Commons Sitting of 31 January 1984

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  ALEXANDER PARK AND PALACE BILL.
  To be read a Second time upon Thursday.
  ANGLIAN WATER AUTHORITY (KING'S LYNN TIDAL DEFENCES) BILL.
    ASSOCIATED BRITISH PORTS (NO. 2) BILL.
    Read a Second time and committed,
    BRITISH RAILWAYS (NO. 2) BILL.
    To be read a Second time upon Thursday.
    CARDIFF CITY COUNCIL BILL.
    Read a Second time and committed.
    DARTMOOR COMMONS BILL.
    To be read a Second time upon Thursday.
    GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL.
    Read a Second time and committed.
    LONDON TRANSPORT BILL.
    To be read a Second time upon Thursday.
    MERSEYSIDE DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION BILL.
    Read a Second time and committed.

    PIECE HALL, HALIFAX BILL.
    Mr. Speaker: I have considered the content of this Bill with the greatest care. I am of the opinion that it is so drafted as to permit the unrestricted trading on Sundays throughout the year in the area to which it extends. The considerations involved are so much a matter of public policy that the Bill cannot properly proceed as a private Bill and accordingly I cannot propose to the House the Question for its Second Reading.
    Order for Second Reading read and discharged.
    Bill withdrawn.

    STANDARD CHARTERED BANK BILL.
    Read a Second time and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for private Bills.
Oral Answers to Questions
  SOCIAL SERVICES

    Committee on Safety of Medicines
    Mr. Loydenasked the Secretary of State for Social Services when he will next meet the chairman of the Committee on Safety of Medicines.
    The Minister for Health (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): My right hon. Friend met Sir Abraham Goldberg in October 1983. Further meetings will be arranged as needed.
    Mr. Loyden: Will the Minister make it his business to meet the chairman of the committee and ask him why, when it was reported in August 1983 that the drug Osmosin had been linked with 600 to 650 adverse effects and 20 deaths, no steps were taken by the United Kingdom authorities to withdraw the drug, and it was the West German authorities who approached the drug company to have the drug withdrawn? Is it not a scandal that, although the figures used by the West German authorities came from the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom authorities took no steps in connection with the drug and the Minister made no statement to the House on this serious matter?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask for shorter supplementary questions.
    Mr. Clarke: No, I do not accept that there was any avoidable delay in this case. The drug was only marketed in this country in December 1982. In July 1983 the Committee on Safety of Medicines was advising doctors of the risks connected with it. Action was then taken in Germany and the drug has now been withdrawn from the market.
    Mr. McCrindle: Can my right hon. and learned Friend clarify the committee's position on the morning-after contraceptive pill? Has the committee said that it is safe if used on its own, that it is safe if used in conjunction with more conventional oral contraceptives, or that it is not safe at all?
    Mr. Clarke: The committee has advised that it is safe as an emergency measure only. It should not be contemplated as a normal form of contraception. The committee has advised doctors of the most desirable method of morning-after contraception. Those who think that they may need to take such steps are advised to consult their medical practitioner.
    Mr. Kirkwood: The Minister will be aware that anxiety has been expressed recently about the difficulty which the elderly have in interpreting prescriptions for some of the medicines which are prescribed for them. Will the Government express a view on that?
    Mr. Clarke: If the hon. Gentleman's question relates to the recent report by the Royal College of Physicians on overprescribing for the elderly, I must tell him that I welcome that report. Its conclusions are in line with the kind of advice the Department tries to give.
    Mr. Tim Smith: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the letter which was sent by the Committee on Safety of Medicines on 20 October last year, and the list attached which gave the progestational
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    potency of certain oral contraceptives, was confusing to doctors and patients? Will he arrange for the list to be withdrawn?
    Mr. Clarke: No, I do not think that it is confusing because it accompanied a letter from the Committee on Safety of Medicines giving clear advice on those contraceptive pills. The conclusion is that that they are a perfectly desirable and reasonable method of contraception, but that women who finish their present course of pills would be advised to consult their medical practitioner so that he can perhaps consider changing to a different pill for the next course.
    The list has been criticised because some people have criticised one of the pieces of research upon which it is based which sought to link progesterone with breast cancer. The letter from the committee which accompanied the list made it clear that that theory was not endorsed by the committee. We and the committee are trying to keep up to date with all the research in this sphere and will endeavour to issue the best advice that we can to medical practitioners and women.

    Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act
    Mr. Jack Thompsonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he has any plans for the fuller implementation of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Tony Newton): The implementation of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 is a matter for local authorities. They are in the best position to assess individuals' needs and make arrangements for them.
    Mr. Thompson: What was the basis of the Minister's calculation that it would cost £30 million to amend section 1 of the Act in the way proposed in the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing)? Secondly, is it not shoddy, scandalous and disgraceful of the Government to have presided over a cut of more than 50 per cent. in the provision of telephones for disabled people under section 2 of the Act, thus causing acute problems for authorities such as the Labour-controlled Northumberland county council, which restored the provision of telephones for the disabled in 1981 following the cuts made by the Tory-controlled county council?
    Mr. Newton: The answer to the first half of the hon. Gentleman's question is that the basis of the calculation was that it cost £750,000 to conduct such surveys for 1·5 million people in Northern Ireland. By a simple arithmetical process we calculated roughly what it would cost for the whole of Great Britain.
    My reply to the second half of the hon. Gentleman's question is that he will be aware that there has been some contact between the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation and the Liverpool local authorities about the provision of telephones. I understand that there has been a further meeting between them this month.
    Mr. Andrew Bowden: Does my hon. Friend accept that telephones are vital for elderly people living on their own? I realise that funds are short, but could he tell local authorities, at an early opportunity, to make money available for this valuable service?
    Mr. Newton: I am anxious that local authorities should make appropriate provision. My hon. Friend will be aware that a number of local authorities are studying such schemes as alarm systems which contact a warden or some other person. In many cases that may be more appropriate than a telephone.
    Mr. Litherland: What is the Minister doing about Tory-controlled county councils such as Kent, whose social workers appear to be going with a begging bowl to charitable organisations to provide adaptations for the disabled when that should be the local authority's responsibility.
    Mr, Newton: I cannot accept the hon. Gentleman's language. We are strongly in favour of developing partnership and co-operation between statutory and voluntary services. That is important for disabled people, and I am pleased to say that it appears to be growing faster in Kent than elsewhere.
    Mr. Galley: Does my hon. Friend agree that far more progress has been made during the past 10 years in integrating disabled and able-bodied people into the community by the dedicated hard work of a vast range of voluntary bodies than could ever be achieved by legislation or local authority activity? Does my hon. Friend accept that the right course of action is to promote and pay tribute to that work? Should not local authorities set their priorities? If they give priority to the disabled, the money is available for that.
    Mr. Newton: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I hope that he will agree with me that both the statutory and voluntary sectors have an important role to play. The key is that they should work together.
    Mr. Meadowcroft: Will the Minister seek to persuade the Secretary of State for the Environment to increase the grant-related expenditure targets, to enable local authorities to provide services under the Act? If the Minister does not do that, I fear that his work will be hampered and many of his words will sound hypocritical to local authorities.
    Mr. Newton: I shall ensure that the hon. Gentleman's words are passed on to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. The hon. Gentleman will know that there has been a modest amendment to the terms and conditions of the rate support grant in connection with joint finance.
    Mrs. Currie: Does my hon. Friend agree that if local authorities such as Derbyshire county council did not spend daft amounts of money on such items as a free newspaper — which is costing £100,000 a year in my local authority — and the advertising of school meals, when the take up is already 87 per cent., they would have sufficient money to implement the Act?
    Mr. Newton: I am not sure that I wish to intrude too much into the domestic politics of Derbyshire. However, I agree with my hon. Friend that many local authorities could spend their money more wisely.
    Mr. Alfred Morris: What is the Minister's attitude to charging severely disabled people who are on supplementary benefit for their home helps? Is it right or wrong to do so?
    Mr. Newton: Both I and my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health have said that we would
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    prefer local authorities not to charge those on supplementary benefit, or on incomes below that level, for home helps.

    Child Benefit
    Mr. Lilleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether child benefit has increased in real terms between April 1979 and November 1983.
    The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Norman Fowler): Yes, Sir. Child benefit is now paid at £6·50 a week, compared with £4 a week in April 1979. The value of child benefit is now higher in real terms than it has ever been.
    Mr. Lilley: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer, which obviously conflicts with the widespread impression on the Opposition Benches. What is the current position of the additional benefit for one-parent families?
    Mr. Fowler: That benefit rate was increased to £4·05 last November. It has more than doubled during a period when prices rose by less than 70 per cent.
    Mr. Yeo: Does my right hon. Friend agree that raising child benefit by more than the amount shown in the Autumn Statement will be the most cost-effective way of helping those suffering from the poverty trap? Will he use his best endeavours to persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer to devote what resources are available in this year's Budget to raising child benefit, in preference to a cut in income tax?
    Mr. Fowler: There is obviously a strong case for raising child benefit. I shall pass my hon. Friend's comments on to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    Mr. Ashton: Will the Minister obtain a video recording of the "World in Action" programme last week, which showed the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris) living for a week on £26·80 and having to shop with the unemployed in Newcastle? Did not the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West say openly at the end of that week that child benefit for the unemployed was not sufficiently high and that there should be a shift of child benefit away from the rich and towards the unemployed?
    Mr. Fowler: I shall certainly take up the hon. Gentleman's first suggestion. I understand that he is advocating a differential child benefit. We shall certainly consider that suggestion, but I had not realised that it was favoured by the Opposition.
    Mr. Frank Field: Given the crucial importance of child benefit in increasing the freedom and control which families have over their lives, I congratulate the Government on their record. However, before Ministers become too complacent, may I remind the House that the last Labour Government injected an additional £1,500 million into the child benefit scheme? When will this Government begin to match that record?
    Mr. Fowler: What we shall seek to do—and I do not think there is any difference between us on this—is to increase child benefit in line with what the economy, the nation, can afford. I do not think that there is any difference between us on the importance of child benefit.

    Open-heart Surgery (Manchester)
    Mr. Tony Lloydasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what representations he has received about resources for open-heart surgery at Wythenshawe hospital, Manchester.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I have answered two parliamentary questions from the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) and I have received two letters, including one of 12 January 1983, from the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Lloyd: Will the Minister accept that even with recent announcements of increased resources for open-heart surgery at Wythenshawe hospital, the resources are grossly inadequate for the need? Is he aware that the chairman of the district health authority is on record as saying that
    "the evidence is that"
    —even with these additional resources—
    "the waiting list will continue to grow and as the Senior Cardiothoracic Surgeon has said premature deaths will continue to occur."
    Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that the Government have a responsibility for such needless deaths, and what does he propose to do about this human tragedy?
    Mr. Clarke: Open-heart surgery is one of those areas where great medical advance has been made, so that we can now treat successfully patients who a few years ago would have died, but it is no good describing that kind of situation as though it were some sudden area of deprivation. It is a sudden improvement in the Health Service, where resources are now following medical advance, providing more operations, and last year at this hospital 666 operations, more than ever before, were carried out. As the hon. Gentleman said, finance is now available to open an extra bed for this purpose in the intensive care unit. The region is now looking at proposals to expand the unit to 1,000 patients treated per year from next year. However, this must be judged alongside all the other increases in claims for health care, and we must remember the pressing claims of renal dialysis and many other areas when considering the allocation of funds in the acute sector.
    Mr. Favell: My right hon. and learned Friend will be aware that I have written to him on this subject this year and that he has received a reply from the regional health authority chairman. Is he aware that one of the main problems is that the Wythenshawe hospital unit is a victim of its own success? It has been enormously successfull with this new form of surgery and, because of that, waiting lists have grown. It is true that every effort is being made by the hospital to tackle those waiting lists, and my right hon. and learned Friend will be pleased to learn that I have received a letter only today from a constituent saying how grateful she is for the open-heart surgery that she has just had at Wythenshawe hospital.
    Mr. Clarke: I confirm all that my hon. Friend said, including the fact of his representations on the subject. This is an area where funds have just been increased so that the unit can go up from nine to 10 beds. We are treating more patients successfully, making this one of those successes of the Health Service with which those who administer it try to catch up as rapidly as possible.
    Mr. Alfred Morris: How many people are on the hospital's waiting list for heart surgery, and what is the average waiting time? Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that six patients on the waiting list died within a fortnight just before Christmas? Is he also aware that two people a week have been dying because, it is said, of inadequate staffing? Is it not deplorable that there have been deaths that could have been prevented, at a time when many thousands of nurses are on the dole?
    Mr. Clarke: The waiting list is a little over 300. It is, sadly, of the nature of a waiting list of this kind that patients will die while waiting for heart treatment. Indeed, some patients who have the operation die afterwards. What we have is a new source of demand because of the medical success of the people in this unit, which has been getting more money and staff as we attempt to cope with that increased demand. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will welcome the recent increase in staffing and funding of the unit, as he will welcome the fact that the region is looking at plans for further expansion.

    Disabled Persons (Discrimination)
    Mr. Wareingasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will make a statement on the alleged case of discrimination against a disabled person, details of which were sent to him by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby.
    Mr. Newton: I have written to the hon. Member about both the cases that he referred to me.
    Mr. Wareing: I note the Minister's reply. Does he now share the delight of so many organisations representative of disabled people that my Bill has received a Second Reading in the other place? Will he now justify his title as Minister with responsibility for the disabled by undertaking that should the Bill receive a Third Reading in the other place he will receive it into this House in a constructive and helpful way, rather than in the destructive manner in which he dealt with it previously?
    Mr. Newton: I have already told the hon. Gentleman and others of my reservations about whether his Bill would achieve what he claims it would do. Indeed, I believe that the positive steps which the Government are taking in a whole range of spheres — employment, education, training and transport—are doing far more for disabled people than any legislation of the kind that the hon. Gentleman has proposed.

    Leicestershire Health Authority
    Mr. Lathamasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the latest position regarding the allocation of financial resources to the Leicestershire health authority.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Regional health authorities have been informed of their revenue and capital allocations for 1984–85. In continuation of our policy of distributing health resources more fairly throughout the country, the Trent region will receive real growth of 1·6 per cent. as against the national average of 1 per cent. It is for the Trent regional health authority to decide on the allocation of these resources to its district health authorities, including Leicestershire.
    Mr. Latham: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that although Leicestershire will probably have an extremely welcome increase of about 2 per cent. in real terms in the next financial year, it is still stuck on 93 per cent. of national resources for its funding? Will he continue to press ahead with the RAWP formula to redistribute resources to under-funded areas such as Leicestershire?
    Mr. Clarke: Both my hon. Friend's statements are correct. As he said, his district is stuck at 7 per cent. below the RAWP target. It was 17 per cent. below that target when the Labour party handed over the NHS to this Government's care. We shall continue our policy of improving the distribution of resources.
    Mr. Dobson: Does the Minister accept that in the current year the Leicestershire district health authority has had to make cuts of more than £1 million in its intended expenditure? What does he think the allocation is likely to do for the almost 7,000 on hospital waiting lists in the Leicestershire district?
    Mr. Clarke: The hon. Gentleman is talking about the July adjustment and ignoring the fact that Leicestershire was given growth money before that and that it has continued to have growth money throughout the Government's period of office. The effect of that has been to bring it nearer to the national target. The manpower targets exercise gave Leicestershire an increase in staff of 102, and the authority is well on course to opening the new Glenfield hospital this year. If the hon. Gentleman is trying to take Leicestershire as an example in his completely misleading campaign about so-called Health Service cuts, he has chosen an especially bad example.

    Tinnitus
    Mr. Terry Fieldsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he has any plans to improve facilities for the treatment of tinnitus.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. John Patten): The level of facilities for tinnitus sufferers is for health authorities to decide, taking account of other claims on the resources available. The use of tinnitus maskers has been studied in a recent research project commissioned by the Department. We hope that the results, when they are available, will assist authorities in planning their services.
    Mr. Fields: Is the Minister aware of the great depth of feeling among tinnitus sufferers because of the under-provision of resources for the research and treatment of the malady and the derisory sums that are being made available? Does he agree that a cut of almost 83 per cent. between 1980–81 and 1983–84 is a cause for concern and anxiety among tinnitus sufferers? When the results of the research are made known, will he ensure that further finance is made available? Will he explain the results of the recent pollution of north-west water by chlorine and phenol and the consequent effect on tinnitus sufferers and others in the north-west? Will he take steps to ensure that that does not happen again?
    Mr. Patten: I need more notice of the last of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary questions if I am to be enabled to answer it. The Medical Research Council has undertaken six separate individual projects in conducting
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    research into tinnitus. My Department has funded three individual projects and the results of that research will be available in the spring. We shall then assess the results of the research, which is of concern to tinnitus sufferers. At that stage we shall reconsider our guidance to district health authorities on the provision of treatment.
    Mr. Sims: Is my hon. Friend aware that his dilemma in having to distinguish between an established service and research projects, especially at University College hospital, is well understood, and that the continued funding which he is giving to the project at UCH will be very much appreciated, not least by the 1·2 million sufferers in Britain?
    Mr. Patten: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those words of thanks. I am grateful to him and others in the House, including the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley), who is not in his place, for their kind words of help and advice. There is good news for tinnitus sufferers. We continue to get good news from the Health Service. The advances in tinnitus treatment form one of those pieces of good news.
    Mr. Pavitt: While I welcome the reprieve of UCH, especially in the case of maskers, will the Department call for a multi-discipline report on all the projects upon which the Medical Research Council has embarked so that not only audiology, otology and psychology, but neurology can be examined? When the Under-Secretary has these reports, will he place a copy in the Library?
    Mr. Patten: We shall be reviewing all the research projects—those funded by the MRC and those funded by my Department. Maskers are not the sole treatment for tinnitus. There are also forms of treatment that are related to drug therapy, counselling and psychological advice of various kinds.

