown away many of the benefits of North Sea oil and gas. By refusing to intervene in market decisions, they have allowed the strength of oil revenues to destroy much of our manufacturing industry. Where there should have been new investment there have been closures. Trade Ministers have stood idly by while an incompetent Chancellor opted for a grossly over-valued pound for far too long. Imports have risen and exports have stagnated. Oil revenues have helped to hide those failures of Trade Ministers, but trading circumstances, far from being a success, have been fundamentally weakened.
At the heart of the Government's weak position is the fact that they have no industrial or trade policies. Faced by the failure of their reliance on market forces, they have no alternative but to blame someone else, whether it be the trade unions, the previous Labour Government or the international recession. They either blame someone else or promise that an upturn is still just round the corner.
The fall in the exchange rate will be a considerable help in the next few months. The Labour party believes that a positive and vigorous trade and industry policy, based on a willingness of Government to plan with and assist industry and the financial system, is urgently required. A
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planned growth in trade, combined with expansionary policies that are aimed at getting people back into jobs, will offer real hope where at present the Government can only offer fatalistic despair.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Paul Dean): Order. Before I call the first Back Bencher, I remind the House that the debate must end at 10 pm. The winding-up speeches are expected to start at about 9.40 pm and many hon. Members wish to speak.
7.56 pm
Sir Anthony Grant: While I was listening to the hon. Member for Batley and Morley (Mr. Woolmer), I thought that we were having a debate on unemployment, and therefore I was just about to remind the House that when I ceased to have responsibility for unemployment the figure was 600,000. Within two years of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Foot) getting his hands on it, unemployment had increased by 1 million. Therefore, because of its record, I do not take seriously anything what the Labour party says about unemployment.
The debate is about trade. I listened eagerly to discover precisely what is the Labour party's official policy. As far as I could gather, it is a return to inflation behind some sort of new tariff barrier or import control. If I am wrong, I understand that the hon. Member for Batley and Morley will put me right in his winding-up speech. We wait, agog with excitement, for further enlightenment on that subject.
It is right that many hon. Members should wish to raise constituency points. I shall confine my speech to the greatest economic danger that faces the world—the possible growth of protectionism. Indeed, it is more than an economic danger. If one examines history, one finds that the protectionism that occurred in the 1920s and 1930s was one of the factors—only one, but a substantial factor—that gave rise to the second world war.
At the end of last year the secretary-general of the OECD said that in his view there had been a serious deterioration in international trade relations in the previous two years. This has shown up less in the imposition of traditional trade restrictions—the Spanish example is a glaring case in point; it is ridiculous that our exporters should have to overcome a tariff of 38 per cent., whereas we have only a 4 per cent. tariff—though these have been on the increase—but rather in the increasing use of such techniques as voluntary export restraints, monitoring of imports and the growth of domestic subsidies propping up uncompetitive industries that have grown up behind the scenes. They are a concealed form of protectionism. This has caused a drift towards seeking bilateral solutions to what are essentially multilateral problems.
Protectionism does nothing to make British industry more efficient and competitive. It does nothing but harm to the newly industrialised countries, which can service their substantial debts only out of export earnings. Inevitably, protectionism invites retaliation, which would probably damage this country more than any other, because, as my hon. and learned Friend the Minister said, we probably depend on a higher percentage of exports of our gross domestic product than any other country in the western world—30 per cent. compared with Japan's 12 per cent., for example. If we do not export, we do not eat. It is as simple as that.
Mr. James Lamond: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir Anthony Grant: I would rather not.
Protectionism does nothing to help the consumer, who seems to have been all too forgotten in the debate. His freedom of choice is restricted. Protectionism hinders rather than helps the world pull out of recession and loses more jobs in the long run than it appears to save in the short term.
The Prime Minister summed that up well in the debate in November on the Loyal Address when she said:
"For a time, the protection road is more comfortable, especially for the slow coaches, but there would be no surer way of destroying our own competitiveness. Why should companies exert themselves to reduce their costs and improve their products if their overseas competitors could be shut out of our domestic market? They would, instead, subside into a comfortable mediocrity—with poor design, outmoded technology, lower production, higher costs, poorer job prospects and the slow suffocation of effort and enterprise."
That sounds remarkably like the constituency of the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner).
Mr. Lamond rose—
Sir Anthony Grant: I shall not give way at the moment. I shall finish my quotation first. My right hon. Friend went on to say that consumers would
"pay higher prices for a more restricted range of poorer quality goods. They would be losers all round."—[Official Report, 3 November 1982; Vol 31, c. 22.]
I give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Lamond: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his courtesy. Will he tell us why all the things that have been prophesised for a country that gives way to protectionism have not happened to Japan, about which he was complaining a moment ago?
Sir Anthony Grant: We could have a whole debate on Japan, but I shall give the hon. Gentleman one answer. Japan has had the good fortune to have a more sensible trade union system than this country.
I am extremely glad that Ministers have followed that policy. To be perfectly fair, the Labour Government also opposed protectionism when they knew the real facts. The Leader of the Opposition said that import controls in the 1930s
"led to retaliation and deepened the nature of the slump."—[Official Report, 29 January 1976; Vol. 904, c. 802.]
The right hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan), the former Prime Minister, said, in more vivid language, that import controls
"would benefit some home industries but only at the expense of the livelihood of everyone working on exports. We should be robbing Peter to pay Paul."
The deputy Leader of the Opposition said that in the process of improving import controls
"we could finish by dragging the country down to the sort of prolonged depression which it experienced in the 1930s."— [Official Report, 17 December 1975; Vol. 902, c. 1409.]
Mr. Dennis Skinner: They do not say that now.
Sir Anthony Grant: They do not say that now because, now that they are in opposition, lunacy has set in again.
Like my hon. and learned Friend the Minister, I studied the remarkable speech delivered to the faithful by the Leader of the Opposition in the McLellan galleries in Glasgow on 22 January. He started with the startling discovery that
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"If each country bought more, its imports would be matched by exports to the other expanding countries."
One could argue that if each country bought less, its imports would be matched by exports. The right hon. Gentleman inveighed the free trade system. He then announced in ringing tones Labour's message to the world. We awaited it with bated breath, and here it is:
"Labour believes in planning production and planning trade."
We have heard that before somewhere. What on earth does it mean? I do not know. In the immortal words, "I think we should be told." The answer is that import controls work only in a totally managed state, as in eastern Europe, in a society in which the acolytes of the right hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn) would dole out to us what they thought was suitable for us from the limited resources that were left.
Furthermore, there is substantial humbug in the Opposition's attitude to trade. They pontificate volubly on aid, the North-South dialogue, and the Third world, but no sooner do those unfortunate nations get an industry going and try to sell their products than a great squawk of outrage erupts from Opposition Members, on the ground that their constituencies are being ruined.
Mr. Bob Cryer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir Anthony Grant: I shall not give way any more, least of all to the hon. Gentleman, who has come into the Chamber at a late stage of the debate and will pro 3ably go out again.
Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Sir Anthony Grant: The whole subject—
Mr. Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman said that I had just entered the Chamber. That is not true. I was here for the whole of the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Morley (Mr. Woolmer). I listened with interest to his constructive views.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has now put that on the record.
Sir Anthony Grant: The whole subject of trade is riddled with myths. For example, one might wonder why, with a big surplus of £4½ billion on our balance of payments, we need protection at all. That question perplexes many of our friends abroad. The Opposition are always telling us that it is made up more out of the service sector than the manufacturing sector. What is wrong with the service sector? It employs 11·5 million of our fellow citizens—three out of five people are employed in the service sector. It contributed a record £17 billion—worth of exports last year. Why is there greater merit in making costly goods that people do not want than in performing efficiently services that people do want, such as tourism, transport and many other activities in the service sectors? Is there an element of inverted snobbery that says that if one cannot make ships that people do not want, it is better to draw the dole than to work in hotels that people want? That is the inverted snobbery of people who object to the service sector.
What on earth is wrong with oil contributing? I do not hear people saying, "Those poor Saudi Arabians have to depend on such a big proportion of oil for their gross domestic product." After listening to the hon. Member for

