Commons Sitting of 1 August 1984

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

    National Strikes (Economic Effects)
    Sir David Priceasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what has been the effect to date of the continuing miners' strike and other supportive strikes upon the United Kingdom's import and export trades, respectively.
    The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Norman Tebbit): Little changed since the reply I gave to a similar question from the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) on 4 July. Imports of oil, coal and coke have increased and there has been some reduction in steel exports, but the strike has had a minimal effect on the vast majority of the United Kingdom's import and export trades.
    Sir David Price: Does my right hon. Friend agree that although this continuing strike is not good for the economy, it is even worse for the economy of the striking miners and their families? Does he also agree that the terms proposed by the National Coal Board for non-economic activities within the coal industry are the most generous on record in the whole of British industry, and should certainly be accepted?
    Mr. Tebbit: Yes, I entirely agree. The subsidies to the coal industry are extraordinarily generous and the offers for voluntary redundancy are among the most generous ever offered. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister observed last night, they are in marked contrast to the meanness of the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), who supports closures on economic grounds. We are all extremely sorry for the losses caused to so many miners who want to go to work and who are intimidated by massive picketing, and we are puzzled——
    Mr. Gould: Answer the question.
    Mr. Tebbit: I am answering the question. The hon. Gentleman may make his own judgment. I know that he is afraid that I shall draw attention to the fact that the Leader of the Opposition does not have the guts to ask Mr. Scargill to abide by the outcome of a ballot or even by the TUC's code on picketing.
    Mr. James Lamond: As the Secretary of State is so dismissive of the effect of the strike on imports and exports, does he share the view of the Chancellor of the
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    Exchequer that this deterioration in the fabric of the nation, and the starving of women and children in order to drive the miners back to work, is "a worthwhile investment"?
    Mr. Tebbit: It is certainly not a worthwhile investment of the funds of the National Union of Mineworkers to employ people to beat up fellow members of the union.
    On the question of what my right hon. Friend said, does anyone suggest that it is not right for the Government to ensure the continuity of electricity supplies? That is the cost involved.
    Mr. Hickmet: Would my right hon. Friend care to comment upon the description of the strike by the chairman of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation as a political strike, or his assertion that trade union leaders are prepared to see their members' jobs sacrificed to the political ambition of one man—Mr. Arthur Scargill? What effect does my right hon. Friend think that will have upon the British Steel Corporation's export market? Is it not a disgrace that the leadership of the NUM should be prepared to see steel workers' jobs put at risk?
    Mr. Tebbit: My hon. Friend is right, except in one respect. This strike is not about one man's political ambitions; it is about the political ambitions of the Leader of the Opposition, who crawls along like a puppy at Scargill's heels.
    Mr. Douglas: In the nation's interest, will the Secretary of State give us some idea of the total cost of the strike in terms of the nation's balance sheet? Last night the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to suggest that £350 million or so was a good investment from the Government's point of view. What is the real cost to the nation? Does the Secretary of State think that that money is well invested in trying to defeat people who are trying to defend their communities?
    Mr. Tebbit: Whatever it costs to ensure that members of the NUM have the right to go to work without being under threat of being beaten up by pickets is worth while. Last night my right hon. Friend quoted the public expenditure involved, which is well worth while to maintain continuity of electricity, to maintain steel workers' jobs and to protect miners against pickets.
    Mr. Ward: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many of my constituents are amazed to hear that every working miner is subsidised by the taxpayer to the tune of £130 a week? They are increasingly asking how much longer they can continue to subsidise miners who are taking money out of the pockets of people on relatively low incomes and showing no concern for their own or the country's future.
    Mr. Tebbit: Uncharacteristically, my hon. Friend is being unfair to many miners. The average subsidy is £130 a week, but many miners are loyally working in good pits that are not subsidised. The question is how much we can afford to subsidise the uneconomic pits which are a burden on the backs of other miners and taxpayers. Last night the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) said that he was in favour of closing uneconomic pits. The sooner we get on with that, the better.
    Mr. Ashdown: Is not this dispute a classic example of how this terrible problem has been torn apart by Labour and Conservative Members like a rag doll? We cannot understand why the Leader of the Opposition is not

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    prepared unequivocally to condemn the appalling brutality that is occurring on picket lines. How can the Government sit by and watch the destruction of a great industry, intimidation and violence on the picket lines and the destruction of law and order, and not do anything about it?
    Mr. Tebbit: I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman cannot understand why the Leader of the Opposition is silent. He is silent because he is Scargill's puppy and dare not say a word. The Government are maintaining the miners' right to go to work through police operations to defend them. We are maintaining electricity supplies to protect consumers and we are maintaining the British Steel Corporation's ability to employ its work force. All of those matters are the responsibility of the Government, and we are fulfilling that responsibility. However, we cannot force Mr. Scargill to have a ballot and to let his members go back to work.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: Is not the real point that Britain's economic development depends upon cost-effective energy, as much as possible of it being produced in Britain? Are we not more likely to achieve that if more people know about the cost of subsidies to the mining industry and realise that members of political parties and trade unions dare not go beyond condemning violence? They ought to call on people not to assemble in such large intimidatory numbers and not to get involved in any type of violence.
    Mr. Tebbit: My hon. Friend is undoubtedly right, but it would be a helpful first step if the TUC code on picketing, which sets down a maximum of six pickets at any works gates, were implemented. We should then see who wanted to go to work.
    Mr. Shore: Will the Secretary of State now stop complaining and answer two direct questions? Does he or does he not endorse what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said last night: that, taking account of the human and other effects and costs of the strike,
    "it represents a worthwhile investment for the nation"?—[Official Report, 31 July 1984; Vol. 65, c. 306–7.]
    Secondly, if the economic costs of the coal industry are as the Chancellor described yesterday, to what does the Secretary of State attribute the continuing deterioration of the British economy, including the massive increase in the balance of payments deficit?
    Mr. Tebbit: There is not a balance of payments deficit. I am sorry to bring the right hon. Gentleman the good news.
    Mr. Shore: A deterioration.
    Mr. Tebbit: A deterioration—from a massive surplus to balance? The right hon. Gentleman is keen on getting these things right, and I shall put him right. There are many aspects to the swings and roundabouts of trade. We have been in surplus for five years running, which is more than Labour Governments ever achieved, and we shall maintain those figures year over year.
    The right hon. Gentleman also asked about the Chancellor's statement last night. My right hon. Friend was absolutely right. The money spent in resisting the strike is money well spent, because it protects the jobs of steel workers, car workers, dock workers, Transport and General Workers Union workers and many others. Not to have expended it would have been to give in to mob
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    violence. There is no necessity for any starving. If miners were allowed by their union to go back to work, their wives and children would be well fed.

    Exchange Rates
    Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many individuals and how many organisations have made representations to him in favour of fixed exchange rates in the past year.
    The Minister for Information Technology (Mr. Kenneth Baker): I have not received any representations seeking a return to fixed exchange rates.
    Mr. Knox: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the British economy worked much better when we had fixed exchange rates? What steps are the Government taking to bring about greater stability in international exchange rates, and, as a step towards that, when do they intend to join the exchange rate mechanism of the EMS?
    Mr. Baker: I do not think that I would subscribe to my hon. Friend's view that the British economy would necessarily work better with fixed exchange rates. I remember a time when there were such rates, and there were a series of lurches of policy to maintain a level which became very unreasonable. The problem about maintaining a fixed exchange rate is rather like rolling a stone up a hill. It can be done. It requires great effort and determination, but at any time it can slip out of control and crush those who are trying to push it uphill.

    Lead in Petrol
    Mr. Neil Hamiltonasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry whether he will be discussing the costs to the car and oil industries of the proposed draft directives on lead in petrol and vehicle emissions at the next Council of Industry Ministers.
    The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Mr. Norman Lamont): These draft directives were considered by Environment Ministers at the Council of Ministers on 28 June. I am not aware of any plans for formal discussions of this subject within the Council by Industry Ministers.
    Mr. Hamilton: My hon. Friend will be aware that the United Kingdom Government have been attempting to persuade the European Community to bring forward the date for the introduction of unleaded petrol in the Community from 1991 to 1989. Is he aware that the draft directives were arrived at after lengthy discussions with the car and oil industries and that any attempt to anticipate the Commission's proposal and to bring forward the date for the introduction of unleaded petrol is likely to lead only to a greater influx of Japanese cars, thereby harming the British car and oil industries?
    Mr. Lamont: I note what my hon. Friend says. Obviously, any advance on this proposal must be made on a co-ordinated basis throughout Europe. We would not wish our industry in any way to be at a disadvantage. Any advancing of the programme must obviously be across Europe.
    Mr. Rogers: Is the Minister now saying that he is prepared to poison the British people so long as we stay

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    competitive with Europe? Is that what he means by saying that, although lead has been proved a risk, he is still not ready to introduce these directives until others do?
    Mr. Lamont: The hon. Gentleman would be astonished if I were to reply yes. Indeed, that is hardly the situation. He knows that we have taken the initiative in moving forward quickly towards the introduction of unleaded petrol, but at the same time we are rightly determined to ensure that our industry is in no way disadvantaged. For that reason, this must be done on a harmonised basis throughout Europe. It is not in the interest of jobs in the motor industry to do otherwise.

    British Telecom plc
    Mr. Fisherasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what proportion of the equity in British Telecom plc he intends to sell to individual shareholders.
    Mr. Kenneth Baker: It will be for the investors themselves to determine. I hope that many individuals will take up the offer.
    Mr. Fisher: Is the Minister saying that he simply does not have any idea of what the range of private small shareholding will be in British Telecom? In previous Government flotations, a maximum of 150,000 people have purchased shares to a value of £1,000 or less, and within a year of each flotation that number has been reduced to 25,000 people, or fewer. Is he not led to the inevitable conclusion that the market for individual shareholdings in such enterprises is finite and is made up mainly of people looking for a quick turnround on their money? Will he reconsider his plans in the light of this information?
    Mr. Baker: The sale of BT later this year provides a unique opportunity for a large number of individual private shareholders. On 25 May and on 17 July I announced details of the telephone subscriber scheme. I shall later today be announcing further details of that scheme. Broadly, it will mean that any telephone subscriber who invests £250 in the shares of BT will get a rental voucher of £18. Thus, a subscriber who invests £1,000 will get four quarterly rental vouchers amounting to £72. This will be seen as an attractive scheme by many telephone subscribers, who will have the opportunity to buy shares in BT and share in the success of that great enterprise.
    Mr. Richard Page: While every effort must be made to allow individuals to buy shares, bearing in mind the huge advantage of the list of telephone subscribers, does my right hon. Friend agree that the trend of share purchase has been away from individuals buying shares? Will he make sure that the huge flotation of BT is not judged by the criteria of how many individuals take up shares?
    Mr. Baker: There will be an opportunity later this year for many hundreds of thousands of people to become shareholders in BT. To begin with, there are about 240,000 employees, and already the details of the scheme for their owning shares has been announced. It means that any employee of BT, by paying £100, will be able to buy £370 worth of shares. I believe that many of those employees will take that up.
    Mr. Golding: Will the Minister take steps to ensure that IBM does not become an influential shareholder in BT? Will the right hon. Gentleman—[HON. MEMBERS:
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    "Reading."]—in the interests of ICL and of the British computer industry, ensure that the proposed link-up between BT and IBM in the national network does not proceed?
    Mr. Baker: The House need not chide the hon. Gentleman for reading on almost any occasion. As for the proposed venture of IBM and BT, they have issued a proposal which we are considering. A separate licence would have to be issued for that. We want public comment on the matter, and my right hon. Friend and I will consider it most carefully. As for shareholdings in BT, there is already a limit on the amounts which can be bought by any one group or groups working in concert.
    Mr. Chris Smith: Why are hon. Members, such as the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher), such wet blankets about this business of individual shareholdings in BT? Should they not be welcoming the imaginative scheme that my right hon. Friend has announced?
    Mr. Baker: One cannot hope for miracles, even on the last day of the term. There is no doubt that the scheme that I have just announced will be attractive. It will result in a dramatic increase in the number of shareholders in the United Kingdom, who will be attracted as telephone subscribers also to become shareholders.
    Mr. Ewing: Can the Minister give one example of individual shareholders, having bought shares, continuing to hold on to them beyond a year? Has he not yet come to terms with the fact that 84 per cent. of all employee shareholders sell the shares that they have been allocated within four days of purchase, and that in one case of privatisation, 150,000 individual shareholders at the beginning were reduced to 20,000 by the end of the first year? As the Minister presiding over a great industry such as BT, how does he feel at having to introduce the soap coupon discount voucher principle?
    Mr. Baker: The proposal that I have announced today has been welcomed by the board of BT, because it wants to have many shareholders.
    As regards shareholders not retaining their interest, many thousands of shareholders—for example, in Britoil—have retained their shares because of the loyalty bonus.
    As an alternative to the scheme that I announced this morning, we will a loyalty bonus scheme whereby shareholders who hold shares for more than three years will have a bonus of one for 10. I am sure that hundreds of thousands of people will join that scheme.

    Regional Policy
    Mr. Hickmetasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what response he has had to the consultation period on the review of regional policy.
    Mr. Norman Lamont: The long consultation period has been welcomed, and the Government have received over 500 submissions within the deadline specified in the White Paper.
    Mr. Hickmet: When will my hon. Friend be able to make a definitive statement on regional aid? When he makes that statement, will he bear in mind the very bad effect of the coal strike upon confidence in my constituency and the desirability of that area receiving the

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    best possible designation on the new regional map? Will he bear in mind in particular that we were unable to attract Nissan, which many believe was because we did not have special development area status?
    Mr. Lamont: We hope to make an announcement in the autumn on our conclusions on regional policy.
    With regard to my hon. Friend's area and others, we shall take all the circumstances into account.
    Mr. Park: Will the Minister say when the west midlands will know whether its greatly worsened situation under this Government will be recognised?
    Mr. Lamont: As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Hickmet), we hope to make an announcement in the autumn.
    Mr. Cormack: Is my hon. Friend aware that many people in the west midlands believe that the area's problems are due mainly to the indiscriminate use of regional aid in other places in the past? Therefore, will he be extremely careful before he makes an announcement?
    Mr. Lamont: We have received many similar representations from the west midlands. Because of the discrimination of regional policy against non-assisted areas, we have already reduced the area covered by the regional policy map. We shall bear in mind my hon. Friend's caution.
    Mr. Dalyell: Given the problems of Bathgate—I thank the Minister for his courtesy in seeing us three times in the past six months—is there not a case for extending the advantages of Livingston development corporation to the rest of the Bathgate travel-to-work area?
    Mr. Lamont: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, as well as the House, will understand that I cannot reply immediately from the Dispatch Box, however difficult may be the situation in an area, to the different pleas that I hear from constituencies. The hon. Gentleman knows that I am giving careful consideration to the situation in his constituency.
    Mr. Thurnham: Will my hon. Friend agree to consider carefully any new computer-drawn travel-to-work areas that may critically affect the assisted area status of towns such as Bolton?
    Mr. Lamont: My hon. Friend knows that the travel-to-work areas are the responsibility of the Department of Employment. We will not be bound by the travel-to-work areas, designated or assisted areas, although they will be the main building blocks of the system.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: If the levels of regional assistance available in France, Italy and Spain are higher than those available to the northern region, especially Cumbria, how will it be possible for us to compete internationally for footloose industries? Does the Minister realise that at the moment we are winning nothing, that we are not gaining new industry and that we are failing in that area? Is he aware that we need the highest level of regional assistance in the northern region? Will he give some commitment to that from the Dispatch Box today?
    Mr. Lamont: One of our most important considerations is the need to attract inward investment to this country, and we must provide a level of grant that enables us to do so. We have been very successful in attracting inward investment. There is more American investment
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    here than in any other European country. We get more investment from Japan than do other countries in Europe. The hon. Gentleman is talking nonsense.
    Mr. McQuarrie: My hon. Friend will be aware that the loss of assisted area status, particularly in areas such as Grampian and Banff and Buchan—my constituency—has had a serious effect on employment. When he is considering the new regional policy, will he take into consideration the amended travel-to-work areas that would give work to areas such as the ones that I have mentioned and therefore create further employment over a wide spectrum?
    Mr. Lamont: I shall take that into account.
    Mr. Geoffrey Robinson: The Minister must be aware from successive Question Times, when there has been the same interest from all parts of the House in his new proposals for regional policy, particularly in respect of the map, that it is not a terribly satisfactory procedure whereby the House is invited only to debate the decisions that he has taken. If that is to be the case, will the hon. Gentleman give us a clear undertaking, before the recess, that when we discuss the order specifying the new map he will arrange for the Government to take such steps as are necessary, by means of a business motion, to ensure that the debate is open-ended? Thus, hon. Members affected—nearly every hon. Member will be—will have the opportunity to debate the matter, which will not be the case if there is only a one and a half hour debate after 10 o'clock.
    Mr. Lamont: The hon. Gentleman knows that the matters that he has raised are for the business managers, but I have said again and again that I well appreciate the huge interest in this subject. I have passed on that view strongly to my hon. Friends.

    Dock Strike (Economic Effects)
    Mr. Kirkwoodasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what has been the effect of the dock strike on import and export figures.
    Mr. Tebbit: Transient and of no significance.
    Mr. Kirkwood: May I suggest to the Secretary of State that, if he is seeking to mitigate the costs of the dock strike, he should look carefully at the compensation amounts that are still due to the merchant bankers Lazard Freres in New York for the services of Mr. Ian MacGregor? Will he confirm that upwards of £1 million is still due in compensation and that that is subject to a pending and a future performance review? Will he further confirm that he has the means available to him, when he considers the performance reviews of Mr. MacGregor, of reducing import costs in the future?
    Mr. Tebbit: I do not think that has anything to do with the question.
    Mr. Malone: Is my right hon. Friend aware that during the dock strike severe temporary inconvenience was caused to many companies in my constituency that serve the oil industry, and that it could have had long-term effects on inward investment? Does he agree that for self-interested people who have jobs for life to put other people's jobs at risk is nothing short of reprehensible?
    Mr. Tebbit: I agree with my hon. Friend that if the strike had gone on the effects could have been damaging.

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    It was consideration of that that led dockers to conclude that, as there was no cause for the strike, it had best be called off.
    Mr. Ewing: Will the Secretary of State explain where there are people in the docks industry who have jobs for life, as the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Malone) alleged? Does the right hon. Gentleman not understand that the reason why the dock strike was settled was that the employers—the National Dock Labour Board—gave a sensible undertaking that, they would not again break the scheme, which was the basis on which the strike was begun? The men were provoked into striking. Is the Secretary of State not aware that it is not good enough for him to defend every reprobate employer in this country?
    Mr. Tebbit: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that it is not good enough for him to come and defend every single strike that has taken place under this Government—I am sorry, I do him an injustice. He did not defend the strikers at the National Union of Mineworkers headquarters when they struck against their employers. That is the sole exception. I notice that the hon. Gentleman defends the dock strike. I would not agree with his somewhat tendentious account of the matters concerned, but I have to say that a combination of the dock labour scheme and the Aldington-Jones agreement in effect guarantees jobs to dock workers for life.
    Several Hon. Members rose——
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I appeal for briefer questions and answers. It would be nice if we could reach Question No. 25, if possible.

    Privatisation
    Mr. Fallonasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he is satisfied with progress on the privatisation of nationalised companies under his control.
    Mr. Tebbit: Yes, though I am constantly seeking to advance the programme.
    Mr. Fallon: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the success of Weardale Steel, Tyne Ship Repair and Readheads Ship Repair shows the enormous scope in every public industry for giving workers a real stake in their future? Will he encourage his colleagues to transfer the Scottish and north-east pits to those who work in them?
    Mr. Tebbit: That is an interesting proposition for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy. Wherever possible, we seek to give workers a substantial interest in companies that are denationalised—notably, the National Freight Corporation and some of those that my hon. Friend has mentioned. I believe that that is a very good thing and we intend to do the same with British Telecom.
    Mr. Crowther: Does the Secretary of State agree that as discussions about denationalisation of BSC special steels have been going on for more than four and a half years this long uncertainty has caused great damage in both the public and the private sectors of the industry? Will he now announce that he accepts the strongly held and expressed view of the Select Committee and drop the whole idea, especially in view of the conspicuous lack of success of the Phoenix 3 company, Sheffield Forgemasters?
    Mr. Tebbit: No. If the hon. Gentleman is interested in the steel industry and wishes to remove uncertainty, I hope that he will get on to those who have been picketing the steelworks and trying to interfere with supplies of coal and ore so that that uncertainty can be removed very quickly.
    Mr. Warren: In the progress towards the privatisation of British Shipbuilders, will my right hon. Friend consider the need to protect the company's assets in terms of the training that is now available to some 2,000 members of the company, but which BS proposes to close down during the summer recess?
    Mr. Tebbit: I am sure that the management of British Shipbuilders will ensure that adequate training is available for the men whom the industry needs to employ.
    Mr. Ashdown: What will be the loss to BL from the sale of Jaguar, first, in profit and cash flow, bearing in mind that £100 million has already been offset against originally agreed Government loan; secondly, in spin-off from research and engineering development; and, thirdly, in market and sales support, especially for Austin-Rover in Europe? What steps is he taking to assist the BL board to counteract those losses?
    Mr. Tebbit: The BL board has made it plain that it sees the sale of Jaguar as being to the advantage of the company. I am sure that I should be wise to rely on the board's commercial judgment rather than on that of the hon. Gentleman.
    Sir Dudley Smith: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the denationalisation of Jaguar is widely welcomed in the west midlands and has engendered such confidence that the company is actually taking on more employees?
    Mr. Tebbit: I realise that. but I believe that the main reason for the taking of more employees is the fact that Jaguar is once again producing motor cars that people really want to buy and are prepared to pay for.
    Mr. Ewing: As the Secretary of State is in a generous mood, will he pay tribute to the Labour Government, who rescued Jaguar, and but for whom the company would not exist for the Government to sell? Is he aware—
    Mr. Tebbit rose——
    Mr. Ewing: Is it not out of order, Mr. Speaker, for the Secretary of State to keep trying to rise while I am speaking?
    Does the Secretary of State not realise that it is his responsibility to take care of the interests of all the British people during his stewardship of the industry of this country, and not just the few who feed the coffers of the Tory party?
    Mr. Tebbitt: I am not prepared to take lectures about the national interest from the hon. Gentleman, who is notorious for supporting the most narrowly based, sectional, extreme Left-wing interests, notably those of the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers. The only reason why a rescue was required for Jaguar and much of the rest of the British motor industry was the botched-up schemes to push together companies which had nothing in common. Those schemes were notoriously supported and pushed by previous Labour Governments.

    Investor Protection
    Mr.Tim Smithasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what period he intends to allow for consultations on investor protection legislation after the publication of a White Paper.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Trade and Industry (Mr. Alex Fletcher): Consultation has been continuing throughout the year, starting with the publication of the Gower report in January, including the debate in the House earlier this month, and culminating in the advice to be received from the group advising the governor, and the insurance group advising me. The White Paper, which I hope will be published in the autumn, will be essentially a definitive statement of the Government's views.
    Mr. Smith: Notwithstanding the definitive nature of the White Paper which is to be published, does my hon. Friend agree that it will be necessary, and indeed essential, for City and other interests to be consulted if self-regulation is to be successful against the new statutory background?
    Mr. Fletcher: The consultations are currently taking place. When the White Paper is published, people in the City and elsewhere who wish to make representations will be free to do so. Another debate on the White Paper may take place in the House.
    Mr. Gould: Is the Minister aware of the growing impatience in the City, which is shared by the Bank of England and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at his and the Secretary of State's inability even to show which way their minds are working? Will he recognise the growing weight of opinion in favour of the self-standing commission and confirm that that is his preferred option, so that minds can be concentrated on the form that the commission will take?
    Mr. Fletcher: My right hon. Friend and I are awaiting with interest the views of the group advising the governor and the insurance group advising me. When we have received their views on the matter, my right hon. Friend will produce a White Paper in the autumn.

    Procurement Policy
    Mr. Gryllsasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on the current proportion of public procurement going to small and medium enterprises.
    Mr. Kenneth Baker: Records are not kept on the proportion of Government procurement contracts that go to small and medium-sized firms. However, the Ministry of Defence is currently collecting information on the value of its direct contracts placed with smaller firms in the present financial year.
    Mr. Grylls: In view of the fact that in Britain smaller firms get a lesser proportion of Government orders than in almost any other industrial country, will the Department of Trade and Industry, and especially the small firms' division, play a co-ordinating role between Government Departments to raise the proportion going to small and medium-sized enterprises? The matter is important, as I am sure my hon. Friend will recognise. Will he examine
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    in particular the procurement policies of the Ministry of Defence and the Department of Health and Social Security?
    Mr. Baker: The Government's policy is that contracts must be won on merit, irrespective of company size. However, we are anxious to see, if possible, that smaller companies are put on a more equal footing to enter the competition. I welcome the work that the MOD is doing on that. The Government have taken various measures to help small companies. Recently we raised to £10,000 the threshold for contacts below which firms are normally exempt from approved procedures. We standardised the financial and general information procedures for companies to qualify as Government contractors, and we shall also standardise technical qualifications. All that will help small companies to get into the race.
    Mr. Conway: When my hon. Friend considers the method of awarding public procurement orders, will he pay special attention to those orders placed with firms operating overseas? Will he seek an urgent meeting with the Minister of State for Defence Procurement to urge that orders for MOD supplies are placed within the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Baker: A large proportion of public procurement generally is placed in the United Kingdom. That is particularly true of the Ministry of Defence. However, I shall draw my hon. Friend's views to the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister of State for Defence Procurement.