    Perinatal Mortality
    Mr. Greenwayasked the Secretary of State for Social Services when he expects to have figures for the perinatal mortality rate for 1983; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Fowler: The 1983 figure for England will be available in May this year. Provisional data for the first three quarters of 1983 suggest a fall in the perinatal mortality rate, continuing the encouraging trend seen over the past four years.
    Mr. Greenway: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the House will be pleased to hear those encouraging figures? Will he confirm that if certain improvements in perinatal care are made, fewer handicapped babies will be born? What steps is he taking to achieve those necessary improvements?
    Mr. Fowler: There is an association between the perinatal mortality rate and the coincidence of congenital malformations. A great deal of research, including research by the Medical Research Council, is being undertaken. I emphasise the substantial improvement generally in this area, especially in 1980 and 1981.
    Mrs. Renée Short: Although the overall position may have improved and the national figure has been reduced, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in some regions

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    there has been a dramatic increase in the perinatal mortality level and that the Select Committee will examine that aspect to ascertain a reason for the change?
    Mr. Fowler: That is a worrying trend. In one or two regions that is the position, but it is a fact also that perinatal mortality levels have dropped in four years by 25 per cent. That is a substantial improvement.
    Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I support the views expressed by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, North-East (Mrs. Short). I suggest to my right hon. Friend that if the Government implemented the recommendations of the Select Committee, which produced a full report on perinatal and neonatal mortality, the improved level of the past two years would be increased, to the benefit of parents and children.
    Mr. Fowler: The Government welcomed the report of the Select Committee, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) was a member. We shall continue to urge health authorities to implement those recommendations.
    Mr. Carter-Jones: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to improve the distribution in the care of low-weight pre-term babies?
    Mr. Fowler: That is one of the most important areas, and we shall seek to do just that.
    Mrs. Jill Knight: Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that babies who are born deformed in any way will be given the treatment and the food that they need in a desire to prolong their lives for as long as possible?
    Mr. Fowler: I know of no evidence to suggest that that does not occur at present. If my hon. Friend has any such examples that she wants to bring to my attention, I shall examine them.
    Mr. Eastham: Do not those statistics show that the poorest families are those most affected? Is not the maternity grant in the United Kingdom the lowest of such grants in the EEC countries?
    Mr. Fowler: There are considerable variations throughout Europe. What the hon. Gentleman said about low income families is, regrettably, the case and one of the areas that we must improve.
    Mr. Yeo: I add my congratulations to my right hon. Friend on the satisfactory figures that he reported for the first nine months of last year. Will he give fresh consideration to the introduction of enforceable minimum standards of antenatal and neonatal care as recommended by all the leading professional bodies in this subject and as backed up by a large number of voluntary organisations?
    Mr. Fowler: We prefer that the health authorities act upon the guidance that we have given them, but I shall keep in mind what my hon. Friend said.
    Mr. Meacher: Is the Secretary of State aware that the mortality rates in the first year of life of children of unskilled manual workers are four to five times greater than of children of professional and managerial parents? Is he aware that that and other key criteria of class inequality in health care were pinpointed three years ago by the Black report as an area for immediate Government action? Is it the case, therefore, that the Government's
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    complete ignoring of that report during the whole of the past three years is one of the most deplorable aspects of their inadequate health record?
    Mr. Fowler: As always, the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) is over-reacting in a thoroughly intemperate way. I have already said that I accept the first point——
    Mr. Meacher: What about the Black report?
    Mr. Fowler: We have instituted a whole range of the proposals in that report. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept, however, that a drop of 25 per cent. in perinatal mortality in the past four years is an all-time record which anyone with common sense should welcome.

    Appeal Tribunal Panels
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will introduce measures to enable unemployed and disabled people to be included on local appeal tribunal panels; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Newton: There is no bar to unemployed or disabled people becoming members of tribunal panels if they are nominated. As the hon. Member will be aware, clause 9 of the Health and Social Security Bill is intended to increase the range of representation on tribunal panels.
    Mr. Skinner: Does the Minister admit that when the panels were first set up just after the war, at a time of relatively full employment, they consisted mainly of people from the employers' side, a minority from the trade union side and good representation for the lawyers? Given that under the Tory Government we are destined to have about 4 million people unable to find work and that there are more than 2 million disabled people, does he agree that it would make far more sense to put some unemployed people on the panels, as the unemployed are the main applicants for supplementary benefit, to include disabled people as of right on local appeal tribunals, and perhaps even to go a stage further and have representation for pensioners as well? Does he agree that that is far more sensible than the proposal in the Health and Social Security Bill?
    Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman may be surprised to hear that I rather agree with him. [Interruption.] I thought that that might cause a bit of a stir. We are proposing the changes because the system whereby trade unions have had virtually 50 per cent. of the nomination rights since the war has produced precisely the unsatisfactory situation which the hon. Gentleman wants us to change.
    Mr. Hannam: In considering the role of local tribunals, will my hon. Friend take account of the recommendation in the Oglesby report that mobility allowance appeals should be referred to local tribunals rather than, as at present, to the very slow and cumbersome medical tribunals?
    Mr. Newton: As my hon. Friend will know from various controversies in the past week or so, the Oglesby recommendations about improving the administration and adjudication of mobility and attendance allowance cases are a subject to which we attach considerable importance and on which we are currently conducting extensive consultation.
    Mr. Alfred Morris: Does the Minister agree that one of the problems is that many of the tribunals meet in premises completely inaccessible to disabled people? What is he doing to ensure that the tribunals meet only at venues fully accessible to people with disabilities?
    Mr. Newton: There is a real problem there, and also with some of our social security offices. I have taken this up in various ways with the Property Services Agency, as I agree that everything possible needs to be done to overcome such problems.

    Severe Disablement Allowance
    Ms. Richardsonasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what representations he has received on the new severe disablement allowance.
    Mr. Newton: My right hon. Friend has received a number of representations from organisations and individuals.
    Ms. Richardson: Is it not a disgrace that the Minister cannot say how many people, apart from married women, will be disadvantaged by the abolition of the non-contributory invalidity pension? Will he confirm that he has received representations from RADAR, the Disability Alliance and the Child Poverty Action Group but has not yet replied? Would it not be better if he dropped clause 4 of the Health and Social Security Bill and went back to talk to those who really understand about people with disabilities?
    Mr. Newton: Taking those questions in reverse order, if we withdrew clause 4 of the Health and Social Security Bill we would be left with the disgraceful household duties test invented in 1976 by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), which everyone regards as quite wrong. On the second point about the letter from RADAR, it has, indeed, written to my right hon. Friend, and he will be replying shortly. I hope that there will be an opportunity for a discussion with RADAR.

    Child Abuse
    Mr. Cyril D. Townsendasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what arrangements are made by his Department to record the number of child abuse victims in England and Wales each year.
    Mr. Newton: The Department maintains no central records of the number of child abuse victims. The responsibility for the protection of children from abuse lies with local authorities, and the Department has issued guidance on the records that should be kept locally. I am glad to be able to tell my hon. Friend, however, that the Department's child abuse group has now started work on a review of our guidance in this field to revise, improve and consolidate it. We also hope shortly to consult on new guidance about the handling of child abuse inquiries.
    Mr. Townsend: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. Does he recall that, way back in 1976, the NSPCC suggested a national register, and events since that date have made it seem a very sensible suggestion? Is there not a clear lack of co-ordination at present?
    Mr. Newton: I should not want to endorse that specific suggestion at this stage, but I have had a number of useful
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    talks with Dr. Gilmour and others from the NSPCC, and we shall certainly take account of its views and ideas in the course of the review.

    Association of Directors of Social Services (Survey)
    Mr. Boyesasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he has yet studied the report of survey, December 1983 produced by the Association of Directors of Social Services; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. John Patten: The survey had only a two thirds response, and on some aspects Government statistics are more complete and up-to-date. Nevertheless, the survey provides helpful indications of local authorities' past record of protecting vulnerable people, and of their positive response to our community care policies.
    Mr. Boyes: Is the Minister aware that the Association of Directors of Social Services has issued a press release today announcing that it anticipates a spending cut of 12 per cent. because of ratecapping? To illustrate that, it means approximately 50,000 home help cuts for elderly people, 50,000 fewer meals-on-wheels for elderly people and 7,000 fewer places in old peoples' homes. Is it not criminal, wicked and evil that our old people are paying for Tory Government policies?
    Mr. Patten: I was not aware of the press release to which the hon. Gentleman referred. The last time the association issued a press release it suggested that the growth in revenue experienced by social service departments in this country in 1983–84 would be 1·75 per cent. That was wrong. It has been about 2·5 per cent., so I would need to look very carefully at the basis of the figures before putting too much weight on them at this time.
    Mr. Meacher: Is the Minister aware that the report of the Association of Directors of Social Services said that 4 per cent. real growth is necessary each year simply to maintain existing standards of community care because of the greater numbers of elderly people? His Department has said that the absolute minimum is 2 per cent., yet the Government's published plans for this next year propose only 1 per cent. Does not this big cutback expose the Government's talk of community care for the charade that it is, which is dumping old people on the community, often with nobody to look after them?
    Mr. Patten: There have been no cutbacks of the sort that the hon. Gentleman suggests. He would do well also to address his mind to the critically important issue in the personal social services of getting social services which are effective and efficient, and which deliver good value for money. He needs to address his mind to comparing the unit costs of the provision of social services around the country, which vary greatly. Those are the questions that need to be asked.

    Portable Oxygen Equipment
    Mr. Flanneryasked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many people are dependent on portable oxygen equipment being regularly supplied to their own homes.
    Mr. John Patten: We have no information centrally on the number of people supplied with oxygen equipment

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    which can easily be carried by the user. I understand that it is comparatively rare for such units to be supplied through the National Health Service.
    Mr. Flannery: I am surprised that the Minister does not have the numbers. A very large number of people under the DHSS have had canisters delivered for years. They are very ill, and many of them are quite old. The new equipment, which they are all glad to have, now has to be plugged in, and results in their electricity bills rising on average £2 per week. Will he be kind enough to look into this and see that something is done to help them, because they are paying out new money which hitherto they did not have to pay.
    Mr. Patten: We estimate that between 35,000 and 40,000 people are using such equipment in their homes, and most of them need rather large canisters and supplies. We are exploring the use of oxygen concentrators, which are now being examined by the Department. We hope that when a cost evaluation has been done we shall be able to make a further policy statement on this important matter.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Given the number of people involved in the revelations in the past few weeks about the BOC contract with the National Health Service, would it not be wiser for the contract to be widened beyond the BOC stake to include all BOC's competitors? Is it not wrong that work carried out by BOC, which was sponsored by the DHSS, should have been made available only to that company and not to the many people interested in it?
    Mr. Patten: That question has nothing to do with the supply of domiciliary gases for use in people's homes.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Fatchettasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 31 January.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, including one with a delegation from the Scottish TUC. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Fatchett: If the economy is improving in the way that the Prime Minister claims, why do the Government still feel it necessary to cut the housing benefit of about 1·5 million old-age pensioners?
    The Prime Minister: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have increased the amount spent on housing benefit by about 80 per cent. in real terms since the Labour Government were in office. We are already spending about £3·7 billion on it, and that should be sufficient to cater for all those who are truly in need.
    Mr. Kinnock: Has the hardship experienced by many badly-off families during the recent spell of severe weather caused the Prime Minister to change her mind about imposing unsolicited and unnecessary increases in electricity charges?
    The Prime Minister: The increases in electricity charges are the first for two years. They amount to some 2 per cent. over two years, which should be contrasted with a 2 per cent. increase every six weeks under Labour.
    Mr. Kinnock: I am sure that the Prime Minister and I could hold a very interesting discussion about the past, but those people are cold, not in the past, but now. They will be further disadvantaged by the price increases which the Prime Minister and her Government are directly imposing on them. May I appeal to the Prime Minister to put herself in the position of a young mother with children at home who cannot afford properly to heat her home? Will the right hon. Lady undertake to restore to the poor the £70 million obtained from the higher electricity prices which she is levying, and so help them with their fuel bills?
    The Prime Minister: The Government have an excellent record of helping the poor with their fuel bills. We are now spending £350 million on that special help.
    Mr. Churchill: When my right hon. Friend tomorrow meets the leaders of the Civil Service unions on the question of GCHQ, will she explain that they have no one but themselves to blame for the Government's decision, because several years ago those union leaders decided to try to involve the staff at GCHQ and to use them as a weapon in bargaining against the Government?
    The Prime Minister: The decision to bring GCHQ into line with the rules applying to other intelligence agencies was right. My hon. Friend is quite right to say that in the Civil Service disputes between 1979 and 1981 the general Civil Service unions called out people in areas which they thought were particularly sensitive, including GCHQ. In one of the campaign reports of the Council of Civil Service Unions it states:
    "48 hours walkouts have severely hit secret monitoring stations belonging to the Composite Signals Organisation. The Government is clearly worried and will be subject to huge pressure from NATO allies. The latest walkouts are at two stations"—
    which the council then names. The council also said in campaign report No. 1:
    "Our ultimate success depends upon the extent to which revenue collection is upset, defence readiness hampered, and trading relations disrupted by this and future action."
    That was the attitude it took in trying to use strikes to force increases in pay.
    Mr. Steel: Is the Prime Minister aware that it does the Government's reputation no good for the idea to be put about that the people working at Cheltenham are somehow unreliable? Is she not aware that that report contrasts strongly with the message sent to them after the Falklands operation by Sir John Nott when he said:
    "I would go so far as to say that we could not have done without you."
    Does the whole episode not reflect badly on the way the Government conduct their industrial relations?
    The Prime Minister: No, it does not. We have special rules under all Governments for people working in intelligence agencies. The overwhelming majority of people who work there loyally observe those rules and often do more than is necessary, because sometimes they have to cover for other people who are on strike. The accounts that I read out were from the campaign report for the Council of Civil Service Unions during the time when it was deliberately selecting where it could take the most damaging action.
    Mr. Jim Spicer: In the course of her extremely busy day will my right hon. Friend give some thought to getting a message through, by whatever means possible, to the