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Batley and Morley, one might think that we should be ashamed of having North Sea oil rather than being very pleased.
There is also the myth that leaving more money in people's pockets by taking less tax causes a flood of imports unless controls are imposed. However, only one third of imports are finished manufactured products. The rest are raw materials, food or semi-finished articles. The increase in the propensity to import is more among industrial than among non-industrial consumers. Products such as black and white television and shoes, which show the highest import penetration figures, constitute only a small proportion of total consumer expenditure.
Of course there are special cases, such as textiles, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) is particularly concerned. I congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Minister on achieving the success that he did in the MFA negotiations. Of course there are many barriers to trade. Of course there are strange and subtle restrictions in Japanese trading practices, although it is all too easy to treat Japan as scapegoat for some of our ills. Never let us forget that we export successfully to Japan. We export chemicals and textiles. Of course there are too many hidden subsidies in world trading, but we are not backward in imposing subsidies ourselves, as our foreign competitors tell us. We do quite a bit of subsidising for milk, steel and motor cars.
The policy should be to remove obstacles, not to create new ones. There is absolutely no justification for the panic that seems to prevail in some quarters, most noticeably in the Opposition. I believe that the Government are on the right lines and should stick to their policy.
I pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister, who has to bear a heavy burden. If I had more time I should suggest that the Departments of Trade and Industry should come together again, but that would be the subject of a separate debate. I urge the Minister and his colleagues to redouble their efforts, first, to eliminate the use of standards in the EC as a concealed form of protectionism; and secondly, to support West Germany in its fight for freer trade within the EC and to press the Commission to speed up proceedings against some of the ridiculous French non-tariff barriers against European and Japanese imports.
Thirdly, I urge the Minister to press for the service industries to be brought into GATT and to make much more rapid progress towards removing barriers against service industries across Europe. They provide a great opportunity for Great Britain.
Fourthly, I urge the Minister and his colleagues to back fully my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade in his battle for free ports against some of the mugwumps of Customs and Excise. It is absurd that there are about 400 free ports in about 70 countries, including the EC, yet there is not one here.
We wish the Under-Secretary of State for Trade luck in what he is doing. Above all, the Minister should continue the successful battle against inflation, because that, more than anything, will enable us to trade successfully when we emerge from the recession.
By all means let us buy British where the goods or services are the best in quality, price and delivery—as they often are—but they will be best only if they are made or performed within a free but fair trading system.
8.12 pm
Mr. Douglas Jay: The Minister started his speech with a paean of praise for the open trading system. Meanwhile, he is a member of a Government who support, as does the hon. Member for Harrow, Central (Sir A. Grant), a common agricultural policy which is the most extreme and vicious protectionist system there has ever been. In a debate such as this we are not helped by the sort of sweeping statements about protectionism and free trade made by the hon. Member for Harrow, Central. We should take the subject rather more seriously.
It is absurd to assume that either general free trade or general protection is somehow always good for all countries at all times. The amount of free imports or protection that is desirable depends on which country, which period and which industries one is talking about. One might as well say that it was advisable for everyone to take unlimited quantities of brandy at all times to the exclusion of anything else as to talk in such generalities.
In Great Britain, in the modern world, the correct recipe for achieving growth and high standards is free trade in the import of food and raw materials with direct support for agriculture and some restraint on the import of manufactured consumer goods. We must live by the export of manufactures because our labour costs and standard of living depend materially on keeping down the cost of our food imports. While we have followed such a policy this century, we have succeeded. When we departed from it there were difficulties.
In the 1920s and 1930s, a period which tends to be caricatured, we were thrown into imbalance and unemployment by the excessive imports of manufactures. Then, in 1932 a Conservative Minister, in a largely Conservative Government, wisely introduced a moderate tariff on imported manufactures and left the imports of food and raw materials entirely tax free.
Contrary to the sweeping reference by the hon. Member for Harrow, Central to the 1930s, what actually happened was that from 1932 to 1937 under that system there was a major recovery of British industry in output, employment and investment. British steel production rose by nearly 50 per cent. between 1932 and 1937. If it had not, we should have been poorly placed when war broke out in 1939. After the war, a policy of restraint on manufactured imports and free imports of food was followed by both Governments until the end of the 1950s. Until 1960, while those policies were followed, we enjoyed rising production, trade and living standards, and unemployment of 1½ per cent. or 2 per cent. During those years we had the fastest increase in the volume of our exports that we have ever had in modern history.
In 1959, the Government, no doubt with the best of intentions, removed the quota restraints on manufactured imports and the whole position began to change. The figures for our manufactured imports are remarkable. In 1950 manufactures represented 18 per cent. only of our imports. By 1960 the figure had already risen to 33 per cent.. It reached 51 per cent. in 1970, and 61 per cent. by 1978. Perhaps the Minister can tell us the figure for 1981 and 1982, which I suspect is about 80 per cent. It is a sweeping change from the 1950s and an explanation for our present position.
The abandonment of import quotas in 1959 led to growing deficits in the 1960s and devaluation in 1967. In

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addition, the major blunder was made in 1973 of simultaneously forcing up all our labour costs by imposing up to 100 per cent. taxes on imports of food and removing suddenly all tariffs on manufactured imports from the continent. That is what brought us to our present position. Anyone could have seen that that policy would lead to major difficulties. In fact, it has led almost to disaster in our trading position which is masked only, as my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Morley (Mr. Woolmer) has said, by our temporary oil exports and huge oil earnings. The combination of higher United Kingdom costs and free entry of manufactures introduced in 1973 was bound to lead to a huge deficit in our trade in manufactures with the continent.
Rather surprisingly, even the Foreign Office—20 years too late—grasped the essential point. In a remarkable booklet published a few weeks ago by the Foreign Office called "The Budget Problem", we are told:
"The cost of EEC policies to Britain is more than just its net budget contribution. Britain is a net importer of food"—
a great discovery by the Foreign Office.
"It buys food from other member States at Community prices which are higher than world prices. The resulting cost to Britain is not matched by equivalent gains on the industrial side because the Community does not have a comparable system of price support for industrial products."
It would have been better had the Foreign Office discovered that 20 years ago, but I am glad to have confirmation of it now.
I estimated, modestly, in 1968 that the deficit in manufactured trade with the continental EC would rise to £300 million or £400 million a year, at 1968 values, which would be about £1 billion today. I apologise for my understatement 15 years ago, because the deficit in manufactures with the rest of the EC last year was not £1 billion but £4·5 billion, as the Minster said in answer to a question only last week.
It has been asked why we quote figures for manufactures but do not include oil. The reason is simple. Had we not joined the EC, we should be selling just about the same amount of oil to Germany, France and the continental EC as we are now, because those countries need our oil. That is the easiest way for them to obtain it. If we were to leave the EC, they would probably buy much the same amount of oil from us. Therefore, if we are trying to estimate the consequences of our membership of the EC, our trade in oil must be omitted because it is not affected either way. The trade in manufactures has been affected by present policies because tariffs were removed on each side and because our labour costs have been increased artificially.
The striking point about the £4·5 billion deficit in manufactures last year is that such a deficit has arisen since we joined the EC. In 1971, we had a surplus in manufactured trade with the present EC countries of about £140 million, but now we have a deficit of more than £4 billion. Some people say that that swing into deficit was due not to membership of the EC but entirely to lack of competitiveness and the decline of British industry. However, the official figures prove that that is untrue. In the same years, our trade in manufactures, again omitting oil, with the non-EC world has improved, not worsened, from £2·4 billion in 1971 to £6·5 billion in 1981. The deficit in trade with the EC cannot be due to the alleged inefficiency of British industry.
The overriding lesson of the story is that the mutual removal of tariffs on manufactures between Britain and the
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EC has produced a swing of more than £4 billion a year. More importantly, it follows that the restoration of a moderate tariff both ways would swing the balance back towards where it was before. If one reverses the policies, it is only reasonable to suppose that one will reverse the consequences.
If we left the EC, at least two options in trade policy would be open to us. It is better to examine those than to make sweeping statements about protectionism and open trading. We should remember that the contintenal EC, especially Germany, has an extremely strong motive to retain as free an entry as possible into our market for manufactured goods, which is extremely valuable. We could grant such free entry to the EC and the other EFTA countries that now enjoy it. If we took that option, we should have the advantage of lowering our labour costs as a result of the elimination of the common agricultural policy, and we should retain mutual free entry into both EC and EFTA countries. That would be the best policy.
The alternative, because so much damage has been done during the past five years, is to impose a temporary moderate tariff on EC industrial imports. The obvious tariff to impose would be the EC's common commercial tariff on industrial imports from outside the Community, which averages about 9 per cent. The Community countries would then apply the same tariffs in response. If we do that, we should reverse the policy that we adopted in 1973 and it is likely that the deficit would be reduced.
I favour the moderate tariff solution, whatever we do about the exchange rate, for some time, with the possibility that at the end of that period we could return to the EFTA agreement that we should never have left 10 years ago. I prefer that solution because a moderate restraint on industrial imports is now essential for employment and growth in Britain.
I have been conducting correspondence with the CBI about the effects on employment in Britain were we to leave the EC. Interestingly, the CBI estimates that about 2·5 million people in British industry are employed in producing manufactured goods to sell in the EC. Since the ratio of our manufactured imports from the EC to our exports is about 4:3, it would follow from the CBI's estimate that our present manufactured imports from the EC are costing us about 3·25 million jobs. That means that, on balance, if we eliminate the manufacturing, deficit, so far as one can calculate such matters, we should gain about 700,000 to 750,000 jobs.
I have no reason to believe that the CBI estimate is other than reliable. The total increase in jobs from leaving the EC would be much larger than that because of the reduction in labour costs due to freedom from present agricultural policies. For all those reasons, I have no doubt that we shall not return to full recovery or employment until we have freed ourselves from the economic handicaps, which are now so clearly understood by the Foreign Office, that are inflicted on us by our EC membership.
The hon. Member for Harrow, Central (Sir A Grant) said how wonderful it was to be earning billions of pounds by exporting oil. That would be so if the oil was permanent. As we all know, those earnings will decline in 1990. The Minister rightly said that the current balance of payments surplus last year was £4·6 billion. The present benefit from North Sea oil, taking into account import savings as well as export earnings, is about £10 billion to

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£12 billion. Apart from oil, we are running an annual deficit of £5 billion or £6 billion. If we continue in that way, in the 1990s we shall clearly face disaster.
8.31 pm
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: It is a great pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay). There is always a consistency to his argument and a basic pragmatism which I greatly admire. I do not agree with everything that he said about the European Community, but the Government should heed some of the points he made. There is no doubt that our manufactured goods have lost out within the European Community.
I am sorry that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Trade has left his place because I intended to refer to an occurrence which will take place in the EC on 11 February. It relates to agriculture. I understand that the French Government intend to put up barriers against dairy products going into France from all other countries, including countries within the European Community. They will demand a veterinary certificate with every delivery of dairy products.
What immediate action do the British Government intend to take in retaliation to this action by a member of the European Community?
I do not agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central (Sir A. Grant). I think that he made far too many sweeping generalisations. His reference to a free and open market means that he is living in cloud-cuckoo-land, and his feet are well off the ground. We must live in the real world.
Let me deal with the clothing and textile industries, as I know them well, and consider some of the tariffs that are levied against our goods by developed and developing countries.
The United States Government have put up a 13 per cent. tariff against cotton yarn from the United Kingdom; Spain has put up a tariff of between 25 and 27 per cent.; South Korea 30 per cent. and Brazil 150 per cent.
The tariff against wool yarns from the United Kingdom to the United States is between 15 and 20 per cent.; in Brazil it is 85 per cent. and in South Korea it is 30 per cent.
The United States imposes a tariff on cotton fabrics from this country of between 16 and 20 per cent.; Spain between 32 and 35 per cent.; South Korea, 50 per cent.; Australia, 40 per cent.; and the most amazing figure is Brazil, 205 per cent. Yet my hon. Friend is preaching what I describe as open, free and fair competition.
I agree with fair competition, but when other countries expect us to import their goods and put up that sort of tariff against our goods, I do not believe that is either free or fair competition. We are not doing right by the workers in the textile and clothing industries, which are among the largest employers in this country, if we tolerate this situation.
Mr. James Lamond: Has the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), whose words I listened to wth great interest, had even a whisper from the Government of the possibility of retaliation against countries that have high tariffs? We are told that is the reason why we cannot have tariffs.
Mr. Winterton: I do not believe that retaliation will often occur. If it does, we can often retaliate and do more damage to them than they can to us.
I shall now deal with garments, because they are the finished product. The United States has a tariff against our knitted outerwear goods of between 21 and 40 per cent.; in Spain it is between 33 and 36 per cent.; in Australia—a friendly country of the Commonwealth—it is between 80 and 100 per cent.; and Brazil has that amazing figure of 205 per cent. again.
As for woven outerwear, tariffs against our goods in the United States are 30 to 40 per cent.; in Spain between 36 and 39 per cent.; in Australia between 70 and 100 per cent.; in South Korea, 50 per cent.; and in Brazil 205 per cent. yet again.
This shows the reality of the trading situation. Our Government have a duty to ensure that we maintain a proper and full manufacturing base.
Sir Anthony Grant: I am sure that my hon. Friend misquoted me through inadvertence. He referred to "free and open trading". I was careful to say "free and fair trading". He will also note that I regarded textiles as a special case. I am sure that, like me, he will congratulate my hon. and learned Friend on the MFA negotiations.
Mr. Winterton: I am happy to apologise to my hon. Friend if I misquoted him in any way. I am equally happy to withdraw those remarks. Like my hon. Friend, I congratulate the Minister for Trade on the wonderful job that he did in negotiating the MFA that is currently in force.
Representatives of the knitting and hosiery industry who came to the House of Commons this afternoon made it clear that while the MFA is not exactly what they wanted, it is a jolly sight better than what they expected, and they are grateful to the Minister for the work involved in negotiating it.
My hon. and learned Friend is well aware of my concern about the 1983 quota levels compared with the levels in 1982. That is the whole basis of the new MFA with which we are now dealing.
Mr. Cryer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Winterton: I shall do so in a moment.
Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that in 1981 imports of cotton yarn totalled 1,721 tonnes, whereas the quota for 1983 under the present MFA is 2,607 tonnes? In 1981, imports of spun synthetic yarn totalled 1,712 tonnes, yet, under the new MFA, the quota is 3,610 tonnes. In 1981, towel imports totalled 2,921 tonnes, yet, in 1983, the quota is 4,912 tonnes. Imports of bed linen in 1981 amounted to 1,001 tonnes, but the quota in 1983 is 2,737 tonnes. In 1981, 849 tonnes of household linen were imported, yet the 1983 quota is 1,954 tonnes. The import of blankets in 1981 totalled 293 tonnes, yet the quota for 1983 is 503 tonnes. The import of cotton fabrics in 1981 totalled 35,110 tonnes, yet the quota allowed in 1983 is 57,968 tonnes. Total fabric imports in 1981 amounted to 50,897 tonnes, yet the quotas negotiated under the new MFA, which is now in force, total 76,540 tonnes. That is the problem that our textile and clothing industries must face.
The textile and clothing industries are concerned about the possible growth within the quotas that have previously