    Business and Industrial Confidence
    Mr. Silvesterasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he has met the chairman of the Confederation of British Industry recently to discuss the level of business and industrial confidence.
    Mr. Tebbit: Yes, Sir. At that meeting the president of the CBI assured me that the underlying confidence of business remained firm.
    Mr. Silvester: Did my right hon. Friend note in the survey published yesterday by the CBI that it was clearly stated that the miners' strike had had no effect on business confidence? Does he agree that the reason for that happy outcome is in large measure due to the continued assurance of electricity supplies, both by working miners and the Government?
    Mr. Tebbit: Yes indeed, Sir. The CBI understands the wisdom of undertaking the public expenditure, to which my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer referred last night.
    Mr. Straw: Is the Secretary of State aware that those hon. Members who are following him closely have noticed that he is extraordinarily nervous this afternoon and is even having difficulty in controlling a nervous shake of his hands as he comes to the Dispatch Box? [Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. That does not have much to do with this question.
    Mr. Straw: Is the Secretary of State nervous, not just because he is angry with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but because he has realised that not even his customary stock in trade of insults and bluster can disguise the fact that the recovery has petered out and that there must be a

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    major change in policy if there is to be any chance of a reduction in unemployment before the end of this Government?
    Mr. Tebbit: The hon. Gentleman should get over his shaky lack of confidence about reselection and come back into the real world.
    Sir Peter Emery: Does my right hon. Friend accept that if ever any man gave an impression of confidence on the Front Bench, it is he? When he consults the CBI, will he make it clear to all aspects of industry that the Government will continue their economic policy and that they will not waver, because if industry gets the impression that we are wavering things will begin to go wrong?
    Mr. Tebbit: Indeed, and industry has overwhelming confidence in that policy. Not only British industry is confident. I notice that, no doubt partly as a result of pressure from industry in France, the French Government have moved away from the Socialist nonsense that is still preached by the Opposition here and have come much nearer to the policies of this Government.
    Mr. Shore: When did that unique and remarkable meeting with the representatives of the CBI take place? Is the Secretary of State aware that only four months ago, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a reduction in minimum interest rates from 8·5 to 8 per cent., the CBI greeted that as an enormous contribution to the effectiveness of industry? Only 10 days ago, interest rates increased from 9 per cent. to nearly 12 per cent. Was the CBI speechless on this occasion, or had it entirely forgotten its natural self-interest?
    Mr. Tebbit; CBI representatives were neither speechless nor had they forgotten their self-interest. That was why they expressed their confidence, and that of business generally, in the Government. I know that the right hon. Gentleman is pleased that interest rates have increased, because he is pleased when anything happens that is adverse to British interests.

    Merger Policy
    Mr. Gouldasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what representations he has received since he announced his review of merger policy on 5 July.
    Mr. Fletcher: None, Sir.
    Mr. Gould: Was not that scrappy statement, just over a page long, a pathetic outcome of what was supposed to be a major review? Was not the Financial Times of 10 July right to say that, in its aftermath, British competition policy remained arbitrary and inconsistent? Is it not about time that the Minister and the Secretary of State stopped using competition policy as a simple slogan and developed a coherent policy?
    Mr. Fletcher: No, Sir. No, Sir. No, Sir.

    North British Steel Foundry (Bathgate)
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on his discussions with the North British Steel Foundry, Bathgate.
    Mr. Norman Lamont: I have written to the hon. Member explaining that selective assistance for the
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    company under section 8 of the Industry Act is not available, but that the possibility of section 7 assistance is being investigated by the Scottish Office.
    Mr. Dalyell: Will the Minister's officials impress upon Mr. Grant of Lazard Freres that this company has reinvested? What temporary protection can be expected for a firm that could make a considerable contribution to the machinery required for North sea oil development, and to power generation, by producing castings of tolerances that are possibly not bettered anywhere in Europe?
    Mr. Lamont: I have asked Mr. Grant of Lazard Freres to meet representatives of the company. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the North British group provides a range of specialised castings, including those for the North sea. However, I understand that the company intends to concentrate its production at Armadale to continue to provide specialised castings. That factor will be taken into account in the discussions between the group, the Industry Department for Scotland and the Scottish Development Agency when they are considering financial assistance.

    Motor Vehicle Sales
    Mr. Maloneasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he is satisfied that there are no unfair restrictions inhibiting the sale of motor vehicles in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Fletcher: By its nature the selective distribution system of the motor trade contains certain restrictions. Whether any of those restrictions is, on balance, justified is a matter for consideration by the Director General of Fair Trading or the European Commission as appropriate under the relevant competition legislation.
    Mr. Malone: Is it the Government's policy that British purchasers of motor cars should be able to buy them at the keenest possible prices? If it is, will they do something about the fact that cars can be purchased more cheaply in Europe? Should not United Kingdom purchasers be able to buy motor vehicles at the same prices as their European counterparts?
    Mr. Fletcher: Subject to taxes, and on occasions distortions in the market place, I agree with my hon. Friend. We support the objectives of the Commission and we are discussing with it and with the motor manufacturers and consumer groups here how best to act in the interests of the consumer and the producer in Britain.
    Mr. Gould: What instructions were given to the United Kingdom representatives on the advisory committee which is looking at the final draft?
    Mr. Fletcher: The instructions were precisely in the terms that I described just now.
    Mr. Forth: While I am grateful for my hon. Friend's replies, may I ask him to be careful not be seduced by the arguments often advanced for the reduction of motor car prices in the United Kingdom, based simply on a slick comparison with prices in certain other continental countries? Will he be careful to listen to representations from the British motor industry about the potential effect of an arbitrary limitation of the kind being suggested in some quarters?
    Mr. Fletcher: Yes, and only last week I had a meeting with the motor manufacturers.

    Jaguar Cars
    Mr. Traceyasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a further statement on progress in the privatisation plan for Jaguar cars.
    Mr. Norman Lamont: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced to the House on 22 May the Government's approval of the BL board's proposal to dispose of the whole of Jaguar. This disposal was subsequently approved at an extraordinary general meeting of BL shareholders. The issue has been underwritten and prospectuses have been published. Dealings in Jaguar shares will commence late next week.
    Mr. Tracey: My hon. Friend and the Government are to be congratulated on this step, but will he keep his eyes on the further horizon—the denationalisation of the rest of BL—and will he perhaps state a time scale for it?
    Mr. Lamont: It is the Government's policy that all the constituent parts of British Leyland should be returned to the private sector. We shall be making announcements about that in due course.
    Mr. Park: Amidst all these congratulations on the privatisation of Jaguar, has the Minister considered at all the progress of Jaguar after it is privatised? I know that he cannot command any private company to invest sufficient money in research and development, but he will know that it will still require a considerable amount of investment in research if Jaguar is to continue to progress.
    Mr. Lamont: Of course that is right, but that was taken into account by the Government and the board of British Leyland when they recommended that the company be sold off. The company has been extremely successful recently. It can stand on its own feet. I see no reason why the state should continue to be in the luxury car business.
    Mr. Budgen: Will my hon. Friend recollect, amidst all these congratulations, that in the past many of the congratulators said that it was impossible to hive off any part of British Leyland? Will he remember that when he is considering his policies for the remainder of BL?
    Mr. Lamont: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.
    Mr. Shore: We all welcome the improvement in the prospects of Jaguar, but does the Minister not understand that the terms —[Interruption.] It is not in private hands. It is in public hands. It was rescued by the public. Is the Minister not aware that the terms on which Jaguar is being offered are a disgrace and simply represent the Government's attempt to recuperate from the absolute farce of the sale of Enterprise Oil?
    Since British Aerospace was oversubscribed two and a half times, since Cable and Wireless was oversubscribed some four and a half times, and since Amersham International was oversubscribed 27½ times, how many times does the Minister think Jaguar will be oversubscribed at the giveaway price being offered this week?
    Mr. Lamont: The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that it is quite impossible for me to comment on that at this precise moment.

    British Telecom plc
    Mr. Woodasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry if he will make a statement on progress with the privatisation of British Telecom; and whether this is in line with the Government's plans.
    Mr. Tebbit: The Government's plan to privatise British Telecom in the autumn is on schedule.
    Mr. Wood: Will my right hon. Friend expand on that encouraging reply? Perhaps he will comment especially on the staffing position in Oftel and say whether all is well in that regard, so that adequate monitoring can take place of the future success of private competition in the telecommunications industry.
    Mr. Tebbit: The arrangements in Oftel are going well, and the regulatory system will be in place on time as an effective measure of consumer protection.
    Mr. Ewing: Is the Secretary of State pleased or satisifed with the condition in BT's licence that it must give a 20 per cent. discount to its competitor, Mercury, to subsidise that company until it becomes profitable? What part does that play in the right hon. Gentleman's capitalist thinking?
    Mr. Tebbit: There is no such provision in the licence.

    London Taxicab
    Mr. Stanbrookasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what is the amount of public funds invested in the development of the proposed new London taxicab.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. John Butcher): My Department, with the Department of Transport and the Greater London council, has offered support to Carbodies Ltd. for the development of a new taxi. Details of this assistance, in accordance with usual procedures, must remain confidential.
    Mr. Stanbrook: Is my hon. Friend aware that this contraption is inferior in design and purpose compared with the present well-loved vehicle? Is he aware also that the prospective cost of the vehicle will be prohibitive, that it will not be bought by London taxicab drivers and that the public will not want it? Is taxpayers' money being wisely spent on this project?
    Mr. Butcher: One of the reasons for spending taxpayers' money is to tailor the car rather more effectively for the use of the disabled. We are anxious, as the company will be, to ensure that the present design, which is now 25 years old and held in great affection, should in due course be replaced. I fully understand my hon. Friend's affection for the current model.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: What potential export evaluation has taken place of the excellent new taxi, which is based on the Range Rover? Is the Minister aware that throughout the world the new taxi will be recognised as a Range Rover and that it should enjoy maximum Government support, as it will create many jobs in the United Kingdom if it is fully exploited?
    Mr. Butcher: One of the reasons why the company has taken the decision to tailor the car more adequately for use by the disabled is that it will give it access to international

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    markets. It has been a problem that the FX4 taxi has been confined to the home market. The company is hoping to internationalise the new taxi.

    Manufactured Goods
    Mr. Parkasked the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what was the balance of trade in manufactures for the first six months of 1984.
    Mr. Fletcher: There was a deficit of £1·6 billion, within the context of a current account surplus of £285 million in the same period.
    Mr. Park: Does the Minister agree that these figures give the lie to all the euphoria Which we heard yesterday and which we have heard today about the recovery of the United Kingdom? Does he accept that the deficit warrants the most vigorous action on the part of the Department of Trade and Industry and other Departments, to give British industry an opportunity fairly to compete in world markets?
    Mr. Fletcher: That is precisely what the Government are doing. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that our export performance in manufactures improved significantly in the second half of last year and in volume terms is now 8·5 per cent. higher than a year ago.
    Mr. Forth: I agree that the manufacturing sector is and will always be of the greatest importance, but does my hon. Friend agree that the most likely growth area for the economy and employment is in the service sector? Does he further agree that we should not become obsessed with manufacturing performance and that we should concentrate equally on the success of the service sector, which will provide our exports and jobs in future?
    Mr. Fletcher: Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend. The service sector is making a significant contribution to our balance of trade.
    Mr. Ashdown: No doubt the Minister will agree that our future balance of trade in manufactures will depend on the speed at which we adopt new technologies. Will he explain why his Department has, at two days' notice, withdrawn the Government's computer consultancy scheme and replaced it with a less well-funded scheme? Does he realise that this has created disruption within
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    computer consultancy? Does he understand that it will result inevitably in a slower take-up of the new technologies that we need so badly?
    Mr. Fletcher: No, Sir. This is part of a repackaging scheme which the Department has introduced, and the programmes have been taken up very well.
    Mr. Shore: Are these not appalling figures and do they not give the lie to all the boasts about the economy being in good shape? Is it not the case that our manufacturing trade is in deficit, it being about 60 per cent. above what it was last year and running at about £3,000 million a year, and that our total visible trade, including oil, is running at a deficit of £3,000 million a year? Is this not a disgrace?
    Mr. Fletcher: The economy is in surplus overall.

  HOME DEPARTMENT

    Civil Defence (Radio Frequencies)
    Mr. Neil Thorneasked the Secretary of State, for the Home Department if he will allocate radio frequencies for local authority/community level use for civil defence purposes.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Mellor): A Home Office communications working party is considering how to develop civil defence communications between counties, districts and communities, making the best use of available frequencies, but there are unlikely to be sufficient frequencies for exclusive allocation to civil defence.
    Mr. Thorne: I thank my hon. Friend for his reply. He is aware that, with the new civil defence regulations now coming into active force, there is likely to be a much greater demand for this type of exercise. Will my hon. Friend therefore look carefully to ascertain whether it is necessary before the end of the year to introduce some exclusive frequencies for this valuable and important work?
    Mr. Mellor: I know the importance which my hon. Friend, who is a great expert in these matters, attaches to that aspect. I shall ensure that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Home Office—the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Hurd)—who has a particular responsibility for these issues, looks carefully at what my hon. Friend says.

Coal Industry Dispute (Cost)
10.30 am
Mr. Roy Hattersley(by private notice) asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the cost of the coal dispute and what are the Government's plans to meet it.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Nigel Lawson): As I informed the House last night, the dispute has probably added, net, some £300 million to £350 million to public expenditure so far this year. It is too soon to say precisely how that will be met, but, as I told the House last night, taking full account of the public expenditure costs of the miners' strike, I see no reason to alter the forecast that I made at the time of the Budget of a public sector borrowing requirement for the current year of some £7¼ billion.
Mr. Hattersley: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, even now, not aware that the comments he made last night on this subject, undoubtedly referring to a prolonged strike as a "worthwhile investment", increased fears that the Government are less interested in ending the dispute than in scoring a political victory? The right hon. Gentleman can end his embarrassment and put those fears to rest by a single simple assurance. Will he say categorically that the Government's primary aim is a negotiated settlement of the dispute based on compromise and conciliation and that the Government are at last willing — [HON. MEMBERS: "Appeasement."] I shall say it again, in case hon. Members did not hear me. The Government's primary aim should be a negotiated settlement of the dispute, based on compromise and conciliation. Are the Government at last willing to use their authority and good offices to bring about that settlement?
Mr. Lawson: I shall reply in two parts—first, to the question of what I said last night and, secondly, to the question of the strike. I shall quote from Hansard. The exchange began with what the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) said in column 299, when he sought to compare the cost that the Government are incurring through the miners' strike with the cost of keeping uneconomic pits open. The right hon. Gentleman said:
"Let us assume—the newspapers tell us about this—that closing the 10 per cent. least economic pits would save, at most, £300 million. By the time the August bank holiday comes, we shall have spent five years' savings simply financing the dispute. That cannot be right".—[Official Report, 31 July 1984; Vol. 65, c. 299.]
The right hon. Gentleman was explicitly comparing the savings from closing uneconomic pits with the cost of the strike. I, in replying to the debate, told him the correct figures, and that was all there was about it. [Interruption.] Yes, precisely.
Then subsequently, in a specific interruption from the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, seeking clarification of where I stood on the strike, I said, and I quote again from column 309 of Hansard—[HON. MEMBERS: "Column 306."]—
"Let the right hon. Gentleman use what influence he has to get the strike called off, and nobody will be better pleased than the Government. This strike is not of our making nor of our desiring, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that". —[Official Report, 31 July 1984; Vol. 204, c. 309.]
Mr. Peter Bottomley: Is it not a fact that compromise and so-called conciliation has led to a position
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where in the House we hear from the Opposition on every issue except the real issues of the miners' dispute? Have not compromise and conciliation led to a position where not one official Opposition spokesman has been willing to say that pickets should not congregate in intimidatory numbers and not become involved in violence? Are not those the real issues?
Mr. Lawson: I agree whole-heartedly with what my hon. Friend has just said.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that the private notice question covers the cost of the coal dispute and the Government's plans for it.
Mr. David Steel: Has not the Chancellor of the Exchequer given the House only one aspect of the cost of the coal strike? Has he studied the report from Simon and Coates, stockbrokers, which gives the cost of £240 million a month, including not just the cost of using oil in power stations, but the loss of revenues to British Rail, policing costs, lost income tax from miners on strike, and the loss of coal exports? If he has studied that report, does he agree with their figure, and was he not misleading the House by giving such a puny figure in the debate yesterday? Does he accept that the real cost is not the financial one? It is the social cost to the fabric of this country, and there is no worthwhile investment in that.
Mr. Lawson: There is, indeed, a most grievous social cost. The best way to end the strike would be for the National Union of Mineworkers to have a ballot of its members, as we have consistently sought, and as it should have done according to its rules.
I was asked specifically about the pubic expenditure costs, and I gave those. I gave the total public expenditure costs. Simon and Coates have it wrong. There is another cost—I do not want to conceal it from the House—which is not the public expenditure cost; it is the loss of miners' tax and national insurance contributions. That would bring the total up to about £400 million so far.
Mr. Michael Howard: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the implication of what has been said by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) is that, if he were responsible for these matters, he would have given in to the demands of the strikers, however unreasonable, if the alternative course involved some sacrifice, however modest?
Mr. Lawson: That is right, and we must bear in mind that no Government have spent more taxpayers' money than this one on supporting the coal industry in terms of investment and very generous redundancy terms to miners who take voluntary redundancy. I think it is helpful to say that a very important clarification occurred last night. It emerged that there was no longer an issue over the closure of uneconomic pits in the Labour party, because it made it clear that it also agreed, when in government, and still agrees, that uneconomic pits should be closed. The only dispute is about the procedures to be followed. I think that that is helpful.
Mr. John McWilliam: How does the Chancellor of the Exchequer square his answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) with the words in column 306 of Hansard where he says:

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"And so, even in narrow financial terms, it represents a worthwhile investment for the nation."—[Official Report, 31 July 1984; Vol. 204, c. 306–7.]
Mr. Albert McQuarrie: Talk about the uneconomic pits part of it first.
Mr. Lawson: I was directing myself to the precise comparison that the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook was making, although he got the figures wrong. The precise comparison that he made, as I read out from column 299, was between the cost of the strike in financial terms and the cost of keeping open uneconomic pits. That was the comparison he made, and I replied in those specific terms.
Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: Is not a large part of the extra expenditure incurred by the cost of policing coal mining areas? Are not the police engaged in preventing the overthrow of the law by force? Therefore, is not every penny well spent?
Mr. Lawson: Yes, indeed. Money spent on maintaining law and order in any circumstances—and in particular in circumstances where there has been some appalling violence—is money well spent, as also is money spent on keeping the power stations going to ensure security of supply to those in industry and in the home who depend on a secure supply of electricity. A great many jobs depend on it.
Mr. Tony Benn: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer not yet aware of the significance of what he said yesterday in column 306? His speech last night confirmed what the Opposition have said throughout—that the Government planned the confrontation, provoked the confrontation and masterminded the confrontation and also budgeted for it. The cost is, of course, far greater than he mentioned. He did not mention the lost production of coal, and the effect upon the balance of payments, the effect upon secondary industries, and so on.
Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware that last night he let it slip out that the Government wanted the strike, are ready to pay for it however long it goes on, and are entirely responsible for the problems that it has created for the economy?
Mr. Lawson: The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), as is well known, lives in a world of his own, a world of paranoia and conspiracy theory. Like him, I was Secretary of State for Energy— [Interruption.] I was Secretary of State for Energy for two years, and if I had wanted a coal strike then, no doubt there would have been one. [Laughter.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is giving his answer.
Mr. Lawson: In fact—[Interruption.] In fact, there was no coal strike then—and why? It was because on those occasions the miners had the opportunity to give their answer in a ballot, and the miners on three occasions decided that there should be no strike.
The reason why there is a strike now is that the miners have been deprived of their right, under their constitution, to give their answer in a ballot.
When the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook raised the matter last night, I said, in column 309:
"This strike is not of our making nor of our desiring, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that and it is hypocrisy to say anything else."
Mr. Jonathan Aitken (Thant, South): Is my right hon. Friend aware that all this synthetic indignation from the Labour Benches is quite simply an example of how to be a bad loser the morning after a big defeat? [Interruption.] Is my right hon. Friend further aware that he has nothing with which to reproach himself? It is quite clear from the banana skin laid down—[Interruption.] It is quite clear from the banana skin laid down by the deputy Leader of the Opposition in column 299, when he referred to the fact that
"closing the 10 per cent. least economic pits would save, at most, £300 million"—
[Interruption.] It is clear that that figure is confirmed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in column 306, when he says that the cost of the strike
"has probably added, net, some £300 million to £350 million to public expenditure so far this year."
My right hon. Friend goes on in the same context, in column 306–7, to say that
"it represents a worthwhile investment for the nation."— [Official Report, 31 July 1984; Vol. 65, c. 299–309.]
Of course closing uneconomic pits represents an investment for the nation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer should be congratulated on his frankness.
Mr. Lawson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He is right in particular to say that this is a rather contrived device to try to obscure the fact that last night the Opposition lost the debate and lost the argument. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister wiped the floor with the Leader of the Opposition and with the right hon. Member for Chesterfield too.
Mr. Allen McKay (Barnsley, West and Penistorle): Would the Secretary of State now turn his mind back to Cortonwood colliery, and explain why it was that, when the board and the union had had a tried and tested procedure over many years, they failed to use that procedure? Would the right hon. Gentleman accept that what he said yesterday has hardened the attitude in the coalfield, and will only have ensured that the strike will continue further into this year and possibly into next? Will the right hon. Gentleman turn his mind away from ballots, because there is not going to be a ballot? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] Will the right hon. Gentleman not accept that a ballot was taken in Yorkshire in 1981, and that conference overwhelmingly accepted industrial action if a closure took place outside the procedure—which it did? Would not the right hon. Gentleman accept that everything that he has said suggests that they precipitated the action because they wanted it?
Mr. Lawson: I am a little surprised at the hon. Gentleman whom I know as a responsible Member and a member of one of the mining unions which is not on strike. Since he mentions Cortonwood, let me say this. At a meeting with the unions on 1 March, the area director of the National Coal Board, south Yorkshire, proposed the closure of Cortonwood colliery. He pointed out that the reserves available to the colliery were limited and, as the colliery would have to close within a few years, he suggested that its closure in 1984 would reduce production, as was necessary, without damaging the area's longer-term future. There would be no need for compulsory redundancies.
While the area director proposed that production at the colliery should cease in April, he made it clear that the normal colliery review procedure would be followed. No

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developments would be stopped or equipment withdrawn before, if the unions wished, all the various steps in the procedure had been completed and a final decision taken. He asked for a reconvened colliery review meeting as the first step in the colliery review process agreed with the unions. I understand that the NUM has not so far indicated that it would be prepared to participate in such a meeting.
Mr. Gerald Howarth: If we acceded to this politically motivated campaign of intimidation and lawlessness, would it not be at a grave cost to the nation in terms of the rule of law and parliamentary democracy? Would my right hon. Friend not agree that the British public entirely endorse what he said last night, and are entirely behind the Government in their support for the rule of law and parliamentary democracy?
Mr. Lawson: I agree with my hon. Friend. As I said earlier, it is helpful that last night it emerged that the official Opposition — the Labour party — with their considerable links with the rest of the labour movement and the National Union of Mineworkers, said clearly, in answer to questions, and quotations from them read out by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, that they accept the need for the closure of uneconomic pits. It is helpful that that is now clear, and that the question at issue is the question of the procedure to be followed. If that is the question at issue, it means that the divide is very much narrower and that it ought to be easier to get a solution to the problem at an early date.
Mr. Neil Kinnock: The statements that we have heard from the right hon. Gentleman in response to questions from my right hon. and hon. Friends this morning have confirmed rather than eased the fears that we had about the motivations of the Government in their pursuit of a political strike. Because the right hon. Gentleman has not been willing to stand by the words that he used last night but has used the opportunity this morning, as he did earlier on the radio, to evade the words that he used last night, I ask him—is it not the case that last night he said:
"All told, the miners' strike has probably added, net, some £300 million to £350 million to public expenditure so far this year. Although that is nothing like the figures quoted by the right hon. Gentleman, it is a substantial sum. It should be seen in perspective. It amounts to roughly one quarter of 1 per cent. of total public expenditure … it is of a strictly temporary nature … it has to be seen against subsidies from the taxpayer to the National Coal Board … And … it represents a worthwhile investment for the nation"?—[Official Report, 31 July 1984; Vol. 65, c. 306–7.]
Is that not a declaration that this Government, as I have previously accused, will spend any sum, create any chaos and meet any bill to perpetuate this strike? Did we last night not hear the inadvertent and therefore authentic voice of a Government who have now invested all of their credibility and millions and millions of pounds of the country's money in saving their own face, at immense cost?
Mr. Lawson: It is not a matter of saving the Government's face but a matter of saving the jobs of thousands of steel workers and keeping steelworks and power stations open. The right hon. Gentleman does not
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need to come here today and raise these issues, as he raised them last night. I stand by everything that I said. I said last night:
"This strike is not of our making nor of our desiring, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that and it is hypocrisy to say anything else."—[Official Report, 31 July 1984; Vol. 65, c. 309.]
Mr. Speaker: Ten-minute Bill, Mr. Derek Conway.
Hon. Members: On a point of order.
Mr. Speaker: Point of order, Mr. Greenway.
Mr. Harry Greenway: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. With respect, my name is Greenway, not Greenaway. We have just had to listen to another speech from the Leader of the Opposition when he should be asking questions. May I refer you to Trade and Industry questions, during which you stated your ambition of getting to the end, as eventually you did, and during which you also frequently stated your aim of defending the rights of Back Benchers? We all respect that. May I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker? This morning, notably on the private notice question, we have had long interventions from the Labour Front Bench. In Trade and Industry questions, they intervened on almost every question, and, in addition to tabling their own questions, they took up a substantial amount of time, to the exclusion of Back Benchers. Is that in order?
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. It is in order, but I know that the House understands that, every time a Front-Bench Member rises, a Back Bencher does not get called. However, I must say that I think that we did extremely well today in getting to the end of Question Time and having one extra question. I hope that the House agrees. [HON. MEMBERS: Hear, hear."]
Mr. Dennis Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Yes— Mr. Skinner.
Mr. Skinner: You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that in February 1981 the Government decided that it was an extremely worthwhile investment not to take on the miners but to give in and spend several hundred million pounds on looking after uneconomic pits.
Mr. Speaker rose——
Mr. Skinner: I am coming to it. You will remember that they spent £700 million having decided to keep open uneconomic pits. [Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. I constantly give the hon. Gentleman an opportunity to put his points of order to me but he always starts off at a tangent. Could he come to his point of order straight away?
Mr. Skinner: At that time—[HON. MEMBERS: "Point of order."] The point of order is that at that time you, Mr. Speaker, were a Minister. You would have been privy to knowledge as to why the Government caved in to the miners. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]
Mr. Dick Douglas: On a point of order——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I say to the hon. Gentleman that we cannot go back to 1981. Another point of order—Mr. Dick Douglas.
Mr. Skinner: I am not finished yet.
Mr. Douglas rose——
Mr. Skinner: I am not finished yet.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have told the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) that we cannot go back to 1981, and I ask him to resume his seat.
Mr. Skinner: I am asking whether the Government——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I order the hon. Gentleman to resume his seat. Mr. Douglas.
Mr. Douglas: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. There is an important constitutional aspect in relation to what the Chancellor said. Would you not agree that the whole aura and constitutional position of this House is to examine public expenditure and to resist monarchs and the Executive who use public expenditure for narrow political purposes and to divide the nation? We are about to go into recess—[Interruption.] The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry objects to that type of public expenditure in relation to other people. This is the House of Commons, and we are about to go into recess. What guarantee is there that this Government, and particularly this Chancellor, will not use massive public funds for their narrow political ends——
Mr. Speaker: Order. All this takes time from the Adjournment debates, which are of importance to Back Benchers. I ask the House to raise no further points of order. However, in reply to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas), I must point out that it is the duty and role of this House to question Ministers. It was for that reason that this morning I granted the private notice question.
Mr. Jack Straw: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I shall call the hon. Gentleman, even though he is taking time from Back Benchers, and that is selfish.
Mr. Straw: You, Mr. Speaker, kindly granted the private notice question after the Chancellor last night had shot into his foot and after a panic meeting between the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Chief Whip. As there will have to be another panic meeting since today the Chancellor shot into his other foot, with his statement that if——
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is seeking to raise a question which he might have asked had I been able to call him. I remind him and the House that private notice questions are an extension of Question Time. This morning, I allowed 20 minutes on the issue, which is long enough.
Mr. Straw rose——
Mr. Speaker: Ten-minute Bill, Mr. Derek Conway.