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    President of the European Commission suggesting that his officials spend their time dealing with their real duties rather than dreaming up ways in which they can get back from the United Kingdom money which is not really owed to them?
    The Prime Minister: I take it that my hon. Friend is referring to the reports about disallowing moneys due to this country by virtue of the activities of the milk marketing boards. We would regard it as absolutely intolerable if the Commission were to try to disallow this expenditure. It would be without precedent and would not be justified in any way. The Commission has authorised the milk marketing boards under the rules laid down and has not attempted to withdraw that authorisation.
    Mr. Winnickasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 31 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Winnick: Will the Prime Minister say what legislation exists which forbids membership of a trade union? At tomorrow's meeting with the trade union leaders, will she bear in mind that one of the most important rights in a democracy is the right to belong to a trade union and to be represented by it? Is the right hon. Lady aware that trade unionists at GCHQ or anywhere else need no lessons in loyalty from some of the people who were featured in last night's "Panorama" programme and who seemed to have far more in common with Fascism that with parliamentary democracy?
    The Prime Minister: I reject utterly what the hon. Member said in the last part of his question. With regard to the first part, the certificates issued under the employment protection legislation simply say that the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 provisions relating to trade union membership and activities no longer apply. However, it can be a condition of service that staff should belong only to a staff association approved by the director of GCHQ. Staff who wish to remain members of their existing trade unions may seek to transfer to another branch of the Civil Service.
    Mr. Hickmet: Does my right hon. Friend welcome the decision of the Nissan car company to open a car manufacturing plant in the United Kingdom in 1985? To what does she attribute the decision of Nissan to come to the United Kingdom? Does she agree that the plant would best be sited in south Humberside, more properly known as north Lincolnshire?
    The Prime Minister: I must disappoint my hon. Friend. So far no announcement to that effect has been made. I hope that there will be an announcement shortly, within a few days.
    Mr. Merlyn Rees: In a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Dr. McDonald) last night, the Foreign Secretary gave a list of industrial disputes to which the Prime Minister has already referred. In the quoted briefing today it is stated that those disputes could have had serious consequences for national security. Two of the disputes on the list refer to events in the Falklands before and after invasion day. Did those disputes in any way affect operational capacity vis-a-vis national security in the Falklands?
    The Prime Minister: I tried partially to answer the right hon. Gentleman or one of his right hon. or hon. Friends the other day. If one loses a great deal of time in continuous surveillance—[HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I am trying to answer but Opposition Members will not listen. If 10,000 working days are lost in an agency which is concerned with continuous surveillance it is not possible to know what information has been lost or what its relevance may have been, but one will not have had it continuously. The right hon. Gentleman referred the other day to a question which John Nott, as he then was, answered. He was referring only to military operations. GCHQ did not come under his then Department and does not now.
    Mr. Terlezki: As my right hon. Friend is to visit Hungary, will she ensure that she stresses that it is imperative and vital that visits between the people of Great Britain and Hungary occur as often as possible, as that is the way in which to ensure peace and prosperity in Europe and the rest of the world?
    Mr. Dobson: The hon. Gentleman is a wetzki.
    The Prime Minister: I am looking forward to my visit to Hungary. It would be of great advantage in the atmosphere between East and West if we were able to look forward to more visits from people who live in iron curtain countries to the Western world. We hope that that will happen. We also hope that the full agreement which was signed in Helsinki will be honoured in that regard.
    Mr. Sean Hughesasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 31 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Hughes: Will the Prime Minister find time to explain how it is right to spend £7 million building 54 houses in the Falklands when my borough council, which has an enormous housing problem, has had its capital housing allocation limited by the Government to £6 million?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman will be aware of the need to replace in the Falklands some houses which were damaged and to build new ones. All of the necessary equipment must be taken from Britain. A substantial part of the cost is taken up by transportation and erection and preparation of the site. Labour is short in the Falklands so we must send people from Britain to do that work. I do not think that many people will begrudge the Falkland Islanders those houses, although I understand that Opposition Members do.
    Sir Peter Blaker: Is there not something inherently unsatisfactory about a system under which the staff at GCHQ have been represented in negotiations on their grievances by national officers of unions who have a lower level of security clearance than the staff?
    The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend has put his finger on an extremely important point. It is vital in future negotiations with the staff at GCHQ to negotiate entirely local agreements with people who work there. A staff association would achieve that.
    Mr. Strangasked the Prime Minister if she will list her offical engagements for Tuesday 31 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Strang: Is the Prime Minister aware that workers are occupying the Henry Robb shipyard because they are determined to fight for their jobs, for shipbuilding at Leith and because there is a widespread belief throughout that community that the yard should and could be saved with the help of a public sector contract which is in the pipeline and well suited to Leith? Will the Prime Minster give an assurance that the Secretary of State will receive an all-party deputation from Edinburgh to discuss what practical measures might be taken to save the yard?
    The Prime Minister: I thank the hon. Gentleman for having given notice that he would raise this matter. I recognise that he is disappointed that some orders recently went to other yards. I understand that the reason given was that none of the yards being closed had prospects of winning new work on acceptable terms. I recognise the disappointment, but one of the orders went to an Aberdeen yard and another went to a yard in north Humberside. It is customary to receive deputations if there is a closure in a constituency.
    Mr. Pawseyasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 31 January.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Pawsey: Has my right hon. Friend had an opportunity to read the CBI survey, which was quoted in The Standard today? It shows that we have the highest orders for seven years. Will my right hon. Friend comment on the impact that those orders will have on unemployment, industry and the nation?
    The Prime Minister: I saw, and welcome, the CBI survey today. It shows a picture of rising demand and activity levels spreading more widely through the
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    economy, and rising investment. Those trends are welcome, but we cannot expect sudden great improvements in the labour market. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House said, in an excellent speech, our GDP is about the same as it was in 1979—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] We are producing, by virtue of not having overmanning and by improved technology — [Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Opposition Members expect to be able to ask their questions in silence. The Prime Minister should be allowed silence in which to reply.
    The Prime Minister: By improved technology and increased efficiency we are producing the same output, with 1·7 million fewer people in the work force. None the less, there is good news in the fact that there were more that 210,000 new jobs in the service sector in the first three quarters of 1983.
    Several Hon. Members rose——
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We must move on to the statement.
    Mr. Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. There have been several interruptions during Prime Minister's Question Time, which began later than usual today. In view of that, I wonder whether you will invite the Prime Minister to answer the question on the Oman deal, put to her yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), the shadow Leader of the House? I am sure that she would like to answer it.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman will have seen from the clock that Prime Minister's Question Time began at 3.16 pm and ended at 3.31 pm. Therefore, the time allowed for questions is accurate.

Vocational Education and Training
3.32 pm
The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Tom King): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement about vocational education and training.
The Government are today publishing a White Paper entitled "Training for Jobs". It is presented jointly by my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Education and Science, for Scotland, for Wales, and myself. Copies are available in the Vote Office.
A well trained work force is essential to a strong economy and to win back jobs; to achieve that, vocational education and training must be properly directed to the demands of the market place.
Two years ago we published our first White Paper on training. At that time we set out three objectives: first, to improve vocational education and the transition from school to work; secondly, to modernise apprenticeship and other skill training; and thirdly, to open up wider training opportunities for adults.
Since then we have made considerable progress. Already more than 300,000 young people have entered the youth training scheme. Our new initiative in co-ordinated technical and vocational education for young people from 14 to 18 was launched last September. Fourteen local education authorities co-operated in pilot schemes, and a further 46 have now been invited to join the scheme, starting in September.
In the reform of apprenticeship arrangements, important improvements have been made in engineering, electrical contracting, printing and the construction industries. The Open Tech programme is now well under way, with as many as 50,000 people expected to take advantage of that new facility next year.
Those specific new initiatives represent a major achievement by the Manpower Services Commission under the energetic leadership of its chairman, David Young, and his fellow commissioners, but they would be the first to acknowledge the part played by employers, trade unions, local authorities, voluntary organisations, colleges, schools and the careers service and, indeed, the support and interest of many hon. Members, to which I readily pay tribute.
The White Paper also sets out the criteria against which we shall make our future plans, and announces certain specific proposals. Central and local government have an important part to play in vocational education and training, but real success depends crucially on the part played by employers and trainees themselves. The decisions as to who is trained, when and in what skills, are best taken by employers—and, indeed. the individuals concerned—who know better where the real needs are. So investment in training must be cost effective, flexible, adaptable to changing technology and free of old-fashioned restrictions.
The Manpower Services Commission recently submitted to me proposals for a new adult training strategy. We fully support the commission's call for a national campaign to raise awareness among employers and all concerned of the vital importance of training.
We support, too, the need to provide wider opportunities for the training of adults to meet new skill requirements. We therefore endorse the commission's proposals to restructure its existing programmes to double
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the total number of adults trained under MSC courses to over 250,000 a year. That will include a significant increase, to some 125,000, in the number of unemployed receiving training.
The Government have agreed to consider further two proposals by the commission. The first is that there should be some training included for people on community programmes. The second is that some adult trainees could be helped by a guaranteed loan scheme to enable them to obtain training not otherwise available to them. The Government recognise that that could well be of interest to a number of people, and I confirm that we shall be ready to consider it further with the MSC and others concerned.
The White Paper also announces important new arrangements within vocational education. It is vital to get the closest possible collaboration at local level between employers, local education authorities and colleges, and other providers of vocational education and training, in identifying and meeting the real needs for future employment in their areas. The MSC, which includes representatives from industry, as well as local authorities and professional educational interests, and which has an established local network, is well placed to assist in that role.
The Government have therefore decided to ask the commission to extend its range of operations so that it can discharge the functions of a national training authority. We propose to increase the commission's resources devoted to work-related non-advanced further education in England and Wales from some £90 million now to some £155 million in 1985–86 and £200 million in 1986–87. That will then represent about one quarter of the total public sector provision for that area. The resultant reduction in the need for local authority expenditure will be taken into account in settling the relevant rate support grants for those future years.
The commission is being asked to begin consultations immediately with educational interests, employers and other interested parties so that plans can be settled in good time for the beginning of the 1985–86 academic year.
In 1983–84 we expect to spend £960 million on training. In 1984–85 we plan to increase that to £1,100 million. That is in addition to the £2·5 billion spent by employers, and the substantial sums within the further education sector. It is therefore vital to ensure that those funds are all used to the best possible effect. The White Paper sets out the Government's continuing programme to ensure that as a nation we are properly trained to meet the challenges of the years ahead.
Mr. John Smith: Is the Secretary of State aware that training for young and old must be seen against the background of a continuing collapse in our manufacturing industry and the consequent collapse in the number of apprenticeships available in manufacturing industry? Will he also bear in mind, when he indulges in some of the vacuous self-congratulations that were littered throughout his statement and the White Paper, that this Government's economic policies created the standing army of young unemployed that some of these proposals are supposed to help? Will he come directly to the financial consequences of his statement? He announced certain increases in expenditure by the MSC as the national training authority. The right hon. Gentleman then announced that there would be a resultant reduction in

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local authority expenditure. Is it not true that not a halfpenny of new money is being provided by the Government for this so-called new advance?
Secondly, will the Secretary of State explain why he made so many references to consultation and the need for collaboration with trade unions, local authorities and others, when he has not consulted any of them, and when this is announced as a White Paper, instead of a Green Paper which is available for consultation with all the interested parties? Will he explain the scarcely veiled reference in the White Paper to forcing people on supplementary benefits to take part in YTS schemes? Is he aware that, if the voluntary character of YTS disappears, it will not be possible to get genuine co-operation from people conscripted from supplementary benefit and pushed into schemes to put up the numbers for the sake of the Government's statistics?
Will the right hon. Gentleman also explain his reference to loans? He will be aware that when the Manpower Services Commission put forward its suggestion about loans it did so in the context of an overall review of the funding of the MSC. The right hon. Gentleman puts it forward on its own, with no such reference.
In the White Paper and in his statement, the Secretary of State referred to the need to make training financially attractive. Is he aware that those of us who have a wider knowledge of the people involved believe that that attractiveness is confined to the employer? Is it not ridiculous that people on the YTS scheme should still receive £25 a week when, in line with inflation, it should have gone up to £34 a week? Is not the time overdue for a substantial increase in the allowances paid to people on YTS schemes?
The Secretary of State announced that another 125,000 adults would be brought within the scope of adult training. However, he did not explain whether any extra money would be provided for that purpose. Is it not true that the same amount of money will be made available for adult training, but that the jam will be spread much more thinly?
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) will catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, to ask about the educational impact of the right hon. Gentleman's statement, but will the Secretary of State confirm that there is little point in having schemes for training people, whether those schemes are short-term or long-term, if there are no jobs for those people at the end? Will it not all be a waste of time, unless there is a recovery in manufacturing industry, instead of its continuing collapse?
Mr. King: I am disappointed by the totally ungracious and unconstructive way in which the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) approaches the White Paper. If he wishes to bandy insults across the Floor of the House, I have to recall that he was a member of a Government who could not even get agreement in their own Cabinet when Shirley Williams, who was then a Member of the House, sought to introduce training schemes. Moreover, what that Government finally introduced was a youth opportunities scheme which had no training content whatever. It was merely a special employment measure.
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When the right hon. and learned Gentleman asked about consultation, he seemed to overlook the fact that, for example, a considerable part of my statement concerned the Government's response to the Manpower Services Commission's adult training strategy—itself the result of widespread consultation and put forward by the MSC—and that its commissioners, comprising representatives of industry and trade unions as well as educational interests, produced a unanimous recommendation. I hope the right hon. and learned Gentleman will accept that our proposals, particularly for adult training, are the result of close consultation with the MSC. The latest proposal on vocational education and training will now be the subject of substantial consultation.
On the question of supplementary benefit, the White Paper reaffirms the present position. I am glad to say that, on the latest survey figures available to me, only a tiny number of people are affected. When people have the opportunity of a proper training scheme and work experience, and they reject that opportunity on no good grounds—no grounds that would satisfy independent scrutiny—it would be quite wrong to give them the free option of taking supplementary benefit instead of taking the opportunity available.
I was asked about loans and the need for an overall review. The hon. Gentleman will read in the White Paper that we considered in some detail what the respective goals for funding should be and what contributions should be made by the Government, the employees and the trainees themselves towards achieving the most effective training programme. That being so, we feel that we do not need an overall review at the present time.
We do not believe in loans as a substitution for the rest of the programme, but there is a genuine argument, when people in mid-career are looking for an opportunity for additional training that may not be available within the normal services, for such people to be able to get a guaranteed loan. That might enable them to improve their training resources. We shall consider that possibility with the MSC.
The adult training strategy put forward by the MSC involves more effective use of the funds that are being employed at the moment, but, as I have said, we intend to spend a significantly higher overall sum on training in the coming year.
Mr. David Crouch: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the hesitancy shown by many young people towards taking part in the youth training scheme was caused by doubt whether the training was real training for a real job, and a real extension of education? I am sure that many hon. Members on both sides of the House would, like me, have welcomed the presence here today of the Secretary of State for Education and Science alongside my right hon. Friend—[HON. MEMBERS: "He is here."]—because those two Departments are bracketed in making a real advance in education and training.
Mr. King: I very much appreciate what my hon. Friend has said. Since I took over my new responsibilities, one of the matters that has made the greatest impression on me has been the work done in setting up the youth training scheme. I have been enormously impressed by the very close co-operation between my Department and the Department of Education and Science on the matter of training and vocational education. Some previous training

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schemes have been employment measures—just a way of making work—but the youth training scheme now offers some very exciting opportunities to young people and, despite what some people say, will provide, for many young people, the best possible route to a permanent job.
Mr. David Penhaligon: Many will welcome the provision of more training. That must be the right trend. However, can the right hon. Gentleman cut away the verbiage and let us know whether or not net central Government expenditure on training as outlined in this document will increase, when one takes account of the change in the amount of money going to local councils?
Secondly, what sort of courses does the right hon. Gentleman believe the local authorities should scrap? That must be what the statement would entail.
Thirdly, will there not be a further transfer away from democratically elected authorities to the central quango that deals with training and education?
Mr. King: We must distinguish between two things. Our proposal on vocational education is not for next year but for the following year and its purpose is to ensure that the customer—the employer, the trade or the industry—has more say, through the structure of the Manpower Services Commission and its local network of employers, trade unionists and educationists, in ensuring that the courses provided and the training being offered are those that offer the best possible prospect of jobs thereafter.
We wish not to centralise but to ensure that there is more local involvement and a much closer working co-operation with employers, with those providing the training and with the trainees themselves, in order to achieve the best possible prospects of jobs. One of the features of the present situation in training is that a considerable amount of money is being spent, and a great deal is being wasted.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Although I welcome the White Paper and the emphasis placed by my right hon. Friend on vocational education — I fully support all the additional resources being directed to training — how does he equate his comments with Staffordshire county council's decision to close the textile department of the Leek college of further education without further consultation with the Macclesfield or Leek textile employers who send many of their member companies employees to that college and department? Bearing in mind that the textile industry is the country's third largest employer, will he assure me that he will make representations to the Staffordshire county council to reconsider its decision to close that department at the end of this financial year? It took the decision without any consideration about what those in the middle of their course will do about completing it.
Mr. King: My hon. Friend will understand that I am not familiar with the details of that matter. Anyone who has made even the most superficial study of this problem knows that there is a need for a much closer understanding and co-operation between employers and the educational services. We seek to facilitate that by this change.
Mr. Derek Foster: How can the Secretary of State talk about securing the greatest co-operation of people locally, including education authorities and further education colleges, when he has announced a major change in the way in which a
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substantial section of further education is delivered, without any consultation on this point with colleges or local education authorities? Is it not a disgrace that his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science, who is sitting alongside him, has allowed this statement to be made without those consultations?
Mr. King: My right hon. Friend recognises and attaches enormous importance, as those who have studied his recent speeches on this will know, to the fact that the education services must be effectively attuned to the nation's needs. The academic side of further education is not an issue here. We are dealing specifically with the technical and vocational education aspect — preparing people for jobs. [AN HON. MEMBER: "What jobs?"] The hon. Gentleman did not appear to show that he was aware that at present the MSC is investing some £90 million in this area. In 1985–86 we are proposing to increase that figure to £155 million, and in 1986–87 to £200 million. I hope that, after all the shouting has died and people get down to consultation, many people in local authority education departments, who are far more forward-thinking than one or two Opposition Members, will recognise the benefits that can come from this scheme.
Mr. Andrew Rowe: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many people leave school without anything that society values, in particular members of the ethnic minorities, will welcome as promising the package of a possible loan in some cases and greater access to adult education and training in others?
Mr. King: I am persuaded of the vital need to adapt training and educational provision to the new circumstances that appertain in this country. Hon. Members have not raised a whole range of different matters — for example the modernisation of the apprenticeship system, which is vital if we are to equip ourselves for the challenge of new technology. It is important in so many different ways, not least that of open access, that at any stage in someone's career or life he is not debarred from acquiring new skills. I endorse what my hon. Friend has said.
Mr. Jim Callaghan: Does the Minister agree that many local authorities, including Conservative-controlled ones, are worried that the Government are holding back part of the rate support grant in favour of Government-sponsored schemes in schools? Does he not feel that this report will further the local authorities' resentment?
Mr. King: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman has heard of the technical and vocational education initiative which was launched, with Government support, by the MSC. It gives additional funds to local education authorities to launch four-year schemes in technical and vocational education. That is an illustration of the way in which co-operation with local education authorities can be developed, not in the spirit of recrimination and hostility that the hon. Gentleman is trying to suggest. We have now launched a scheme in which we have invited local authorities to co-operate voluntarily and to which we have had an enormous response.
Mr. Harry Greenway: Does my right hon. Friend accept that most colleges are first-class and do an excellent job? However, should we not concede that the Manpower Services Commission is closer to employers