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been underused. My hon. and learned Friend will see what I mean if he studies the statistics that I have just quoted. It is impossible to know the extent to which supplying countries will be able to fulfil those quotas in future, but this is a real problem for anyone planning to invest in clothing or textiles in the United Kingdom. Therefore, it would be helpful if my hon. and learned Friend made a statement that the anti-surge mechanism to which he made brief comment will be used to the full on every occasion when it is necessary.
There is also the question of free circulation—the arrival of goods in the United Kingdom via another EC member state. Such goods are not counted against United Kingdom quotas, but the Government have the right to ask the Commission for permission to block these imports. Under article 115 of the treaty of Rome, the Commission has the power of decision. We do not have that power. Therefore, I urge the Government to put pressure on the Commission to be more responsive to requests from United Kingdom industry to block disruptive imports, as such action would be helpful, particularly to the textile and clothing industries and would prevent further redundancies and closures.
Turkey is a major problem at the moment. Its exports of cotton yarn, cotton fabric, knitted shirts, towels and bed linen have grown enormously in the past 18 months. Cotton yarn is covered only by a voluntary restraint arrangement which is currently non-operational because of a dispute inside the Community, and for 1983 there are no restraints on the other products. I fear a large-scale import surge, such as there was in 1982 when restraints on fabric and knitted shirts were introduced during the year. There is a serious risk that high-level damage could be done before the quotas for which the industry would ask could take effect. Therefore, I hope that pressure will be brought to bear in Brussels for rapid and firm action when such action is required.
I also ask my hon. and learned Friend for an assurance that the 1983 quotas will not be based on the inflated levels of trade built up in 1982 as a result of the EC's inaction and delay. Apart from anything else, that would be most unfair to other Mediterranean countries which reach voluntary agreements with the EC.
I wish to put one or two matters in perspective. The right hon. Member for Battersea, North made a very constructive speech. The views that he expresses are always consistent, and the House is the wiser for that. The total volume of imports into the United Kingdom—I am speaking not just about textiles and clothing but generally—rose by 21 per cent. between the first and fourth quarters of 1981. Over the same period, imports of finished manufactures, to which the right hon. Gentleman also referred, rose by 28 per cent. in volume and 42 per cent. in value. Import penetration in the textile industry has more than doubled in the past 10 years; and imports of canned vegetables, for example, have risen by 51 per cent. in the same period. Import penetration in respect of built-in ovens grew from 20 per cent. to 47 per cent. between 1973 and 1981.
Motor vehicles are extremely important to the economy of this country. Import penetration in the second quarter of 1982 was 35·8 per cent. The forecast for the first quarter of 1985 is 44·2 per cent. That massive increase of 23 per cent. in import penetration will result in many further redundancies in our car industry and in the many companies that supply it. We must not forget the domino
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effect that the collapse of our motor industry would have. There will also be huge import increases in relation to other major sectors of our economy.
I believe that my hon. and learned Friend is familiar with the following calculation. If each of the 20 million households in the United Kingdom switched, on average, £3 per week from spending on imports to spending on British goods and services—I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central on the importance of services—350,000 jobs could be created within two years. Is that not something that the Government would wish to happen?
Mr. Cryer: The hon. Gentleman makes a number of good points and the information that he gives is most valuable. Will he make it clear that the Government can do something to help if people decide to buy British? The Government should require that garments made up in this country from imported cloth should not be labelled as having been made in the United Kingdom. Only garments made up in the United Kingdom from cloth made in the United Kingdom should be labelled in that way.
Mr. Winterton: I intended to mention labelling. I entirely endorse the hon. Gentleman's remarks. Labelling is still inadequate. Many of my constituents return home after buying what they thought was a British-made shirt—for example, because the label on the collar bore what they regarded as a traditionally British title—only to find a small label somewhere halfway down one of the sleeves stating that the garment was made in Taiwan, Hong Kong or wherever. That is highly misleading. Indeed, I go further than the hon. Gentleman. I believe that mail order catalogues should give full details as to the country in which the article was made, in which the cloth was made and, in the case of garments, in which the garment was actually made up. I commend that proposition to the Government.
I hope that the target announced by the "Think British" campaign has the support of my hon. and learned Friend and of the public. There are signs already that the proposition first announced last June, is beginning to get through to people in that imports in the last two months of 1982 were marginally lower than expected. If the 20 million households in this country switched not just £3 but £8·60 per week expenditure from imported to home-produced goods, more than 1 million jobs could be created in two years. The figures that I give are not picked out of the sky but are based on an exercise carried out for the campaign by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
The "Think British" campaign has investigated the sheeting industry, in which jobs have been reduced by two thirds in the past 10 years, aggravating an already serious unemployment problem in the north-west, where so many of the textile mills are situated. Only 25 per cent. of sheets, pillow cases and duvets sold in the United Kingdom are manufactured entirely in this country, although if the orders were there we could cope with 40 per cent. of the demand. A shift by consumers to British-made sheets would have an especially beneficial effect on the textile industry.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central seemed to miss the point that when large numbers of people are out of work, purchasing power in retail stores is bound to be less. That is especially true in areas north of Watford. I intend no slight in that comment. I do not

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suggest that people south of Watford are inferior and those north of Watford superior, but large numbers of people are out of work in the east and west midlands, the north-west, the north-east, Yorkshire and Scotland. There is thus a domino effect in terms or purchasing power in retail stores. Therefore, it is in the best interests of the big multi-outlet stores—not just Marks and Spencer, which is setting a fine example—to promote and sell British products.
I was recently informed that the National Health Service, which is a very large consumer of sheeting, buys a large quantity of imported products. That is a matter of serious concern. In my view, there would have to be an extremely good reason for that practice to continue, as the long-term health of an entire sector of British industry and the future availability of supplies at reasonable prices should surely be a factor in the buying policy of the NHS, the Ministry of Defence and all Government Departments.
My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Dorrell) and others may argue that all contracts and tenders must be advertisd, because this country is a member of the European Community; but that applies only if the cost of the contract is estimated at more than £25,000.
Why do we not break down the contracts—as the French and most European Community countries do—so that they are below £25,000? In that way, our industry would benefit—[Interruption.]
Mr. Stephen Dorrell: So that my hon. Friend does not fall into the trap of knocking down paper tigers, he may wish to know what I was saying to my hon. Friends. I said that I hoped that overseas customers of companies based in my constituency would not take the view that he has advised British purchasers to take. If they were to do so, we could not sell our exports.
Mr. Winterton: That is not accurate. There is a great movement by the British people to buy British. Is Marks and Spencer unsuccessful in selling abroad? I am sure my hon. Friend would agree that it is not. Yet that chain store overtly and forcibly practises a think, sell and buy British policy. If Marks and Spencer can do it, why cannot so many other chain stores, companies and Government Departments in Britain?
The debate has been interesting for me. It has given me the opportunity to get many matters about which I feel deeply off my chest. I have addressed myself to a Minister who has shown much ability in negotiating, and who is also very understanding about the problems of the industry that has been the basis of most of my remarks.
If my hon. and learned Friend cannot deal with all the points that I have raised, will he respond by letter? I assure him that the British people—especially those in the clothing and textile industries, which employ more than 600,000 people—are very interested in what the future holds for them. Our trading policy will dictate what future they have.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): I remind the House that 22-minute speeches at this hour mean that many hon. Members will not have the opportunity to contribute to the debate.
8.51 pm
Mr. Doug Hoyle: The debate has been interesting if only because it has given us an opportunity
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to hear the contrasting views of Conservative back benchers. It is difficult to believe that the hon. Members for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) and for Harrow, Central (Mr. Grant) sit on the same side of the House. I always listen with rapt attention to what the hon. Member for Macclesfield says about the textile industry. We have fought many battles on behalf of that industry. While we may disagree on the majority of political matters, we certainly agree that the textile industry should have a future.
I am sorry that the Minister is leaving the Chamber. I was disappointed with and distressed by his speech. Listening to him today, one would not have thought that Britain's industries were facing tremendous problems, many of which are due to the Government's economic policies. They are the problems of an over-valued pound, rising imports, industrial energy costs and lack of modernisation, yet we have heard nothing from the Minister about the real issues.
It would be batter if the Minister moved away from Dover and into the real world of the regions. He would find that we are fed up with hearing pontifications from the Dispatch Box. We heard about the Japanese again today. I have told the Minister and preceding Ministers that the Japanese will talk and talk and talk again so long as no action is forthcoming. The Japanese are, of course, stringing along the new Ministers who have been sent to Japan to speak to them.
The Minister must come to the regions to see that the open trading system about which he speaks is not working. It is beginning to destroy vital industry. The Government's complacency will not do. My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) remarked on the idea that we can solve our problems with our revenue from oil. The world's oil resources are finite, and no other oil-producing nation in the world has dissipated its resources in the way that we are doing.
Other countries are using the revenue from oil to modernise their industries to make them more com-petitive. Indeed, many of them are restricting imports to build up their industrial base. Britain is doing the opposite. We shall rue the day when the oil begins to run out. Everyone will condemn the Government, and other Governments, for their lack of action when oil was plentiful.
The remark made during the debate about the destruction of the vital textile industry could be applied to the motor, steel, glass and electronics industries. I wish to concentrate on one industry that is suffering greatly—the paper industry. Not only is it facing all the problems that have been mentioned, but it is trying to compete with competitors who have the benefit of subsidised energy costs. The result is that we are destroying the British paper industry.
What has happened to the industry since 1979? Exports have fallen slightly, while imports have risen from 49 per cent. in 1979 to 59 per cent. in 1982. Our production figures for 1982 were ther lowest for 25 years. As has happened in the textile and other industries, foreign paper manufacturers are turning to Britain as their markets collapse—and they are finding it easy to enter the British market.
Dr. Lenton, the managing director of Bowater, said that foreign competitors eye the United Kingdom as a nice little offshore island. Of course they do. It is easy for them to send their products to Britain. What has been the effect of