Waste Disposal (Public Consultation)
10.57 am
Mr. Derek Conway: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to place upon the designated local authority, to which application for a waste disposal licence has been made, the duty to consult with any parish council or meeting (or community council or meeting in Wales) and persons residing in the neighbourhood in whose area the land concerned is situate.
I confess that I had thought this morning would be a lonelier occasion. I suspect that the gladiatorial atmosphere which has continued from last night's debate may overshadow any public awareness which may have been created by this ten-minute Bill. Given the scenes that we have witnessed in the past 24 hours, I am particularly glad to tell the House that this Bill—the last of its type to come before Parliament this Session—has all-party support.
In addition to the support of my hon. Friends, I place on record my thanks to the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell), who sits in the Labour interest, the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), who sits in the Liberal interest, and the hon. Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Wrigglesworth), who sits in the SDP interest, for adding their names to the Bill. I also thank the Community Rights Project for its help and advice in the preparation of this legislation.
The need for the Bill was brought to my attention by the parish council of Great and Little Ness in my constituency, where there is a particularly attractive village called Nesscliffe. It came to my attention that application had been made to Shropshire county council for a waste disposal licence to tip on a 10-acre area in that village.
Along with many other hon. Members, I assumed that legislation in the form of the planning Acts, the General Development Order and, indeed, the Control of Pollution Act 1974, would safeguard those who live in the village of Nesscliffe and in any other areas affected against such a proposal, and would ensure that they would be consulted. However, that is not the case, and, as the law stands, a county council is required to consult only the district council and water authority in its area.
It cannot be right that the first notice a member of the public has about a proposal to tip waste is when bulldozers appear in the field next door and start stripping off the top turf before tipping begins. Such proposals should be publicised so that those affected have an opportunity to raise objections and put forward alternatives.
I do not criticise Shropshire county council, which is an excellent local authority in my area, because it has followed the law as it stands. However, that law needs to be changed. This Bill, in seeking to amend the Control of Pollution Act, should not be controversial, in view of its all-party support. Those affected look to Parliament for protection. I urge hon. Members in all parts of the House to give me support in ensuring that that protection is extended.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Derek Conway, Mr. Alex Carlile, Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth, Mr. John Heddle, Mr. Robin Squire, Mrs. Virginia Bottomley, Mr. Geoffrey Dickens and Mr. Steve Norris.

WASTE DISPOSAL (PUBLIC CONSULTATION)
Mr. Derek Conway accordingly presented a Bill to place upon the designated local authority, to which application for a waste disposal licence has been made, the duty to consult with any parish council or meeting (or community council or meeting in Wales) and persons residing in the neighbourhood in whose area the land concerned is situate: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Tuesday 22 October and to be printed. [Bill 228.]
PETITIONS

  Leicestershire County Cricket Club (Licensing Extension)
  11.2 am
  Mr. Derek Spencer: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I beg leave to present a petition, on behalf of the members and supporters of Leicestershire county cricket club, signed by 6,067 people in support, at which stage the innings was declared closed.
  The petition alleges that the licensing justices have refused to grant extensions to the bars and host boxes at the county ground for the sale of intoxicants under section 74(4) of the Licensing Act 1964. All other first-class county grounds have such extensions. The applications from Leicestershire county cricket club were not objected to by the local police.
  The petitioners pray
  that your honourable House do urge the Secretary of State for the Home Department to bring forward guidelines on the licensing of sports grounds and sporting events for the sale of intoxicating liquor, in order to produce a uniform practice throughout England and Wales.
  I beg leave to present the petition.
  To lie upon the Table.

  Proportional Representation
  11.3 am
  Mr. Paddy Ashdown: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to present a petition on behalf of some 700 people in my area protesting against our present grossly unfair and undemocratic system of elections and calling for electoral justice.
  Those who organised the petition—they did so in a very short time indeed—tell me that almost every person whom they approached signed it with enthusiasm. It is clear, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Jenkins) has pointed out, that this is merely the tip of the iceberg and that there is overwhelming support, in my constituency as elsewhere in Britain, in favour of fair votes.
  Apart from a national petition, to which there have been more than 1 million signatures, this is the 78th constituency petition to be presented to the House during this Parliament.
  The petition concludes:
  Wherefore your Petitioners pray that Parliament should prepare a Bill for future elections to be held by proportional representation and should hold a referendum to give the people a choice between this reform Bill and the preservation of the present system.
  I beg leave to present the petition.
  To lie upon the Table.

  Forest of Dean
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Major.]
  Mr. Speaker: We move on to the first of the Adjournment debates. As we have lost 35 minutes of the time available, I appeal to hon. Members to ensure that each of the subjects is debated for no more than half an hour.
  11.15 am
  Mr. Paul Marland: The purpose of this Adjournment debate, for which I am most grateful, is to remind my hon. Friend the Minister of the need for his urgent assistance to the Royal Forest of Dean. This is not the first time that I have mentioned the needs of the district to my hon. Friend, as we have exchanged letters and have met privately, and he has answered parliamentary questions. I have been successful in having a previous Adjournment debate and have led several delegations to various Departments designed to highlight the needs of the district. Our most recent delegation was on 17 May, when I accompanied representatives of the Forest of Dean district council on a visit to the Minister. Best of all, my hon. Friend has visited the area and seen our problems at first hand.
  The timing of the debate is very appropriate. With new applications being considered in the autumn, I am anxious to leave an impression of the Forest of Dean embedded in the mind of my hon. Friend.
  Since 1980, I and others, especially the Forest of Dean district council, have been warning of the likely steep rise in unemployment in the district, as large employers run down their work forces and, in some cases, leave the area. In this case, there is no satisfaction in having been proved right.
  To highlight the difficulties, I shall compare the level of United Kingdom unemployment at 12·4 per cent. with the general rate of unemployment in Gloucestershire of 9·4 per cent. In the Forest of Dean the rate of unemployment was 16·6 per cent. in January. Happily, it has fallen to 15 per cent. but is still substantially above the national average.
  As my hon. Friend will remember, the Forest of Dean is geographically isolated, lying between the rivers Wye and Severn. The communications are not the best in the country. Although the area is isolated, in many ways it is too close to development areas, especially those to the west.
  In the past, the Forest of Dean was heavily dependent on single industries. Traditionally, it was a mining area, and more recently the mighty Rank Xerox has employed many local people. In its heyday it employed 5,000 people and paid very good wages. The company's patents ran out and it was subjected to competition from areas of low-cost production elsewhere in the world. The problem of new methods of production and the fact that Rank Xerox had to face outside competition led to considerable reorganisation of the company, which has reduced its work force to about 1,000.
  The point of referring to Rank Xerox and the decrease in local opportunities for employment is that, with the exception of Mitcheldean, there are no disused industrial buildings in which to base new industry. Other manufacturers operate in the district, but they have always
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  been subsidiary operations of larger firms elsewhere. When their fortunes became difficult, the subsidiary companies were the first to suffer.
  The background is one of high unemployment in the district, with heavy dependence on a single industry. There is no heritage of old buildings. The area is geographically isolated and is too close for comfort, especially in the west, to special development areas.
  The Minister could rightly ask what we are doing to help ourselves. What is being done locally to help? Here, I must give credit to the Forest of Dean district council, which has shown ingenuity and determination to a degree which is not often associated with local authorities. The council has put forward ideas and has got something done. In Cinderford the council has developed the Forest Vale industrial estate, built on 104 acres of derelict land and old mine workings. The council installed the infrastructure and persuaded COSIRA to join it in the project and build some small factories. The council—it is a credit to the treasurer—spotted the benefits of section 75 of the Finance Act 1980 and constructed factories without putting the whole burden on the ratepayers. Furthermore, it was able to encourage private developers to build factories on the site, and these are now in production.
  All in all, the council has now achieved 50 units of production on the Forest Vale industrial estate. That reflects great credit on the council. That achievement should not be underestimated, especially in an area which, in many respects, is not favoured by other investors. I pay a warm tribute to the Forest of Dean district council and its officers for what they have done. It would be no secret to them or probably to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Forest of Dean district council and I do not always see eye to eye on every issue, but credit should be given where credit is due. Now that the Forest Vale industrial estate is up and running, the council is looking at a second site in Coleford. Without wanting to whinge, I believe that the latest moratorium on local council spending will make the planning of that site uncertain.
  Others have been active in the district, too. Rank Xerox has demonstrated a massive commitment to the local people by spending £500,000 of its own money in developing its now underused workshops and warehouses so that other people have the opportunity to work on that site. It has revamped some of its large warehouses for suitable tenants and, with the £500,000, has developed 50 fully serviced workshops, which have been a great success. Some 200 inquiries have been received and 112 people have put in firm applications. My hon. Friend will remember that, because he visited the Rank Xerox site a few weeks ago, when I was happy to accompany him.
  I should like to draw attention to the commitment that Rank Xerox has shown to the local people in the district, because it is enormously to its credit that it has done so much. It continues to work in the best interests of the district and to do everything possible to help the people there. Its generosity is highlighted by the appalling contrast with a company that used to employ 750 people in Lydney, known as the London Rubber Company. It wanted to reorganise its efforts somewhere else in the country and, without a backward glance, pulled out and left those 750 people high and dry. Despite approaches by the Forest of Dean district council and myself, the senior management of the London Rubber Company would have nothing to do with us. That shows what a marvellous thing Rank Xerox has done.

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  However, there is good news in addition to what Rank Xerox has done. Some other companies in the district are expanding. They create a modest number of jobs, but the fact is that they are committed to the district and are expanding. Watts, a family-run company, which for generations has operated from its own factory in Lydney, is spending about £1·5 million on developing a new tyre-making process, which will be based in Lydney.
  Sykes Pumps, which has a factory in Coleford, recently constructed an extension, which was opened by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment. Engleharts, another company of which we in the Forest of Dean are proud, operates in Cinderford, breaking down old computers to extract the precious metals and resell them. It has expanded its operation and decided to stay in the Foreist of Dean. The last company that I should like to mention, although there are others, is Temco, a small company wholly owned by British Insulated Callender's Cables. It is a subsidiary of that company. It is a wire extruding company, which has expanded its operation from Lydbrook on the banks of the river Wye and taken larger premises in Cinderford.
  All those companies create a few extra jobs, but one has to work hard while not getting far. The chairman of the Forest of Dean district council, Mr. Arthur Cooper, and I had a joint project in sending out a brochure published by my hon. Friend's Department, entitled "How to make your business grow". We distributed 5,000 copies to all the commercial ratepayers in the district. We also visited banks, solicitors and accountants, asking for their cooperation and help in encouraging people to start up or to expand businesses in the area. I am sure that my hon. Friend would approve of that approach. I am pleased to say that we have the wholehearted support of all the people whom we visited.
  The Gloucestershire Enterprise Agency, which my hon. Friend the Minister has visited, also does its best to help in the district, so there is a great deal of local effort. I should not like anyone to think that I was asking the Government for financial help if local people were not determined to do everything possible to capitalise on that assistance. A great deal of effort has already been made and will continue to be made locally.
  There was some official recognition of our problems recently when the Development Commission designated the Forest of Dean a rural development area. That was a great shot in the arm for all those campaigning for extra help in the district as well as for local business men. Nevertheless, too many businesses outside which could set up in the district are looking elsewhere, especially to our near neighbours in the west, and too many businesses inside the district are thinking of setting up outside because they cannot obtain Government assistance. I personally know of three business men who would like to set up in the district but are seriously considering going elsewhere because no Government assistance is available in the district.
  The proportion of applications to vacancies is now twice the regional average because there simply are not enough jobs in the district. Indeed, the Forest of Dean has a higher rate of unemployment than 53 of the present 135 assisted areas. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to
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  remember that when he considers areas for assistance in the autumn. I hope that he will also bear in mind the following points.
  In the past, we have been over-dependent on single industries. There are no old buildings which could be suitably revamped for the industries of today and tomorrow. The district is geographically isolated and its proximity to assisted areas makes it difficult to attract new industry or to encourage the expansion of existing industries. The proportion of the population out of work is now 15 per cent. We have tried very hard locally to generate more jobs and to create more industry in the area and if the Government see their way to give us the assistance that we seek we shall do all that we can to build on that help.
  I ask the Government, therefore, to consider giving the district assisted area status. This would enable newcomers and existing businesses to construct the extra buildings so sorely needed. It would also give the district access to EEC development funds. We already have access to the social funds, but the development funds are very different. Assistance from the Government will allow us to win more business and more jobs for the people of the Forest of Dean.
  As Parliament breaks for the summer, I wish to leave my hon. Friend the Minister with a deep impression of the Forest of Dean so that when he and his colleagues consider new applications for assistance he will remember with understanding and sympathy the drive and determination that he has heard about and seen at first hand in the Royal Forest of Dean and will do something to help us.
  11.20 am
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. David Trippier): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Marland) for the opportunity once again to debate the problems of his constituency, particularly those of the Forest of Dean. I know my hon. Friend will not regard me as flippant if I say that were assisted area status designated on the diligence and interest shown by its representative in this House, the Forest of Dean would qualify for immediate assisted area status at the highest level. I know his constituents will appreciate the assiduousness with which he has pressed their case over the last five years, and I congratulate him. Indeed, it was only eight weeks ago that a delegation from the Forest of Dean district council and the Gloucestershire county council led by my hon. Friend came to see me to press their case still further. I can assure my hon. Friend, therefore, that I am fully aware of the problems of the area, but, as he will know, I am not able now to give him the answer he would like on the status of the Forest of Dean.
  The Government are committed to maintaining an effective regional policy to ease the change in areas which have been dependent on the declining industries and to encourage new business in those areas. To this end, as my hon. Friend is aware, the Government issued a White Paper entitled "Regional Industrial Development" in December 1983, which set out our approach to the problem of regional assistance.
  Since 1972, when the present structure of regional industrial incentives was introduced, there have been major changes in our environment. We have become a member of the European Community and, in common with other countries, have experienced a period of

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  recession and inflation following the oil price rise. Unemployment is high throughout the country as a whole, not only in assisted areas, and thus to ensure an effective regional policy the Government must look at the problem on a national basis. As my hon. Friend knows, views on the White Paper were invited before the deadline of 31 May. We received 506 submissions by that deadline, and a further 36 subsequently. Many of these sought special status. It was as a result of that invitation that I received the delegation from the Forest of Dean to which I referred earlier.
  The problems of the Forest of Dean, which were explained to me with great skill and knowledge by my hon. Friend, appear to stem from a number of sources. Perhaps most significantly, major manufacturers, especially, as he said, Rank Xerox, have, for commercial reasons, cut down their work force substantially. There is still a continued dependence on a few large firms for employment and the area has suffered from a continuing loss of jobs and a consequent rise in the unemployment rate.
  Rank Xerox is and has been for many years by far the largest employer in the Forest of Dean. During the company's expansion at Mitcheldean and Lydney between 1963 and 1974 employment increased to a peak of 4,750 and apart from minor fluctuations remained above 4,000 until 1980. Since then, as part of a major restructuring of its operations, a series of large-scale redundancies, including the closure of the Lydney factory in 1982, have reduced the work force. In April 1983, when employment was 2,200, Rank Xerox announced long-term plans for operations in the forest involving a reduction in the work force to 1,000 by the end of 1984. This remains the company plan. The company is, however, conscious, as my hon. Friend said, of the impact of that reduction on the local community and has taken a number of measures. My hon. Friend referred to a massive commitment on its part. He was absolutely right, and I have had the benefit of seeing that at first hand.
  These measures include paying two to three times the statutory rate of redundancy pay and providing exceptionally good, index-linked pensions to those retiring early; providing retraining and guidance for redundant workers, including financing special courses at the Gloucestershire college of advanced technology; donating part of the surplus buildings at Mitcheldean for small business units—I had the pleasure of visiting the Mitcheldean site last November to see at first hand the more attractive old brewery buildings which were to be retained and adapted to provide small units for leasing; setting up a steering group, with representatives from the county and district councils, to look into ways of attracting new industry into the area and to market the remaining surplus buildings at Cinderford; and setting up, in co-operation with the county council and other local businesses, the Gloucestershire Enterprise Agency and providing both the director and secretary of the agency. My hon. Friend said that it reflected great credit on the company, and I agree completely. I was most impressed when I visited my hon. Friend's constituency.
  The agency was set up in October 1982 and was opened officially by the Duke of Gloucester on 24 November 1982. Its establishment resulted from a joint initiative by the county council and Business in the Community, but it also has the support of 20 major companies in the area, including Rank Xerox and the Dowty group. It operates
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  from shop front premises in Gloucester and has a remit to cover the whole county. It has had most influence to date in the city, where work includes the Gloucester enterprise workshops.
  In the first year of operation, the agency handled more than 2,000 inquiries and undertook 380 business reviews. It claims credit for assisting the setting up of an average of one new business a week. Although until now it has concentrated on providing advice, the agency has also run start-up courses and seminars on marketing and finance. I am glad to say that it retains relationships with the small firms service, for which I am responsible, and is an approved agency under the Finance Act 1982.
  I am also aware that other major closures have affected the area, but not all that is happening in the area should cause gloom and despondency. Forest of Dean district council has been active in promoting industrial development, and I pay tribute to it. A first unit of 12,000 sq ft built by the district council was taken by Engelhard Industries, precious metal refiners, which has purchased a further 10 acres of adjoining land and has planning approval for expansion. A second set of seven units from 600 sq ft to 2,400 sq ft totalling 10,000 sq ft, have all been let.
  The district council is considering proposals for further development, including schemes in partnership with private developers. Gloucestershire county council has given special attention to the Forest of Dean as the major employment problem area in the county, which it is, and planning proposals, including road improvements, are aimed at assisting the local economy.
  My hon. Friend mentioned Temco, which has been expanding production of nickel-plated copper wire and is reaching the limits of its present site. A further site is required, which it is hoped will be in the Forest of Dean. Formwood, which supplies the open cell ceiling market, has completed a £1·7 million expansion and increased employment. During the past two years company employment has increased from 120 to 185.
  As well as the self-help which the district council and firms within the Forest of Dean are providing themselves, I must remind my hon. Friend of the alternative industrial support available to firms in the forest. They take the form of aid under section 8 of the Industrial Development Act 1982. Between May 1979 and June 1984, 51 projects in the Cinderford and Gloucester travel-to-work areas have been offered £1,700,000 on project costs of almost £4 million, and I reassure my hon. Friend that any projects put forward for possible assistance under section 8 of the Act will be given most careful consideration by me and my colleagues. The Government can also help by providing counselling assistance through the Department of Trade and Industry's small firms service for which I am responsible, and which is based in Bristol. There are also schemes under the Support for Innovation package to assist technological development.
  I am aware that my hon. Friend is a constant campaigner for better road communications to the area. The need for good road communications in the Forest of Dean is recognised. The A48 trunk road from Gloucester forms the principal link, but when considered from a national viewpoint this route is now of little strategic importance following the completion of the M5 and M4 motorways and the Severn bridge. Any improvements to it in consequence can attract, at best, only a low priority

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  and I understand that there is little prospect of any such schemes finding a place in the national trunk roads programme for the foreseeable future.
  In conclusion, therefore, I can say to my hon. Friend, "Yes, we are fully aware of the current problems of the Cinderford travel-to-work area and in particular the Forest of Dean," and, "Yes, we will take full account of the submissions made by him, the Forest of Dean district council, the Gloucestershire county council and the many local firms which have written in support of them," but "No, I cannot give him an answer about the future assisted area status of the forest at present."
  My colleagues in the Department of Emplpoyment have now completed their review of the travel-to-work area boundaries, and this review, together with the points raised in the submissions on the regional industrial development White Paper, mean that an announcement on the new assisted area map will be made in the autumn. It would be wrong, therefore, to pre-empt any decision by isolating one particular geographical area for an immediate change in assisted area status. In the meantime, I can assure my hon. Friend that my Department is always willing to assist wherever possible any companies in his constituency which make application under the various schemes mentioned, and I thank him once again for the opportunity to debate the matter.