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than local education authorities? Would not increasing clientship between the MSC and colleges be the sort of effective effort that we wish to see?
Mr. King: I certainly pay tribute to the excellent work of so many colleges in the FE sector, but we would be less than frank if we did not also recognise that some colleges do not achieve the best standards. I am sure that close contact and involvement with the customer is a vital way to ensure improvements.
Mr. James Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Opposition are very much in favour of the training of youngsters, but deeply concerned about the lack of apprenticeships? As the upsurge of interest to which the Government refer may be a non-starter, we could be training youngsters only to find that they have to return to the dole.
Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the question of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) about why the Government have not increased the allowance from £25 to at least £27 a week? Will not the Government bear in mind the fact that the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris) found that he could not live on £26·80 a week? Therefore, how do the Government expect youngsters to live on £25 a week, which is an inadequate allowance?
Mr. King: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's opening remarks. From one or two comments that I have heard, I was beginning to wonder whether Opposition Members approved of training youngsters or merely wished to carp about the statement. The increase in allowances is a difficult issue. As we have finite resources, the question is how those resources should best be applied. If the allowance is higher, the resources available for backing training schemes will be less.
Mr. Dave Nellist: You have underspent this year.
Mr. King: The White Paper deals frankly with the issue. We have made it clear already that, for this year, we believe that it is not unreasonable to ask trainees in these schemes—which provide excellent training and work experience—to make some contribution to the costs of training through a restrained training allowance.
Mr. Nellist: Twelve pounds 50 pence a week.
Mr. King: It is sadly true that a great deal fewer apprenticeships are currently involved. That is due partly to the change in the industrial pattern in Britain, and partly due to the fact that in the new and emerging industries traditional apprenticeships do not apply—for example in electronics or microelectronics. However, we want to ensure that throughout training we obtain the most effective use of available resources.
Mr. Jeremy Hanley: I thank my right hon. Friend for his welcome and constructive statement, which contrasts so starkly with the unconstructive and sterile attitude of the Opposition. What will be the long-term implications of his statement for British industry?
Mr. King: We are all aware of the concern of British industry that, when unemployment is far too high, there is yet a shortage of skilled workers in certain key areas.
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We are also concerned about how the new industries, as they develop, can sustain their position in the market, given the lack of those with necessary skills. I hope that our determination to ensure that the training we provide is effectively directed to the real needs of Britain will be welcomed.
Mr. Nellist: I am sure that it is a coincidence that this anaemic statement has been produced on the same day as my private Member's Bill, which offers a real alternative for training.
If the Secretary of State is prepared to announce today that there are changes in budgetary allowances for training spread over the next three years, why will he not give similar figures about the date when he intends to increase the YTS allowance from 25 quid a week, which represents a theft of £12·50 from the YTS allowance during the life of this Government, to a level more closely related to trade union rates for apprentices, which represent a decent training allowance?
As the White Paper refers in paragraph 29 to health and safety, will the right hon. Gentleman respond to the requests that have been made to his Department—[HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."]—that trainees be given a proper——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am anxious to call as many hon. Members as possible, but long supplementary questions make that very difficult.
Mr. Nellist: —that trainees be given a proper contract of employment so that they are covered by all industrial legislation? Finally, will the right hon. Gentleman ensure —[HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."]—that every workplace in which YTS trainees go is first inspected by a qualified health and safety inspector to prevent serious and fatal accidents, which are running at 300 a year under his leadership of that Department?
Mr. King: Every time I hear the hon. Gentleman speak I get the impression that he is more interested in making political capital out of any problems that he can dredge up from individual circumstances than directing himself to the real importance of providing an effective training scheme for this country. His never-ending attempts to denigrate the youth training scheme do great damage to the opportunities and possibilities for hundreds of thousands of young people in Britain.
Mr. Richard Needham: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, regardless of the resource problem, a proposal which for the first time involves both the employers and trade unions, through the area boards, in non-advanced further education should be welcomed as a constructive step forward by Opposition Members, who may not yet have received their proper briefing from the TUC?
Mr. King: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments, because I have been extremely surprised at the reaction of Labour Members. Perhaps they thought that they were obliged by being in opposition to oppose rather than to look at the serious and constructive proposals which have been set out, which I think will be widely welcomed by both sides of industry.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. We have two important Scottish debates to follow and a ten-minute Bill. I propose to allow questions to run until 4.15, but I ask hon. Members to be brief in their supplementary questions.
Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth: Although one welcomes any new training initiatives, will the Minister make clear the answer to the question that has been posed to him by other hon. Members? Is any new money, any further funds, being put in as a result of his statement? Secondly, if he is interested in cost effectiveness, does he not consider that the time has come to have one Department responsible for training and education, rather than two, at national and local level, where there is a dual track of training and education development and public funds are squandered?
Mr. King: The answer to the last point is that training under the present structure is closely linked to employment, and I think that is the right approach. There is obviously an argument about which way it should go, but that is the way in which it has been structured. It is the way in which previous Governments have operated it and I believe that it is the right line to follow.
Mr. Nellist: What about money?
Mr. King: Opposition Members keep talking about money, and claim that I have said nothing about money. I said in my statement, and I repeat, that in 1983–84 we expect to spend £960 million and that in 1984–85 we plan to increase it to £1,100 million. If that is not clear to them, I will try to make it even clearer later.
Mr. Michael Carttiss: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in contrast to the carping criticism of Opposition Members, many young people will welcome the opportunity that is being provided, not least the young people in the six high schools and two colleges in my constituency, for whom £1·6 million has just been announced under the technical and vocational education initiative?
Mr. King: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his positive response. I believe that his is much more the proper reaction to my statement than the extremely carping criticisms by Labour Members, who show themselves out of touch with the fact that much of what I have announced is the sum of a great deal of co-operation between industry, trade unions, educational interests, colleges—a whole range, across the board. Despite the living anachronism that we see before us—Labour Members living in a world of their own, a world in which they have increasingly little influence—the rest of the country will, I hope, welcome what we have announced.
Ms. Clare Short: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that those of us who have been concerned for many years to see the expansion and modernisation of adult training are very concerned indeed that the Government are taking resources from local government and handing them to the MSC which, despite Government rhetoric, is floundering in its attempts to provide high quality training for young people? Is he further aware that the youth training scheme in practice is often cheap labour getting very low-level training? Now that the MSC is to be handed another chunk of education money, we are likely to see more that is worse, and certainly no improvement.
Mr. King: The hon. Lady specialises, on every occasion that she can find, in destructive comments about the efforts of an enormous number of people who are playing their part in making the youth training scheme the success that it undoubtedly is. I accept, of course, that with a scheme of this size—300,000 and more are already on it—there will be problems, but I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the TUC for the part that it has played. That is representative of the feelings of many more people than the hon. Lady might pretend to represent.
Mr. Alan Haselhurst: With skill shortages already appearing in parts of the economy, is not the main objective to get the relevant training to the right places as quickly as possible? Does my right hon. Friend agree that the virtue of his scheme is that it will enhance that prospect?
Mr. King: It is absolutely vital to ensure that we get the most effective use of the training funds. [HON. MEMBERS: "What funds?"] We hear from Opposition Members the same parrot cry on every statement—"new money" or "more money"—but the first requirement, the first responsibility, of every Member of Parliament and Minister is to ensure that we get value for money. The truth is that in the present training situation we are spending a great deal of money training people for the wrong courses, for which there are not jobs, whereas, as my hon. Friend points out, in other areas there are skill shortages, and that is a national disgrace.
Mr. Martin J. O'Neill: May I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to paragraph 19 of the White Paper concerning Scotland? Will the Scottish participation in the TVEI, which has been grudging so far, take place along with new money? Will any of the schemes which will be involved in the Scotish participation be subject to the kind of local scrutiny and control to which the right hon. Gentleman referred in the statement? In other words, will the Minister ensure that the Scottish committee of the MSC has a larger role in the control of these schemes and that it is not given to Sheffield, which is, to all intents and purposes, an alien education experience if it has the say-so in the new set-up?
Mr. King: The hon. Gentleman may have misunderstood the position; the announcement on the new arrangement within vocational education is not applicable to Scotland, which has recently introduced new arrangements for 16 to 18-year-olds, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland wants to give that time to settle down before taking a view on any changes that might be made. The more technical details of the Scottish arrangements I shall leave as a bilateral matter between the hon. Gentleman and my right hon. Friend.
Sir Kenneth Lewis: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the progressive statement which he has made today is in addition to all that the Government have achieved in this sphere since coming to office? With regard to apprenticeships, is he aware that employers are saying that, after 18 months, there are many youngsters whom they would like to keep in apprenticeships but whom they might not be able to afford to keep without some support or assistance from the Government or the MCS? Will my right hon. Friend take that on board, since apprenticeships are a vital part of training?
Mr. King: I am aware of my hon. Friend's close interest in this matter and I assure him that we are aware of the importance of the point he makes. He will be aware of the changing needs of industry and the fact that the relevance of apprenticeships is changing in a number of areas, in particular with the new industries and with the new technologies applicable in the old industries. Having said that, I assure him that I shall take note of what he said.
Mr. Robert Parry: The Secretary of State has received representations from me concerning a large number of people on MSC projects who are getting into financial distress through the use of bank cards. Will he advise all young people on these projects of the dangers and tempations of getting into debt, particularly in view of the low payments that are being made?
Mr. King: I am not aware of the details, but I will look into the matter and write to the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Bowen Wells: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the enormous enthusiasm which the YTSߞno doubt this will be the response to the new scheme that he has announced ߞ generated among schoolmasters, lecturers, businessmen, parents and all those in the local community? We have had much experience of this, and I am sure that his statement will be welcomed. Has he made any announcement on the pioneering technical and vocational education initiative, which was taken a year ago? Does that initiative need a further extension? We must begin training for industry right back into schools, and not only at the stage when 16-year-old leave them. Will he make arrangements also for the colleges of higher education to be able to keep the money that they earn from co-operating with local firms and local education institutes in offering their services as consultants so that they may go ahead and provide more training in the local area?
Mr. King: I am well aware of the enthusiasm for the youth training scheme among a considerable number of employers. There is no doubt that it is starting to have a major impact on the induction training that they offer their normal employees. That is a major improvement that will provide lasting benefit.
The technical and vocational education initiative started as a pilot scheme, but it will now build up very quickly. There are 14 local education authorities involved and I have invited another 46 to join the scheme. Those authorities have responded to my invitation and proposals have been offered to them. As we move from the 14 authorities to the full-capacity scheme, about 60,000 children will be part of it.
Dr. John Marek: The White Paper states:
"The new Skillcentre Training Agency established by the Commission will ensure that Skillcentres adopt a commercial approach in identifying and supplying the training that the commission and employers want."
Will the Minister give an assurance that no more skillcentres will be closed in future and that it will be his aim to ensure that present facilities are fully used?
Mr. King: Obviously, we want the present facilities to be fully used, but if the courses for which the skillcentres are equipped are not appropriate to the needs of the market in the area, it may be difficult to ensure that they are fully used. I have sought to explain—I hope that the White Paper makes this clear—that we must ensure that money
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for training is used for training people and not for providing subsidies for unfilled places. The moneys must be directed to the training of people if we are to ensure the best use of the funds available. We must try to take an intelligent and constructive approach in the interests of those who need training. Our job is to ensure that the maximum funds are applied where they are really needed.
Mr. Richard Holt: Does my right hon. Friend agree that for a long time there has been an artificial divide between education and training and that we now have an opportunity to grasp the nettle and close the divide, especially in relation to apprenticeships, so as to allow City and Guilds and other examinations to be undertaken within the education system and carried on into training, thereby allowing full apprenticeships to take place and giving encouragement to the youngsters who will embrace the various skills in future?
Mr. King: The White Paper is supported by my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Wales and Scotland and jointly presented by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science and myself. That shows that it is the Government's view that there must be the closest co-operation. The initiative recognises exactly the force of what my hon. Friend stresses—the need to break down the barriers between the tradition of technical education and the tradition of training in employment. I hope that we can combine the traditions effectively. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science and I will seek to give a lead in that respect. I hope and believe that we shall have the support of many in the education and industrial sectors.
Mr. Robin Corbett: Labour Members welcome real training and real jobs, but we do not understand why the right hon. Gentleman is crowing about the failure of the Government when set against the three objectives which he set. Does he recognise that he has sawn through the bridge between school and work, because there are no jobs, that he has presided over a decrease in the number of apprenticeships, and that wider training opportunities are no more than a mirage as there are no jobs for people to go to when they have completed their training?
Mr. King: That was a rather laboured intervention. It appears that the hon. Gentleman has been infected by the rather sour odour that is floating up to him from the Opposition Front Bench instead of considering the Government's proposals in a constructive spirit.
Mr. Bill Walker: My right hon. Friend will be aware that in Scotland we have many jobs in high technology and that some trade unions have refused to co-operate with the Government's training scheme. Can he assure the House that the trade unions are being pursuaded to accept the scheme and that the change in training is essential, especially for occupational skills in view of the fundamental changes in attitude, particularly towards training for new industries?
Mr. King: I am sorry to hear that. I am aware that there has been a refusal to co-operate in some instances, and I shall look into that. Otherwise, a feature of the launch of the YTS has been the tremendous efforts made by the trade unions in organising conferences and meetings to explain to their members and officers the importance of getting the

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scheme off the ground. The attitude of those trade unions is a pleasant contrast to some of the sour comments that have come from one or two Labour Members.
Mr. Giles Radice: Will the Minister now admit to the House that his White Paper proposals involve no new money? Is he aware that at the beginning of the year the Secretary of State for Education and Science made a speech in Sheffield calling for a new partnership? Does he believe that the best away to create the new consensus is to keep local authorities, teachers and colleges completely in the dark while a secret Government committee plans the future of non-advanced further education? Does he realise that the proposals for further education represent yet another example of central Government interference in how democratically elected local authorities spend their money — for example, penalties, rate capping, the educational support grants and now the MSC takeover of work—related further education and a consequent loss of rate support grant? Where will it end?
Finally, does the Minister accept that the MSC takeover of responsibilities means that, as with the TVEI, the Secretary of State for Education and Science loses out in the Whitehall power battle, educational needs take second place and once again education gets a bloody nose?
Mr. Albert McQuarrie: So dramatic.
Mr. King: If I thought that the hon. Gentleman believed what he has just said, I should be even more convinced of the death wish of the Labour party. He made an appalling contribution. I have been asked about the amazing secrecy surrounding this matter. For once, a White Paper has not been leaked in toto in advance of publication. That appears to be the major example of Government secrecy. We have made it clear in the White Paper that there will be the fullest consultation on the vocational education proposals. It is right that that should be so. I believe, from my discussions and from the comments that have been made to me over the years by those in the education service as well as those in industry,
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that there will be a much better understanding of the reasons that lie behind the proposals that we are making, which we are putting forward in a constructive sense.
The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Sir Keith Joseph): Hear, hear.
Mr. King: My right hon. Friend is joining me in this approach, which is much more constructive than the hon. Member for Durham, North suggests.
Mr. Speaker: Ten-minute Bill——
Mr. Martin J. O'Neill: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker. I recognise, Mr. Speaker, that you are not responsible for the answering of questions by Secretaries of State. However, I should like your guidance on a point which has arisen from the recent exchanges. The Secretary of State for Employment was answering questions on behalf of Departments in addition to his own. When he was asked a question of a specific nature which was pertinent to the document that is being introduced, he relegated the question to the level of bilateral discussions between the questioner and the appropriate Secretary of State. Is this not an entirely inadequate system of briefing? In this instance, the needs of Scotland are being ignored.
Mr. Speaker: As the hon. Member has correctly stated, I am not responsible for ministerial answers.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. This is an issue for Parliament. The matter of the department of pharmacy at Heriot Watt university is the responsibility not of the Secretary of State for Scotland but of the Secretary of State for Education and Science. The effects of its closure, if educational needs are to be tailored or attuned to the needs of the nation, as the Secretary of State for Employment puts it, is a matter for the Department of Employment. My hon. Friend the Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) made a valid point. Will you, Mr. Speaker, consider it and give a ruling tomorrow?
Mr. Speaker: I say again that I am not responsible for which Minister of State the Government decide should answer questions or make statements. That is not a matter for the Chair, but is entirely one for the Government to decide.