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that on the paper industry? In 1978 it employed 60,000 people, but by 1982 the figure had fallen to 30,000. There were 140 mills in 1978—there are now 111. The number of machines in the industry during that period dropped from 300 to 225. Twenty-five years ago 70 per cent. of all our requirements were manufactured in Britain. In 1980, United Kingdom manufacture for the home market had fallen below 50 per cent. The real tragedy is that the figures between 1980 and 1982 show that the 50 per cent. supplied by British manufacturers had fallen to 40 per cent.—a collapse of 10 per cent. in two years.
Far from competition subsiding, it will increase. That is the tragedy. The Scandinavians have the advantage of low-cost energy supplies because of their hydroelectric schemes. They also have a plentiful supply of timber. One matter of great concern to the industry is that there have been large devaluations in both Sweden and Finland. We have been told that the EC is our saviour.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North was right when he commented upon the large deficit in manufactured goods in our trade with the EC. Many hon. Members on both sides of the House agree with him. I am sorry that more SDP Members are not present, because they bear the heaviest responsibility for taking Britain into the EC and the consequent destruction of British industry. I see that the hon. Member for Stockport, South (Mr. McNally), an SDP Member, is nodding his head. If he agrees with me he will try to convert his colleagues—[Interruption.] I did not not catch the remarks of the hon. Member for Stockport, South.
What is happening in the paper industry? While we are trying to play fair, what is happening in Belgium? The Government there are propping up the loss-making Intermills with huge subsidies. There are large-scale subsidies to the industry in France also. In addition, energy costs in the EC countries for large users of energy, such as the process industries, are far lower than in this country. In Italy, electricity to such industries costs 50 per cent. less than in Britain. In France it is 40 per cent. cheaper and in Germany 25 per cent. cheaper. How can we expect our industries to face that kind of competition?
Time after time we hear excuses from Ministers that some action will be taken or that they are working through the EC to remove this kind of subsidy, but while they are doing that the industry itself is dying, and if no action is taken there will be no industry to discuss in the House. That would have two grave consequences for Britain—the loss of jobs and a flood of imports, which would have a disastrous effect on our balance of payments.
In 1982 we had 2,400 redundancies in the industry. This year, 1,900 redundancies are already forecast, almost as many as in the whole of 1982. This is grave news. We know that 1,000 jobs are to be axed by Wiggins Teape, 740 of them in Dartford, 200 in Newbury mills and 70 out of the 240 at Lincoln. In my own constituency, Thames Board Mills Ltd. has already declared that it will close its mill completely, which will mean the direct loss of 800 jobs and 200 more lost indirectly. These figures demonstrate the immediate nature of the crisis in the industry.
We cannot reduce imports under this handicap of high energy costs. I have already described the present situation. If we look into the future, we see that the competition will increase, because while we are talking about doing something, our competitors are taking action. In West Germany alone, 8,000 million deutschmarks were
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set aside last year for energy efficiency assistance over the next four years. We can guess what that will do for the West German paper industry in relation to our own. Also in 1982, the Dutch completed a study on energy efficiency in this industry, as a result of which the Government intend to invest in 18 new combined heat and power plants using gas turbines. Again, modern and efficient mills will be competing against ours. Germany, France and Sweden are all giving huge grants for efficiency measures. They have thus directly strengthened their industries, which are already competing more than efficiently with ours because of the handicaps from which we suffer.
I deal now with the effect of this on the regions. If I am parochial in referring to the situation in my constituency, with the loss of 1,000 jobs, I make no excuse for doing so. I want to describe what the death of a large board mill means to a town like Warrington, an area which in the whole post-war period up to 1979 had enjoyed prosperity because, unlike many of the other towns in the north-west, it had diverse industries—steel, engineering, paper, soap, wire drawing, chemicals and clothing.
Steel has largely disappeared. As the hon. Member for Macclesfield will know, clothing, too, has almost disappeared. Many other industries are in severe trouble. This has meant an increase of unemployment from 5 per cent. in 1979 to over 14 per cent. now. The closure without warning of Thames Board Mills Ltd. therefore comes as a body blow. I visited the mill only three months before the announcement. The company had troubles, but it was thought that they could be weathered.
Before describing the effects on the town, I should like to place on record, for the benefit of Conservative Members, the fact that the closure is not due in any shape or form to labour troubles. The management acknowledges that the labour force has been pliable and efficient. There has never been a strike. The need to accept new working conditions and flexible operations to try to raise efficiency has always been accepted.
Dr. John Cunningham: Is it not a fact that throughout the paper industry industrial relations have been good and innovation and investment have also been good? There is no real reason why this industry should not be maintained in our economy.
Mr. Hoyle: I agree with my hon. Friend. There have been no labour troubles. As in the textile industry, the employees have been prepared to co-operate. In fact, what has been stated about the paper industry and the textile industry is true of most of British industry. I am only sorry that Conservative Members do not recognise this fact often enough. They do not speak about it often enough. A different climate of opinion would exist over labour relations if they did.
For the 1,000 employees who have lost their jobs, the closure of the paper mill is an absolute disaster. Their standard of living will be severely cut. In an area of high unemployment, their chances of obtaining a new job are remote. Among them there is already a sense of hopelessness, stemming from the fact that a large concentration of the 4 million unemployed are to be found in the north-west.
One has to consider the impact on other businesses in the town, especially the retail trade, which will feel the effects of the loss of purchasing power of the 1,000 people and their families. There will be a disastrous effect on

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transport contractors. One company conducted nearly all its business with Thames Board Mills Ltd. The outlook for employees of that company is bleak. A number of small engineering companies and other subcontractors depended heavily on the mill. It is clear that the effect of the closure will be cumulative. It means the blight of the town of Warrington.
Can that be allowed to happen? Is it not time that action was taken? Is it not time that help was extended to such areas? Is it not time for sensible policies? The mire in which we find ourselves is partly due to the world recession, but it is largely due to the economic policies of the Government. The answer must lie in planning our economy and our trade. We must restrict imports. That does not mean stopping trade. It would lead to more trade with the world as a whole. However, we should push back imports in areas such as textiles and paper, where they have reached a dangerous level. We ought to restrict them to give our industry a chance to recover while we make the necessary investment.
Industries such as chemicals, paper and board are asking that they should not be subjected to competition from countries that subsidise energy costs. If they have that kind of competition, they want action to be taken here to provide similar subsidies for them. That is the only way in which they will be able to compete on equal terms. It is the failure to take such action that is causing the destruction of the paper industry.
We should address ourselves to two problems. First, how can we make ourselves more efficient so that we can compete? Scorn was poured by the Minister on the idea of devaluation. We are already seeing devaluation, whether the Government like it or not. Already they are singing a different tune and saying that it will help our exports. Of course it will, because an overvalued pound is no good to British industry. Secondly, our interest rates are no good to British industry. High interest rates make it difficult for industry to compete. Who will invest in new methods to bring about higher productivity if they face high interest rates?
I couple with that the need for sensible controls on imports that are damaging vital industries. We can delay no longer. Something must be done about energy costs. We must think again about unfair competition and we must do something to save industries such as the paper industry before it is too late.
9.11 pm
Mr. Christopher Murphy: In contributing briefly to this debate on trade, I wish to concentrate upon the responsibilities of the Department listed relating to policies for tourism and to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Sproat) on the vigorous approach he has adopted as, in effect, the Minister for tourism. He has been right in seeking to tackle the requirements of this key sector of the economy and in appreciating the importance of tourism to our future industrial and trade development.
Tourism turns over £8 billion annually, of which £4 billion is in foreign currency, and employs 1·5 million people. On these simple figures alone, its value in economic terms is clear. Yet, with the coming growth in the leisure industry, already evident in many areas, it
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seems appropriate to query whether enough emphasis is being placed by the Government upon the potential of this development.
To illustrate that concern, I cite the delineation of ministerial responsibilities—my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Trade, my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Arts, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment whose Department is responsible for many aspects of our heritage. The time has surely arrived—many might say it was overdue—for there to be a Department embracing all three functions because each impinges upon the other.
What of our future tourist industry without the arts and heritage? What of the success of many arts events without the setting of the heritage and the support of tourism? What about our continuing heritage divorced from the arts and the tourists of the world? All the Ministers involved have shown their individual and valuable commitment. I know also of the interest in the arts and our heritage of my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Trade.
Such co-ordination becomes ever more self-evident and the need for co-ordination runs deeper even than this. For a thriving tourist industry to have an input when transport policies, such as good signposting, are decided is essential. For it to have an input when industrial policies are decided is vital to avoid the duplication of scarce resources. For it to have an input when fiscal policies are decided is essential to ensure that maximum advantage is gained from overseas visitors with minimum discomfort. These are but a few obvious examples.
My hon. and learned Friend has rightly set up a radical and comprehensive review of the way that we handle tourism—a step that should be welcome on both sides of the House. Tourism can be yet another example of the excellent workings of the social market economy—the Government providing a backcloth against which private enterprise should be allowed maximum freedom to operate, and the individual being encouraged to give full rein to the entrepreneurial spirit. New opportunities are springing up not only from overseas visitors, but from closer to home. Leisure for our constituents—if not for us as hon. Members—is on the increase.
Lest it be thought that my words this evening are purely conviction rather than backed by experience, I humbly draw the attention of hon. Members to the fact that my constituency has at its centre the splendour of Hatfield house, under whose shadow, almost, I live. This magnificent building surely epitomises the bringing together of the arts, our heritage and the tourist industry. Hatfield house shows clearly how each is interrelated, and is most definitely private enterprise.
9.16 pm
Mr. Tom McNally: I hope that those who organise these matters in the House will have noted both the informed nature of the debate and the large number of hon. Members who wish to participate, and that they will see this as significant and allow us more debates on trade, as the debates obviously attract much interest. I agree with the hon. Member for Welwyn and Hatfield (Mr. Murphy) in advocating a vigorous policy of expansion of tourism. I hope that tourist policy will be tied to regional policy. Investment in tourism is a good job creator. I know that the Under-Secretary of State is aware of the need to tie development of regional airports to tourist expansions.