  Water Supplies (South-West)
  11.30 am
  Mr. David Penhaligon: I am sure that the Minister is more than aware of the anxiety in the south-west this year about water supplies. The same anxiety has been felt in previous years and no doubt will be in future years. However, I am equally sure that the hon. Gentleman will welcome this opportunity to discuss the problem on the Floor of the House.
  Those of us who live in the south-west find the position quite ludicrous. Our problem in 1984 is not unique, in that we had precisely the same one in 1976. Indeed, my part of Cornwall has hosepipe bans every year. It is rather like waiting for the cuckoo: everyone knows that it will come, but there is some doubt about precisely what the date will be.
  Next week the South West water authority will meet to consider water rationing. Apparently there are two possibilities. Either it will be done on the basis of rota cuts for 17 hours a day, or standpipes will be erected.
  We have had a dry spell, although we were told by the water authority as recently as March of this year that supplies in the reservoirs were satisfactory. Despite the dry spell, every river in the south-west is still pouring precious fresh water into the sea, the trees are a magnificent and buoyant green, and the grass where it has not been cut or chewed away by hungry animals is still green. By any international standard, applying the word "drought" to the situation is a ludicrous distortion, although it must be recognised that we have had a dry spell.
  The Government's local representatives, the members of the South West water authority, have a problem on their hands. It is worth remembering that it is the Minister who appoints the chairman and members of the authority; it is the Minister and his Government who, despite considerable opposition, thrust through the House a regulation which means that all the meetings of the authority are now held in total secrecy; it is the Minister who fixes the external financing limit of the authority, which is the amount of money that it can borrow; it is the Minister who fixes the financial target, which is the profit that the authority must make against current costs; it is the Minister who fixes the performance target, which is the amount that the authority can spend on day-to-day operations; and it is the Minister who fixes the capital outturn.
  In many ways, the only opportunity that we have these days for a public debate about the South West water authority is on the Floor of the House. In that connection, I express my warm thanks to the hon. Members for St. Ives (Mr. Harris), for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) and for Honiton (Sir P. Emery), who are present this morning to take part in the debate.
  Numerous orders have been applied for. They take two forms. The first allows a water authority to extract more water from rivers. The second reduces the amount of compensation flows over reservoirs. By statute, when a dam is erected and a reservoir created, the water authority has to allow a certain amount of water to pass through the reservoir into the river even if there is little or no water coming in at the other end.
  The authority has asked for dispensation to reduce compensatory flow rates, but the applications have been made at a rather late stage. It is amazing that there is a real

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  possibility of rationing being implemented before the full impact of the dispensation orders is felt in the region. I ask the Minister to give an assurance that the Department of the Environment will cause not one second of delay in implementing beyond that which is required by statute.
  We all hope that rationing will not be necessary in the end. We hope either that there will be a couple of days of rain or that savings will be made by consumers. However, if rationing has to be introduced, how will it be implemented? We were told by the water authority in 1976 that in no circumstances could it introduce rota cuts. Standpipes were installed in parts of Devon but at a recent meeting of the region's Members no one could be found to defend standpipes. To my knowledge, no one is in favour of standpipes.
  The proposed rota cuts will mean seven hours with water and 17 hours without. Of course, there will have to be exemptions. If the water supply is turned off for 17 hours, consumers who live at the bottom of a hill will take advantage of the fact that the water pipe is full and they will empty it. What sort of liquid will come from the pipe when the water supply is restored? How much water will be saved by the introduction of rota cuts? When the tap is turned on once more after 17 hours, something like brown sludge will pour from consumers' taps and our constituents will cause their taps to run until they can obtain some fresh water.
  Perhaps the main advantage to be gained from cutting the water supply for 17 hours is that there will be no leaks in the supply system. If there is no pressure there will be no leaks. However, the more exemptions that are allowed the more the system has to be charged by pressure. Exemptions will not cause a lot of water to be used, but the leaks will continue merrily because pressure will have to be maintained. Water reserves will diminish irrespective of the amount of water that is used.
  What exemptions should be introduced? I am sure it will be agreed universally that hospitals should be exempted from cuts. There are others who have claims of various merit. Hoteliers argue that they should be exempted on the ground of health risks within their premises. The owners of factories argue that water should continue to be supplied to their premises. There is a fish processing factory in my constituency and it will cease to function if there is no water. Farmers telephone me to tell me of the difficulties that they will face if water is not supplied to their farms. It may be possible to convince constituents that they should go without water for 17 hours, but the farmers in my constituency believe that their telepathic relations with their cattle will not enable them to explain adequately to them that there will be no water for 17 hours. What happens to kidney patients who are on dialysis machines?
  I understand that the two areas most at risk are west Cornwall—Penwith, Carrick and Kerrier—and north Devon. I do not know how extensive is the area at risk in north Devon, but in the area as a whole there will be rota cuts for 300,000 consumers. I cannot help but reflect on the fact that since 1976 the water authority has decreased its staff dramatically, and many praise the authority for doing so. I do not believe that the authority has the manpower, if it ever did, to implement rota cuts with a satisfactoy exemption system. An exemption system can be operative in some districts only by turning off the water supply and individually to every property not given an exemption.
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  This is the last opportunity before October to question the Minister on this subject. What emergency staff can be provided? There is something to be said for the water authority seconding people from the district councils—at least the local authority employees will know the area. I do not wish to be overly dramatic, but I should like to know whether help will be made available from the services in this south-west if the system has to be implemented on a large scale. I have referred to the desperate position that exists this week relative to next week and to next month, and we need the Minister to give some information on the provisions.
  The position in the long term is even more forlorn than in the short term, although that might sound ironic at this moment. About 30 per cent. of the water caught in the dams and sucked out of the rivers, old mine pits and mines, is wasted because it leaks away. That means that for every two reservoirs built to supply people another has to he built to satisfy the leaks from the system. That happens when water is being used normally. At the moment when people are economising—all credit to them for doing so—almost 50 per cent. of the water supply available to the people of the south-west is leaking away. That is ludicrous. I know of no one who would try to rationalise that position or argue that that is the best that can be done. The water authority must be provided with increased resources to get down in the near future to the business of repairing the system. As for financing locally, I am sure the Minister is aware that my region already has the highest water rates in the United Kingdom.
  In my constituency—I do not believe that the circumstances there are unique—some of the restrictions imposed in the summer were made not because of the lack of water but because the poor community at the end of the pipe had insufficient water. It is a case not of the water authority having insufficient water in the reservoir but of the lack of a large enough engine or pump to ram sufficient water down the pipe to satisfy local demand. Therefore, the authorities try to restrict demand for water. That requires investment. There is only one answer to the problem—the provision of a new and extended pipe installation scheme.
  The south-west is perhaps the fastest growing region in terms of population, and I suspect that that will continue. It is ironical that under the Water Act 1973 the local water authorities must be totally self-financing. No central help is available to them. I do not believe that the problem will ever be resolved if the Government stick rigidly to that provision. The reasons are obvious—we live in towns with populations of 5,000 to 30,000 which are 5 to 30 miles apart. No one could describe the south-west as flat. That means that there are considerable engineering problems to be faced when installing a satisfactory system. Without central assistance, there will be no end to the problem. Increasing water rates is a poor option, given that they are already high and, because there is no rebate scheme, those rates already impinge dramatically on a minority.
  My last point is about Roadford, which has become the great discussion in the south-west. As I understand it, before the Government came to power, in December 1978 the inspector made a report to the then Minister saying that Roadford should have 8,000 million gallons. There was a change of Government. It took the present Secretary of State for Defence, a former hon. Member for Tavistock, who should have known better, two years to instruct the

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  South West water authority to consider another site at Higher Horslett. That came as a great shock to the water authority, partly because it had already considered and dismissed it. It took two years for the water authority to return with a report and an inquiry and say, "No, no Mr. Minister, it must be Roadford; 8,500 million gallons, please, pronto." It took the Minister another two years, that is four years so far, to say that that was not his proposal and that it was OK for Roadford, but for 5,000 million gallons. It took the hon. Member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls) to discover that the Minister will consider the matter, and that sounds reasonable.
  Leaving aside the merits of the argument whether Roadford should be 8,000 million or 5,000 million gallons, does the Minister have the power, without another public inquiry, to order that the reservoir should be much bigger? If he does, it is worth considering. If he does not, I hope that we shall not have another two-year delay to work out whether it should be a reservoir of 8,000 million or 5,000 million gallons. We need the reservoir to be built fairly quickly. I believe that the argument about the size is in danger of becoming a red herring. Time passes, and we do not have as much as we thought.
  I have some bad news for the Minister. If he believes that stopping leaks, building reservoirs and modernising the pipe system is all that is required, I shall disappoint him, because the sewerage system is no better than the water system. The hon. Member for St. Ives made a speech about it last week. In some ways, the sewerage system could be alleged to be worse. In the south-west, we are plastered with embargoes and inadequate installations.
  I know that the Government become worked up when this is suggested, but only investment in the infrastructure in the south-west will overcome the problem. The Government's view as expressed in a House of Lords Select Committee in 1982 was that, with one or two possible exceptions, the need for further resources seemed unlikely to arise until the next century. The Government considered that the water authorities were better equipped to respond to increases in demand than ever before. If that is the Government's view, they are wrong. I know of no one in the south-west, of whatever political colour—let us leave aside party politics—who would agree with that. The west country needs help now and it will need it for at least a decade. There are plenty of unemployed people who could do the work and there are plenty of skills available. The work cannot be financed solely by the people who live within the area of the South West water authority.
  Several Hon. Members rose——
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. Three hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. Do the hon. Members for Honiton (Sir P. Emery), for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) and for Devon, North (Mr. Speller) have the consent of the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) and the Minister to take part in the debate?
  The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. Ian Gow): Provided that they are brief.
  Mr. Penhaligon indicated assent.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I was about to draw to the attention of the House the fact that the debate must conclude at 12 o'clock. I hope that the hon. Members will leave the Minister adequate time to reply.
  11.48 am
  Sir Peter Emery: I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) and my hon. Friend the Minister for allowing me to speak. I shall be brief, as I have three quick points only. May it be pointed out that, when one is considering wastage, which is considerable, it is no greater in the south-west than in any other water authority area?
  It should also be pointed out that the majority of the wastage is not controlled by the South West water authority; it is under the control of householders and industry. Will my hon. Friend appeal, even at this late stage, for people to look at leaky pipes, worn washers and dripping overflow pipes? That is often the great area of wastage and it is in the hands of individuals to do something about it.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) that the south-west needs some assistance from the Government. Much of the demand is seasonal. Water has to be supplied for use by people who are nothing to do with the south-west and who come into the area for their holidays. It is necessary to be able to cope with that demand.
  Much of the delay in making adequate provision has not been the fault of Ministers; it has been due to pressure from environmentalists. They have much to answer for in regard to the delays in bringing new reservoirs into the south-west.
  Perhaps the Minister will be able to deal with the question of standpipes versus rota cuts. Standpipes and the collecting of water by pails is an impossible situation for the elderly, the ill and the disabled. I accept that hospitals and vital needs should not be covered by rota cuts, but I believe that the majority of people in the south-west would rather have rota cuts for a longer period than the 17 hours suggested if they could be assured that standpipe operation would not be introduced. Even if rota cuts had to be for 24 hours on one particular day, they would rather have that than standpipes.
  11.51 am
  Mr. Tony Speller: I press the Minister to obtain a firm undertaking that in no circumstances will the financial limits of the South West water authority be restrained in the coming years while it is building Roadford.
  I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) that delays have been caused by environmental and conservation groups. But two district councils, the Country Landowners' Association and the National Farmers' Union and several other bodies were all involved in that respect. I can understand the difficulties of the Minister, who obviously wishes to be loved and to have a job, when all the bodies which are usually against each other were for some reason united against an affirmative decision on Roadford.
  It is clear that if rationing comes we must first look after the elderly, the sick and the very young. We must also look after our local industries, or we shall turn off the bath water and lose the baby—industrial growth in our region.

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  As a householder, I am happy to say that at this moment it is raining in Instow in north Devon where I live. I can get by if I have a bath to fill with water during the day. I accept the hardships involved, because it is vital to look after our weaker brethren and to ensure that we do not destroy our industrial and commercial livelihood.
  11.52 am
  Mr. David Harris: In the past year, since I have been in the House, I have emphasised the importance of infrastructure. There must be proper provision for water and sewerage. In facing the difficulties created by the water shortage, we must not allow ourselves to say that there are no sewerage problems. That would be fatal. We must be prepared to spend what is required to provide a decent infrastructure to the south-west. I accept that that will mean cuts elsewhere. I suggest that the Minister could make cuts in the area of discretionary grants to industry. Sufficient funds must be made available to give the southwest the industry it requires. I assure the Minister that I shall not forget the subject once the rain starts.
  11.53 am
  The Minister for Housing and Construction (Mr. Ian Gow): The best news during the debate has come from my hon. Friend the Member for Devon, North (Mr. Speller), who told us that it was raining in his constituency.
  I congratulate the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon) on selecting a most important subject, and I am grateful to him for allowing my three hon. Friends to take part in the debate.
  The Government take immensely seriously the difficulties being faced by the constituents of the hon. Member for Truro, by the constituents of my three hon. Friends, and indeed, by all those who have been affected by the drought.
  All applications made by authorities and water companies, whether from the south-west or from other parts of the country, will be considered by my Department with the utmost expedition. I shall deal with that specifically later in my speech.
  At the outset, I appeal to everybody in the south-west of England, and in all other parts of the country where restrictions are in force, to comply most strictly with the statutory requirements, and to follow advice where advice has been given to customers by water authorities and water companies. Although the forecasting of the weather is an imprecise science, I have to say that the 30-day forecast issued yesterday by the Meteorological Office predicts below average rainfall in the south-west. To put that in context, normally Plymouth would have had nearly 13 in. of rain between 1 March and 31 July; Exeter would have had 10 in., Chivenor 11 in., Cambome 13 in. and St. Mawgan 13 in. Between 1 March and 31 July this year, Exeter has had just over 5 in., Plymouth just over 6·3 in., Chivenor 4·6 in., Camborne 7 in. and St. Mawgan 7 in.
  Elsewhere on the western side of England, and in Wales, rainfall has been exceptionally low. At Haweswater there has been less rain in the past seven months than in any year since records began 91 years ago.
  The South West water authority first imposed a hosepipe ban in north Devon and parts of Cornwall on 12 May. There is now an extension of the ban on hosepipes throughout the area of the authority. The first drought
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  order, to restrict river water running into the sea, was made on 21 June. We have now made 18 orders to conserve or augment water resources.
  The authority has carried out emergency works to make water from Wimbleball available in parts of east Devon and in mid-Devon by using temporary pumping equipment. Work is about to start on a scheme to transfer water from the Exe to the Taw. Water is also to be transferred from the Tamar to the Tavey, using a pipe that was put in after the 1976 drought.
  The South West water authority has taken every step to seek to persuade its customers to limit their consumption. It has distributed about 300,000 leaflets. It has used radio, through public service announcements, and by advertising. It has advertised on television and in newspapers, urging its consumers to halve their consumption.
  I endorse the advice that was given by my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Sir P. Emery) that it is possible for—and, indeed, the duty of—all customers to examine their own pipes to see whether there are any visible leaks with which they can deal. I hope that people will respond positively to that appeal.
  The measures taken by the water authority have had significant effect. Consumption earlier in the year was running at 10 per cent. above 1983 levels, but the people of Devon and Cornwall have responded to the authority's appeals to use water responsibly. In July, in the region as a whole, consumption was running at 12 per cent. below 1983 levels.
  The hon. Member for Truro asked me about the new reservoir at Roadford. I was asked whether I would have any power to alter the permission which has already been granted. The hon. Member will remember that outline planning permission has been granted for a reservoir with a reliable yield not exceeding 87·3 megalitres per day. Work on that new reservoir is due to start next year.
  When I go to the south-west tomorrow I shall be discussing with the chairman and other members of the board the timing of the commencement of work on the reservoir, which is of great importance. I think that the customers of the South West water authority will want work on the reservoir to start at the earliest possible moment. They will also want it to be completed at the earliest possible moment. I have, of course, no power to alter the planning permission which has already been granted. It would be open to the authority to seek to vary the permission which has been given, but I have no indication whatever that that is in the mind of the authority.
  My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State visited the south-west on Friday of last week. I shall be going to the south-west this evening and shall be spending the whole of tomorrow visiting the worst affected areas of the south-west. I shall be discussing with the chairman of the board the very points which have been raised in the debate.
  I think that it was common ground among all those who addressed the House that there is a widespread preference among customers of the authority for rota cuts as against standpipes. That was made very clear during the debate.
  I am grateful to the hon. Member for Truro for raising this important issue. I assure him and his constituents, as I assure all consumers of the authority in the south-west, that the Government will do their utmost to give all advice

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  and support to the authority, and will deal with the utmost expedition with all applications made to the Department for further orders under the Drought Act.

  Port Stanley Hospital (Fire)
  12 noon
  Mr. Michael Stern: On 10 April this year, a major fire broke out at the only hospital in Port Stanley, the King Edward Memorial Hospital. As a result of that fire, eight people died. The building was gutted and has since been totally unusable. In a brief debate the following day in this House, the Minister for Overseas Development undertook that there would be a full inquiry into the circumstances of the fire and that the report of the inquiry would be published. The report has now been published and has been available to the House for approximately a month.
  First, I should like to congratulate the officers who worked on the report. It is a frequent joke in this place that inquiries are a device for wasting time. In this case, the inquiry worked with commendable speed, and the conclusions in the report—although I shall question one or two of them —show that the inquiry team fully considered all the available facts.
  We must not forget, however, that perhaps the chief consequence of the fire is that the only civilian hospital in the Falklands is now a gutted shell and that the facilities are now entirely temporary and wholly inadequate. The matter is therefore urgent.
  First, we should consider the fire itself and its causes. The committee of inquiry concludes that there is strong evidence that fire precautions in that public building were wholly inadequate. The fire hoses fixed to the walls of the building were not connected to a water supply but, even if they had been, the water pressure through those hoses would have been inadequate to deal with the spread of the fire. The wiring throughout the building has already been described in this House as woefully inadequate. It is accepted that, because of the climate in the Falklands, electrical wiring suffers from greater problems there than in this country. However, attention had previously been drawn to the poor state of the wiring in the hospital, and the context was that of an island where at least four electrical fires every year are caused by defective wiring.
  Secondly, lack of fire doors was perhaps the principal and most obvious cause of the rapid spread of the fire, which was the reason why so many lives were lost. There had been many reports in the 1970s of the inadequate fire precautions in this and other public buildings in Port Stanley. In 1982, the fire officer, the civilian doctor and the military authorities together demanded the urgent installation of fire doors in the hospital—a wooden building—as the only way of stopping a fire should one break out. By the date of the fire, those doors had not even been ordered. As a result, whatever the cause of the fire—perhaps inevitably, the report was unclear about the exact cause—it spread rapidly and uncontrollably, and the deaths that occurred were to a large extent inevitable. Had fire doors been in situ, the deaths might have been avoided.
  It is only proper that the House should now add its own tribute to the comments in the report about the activities of three people at the hospital who were instrumental, inside the hospital, in saving, at considerable risk to themselves, the lives of those patients who were able to get out. Those people undoubtedly acted with a bravery which the House should commend. They were Nurse Reed of the civilian staff, Lance-Corporal Shorter from the

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  military staff, and my former constituent Nurse Barbara Chick, who died in the fire. Whatever the doubts about the exact sequence of events, it is clear that Nurse Chick died in an effort to save the lives of patients. That is the only possible explanation for the place where her body was found. As I said on 11 April, she deserves every praise.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Stern: I am only sorry that, so far, this country has done nothing to offer her memory any public recognition.
  Present conditions are woefully inadequate. The hospital facilities have had to be moved into a temporary building, and we should consider the conditions in which the hospital is operating and in which the staff are having to work. There is no alternative civilian hospital. There is only the military hospital, which is itself overburdened, or the option of flying patients out for treatment in this country.
  The present civilian hospital is separated from the military hospital by over four miles of very bad roads. It has no pathology laboratory or pathology equipment. It has no X-ray technician. If an X-ray has to be taken, the patient has to be transported to the military hospital. The operating theatre is sub-standard. Transport is inadequate. If materials for testing, or patients, have to be transported, the doctors frequently have to use their own cars.
  Maternity, ear, nose and throat and gynaecological operations and medical conditions, and non-emergency surgery, cannot be handled on the island at all. The patients have to be flown out. No hospital in this country could tolerate such conditions. In the absence of any alternative, those conditions have been forced upon the island's administration, but they must be corrected as quickly as possible.
  It has become clear that other public buildings in Stanley are subject to almost as great a risk of fire. I should like to quote from Penguin News —the only newspaper circulating on the island—of 9 May:
  "To most of us, it is obvious that other buildings, such as the schools, the Town Hall and the Secretariat, are just as dangerous as was the Hospital."
  That is frightening, especially as we see from the report how inadequate were the fire precautions in the hospital and how quickly the fire spread once it took hold. Stanley house has no fire hydrants or hoses and its wiring suffers from advanced decay, yet it is being used every night as a dormitory by 30 schoolboys. Sullivan house, which has been and might still be considered for use as a dormitory for schoolgirls, is, I understand, in a similar condition.
  Although we should draw lessons from the report, it makes it clear that urgent action is necessary to improve fire precautions and medical provision in Port Stanley. The most urgent requirement is a new hospital. I understand that an architect has visited the Falklands to draw up plans. Despite the commendable speed of the inquiry, the architect's visit is all that the Falkland islanders know about the new hospital. Moreover, that visit is all that the civilian hospital staff know about the new hospital. I invite my hon. Friend the Minister to tell us when it will be built and when the plans will be published. When will the civilian hospital staff have an opportunity to comment on them? We all know that existing hospital facilities are inadequate. My hon. Friend should recommend to the
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  Falkland Islands Government that they come out into the open and tell the Falkland islanders what is happening and when.
  I have mentioned the problem of fire precautions in some public buildings in Port Stanley. The same might be true for others. The report stresses the lack of water pressure to service fire hoses and hydrants. Until that serious problem is corrected, no fire precautions in any public building can be effective. The Government have said that they do not intend formally to respond to the inquiry report but will offer advice and assistance to the Falkland Islands Government in regard to fire precautions. The Government should be advising the Falkland Islands Government that they can no longer risk neglecting fire precautions. Public buildings in all countries should have proper fire precautions. It is clear that the water pressure in Port Stanley must be raised.
  Climatic conditions in the Falklands mean that wiring has a much shorter life span than we expect in Britain. However, that fact can no longer be ignored. The Falkland Islands Government will have to take that into account in their provision of acceptable wiring standards in public buildings. Those standards are woefully worse than in private buildings. My hon. Friend should urge the Falkland Islands Government to act on the many reports that they have received from British electrical engineers who have gone to the Falklands and from their own public works department. Defective wiring must be renewed. There is still lead-cased wiring in the Falklands, which is especially susceptible to climatic conditions there. The Port Stanley administration cannot ignore the fact that wiring deteriorates more quickly there.
  One of the report's main criticisms was of the work of the public works department in the Falklands. We should remember that it is a one-man operation, with some assistance. The criticism is justified, because even such a public works department which has no system for determining its day-to-day priorities is sadly lacking. I criticise the report because it does not go far enough. The public works department was not operating alone. It was in regular consultation with more senior Government officials. They should not escape their share of the blame for the deficiencies of the Government. I understand that there were twice-daily conferences between the manager of the public works department and the officials to whom he reported. However, on 9 April—the day before the fire—the officer in charge of the public works department was unaware that the fire doors that had been requested in 1982 had not been ordered, even though he had forwarded that request. There was a sad lack in the flow of information between the public works department and the Falkland Islands Government. I hope that remedying that will be included in the Government's advice.
  Although the public works department must accept some of the blame, the managerial system in public works and buildings should be examined. I hope that, if a request is made, the Government will offer the benefit of management expertise to the Falkland Islands Government to revise and update their reporting and management systems.
  One of the report's entirely justified conclusions says:
  "We believe that it is the generally held wish of the Islanders that they should put this tragedy behind them as soon as possible and look towards the future."

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  I am sure that we, the Government and the Falkland Islands Government share that wish.
  With the assistance of the Falkland Islands Government, the Government have acted with commendable speed and produced a report which details areas in which the Falkland Islands Government can improve facilities in public buildings. The Government have offered advice and assistance to that end. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will report to the House on the extent to which additional facilities have been made available and how much they owe to the Government's advice and assistance. Britain retains a moral responsibility for conditions in the Falklands. That derives from history rather than just the past three years. The report has been made with speed and I hope that action will follow with equal speed.
  I have sought to show that major deficiencies still exist which must be put right. In Port Stanley, there is still a huge risk of another fire or major tragedy. If, heaven forbid, there were a similar tragedy in the future, the Government should not expect to escape with only an offer of help and assistance.
  12.20 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Ray Whitney): I recognise the detailed interest which my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) has taken in this investigation into the causes of the fire, and on behalf of the House I thank him for this opportunity to debate the report of the commission of inquiry. I also endorse and repeat the condolences and tributes to those who lost their lives in that tragic event, which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development paid when making his statement on 11 April, the day after the fire.
  As my hon. Friend recognises, the commission of inquiry was set up by the Civil Commissioner in Port Stanley, and it was to the Falkland Islands Government that the commission submitted its report. None the less, I place on record the Government's appreciation of the speed and diligence with which the commission, under the most able chairmanship of Mr. David Calcutt QC, conducted that inquiry.
  The Commission's terms of reference were announced on 18 May and it began its public hearings in Port Stanley on 24 May. It received statements from 128 people, and in three days heard evidence, most of it oral, from 47 witnesses. It produced its report to the Civil Commissioner on 5 June, and announcement of publication was made simultaneously in London and Port Stanley on 12 July. This was a most valuable report on a most difficult situation. We all recognise the value of its conclusions, and endorse the main conclusions.
  The introduction to the report states:
  "Heroic efforts by many people saved many lives, but even so eight died. Not only were the Islanders substantially deprived of their only hospital, but the small Islands community was made yet smaller. The loss was grievous and felt keenly throughout the Islands."
  We certainly endorse that statement.
  I also endorse my hon. Friend's references to one of his own constituents, Miss Barbara Chick, the state-enrolled nurse on night duty in the hospital on the night in question, who lost her life while seeking to assist patients to escape
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  from the burning building. Nurse Chick, along with others to whom my hon. Friend referred, displayed bravery and self-sacrifice which all of us commend. I am sure that my hon. Friend's remarks about a commendation will not go unnoticed.
  Mr. Dalyell: Give her a posthumous honour.
  Mr. Whitney: Indeed, those concerned should obviously consider what has been said in the House today.
  The commission of inquiry found no evidence to confirm allegations that faulty electric wiring was to blame. The report
  "eliminated arson, the electrical heater in the bathroom, an electrical fault, spontaneous combustion of the mattresses stored in the rooms, and an external source of fire as the cause of the fire".
  It added:
  "We are left with the probability that the fire must have been due to an accidental internal source of fire, inadvertently caused by either a patient, member of staff or an intruder. The evidence before us does not enable us to draw any more precise conclusion".
  Not surprisingly, given the nature of things, the report identified areas which were less than perfect. It contained some criticisms relating to the failure to connect the internal hose reels to the water supply, and the lack of fire doors. It was clear that the performance of the public works department, small as it is, was not up to standard.
  It would be improper for me to comment in any detail on a matter which is the responsibility of the Falkland Islands Government. However, the evidence of the director of the public works department to the commission of inquiry makes clear the very heavy pressure of work and conflicting demands to which the PWD has been subjected since the Argentine invasion and occupation. Additional expatriate manpower has been recruited to assist the department, especially at middle-management level, but it must be recognised that a shortage of labour at lower levels persists.
  In the short time available I should like to nail one allegation which has been shown to be untrue—the alleged priority given to the installation of central heating in 8 Ross Road West, a Government house later offered to the services. Certain evidence refuted any suggestion that this had been given any sort of priority over the connection of fire hoses to the water supply. No installation of contral heating in that house took place before the fire.
  In response to the inquiry and its recommendations, the Falkland Islands Government have already set in hand a number of steps to implement those recommendations. The system for operating the fire siren has been improved. Plans for the renewal of Stanley's water supply will, as the report recommended, contain provision for adequate water pressure to meet the needs of the fire services. Authority has been given for the purchase of five trailer pumps with hoses and accessories to replace and supplement the two pumps which failed at the time of the fire. Clear fire instructions have been provided for patients as well as for hospital staff. A number of the report's other recommendations will be followed up actively, and, independent of them, additional fire fighting equipment has been purchased. I am sure that those areas of activity will meet a number of my hon. Friend's points.
  As to the condition of other buildings owned by the Falkland Islands Government, I am sure that that Government will note my hon. Friend's comments, but I

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  can tell him that, in relation to the school hostel, Stanley house was rewired in 1981 and, in accordance with the standard procedure of the Institute of Electrical Engineers, it would not be due for a complete inspection for five years.
  However, the kitchen, which was rewired in 1983 when new equipment was installed, is subject to regular examination of the wiring. While no fire hydrants are in or immediately adjacent to the building, there are hydrants in streets bordering the plot. There are fire extinguishers in Stanley house itself and in every mobile home in the hostel grounds, as well as automatic smoke detectors. These significant improvements are being carried out, and there is a clear recognition of the sorts of dangers which rightly and justifiably concern my hon. Friend.
  Mr. Dalyell: The report says in section 6(9) that Dr. Alison Bleaney gave repeated warnings, for which she is commended. Why were those warnings not heeded?
  Mr. Whitney: Everyone concerned with the administration of the hospital, and everyone in all sections of the public works department, were concerned that many areas were less than perfect. That is in the nature of things. However, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman accepts, the inquiry's findings are clear. The fire was not caused by any deficiency in that respect. We do not live in a perfect world, and by its very nature the situation in the Falklands means that things could always fall short of perfect. That must be the case in the nature of the circumstances of isolated communities.
  Hospital provision can never be quite at the standard that one might expect in fully advanced areas, but the arrangements for the temporary hospital are working well. We have arranged for four nurses to be seconded from Westminster hospital for about six months to assist in running the hospital. Military requirements have been met by the establishment of a medical reception station on board the coastal vessel Pursuivant and a temporary military hospital in a series of linked Portakabins on the Canache. Some surgical facilities mentioned by my hon. Friend—X-rays and so on—are available through the military facilities on the Canache.
  As for the future of the hospital, the draft report of the DHSS hospital architect, who visited the island at the end of April, is under consideration. The Falkland Islands Government will be consulted about the recommendations before a firm decision is reached.
  My hon. Friend raised a number of other points which time does not permit me to answer. I shall write to him about any matters that I have not covered. I reassure him and the House that——
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. Mr. David Lambie, for the next debate.