Maternal Surrogate Clinics
4.20 pm
Mrs. Anna McCurley: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to prohibit the operation of maternal surrogate clinics in the United Kingdom.
Maternal surrogacy has been with us since biblical days, so I do not seek to explore the nature of the principle but rather to examine the effects of one practice. I am aware that the Warnock committee will report some time this year on matters relating to artificial insemination by donor, in vitro fertilisation techniques and surrogacy, and that there will be a full and well-informed debate thereafter, possibly leading to legislative action on a variety of issues. It is of great concern to me, however. that in the intervening time between discussion and action several abuses may occur which will be contrary to the spirit of the law as it stands, which will consciously seek to circumvent the law and which will be rejected by the vast majority of people.
I was alerted by an article in The Mail on Sunday to the possibility of maternal surrogate clinics being established in this country. They are already a feature of life in some states of the United States of America — other states have abandoned them—and in the Federal Republic of Germany. Those clinics bring together on a highly commercial basis infertile couples desiring a child and women, usually in their mid-twenties, who are married and have borne at least one child from their union, who lease their uterus and ovum for artificial insemination by the male partner of the infertile couple. If a child is born subsequently, it is handed over to the couple by the surrogate within 48 hours of delivery.
Assurances regarding selection and counselling of the contracting parties have been given by those who are already in this practice, but there is no legislative control over who should select and advise — for example, no medical qualifications are required. In effect, anyone can start such an operation in this country. I believe that the average cost of a baby born because of this practice is about £16,000, which includes the surrogate fee and private clinic facilities. Existing legislation would appear to have banned the buying and selling of children for profit. The Adoption Act 1958 strictly forbids any money changing hands in adoption placements. The agent or clinic dealing with the contracting parties — the prospective purchasing parents and the surrogate mother —must be approved by the DHSS.
It should be made clear that the only way that prospective purchasing parents can take on full legal responsibility for the child is by adoption. The woman who carries and gives birth to a child is legally the mother, and she has full responsibility for the child. If she is married, there is a legal presumption that her husband is the father of the child, with legal responsibilities, unless paternity is brought into question; then the burden of proof lies with the man. The sperm donor has no legal rights over the child. The child is illegitimate as surely as is a child born of an illicit or adulterous relationship. The child then must be adopted by the paying couple.
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The Law Society is of the opinion that any contract between purchasing couples and surrogate mothers would be null and void because it would be contrary to public policy and unenforceable in the courts, but there has been no legal test case on which we can draw for reassurance. Cases on this issue in the United States of America have been brought to court, but not as yet where any payment has been involved.
Loopholes in the law must be tightened. Is this action the provision of a service or the sale of a child? Offering one's body in such a service invites comparisons with parallel illegal acts. If we do not act swiftly on this issue. children may be born by this method before the law takes account of them.
I am sympathetic to anyone so desperate that he or she would do anything to have a child. On this issue, however, I have support from the churches, the WI, many nurses, doctors, lawyers and colleagues. I do not presume to speak specifically for those bodies that have reported to the Warnock committee. Those who counsel the childless have offered their support also. I wish to voice the anxieties that have been expressed about the welfare of the child — for example, about one who had been born handicapped. Would the contract stand or would the child be rejected? Would it become the responsibility of the State?
Consider the surrogate's mental state after birth, her husband's rights and feelings, the possible problems for the infertile adopting mother— remembering that the child is not biologically hers but is biologically her husband's—the threat to family life and pair bonding, call it what we will.
Scientific developments should not always be equated with progress. In this field, we have knowledge but no control and no guidelines. There is a danger of the unscrupulous as well as the well-meaning operator cashing in on the delicate, highly personal emotions of unhappy people. I have heard this practice called the greatest gift one person can bestow upon another and a supreme act of charity but, alas, that charity is available not to the poor, who also want children, but to those with the ability to pay. The Bill will discourage those who are active in trying to establish such clinics in the United Kingdom. Swift action is the only course open to us to prevent conditions developing that would be maze-like in their legal complexities and, potentially, socially explosive
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mrs. Anna McCurley, Mr. John Ward, Mrs. Marion Roe, Mr. David Amess, Mr. Jerry Hayes, Mr. Colin Moynihan and Mr. Christopher Murphy.

Maternal Surrogate Clinics
  MATERNAL SURROGATE CLINICS
  Mrs. Anna McCurley accordingly presented a Bill to prohibit the operation of maternal surrogate clinics in the United Kingdom And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 16 March and to be printed. [Bill 91.]

Rate Support Grant (Scotland)
4.28 pm
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. George Younger): I beg to move,
That the Rate Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1984, a copy of which was laid before this House on 19 January, be approved.
I take this opportunity to remind the House that this is the third successive year in which it has proved possible to hold this debate in prime time. I am sure that both sides wish to thank my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House for making that possible. Lest Opposition Members be tempted to complain about the time devoted to this important measure, I remind them that before 1982 debates on this subject always took place after 10 pm.
Before dealing with the details of the order, I should sketch the background essential to any debate on local authority finance at this time. Local authority expenditure is still too high and must be reduced. Scottish local authorities as a whole are budgeting to spend more in 1983–84 than they actually spent in 1979–80, even after taking account of inflation. That is in the face of the clear necessity for a substantial decrease in public expenditure to free resources for economic growth. Local authorities are responsible for a quarter of all public spending and must therefore reduce their expenditure if the general policy is to succeed.
It has been said often enough that, despite those necessities, it is not possible for local authorities to make savings. After all the discussions that we have had in recent years, I hope that we shall hear no more of that argument in this debate. Just under one third of all Scottish local authorities have cut their spending since I came to office five years ago and I congratulate them on that. Nor are all those authorities of the same political colour. I hope that the councils of Cunninghame, Dumbarton, Falkirk, Monklands and Motherwell will not take it amiss if I express my appreciation of their efforts in reducing their spending since 1979–80, even if they cannot quite come up to the standard of prudent economy set by Eastwood district council, which recorded a reduction of more than 20 per cent. in the same period.
I am glad to observe that the gap between the Government's provision and the authorities' spending has recently narrowed — partly due to the increases in provision that I have made to make it easier for authorities to bring their spending into line, and partly due to the selective action that I have had to take against some particularly high-spending authorities. Incidentally, the increases in provision were made in part at the expense of my other programmes at the Scottish Office. Opposition Members may care to reflect that years of local authority overspending have led to pressure on other areas of expenditure to which no doubt they and certainly I attach great importance.
Thanks to our policies, ratepayers have experienced some definite improvement in their position. Instead of average rate increases of up to 30 per cent., rising to 34 per cent., followed by 15 per cent., more recently increases have been 2 per cent., reduced in effect to 0·5 per cent. by selective action, in 1983–84. The average rate bill, excluding water rates, climbed from £183 in 1980–81 to £286 in 1982–83, but rose by only £1 to £287 in 1983–84. That is very satisfactory in one sense, but the figure should in fact have fallen rather than remaining
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more or less constant, so the picture is still unsatisfactory. That is why I have had to seek and, unfortunately, to use various powers granted by the House to take action to reduce local authority spending and that is why we now seek the authority of Parliament to strengthen those powers. I very much hope, of course, that I shall not have to use the powers, but if it becomes necessary I shall certainly do so.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: If the Government's powers have been so successful already, why do they need the additional powers in the Rating and Valuation (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill to set and limit rates? Why cannot they rely on the facilities which they already have to cut the rate support grant?
Mr. Younger: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point, and I have made it clear that I hope never to have to use these powers, but if he had experienced the alarmingly high rate increases that I have described—the hon. Gentleman acknowledges that they have improved, but that is only because the Government took action—he would realise that we must have a fallback position to protect the ratepayers' interests if such increases ever recur.
The order embodies adjustments to the rate support grants for 1982–83 and 1983–84 and my proposals for grant and its distribution in 1984–85. These matters have been discussed with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. The format of the order is significantly different from earlier years. The schedules describing the basis for distributing the needs element, which constitutes about 87 per cent. of RSG, have been replaced by a schedule showing for each authority the amount of needs grant as initially estimated for 1984–85. This change results from my decision, of which I informed the House on 15 December, to distribute the needs element on the basis of the client group approach to assessing the relative expenditure needs of local authorities. The report on the order provides full details of the factors which I have taken into account in arriving at the amounts of grant set out in schedule 2 to the order. I hope that hon. Members will accept that these changes meet the criticisms voiced in previous years about the complexity of the order.
For 1982–83 the order proposes a very modest reduction of £1.3 million in grant, because the actual rate of interest affecting loan charges payable by local authorities is lower than the forecast used in the earlier calculations of grant. There is nothing unusual about this. It is an accepted feature of the system that adjustments are made, whether to the advantage or disadvantage of central or local governments, once the actual interest rate is known.
On 2 November 1983 the House approved the Rate Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1983 which reduced rate support grant by £45 million for 1983–84. The reduction was made because, even after some £19 million had been saved by the selective action which I initiated against four authorities, expenditure in local authority budgets remains more than £100 million in excess of the figure considered appropriate by the Government. The order now before the House provides for a further grant reduction in 1983–84 of £1.5 million, mainly because the present forecast of interest rates affecting loan charges is lower than the forecast used in the initial calculation of grant.
The order also revises the amount of needs element to be shared among authorities whose actual expenditure in

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1982–83 was within current expenditure guidelines. The amount in respect of 1983–84 and its distribution will be reviewed in the autumn when actual expenditure is known. This provision means that an authority whose expenditure conforms to the guideline will bear no part of the general abatements of rate support grant made for 1982–83 and 1983–84 on account of the overall level of local authority expenditure. I regard this as eminently fair, as does the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities. I hope that the House will also accept it.
For local authority current expenditure in 1984–85, on 27 July I announced a provisional figure of £2,730 million. The final figure of £2,736·6 million shown in the report is almost unchanged except for certain technical adjustments. This figure is £64 million above the White Paper figure. In the Government's view, the enhanced figure should be attainable by local authorities. Within the total provision there is a margin of £75 million which is not allocated to services, reflecting the fact that authorities have been given more time to bring their spending into line with the Government's plans. After taking account of the four financing items detailed in the report, the total figure for relevant expenditure in 1984–85 is £3,205·9 million.
The current expenditure guidelines issued to local authorities on 18 November 1983 add up to the provision for relevant expenditure, including the margin of £75 million not allocated to services, but excluding the provision for expenditure on the urban programme. As in 1982–83 and 1983–84, the guidelines have been derived from the client group assessments of the relative expenditure needs of local authorities. These assessments apportion in a systematic and equitable way the total of relevant expenditure provided for the various services within the rate support grant settlement. For some authorities the guideline is set at the level of the client group assessment, but for the majority it has been necessary to make some adjustments. In accordance with the views of the convention, these adjustments have been kept to a minimum, but they have two simple purposes. The first is a limit on the client group assessments where, for an individual authority, they would imply a marked increase in expenditure. I am aware that some hon. Members are concerned about this, but to do otherwise would be wholly inconsistent with our policy of securing reductions in the level of local authority expenditure. The second adjustment is to increase the client group assessments where they are more than 5 per cent. below what authorities are spending. I consider the guidelines to be fair and certainly to be attainable, and I urge authorities to make every effort to bring their expenditure into line with them; as so many have already done.
Mr. Barry Henderson: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the way in which he has helped the transition to the client group approach. Will he confirm that he is willing to continue to discuss with COSLA and with local authorities possible ways of improving and refining the methodology of the client group approach?
Mr. Younger: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that that is desirable. I am, indeed, only too ready at all times to discuss this further with COSLA, and I think that that would be very helpful.
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I deal next with grant. In determining the grant for 1984–85. I had to weigh carefully the interests of ratepayers and the continuing need to reduce local authority expenditure. As I informed the House on 15 December, the maximum aggregate grant consistent with these considerations and broader policies is £1,930 million. This is more in cash than initially determined for 1983–84, some £25 million more than assumed by authorities when fixing rates for 1983–84, and represents 60.2 per cent. of relevant expenditure. This is 1·5 per cent. less than in 1983–84 and continues the policy of successive Administrations of reducing grant as a means of securing reductions in expenditure. Those who say that this transfers the burden from central to local taxpayers are missing an important point. The rates burden will increase only if authorities refuse to reduce expenditure. About £216·8 million of aggregate grant will be distributed as specific grants in support of expenditure on particular services. The balance of £1,713·2 million will be distributed as rate support grants, and this is the amount provided in the order before the House today.
The order also provides for the distribution of the grant, about which there has been extensive discussion with the convention. The domestic relief is to continue at 3p in the pound. The balance of the grant is allocated between needs and resources element in the ratio of 7:1. The resources element will be distributed in accordance with the normal statute. The amount of the general portion of the needs element to be paid to each authority in terms of this order is set out in schedule 2 and gives effect to the fundamental change made in the needs element distribution for 1984–85.
For a number of years distribution of the needs element has been based mainly on population and population-related factors, but in years up to 1979–80 it also took account of the actual expenditure of each authority. That meant that high spending could result in higher grant in a later year, and was at variance with the Government's commitment to securing reductions in the expenditure of local authorities. Since 1980–81, needs element distribution has been designed to secure stability in grant. However, this was clearly no more than an interim measure, and an alternative approach had to be developed.
I think it is fair to say that all concerned agree that the new system, namely, the client group approach to assessing the relative expenditure needs of local authorities, offers a fairer and more systematic basis for distribution of grant. I quite accept that the convention officially would have preferred to delay the changeover until the method had been further refined, but I carefully considered all the views given to me about timing, and I concluded that there was nothing to be gained from delay. While 1984–85 is the first year in which the client group method will be used for grant distribution, it has been used in the calculation of current expenditure guidelines since 1982–83. It seems to me logical that there should be a single assessment of relative expenditure needs underlying current expenditure guidelines and grant distribution.
The report accompanying the order describes the client group approach. Its central aim is to estimate the relative expenditure needs of authorities by taking into account the variations in the demand for services and the cost of providing them with a similar degree of efficiency.
The expenditure provision made in the rate support grant settlement for any particular service is allocated among authorities undertaking the service mainly on the

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basis of the factor which most directly determines the need for the expenditure. For example, provision for school teaching staff is apportioned on the basis of the number of school pupils in each authority. This assessment may be adjusted in the light of other factors which could affect the demand for a particular service or the cost of providing that service. In the case of schools, again an adjustment is made for the higher ratio of staff in rural areas. The table to appendix F to the report lists the various factors used for 1984–85. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, who has responsibility for Home Affairs and the Environment, will be happy to give further details of the system should hon. Members wish. For grant distribution, estimates have also been made of other factors, mainly loans charges and income from specific revenue grants. That method has been agreed with the convention.
Mr. Gavin Strang: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves the effect of the introduction of the client group approach, will he recognise that some authorities, such as Lothian and, indeed, Highland and Strathclyde, are adversely affected by that change? Is it his intention to take that into account when he comes to assess their overall level of expenditure in the forthcoming year?
Mr. Younger: I appreciate the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. First, I must say that we have deliberately dampened such an effect. If it is unfavourable, it is less unfavourable because of the phasing effect which we deliberately introduced. Secondly, we will, of course, take into account stresses and strains which this may put on the budget of an authority when considering whether any expenditure it incurs might be considered excessive and unreasonable.
Mr. John Maxton: In considering client groups, particularly those of the elderly and the disabled, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that Scotland is being seriously disadvantaged compared with the rest of the United Kingdom because of the failure of the Secretary of State to carry out joint funded schemes in this area with health boards, which is happening in England and Wales? The Secretary of State for the Environment has specifically allowed extra money to local authorities for this purpose, but in Scotland it is simply not taking place.
Mr. Younger: I am disappointed that it has not been taken up more widely in Scotland, but this is largely a question of the differing interests of those concerned being difficult to reconcile. It is desirable that there should be more of a meeting of minds on these matters. As to the spending of money, Scotland certainly gets more per head of the population for this matter than England and Wales, which is a point well worth remembering.
The objective of the needs element distribution is to enable authorities undertaking the same range of functions to levy the same rate for the same amount of expenditure per head of population. As this would mean significant changes from the present level of grant, I have limited the reduction from 1983–84 needs grant to £6·45 per head, a 2½p rate, at regional level and £2·58 per head, a 1p rate, at district level. This is a fundamental change to the basis of needs element distribution. I have agreed with the convention that officials should review the method used for 1984–85 and consider whether further refinements might usefully be made for later years.
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The effect of the settlement upon rates depends upon final decisions yet to be taken by most local authorities. I have read, however, in the press that the rate in Glasgow next year is likely to be 58p, the level to which it was reduced this year as a result of the selective action taken by me against that authority. If that turns out to be the case, hard-pressed ratepayers will welcome it, I am certain, but I must confess to being disappointed that the council, in all the circumstances, does not intend to reduce its expenditure nearer to the guideline, which could have led to reductions in the rates, which would have been even more welcome to the citizens of Glasgow. Since 1979 I have consistently made clear to local authorities the Government's determination to secure reductions in the level of local authority expenditure, in the interests of ratepayers and the economy generally. I hope that reductions in expenditure will be the prime consideration of all authorities when they come to determine their rates for 1984–85.
As I said during the exchanges following my statement on 15 December, budgets in line with the expenditure provision made in the settlement could result in average rates falling in the coming year by between 5 and 6 per cent. It has been argued by the convention and others that, on the contrary, higher rates are inevitable, but what they omit in their assumption is that expenditure will be around the level of local authority budgets for 1983–84. That, in the light of all the expectations, cannot be regarded as acceptable. If authorities do not heed the warning given about the level of their expenditure, I shall end up inevitably having to take whatever action I consider appropriate to secure expenditure savings.
The order is important and provides for a very large amount of central Government grant in support of a considerable amount of local authority expenditure in 1984–85. I believe it to be a fair and reasonable settlement, and I therefore commend the order to the House.
4.50 pm
Mr. Donald Dewar: This debate is important, and is held annually. On this occasion it has, perhaps, been rather overshadowed by industrial events in Scotland. The local authorities—their elected members and those whom they represent—would not want us to forget that crisis. Whatever may be happening elsewhere, and whatever we may read in the press, particularly about the lower Clyde and Scott Lithgow, I hope that no irrevocable decisions will be taken about slates being wiped clean or sales being made without the Secretary of State explaining to the House exactly what is happening and the impact on those involved.
I know that the Secretary of State will note that point, and I hope that he will bear it very much in mind. In his usual detached and unemotional way, he has given us a well-prepared script, full of bad news. I suppose that we are used to bad news. After all, it has become almost routine over the years. The Secretary of State continually gives us more of the same. He has sketched a pretty dreich and dreary outlook for Scottish local government in the rate support grant.
One of the Secretary of State's great weapons is tedium. [Interruption.] Not every hon. Member has served on the Rating and Valuation (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill, so that may be something of an "in" joke. However, the right hon. Gentleman's weapon is tedium and it is sometimes difficult to tell what the Government's intentions are from