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The Minister has already appreciated the flavour of the debate. Hon. Members wish to campaign against unfair subsidies to industries abroad and also want subsidies for our industries. Hon. Members wish us to penetrate the export markets and want the Minister to argue that our competitors should show restraint. Hon. Members wish our utilities to buy British and attack French chauvinism. Like the late Jimmy Maxton, the hon. and learned Gentleman has the job of riding two horses at once. It is not only in the circus that that is a required art, but in the Ministry of Trade.
The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) made it clear that there was no clear argument between free traders and protectionism any more. There is a whole range of shading and subtleties. Nevertheless, it is important that the country should see the direction in which the various parties are going. The official Opposition have some clarification to do about where they stand on protectionism and on our future relationship with out largest industrial market, the European Community.
I shall not try to interpret the past ten years, of the EC, as did the right hon. Member for Battersea, North because we do not know what would have happened if we had stayed out. All I know is that we would have been operating alone in an increasingly hostile world of trade. Hon. Members cry "EFTA", but it is amusing that they are now talking about the problem of our industrial deficit, when the alternative to the Community would have been an industrial free trade area, which would have presented us with the same problem that hon. Members are now complaining of with regard to the Community.
We have to get this clear. My party and hon. Members who were in the House at the time take a pride in saying that we gave a majority for going into the Community. Many statistics have been bandied about tonight—one thirtieth of the SDP is here tonight, but only one thirty-fifth of the parliamentary Labour party.
It is clear that we need a trading system that gives the industrial economies time to adjust, train, retrain, and invest in new industries. That in itself makes a move towards total laissez-faire impossible. I ask those hon. Members who in the past have taken pride in their internationalism to accept that we can offer hope to the Third world, the less developed countries, only on the basis of access to our markets. The industrial centres of the European Community have quite a good record in development programmes, as has the British textile industry. It has understood the need for access by the developing countries, and it has worked with them. It is not a bitter, narrow and chauvinist industry.
The hon. Member for Batley and Morley (Mr. Woolmer) made a valid point when he said that a secure home market was important for a successful export industry. Indeed, it could be said that the most attractive market for British industry to win now is the British market. However, hon. Members on both sides should remember that much of the penetration has taken place because millions of individual consumers have opted, for reasons of price, design or quality, to buy goods of other than British origin. It would be as well for us to consider quality, design and price so as to win markets abroad and here at home.
I agree with the hon. Member for Warrington (Mr. Hoyle) about relations with Japan. The best thing for world trade would be to have a good co-operative understanding between the United States, Japan and the European
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Community. Those countries have the capacity to be the engine room of a real world trade expansion. However, if Japan, an economic super-power, does not contribute to a stable and orderly world trade, that hope will be frustrated. The hon. Member for Warrington was right. We hear time and again of missions from Brussels banging the table and telling the Japanese what is what, how tough we shall be, and nothing happens. Political patience is fast running out.
From Japan we want two signs. The first is the tangible sign, which can only be in figures and goods, of her own market being opened up to her trading partners. The second is for technology and investment to go the other way, towards her trading partners. That is the way to achieve a stable trading partnership.
I hope that the Minister will also pay considerable attention to our relationship with the United States. Over the past two years we have had too much conflict with the United States on steel, the pipeline, textiles and a number of the other matters. There is a strong case for a permanent commission between the European Community and the United States on trade matters in an effort to fore see and thus avoid many of the problems.
Let us be under no illusion: the pressures for protectionism are growing strong in the United States, and if they gain the upper hand, as that country moves towards a presidential election period, they will endanger our living standards and employment prospects.
I shall not go into detail on the multi-fibre arrangement because, in his usual robust fashion, the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) gave the Minister a precise list of points that need to be answered. However, we need to spell out to those in the textile industry that they have a future and that the Government and the Community will defend it.
In the past 20 or 30 years the industry has never had more than a year or so in which to look ahead. Negotiations have always been in process, but on the basis of retreat. The textile industry still employs more people than the shipbuilding, steel and coal industries combined. For a long time the industry has suffered a Corby or Shotton a week as jobs have disappeared. There does not seem to be any sense of urgency or commitment towards its long-term survival, particularly in Brussels. We roust make it clear that the textile industry is not dispensable. We want it to have a long-term future. As has been said, when the British textile industry produces goods of quality and at a good price, it should not be barred from markets through discrimination.
Mr. Barry Sheerman: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that many of us who represent textile areas know that the goods are the finest quality and that the work force is the best, yet we still cannot sell our goods in the markets of the world, particularly those that are protected?
Mr. McNally: In his years in the House, the hon. Gentleman has put over that message forcibly. We should like to have some evidence that Ministers take that message to both multilateral and bilateral trade negotiations.
The Minister mentioned invisibles. We in Britain tend to get a little irritated when we are told that if our competitors have improved in some areas, we must understand it, and take our medicine like men. We are told