  Karen Craig
  12.31 pm
  Mr. David Lambie: I do not apologise to the Minister for Social Security for interrupting his holiday plans and bringing him to the House to answer this Adjournment debate.
  Since this case started in Easter 1981 I have been in contact with two previous Ministers for Social Security, the present Minister of State, Department of Transport, and the present Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security. With rumours of an imminent Government reshuffle, I did not want to lose the present Minister while he is still in the dock. After having been on this case for three and a quarter years, I did not want to waste another six months waiting for the new Session of Parliament.
  The decision of the social security commissioner in the case of my constituent Karen Craig justifies all the arguments that I first put to the present Minister's two predecessors, personally and by letter. Unfortunately, neither was prepared to intervene. Now, over three years later and at enormous cost to public funds, I have been proved correct. Karen Craig has won a three-year battle to confirm her entitlement to supplementary benefit after she left school on 24 April 1981 but returned to take her Scottish certificate of education examinations.
  This case followed a series of contradictory rulings by local tribunals on three constituents of mine who were former pupils at Ravenspark academy in Irvine and who left school on the same day. When their cases were heard at Kilmarnock and Ayr, Karen Craig and Martin Porter were refused social security payments. Karen was allowed to appeal to the social security commissioner. Mr. J. G. Mitchell, giving his decision on 23 October 1981, said:
  "This application"—
  that of Karen Craig—
  "raises a point of law upon which leave of appeal can properly be granted."
  Martin Porter, however, was refused leave to appeal. The commissioner in his case, Mr. Douglas Reith, on 22 April 1982, said that his
  "appeal does not raise any relevant question of law. I have decided to refuse the application."
  In the third case, my constituent Stephen Russell won his hearing before the local tribunal and was awarded social security. I represented each of those constituents at the local tribunal hearings and put their cases for them. Although identical cases, there were different decisions in each.
  The chief supplementary benefits officer, Mr. Allan Palmer, wanted to challenge the award to Stephen Russell, but changed his mind. Stephen received his cheque six months after the local hearing. Indeed, Stephen telephoned me one Saturday morning to thank me, and he told me that he had received what he described as a substantial Girocheque". He said that he had won his case. I replied, "That is strange. I have received no notification to that effect. My last information was that the chief benefits officer intended to appeal to the social security commissioners".
  Stephen received that Girocheque with no security note attached and with no explanation of what it was for. By deduction, we realised that he had won his case. To be fair

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  to the then Minister, he apologised to me personally. I can only hope that he shot a few people in London in the department concerned.
  On 5 April, Mr. A. E. Arthur, on behalf of the chief benefits officer, made a submission to the social security commissioner. He submitted:
  "That the local Tribunal in the case of Karen Craig should have referred the question whether she was entitled to child benefit to the local Insurance Officer. In not doing so, the Tribunal erred in law, thus, their decision should be set aside."
  On that point—when I again represented Karen Craig before the commissioner's hearing in Edinburgh—the commissioner, Mr. J. G. Mitchell, adjourned a decision on Karen's appeal and sent the matter back to the local national insurance tribunal in Kilmarnock to decide whether Karen's mother had been wrongly paid child benefit. After two meetings of the local tribunal in Kilmarnock, a unanimous decision was reached that child benefit had been wrongly paid to Mrs. Craig in respect of her daughter.
  As I pointed out, this all started in Easter 1981. After two years, we were back again before a local tribunal, to be told that Mrs. Craig had been wrongly paid child benefit. We won that case, and luckily, on the basis of that decision, the social security commissioner decided to grant social security to Karen. If that commissioner had not accepted that Karen was entitled to social security, I should have been in the unenviable position of advising Mrs. Craig to appeal on the basis that she had been illegally paid child benefit. In other words, I should have had to have said, "You won the case, but you must pay the money back."
  From this short history, I hope the Minister will agree that the benefit and appeal system concerning the interplay of supplementary benefit and child benefit regulations is a shambles. How could commissioner Douglas Reith have ruled that Martin Porter's case did not raise any relevant question of law and refuse him permission to appeal when another commissioner, Mr. J. G. Mitchell, had ruled that the appeal raised a point of law upon which leave to appeal could properly be granted?
  I know that both appeals were similar, as I wrote and presented them myself. The wording was identical in each case. The benefits officer, Mr. A. E. Arthur, confirmed on 5 April 1982 the opinion of commissioner J. G. Mitchell, when he wrote that the local supplementary benefit tribunal had erred in law in even hearing the case in the first place.
  I remind the House that all this started in the summer of 1981. Throughout the tribunal hearings that I attended a secretary to the tribunal was present to advise members of the tribunal. There were representatives of the benefits officer to put the case against granting social security to my constituent. Yet no one mentioned at any of those tribunal hearings the opinion that was put forward in April 1982 by the representative of the chief benefits officer in London.
  I hope that the Minister will agree, based on that evidence, that commissioner Douglas Reith should be sacked, if he is still in office. I do not know whether he is still there, but he should be sacked before he can do any more damage. An investigation should be carried out into the office of the chief benefits officer in London to explain why it took him from the end of April 1981 to 5 April 1982
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  to decide that these cases should not have been heard in the first place by a supplementary benefits tribunal, but by a national insurance tribunal.
  The cases show an element of collusion between insurance and benefits officers to prevent justice being given to claimants. The problem starts at local level, at the local DHSS office in Oban, and ends in London at the DHSS.
  I ask the Minister for an assurance that social security will be paid to my constituent Martin Porter, who was refused the right to appeal to the social security commissioner by Mr. Douglas Reith. I also ask the Minister, in view of the commissioner's decision in the case of Karen Craig, which the DHSS does not intend to appeal against according to the press, to review all the cases of young people in Scotland who left school at Easter in 1981, 1982, 1983 and this year and claimed social security but whose applications were turned down by local benefit officers. I should like the Minister to start with the cases of my constituents in Oban and to deal with the local DHSS office.
  I am asking the DHSS to re-open the files on thousands of young social security claimants who have been illegally refused social security payments. I am further strengthened in my appeal to the Minister by the recent ruling in the High Court by Mr. Justice Woolf, who upheld a case against a Social Security Minister for refusing to repay money to claimants whose benefit had been wrongly cut.
  Finally, I hope that the Minister, if he is still here after the Cabinet reshuffle, will listen more to Members of Parliament than to the legal advisers at the DHSS in London. When one is dealing with cases in Scotland and the Scottish education system, as the Minister knows from his background in education, there is a totally different system and examination system from that prevailing in England and Wales. It is unfortunate that English people who have been trained in the English education system take decisions that vitally affect those who have been brought up and trained in the Scottish education system. In those respects, someone like myself, with a background in education before coming to the House, should be listened to more by Ministers.
  I hope that the Minister will assure me today that my constituents will receive money from the DHSS and can take a decent holiday in the near future.
  12.44 pm
  The Minister for Social Security (Dr. Rhodes Boyson): I must say at the outset to the hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Lambie) that I certainly listen to hon. Members, who write to me regularly. There is no shortage of correspondence coming into my Department. Whenever an hon. Member has a constituency problem that he would like to discuss with me, I am always willing to fix an appointment within two or three days. It is vital to do so because hon. Members know their constituents, and the areas that they represent.
  The hon. Gentleman has raised an important matter, in which he has clearly taken a close personal interest over a considerable period. He has clearly used up much time and effort.
  Mr. Lambie: Without pay.
  Dr. Boyson: The hon. Gentleman says that he has worked without pay. I shall put that on the record from the Government Benches too. There will be a new coalition of those working without pay on this case.
  I can well understand the hon. Gentleman's frustration at the long and cumbersome appeal process with which he and his constituents have had to contend. I applaud his persistence in the face of heavy odds. I pay tribute here and now to a former member of my own profession.
  Before I deal with the complex details of the particular cases that have been raised today, some of which we shall continue to consider, I should like to outline the basic principles governing school leavers' benefit entitlements. I shall first deal with the Government's intentions.
  It is a basic principle of the supplementary benefits scheme that young people up to the age of 19 are treated as dependent on their parents until they have completed their full-time education. These young people cannot claim supplementary benefit in their own right, but child benefit and other appropriate dependency benefits are payable to their parents.
  The point at which full-time education comes to an end is often difficult to identify. Prior to the reform of the supplementary benefits scheme in 1980, it was the custom to pay supplementary benefit as soon as a young person stated that he had finished his studies and was prepared to take employment.
  This proved to be a difficult system to operate fairly, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman will appreciate. Many youngsters do not make firm plans for the future until they know their examination results in the summer. Others claim benefit for holiday pocket money even though they fully intend to return to school after the holidays.
  These arrangements were difficult to administer and we decided that it would be better simply to continue to treat young people as dependent on their parents until the end of the holidays following their final term at school. The Department's current system, therefore, enables young school leavers to begin claiming from three fixed dates corresponding with the end of the Christmas, Easter and summer holidays. I recognise, with the hon. Gentleman, that this can cause some awkward problems. It is generally true to say that young people continuing in education receive less by way of benefit support than those who have left school and are unemployed. The distinction is particularly sharp when one compares the youngster who completes his education at Easter with the youngster who returns to school the following term to sit examinations in May or June who is consequently unable to claim supplementary benefit until September. This is the sort of incentive problem that we are considering carefully in the review of benefit support for children and young people that I am chairing.
  For today we must concentrate on the rules as they are, and their impact on young people like the hon. Member's constituent, Miss Craig. I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman knows every detail of the case far better than I shall ever do. Perhaps I can put in the paragraph headings and he can fill in the details of the case. Miss Craig stopped attending school at Easter 1981. When she claimed supplementary benefit at the end of the Easter holidays, she explained that she meant to sit some Scottish certificate of education examinations the following term.
  For benefit purposes, the position is that, where a young person is following an examination course, she is not normally considered to have completed her education
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  until she has sat her final examination. There may be a period of interruption when she does not attend for a few weeks, but it is only when the examinations are over that the course is complete.
  I recognise that this may appear rather harsh if a youngster has left school at Easter in the expectation of finding a job, is unsuccessful, and then discovers that if she returned to sit an examination she would be likely to lose her entitlement to supplementary benefit for several months. But I must ask the hon. Member to consider the difficulties of an alternative system.
  If we were to allow examination candidates who stop attending school at Easter to claim supplementary benefit, we should be creating a positive financial incentive for youngsters to stop away from school for the final few weeks before their examinations. At current benefit rates, the difference would be between £6·50 child benefit payable to the parents, and £16·50 supplementary benefit in the youngster's pocket. To create this kind of temptation would, to the Department's mind, be highly irresponsible.
  The hon. Gentleman is an ex-member of the teaching profession.
  Mr. Lambie: The Minister is just repeating the arguments put forward at successive tribunals and at the hearing of the social security commissioner on behalf of the DHSS. All the arguments that he is now using were rejected by the social security commissioner. Therefore, I am not interested in what he, as the representative of the DHSS, thought the law was before the social security commissioner's decision. I want to know what he is doing now. The law is clear, and the social security commissioner's decision came down against the argument put forward so often by the Minister's representatives at local tribunals.
  Dr. Boyson: I shall reply frankly to the hon. Gentleman because he intervened frankly. I understand his concern. The Department is still not convinced that this one decision makes the application of the law different from what was previously understood by the Department. I was saying that if a person stays on at school, his parents receive child benefit, but if he leaves, he receives supplementary benefit. If a child can get supplementary benefit without taking up employment but while he is studying at home, that would ruin our education system. If people could get £10 more at home while doing an Open University course for children, as it were, and did not go to school, that would make a nonsense of the system. With all due respect to the hon. Gentleman, he must agree with me. The case turns on whether the law is what we thought it was. I have not the slightest doubt about the principle and I would be astonished if the hon. Gentleman differed from me. It would be entirely wrong for a Government to legislate to pay people £10 a week more to stay at home rather than to attend school while they were studying. Does not the hon. Gentleman agree?
  Mr. Lambie: It seems that the Minister is now rejecting the decision of the social security commissioner. Surely it is wrong for a Minister representing the DHSS to reject the decision of the court of appeal which, as far as I am concerned, was lawful.
  Dr. Boyson: I shall come to that specific point in a moment. The adjudication system in the Department is separate from the Minister. [Interruption.] The hon.

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  Gentleman must listen to me. He is a fervent believer in his cause, and there should be all credit to him for that. We introduce regulations that we believe will carry out our policy. The interpretation is dependent upon the adjudication officers, but if the adjudication is not what we expect we can go to appeal and take up other cases. If we find that the adjudication is still not what we expect, we can change the regulations. The overall policy is our concern. The adjudication officers are independent. If the law was such that everybody could get £10 a week more by staying at home instead of going to school, the law would be nonsense and would have to be changed immediately by regulation. However, we are not yet convinced that the law is nonsense. I am not reading a brief, but saying straight out what the situation is.
  As I said, if we allow examination candidates who stop attending school at Easter to claim supplementary benefit, we should be creating a positive financial incentive for youngsters to stop away from school for the final few weeks before their examinations. I do not think that any Government of any colour would want that to happen.
  Against that background, I should like to refer to the case of Miss Karen Craig, so ably handled by the hon. Gentleman. Most of the facts have been outlined. I am not querying them. He presented an appeal to the supplementary benefit appeal tribunal, but the tribunal upheld the benefit officer's decision, so Miss Craig appealed, with the help of the hon. Gentleman, to the social security commissioner. If I am in trouble with the law, I shall turn to the hon. Gentleman to represent me, because he has shown great mastery of this matter.
  Mr. Lambie: Answer the question. Never mind the credits.
  Dr. Boyson: A little credit does no harm on either side of the House from time to time.
  Mr. Lambie: It is the money that we want.
  Dr. Boyson: As a northerner, although not a Scotsman, I realise that there is a black, or a red, line at the end of any account.
  I shall not go through all the details of the case because I realise that time is going on. I would not want to stop the hon. Gentleman intervening again if he wished to do so.
  Adjudication officers do not seek leave to appeal to the commissioner in every case where they believe that a tribunal decision may be erroneous in law. They wait for a case that will settle it. The chief adjudication officer is selective in the cases that he puts forward and has regard to factors such as the importance of the point of law involved and the need to establish case law on it, and the relative cost of bringing an appeal in relation to the amount of benefit involved. I am informed that in this case he had regard to the fact that it was almost three years since the original claim to benefit and that the amount of benefit involved was relatively small. He accordingly decided not to seek to challenge the tribunal's decision on this case. I stress that that does not imply acceptance that there was no error in law. Furthermore, it can be held that this was a one-off case that did not set a precedent.
  Mr. Lambie: It was not a one-off case, but the second case. We won the case of Stephen Russell without going to the social security commissioner. How many cases must
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  I take to the Minister before he recognises the justice of the point? He keeps telling me that the appeal system is good and is completely divorced from his Department. Two decisions have been made through the appeal system, when I have gone to the referee, but the Minister now says that he will change the rules and that the referee was wrong. He is waiting to get another referee who might make a better decision. When will he pay the money to the thousands of young Scottish pupils who have been illegally denied social security payments?
  Dr. Boyson: I know that the hon. Gentleman is a keen watcher of amateur football, especially schoolboy football. We are trying to keep the goalposts where they were, but in this case the interpretation of the offside rule has been a complication. It has been a complication in soccer for the past 30 years.
  We shall not have to call upon the hon. Gentleman to help us further on the law because the chief adjudication officer is seeking to establish further case law in this troublesome case. I understand that he is currently seeking leave to appeal to the commissioner on two more recent cases. They concern young people who ceased attending school at Easter 1983 and were awarded supplementary benefit by a tribunal although they planned to return to school to sit examinations. If his application is granted, he will seek an early hearing. We want an early hearing. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we do not want to drag out the time to three years, such as in this case. That is one reason why we have changed part of the appeal system.
  If the chief adjudication officer's application is granted, he will seek an early hearing. I shall want to await the outcome and see whether the position can be clarified throughout the adjudication system. However, should the position remain unclear, I shall need to consider very seriously whether we should amend the regulations. One thing is certain. If, in the end, children can stay at home instead of being at school and get £10 a week more, no Government of any colour will sanction that.
  We have introduced changes in the appeals system that mean that we shall no longer have the snakes and ladders exercises up and down separate appeal systems, which the hon. Gentleman experienced. Therefore, one will be able to consider employment, social security and other matters as a whole instead of going from one tribunal to the other. Those changes were made in March.
  To sum up, I appreciate that the hon. Member's experience of the appeals system has been a frustrating one and that he has good grounds for dissatisfaction with the conflicting decisions that his constituents have received. I accept much of his criticism and I share his concern that the position should be clarified, but I must end where I began in stating firmly the policy that is central to these cases. If youngsters leave school at Easter but do not find work or take up a training place, it is likely to be far more useful for them to return to school and to concentrate on getting worthwhile examination results than to stop at home. The supplementary benefit system would be rightly criticised throughout the country and the House if it encouraged examination candidates to put their longer-term prospects at risk for the sake of short-term gain.
  As I have said, I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing this case so clearly to our attention today. It will not go away and it is clear that we shall have to look into it. We hope to go to appeal to get the law clarified so that

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  we know exactly where we are. At the same time, we shall consider all the other cases that the hon. Gentleman has raised.

  East Antrim (Redevelopment)
  1 pm
  Mr. Roy Beggs: I welcome this opportunity to draw attention to the concern expressed by residents in stable, settled communities in my constituency about the Northern Ireland Housing Executive's proposals for redevelopment in East Antrim. Following publication of the proposals and the phoney consultation exercise, improvement work has ceased in the areas blighted by the proposals. Despite widespread opposition from residents, with the full backing of Carrickfergus and Larne borough councils, the Housing Executive seems determined to bulldoze its proposals through. The situation is a recipe for conflict. Farcical consultation which ignores democratically expressed wishes and the views of elected representatives at both district council and Assembly level will ultimately bring law-abiding citizens on to the streets to defend their rights against the 1984-style Big-Brother-knows-best tactics of the non-democratically constituted Housing Executive.
  Consultation with local councils and residents is utterly unreal. The planners and designers employed by the Housing Executive no longer have the major new-build projects of recent years to work on, so to remain fully employed they are now directing all their energies to producing redevelopment proposals for areas with older housing. The proposals are presented to councils and residents for so-called consultation, but the new grand scheme is defended at every stage by Housing Executive officers, who disregard local opinion and even alternative proposals. Because the Housing Executive controls the award of improvement and repair grants, all progress is halted until the executive achieves its objective of ultimate demolition.
  I give notice today that if the Housing Executive's proposals for my area are not withdrawn they will be fought through the Housing Council and the board of the Housing Executive. I shall not predict today what action councillors, Stormont Assembly Members or Northern Ireland Members of Parliament may be forced to take to show their support for the residents and the rights of owner-occupiers to keep their property and to obtain the same modernisation grants as are available to others in the self-same street.
  Owner-occupiers represent about 90 per cent. of the people affected. The elderly are fearful and young newlyweds who have purchased older properties as a first home have had their hopes dashed. Some have been trapped into paying both a mortgage and rent to the Housing Executive. Those who wish to sell cannot find buyers. As the value of their property declines due to the uncertainty, they lose sight of their earlier hopes of moving to better quality housing in the private sector. The elderly, who fear that they will have to move, spend sleepless nights when they should be able to spend their well-earned retirement in peace.
  I firmly and sincerely believe that if the improvement and repair grants had not been stopped in those areas the Housing Executive would have had no justification for its demolition and redevelopment proposals. It has even been forced to withdraw a substantial number of these houses to achieve a sufficient level of unfitness to support its proposals at a public inquiry.

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  I contend that there is no need for the Housing Executive's redevelopment schemes in my area, which have forced community groups to establish housing action areas in Ellis street, Carnhill walk and Agnes street in Carrickfergus and in the many scheduled redevelopment areas in Larne. In view of the time, I shall not list them all as the Minister is aware of them. At present, the majority of those houses are unfit because of the withdrawal of grants and the lack of action by a small number of landlords who own a small proportion of the affected properties, some of which were deliberately purchased with a view to later development for commercial use. In the Larne harbour area, for example, the harbour board purchased a number of houses as a matter of forward planning, making them available to caretaker tenants. I have asked the board to reconsider whether it wishes to be involved in housing, given the extensive land that it holds for future development, and it has now agreed to consider the future of its houses and the possibility of making them available for sale.
  I appreciate the interest shown by the Minister today. Unlike the hon. Member for Cunninghame, South (Mr. Lambie), I am confident that this Minister will be around for some time despite any reshuffles that may occur. It is thus with some confidence that I put this case to him on behalf of my constituents. I hope that he will recognise the basic desire of people in my area to own their homes and to live within their means. Every home, however humble, deserves basic amenities. The people of Northern Ireland were enraged when a former Prime Minister referred to them as spongers. My constituents are not spongers, nor are other people in Northern Ireland. They are entitled to grants which are already made available to their neighbours for the same types of houses so that they, through modernisation, can have their homes removed from the unfitness category listing. The staff of the executive have a cheek to label many of these well-maintained, clean, comfortable homes unfit, while at the same time they withhold the grants necessary to make them fit. The executive is trying to promote rundown properties to prove that its own assessment is correct.
  It is a well-known fact that the demand for public housing in Northern Ireland is diminishing. The statistics for vacant public housing alone should direct the Northern Ireland Housing Executive to put its own houses in order. It should speed up maintenance on its own property, concentrate on provision for the single and elderly and replace aluminium bungalows with permanent brick buildings on the same site—instead of causing endless inconvenience to tenants as one improvement scheme to modernise aluminium bungalows follows another.
  I want to see evidence in East Antrim of a caring Government who support owner-occupation. The planners of public housing have not always got it right in the past. Planners and builders cannot construct stable communities. The price of further upheaval is too great in human terms in a Province which has already suffered so much.
  From 1981 to 1983, of the 174 additional new dwellings in Larne, 16 were provided by the public sector and 158 were private houses. That is clear evidence of the desire to move from public to private sector housing. The executive even admits that progress to reduce unfitness in Larne has been significant. Unfitness could be overcome
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  cost effectively and would leave communities unscarred if only the executive would reintroduce improvement grants soon.
  An architect's report on houses in the harbour area deals with some of the oldest houses in the area, including a group of four which are nearly 100 years old. It said:
  "Four houses were visited—two improved, two in their original condition."
  According to the Northern Ireland Housing Executive's standards, that means that there is 50 per cent. unfitness. It continued:
  "Here, as in other areas, walls and roofs were found to be structurally sound and there is no reason why these unimproved properties could not be brought up to the standard of those modernised."
  It makes sense, for the sake of community stability, to modernise houses. It is cost-effective because approximately three homes can be modernised for the cost of one new building in the public sector. Modernised homes have a long life expectancy, the disruption of communities is avoided, and it is possible to maintain more houses at less public expense.
  I urge the Minister to persuade the Northern Ireland Housing Executive to co-operate with public representatives by recognising the well-founded opposition to its proposals. I urge him to encourage the executive to withdraw its present redevelopment proposals for East Antrim and to persuade it immediately to release improvement grants so that rapid progress can be made in modernising homes on its existing sites. I ask him to introduce legislation to require the executive in future to obtain the support of the majority of residents and the elected representatives before proceeding to force through its policies and redevelopment proposals. I also urge the Minister to reconsider the possibility of the immediate demolition of the derelict fiats in Derryhill, Rathcoole, and to take steps to prevent Drumcor Green from reaching the same state of dereliction.
  I deplore, as do all right-thinking people, the wanton vandalism by mindless delinquents, who have systematically destroyed property which would cost more than £500,000 to reinstate. It is small comfort that the inherent design faults now justify the demolition of the Derryhill complex. However, the Minister will agree that the vast amount of public housing in Rathcoole is well maintained throughout the estate. Nevertheless, the need to remove that eyesore and its graffiti is urgent. It does not reflect the efforts of good tenants who live nearby and keep their homes and gardens respectable.
  The need to replace existing shops is also urgent. We must congratulate the present shopkeepers who strive to serve the community, many of whom are elderly and require convenient shopping facilities. Because, of vandalism, which caused severe flooding and ultimately severe losses, there is a real danger that those shopkeepers will move away. In order immediately to restore confidence, priority should be given to the demolition and rebuilding of the shopping complex, with appropriate parking provision.
  Residents in the Derryhill area are opposed to the executive's delaying action. The property has been derelict for three years. The eyesore of Derryhill is an embarrassment to all who live in Rathcoole. The proposals for the area should be given higher priority than the proposals for action for the autumn of 1985. It should be possible to find the £25,000 needed for demolition and to bring forward the alternative shopping development