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the right hon. Gentleman's low monotone. Nevertheless, the outlook is dreich and dreary, and the temper and morale of local authorities are not being improved by what has amounted in the past year or two to a campaign of misrepresentation. Indeed, I believe that that campaign is still being conducted by Scottish Office Ministers. Their general tactic is to create a crisis, deny what they have done, and then duck for cover, blaming everyone else in sight. I am sure that the Secretary of State's favourite slogan is, "It wasna me." But many of the troubles that we now face can clearly be laid entirely at his door.
The Secretary of State constantly poses as the ratepayers' champion, and has done so again this afternoon — [Interruption.] We hear the usual loyal bleating noises from behind him whenever that is said, but the reality is that there is a simple deception. The right hon. Gentleman is quite right to say that there has probably been an increase in real terms in local authority expenditure, in constant prices, since 1979–80. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman accepts the calculation that COSLA has done, but it amounts to 1·6 per cent. I understand that there is to be some joint consultation, and the figure may be adjusted. However, I think that it will be of that order.
Therefore, although there has been an increase in expenditure, it has been marginal. But during the same period, the average payment by a domestic ratepayer has increased by about 133 per cent. Accordingly, the answer must lie not in the marginal increase in expenditure but in the persistent reductions in central Government support, which have been the hallmarks of the Secretary of State's policy. The inescapable conclusion is that, for the ratepayers, the Government's fiscal policy has been the villain of the piece.
Of course, the Secretary of State would be right to say that that conclusion is not inescapable, in the sense that if local authorities were prepared to demolish essential services, they could no doubt escape the grim arithmetic of successful rate support grant settlements. However, that option is not open to them, because they have a duty to maintain essential services. It may not be necessary to expand or to go for the ultimately desirable, but they must at least maintain the fabric, for example, of their social, education and cleansing services, as every ratepayer and citizen expects. I object to the campaign of deception. We are being invited to finalise a rather bitter past and to accept what I fear, in the 1984–85 figures, is a grim future.
I turn to the general abatements for 1982–83 and 1983–84. As hon. Members will know, in the first year there was a clawback of £27 million and in the second year a clawback of £45 million. As the outturn figures are very different from the estimated expenditure in many local authorities, we shall be faced this year with a substantial grant reduction and with a redistribution of the burden of the abatement among several authorities, which will amount to more than £8 million.
During discussion of clause 1 of the Rating and Valuation (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill we made our protests, but we got cold comfort from the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Ancram). However, I still believe that we should not look upon the general abatements as being routine. It is an indictment of the system that £185 million has been clawed back under this Government by that method. The general
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abatement and the selective action taken are now unashamedly tied to the guidelines. The Minister has talked at great length about the client group approach. I do not join in any general satisfaction about the guidelines and the way in which they have been drawn. It is significant that no fewer than 36 local authorities have guidelines for 1984–85 which contain less than their budgets for 1983–84.
Although the gap may have closed, as the Minister claimed, many of the guidelines are still totally unrealistic. Strathclyde regional council is an important authority and by far the largest in terms of expenditure. Its increase in guidelines this year over last year is only 1·5 per cent. In real terms, that must represent a very substantial cut. To talk about general satisfaction with the guidelines suggests only that the Secretary of State has not bothered to talk for long to Strathclyde. If he has done so, he has not listened to what the council had to say. Therefore, we should not forget the general abatement. The situation is unsatisfactory. The cover has been blown, and the guidelines are clearly now part of the very oppressive structure that the Secretary of State has put on the statute book in the past year or so.
The main item on the menu is the settlement for 1984–85. It is true that the relevant expenditure figure is up by just over £75 million. I think that the figure is £75·5 million or 2·8 per cent. However, that, of course, is very much less than the rate of inflation, however it is calculated, and represents a real decrease. The extent of the disaster can be seen by taking the current year's estimates. Let us assume that expenditure in real terms is static and that inflation is taken into account. In that case, local authorities would be paying about £140 million above the Secretary of State's planned figure of about £2,750 million. That would involve an increase of more than 4·9 per cent.
Some of the gaps that have appeared between the Government's settlement figures in specific areas of policy and local authorities' projected expenditure are dramatic. The Secretary of State will be familiar with the figures of 7·4 per cent. for education, 24·6 per cent. for transport and just over 33 per cent. for leisure and recreation. Although I seem to be dealing with rather academic and abstract concepts, they will mean substantial problems for local authorities which, in the real world, have to plan and maintain services.
I shall cite some examples from the areas that I have already mentioned. I may have a particular interest in transport and the section 20 grants that are paid by Strathclyde regional council. My understanding is that in 1984–85 these grants are likely to amount to some £32 million. When the subsidies for buses, ferries and other means of transport are added, Strathclyde is budgeting next year for about £55 million. The whole figure for Scotland in the Secretary of State's settlement is just over £56 million, which hardly covers Strathclyde, never mind making provision for all the other authorities. That is the measure of the unreality of the Secretary of State's arithmetic. On several occasions recently, at Question Time, when my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and I have raised the matter, we have heard that the Secretary of State and his people are considering section 20 payments and the way the section 20 figure is arrived at. Yet nothing seems to be happening. I hope the Secretary of State will bear this matter very much in mind.

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In regard to concessionary fares, if Scottish local authorities were to meet the targets which the Secretary of State claims are reasonable and which he has set, the concession on the fare for senior citizens would be reduced to about 20 per cent., which is hardly generous. If Strathclyde were to meet the figures, the concessionary fare of lop would have to go up to 20p. It will not, and I hope we will not get carping criticism from the Secretary of State about profligate and unrealistic councillors if they try to protect senior citizens from that kind of burden.
On education I had correspondence recently with the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. MacKay) about a scheme in England under which money is being given to voluntary bodies by the Department of Health and Social Security to help with projects for the under-fives. It is expected that in the next two years expenditure will be about £2 million a year. When I asked the Under-Secretary about the Scottish equivalent, I was told that there will not be one, because it is all being done through the rate support grant. There was a great deal of bogus concern about the appropriate way of doing these things being by taking account of local circumstances and the needs to which these gave rise. I should like to take account of local circumstances and the needs to which they give rise. How can an education authority do that if there is a substantial cut in its provisions? It is bunkum to say these things when hard-pressed authorities will not be able to provide for the kind of expansion that would properly mirror the scheme put forward by central Government south of the border.
I do not want to labour what has already been said about the employment of teachers, but I understand that there is room for dispute about the figures for pupil numbers given by COSLA and the Secretary of State. Again, if the target laid down by the right hon. Gentleman is to be met, there will be a substantial decrease in the number of teachers employed in 1984–85. Let us not forget that COSLA is projecting on the basis of a drop of 800 teachers to account for falling school rolls. It reckons that, if it does what the Government ask, there will be 3,191 fewer teachers employed in Scotland. I invite the Under-Secretary to tell us whether he accepts that figure or to what extent there is margin for error.
There will be widespread distress and dismay in my constituency and every other constituency if local authorities are to do as they have been bid by the Secretary of State. He is relying on them not doing it because the outcry about the damage that would be done to education would be terrible.
Mr. Dick Douglas: Will my hon. Friend accept that the discrepancy in the figures may relate partly to the fact that many pupils have gone back to school because they have not been able to find productive and reasonable employment? Therefore, the number of teachers should be increased rather than decreased.
Mr. Dewar: What my hon. Friend says is true. It is another example of how the Government's economic policy increases public spending in the worst of all possible ways. It leads, first, to enormous and insupportable dole queues and, secondly, to the situation to which my hon. Friend has referred. The Minister owes us a specific comment on the horrific loss in teaching staff that his figures seem to imply.
Not just relevant expenditure is down in real terms but, as the Secretary of State conceded, the grant percentage
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has been reduced too. It is down by 1·5 per cent., which I am advised is equivalent to 4p on the rate poundage. If the cut of 1·5 per cent. had not been imposed and the original grant had been made, local authorities in Scotland would have had another £48·1 million. Therefore, it is not something to be shrugged off. It represents a substantial cut in real income.
It is unfortunate that there should be a squeeze at each end of the calculation. Local authorities may well feel that they are losing in every way. For the Secretary of State to appear at the Dispatch Box and give the impression that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds is the height of hypocrisy. It is unsatisfactory. Relationships between central and local Government will be further soured and damaged if Ministers continue down the path on which they seem to have set their way. The only thing they are doing is bringing in many irrelevant measures in the rating and valuation legislation which no one wants.
I agree with the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) that there seems to be no point in the rate-capping provision, given the formidable battery of weapons that has accumulated on the statute book since 1979. That view is shared by many Tory councillors, including, for example, the leader of the Tories on Edinburgh district council who put the point eloquently to us recently on a visit to Westminster. I was delighted to find that we had unexpected but welcome allies in Edinburgh chamber of commerce, which finds the whole rate-capping provision constitutionally offensive. It is to its credit that it has been prepared publicly to make that point.
Individual authorities have suffered, as the Secretary of State accepts. In regard to the needs element distribution formula, in 1983–84 Strathclyde was getting £680 million; in 1984·85 the figure is £665 million, a substantial drop. It is not a case of a rise being overtaken in real terms by inflation, but a drop in cash terms. I am informed that that is the equivalent of a loss of about 7p in rate poundage. It is to some extent offset by an increase in the resources element, but the damage is still real. Experiences like that have embittered people right across the political spectrum in local government.
In the Glasgow Herald of, I think, last Friday there was reported a speech by councillor John Young, a very senior Conservative, who was talking specifically in the context of the shipbuilding crisis. I find it interesting that he should say:
"Merely condemning George Younger isn't going to achieve anything."
He did not try to defend the Secretary of State. He went on with a counsel of despair and cry of pain, asking that the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) should be recalled to Scottish politics as Minister for the Clyde. It is worth recording in Hansard as a remarkable piece of loyalty that the hon. Member for Southend, East, while saying that it was a splendid idea, felt he had to decline the honour; he said:
"I can assure people that George Younger is proving to be a real tiger fighting at every level for the country's interests".
The right hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) never struck me as a veritable tiger fighting for the rights of Scotland at every level. That phrase becomes perfectly laughable when we consider the right hon. Gentleman's record on rate support grant settlements in the past few years.

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Strathclyde, Glasgow and west coast authorities are not the only ones that are worried. I have referred to some of Edinburgh's anxieties about the Government's legislative initiatives. Also in the Glasgow Herald we have a statement by Brian Meek, the convenor of the Tory-controlled Lothian Region, who was reported as saying:
"it was almost inevitable that the rates would have to rise. Taking all the factors in the rate support grant settlement the region was starting with an additional rate bill of 7p."
If we remember the constant prating of Conservative politicians about how they have championed the ratepayer —no doubt it will be commonplace again during the district elections in May—it seems extraordinary that such a well-known Conservative as Mr. Meek should be saying that what the Government are doing to Lothian this year will put a substantial impost on the ratepayers there. Perhaps the ratepayers will not have to bear the full burden, because many councils such as Glasgow and Strathclyde will try to ensure that they are to some extent sheltered from the arithmetic and logic of what the Government are doing. The trouble with that, however, is that they will not be thanked by the Secretary of State. Indeed, they will be met by carping criticism and probably by harsh and unnecessary penalties. That is why the Government's proposals are so offensive.
This is a dishonest campaign, which will work out unjustly and inequitably. The Government's policy in the past few years has been a sham— a ramshackle and illogical hypocrisy. Because of that, we shall protest against their record and against what they are promising in this rate support grant settlement in the Lobby tonight.
5.11 pm
Sir Hector Monro: I seem fated to speak after the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar), with his histrionics and short memory. We get used to them. He always fails to recall what his party did when last in government—it cut the rate support grant by a bigger percentage than any previous Government. Indeed, the Labour party must be in the "Guinness Book of Records" for the number of times that it reduced the rate support grant. The Opposition reduced it by as much as 4 per cent. in one year. Yet we heard nothing of that today.
Mr. Dewar: My right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Millan) got tired of this gramophone record. I intend to try to deal with it only once, whereupon I hope to be able to ignore it. Will the hon. Gentleman not recognise that the 4 per cent. decrease to which he referred was much heralded and came after a hike in the rate support grant to allow for the one-off costs of reorganisation when the regions and the districts were created? If the hon. Gentleman is worried I suggest that he does not go back to ancient history but examines the record of the Government whom he supports. They have reduced rate support grant by 8 per cent. since coming to power and seem intent on doing more damage.
Sir Hector Monro: The hon. Gentleman has given us another lesson in economics. I am not impressed, as a 4 per cent. cut in one year is far more dramatic than a 1 or 2 per cent. cut in an ordinary year. The hon. Gentleman should bear it in mind that being restrictive in public expenditure has been part of the Government's economic
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strategy for the past five years. Within that calculation, local government must be taken into account when considering Government expenditure.
Mr. Maxton: Why?
Sir Hector Monro: Within the context of that policy, I do not disagree with the overall determination for this year, but I should like to make some constructive criticisms about the distribution of the rate support grant and about the fairness of the formula. I should also like an assurance that the client group method will bring advantages in 1985–86 to local authorities that keep within the guidelines.
In Committee, two weeks ago, I told my hon. Friend the Minister of my anxiety about how the formula will work for rural areas. He was good enough to tell me that he was acutely aware of the situation. I hope that he will go further today. Before the equivalent debate on the English rate support grant order, there was media comment to the effect that there would be concessions on rate support grant settlement to assist the counties and olive branches to the shires. I hope that rural areas in Scotland will receive similar comment. To that end, I should like rather more than refinements.
Mr. Maxton: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Sir Hector Monro: Of course, but the hon. Gentleman should not interrupt while I am standing.
Mr. Maxton: I cannot interrupt the hon. Gentleman unless he is standing. In view of the hon. Gentleman's anxiety about rural areas, does he agree with his hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) who suggested recently that one way in which to get extra money for rural areas was to rate farmers and their land? Does he agree with that, and will he propose such a course of action?
Sir Hector Monro: No, I most certainly will not. It is a complete waste of time giving way to the hon. Gentleman. The remarks of councillor Sewel of COSLA in today's newspapers about inconsistencies are utterly incorrect. The Government are right to set an example by reducing public expenditure. It is therefore also right that the Government should, by legislation, do all within their power to ensure that local authority expenditure is kept down as much as possible. I see no inconsistency in that. A few weeks ago councillor Sewel said that Conservative Members had no local government experience. I suspect that one or two have had more experience as elected representatives in local authorities than councillor Sewel has.
I have studied circulars 13 and 14 of 1983 and the statutory instrument. To say that they are complicated is a major understatement. I should like to examine the rate support grant and the proposed payments relative to the guidelines. Dumfries and Galloway council kept expenditure down, in the national interest, in the interests of ratepayers and in the interests of encouraging industry to the area.
That was highly commendable. The rates fell this year by 8p in the pound, to about the lowest level in Scotland. I shall not dwell on the compilation of the relevant expenditure by the Scottish Development Department, which includes loan charges and does not include specific grants such as those for police, which produces the rate support grant figure. There is a small element of domestic