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that we must accept that other countries are producing the right goods. However, the service industry is producing the right goods, yet the industry is discriminated against, both in the Community and elsewhere. I hope that the Department will confirm that it is adopting a clear and firm line with the Community and in bilateral trading negotiations on shipping, insurance and banking in order to promote British invisibles. The same could be said of the airline industry. The Under-Secretary of State for ever gives us optimistic statements about what he will do to the Europeans, yet precious little seems to happen.
Mr. Dan Jones rose—
Mr. McNally: I am sorry, but I shall not give way.
Mr. Jones: The hon. Gentleman is missing a treat.
Mr. McNally: I bet I am.
Obviously, such debates as this are likely to concentrate on industries that are in difficulties. It is right that those problems and difficulties should be aired in the House. However, as the Minister said, this country exports 30 per cent. of its gross domestic product. That means that parts of British industry are doing things right. Some of our firms are getting the right orders to the right people. However, we want an assurance that the embassies and various governmental agencies will give British industry a chance to sell in the world. We should like the British media to reflect on what is good in British industry. That is the way forward, if our industry is to become technological and competitive enough to win markets in the Community and third countries and, most important, to win back the confidence of the British consumer.
9.29 pm
Mr. Kenneth Carlisle: I agree with the hon. Member for Stockport, South (Mr. McNally). It is high time that we had a debate on trade, because this touches on many aspects of life in Britain. Like most things, even the election date, it is subject to fashion.
When I was first in industry there was a tremendous passion for rationalisation, for turning businesses into larger units and diversification. A year or two later, the rage, with equal passion, was for turning businesses back into smaller units and concentrating on what one did well.
Similarly, today, there exists in trade a growing and dangerous fashion for protectionism. It is easy to understand how that has happened. During a world recession, we all have factories in our constituencies that are under threat. It is pleasant to save jobs by advocating constituents' interests, and it is a source of anguish if those jobs are lost.
The Government have a duty to look through fashion. They must avoid private interests and stick by what is in the interests of the public. If they do that, I know that they will find overwhelmingly that Britain's long-term interests lie in the open trade system. I am glad that my hon. and learned Friend supported that so strongly.
We all know that Britain is a great trading nation. We export more in goods and services, as a proportion of our gross domestic product, than any other country. It is evident that if world trade expands we become richer, and that if it diminishes we suffer.
Between the two world wars, trade contracted. We went back into protection. As the volume of trade shrank,
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the effect on Britain was bad. We all know the results. After the second world war, and in a different spirit, trade was liberated under GATT and in the 1960s under the Kennedy round. Tariffs were reduced, trade expanded and prosperity in the West grew.
In the light of that evidence, and more, it is clear that we benefit from free trade, but there are special pressures on all constituencies in Britain and in other countries. One can understand why video recorders must be imported to Poitiers. One might ask why one does not import machine tools into Britain through Betwys-y-coed. I understand that 100 Bills on import controls are proceeding through Congress. The danger of rising protection grows monthly. The Government have a duty to expose the fallacies that lie behind the seductive call of protectionism.
We benefit from an increased volume of trade. That is self-evident. We cannot scoff at the threat of retaliation. There are examples of that. We can all remember how the failure to increase the quota on textiles from Indonesia led to a far greater cut in Britain's exports to Indonesia. If we withdraw from the Common Market, we cannot be sure that a common external barrier will not be raised in our largest market. Serious retaliation would destroy the case for import restrictions. There is no guarantee that our balance of trade would be helped. Resources would move out of exports to satisfy the home market. Marketing effort would be spent at home and we would not necessarily create extra capacity to export goods. Inflation would be worse. The British Consumers Association estimates that we pay between 15 and 40 per cent. more for textiles as a result of the MFA restrictions. If we put up more tariffs, the inflationary pressures would grow.
Many people argue that import controls would last for only a short time, but all experience shows that once they have been erected they continue. That has been the experience of the MFA. What is initially made for a short time is extended. The MFA is now in its third stage. By their nature, import controls must be imposed for a long time if they are to encourage the necessary investment in import substitution in Britain.
Import controls weaken the economy. They act as a hidden subsidy. They encourage scarce resources to stay in the protected industries instead of moving out to the growth industries. They nurture inefficiency and as such are a type of restrictive practice. They need a complex apparatus to administer them. That bureaucracy would weigh more heavily on the productive sector of the economy.
Is that the road that we really want to take? Do we want to become a remote, little Britain? That is what Labour's programme of 1982 proposes. I am chilled by its call for import controls, tariffs and quotas. This is a very important point. If we want to help the Third world, we owe it to those countries to provide a market in this country for their goods.
For those reasons, and others, the Government have a duty to explain why the growing passion for protectionism is bad. They have a duty to stand up for free trade. Of course, they must also advocate fair trade. We have been through that argument. We must not delude ourselves that it is in the long-term interests of our country to follow the course of protectionism. We must be tough against unfair trade. We must work with the Common Market countries in this great trading area for free trade, because in growing trade lies our prosperity and that of the world.
9.36 pm
Mr. Barry Sheerman: The Labour party does not believe in protectionism. I do not believe that we get anywhere by caricaturing our opponents' arguments and policies.
There are strengths and weaknesses in our trading position. Anyone who looks at the past 100 years of British economic history realises that we have severe problems, which were caused not by one party or Government. What can we do about those difficulties? We do not serve anyone well by erecting false dichotomies between a free world order of trade and a narrow, protectionist stance. As intelligent men and women in the late part of the 20th century, we all want the country to be prosperous and to create wealth to be shared among our people. Therefore, we must look at the problems, analyse them, and find specific answers.
The Opposition believe that we must have a proper exchange rate policy as part of the programme to put things right in a measured way and that there must be massive industrial investment to counter the decay of many years. There has been a lack of investment, particularly since the Conservative Government came to power.
In the short term, and probably in the medium term, some areas of trade must be planned to give British manufacturers the chance to compete and grow. That applies only to some areas of industry. Some must have protection in the short term. That is sane and sensible for any party or Government facing the realities of trying to make strong the weak parts of our economy. The Opposition can do that.
At the next election the electorate will choose our positive policies—not hand-wringing, but positive—to put men and women back into jobs and to get our trade and exports moving again. My constituency is at the centre of the exporting and industrial wealth creating sector. It is unlike Dover or the south coast. We create the wealth of Britain. We do not expect the destruction of 25 per cent. of our industrial base. We do not expect the closed mills and factories that we pass every day in our constituencies. We know that those mills and productive units will never come back into production. This is not a stop-go part of our economic history. It is a stop, stop, stop part of our history. Unless we have positive policies for control of the exchange rate, planned trade, of planning for growth and of creative planning—there can be such a thing—we are doomed as an industrial and trading nation.
9.39 pm
Mr. John Fraser: The Opposition are grateful for even a half-day debate on trade matters. We do not discuss often enough matters that are vital and essential to this country's success. Our gratitude to the Government, however, should not prevent us from being outspoken about the extent to which the Department of Trade and its Ministers have been associated with adverse trade balances, losses, failures and lack of effective action.
The Minister for Trade is a fine advocate. He would not have his style and title were that not so. He can put a good face on almost everything. By the end of his speech one would have thought that the country had few problems and that the only trade problems faced by his Department were likely to come from intervention, from following the policies advocated by the Labour party and from protectionism, which the Opposition describe as matters
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of common sense. A greater degree of intervention to assist Great Britain's trade in manufactures surely cannot cause so much disruption. I am sure that the Minister did not convince Conservative Members, in particular the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), and he certainly did not convince Opposition Members.
The Minister of State's able exposition of the Government's case is a dangerous masquerade. I should be extremely worried if I thought that he believed what he was saying.
The trends in visible and invisible trade are horrifying. The horrific nature of the trends are masked only by the balances from North sea oil. In assessing the long-term prosperity and future of this country and its trade, we cannot ignore the finite nature of North sea oil. We cannot aggregate all the elements of our trade and say that, because Great Britain had a surplus of £6 billion in one year and £4·5 billion in another year, everything in the garden is rosy. We have to look at the prospect for our trade in manufactures for 50 or 100 years, and not allow it to be distorted and covered by favourable balances of trade as a result of North sea oil.
The Government have allowed what could have been our greatest asset to become one of our greatest liabilities. I did not use the word "horrific" lightly. Let us look at three consequences for visible trade. I understand that, for the first time since the reign of Elizabeth I, this country has an adverse balance of trade in manufactures. The Government have brought about an extraordinary position.
The non-oil balance in visible trade—these figures were given by the Minister on Monday last week—was in deficit last year by almost £2·5 billion, whereas in 1978 we had a favourable balance on visible trade of £500 million. More terrifying than anything is the fact that our deficit on manufactures with the rest of the European Community is a staggering £5 billion per annum. We cannot ignore such figures by putting them alongside what is likely to be a temporary surplus on oil trade. The figures show the devastation to British manufacturing industry, what lies behind job losses, and the depths of industrial dereliction to which Britain has fallen as a result of the Government's policies. The terrifying prospect is that a fall in the price of oil, or a diminution in supply as it begins to run out, will leave us exposed to massive deficits.
It is grossly irresponsible of the Government and their supporters to ignore those projections and the finite nature of oil and to behave like people on a limited supply of hallucinatory drugs. The clear message from this debate is the failure of the Government to recognise the reality of the exposure of Britain when the oil runs out.
The Government have not only failed on visible trade. Several hon. Members mentioned tourism. We used to have a healthy surplus from tourism on the invisible account. At one time it was about £1 billion a year, but now it is a deficit of £500 million a year. That, again, is a direct consequence of the Government's policies on the exchange rate. No one can say that tourism suffered because of the behaviour of workers or their wage claims. It suffered because the industry was made uncompetitive by the Government's operation of the exchange rate.
The Government's achievement, as was clearly demonstrated during the debate, is to shift jobs and money out of Britain and to bring foreign goods in. They have weakened their ability to control those matters by relying

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upon negotiations with the European Community, where they have often neither the power nor the resolve to deal with such matters.
I do not doubt for one moment that the Minister for Trade was vigorous in the GATT negotiations. The trouble is that he was vigorous for the wrong group of countries and for the wrong objectives. The negotiating team was concerned with the preservation of the protectionist common agricultural policy and the disturbingly large subsidised dumping of food exports on other parts of the world. The Minister had to be associated with that because he was a member of the EC negotiating team. That did not help in negotiations with the Americans, and he was not associated with the European stance of freeing the trade in services. For example, if as a member of the EC one is trying to reach agreement with America on synthetic fibres, America's ability to retaliate against the other members of the Community is much greater. It would be better to have bilateral arrangements with the United States than to be tied down to negotiating as part of the EC.
No one who examines the disastrous trends in both visible and invisible trade, especially in manufactured goods, can be reassured about the future of his job or trade while the Government preserve their present noninterventionist policies. There must be a change of heart, although there is not likely to be a change of heart in a Government who have an ideological attachment to nonintervention. The prospects for better trade and employment will come not from a change of heart in Ministers, but from a change to a Government who will adopt policies that are devoted to increasing employment and prospects for our working people.
9.50 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Iain Sproat): We have had a wide-ranging debate. I am sure that it would have been wider had many of my hon. Friends who sat through the debate—the Members for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Colvin), for Loughborough (Mr. Dorrell) and for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. Walker)—caught your eye, Mr. Speaker.
In the 10 minutes that are left, I shall cover several of the points that were raised.
Several hon. Members raised a wide variety of points relating to the conclusion of the bilateral textile agreements negotiated last year by the Commission under the terms of the new multi-fibre arrangement.
I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House for the kind words they have said about the Government, in particular about the contribution of my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Trade and the tough line that he and the Commission took.
Several hon. Members have expressed concern and reservation about the level of protection that will be provided under these new arrangements.
The clothing and textile industries operate in a highly competitive international environment. This is inescapable. The success of the United Kingdom industry is apparent in its substantial exports to the rest of the world—some £1·7 billion in the first 10 months of 1982. This is something upon which the industry should be congratulated. It was a good performance by any standards. The House and the country should be proud of it.
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Secondly, the Government accept that in the especially difficult circumstances that have faced the industry in recent years, continued protection is necessary against certain low-cost imports where the industry has no reasonable hope of competing successfully in the immediate future. The level of protection now offered under the new MFA is without doubt higher and more extensive than that available to the industry under MFA2.
Under the MFA and associated arrangements, my Department currently operates more than 600 specific import quotas on clothing and textiles. They represent a massive level of protection. The Government believe that protection is necessary. There must be no doubt in hon. Members' minds, whatever their reservations, some of which have been expressed this evening, that the level of protection afforded is massive and far greater in absolute terms than that given to any other part of the private sector.
It is no good hon. Members saying that a higher level of protection could have been negotiated. The Government believe that the European Commission negotiated the toughest deal that it was realistic and possible to obtain. To have sought greater restrictions on supplies—for example, by seeking to base 1983 quota entitlements on the exceptionally low level of imports in 1980—would not, in the event, have been a realistic negotiating aim.
Were the Community to force such a proposal on our partners in the developing world, I am quite sure that we would have had no new MFA and no new bilateral arrangements. We would have been thrown back onto our normal safeguard rights under the GATT, and any action on that would need to be agreed by the rest of the Community. That alternative did not commend itself to the Government, and it is not an alternative that would have been acceptable to British industry.
As my hon. and learned Friend said, there is a price to pay for the high level of protection which the clothing and textile industry will enjoy for the next four years. The Government believe that it is worth paying that price to help the industry face the exceptionally difficult problems with which it is confronted. The House should not be misled into believing that such massive protection, even though necessary and warranted, does not have to be paid for in terms of increased costs to the consumer and its effect on our trade relations with supplying countries.
I have been asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) and the hon. Member for Batley and Morley (Mr. Woolmer) to give certain undertakings on the detailed aspects of the Government's textile policy. I am happy to give an undertaking that the Government will, as in the past, closely monitor imports from countries with which the Community has signed bilateral arrangements. The Government will try to ensure that those are honoured.
I assure the House that we shall closely monitor imports from the Community's preferential Mediterranean suppliers, and that the Government do not propose to allow excessive imports from those countries to undermine the good work that was achieved in negotiating the MFA bilaterals.
We shall also be taking a realistically firm position on the renegotiation of the bilateral agreement with China, which falls to be done in 1983. The Government are fully aware of the importance of the clothing and textile industry to this country. The new MFA gives substantially