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  proposals. I trust that the Minister will help the executive to find both the will and the way to do something about that this autumn.
  In my constituency we have tried at all levels to use the proper channels to change the executive's proposals, but so far in vain. Considering the authority of the House and of Parliament, I hope that this will be the final effort and that it will be rewarded. I further appeal to the Minister to assist our citizens to achieve justice under bureaucracy.
  East Antrim is a good area for investment. I hope the Minister will assure the House that the executive does not discriminate in its investment policy against my law-abiding constituents, who feel hard done by when they see the level of investment in areas influenced by terrorists and paramilitary groups. At times they appear to be given priority. I am firmly assured by a building society that if the decisions are reversed and grants are again made available, it will provide money for private investment in the areas affected.
  1.19 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Chris Patten): The hon. Member for Antrim, East (Mr. Beggs) has taken a keen interest in housing developments in Lame and in East Antrim generally, in the House, in the Northern Ireland Assembly and in all his constituency work. He has a deep and genuine concern to produce the best possible housing for his constituents. I hope that I shall always be able to represent my constituents as vigorously and as eloquently as does the hon. Gentleman.
  I assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that I share his anxiety for housing, not just in East Antrim, but in Northern Ireland as a whole. To that end, and trying to improve housing conditions as rapidly and substantially as we can, we have made housing the first priority among our social and environmental programmes. We plan to spend about £526 million in gross terms on housing in the current year. I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman said in expressing the hope that I will continue to play a part in the housing programme. As he will appreciate, that is not entirely a matter for me, nor is it even entirely a matter for the Almighty.
  The priority that we have accorded to housing, and the consequent size of the programme both under way and under consideration, inevitably means a change very much for the better for many individuals and areas. It can also mean short-term disruption and inconvenience. I accept, too, that it can generate anxiety. Our job is to minimise that anxiety, explain what we are about and, as far as possible, to accommodate local wishes. I shall return to that point in a moment.
  Before I concentrate on redevelopment, which is the aspect of our housing programme that is highlighted in the House today, I should say that in Northern Ireland we have a comprehensive housing policy involving the public and the private sectors. The hon. Gentleman talked about the importance of the Government demonstrating their commitment to owner-occupation. The record figures for new starts in the private sector are an eloquent testament to that commitment. We have rightly placed rather more emphasis since last autumn, certainly in the public sector, on improvement, rehabilitation and the maintenance of existing stock rather than on new build. I am interested to
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  note that that adjustment in strategy has not drawn any substantial or well-informed criticism. Indeed, the contrary is true.
  We have embarked, not on the wholesale destruction of large tracts of existing housing, but on a balanced programme designed to make the most sensible and effective use of the human and financial resources available. As I understand it, the hon. Gentleman supports our housing priority in general, and he would also support the shift in strategy during the past year—a shift which owed much to the representations made to the Government and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive by the hon. Gentleman and by his right hon. and hon. Friends.
  I accept that redevelopment often causes difficulty for individuals and that opinions can be divided about the merits of some schemes. I also accept that, precisely because of that, it is vital that communications and consultation with local people are as good as possible. The Housing Executive makes every effort to ensure that its consultations are thorough, and the elected representatives in Northern Ireland do an excellent job of providing a channel of communication for their constituents. But however much we try, consultations will never enable us to satisfy all the people all the time. Indeed, consultation will not always produce unanimity of opinion within an area. In my experience, some people believe erroneously that there has been proper consultation only if it finishes with everyone else agreeing with them. There have been cases, not just in housing—although I can think of some recent examples — but in education, health and other areas, where individuals or groups of people who opposed a development at the consultation stage came to support it after the event.
  Our objective should be to be honest and realistic in our consultation, not to create expectations which cannot be fulfilled and, where wishes cannot be met, to ensure that the reasons are explained to the best of our ability.
  Mr. Beggs: I accept entirely the sentiments that the Minister has just expressed, but I must re-emphasise the fact that the Housing Executive meets those whom it intends to consult only to project its plans. The plans have already been drawn up. Consultation should start long before then, in seeking the views at local level as to what may be the way forward.
  Mr. Patten: The executive's efforts to discover from the people of Larne whether they want a housing action area, and how they believe such an area should be worked through, demonstrate its anxiety to have adequate consultation.
  The hon. Member for Antrim, East referred specially to Tullygarley in Larne, and I am aware of his longstanding and continuing interest in this topic. He has properly made representations to me about it on several occasions. As he knows, it is for the Housing Executive to consider in the first instance whether to propose redevelopment or to declare a housing action area. It is then for the Department of the Environment to consent if it believes that such a proposal is justified. Those arrangements are right and generally work well. The hon. Gentleman will understand that I do not wish to short-circuit or reverse those procedures. Indeed, it would be wrong for me to do so. I should be usurping the role of the Housing Executive, which neither I nor may predecessors have believed it right to do.

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  This matter is central to the present position. The Housing Executive has not declared a new redevelopment area in Larne and, as I understand it, has not come to a firm conclusion on whether there should be redevelopment in the Tullygarley area. Housing Executive officials have taken a comprehensive look at Larne housing. As part of the exercise, they identified about 190 houses from a total stock of more than 6,300 houses as possible candidates for redevelopment. About 115 of that figure of 190 are in the Tullygarley area. As a result of reports from public health inspectors, the Housing Executive's interest has been narrowed further to as small a group as 65 houses which are between 80 and 100 years old. The idea that those houses are in such a condition because of the non-availability of improvement grants stretches the facts some distance beyond breaking point.
  Consultation is continuing in Larne, and officers of the Housing Executive have said that they are willing to have further discussion and have provided the Tullygarley residents association with information about the public health inspector's findings. I should point out that, under section 47 of the Housing (Northern Ireland) Order 1981, the Housing Executive has a duty to declare an area to be a proposed redevelopment area if it is satisfied, first, that at least half of the land is used for housing purposes; secondly, that at least one third of the houses are unfit for human habitation, or dangerous or injurious to the health of the inhabitants of the area; and, thirdly, that it is expedient that the entire area should be redeveloped.
  It is that broad question which the executive is currently addressing. Final conclusions have not yet been reached, and formal proposals have not been put to my Department. I must emphasise that. I should not therefore wish to intervene at this stage, as my Department will have to consider whatever proposals are eventually put forward on their merits and in an open and fair-minded way. If we develop as proposed and vesting proceedings are initiated as a result, there will naturally be an opportunity for objections. If objections are received, a local inquiry will be held at which objectors can air their views to an inspector, who in turn will make recommendations to the Department. Whatever is decided, there will be long and full discussions.
  I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand why it would be wrong for me to prejudge proposals which have not yet been made. It would be absurd as well as damaging for me to do so. I hope, too, that the hon. Gentleman will find these remarks helpful. I shall bring what he said to the attention of the chairman of the Housing Executive.
  The hon. Gentleman made one final point about the Derryhill site at Rathcoole. I have agreed to the demolition of the three-storey block of flats, maisonettes and shops at a cost of £25,000. Demolition and site clearance will commence in the autumn of next year, by which time we hope to have relocated the three shops at present carrying on business in the block. I understand that the executive proposes to provide on the cleared site new terrace housing and shops with car parking provision at a cost of about £310,000. I know how much the hon. Gentleman has pressed that solution, and I am grateful for his interest in it.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. Mr. Fred Silvester.

  Mr. Himat Singh and Miss Suwinder Kaur
  1.31 pm
  Mr. Fred Silvester: I wish to bring to the attention of the House the case of Mr. Himat Singh and Miss Suwinder Kaur. The opportunity provided at the end of the Session to raise individual cases is one which is much prized in the House, and it is appropriate that I should bring to the attention of Parliament a case which has been going on now for some years in my constituency and about which I have growing concern.
  In 1946 Mr. Kalyan Singh came to the United Kingdom. He settled in Manchester, where he became a grocer. He is now in his seventies. In the 40 years that he has been here Mr. Singh has sought to be a good citizen, but he has maintained the customs of his religion and his culture. He has eight children. Three of his daughters and all four of his sons are married. All have had their marriages arranged for them, according to the custom, without the parties meeting. In each case both husband and wife were from within the United Kingdom.
  Mr. Singh's youngest daughter is Miss Suwinder Kaur. She was born in Manchester on 15 October 1964. When this saga began she was 15 years of age. She is now an attractive and articulate 19-year-old. It is expected that Miss Kaur and her husband will live with her parents and be part of that household. Mr. Singh regards it as his duty and his care to ensure that his youngest daughter is appropriately married, and he is now getting very old.
  In 1979 the husband of another of Mr. Singh's daughters went to India to discuss the possibility that his cousin, Mr. Himat Singh, might be betrothed to Miss Kaur. Mr. Singh was then nearly 18. It was agreed that the marriage should take place and that the couple should live with Mr. Kalyan Singh in Manchester. The boy was shown a photograph. It was agreed that the marriage should not take place until the girl left school in 1981. The parents corresponded but, according to custom, it would have been frowned upon for the couple to write to each other direct.
  In July 1981 Mr. Himat Singh, following the agreement, undertook the three-day journey to New Delhi to make his application to marry Miss Kaur.
  I was first approached in this case on 24 April 1982, three years after the marriage agreement. The question then was a simple one: was it possible to secure the interview in Calcutta to avoid the three-day journey to New Delhi?
  In March 1982 Miss Kaur's mother travelled to India to satisfy herself about the satisfactory nature of the match.
  The interview of Mr. Himat Singh was eventually granted in Calcutta on 11 January 1983, 18 months after the original application. The entry clearance officer rejected his application on the twin grounds that the couple had not met and that the marriage was for the primary purpose of obtaining admission. An appeal was lodged.
  In July 1983 Mr. Himat Singh came to the United Kingdom and met his bride. The forthcoming marriage was acknowledged in the temple in Manchester. However, Mr. Singh was refused permission to remain until the hearing of the appeal in October. The Minister claimed that Mr. Singh would be jumping the queue if he stayed here, which is a curious description of someone who had

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  already been standing in line for more than two years. Without the slightest attempt at avoidance, Mr. Singh left the country on 25 September 1983, a mere 10 days before the appeal was due to be heard.
  An appeal is allowed to consider only the facts obtaining at the date of refusal. It could only consider the facts, which were already nine months old. The adjudicator could take no account of the fact that the couple had met, so Miss Kaur's solicitor was forced to withdraw the appeal and start all over again.
  On 28 October 1983 Mr. Himat Singh submitted his second application. It was now four years since the marriage agreement and 27 months since his journey to New Delhi. Back in England, Miss Kaur had celebrated her 18th birthday and come of age. Within a week the entry clearance officer had referred the second application to the Home Office, but it took him another two months to turn down the application. There was no further interview, and the matter was treated as a repeat of the previous occasion.
  I am not in the habit of discussing this type of case with my hon. and learned Friend the Minister of State, but in February of this year I raised the matter with him in his office and got nowhere. If I recall it correctly, his conclusion was that the words used by Mr. Himat Singh in his interview were as clear a case as he could find of immigration being the primary purpose for the marriage. He based his conclusion on words translated from the Hindi in answer to the question put to Mr. Singh about what he would do if he was unable to go to the United Kingdom for marriage. The entry clearance officer says that Mr. Singh replied, "What is the point of getting married then?" Mr. Singh says that he replied "It is up to you. It is in your hands." Similar discrepancies exist in other questions and answers and, without a complete transcript, it is not possible to assert which is right. But the selectivity in this form of report is manifest.
  If we consider the questions that Mr. Himat Singh remembers were asked but which the ECO felt it unnecessary to quote, one question, for example, was that if he got married and the girl left him, what would he do? What sort of question is that to be asked?
  The truth is that Parliament has laid on the ECO and the Minister a huge task, and I sympathise with them, but we have to see each case, not as an exercise in the precise analysis of words which are uttered in a very difficult context and in a second language, but in the context of what the policy was meant to achieve. Everything turns upon whether the primary purpose of the marriage was to obtain admission to the United Kingdom.
  The original refusal in January 1983 was under the old rules. The new application is caught by the more stringent new rules. What is the purpose of the rules? In the eyes of most of us, it is to prevent the honourable institution of the arranged marriage, which can be and is readily established in this country, being used as a mechanism for evading the otherwise strict control on the primary immigration of young males. That is a wise provision, but its effectiveness depends on the quality of its administration. It cannot hold if we fail to distinguish between the cynical and the genuine pursuit of marriage.
  I draw the attention of my hon. and learned Friend to two recent cases in my constituency.
  Mr. N came to the United Kingdom for private medical treatment. Six months later he was refused permission to stay. Within seven days of that refusal he applied to marry.
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  He returned to his country, having been refused permission to marry, and three years later he returned here with full clearance to marry. He married and was given an indefinite stay permit. Within nine months that marriage had broken down and Mr. N had left his wife. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister wrote to me:
  "Deportation would have been justified only if there was evidence that the marriage was contracted solely to obtain settlement."
  He added that the fact that Mr. N had
  "left the country following refusal of his application to remain for marriage … and had properly applied was sufficient to justify the conclusion that the marriage was not one of convenience."
  There was strong evidence in that case that a marriage of convenience had taken place but it cannot be said that there is evidence that a marriage of convenience is to take place between Mr. Singh and Miss Kaur.
  Another example is the marriage of Mr. A, who won permission on appeal to come to the United Kingdom as a student. He was not a serious student and was refused an extension. He withdrew his appeal against that decision and instead applied to stay for marriage. The couple went off to Gretna green and married, but the Home Office decided that it was a marriage primarily to obtain settlement and his application was refused. However, the couple lived together and so the Home Office changed its mind. My hon. and learned Friend wrote a revealing letter to me, in which he said that
  "we are bound to consider the state of marriage of a British born citizen … The reasons for the marriage did point to a marriage of convenience but, surprisingly, it does appear that there is a genuine relationship between Mr. and Mrs. A."
  That illustrates vividly the difficulty of making such a distinction. My hon. and learned Friend assumes that a marriage that is arranged cannot lead to a stable relationship, but that is not true in the Indian community.
  I am not offering an opinion on whether the decisions made in the cases of Messrs N and A were right or wrong, but in two recent cases in the past year in my constituency my hon. and learned Friend permitted stays for marriage when there was a strong prima facie case that the marriages were primarily for the purpose of admission. It would not be surprising if law-abiding citizens who go painstakingly through the system become cynical and wonder whether it would not be better to chance their arm by taking one of the less above-board routes.
  What does my hon. and learned Friend want? We know that the desire of Mr. Singh and Miss Kaur to marry is genuine. It has been so from the beginning and it is even more so now that the two young people have met. We know that it is no fly-by-night affair. The matter has been carefully and slowly conducted by British citizens of long standing who have no intention of seeking to evade immigration controls. We can never be sure of the future, but by all rational tests my hon. and learned Friend has cross-checked in this instance more thoroughly than in other cases where he has given his approval. We know that there is no threat of queue jumping. This couple have already waited for three years.
  I imagine that my hon. and learned Friend will back off from a reconsideration of this case, because he can always hide behind the appeal. If he takes that route, which I shall be sorry to hear, but which I am half expecting, he cannot escape responsibility for the disgraceful way in which the appeal has been handled. The delay continues. Mr. Himat Singh made his application in July 1981. We are still waiting, three years later, for the appeal to be heard. I have

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  a letter from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, who is responsible for the entry clearance officer. He stated in his most recent letter about the appeal that the explanatory statement from the ECO had been delayed. He explained that it was to be sent and he added:
  "However, having completed his statement a number of discrepancies were noted and the ECO decided to refer the matter to the Home Office for further inquiries. The ECO is currently still awaiting their instructions."
  That letter was dated 5 July.
  This is impossible. There is yet more delay and this is a careless and inconsiderate way of proceeding. Do the officials not realise that they are dealing with people's lives? Would they take the same cavalier attitude if their own daughter's marriage was involved? At the very least, the Minister owes it to these young people to secure an early hearing of the appeal. I know that that is not the direct responsibility of my hon. and learned Friend, but he has some responsibility to make up for the previous lackadaisical behaviour of his Department and that of the Foreign Office. He should use his most powerful endeavours to secure an early hearing of the appeal.
  These young people have done everything by the book. The marriage was planned by their parents, but it is now their own and they want it of their own will. Their marriage creates no precedent. It cannot be said that hordes are waiting behind them ready to charge. I have watched the family squirm on this nail for three years and there is now further delay. For God's sake let us keep a sense of proportion and a sense of humanity. Let us allow Mr. Himat Singh into the United Kingdom to marry his fiancee.
  1.47 pm
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Waddington): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Withington (Mr. Silvester) for raising this matter. He has seen me about it and I know the depth of his concern. I welcome the opportunity that the debate gives me to explain why the Home Office made the decision that it did and where matters now stand. The debate gives me the opportunity also to express my regret that the letter that my hon. Friend sent me some time ago about the appeal was not answered. That was due partly to a mistake that was made in the referencing of the papers, and partly to the intervention of another hon. Member.
  My hon. Friend has argued his case as strongly and as cogently as anyone could. As he said, Miss Kaur wants her fiance, Mr. Singh, to join her in this country. No one present for the debate could fail to have considerable sympathy for Miss Kaur and no one could doubt her sincerity. One of the difficulties that I have in cases of this sort is explaining that it is the motives of the man and not of the woman with which we are primarily concerned when considering whether the primary purpose test has been met.
  Mr. Singh's first application for entry clearance to come to the United Kingdom to marry Miss Kaur and to settle here in right of that marriage was made in Calcutta in September 1981. My hon. Friend will forgive me if I correct him on one matter. It is not correct that Mr. Singh is still waiting for the hearing of his appeal in respect of the 1981 application. He is awaiting the hearing of an
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  appeal in respect of the second application, which was made by him towards the end of 1983. It is the right of an individual to make repeated applications, but it cannot be the right of anyone to complain that he has been kept waiting for the hearing of an appeal for X number of years when he is talking about the date of his original application and not his second, third or fourth application as a result of all his previous applications being turned down.
  In any event, Mr. Singh was interviewed in January 1983 in respect of his first application. His application was refused because the entry clearance officer could not be satisfied that the marriage was not being entered into primarily to obtain admission to the United Kingdom, and because Mr. Singh and Miss Kaur had not met. The officer's decision on primary purpose was based on what the applicant said during the interview. Mr. Singh made it clear that he had not met his fiancee. When then asked what he would do if he were unable to enter the United Kingdom for marriage, he replied:
  "What is the point of getting married then?"
  He was asked about the possibility of marrying his fiancee and taking her to live with him in India. To that he was frank enough to reply:
  "No, I would not marry her."
  The implication was that there was no point in marrying her if she wanted to live in India and not in England where he had decided that he wanted to live.
  Obviously, those were damning statements. If they were made, it is difficult to understand how anyone in his right mind could conclude that the young man's primary purpose was not to obtain entry to this country. In fairness to the applicant, and simply because the statements were so destructive of Mr. Singh's case, the entry clearance officer put the questions again, and he received those same damning replies.
  Mr. Singh was asked what he would do if his fiancée said that she wished to live in India after their marriage. Again, there was a most surprising reply if this man's principal motive had not been to get into this country at almost any cost. Mr. Singh replied that he wished to live in England and said, "Anyway, she is only a girl." In other words, he was the one who would make decisions, and his decision was that he would live in England. He said also, "I would tell her that she had to stay in England. I want to live in England."
  I do not believe that there could be any doubt about what he said. The interview was conducted in Hindi through an interpreter. I have no reason to believe that the entry clearance officer made a mistake. I do not believe that anyone would seriously suggest that the entry clearance officer would have been so wicked as to invent all those replies, which he has recorded. I have been to the Indian subcontinent to see our entry clearance officers at work, and I believe that they carry out a difficult job with skill, care and fairness. I repeat: anyone, having heard those replies by Mr. Singh, would have reached no conclusion other than that the primary purpose in Mr. Singh's mind of contracting that marriage was to obtain entry into Britain.
  Wherever there is a law or a rule there will, inevitably, be borderline cases about which it is difficult to judge whether they fall on one side of the line or another. The primary purpose rule has attracted much comment. In particular, the difficulty of applying it has been emphasised. I concede that some cases may be difficult, but this case cannot by the remotest stretch of imagination

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  be called a borderline case. When he came to this country Mr. Singh's own words permitted no other conclusion than that—I use the words in the 1980 and 1983 rules—the primary purpose of the intended marriage was to obtain admission to the United Kingdom.
  Mr. Singh had a right of appeal to an independent adjudicator. He lodged an appeal, but later withdrew it. I do not understand the suggestion by my hon. Friend that Mr. Singh had to withdraw the appeal. He could have had the evidence reviewed by the adjudicator, but he decided not to use that right. Instead, he travelled to Britain without any entry clearance and sought entry as a visitor. Not surprisingly, he was refused entry as a visitor, because the immigration officer was not satisfied that Mr. Singh was genuinely seeking entry for just two months and that he would leave the country at the end of that period. Mr. Singh was, therefore, refused leave to enter, and after a period of temporary admission was sent back to India.
  Mr. Singh's second application was made in November 1983, when he made a fresh application in Calcutta. By this stage he had met Miss Kaur, because he had been able to meet her when he was in this country on temporary admission. In view of the categorical statements made by Mr. Singh when he was interviewed in connection with his previous application, there was clearly nothing to be gained by a further interview, and the new application was also refused because the entry clearance officer had no reason to believe that the primary purpose had changed. An appeal has been lodged against the entry certificate officer's decision, and that is where the case now stands.
  I shall say a little about the appeal arrangements before I conclude, but first I want to say something about the principles on which the primary purpose rule, under which Mr. Singh's application has failed, is based, since I know that it concerns my hon. Friend. As I have said, the entry clearance officer and the other officials who have considered this case were not passing judgment on Miss Kaur. They were concerned with Mr. Singh's motives, not hers. It is worth reminding ourselves of a bit of the history of husband applications under the rules, to see why the primary purpose rule is necessary.
  Successive Governments have recognised that the pressure to obtain admission to this country is such that marriage can be abused as a device to get here. Indeed, the first safeguards to prevent abuse of the marriage provisions were introduced by the Labour Government in 1977. The then Minister who held my responsibilities, Dr. Shirley Summerskill, said that evidence left no doubt that there was substantial abuse. In other words, the right on the part of a woman settled here to bring in her husband was being substantially abused. As a result, the Labour Government changed what was then the rule so as to provide for refusal of entry clearance if the entry clearance officer had reason to believe that the marriage was one of convenience entered into primarily to obtain admission into the United Kingdom with no intention that the marriage should subsist thereafter.
  In 1979 the Conservative Government decided to strengthen what by then had come to be known as the safeguards. In the debate on immigration on 4 December 1979, my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison), said:
  "we are not talking about the marriage of convenience that takes place purely to secure entry and then collapses. That is dealt with
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  under the present rules, if somewhat imperfectly. We are talking about marriages that may last but are merely for the purpose of immigration."
  Later in the same debate, referring to the new primary purpose test, he said:
  "Our proposals will help to seal off an avenue of primary immigration".—[Official Report, 4 December 1979; Vol. 975, c. 368–72.]
  In 1979 we knew what we wanted to do, and we did precisely what we said we would do—take steps to seal off a new avenue to primary immigration which was being exploited. We were not attacking the traditional Asian custom of arranged marriages. We were out to stop that system being abused—to prevent marriages being used by people to get into this country. I want to make it clear that what is being applied is not a policy decided by me, but a set of rules approved by Parliament.
  I know that my hon. Friend shares the Government's concern to prevent the abuse of marriage for immigration purposes. Indeed, he made that clear when he discussed this case in February. On that occasion, and again today, he contrasted this case with another one where a marriage had broken down after the person concerned had been admitted and granted settlement. However, the cases were not alike. In any event, it is not profitable to compare one case with another without going into all the facts, and there is no time to do that today. In the case of Mr. Singh, it is clear, for the reasons I have explained, that emigration to this country was his intention. That is the abuse of marriage for immigration purposes to which I have referred.
  That is not, however, the end of the matter. As I have already said, Mr. Singh has appealed. It is sometimes forgotten how generous our rights of appeal are. Decisions in cases like this do not depend solely and simply on my views and that of my officials. As I have said, the case appears clear to me. Mr. Singh can now take it before an independent adjudicator. This is what he is doing. This is his right. The adjudicator will review the case and make his decision in the light of all the evidence. Even that will not be the end of the matter. I have already told my hon. Friend that I shall look at the case again in the light of the adjudicator's determination and any recommendations that he may make.
  My hon. Friend will be aware that many years ago Parliament set up the appellate authorities to provide for a statutory review of decisions taken under the immigration rules about which there is a dispute. The adjudicators and members of the immigration appeal tribunal are judicial officers, who act independently of the Home Office.
  The position regarding the latest appeal which Mr. Singh has lodged is that under the procedure rules governing immigration appeals the entry clearance officer, who is the repondent to the appeal, will, as soon as possible, prepare a written statement of the facts relating to his decision and the reasons for it, and submit it to the appellate authorities.
  The appeal was lodged on 27 January, six months ago. That is a long wait, and I regret it. I am afraid that a delay occurred after the entry clearance officer reported to the immigration and nationality department that Mr. Singh had lodged his appeal against the refusal of his new application. Due to an unfortunate slip in the referencing of the papers, the preparation of the appeal statement was

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  held up for a time. I apologise to my hon. Friend for this in view of the interest he has taken in the case, and through him I extend my apologies to Mr. Singh and Miss Kaur.
  The preparation of the explanatory statement is now well in hand. As soon as it is ready—which should be very soon—the appellate authorities will get in touch with Mr. Singh's representatives with a view to fixing an early date for the hearing. I shall ensure that the appellate authorities know of the unfortunate delay that has occurred. I shall do everything within my power to ensure that the hearing takes place as soon as possible.