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expenditure—one eighth for resources and seven eighths for needs. In future the resulting figures will be called the guidelines under the client group formula.
In 1983–84 the Dumfries and Galloway guideline was for £60,420,000. In 1984–85 it should have been £67,742,000 under the new formula, but it has been artificially reduced to £63,225,000 by the Scottish Development Department. I should be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister would explain how the change in the formula was arrived at, as it seems to transfer the guidelines amount from some local authorities to others which are classed as high spenders.
The reduced figure of £63·2 million is not matched by the RSG and, in cash terms, it is lower than it was in 1983–84. Surely my right hon. Friend will agree that the RSG settlement should at least match inflation. While we have obtained an increased guideline, we have been saddled with a reduced grant.
Thanks to extremely prudent housekeeping by the regional council, through the use of reserves it may not be necessary to put the rates up the full amount. Under the present circumstances, the rates will inevitably have to go up, perhaps by 4p or 5p in the pound. The reason for that, as my right hon. Friend said when presenting the proposals, lies in the reduction to 60:40 in the relationship between local authority and Government contributions. In the interests of forward planning by local authority treasurers, can he say whether the formula of 60:40 is final? Will it continue to be in the Government's favour in future?
The client group method of compilation should, in theory, benefit rural areas. According to figures that were given to me, the new formula would mean an adjustment of 0·4p this year in Dumfries and Galloway. If that continues, it will be many years before the authority reaches the figure for proper distribution produced by the formula. Will my right hon. Friend say how far he will move towards a proper distribution by means of the new client group method?
I hope, too, that my right hon. Friend will say a little more about a matter that he touched upon in Committee. He dealt with the needs element for rural areas, and said how important it would be for them to achieve a more worthwhile settlement for 1985–86. The Government have stated that prudent authorities that keep within the guidelines will receive better settlements than those that are profligate with public funds.
Many of the issues that I have raised in relation to expenditure in sparsely populated areas, where more is spent on transport and other services, will affect district councils in the same way. I hope that the Minister will say something about the problems in rural areas affected by the RSG formula as well as in the regions, with which I am mainly concerned.
Capital spending in my region will remain virtually static compared with the current year, although my right hon. Friend has made detailed changes in the regions. I cannot but notice that the Borders, Central, Fife, Highland and Tayside have increases in capital expenditure, while Lothian and Strathclyde have less. However, Dumfries and Galloway has not been allowed an increase, although it has set as fine an example as any local authority in Scotland.
I should like to see a much more equitable distribution of RSG next year. I hope that we shall hear some encouraging news when the Under-Secretary winds up the
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debate. While the Government's policies are right overall to keep down public expenditure, the distribution formula as it affects rural areas is inconsistent with the Government's aims.
5.25 pm
Mr. Gregor MacKenzie: Like the hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro), I have served on a local authority. I was elected to serve on a local authority in 1952, more than 30 years ago. I hasten to add, for the benefit of my junior colleagues, that I was elected as a young 23-year-old. I have had an interest in local authority matters for all those 30 years. I cannot think of any time when elected members of local authorities were more frustrated and demoralised than they are at present.
The hon. Member for Dumfries quoted yet again a set of selected figures. I have talked to councillors from both urban and rural authorities, and they often say that they much preferred the 68·5 per cent. rate support grant which they had from my right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Millan) when he was Secretary of State to the rate support grant which they now receive.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) said that it had been suggested by a Glasgow Tory that we should go outside Scotland, to Southend, to find someone to tackle our problems. That proposition does not appeal to me. The Secretary of State and his colleagues must realise that much anger and bitterness are felt by local councillors of all parties. They are doing a thoroughly good job. They are the people who know best the problems of their areas. It is only right and proper, if democracy means anything at all, that they should be allowed to get on with that task.
Those people bitterly resent—I would, too, if I were still a member of a local authority—the constant cutting of what they deem to be essential services. The hon. Member for Dumfries naturally and properly spoke about the problems of rural areas. However, I am sure he will concede that those who represent urban communities have serious problems too, and I hope to deal with them in a few moments.
Local councillors also resent the sneering cynics who tell them from time to time that they are nothing but big spenders. The Secretary of State said that again today. In a sweeping way, he said that local authorities were still spending far too much. I wish that the Secretary of State and his Ministers would get it into their heads that one of the reasons why local authorities are now under an obligation to spend more than they have had to spend for some time is that the problems with which they must deal, mainly created by this Administration, are greater now than they have ever been in the 30 years that I have been associated with local government.
We recently debated the Rates Bill, which is concerned with rate capping, which is an unfortunate expression, because people do not know what it means. It means simply that the Secretary of State will be the Big Brother of 1984 and will tell everyone what they should do. However, nothing much was said about the the Bill in Scotland.
Mr. Maxton: There are no Conservative rebels there.
Mr. Mackenzie: There was not a cheep from Scottish Conservative Members. Nobody bothered about the matter and it was only last week, when their English counterparts

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came to the fore and rebelled, that the issue suddenly took life in the House. Those who represent the Conservative party in Scotland would be well advised to talk to local councillors about what they think about rate capping, and then tell us and the Secretary of State their views.
Conservative Members should also have a word with some of their colleagues in councils about another matter which they resent. The point was made effectively by a former Conservative Cabinet Minister last week, when he said that it was a crime for local authorities to be asked to reduce costs and be compelled by the Government to reduce expenditure at a time when central Government expenditure was increasing by 2 per cent. The right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Pym) gave the figure, and I can only repeat what he said.
I am bound to tell the Secretary of State, through his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, that some of the services on which the money is being spent are not first priorities on our list. I read—I stand to be corrected if I am wrong—that we are to spend £800 million on an airstrip on the Falkland Islands, I have a great deal of sympathy with the Falkland Islanders, but then I think about what a district council in Scotland could do with that amount of money. The Falklands are hardly the size of Millport, but money is being poured in there. If such money were poured into the deprived areas of Scotland, the Secretary of State would get our genuine support.
My hon. Friend the Member for Garscadden referred to the COSLA paper on recreation and leisure. He said that the COSLA estimate of the shortfall there was about 33 per cent. I have seen the closure of sporting facilities in my constituency. In the region we have seen swimming baths and other sporting facilities closed. We have seen the posponement, yet again, of the building of running tracks, athletic fields, and so on, at a time when there are more unemployed young people than we have had in Scotland in all the time that I can remember. Instead of harnessing the energies of these young people into good, healthy sporting activities, this Government, in their concern about rates, are prepared to allow those young people to roam the streets of our big cities and often cause great mischief while doing so.
I have a number of deprived areas in my constituency, where there is massive unemployment. Let me give one example. I am privileged, in companionship with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton), to represent the people of Castlemilk. I am told that unemployment among young people there is about 50 per cent. I have also seen the housing in that part of the city. We do not have boarded-up houses or blocks of flats; we have boarded-up streets. It is a most depressing sight. One has to see it to believe the deprivation that exists there. There is no encouragement for young people to stay in their own homes. I should be rebuked by you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I were to refer to the next order, but that has been laid, because the local authority has not been given the proper resources to carry out effective and essential repairs.
There are many good local organisations in Castlemilk which do useful voluntary work, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cathcart and I know well. However, our councillors tell us constantly that they could do a great deal more if the resources were available to help these young people. I have heard many complaints, particularly during
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the past year—very proper complaints, and from all sides of the House—about glue sniffing, vandalism and young people taking drugs. I would rather the Secretary of State spent money on a new swimming pool or running track in my constituency than on trying to cure young people of glue sniffing and drug addiction. In my opinion, they are closely linked. If we are to harness the enthusiasm and energy of young people, that is what we must do.
Mr. Maxton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the problem of drug addiction in Scotland has been made marginally worse by the Government, who have cut back on Customs and Excise officers to such an extent that Scottish ports are no longer manned on a 24-hour basis, thus making drug smuggling that much easier?
Mr. MacKenzie: I have heard that, and I deprecate the fact that it is making it easier for many people to take drugs.
At the other end of the scale—I shall not rehearse the arguments which I gave in the Scottish Grand Committee a few weeks ago—councillors in Scotland are genuinely concerned about the pathetic treatment by the Government of our elderly citizens. In the last couple of days our national newspapers have contained serious criticisms of that treatment. All of us, as Members of Parliament, have received representations from voluntary organisations such as the Crossroads Care Attention Scheme, which has been a useful adjunct to the services provided by local authorities.
We begin to realise that we shall not get much change out of the Secretary of State. Local councillors, and the local people whom they represent, know what they want to do for old people, if the Secretary of State does not know. They want more old folks' homes, certainly more day-care centres for the elderly, more home helps than the order will permit, sheltered housing, which will no doubt be considered on the next order, and the provision of better trained people to look after these old people and keep them in their own homes.
Frankly, the resources which the Secretary of State is giving local authorities will not match the growing problem of the elderly in Scotland. The Under-Secretary of State should pay more attention to this matter. When he winds up the debate, I hope that he will say something about the concessionary fares, which are much used and appreciated by elderly people — that is, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if he has the good fortune to catch your eye.
Most of us know—certainly I do—from talking to our local councillors, COSLA and the people whom we have the privilege to represent, what they want to do for both the young and the old in the community. If local democracy means anything, the Secretary of State should listen to the voices of the councillors and not just to the special interest groups, which he seems to favour more than the people who have been elected to do the job.
The Secretary of State recently offended all of us by taking unto himself powers greater than any Secretary of state has taken before. A few weeks ago, one of his right hon. Friends said to the Secretary of State for the Environment that Secretaries of State were taking on more powers than were given to Ministers even in time of war. That is something that we should all deprecate. If the Secretary of State for Scotland wants to be convenor, lord provost and Secretary of State all wrapped up in one, he

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should go out into the streets in Scotland. The people there will tell him what they want. They will tell him that they want a great deal more assistance for the local authorities.
5.40 pm
Mr. Gerald Malone: It is interesting to note that the fire has gone out of Her Majesty's Opposition during the debate. We have heard a lame rehearsal of the arguments that we hear time and time again.
The truth is that this is an issue upon which there is almost a consensus. It has been recognised for a significant time that restrictions on local authority spending are essential. That was recognised by the Opposition when they were in Government. We should compliment the Labour Government on its success in cutting manpower levels. Between 1966 and 1967 it achieved much more than we have achieved, cutting manpower by 10,000. There is a consensus that local authority expenditure is important and that it would escalate if the House did not put some ceiling upon it. The measures proposed by the Government today are sensible and impose a reasonable constraint.
I am pleased to note that local authorities that have behaved responsibly in the past will not now be penalised as they have been. Among those authorities I can include Aberdeen district council in whose area my constituency is located, because after its annual outturn last year its rate support grant will not be cut.
Mr. Robert Hughes: Grampian regional council is Tory controlled. It is bitter about the fact that, despite its pleas to the Secretary of State, its education budget has been severely cut. The City of Aberdeen district council, too, is very upset because the proposed leisure centre that has been on the stocks for some time has now been finally vetoed by the Secretary of State.
Mr. Malone: The hon. Gentleman knows full well that he is wrong about the leisure centre. I believe that Aberdeen district council received a letter from the Secretary of State yesterday and discussed it at a council meeting. The Secretary of State made it clear that this was the first time that he had had to consider a proposal for a leisure centre on such a scale. He gave the council the option of seeking private funds, if it chose to build a substantial leisure facility. Within the area of Aberdeen there are already substantial leisure facilities. I believe that this special complex should be supported, but not exclusively by the rate support grant or by central Government.
The hon. Gentleman referred to complaints from Conservative councillors in Grampian region. Conservative Members of Parliament must meet criticism from Conservative councillors head on and explain to them as to Labour councillors both in regions and in districts that restraint is necessary. As long as the restraint is imposed fairly, I think that it is right.
We will always be met by requests for more money, but there comes a time when we must stand up to those requests. That is why we are having this debate, and why I consider that the levels of rate support grant that have been set are fair.
Restraint will encourage more efficiency in local government. Efficiency should be encouraged wherever
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possible, and there is still scope for improvement. I congratulate Aberdeen district council for meeting its budget and running an efficient local authority. Like most people, the council wants more money, but it has managed to work well within its budget. That should he a source of satisfaction to all hon. Members.
Finally, I cannot believe that, in their hearts, the Opposition want an increase in local authority expenditure. When in office, the Labour party always did what we have done. Are the restraints being spread fairly throughout the community? That is the test, and I believe that they are. Manning levels in local authorities are in no way below what they have been during the past five or six years. Pupil-teacher ratios are better than they have ever been. If services are run efficiently, they can be better than in the past. It is the duty of the House to respect not only the ratepayer but the taxpayer. The taxpayer is being respected and supported by the Government in setting the rate support grant at this level. The Government are to be congratulated. The battle has been fought constantly by Governments of both parties. The Opposition will do themselves no good by being turncoats and suggesting that they would have done anything different.
5.45 pm
Mr. Donald Stewart: The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Malone) talked about a consensus. He is right in one respect. There is a consensus among Scottish councillors of all political parties against the Government's action over the rate support grant. That is made clear in the press every day.
In his opening address the Secretary of State implied —as he has done before—that reductions could be made by reducing extravagance or ending unnecessary expenditure and that there was some great excess of fat to be trimmed away. However, even in far more affluent days, the local authorities which I have served never had any excess fat to trim away, and their position has become worse in recent years.
The hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) referred to the heavier costs of rural areas, but he made a mistake which is often made by Conservative Members. He avowed support of the Government's intention to reduce expenditure, but he does not want it to be done on his doorstep. I have a rural constituency which is in great financial difficulties, but I oppose the reduction in rate support grant on behalf of the whole of Scotland.
The hon. Member for Dumfries was right in claiming that control or reduction of the rate support grant is not a new policy.
"Concern to control local expenditure is not new. It existed throughout the period of the last Labour Government."
Those are not my words or the words of my party. Those are the words of Dr. Arthur Midwinter, of Strathclyde university, who is an expert on administration and local government in Scotland, and he is correct. The Labour Government in 1976–77 and 1977–78 made cuts in Scottish local government spending, and it was the Labour Secretary of State who introduced the spending guidelines and cash limits. Using such guidelines, the present Secretary of State, now with increased powers of intervention and diktat, can break the chains of local democracy and accountability by coming between the local authority and its electorate. He can now determine expenditure and, effectively, rate levels, by deciding that expenditure is excessive and unreasonable.

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The Secretary of State has chanted the phrase "excessive and unreasonable" in the hope that the public will come to believe it. Perhaps he has only succeeded in convincing himself that it is true, because no one else, outside his band of Tory monetarists, believes it. The methodology which underlies the determination of what is excessive and unreasonable is flawed and has no intellectual credibility. It would have none whether it was a Tory or Labour Secretary of State who uttered those now infamous words, because the guidelines themselves are unstable, illogical and unfair.
I shall give some details of the rate support grant. In 1976 the grant made up 76 per cent. of the planning total of Scottish local government expenditure. By 1983–84 it comprised only 61·7 per cent. of total relevant expenditure. In the coming financial year, 1984–85, it will have been reduced to just over 60 per cent. That drop in rate support grant means, inevitably, that local authority rates must rise if services are to be maintained at a satisfactory level. It seems, however, that the Government are determined that such services should be cut to the bone, and we all know what is happening in our constituencies.
The proposed settlement of the grant for 1984–85 is, in cash terms, only a 3·8 per cent. increase on the final 1983–84 settlement. In other words, given the rate of inflation over the past year, it is a cut in real terms. Just as with the housing support grant, which has been slashed to the point of non-existence in Scotland, the Government are determined to tighten the financial screw on Scottish local authorities.
As Mr. John Sewel, the president of COSLA said:
"The two announcements together show that the Secretary of State is determined to hammer both ratepayers and local authority tenants."
There is good reason why we should not have to suffer in this way. Last year, Scottish oil revenues alone contributed some £9 billion to the Treasury, and that figure will increase during the next few years. In 1980–81, expenditure under Scottish Office control amounted to 5·65 per cent. of total United Kingdom expenditure. That expenditure has dropped steadily over the years and stood at only 5·3 per cent. in 1983–84. Other figures given in the Official Report on 2 December 1983 show that, in real terms, in the 1982–83 financial year the Scottish Office received only 96 per cent. of the spending total that it was awarded in 1975–76.
Taking 1975–76 as baseline 100, the Scottish programme plummeted to 90·8 per cent. of that in 1977–78 under Labour, and by 1982–83 it had still not recovered to its 1975–76 level. That is an appalling state of affairs, given what Scotland contributes to the Treasury. Whichever way one looks at it, it is daylight robbery, and it will go on.
Those who are supposed to be protecting Scotland and who claim the Scottish mandate — members of the Labour party—are allowing this to happen because they have bowed weakly before Westminster's sovereignty. The Scottish mandate exists, but has force only when it is wielded by those who believe in freedom and self-determination for the country, not when it is claimed spuriously by those whose real desire is to regain power at Westminster.
Mr. Maxton: I should be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman would tell the House how, if we cannot achieve a Scottish Assembly or get matters through the House, the SNP proposes to do it, except by undemocratic means.
Mr. Stewart: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's statement about undemocratic means. We shall achieve it by a mandate from the Scottish electorate. We will come to the House and ask Parliament to recognise the wishes of the Scottish people. From what I heard during the devolution debates, I believe that there are sufficient English Members who will see justice done in accordance with the democratic wishes of the Scottish people. If they do not, we will stand on the United Nations charter and claim the right which the Scottish people have demanded.
The present Tory Administration in Scotland are not based on democracy and therefore we should not be surprised if they act undemocratically. Their actions are an affront to the Scottish tradition of local government and local autonomy. They have no moral basis for their actions, and unfortunately the Labour party in Scotland shows no signs of action to back up their moral right. Thus, Scotland is twice the loser and our people continue to suffer hammer blow after hammer blow.
No SNP majority which could legitimately claim the Scottish mandate would have allowed this dreadful position to develop. With the Scottish mandate behind us, an independent Scottish Parliament would already exist.
5.54 pm
Mr. Michael Hirst: My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) made a passing reference to comments in the Glasgow Herald. For the edification of my colleagues and, I suspect, Opposition Members I wish to quote what Councillor John Sewel had attributed to him in this morning's Glasgow Herald. He said:
"Scottish Conservative MPs will lose any semblance of consistency and integrity if they vote in support of the Scottish Rate Support Grant settlement."
I take great exception to Councillor John Sewel making such a statement. That is rich coming from the representative of a party who made the largest single cut in the rate support grant.
The Opposition have an amazing facility for forgetting unpalatable political facts which reflect upon their years in office. We have watched synthetic indignation from this side of the House. The Opposition's pathetic attendance bears testimony to the fact that they are not interested.
There is a tendency for the Opposition to forget that local government expenditure takes a sizeable proportion of the resources available to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and that overspending preempts funds that could go to other projects that Conservative Members happen to cherish.
Mr. Maxton: Like the Falklands.
Mr. Hirst: Let us move on from the Falklands. I shall reiterate a point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar). He grudgingly conceded that spending was higher in real terms in the current year than it was under the last year of the Labour Government. That gives the lie to the muted opposition that we are hearing this afternoon.
The rate support grant order provides a challenge to Scottish local authorities. They employ, on average, 20