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increased protection for the next four years, and that should provide some certainty for the industry in its planning.
It is an extraordinary fact that too often people in Britain do not seem to realise what an exceptional and unique exporting record this country has today. We are always too eager to play down our own achievements and to play up our own failings. That is one of our less sensible national characteristics. It needs to be said loud and often that British exporters are at present doing a superb job for the country.
Let me spell out just three examples of what I mean—examples that are far too little known at home and abroad. First, this country exports a higher proportion of its GDP than any other major industrialised nation. We export more than the United States, Japan and West Germany. We export almost 30 per cent. of what we produce—almost double the proportion that Japan exports. That is something of which our exporters can be justifiably proud.
Secondly, while the gloom merchants—many of them on the Opposition Benches—have been moaning about the United Kingdom becoming a commercial and industrial desert, since the Government came to power the United Kingdom has turned in massive balance of payments surpluses each year. That is a tremendous record.
Thirdly, few people realise that while last year world trade by volume was falling by about 2 per cent., British exports were rising by 1 per cent. That is a remarkable achievement at a time of worldwide recession.
In short, of course this country is suffering from the effects of worldwide recession; of course parts of the country and parts of our industry have been hit particularly harshly; of course there is still a long way to go to restore profitability, competitiveness and employment to the levels that we all want to see, but we must not forget or fail to acknowledge the splendid achievement of Britain's exporters in both goods and services. It remains the Government's strong resolve to enable them to continue with that good work.
In the few minutes remaining, I should like to comment on the splendidly robust speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central (Sir A. Grant). I particularly liked his remarks about how the Saudis depended on oil and about how we never heard anyone say, "Poor Saudi Arabia, its economy depends on oil." Why are people so critical of us when oil, quite rightly, plays such an important part in our economy?
My hon. Friend was absolutely right to identify protectionism versus open trade as one of the major themes of the debate. We Conservatives are firmly on the side of open trade—
Mr. Woolmer rose—
Mr. Sproat: Had my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West been called to speak, he would have pointed out that shipping is one of our most important industries and that 68 per cent. of our earnings from shipping comes from cross-trades—our ships plying between two ports neither of which are in this country.
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How on earth would we be able to continue to benefit from that 68 per cent. of earnings if our ports were closed to other shipping? How could we expect others to keep their ports open to our ships? That is a classic example of the benefits of free trade.
If Labour Members think that no other country is warning us against going down the road of protectionism, they should read the speech of Ambassador Brock to the Senate finance committee on 25 January, when he made it quite clear that if the United Kingdom went down the road of protectionism, the United States would be forced to go further down that road.
There is no question but that the true interests of this country lie far more in the direction of open trade, and that is certainly the direction in which my Department intends to go. I am very pleased indeed that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central said that right at the beginning of the debate.
It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered, That, at this day's sitting, the Representation of the People Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Garel-Jones.]
It being after Ten o'clock, MR. SPEAKER proceeded to put forthwith the Questions which he was directed by paragraph (7) of Standing Order No. 18A (Consideration of Estimates) to put at that hour.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

  SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES 1982–83
  Question,
  That a further supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,509,761,000, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund to defray the charges for Defence and Civil Services which will come in course of payment during, the year ending on 31st March 1983, as set out in House of Commons Papers Nos. 12 and 13.
  put and agreed to.

  ESTIMATES 1983–84 (VOTE ON ACCOUNT)
  Question,
  That a sum, not exceeding £35,955,985,500, be granted to Her Majesty out of the Consolidated Fund, on account, for or towards defraying the charges for Defence and Civil Services for the year ending on 31st March 1984, as set out in House of Commons Papers Nos. 14, 15 and 16.
  put and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in upon the two foregoing Resolutions by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Leon Brittan, Mr. Nicholas Ridley, Mr. Jock Bruce-Gardyne, Mr. Barney Hayhoe and Mr. John Wakeham.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND
  Mr. Nicholas Ridley accordingly presented a Bill to apply certain sums out of the Consolidated Fund to the service of the years ending on 31 March 1983 and 1984; And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 64.]

Representation of the People Bill [Lords]
Order for Second Reading read.
10.1 pm
The Solicitor-General (Sir Ian Percival): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill is pure consolidation, bringing together in one measure much of the existing law on elections and electoral procedure. There was a previous consolidation into the Representation of the People Act 1949, but because of changes since then in many different Acts it is time to consolidate the provisions again.
This major consolidation brings together in one statute much of the matter that is important in this context. The Joint Committee on Consolidation, etc., Bills, to which, as always, we are greatly indebted, has considered the Bill in the normal way and is satisfied that it is pure consolidation and represents the existing law.
Mr. Arthur Davidson: This is a pure consolidation Bill and a major consolidation Bill. I echo the sentiments expressed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General and pay tribute also to the Joint Consolidation Committee, as it is time I said something about one of these consolidation Bills.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Garel-Jones.]
Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported without amendment.
Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 56 (Third Reading), and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, without amendment.

Opencast Mining (North-West)
Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Major.]
10.4 pm
Mr. Lawrence Cunliffe: I hope to be objective and constructive, not emotive, in my remarks, although opencast coal mining is an extremely emotive subject these days.
I sincerely hope that in the future the Minister will consider opencast applications with caution and with greater deliberation after hearing my case against this type of mining at this time. I stress the importance of timing. The debate synchronises with a great industrial recession such as we have not seen for 100 years. That is relevant because, for obvious reasons, a recession means less consumer demand for the vital product concerned.
In my view, it is imperative that in authorising opencast site applications Ministers should seriously consider the present state of energy demand. Here I do not refer to the world scenario, as we have now moved from the oil crisis os 1973 into a period in which the recession in Britain has made its mark in reducing demand for all types of energy.
I begin by illustrating the motivation of Members of Parliament to begin with an early-day motion and ultimately to seek a debate on what I consider to be a vital matter at this time. In my case, it is because I come from the north-west.
In any opencast application, one must decide whether economic necessity outweighs the environmental upheaval. In other words, is there sufficient need for the development to take place at the cost of local harassment? I shall expand a little on what I mean by that. My early-day motion, which was signed by 35 Members, states
"that it is unnecessary for further opencast mining schemes to be embarked upon considering the huge amount of coal stocks available".
Here I declare a vested interest. The early-day motion was couched in those terms, not because I sought to protect the people whom I represent in other sectors of the mining industry and elsewhere, but because there is now a great awareness in our communities, especially those which have been victims of opencast mining schemes, of the enormous and traumatic environmental intrusions into their lifestyle and the quality of their lives that opencast mining involves. I shall pinpoint and highlight two sites, one of which is probably the largest opencast mining site in Western Europe.
The other part of my early-day motion is
"furthermore, acknowledges the growing realisation and some serious concern by the public, that opencast mining is now environmentally unacceptable as long as sufficient deep coal mine reserves are available."
I shall not dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" about deep coal mining. There are about 300 years of deep coal mine reserves. When I read the report about coal and the environment, I noted that there are at least 100 million tons of opencast mining reserves.
The Minister has exclusive authority. He says aye or nay. Regardless of the power of great nationalised industries, regardless even of the will of the House, he has the power to say aye or nay when applications are submitted. Does the nation need coal? That basic question must be answered. Can the energy needs of the nation be met? I have investigated the resources available in both opencast and deep mining. The time has come when the

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Minister must consider calling a halt to any further new projects for opencast mining. I emphasise that I refer to new projects. I do not attempt to assess or judge how long that halt should last.
I speak with long experience of the mining industry. It is well known that opencast mining is cheap, easily available and not labour-intensive. It creates environmental problems that are now accepted. We must assess the balance that must be struck in economic, financial and fiscal terms, taking account of the National Coal Board's financial position.
I have no scruples about saying that I am fully aware that opencast mining makes a considerable contribution towards balancing the books. What do ordinary people do about the intrusion into their local environment? A proposal is knocking about in Greater Manchester which outlines a massive opencast scheme. It will cover 1,500 acres and take 13 to 15 years to mine. The reclamation scheme involves the largest pit spoil heap in Western Europe. About 850,000 tons of coal can be extracted—coal that has been spilt, is surplus to requirement or has been integrated among pit dirt and shale.
It is easy to agree that such huge, conspicuous eyesores should be removed from the landscape. There is no argument about that. It would be a great contribution to environmental improvement. Should milling continue in an area for 13 years, especially if it is a struggling area? The scheme involves the Bolton, Salford, and Wigan metropolitan authorities, and is the largest of 21 sites envisaged in a 15-mile radius of Greater Manchester.
The Minister must be acutely aware that for 250 to 300 years this part of the north west region has suffered. It has been ravaged by deep coal mining. It has undergone industrial dereliction. The first industrial revolution left its mark. There was the mixed grill of Victorian planning, careless and carefree in the way techniques were applied to win resources, whether in the textile industry, mining, the slate industry or any other industry that happened to expand in that area.
We now face the prospect of two decades of intrusion. What does it mean? What do ordinary people say? They ask questions that need answers. I must tell the House that I have never known such resentment in this part of the world—and I am talking about a whole stratum of the Lancashire region—as there is at the prospect of what could be described and what they see as almost a second industrial revolution in the area, causing tremendous upheaval and interference with their lives.
They ask why, after 250 years of disturbance, they have again to face intrusion on this scale. It is very difficult to avoid memories of old coal owners when they see a nationalised industry coming back to carry out some form of environmental rape in their area. They ask whether local opinion will ever win the day. They wonder whether Parliament takes notice of protests. They ask whether it acts on rational arguments and whether the national interest is weighed against the interference with their local interests and daily lives. They ask how safe it is to mine in this area with a 45° deg incline, one in one. They ask how safe it is in an area with this history. Right in the centre of this massive opencast site there is a vivid memory of the largest pit disaster in the British Isles. There is a sensitivity from one generation here to another where 344 men and boys died. The Minister knows that there is this closeness among the mining community. They then ask
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whether assurances can be given that residents living within a certain distance of the proposed site will not suffer in health. They would like assurances that the tranquility of many of the old people in the area will not be disturbed and that such an extensive development will not blight house prices for younger residents.
People in the area ask whether the Department of Energy is even aware of what the Department of the Environment is doing. They wonder whether it knows that there are reclamation areas, with £250,000 schemes in this district. They ask whether Whitehall departments co-operate on matters of this kind and whether one Department knows what another is doing.
A previous opencast site developed at Atherton has a notorious history. I disagreed vehemently with the decision made at the time by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn). The public inquiry inspector recommended against development of the site. All the authorities to which I have referred protested. It is now strongly rumoured that the board intends to come back to develop the one-fifth of the site that remains. That is not action that accords with the Queensberry Rules. It is an unscrupulous tactic.
It is strongly rumoured—there has been speculation in the local press—that use could be made of opencast sites and other mine shafts in the area for the disposal of nuclear waste. I recognise that this is a difficult question. However, with such speculation rife, predominantly in the Wigan area, I hope that the Minister will give an assurance of at least some information to arrest the fear and anxiety that exist. The Minister is respected in the House for his activities at the Department. I hope that he will be able to answer some of the points that I have raised.
10.21 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Energy (Mr. John Moore): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Cunliffe) for raising this subject and for the manner in which he has done so. Hon. Members are aware of his long experience in the mining industry. The hon. Gentleman brings to the House not only his local constituency experience but a knowledge of mining, which has been beneficial to the House. The last occasion on which the House had an opportunity to debate opencast coal mining was on 19 March last year, in a debate on the report of the Commission on Energy and the Environment relating to coal and the environment, initiated by the hon. Member for Goole (Dr. Marshall). That debate covered many matters apart from opencast mining, and the amount of time the House was able to devote to the problems of opencast coal was therefore limited.
I start by reminding the House—it is crucial in this context—of the major conclusions of the report of the Commission on Energy and the Environment relating to opencast coal. The commission concluded that, for those badly affected, the continued effects of opencast operations can add up to a very severe diminution in the quality of life. It recommended improvements in the procedures for restoring sites after coaling has finished. It recommended that planning applications for opencast sites should in future be handled within the normal planning machinery instead of, as at present, within the framework of the Opencast Coal Act 1958. This Act requires the NCB to obtain an authorisation for each opencast site from the