  Train Derailment (Birtley)
  Mr. John Mc William: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) for interrupting his time, but may I ask your advice on how I can, at this late stage in our proceedings, given that we are to adjourn shortly for the summer recess, ask the Secretary of State for Transport to institute an inquiry into the train derailment which happened in Birtley in my constituency?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): There is no such provision. This is Adjournment time and the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) who has been fortunate in the ballot is entitled to have his full time. If he will give his authority for a couple of minutes, I shall allow it, but I want his permission.
  Mr. Derek Fatchett: I am happy at this late stage of the Session to show comradeship to one who wishes to raise such an important issue.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I shall allow the Minister to reply and I hope that he will be as brief as possible.
  2.1 pm
  The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. At 8.56 this morning the 7.45 Leeds-to-Edinburgh high speed train became derailed near Tyne yard signal box south of Newcastle. Initial reports are that, of the 200 passengers on the train, 26 have been injured. It is believed, however, that none of the injuries are serious. I should like to express my sympathy to everyone.
  The high-speed train, which is formed of eight passenger coaches with a power car at each end, was travelling over the 40 mph slow line when the derailment occurred. Six of the passenger coaches and one power car are derailed; one of the coaches is on its side and another is down an embankment. It is too early to be able to give any indication of the cause of the derailment.
  I understand that there was considerable damage to signalling equipment and that there will be delays to trains on the east coast main line. I shall ask the railway inspectorate to institute an inquiry into this accident.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Derek Fatchett.
  Mr. Fatchett: I am happy to allow time on that issue. Without taking over the Chair's responsibility, I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) wants to comment, but I shall happily give way.
  Mr. John Prescott (Kingston-upon-Hull, East): Further to the point of order. The House will be extremely grateful to my hon. Friend for having been so generous under the circumstances. I do not want to delay the House and I am sure that we are all pleased that we are not hearing an announcement similar to the one we heard about the previous rail incident where there were deaths and injuries. We wish the Secretary of State well with his inquiry into this incident.
  I have written to the Secretary of State today—not knowing about this announcement—expressing my grave anxiety about the number and causes of derailments. I hope that he will consider seriously the report of the railway inspector who studies these matters, and the amount of money being spent on track maintenance.

  Geriatric Provision (South Leeds)
  2.3 pm
  Mr. Derek Fatchett: I was happy to allow that time from the Adjournment debate because it raised an important issue and one that was relevant to my constituents as it was about the Leeds-Edinburgh train.
  The debate raises an issue of importance to many people in Leeds. It is about the care of the elderly, particularly in the southern part of the city. The problem first came to my attention just over a year ago when I was first elected as a Member of the House. The Minister may have heard many similar stories, but if I can put my case I believe that it illustrates the general problem graphically.
  The problem involved a constituent of mine whose daughter came to see me and said that she was prepared to continue looking after her mother, but that her mother was causing increasing difficulties and could not be left at home in the daytime while the daughter went to work. The mother was becoming increasingly verbally aggressive and her behaviour frightened other elderly people. The daughter was looking for hospital day care for her mother. The daughter wanted to come home from work in the evening and, in a caring way, look after her mother for the rest of the day. The problem that we have in Leeds—the Minister may well recognise this—is that there is no immediate adequate provision for that mother and daughter.
  The daughter made every effort to persuade the local social services department and the district health authority to provide the necessary resources to enable her to do that. The problem is that those resources are allocated in the northern part of the city. They may be insufficient but they are also wrongly allocated geographically for my constituent.
  There was no hospital day care provision available. If the lady were to be cared for in hospital, she would have to go to Wakefield, but there was no day care available. She would be on the waiting list for nearly two years to go into Wakefield hospital. In those circumstances, the daughter was faced with the unpleasant choice of giving up her work or taking the risk of leaving her elderly mother whilst she was at work. It was a difficult choice. It is one that none of us should have to face, but I suspect that it is fairly common for my constituents and those of my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees).
  That case illustrated the general problem. It has come to my notice in my surgery many times during the past 12 months. I accept that it is a common problem, and I am sure that the Minister will make that point when he replies. It arises because there is an increasingly elderly population. I do not underestimate the importance of that response, nor am I trying to make a party political point out of a central problem for our society of how we care for the elderly. I am trying to open the Adjournment debate in a way which shows the Minister that I am not making a simple party political point but one that may help us to understand and characterise the type of services that we have in our society.
  In Leeds there is, as the Minister will no doubt say, a problem of a growing, elderly population. I shall quote one or two of the figures. There are 66,800 pensioner households in the city, and 41,300 of those people live
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  alone. That represents a massive demand upon social services, housing and the district health authority. We are living longer. That may well be to our satisfaction and something to which we can look forward, but it creates extra demand upon the available resources within the community.
  In 1979 it was estimated that there were 12,100 people between the ages of 80 and 84 in the city of Leeds. By 1991 that figure will have increased by nearly 16 per cent. to 14,700. The population over the age of 85—the very elderly—in 1979 was 8,000. It will be 10,700 by 1991.
  Many of the problems in south Leeds would not be as difficult if we had adequate resources that fitted the criteria established by the DHSS. Unfortunately, the provision of old people's homes, part III accommodation, does not match DHSS requirements. The Minister will be aware that the DHSS issues a guideline of 25 part III accommodation places for each 1,000 elderly people. We provide only 19 in Leeds, and I am in no position to suppose that that figure will increase dramatically over the next few years. I am sure that the Minister will be the first to recognise the pressures on local authority capital expenditure. To reach DHSS standards we would need an additional 609 places in pan III accommodation.
  I understand that the DHSS guidelines are now 10 years out of date. It may well be that different guidelines should be established, given the increasing age of the population and the increasing frailty of many of the elderly.
  We have the problem of a growing, elderly community, and against that backcloth I should like to mention the sort of health services provided in Leeds—and particularly in south Leeds—for the elderly. It is obvious that the elderly are dependent upon the general provisions of the National Health Service. They make use of the available resources. Indeed, they probably use them to a much greater extent than younger people do.
  It is worth noting that 45 per cent. of the total bed-days taken up by general medicine in the Leeds general infirmary in 1982 were attributable to patients over 75. The elderly make use of the excellent resources at the Leeds general infirmary and St James's hospital, but there is a particular problem with geriatric beds.
  The Government have established their own guidelines for the number of geriatric beds. The position is a little complicated, because the area that the Western district health authority calls central Leeds is what my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South and I call south Leeds. In central Leeds, the number of geriatric beds allocated is below the DHSS guidelines. I am sure that the Minister will have seen the report of the working party set up by Leeds western district health authority. The working party reported in December last and concluded that there was a general shortage of resources in the southern Leeds area. On page 12 the report says:
  "The root of the difficulty here is a severe shortage of resources, in both quantity and kind, needed to operate an effective service in the area of heaviest demand."
  The Minister will no doubt recognise that the problems in south Leeds are exacerbated by the fact that it is an area of low average incomes and high unemployment. Those factors add to the difficulties of provision and the demand upon provision. That was recognised in the report of the Western district health authority.
  There is a specific problem of geriatric provision but there is a greater problem in regard to psychogeriatric care in south Leeds. Increasingly, elderly people have to be

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  referred to psychiatric care. If elderly people need psychiatric care in south Leeds, such care is not available there. It is not provided by either the eastern or western districts in south Leeds.
  An elderly person has to be referred to Stanley royal hospital in Wakefield. It puts great demands on the family of an elderly person. There are travel problems and it is difficult for a family in those circumstances to keep in touch with an elderly relative. An additional problem is that there is a waiting list of nearly two years for beds in Stanley royal hospital. I make no criticism of the facilities at Stanley royal hospital or of the staff there, but it is scandalous that in south Leeds a substantial elderly population has to rely upon Wakefield district health authority for psychiatric care and provision.
  I shall conclude my remarks shortly so that my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South may have an opportunity to make some comments. I suspect that the Minister is in no position to write the two of us a blank cheque for the provision of the necessary resources. It may well be that we are not in a position to say in detail what those resources should be. At this stage we need a recognition by the DHSS that an inquiry into the nature of the resources needed and their allocation would be beneficial for the people of south Leeds. There is the difficulty that four health authorities—the regional health authority, the two Leeds district health authorities and the Wakefield health authority—are concerned with the problem.
  I suggest that the only way to resolve the deep-seated problem—I hope that the Minister recognises that it is a deep-seated problem—would be to set up an inquiry through the DHSS bringing together the four relevant health authorities. They could then help to answer questions as to the services and resources that are needed. I am sure that there would be a positive response to such an inquiry, and that the authorities would all agree that they need more resources for the community and more day care facilities.
  I hope that the Minister will recognise the problems facing us in south Leeds and give us the opportunity of establishing our case through the procedures of the DHSS. Then, perhaps, we shall not have to come back on a future occasion and increase the demands, because we shall know that we are talking to a sympathetic Minister and a sympathetic Department.
  2.16 pm
  Mr. Merlyn Rees: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett) for giving me three or four minutes in which to speak about the problems in south Leeds.
  My hon. Friend noted that he now represents part of south Leeds. After 21 years in the area, it is apparent to me that south Leeds does not matter. Whichever Government are in power, and whatever the reorganisation in a variety of areas, south Leeds does not matter.
  South Leeds was the area of the industrial revolution. Clearance has taken 25 years and some remarkable things have been done. The Boundary Commission split south Leeds. I speak as a former Home Secretary, but not in any political way. South Leeds did not matter because it was not the sort of place from which people wrote letters to the press.
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  Ghastly flats were built and had to be knocked down. The architects who designed them lived not in south Leeds but elsewhere. Prince Charles knew what he was talking about when he criticised architects. If it had happened in the Soviet Union, the architects would have been sent to Siberia. I do not advocate that, but the architects were to blame for all those flats.
  Where are the only two motorways in Leeds? They run right through south Leeds.
  With regard to the Health Service, we need resources, but first the needs of south Leeds have to be properly considered. The Yorkshire regional health authority has told me that what I am advocating would involve a transference of resources.
  I should like to make just three points of a large number that have built up over the years. Services for the mentally ill in south Leeds are provided by Wakefield. There has been serious under-provision for some time. Services for the elderly who are also mentally ill—psychogeriatric services—are non-existent. That is a matter for serious concern. Some people say, "Block the waiting list." Thirdly, the increasing number of elderly people presents an escalating problem in terms of special housing needs and of care. There are no psychogeriatric services in south Leeds. I am telling the Minister, because he must have some responsibility in this area. Lack of psychogeriatric services puts a strain on the primary care teams and the relatives. Unless something is done there, we shall be wasting our time. If it was north Leeds or almost any other part of the country that was concerned, more notice might be taken of the problem. The general feeling in my area is that something should be done.
  Excellent geriatric services are provided by the eastern Leeds health authority, but, in their wisdom, the Government split us in two. The position in the western Leeds health authority is unsatisfactory. So far as this is his responsibility, we want the Minister to press for the provision of a psychogeriatric service, and not at someone else's expense. The service should be based at Leeds hospitals. South Leeds needs day hospital facilities, and the geriatric services provided by Leeds western district health authority should be made responsive to the needs of the people living there.
  If the House were full, hon. Members from other areas would still not comprehend what I am saying. Most of the people concerned are old ladies. If they have to go to hospital, they must go to Wakefield. They must travel to the middle of Leeds by bus and then all the way round to Wakefield, where they have to get further transport. Most hon. Members would not notice the sum of money involved, but it is a sizeable proportion of the income of these people.
  I do not say that Wakefield is not a desirable place. From the new constituency, I often pass through it. I can reach Wakefield easily in my car, but those people cannot, and they deserve to be treated in Leeds. There is something seriously wrong in south Leeds. I am not making a political point. South Leeds needs help and pressure, and that is what we are asking the Minister to provide.
  2.22 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. John Patten): Thanks to the generosity of the hon. Member for Leeds, Central (Mr. Fatchett)—both to those hon. Members who are concerned about the tragic railway accident and to his right

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  hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees)—I do not have a great deal of time for my reply. If I go at the best approximation that I can manage to an Olympic sprinter's pace, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me.
  I appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman talked about this issue and which was reflected in the way in which the right hon. Gentleman described the problems of south Leeds. It is good to see such issues discussed here in such a way.
  One of the accidents of my diary is that, at 3 pm today, I am to meet the chairman of the Yorkshire regional health authority. I shall draw this debate to his attention and make sure that he reads what has been said by the hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend.
  I could not accuse the hon. Member for Leeds, Central of having double standards—of being reasonable here, but highly critical of the Government in his own constituency. That excellent paper, the Yorkshire Evening Post, quoted the hon. Gentleman last Friday as saying that the problems of south Leeds had built up over the years. The hon. Gentleman did not especially blame the present Government. That is a very fair and even-handed way of examining the problems of the area.
  I will not rehearse the figures and statistics relating to the increasing problems that we all face in providing for a growing aged population, in the community, in geriatric homes or in terms of psychogeriatric provision. In many parts of the country, such provision is well distributed but, according to the hon. Gentleman, it is greatly underrepresented in his own constituency and that of his right hon. Friend.
  The hon. Gentleman referred to the lack of facilities in south Leeds and the dependence on the facilities in the neighbouring district of Wakefield. He made that point very forcibly. He referred to the lack of certain specific facilities within the district health authority area. I concede that in an ideal world every health authority would reflect, within its own geographical area, provision of every sort. However, we do not live in an ideal world. The boundaries between health authorities resemble in some ways the boundaries created by the boundary commissioners which split up old constituencies and break up old loyalties. They are not solid structures which are difficult to cross, like brick walls. They are administrative boundaries, often conterminus with local authority boundaries, and often designed to facilitate joint planning between health authorities and local authorities.
  The question is not just a matter of resources, although it would be foolish to deny the importance of resources. It is not just a matter of bed norms or norms for the number of places in part III accommodation. Norms may be easy to plan and easy enough to reach, but when one has reached them one may find oneself saying, "So what?". Care in the community has been one of the great developments of the past 10 years. We have tried to keep in the community, where most of them wish to be people who, 10 or 15 years ago, would have been regarded as geriatric. The hon. Gentleman should not be too deterministic about the boundaries of his local authority. He should not think that any movement from one district health authority to another is bad and that geriatric provision should be provided solely within a hospital, an institution or part III accommodation.
  In the five minutes that remain to me, I should like to examine the problem in a local context and then within the
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  regional context. These are the very issues that I shall draw to the attention of Bryan Askew, who does a good job as chairman of the regional health authority, when I meet him later this afternoon. In the local context, one of the most important things is good joint planning between district health authorities and local authorities. The joint consultative committee is the best forum for improving co-operation between them. The establishment of a working group is an important step in the care in the community approach that we are trying to foster. The south Leeds working group consists of representatives of the eastern Leeds health authority, the western Leeds health authority and Leeds city council.
  It is interesting to note that the group's final report refers to the
  "need for officers servicing the Joint Consultative Committee … to apply their high level of managerial skills towards ensuring better co-ordination in the planning and delivering of joint services so that individuals needing different kinds of help from more than one authority receive a more flexible responsive and truly joint service."
  That is an excellent aim. It also makes four crucial recommendations: first, to develop both short term and long term plans for increasing the level of service offered to elderly people with psychiatric problems; secondly, to assess the most appropriate future use of St. George's hospital, Rothwell; thirdly, to establish ways of improving the geriatric services provided by the western health authority for people living in south Leeds; and, fourthly, to establish the needs of homeless people in relation to the present and future use of Shaftesbury house—a local authority facility. All four recommendations are important and thought-provoking. Both Leeds health authorities have seen the working group's report and are preparing their responses for the next meeting of the joint consultative committee in September. We must await that committee's full consideration of the report before making any decisions on where to go next.
  In the wider context of Leeds, Wakefield and the county, we have asked all regional health authorities to prepare regional strategic plans for the next 10 years by early next year. I understand that, on 3 July, the chairman of Yorkshire regional health authority launched the outline strategy for the development of services in Yorkshire and emphasised the Government's and the regional health authority's desire that urgent emphasis be given to the development of services for elderly people, community-based services and especially services for the mentally ill who cannot look after themselves or be maintained in the community.
  In that outline strategy, Yorkshire regional health authority has instructed its district health authorities not to plan for district self-sufficiency, although it recognises that each district is responsible for securing, as far as possible, a comprehensive range of services for people in the area. The objective of the planning process is to ensure that the available resources of finance, manpower and capital are deployed as effectively as possible to maximise the services that are needed for patients. Everyone in the area can now make an input into the discussion of the 10-year plan.
  The western and eastern health authorities can do a great deal to help themselves by carrying through a substantial and sustained cost improvement programme which will make services more efficient and release resources for improvements in new developments, such as those which the hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend

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  would wish to see in south Leeds. It is within the framework of careful planning at local level by joint consultative committees involving the district and regional health authorities—within the framework of driving for greater efficiency and cost improvement—that the problems of south Leeds can, and will, be solved.

  Folkestone Tax Office (Closure)
  2.30pm
  Mr. Michael Howard: I am grateful for at last having the opportunity to raise the closure of the tax office at Folkestone, which is of such concern to many of my constituents. However, I am sorry that this concern should have caused the Minister the inevitable inconvenience of participating in a debate at this late stage before the House rises for the recess.
  I am particularly sorry that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who has ministerial responsibility for the decision which I seek to question, is unable to reply, although I understand why it has not been possible for him to be here.
  I raise this subject without enthusiasm. I wish to make it clear that I support the objectives that the Government are pursuing, both in general and in particular. I also support the way in which they are seeking to achieve those objectives. It is of the utmost importance for our economic future that the public service in all its manifestations should be efficient, effective and economic. Indeed, the economic future of the country is central to our future in all other respects. In particular, we cannot hope to achieve the social objectives that we all share in terms of education, health and the ability to help those in need if we do not have the resources necessary to achieve them and that can only come with economic success.
  I also accept that economic success means change. It means that we cannot expect everything to carry on as before, that we cannot expect all the services to which we have been accustomed to be provided in exactly the same way, and, even, that we cannot expect all our tax offices to remain intact.
  I believe that my constituents understand that and are prepared to support it. Indeed, the general election result in my constituency bears that out. However, if their support is to be retained and reinforced and increased, as I hope it will, it is essential that these necessary changes, particularly when they disrupt habitual patterns of life, are handled sensitively. Above all, they must be explained in a way which makes sense to those affected by them.
  On the major issues which occupy the centre of the political stage, this has been done. For those who are prepared to listen, the explanations exist and they are convincing. Had the Financial Secretary, during our lengthy exchanges on this matter, been able to convince me of the good sense of the Inland Revenue's decision to close the Folkestone tax office, and had he been able to convince me that that decision had been taken with full regard for all its implications for those affected and after a proper consideration for all the alternatives, I would have been prepared to commend that decision to my constituents and to defend it.
  However, it is a matter of regret that the Financial Secretary has not convinced me and that I have not been able to commend it, and having failed over a considerable period to convince my hon. Friend of the soundness of my criticisms of this decision, the only step now left open to me is to raise the matter in the House.
  To explain the basis of my dissatisfaction it is necessary to recite the history of my involvement in this matter. I shall not refer to all the correspondence that has passed between me and the Financial Secretary, but some of it is at least relevant, and I shall be obliged to refer to it.

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  The first I heard of the proposed closure of the Folkestone tax office was when, in late October of last year, I received a letter from the Financial Secretary. I do not blame him or anyone for that. I readily accept, as he told me in that letter, that his predecessor wrote a letter to my predecessor in April of last year giving initial notice of the Inland Revenue's plans. As it happens, neither my predecessor nor his secretary has any record or recollection of receiving such a letter. Nor have I, though my communications with my predecessor were, and are, excellent, and he was punctilious in keeping me informed of matters about which I might need to know. I do not complain or argue about that today. As I say, I accept that the letter was sent, and there could be many reasons why it failed to reach my predecessor and me.
  Whatever the reason, I knew nothing about this proposal until I received, towards the end of October, the letter from the Financial Secretary. In it he said, as one would expect, that a great deal of thought had been given to the effect which the proposal would have on the local community and whether that would outweigh the need for savings and greater efficiency. That is precisely the approach which I would have expected to be adopted. What has disturbed me about this decision is that I am not convinced that it has been.
  When I received my hon. Friend's letter, I took soundings in the constituency and then wrote to my hon. Friend. I asked him some questions. I asked whether an assessment had been made of the savings which could be expected to accrue from the closure. I asked for the result of such an assessment and, in particular, whether account had been taken of the fact that Folkestone had a high proportion of elderly residents who might be inconvenienced by having to travel further afield. I regret to say that I have not had answers which I consider to be satisfactory to the first two questions and that the answers to the third are not only mutually inconsistent but flatly contradictory of each other. That, in a nutshell, is the essence of my complaint.
  The Financial Secretary dealt with my first two questions in a letter to me in January of this year. He said that Folkestone dealt with fewer taxpayers and employers than either the Ashford or Dover tax offices, which lie on either side of the area currently served by the Folkestone tax office; that the geographical area dealt with by Folkestone district was smaller than that covered by the other two; and that its closure would cause less disruption to taxpayers and members of staff than the closure of Ashford or Dover.
  As criteria for decision-taking in this important area, those factors reveal a simplistic approach. First, they are based on a consideration of the three districts of Folkestone, Ashford and Dover in isolation from other districts in a way which I find surprising. Secondly, they ignore the qualitative differences between the various offices and their convenience in terms of location. Thirdly, they ignore such important factors as the ownership of the various premises under consideration.
  I will comment on each of those criticisms, but first explain the course which my discussions on the matter took. The Financial Secretary, having failed to satisfy me in correspondence, agreed to see me about the issue. When I put the various points to him at that meeting, he suggested that I meet the official at the Inland Revenue who had carried out the analysis on which the decision was
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  based and who would have detailed answers to questions of that kind. I welcomed that suggestion and the meeting duly took place.
  As I shall refer more than once to what was said at that meeting, let me make it clear at the outset that the official whom I met was courteous, helpful and, I have every reason to believe, frank. We had a useful discussion and he answered my questions fully. I asked him whether consideration had been given to the possibility of reorganising other units so as to arrive at a more satisfactory arrangement for the whole area. He replied that it had not, since other districts which were relevant were the right size and were not, therefore, the subject of further consideration.
  In one of his most recent letters to me, the Financial Secretary says:
  "It is not the case that the possibility of including Canterbury in the original appraisal was not looked at."
  I find that a puzzling assertion. If it means that Canterbury was looked at, found to be the right size and then ignored, it is consistent with what I was told by the official. It is no doubt accurate, but it is irrelevant since it does not meet the point that I was making.
  If it is to be ascribed a more substantive meaning, it is inconsistent with what I was told by the official to whom I was specifically referred by my hon. Friend as the person with all the detailed information at his disposal. Either way, the position is unsatisfactory and my first criticism of the first part of the decision, namely that the tax districts of Folkestone, Ashford and Dover were considered in isolation, is not satisfactorily met.
  My second criticism relates to what I described as the qualitative differences between the offices and their convenience in terms of location. If I sought to substantiate that point on the basis of a comparison between the Folkestone and Dover offices, it is not because I asked that the Dover office should be closed. I do not know whether any of the tax offices in the area should be closed, or, if one or more of them were closed, which of them it should be. My argument is that the question has not been properly examined and it is purely by way of illustration of that proposition that I make this comparison between the Folkestone office and the Dover office.
  The Folkestone tax office has a most convenient location. It is close to the railway station and it has ample car parking facilities. As my hon. Friend is doubtless aware, the Dover office does not have its own car park and is at least 15 minutes' walk from the railway station. These important matters should have been taken into account and given full weight in the decision. They were not mentioned as part of the simplistic criteria that were identified by the Financial Secretary in our correspondence. I have no confidence that they were given the weight that was justified.
  My third criticism relates to such matters as the ownership of the premises under consideration. On 25 January the Financial Secretary replied to a motion on the Adjournment that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris) about the closure of the tax office at Matlock. The Financial Secretary, as one of his principal reasons in justifying that decision, relied on the fact that closure of the Matlock office would enable the Department to give up leased

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  premises in Matlock and to use more fully the existing Crown building in Alfreton. That was a sensible basis on which to take the decision.
  In south-east Kent, the Folkestone tax office is a Crown building that could be used more fully, but the Dover office — again, I use Dover merely for illustrative purposes—is in leased premises. Therefore, if my hon. Friend were to adopt the same criteria for Kent as for Derbyshire, that would have been a powerful consideration in favour of retaining the Folkestone office, especially as I have repeatedly asked my hon. Friend in correspondence whether there were any plans to use the space in the Crown office at Folkestone after it was vacated by the Inland Revenue. The answer that I received from my hon. Friend on that point was that the Property Services Agency has not yet decided to what use the vacated floor in the Crown building would be put. The important point, however, is that the Inland Revenue is reducing its demands on the Government estate, thus giving the potential for savings.
  With the greatest respect to my hon. Friend, that was a most surprising statement. My hon. Friend is saying in effect that, for the sake of a purely notional saving that may never be translated into hard cash, he is prepared to continue with a certain liability in the form of the rent payable on the premises in Dover, which would otherwise be unnecessary. I hope that that sort of logic is not allowed to extend too far into other areas that come under the wing of my hon. Friend's Department.
  Finally, I turn to a factor in the issue that is of great importance in itself, and that illustrates the unsatisfactory way in which the decision-making process has operated in this case. Folkestone has a population with a proportion of elderly citizens that is well above average. That is important in this context for two reasons. First, it is especially important that they should have access to facilities of this kind. Secondly, they are likely to have particular need to call at their local tax office. The complications that can arise for someone who receives a small private income in addition to a retirement pension are considerable and can lead to much confusion. The problems can be substantially eased by a personal discussion at the local tax office.
  I was especially anxious, therefore, to establish whether the fact that Folkestone has an unusually large number of elderly people had been taken into account. In a letter of 1 December, my hon. Friend assured me that the problems faced by the elderly in Folkestone had been taken into account before the final decision was taken.
  When I met the official to whom my hon. Friend had referred me as the person responsible for the analysis—the man with detailed knowledge of the facts—I asked him how this fact had been taken into account. He replied that it had not. I was so surprised by this answer that I repeated the question, but the answer was the same. When I drew this inconsistency to the attention of my hon. Friend he suggested that there must have been a misunderstanding at our meeting. With the greatest of respect to my hon. Friend, the question, "Was the fact that Folkestone has an above-average proportion of elderly people taken into account?" and the answer "No" do not admit of much misunderstanding. While I cannot speak of any misunderstanding that may exist in my hon. Friend's Department, there was no misunderstanding at the meeting
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  that I had with his official. Nor was I greatly impressed by my hon. Friend's parenthetical reference in his letter after the meeting to the effect that Dover and the south coast generally have a high proportion of elderly taxpayers. The proportion of residents of pensionable age and over is over 25 per cent. in my constituency, just over 20 per cent. in Dover and under 18 per cent. in Ashford. That significant factor should have been taken into account. It is not surprising, in the light of the events that I have described, that I am not satisfied that that has been done or that, if it has, anything like sufficient weight has been given to it.
  When I think over the matter and try to identify the essence of my hon. Friend's reasons for the decision that was taken, I am driven back again and again to one sentence in his letter to me of 30 May this year, which reads:
  "Folkestone district is sandwiched between Ashford and Dover Districts and is the obvious office to close given the reorganisation of the three Districts into two".
  I am very conscious of the fact that I am a relatively new Member of the House. I am conscious of my inexperience, and I may be naive in such matters, but I had hoped, in my inexperience and naivety, that such decisions were taken on the basis of a rather more edifying principle than piggy in the middle. I have failed to discover any more edifying principle in my hon. Friend's justification of the decision on the matter and, even at this late stage, I beg him to reconsider it.
  2.46 pm
  The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Barney Hayhoe): I appreciate the courteous comments of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard) in opening the debate. There was no need for him to apologise for raising a matter of concern to his constituency. It does not matter what hour it is in the House. Part of the reason why we are all here is to provide just such opportunities. I am also grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for his understanding reference to my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, whose unavoidable absence from the debate, I can assure my hon. and learned Friend, is no more regretted by him than it is by myself. I shall try to respond to the points that my hon. and learned Friend made with the customary force and clarity that we associate with him, particularly when he is arguing a case on behalf of his constituency. I assure him that the Financial Secretary, with his officials, will study what he said. No doubt he will be in touch with my hon. and learned Friend if he feels that that is appropriate.
  Before dealing with the specific points about Folkestone, I think that it is right to try to set this matter in the wider context, as my hon. and learned Friend did. The general background is that in 1982 an Inland Revenue committee completed a review of the organisation of the local tax district network. It reported on the principles that should decide the size, and hence the number, of these offices. The report was part of a more general review of the work of inspectors of taxes, the aim of which was to help the Department to make the most effective use of those highly trained staff.
  As a first step, the Inland Revenue fused the principles recommended by the committee to prepare an outline plan for reorganising the tax district network. That was

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  announced to the House in April 1983, and a copy of the Inland Revenue report was placed in the Library, together with a note on the reorganisation proposals.
  The Department also circulated details of the proposals to staff and their union representatives to enable them to consider the plans and make representations. Press releases were also made in April 1983.
  In a relatively small number of cases the proposals involved the closure of the only tax district in a town, Folkestone being an example. Recognising the particular difficulties that those towns and their communities might face, the then Financial Secretary, now my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, wrote in April last year to each of the hon. Members representing those towns to alert them to the plans. I was sorry to hear today that that letter was not seen by my hon. and learned Friend, who was then a candidate, or by the former Member for his constituency. Nevertheless, the records show that a letter was sent. As I have explained, other ways were also found to publicise the proposals.
  In reaching final decisions, the views of hon. Members, other interested parties and staff were carefully considered. The consultative process lasted about six months and it was not until late October that the final plans were announced. My hon. and learned Friend said that that was the first he heard of the plans, and I am sorry that that should be so. I do not believe that it would have been possible to contact individually all those who might have had an interest in the matter to bring the proposals to their attention. That would have involved an enormous work load. Nevertheless, I believe that the Department has behaved reasonably and properly. Indeed, I believe that my right hon. Friend the former Financial Secretary was especially courteous in writing individually to those Members whom he believed were particularly concerned.
  Implementation of the final plans will mean the closure of 164 out of a total of 765 offices. That will allow more efficient and effective use of existing staff resources, especially trained inspectors, which is the prime purpose of the exercise. It will also provide significant savings in the cost of accommodation and administration throughout the country.
  More effective use of inspector resources will be achieved in various ways. For example, a large number of fully trained inspectors will be released from management duties for redeployment in areas in which it has already been shown that they will be more cost effective, although I am afraid that it is not possible to translate this move towards greater effectiveness and efficiency into some kind of profit and loss account with quantifiable financial savings. I should stress that the reorganisation plans are not a staff cutting exercise. The intention is to make better, more effective use of existing resources.
  The closures will come mainly in cities and towns which currently have more than one tax district. Birmingham, for example, which now has 21 tax districts will be reorganised into 10 offices. The plans also mean, however, that 23 towns—including Folkestone—will lose their only tax office.
  Where the proposals involved the closure of the only tax district in a town it was recognised from the beginning that factors other than efficiency and savings had to be taken into account. In particular, loss of access and the effect on the community generally and on the staff of the offices were of considerable importance. A difficult balance had to be struck. After careful consideration, it
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  was decided that of the 39 towns scheduled to lose their tax offices under the outline proposals announced in April 1983, 16 would retain their offices, which shows the willingness of the officials and Ministers concerned to listen to and take account of the representations that were made.
  Let me now deal with Folkestone specifically. I understand that the plan is to reduce the three tax districts in Folkestone, Ashford and Dover to two districts based in Ashford and Dover. Of the three existing districts, two are below the minimum recommended size and the other is less than optimum size. The arguments for change are compelling as the reorganised districts will both be of optimum size so that the best use of staff can be achieved.
  In arriving at this decision, south-east Kent was looked at as a whole. It was in that context that the decision was taken about Folkestone. At present there are five tax districts—Margate, Canterbury and the three previously named. In the event, it was decided that Margate and Canterbury should remain unchanged. Margate is already of optimum size and covers a compact geographical area. The same may be said of Canterbury, which is situated in the centre of the area for which it is responsible.
  Although it has been suggested that a feasible alternative would be to transfer part of the area now dealt with by the Dover office to Canterbury, with the remainder going to Folkestone, thereby closing the Dover office, I am advised that the fundamental objection to that suggestion is that Canterbury would consequently have to shed a significant part of its area to Sittingbourne district, which would be generally undesirable because Sittingbourne is both 16 miles away from Canterbury and is also a vital element in another reorganisation of six tax districts.
  We are dealing with an interlocking pattern. The disturbance of one part of that pattern can lead to considerable difficulties. The compelling reason for selecting Folkestone for closure was that it was judged to produce the least inconvenience to the tax paying public in the general area on the basis that one of the three district offices was to be closed.
  My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary is well aware that the closure of the Folkestone office will cause inconvenience to many of my hon. and learned Friend's constituents. It is true that a large number of elderly tax payers live in Folkestone, a proportion of whom undoubtedly find it difficult to understand all aspects of their tax affairs—do not we all?—and that for some personal contact is often the best and perhaps the only way in which matters can be properly explained to them. As my hon. and learned Friend acknowledged, Dover and the south coast generally are popular areas for pensioners and the closure of Dover, or indeed Ashford, would pose similarly difficult problems to that of Folkestone. Therefore, this was not an easy matter to decide. However, the Inland Revenue and my hon. Friend the Financial Secretry concluded that on balance the argument for the closure of Folkestone should prevail.
  My hon. and learned Friend referred to discussions that he had had with officials. As I have not seen a full record of them, it would probably be best if I did not comment on them. I hope my hon. and learned Friend will accept that the decision does not rest with the officials. The fact: that he raised the matter with my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary should make it clear that Ministers have reconsidered all the matters in the light of the

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  representations made by my hon. and learned Friend. It would have been wholly wrong if the Financial Secretary had not done that. My hon. and learned Friend and all other hon. Members will recognise the courtesy and care which the Financial Secretary takes when he deals with such matters.
  The arguments have undoubtedly been considered. Proper arrangements were made for consultations to be made before the decision was reached. My only regret is that the letter sent by tile previous Financial Secretary did not reach my hon. and learned Friend and that the possiblity of representations from him did not arise. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary is satisfied that due weight and consideration were given to all the arguments.
  More generally, the cost savings and improved operational efficiency that will result from the closure of 164 tax offices, including Folkestone, will make a worthwhile contribution to the Government's programme of improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of public services. Although my hon. and learned Friend may remain unconvinced about the Folkestone decision, I am glad that he underlined in his opening remarks his general support for the wider objective of getting better value for the money spent on the administration of the tax system. I was grateful for the general support which he gave to those plans.
  My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary will consider what my hon. and learned Friend said. It would be wrong if I held out any hope or gave any commitment of the likelihood of a change in the decision. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary will write to my hon. and learned Friend if anything that he said during the debate raises a new issue to which it would be appropriate for the Financial Secretary to respond.
  I hope that what I have said about the broader contents of this decision will go some way to assuring my hon. and learned Friend's constituents that the inconvenience which some of them will undoubtedly suffer as a result of the decision will be balanced overall by greater efficiency in the public services—an aim which we all share and support.

  Secondary Education (West Glamorgan)
  3 pm
  Mr. Gareth Wardell: I am grateful for the opportunity to comment on the approval by the Secretary of State for Wales of west Glamorgan's scheme for the reorganisation of secondary education in Gower in the face of objections from more than 2,500 people. It is vital to place this matter in historical perspective. On 19 May 1983, during the general election campaign, at a party political meeting in Bishopston, the Secretary of State for Wales made detailed comments on west Glamorgan's previous plan that was then before him. It is unprecedented for a Secretary of State, acting in a quasi-judicial capacity, to make detailed comments in that way. It showed a lack of integrity, an abdication of responsibility to Tory Central Office and a betrayal of trust.
  Subsequently, the Secretary of State turned down west Glamorgan's plan. He could do little else, as he had pre-empted any other decision by his earlier desire at Bishopston to catch votes. This afternoon, I seek an assurance from the Minister that such cheap political gimmickry will not be repeated.
  In that speech, referring to Gowerton school, the Secretary of State said:
  "I have considered the representations that have been made and examined the arguments very carefully and I have to say that Her Majesty's Inspectors would have to produce some quite unexpected and compelling arguments to persuade me that it would be right to destroy such a centre of excellence."
  As the plan that has now been approved will mean that the children of Bishopston, at the age of 16, will have the additional option of attending Gorseinon tertiary college, on top of their existing options to attend Gowerton school, Olchfa, and the college of further education at Swansea, and since the children of Gowerton comprehensive school will, at the age of 16, have the option of entering Gorseinon tertiary college under the plan, where is the unexpected and compelling evidence from Her Majesty's inspectors since that speech?
  On Monday of this week, when I asked the Minister of State whether he would publish the assessment and advice that he received from Her Majesty's inspectors on the county council's plans, he was not prepared to do so. I should be grateful if he would tell the House now how Gowerton sixth form pupils will be protected under the plan that he has approved.
  By turning down west Glamorgan's first plan, the Secretary of State forced west Glamorgan to turn to a second-best solution. It aroused anger and bitterness in me that neither the Secretary of State nor the Minister of State made any serious attempt to understand fully the complexities and implications of the plan that they approved.
  I give just two examples. Earlier this week I asked the Minister whether he would list the schools affected by this reorganisation that Ministers in his Department had visited before approving the reorganisation. His reply was, "None." In other words, no Minister went to see the implications on the ground.
  I draw my second illustration from the letter sent out from the Welsh Office giving the decision of 20 July. It states:

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  "The release of the Penyrheol lower school building for use by the Treuchaf primary school will now be delayed a further three years."
  However, on Monday of this week when I asked the Minister, first, about the modification or conditions that he attached to his approval of the plan by west Glamorgan, his answer was:
  "My right hon. Friend approved the proposals without modification. He has no power under the Education Act 1980 to impose conditions."
  On the same day, I asked him whether he would publish in the Official Report the definitive date when the pupils of the bilingual school at Loughor would be transferred to Talbot road Gowerton. He replied:
  "This is a matter for West Glamorgan county council."
  In the letter from the Welsh Office giving the Minister's decision, he said specifically that this matter would be delayed for three years, yet he is in no position to do that, as he made clear in answer to those two questions earlier this week.
  In a letter published in last night's South Wales Evening Post, the parents of Welsh-speaking children said that, if bilingual pupils were not moved as promised to Gowerton, the Welsh and English parents would fight the Welsh Office together. The letter continued:
  "The site is not large enough for 750 pupils (the proposed size of the school) nor would there be room for all the facilities, for example, science and language laboratories, metal and woodworking areas, domestic science facilities, etc., needed by a secondary school for 11 to 16-year-olds. If there was any move to make the site permanent, we could all object together."
  To whom will those parents object if the plans go through as the Minister says in his letter? In three years' time those children will be moved. He has no power to compel the local authority to make that move, yet he says that in three years that move will take place.
  In another question this week, I asked the Minister what grounds there were to reject the first plan. In his reply, he said that one of the reasons, though not the main one, was the excellence at Gowerton school. He said:
  "The Oystermouth location for the proposed bilingual secondary school was also unacceptable."
  But the Oystermouth school would have had existing facilities for 11 to 16-year-olds. It had the laboratories and the facilities that would have been possible for a bilingual school to be set up there. It would have given the county council the flexibility that it needed to prepare the buildings at the Talbot road site in Gowerton, even with the Government cuts in local authority expenditure. Now that flexibility has gone.
  There is not one way in which the scheme is an improvement on the one that the Secretary of State rejected. The new scheme will cause great hardship to many children in Gowerton. The Gowerton sixth form will contract. Indeed, it will probably disappear following the attendant decline in morale among its staff and pupils. The children will vote with their feet and go to the new tertiary college.
  The primary schoolchildren at Treuchaf will remain where they are, unsure when their facilities will be improved. Plaster is falling off the ceilings within the building and there is not one hall in the school where they can have a morning assembly together. Four-year-old children will be sharing a playground with secondary school pupils drawn from a wide area of west Glamorgan. In three years' time there is no guarantee that the bilingual
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  school will have adequate facilities and the primary children of Penyrheol will remain in an antique building with relatively primitive facilities.
  I have considered this issue extremely carefully. I would not have made comments on a personal level against the Secretary of State or the Minister of State without going through a most careful and heart-searching process. I am sure that the Minister will accept that I would not have made this criticism without first considering carefully all the facts.
  The county council's plan was rejected during a party political meeting. That has resulted in the children of many primary schools in my constituency having to tolerate inadequate facilities and in west Glamorgan having been forced to produce a solution that is far from ideal. I wish that the Secretary of State or the Minister of State had visited the schools. As politicians, we are so often accused of being far away from the grassroots that we represent. I know the schools at first hand and I would not have spoken in such a personal way had I not felt deeply within me a considerable sense of anger and bitterness.
  I hope that the Minister will give me an assurance that no more schemes will be rejected at party political meetings. I hope that in future Welsh Office civil servants will not make statements that are later contradicted by the Minister's answers to me. It is plain that the Minister is in no position to say to the people of Treuchaf that in three years the Penyrheol lower comprehensive school building will be theirs. He cannot do that; if only the Minister understood that and other arguments that I have been advancing, he would be able to press the local authority to make changes, even on the basis of the arguments that are contained in the letter of 20 July.
  3.13 pm
  The Minister of State, Welsh Office (Mr. John Stradling Thomas): The hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell) has been fortunate enough to have the opportunity in this debate to present yet again a series of sectional arguments against the approval of West Glamorgan county council's reorganisation of post-16 education in Penyrheol, Pontardulais and Gorseinon and the establishment of a second bilingual school in the county.
  The hon. Gentleman knows, or should know since he has been told often enough, that the initiative for such proposals rests entirely with local education authorities, not with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State or myself. This is right and proper, as the duty of ensuring that sufficient and adequate education provision is made to meet the needs of their areas is placed firmly on the authorities by the Education Acts.
  Labour Members are fond of levelling at the Government the charge of unwarranted interference in local affairs and frequently talk blandly about centralisation and the erosion of local democracy when it suits them. to do so. But local democracy is apparently acceptable only when it results in conclusions and decisions which meet with their approval. In all other cases, as we have noted this afternoon, they press continually for more interference in local affairs and, as in this case, criticise my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for permitting local authorities to implement proposals that arouse any dislike or opposition whatever.
  I have said that the initiative for making proposals rests with the local authorities. If a local education authority

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  intends to establish, close or significantly alter the character of a county school, notices of the proposal must first be published in accordance with section 12 of the Education Act 1980. A period of two months after publication is allowed in which objections may be made. Most commonly, satutory objections are those submitted by 10 or more local government electors for the area acting together. If statutory objections are registered the decision on the proposal is automatically reserved to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State who then has three options. I believe that the hon. Member for Gower, with his experience in education, knows that full well. He has to be reminded of it, however, because of the overblown rhetoric of his recent speech. The three options are as follows. My right hon. Friend may reject the proposal, approve it, or, after consulting the local education authority, approve it with such modifications as he thinks desirable. I remind the House that the scope for modification is limited in that it may not substantially change the character of a proposal. A typical example would be a change in the implementation date.
  It is worth pausing to make a few observations on the limits which the Act quite rightly imposes on my right hon. Friend's powers. First, he cannot make proposals for school reorganisation. He can only approve or reject those made by authorities. Secondly, he cannot substitute his judgment for that of the authority which makes a proposal, except that he can reject a proposal which does not commend itself or, after consultations with the proposing authority, approve it with modifications which fall within fairly narrow limits which I have already described. Thirdly—this is important—he cannot give a conditional approval. He may express views on the implementation of proposals—and frequently does so, as in the decision letter—but these views do not carry the weight of his statutory decision. In practice, therefore, his statutory function is essentially United to the approval or rejection of proposals made by responsible local authorities.
  The proposal by West Glamorgan county council, which is the subject of this debate and which was recently approved by my right hon. Friend, is for the establishment of a second bilingual secondary school in the county to open in September this year. It is to be established initially in the premises occupied until now by the lower school of Penyrheol comprehensive school and will move in 1987 to the Talbot street premises presently occupied by Gowerton comprehensive school. The proposal also provides for the cessation of post-16 education at Penyrheol comprehensive school from September 1986 and the provision from that date of post-16 education currently provided in the school and in the college of further education at a tertiary college in Gorseinon.
  Until now there has been only one bilingual secondary school in west Glamorgan and that is in Ystalyfera, which is virtually on the northern boundary of the county, as the hon. Member is aware. He did not say that its pupils have come from a very wide area, with many having to undertake long and difficult journeys to get there. But he concedes that it has become increasingly evident that a second such school is needed in the county to cater for likely future needs and to provide secondary bilingual education in the western part of the county.
  The Government's policy is that bilingual education at both primary and secondary level should be provided to
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  meet local needs wherever this is possible. I challenge any Opposition Member to dispute that there is a demand in the western part of west Glamorgan, particularly in the hon. Member's constituency. Obviously, it is for the local education authority to assess those needs in the first instance and to determine how they can best be met. I find it surprising that the hon. Member should concentrate so completely on a whole range of other issues and ignore the central fact that the proposal and decision give an enormous boost to bilingual education in his constituency and in the county generally. He seems to be positively dismissive of that. By his words he shall be judged.
  West Glamorgan county council has formally adopted a policy of providing post-16 education so far as possible in a number of tertiary colleges throughout the county, and the part of the proposal which relates to Penyrheol comprehensive school is in furtherance of this policy. Furthermore, this part of the proposal has been generally accepted, and indeed expected, by the people of the area.
  It may be asked — I understand this because it is complicated—what connection there is between these two parts of the proposal and why they were not dealt with separately. To some extent that is at the heart of the debate, but it is not a question that I can answer. The proposal is the authority's proposal—I cannot emphasise that too much—and it was its view that provision for the bilingual school could be made only in the context of a proposal which extended also to the reorganisation of sixth form education in the Penyrheol-Pontardulais area. It was and remains my view that the two aspects would have been better dealt with separately. I think that has given rise to much of the difficulty, but I respect the alternative view taken by the authority and I can see its grounds for taking it. Whether I agree or disagree is irrelevant.
  Hon. Members will remember that in 1983—much play was made of this by the hon. Gentleman—my right hon. Friend rejected an earlier similar proposal by the authority. That proposal would have located the bilingual secondary school initially at Oystermouth, which would have entailed some problems, before moving to its long-term site in premises at Gowerton comprehensive school. The proposal would, however, have included a change in the status of Gowerton comprehensive school so that it no longer provided education beyond the age of 16. The Secretary of State was unable to accept this part of the proposal, for reasons I gave earlier, and perforce rejected the whole.
  Mr. Wardell: At a party political meeting.
  Mr. Stradling Thomas: The hon. Member makes great play about party political meetings. He tries to have the best of both worlds. In some instances he claims that the decision was taken before, but when it suits him he blames the Secretary of State for delaying the decision until after the election. He can try to have his cake and eat it, but he cannot get away with it.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State welcomed the proposal for a second bilingual secondary school and hoped that the authority would quickly make alternative proposals for its establishment. The authority did so earlier this year, and those proposals have been agreed and will now be implemented.
  I emphasise that the Secretary of State and the authority are both convinced of the need for the school and that there

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  is a very large measure of public support for it in the county. I am only sorry that the hon. Member does not throw in his weight for such a desirable development.
  The proposals now approved stimulated no objections to the removal of post-16 education from Penyrheol comprehensive school and do not affect the age range catered for at Gowerton. In the Secretary of State's view, the proposal was acceptable and would forward the provision of bilingual education in the county as well as making adequate provision, in line with the authority's policy for post-16 education in the Penyrheol/Pontardulais area, thus making the best of the two complicated matters that were brought together in the proposals.
  There were a number of objections to the bilingual school— not, I would stress, to its establishement as such but to its siting. Primarily, those centred on the present premises of Tre Uchaf primary school and Penclawdd junior school. As the hon. Member has explained, the parents of children at Tre Uchaf primary school have long expected that the premises of Penyrheol lower school would, when vacated by the comprehensive school, be made available for the primary school. They claim, in fact, that the authority made promises to that effect.
  I concede immediately that there are unsatisfactory features at the present primary school premises — as there are at many others in west Glamorgan and elsewhere in Wales—and there is no doubt that the secondary school premises would—after remodelling, I remind the House—offer superior accommodation. That building will, in any event, be available for reassignment in 1987 when the bilingual school moves to its long-term premises in Talbot street. That is the plan. Whether it will then be made available for Tre Uchaf primary school I cannot say, but I have no doubt that the authority will bear in mind the needs of that school and its claim to those premises.
  Similarly, the parents of pupils at Penclawdd junior school had hoped that the school would be able to move into the Penclawdd annex of Gowerton comprehensive school. The allocation of the Talbot street premises to the bilingual school will undoubtedly delay the day when the Penclawdd annex can be released for other use, but again I expect that when that day arrives the authority will be mindful of the needs of Penclawdd junior school.
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  I do, of course, as does the Secretary of State, appreciate how bitter is the disappointment of the parents of children at both primary schools that the schools must, for the time being at least, continue in premises inferior to others which might have become available.
  The authority took the view that the higher priority lay with the extension of bilingual secondary provision and the rationalisation of post-16 education. That is a view that the Secretary of State accepted in making his decision. Certainly he saw additional bilingual provision as a major priority.
  In a perfect world, it would be possible to make proposals and decisions which would satisfy all demands simultaneously and fully. But, sadly, on the eve of the recess, we do not live in a perfect world or one provided with a cornucopia of resources, whether in the form of money or of desirable school premises. Authorities have to make choices and set priorities, and decisions have to be made on a balance of advantages and disadvantages.
  In the present case, there are positive advantages for bilingual education, and provision in the two primary schools will be no worse than before. They will suffer no disadvantage; they will simply not gain now an advantage which they expected.
  In giving his decision in the case, the Secretary of State set out his reasons fully and expressed to the authority his hope that all reasonable steps would be taken to minimise any problems facing the two primary schools and Gowerton comprehensive school. He and I are convinced that his decision was in the best interests of education in west Glamorgan, and I am surprised, for the reasons that I have given, that the hon. Member does not agree.
  Nevertheless, Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege, at 3.29 pm on 1 August, to wish you personally and the rest of the House a happy and flourishing recess.
  Mr. Speaker: Before I adjourn the House, I should like to wish all hon. Members a restful and a refreshing holiday. I am sure that they would like me to express that wish and hope to all staff of the House who serve us so well.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Three o'clock till Monday 22 October, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of 26 July.