395
Secretary of State for Energy, and empowers the Secretary of State to attach deemed planning consent to an authorisation.
The commission concluded also that the volume of opencast coal produced should be allowed to decline with time, and that in the meantime should not be allowed to rise above the target level of 15 million tonnes per year. The commission also recommended that a series of guidelines should be drawn up by the opencast executive of the NCB and the local authority associations defining more strictly the sites where opencast coal might be mined. It suggested, too, some of the points which these guidelines might cover.
The Government's consideration of these recommendations—this is germane to the debate—is at an advanced stage. We have held detailed discussions with the NCB, the local authorities and many other bodies which have an interest in the CENE report. There have been debates in the House and in another place. I hope that we will be in a position to reply fully to the CENE report very soon. I am sure, too, that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House is aware of the feelings of many hon. Members that, when the Government's reply to the CENE report is published, the House should have an early opportunity to debate it.
I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to the representations of the many Opposition Members who have attended throughout the debate. Hon. Members will appreciate that for the present I cannot anticipate the reply, although I shall try to say a few words to put the points made by the hon. Member for Leigh into a wider context.
Opencast coal, as he rightly said, is a valuable national resource. Its costs of production are of the same order of magnitude as the costs of marginal production at the NCB's best deep mines. Opencast coal makes a substantial profit for the NCB, which offsets a significant part of the board's losses on the uneconomic part of its deep-mined production. I have reminded the House before of the importance of competitively priced coal both in securing the long-term prospects for the coal industry, and in keeping down electricity costs to industry and to domestic consumers. Opencast coal, together with efficient and competitive production from deep mines, has a significance in a wide context of energy prices and policy.
It is sometimes suggested that opencast coal is in competition with deep-mined coal, and represents therefore a threat to jobs in the mining industry. As hon. Members from mining constituencies can confirm, however, the truth is much more complicated. Opencast coal is clean and can generally be used without washing. For this reason it is frequently used to blend with deep-mined coal to sweeten it, as the phrase goes, to make the latter more acceptable for use in power stations.
In some parts of the country, where deep-mined coal has a high chlorine content, the coal can be marketed only if it is blended with low chlorine coals, which are typically available from opencast sites. Some other opencast sites produce coals to special requirements for local markets, which it would not be easy to supply from elsewhere. Other opencast sites produce grades of coal that are in short supply generally in this country. I am thinking here particularly of anthracite from sites in south Wales, and certain of the prime coking coals from the north-east of
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England. Without opencast production of these coals, demand in the inland market would probably be met by increased imports, and not by coal from NCB deep mines.
There are other cases, too, where opencasting is undertaken in order that coal be extracted before it is sterilised by other development, such as the building of roads.
As hon. Members will be aware, following the rise in oil prices in the early 1970s, and the interim final reports of the coal industry examination, the Government at that time endorsed a target for NCB opencast production of 15 million tonnes per year. The present Government, when they came to power, reaffirmed this policy commitment.
On 13 May last year I said in a reply to the hon. Member for Consett (Mr. Watkins) that there had been no change in the Government's policy on the amount of coal to be extracted by opencast methods but that, in the light of the recommendations of the Commission on Energy and Environment, among other things, the Government had the future opencast production under review. That remains the position, though, as I have said, the Government intend to reply very soon to the CENE report, and to include in that reply their reactions to the CENE recommendations on the future level of opencast output.
I know from what the hon. Member for Leigh has said, and from the letters that I have received at various times from other hon. Members, that hon. Members are very concerned that the views of local people—the people directly affected by opencast mining—should be taken very fully into account in considering whether an authorisation should be granted to the NCB for a new opencast site. It may be helpful if I explain the procedures under the Opencast Coal Act 1958, and how these give local people, and their representatives in both tiers of local government, the opportunity to make their views known and have them considered.
If the NCB wishes to undertake opencast mining at a site, it is required to apply for an authorisation to my Department. It is required to publish notice of its intention to apply for an authorisation for two successive weeks in a local newspaper in the area where the proposed site is located. There then follows a period of 28 days during which objections can be made to the board's proposals. It is common for one or both of the local authorities concerned to object, together perhaps with the owners or occupiers of the land, and a number of local people.
The NCB will often then proceed to discuss its proposals in greater detail with the objectors, to see whether solutions can be reached which would enable the objection to be withdrawn. But if objections are sustained from either of the local authorities concerned, or from the owners or occupiers of the land, the Secretary of State for Energy is required to convene a public local inquiry, at which all the arguments for and against the site can be advanced and examined. The Secretary of State has the discretion to convene an inquiry in other cases; and my Department considers carefully whether or not to recommend that he use this discretionary power, on the basis both of the nature and weight of objections made to the proposed site, and of a personal visit to the site by officials from the Department.
In reaching a decision whether or not to grant the NCB an authorisation for a site, the Secretary of State is obliged to take into account the detrimental effects that the NCB's proposals might have on the environment. To be fair, it is also appropriate for him to take into account the

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opportunities that the proposed opencasting may offer to make environmental improvements, such as the restoration of old colliery land, or the creation of a void for the disposal of waste.
If I had time I would go into the details of how the NCB has done an outstanding job in seeking to restore opencast sites and new opencast developments. However, I wish to address myself briefly to some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Leigh.
The hon. Member is particularly concerned about the possibility of opencasting in Atherton, in areas adjacent to the existing Millers lane opencast site. Can I say at once that I recognise the strength of local feeling on this matter. The then hon. Member for Leigh, Mr. Harold Boardman, brought this very clearly to the attention of the House on 14 March 1978. My own predecessor as parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Midlothian (Mr. Eadie), explained at that time why the Secretary of State had decided not to accept the inspector's recommendation that the board's application be rejected. The issue upon which the then Secretary of State took a different view from the inspector concerned the need for coal. The inspector suggested that as the date for attaining the target of 15 million tonnes per year of opencast coal production had receded, there appeared to be no great urgency. He also suggested that the NCB might be able to find other sites involving far less amenity and environmental objection.
The then Secretary of State agreed with the inspector that the coal in the site would make a valuable contribution to the 15 million tonnes a year target and to meeting local needs. However, he could not agree that there was no great urgency in the need for more sites, and the inspector's conclusion that the board might be able to find alternative sites with less environmental and amenity objection did not answer the proposition that this site was essential to the achievement of the 15 million tonnes target as, even if such sites were to become available, they would not be able to produce the coal over the same time scale.
The Secretary of State took account of the inspector's comment that if the northern boundary of the site were moved further away from the built-up area, this would achieve a substantial amelioration of the environmental and amenity damage. He therefore authorised opencast working on the southern part of the proposed Millers lane site, while refusing authorisation for the northern part of the site. Subsequently, the metropolitan borough of Wigan brought an unsuccessful action in the High Court to quash the authorisation for the site.
It might help to put the relevance of these arguments to today's conditions into perspective if I point out that in 1977–78, the financial year in which the site was authorised, the NCB opencast production was about 11·5 million tonnes. The 15 million tonne target was achieved, and indeed slightly exceeded, in 1981. NCB opencast production in the current financial year is expected to be around 14·5 million tonnes.
The present position regarding a possible extension to the Millers lane site is as follows. The NCB, in accordance with an agreement with the local authority associations,
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has drawn up a consultation document for discussion with the greater Manchester council and the other local authorities concerned, about future possibilities for opencasting in the greater Manchester area. I understand that this document mentions that there may be a number of options for opencasting close to the existing Millers lane site, including the northern area for which an authorisation was refused in 1978.
The NCB suggests that these options should be the subject of further discussion with the local authorities concerned. At the same time, I understand that the NCB has been undertaking some further exploration work in the area.
The hon. Member referred to the apprehension that is caused in the area by this discussion of possible future opencasting. I appreciate his concern. At the same time, I am sure that he recognises the value of the NCB discussing forward plans and options with local authorities, even when those plans are still at a very early and tentative stage. Only in this way can the local authorities gain a clear, overall and long-term picture of the impact of opencasting in their areas, and have an opportunity to influence the NCB's plans at a formative stage.
I know that the local authorities attach considerable importance to this. I understand that the next of a series of regular meetings between the NCB and the local authorities in greater Manchester is scheduled for the end of March. I have no doubt that the hon. Member will bring to the attention of the local authorities before then the strong local feeling on the possibility of future open-casting in areas around the Millers lane site.
I stress again that my Department has received no application for an authorisation for an extension to the Millers lane site, or for any other site in the immediate area; nor has it any reason to believe that the NCB will shortly apply for a site. If at some future point the NCB applies for an authorisation, the procedures I have already outlined would apply, with the assurance they give that the views of local people will be considered very carefully.
I would wish to go on, if I had time, but I must just mention the point made by the hon. Member about the specific matter of his local press report on nuclear waste. I firmly believe that these alarmist rumours are wholly unfounded. The hon. Member will know, however, that nuclear waste matters are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.
However, knowing as I do the extreme care with which such matters are handled, I should be more than surprised if there were anything behind these rumours. I shall ask my right hon. Friend to contact the hon. Member for Leigh as soon as possible to reassure him on this matter.
The hon. Member asked a question of my right hon. Friend—
The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at twenty-six minutes to Eleven o'clock.