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per cent. more manpower than corresponding authorities south of the border. That is making allowances for the differences in services. There lies the challenge. If local authorities can contain their manpower, clearly they will be able to live perfectly easily within the rate support grant without having to cut services or increase rates.
I am hopeful, and I have justification for so being, that local authorities will take notice following the selective orders that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland found necessary to impose on four local authorities last year. The experience of Glasgow, and the opposition some monthe ago to the selective order, would have prompted one to believe that services there would have fallen apart. The contrary is true. It now appears to me and many Conservative Members that Glasgow is so flush with funds that it can, during an election year, offer the bribe of no increase in rents.
The Opposition cannot have it both ways. They cannot stand up as did the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. MacKenzie), who complained about the quality of housing in his constituency, and ask what can be done to improve it if, at the same time, the ruling Labour group refuses to increase rents.
There is a tendency in such a debate to be somewhat parochial, and I make no apology for that. The hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Mr. Hogg) will appreciate this point because until recently he represented my part of the world. In Strathkelvin district council, which is unfortunately, but only until May, run by the Labour party, the provost has said that nothing is sacred in the district council's quest to get its budget down to near the guidelines set for it. I genuinely see that as welcome evidence that the district council has recognised that it has an obligation to its ratepayers to bring its spending into line with guidelines.
The experience of my other local authority suggests something very different—that it is possible to maintain services and to hold rates steady, or even to decrease them, while bearing a reduction in rate support grant. Conservative-controlled Bearsden and Milngavie is an excellent example of a prudent local authority that gives its ratepayers value for money. That district council has had an impressive record during recent years in balancing the need for economy with maintenance of services and protection of the ratepayers' pockets. Year after year, through prudent housekeeping, it has succeeded in keeping its final outturn of expenditure in line with its guidelines. Yet in the past, that authority has been penalised together with all the overspenders through a general abatement of its rate support grant.
In four years the Conservative administration has succeeded in keeping its rates increases to an absolute minimum. I am confident that the outcome of this year's budget will result in a further reduction. I wish to place on record my admiration for that district council. I am sure that hon. Members understand that the Conservative councillors will be glad that I have placed my appreciation on record.
Those achievements have been won in the face of the difficulties imposed by the cuts in rate support grant and the fact that the size of the authority makes economies especially difficult. If a local authority has 12 people in a certain department, it can reduce that number. But in departments in a small local authority such as Bearsden and Milngavie it is difficult to make a cut from two to one.
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There have been no complaints from councillors, of whatever political hue, about rate capping or selective orders. They know, as all sensible councillors in Scotland know, that if they engage in prudent management and sensible policies within their councils, the prospect of rate capping or selective orders will not materialise.
Mr. Maxton: A large number of the services provided for the hon. Gentleman's constituents are actually provided by Glasgow ratepayers—for example, leisure activities. The hon. Gentleman is explaining the difficulties of small staffs in small district councils. Would it not be better, therefore, to return to the original Wheatley proposals and include such areas as Bearsden, Bishopbriggs and Eastwood within Glasgow district council?
Mr. Hirst: That proposal will be greeted with horror by my constituents because they would not wish to be governed by the people who returned the hon. Gentleman to Parliament. I wish to nail firmly the point that the hon. Gentleman makes about constituents who live just outwith the Glasgow city boundaries. They make a significant contribution to the well-being and the provision of resources within Glasgow and the west of Scotland. Not only are they people of enterprise and talent who create jobs and pay rates in Glasgow, but the rateable value of the property outwith Glasgow is artificially high. That means that they pay substantial contributions to the Strathclyde budget.
I do not want Glasgow Members to draw again across the scene that red herring about the advantages enjoyed by my constituents. I am confident that if the example of such local authorities as mine is followed throughout Scotland, in 1984–85 thus will have a great opportunity to bring their budget into line with the guidelines. In that way, they will avoid the necessity for selective orders or the fear of rate capping referred to by the Opposition.
6.6 pm
Mr. Charles Kennedy: If the plight of poor people in many parts of Scotland could be remedied by pomposity and platitudes, many of them would be better off having listened to the load of drivel from the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Hirst). He should realise that there is a world outside Strathkelvin and Bearsden. The rosy, affluent comfortable picture which confronts him when he returns to his constituency at the weekend does not exist in many other parts of Scotland.
We know that the Government are culpable in the Highlands region, because they have caused industrial and social devastation by not supporting the Invergordon smelter, which had to close despite the fact that an entire population was dependent on it.
The Prime Minister's only response was that people should move elsewhere. Yet many people, as a deliberate part of the repopulation policy of successive Labour and Conservative Governments, had moved out of the central belt to the Highlands—to the Corpach pulp mill at Fort William and to Invergordon. Yet all that the Government can say is that they should move yet again. That is the true level of social concern shown by this Government.
Sir Hector Monro: What about the enterprise zone?
Mr. Kennedy: The right hon. Gentleman knows that the enterprise zone opened amidst dubiety and doubt about its

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funding I was present at the opening of the zone, but the hon. Gentleman was not sufficiently interested in the plight of my constituents to be present. When the Scottish Office Minister for Industry opened the zone, he acknowledged that there were problems, and I compliment the Government on doing something about that—[Interruption.] Does the hon. Gentleman wish to intervene?
Sir Hector Monro: No.
Mr. Kennedy: The hon. Gentleman has obviously expended enough energy for one evening.
I shall return to the rate support grant order. The change of method from the demographic to the client group approach affects the Highlands regional council. It has been estimated that, without any alteration in the level of services, it will add 2·5p to the rates this year, 2·5p next year and, over the three years during which it is to be phased in — and I welcome the fact that it is to be phased in only gradually — it will add a total of 7p to the rates. Last week the distribution committee of the local government finance working party, which includes representatives from the Scottish Office, acknowledged that there was a need for further refinement and investigation of the client group approach, and we welcome that.
The hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) was at particular pains to stress the problems faced by rural areas, and I agree with him on that. The Government must recognise that rural areas will be affected by the change in methodology to the client group approach. I hope that if increased costs are placed upon local authorities later in the year the Government will not turn round and use a heavy hand approach. They must acknowledge that 7p will be added to the rates in the Highlands regional council area simply because of the change. I ask for tolerance from the Government.
Mr. Michael Forsyth: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that, far from asking the Government for tolerance, he is on very thin ice indeed, because his constituents are already more than privileged by getting a subsidy of nearly £100 per head from the Highlands and Islands Development Board? Those of us with rural constituencies who are not so privileged look on the efforts that are made by the Government on his behalf with some envy. He would do well not to bite the hand that feeds him.
Mr. Kennedy: My constituents will be interested to hear that an hon. Member from the Stirling area feels that they are privileged. That kind of patronising attitude will go down like a ton of bricks when the next Conservative candidate fights Ross, Cromarty and Skye, and in fairness to the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) I shall remind my constituents of his words.
The Secretary of State acknowledged that some local authorities were spending more in real terms now than they were a few years ago. When the three Members of Parliament whose constituencies take in the Highland regional council area met representatives of the council during the Christmas recess—I refer to my hon. Friends the Members for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) and for Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber (Mr. Johnston) and myself—the problem that is faced by the Highlands was highlighted by the sort of comparison that the Secretary of State made.
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In real terms, Inverness district council was spending on 400 miles of roadway on Skye one half of what the entire Highland regional council now has to spend on 4,000 miles of roadway throughout the entire Highlands region. The Secretary of State is perhaps being selective in his choice of statistics when he portrays an image of local authorities spending more and more in real terms. In the Highlands regional council area that is certainly not the case.
I urge the Government, despite the draconian measures which they have introduced in the last two years for local government finance and the change in methodology which they are introducing this year, to be tolerant of the problems of the Highlands. We need no pomposity and patronising, but Government support.
6.12 pm
Mr. Bill Walker: We have just listened to what I would describe as middle of the road drivel and we know what happens to people who occupy the middle of the road. They get run over.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) said, the problems of the Highland area are recognised by the Government, so much so that they are permitting expenditure of £100 per head in excess of that which is spent in the Highland area of Perthshire.
Mr. Kennedy: We appreciate that, but that money would have been better spent, for example, preserving a pulp mill in Fort William instead of which trees are now being cut down, sent to Scandinavia, turned into pulp and brought back to the Highlands to produce paper.
Mr. Walker: I shall not drift into an area that is not covered by the debate. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] I have been asked to limit my remarks and I have agreed to do so. Anyone who tries to run a business when the customers are not prepared to pay the true cost of the goods must expect that business to disappear. That is the logic of the real world, and the hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy) should be satisfied that real efforts are being made to assist his constituents.
I have news for the right hon. Member for Western Isles (Mr. Stewart); I agreed with him about the guidelines being unfair. However, I believe that they are still too high for authorities with a history of high spending and high borrowing. But as they are less unfair than they were, there has been an improvement in that respect.
From the speech of the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. MacKenzie) one would imagine that he had never been in government—that he was not part of the Administration who reduced expenditure massively at the behest of the IMF—and I regret that he is not in his place. He has a marvellous facility for ignoring the failures of many decades of Labour councils and many years of Labour Government. He said that we should listen to councillors. Labour Members did not listen to councillors when they savagely reduced the rate support grant during their years in office.
We must debate this issue against the background of the Government attempting—I put it no higher than that—to contain local authority expenditure in Scotland. After all, 53 per cent. of everything that the Secretary of State has in his budget is local authority expenditure, so the Secretary of State cannot ignore what the local authorities are doing

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My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Malone) was right to say that there is a consensus across the Chamber on the question of restricting local government spending. There may be differences in emphasis and view about how it is to be achieved, which is no doubt why we are having such a muted response from the Opposition.
In the current year, Scottish local authorities budgeted to overspend on the Government's target by £126 million, or nearly 10 per cent., and that could not be ignored. The RSG settlement for 1983–84 allowed an unallocated sum to give local authorities more time in which to bring their expenditure into line. They did not do so, and when that is taken into account, we find that planned spending was still £121 million higher than the Government required, 4·5 per cent. higher than was assumed in the 1983–84 settlement.
That was why the Government were forced to act against four local authorities to reduce their rates by the equivalent of £19 million, and on 2 November 1983 a general abatement of £45 million was enacted. Unfortunately, when there are general abatements of that kind, the good guys suffer with the bad. That is unfortunate because the good authorities — there are many of them in Scotland—must watch the bad guys benefiting at their expense. That meant that 52 per cent. of local authorities' overspend for the 1983–84 period was contained. My complaint is that 48 per cent. was not. I find that disturbing and I should like to see even tougher measures taken to bring under control authorities which overspend.
It is against that background that we are debating the order for the rate support grant settlement for 1984–85, which shows a cash increase of 3·7 per cent. on the previous year. That sum takes into account the lower level of national insurance surcharge payable and changes in the administration of the housing benefit. I accept that this settlement represents a cut in the percentage rate support grant of 1·5 per cent.—from 61·7 per cent. to 60·2 per cent. — but that must be seen against the 1977–78 Labour Government cut of 4 per cent., and that was the year of truly savage cuts.
Bearing that in mind, we must consider the manpower of local authorities in Scotland. We have heard that it is about 20 per cent. higher per head of population than in England, and that cannot be explained away by the sparsity factor alone. Some authorities with large and extensive rural areas, such as Perth and Kinross, have relatively low staffing ratios, while in many city authorities they are relatively high.
Perhaps that explains why, since 1978–79, expenditure by Scottish local authorities has increased by 97 per cent. compared with only 85 per cent. in England and Wales. That is why the rates in Scotland during this period have increased by about 128 per cent., whereas the Scottish grant has gone up by about the rate of price increases. That has meant the ratepayers being forced to fund the increased expenditure. In other words, in my constituency the ratepayers and taxpayers are losing out to high-spending, high-rate authorities such as Dundee. If the Dundee rates were remotely near the rate levels of Perth and Kinross and those of Angus district council, the Tayside health board would have an extra £1 million or more to spend every year. There is a threat to rural hospitals in Tayside because of the high-spending and high-borrowing Labour authority.
Mr. Maxton: Hospitals are run by health boards.
Mr. Walker: Those in the Tayside region face hundreds of thousands of pounds of extra rates because of the Dundee district's high rate. The schools in Dundee are rated, and because of that the rural schools in Perthshire and Angus are forced to make economies. High-spending and high-borrowing authorities such as Dundee filch money that should be spent on education, health and other services. If those were the only areas of central Government expenditure to be affected by rates, that would be sufficient reason for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to intervene. However, many other central Government bodies face massive rates increases, not least the Ministry of Defence. Every time the rates increase, the Ministry of Defence faces a bigger bill.
Against that background, I welcome the changes being made. I recognise the position of low-borrowing and low-spending authorities, such as Perth and Kinross and Angus district council. They take into account the historical low base and allow for that in the calculations for the guidelines and their expenditure.
It is nonsense to talk about the destruction of local authorities. Staffing levels in schools show a pupil-teacher ratio of 20·3:1 in primary schools and 14·3:1 in secondary schools, the best that have ever been achieved. Parents are involved in school councils and they have the ability to select the school to which they want to send their children. They have the opportunity to buy their own homes, that is, their council houses. We should welcome the present situation and not carp about it.
6.23 pm
Mr. Gavin Strang: The hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) had the effrontery to describe this as a muted debate. I do not agree with him. If there has been anything muted about it, it has been the remarkable failure of Conservative Members to criticise the Government's local government policies. Year in and year out, we have Conservative councillors coming to Westminster from Scotland to tell us how much damage central Government are inflicting on local government.
Mr. Bill Walker: Name one.
Mr. Strang: I shall name a councillor in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, or, to be more precise, in the constituency of the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn). Only at lunch-time today Councillor Proudfoot was telling us how disastrous this year's rate support grant would be for local authorities. Throughout the Christmas recess we were subjected to press reports in Scotland of English Tory Members of Parliament who were prepared to tell the Secretary of State for the Environment that the Government would not get away with their proposed impositions on local government. The Scottish Conservatives have gone along with rate capping. The Secretary of State's rate support grant cut is bound to force up rates, but not one Tory Member has raised a note of criticism.
Mr. Bill Walker: Will the hon. Gentleman name the councillor to whom he has referred outside the House?
Mr. Maxton: Scottish Labour Members will support my hon. Friend—in court, if necessary—because we were all present at the meeting to which he referred.
Mr. Strang: I am surprised at the hon. Member for Tayside, North. As I understood it, Councillor Proudfoot was speaking for his local authority at an open meeting with Labour Members of Parliament. I am sure that he will be disappointed by the speech made by the hon. Gentleman.
The Secretary of State justifies the Government's policy on the need to impose further cuts in local government spending. The Opposition believe that those cuts in public expenditure are doing enormous damage to Scotland. They are responsible for mass unemployment and the standing army of young unemployed. For the first time, the majority of school leavers do not have proper jobs to go to, and they end up on the dole or on a youth training scheme. In addition, we have a Government with a grotesque sense of priorities. They are prepared to spend £800 million on the Falklands airport, and 10,000 million on Trident — that massive escalation of nuclear weaponry that will be based on the Clyde.
We are fundamentally opposed to the Government's policy towards local government. It is a bit slick for the Secretary of State to argue that cutting the rate support grant does not lead to an increase in rates. He says that they leave one factor out of the equation — that local authorities can cut their expenditure even more. We all know that in theory that is possible, but the reality is that the lower the percentage of rate support grant from central Government, the higher the rate will be.
Massive cuts in services are being imposed in the Lothian region. In response to the rate support grant settlement, we have to contend with the thinking of the Conservative chairman of the finance committee. On Saturday, 10 December, after the settlement was announced, the Evening News reported the chairman as saying:
"Higher rates in Lothian and further cuts in social work and education frills were forecast today by the region's finance chairman, Councillor Malcolm Knore."
He added:
"Even if we kept within the Secretary of State's guidelines on expenditure, it would be impossible to achieve lower rates."
By the way, among the services that he described as "frills" was nursery education.
The reality is that Lothian is suffering from the cuts. Last week Labour Members representing constituencies in Lothian were received by the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland with responsibility for the Health Service, the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. MacKay). The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the effect of the cuts. In Lothian we have a real cut in expenditure on the National Health Service this year. Hundreds of nurses' jobs have been destroyed already. Over 1,500 households have been deprived of a home help since the cuts were imposed. More than 1,500 housebound people are now deprived of a home help.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) referred especially to teaching. If there is any education area that is suffering cuts, it is Lothian. In last night's Evening News a front-page headline read:
"Schools in cuts alert. Catastrophe lies ahead warn Lothian teachers."
The article reads:
"Lothian teachers today warned of the 'catastrophic' effect continued cash cuts could have on education."
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The teachers went on to outline the hundreds of jobs that have been destroyed in teaching. It appears that over 1,500 jobs have been destroyed in teaching since the Government started imposing the cuts.
Mr. Michael Forsyth: Surely the hon. Gentleman is not advocating that we should increase the number of teachers, even though the number of children in our schools is declining. There are fewer teachers because there are fewer children in the schools.
Mr. Strang: Falling rolls provide an opportunity to improve education in our schools. However, real cuts in the standard of education are being imposed in Lothian schools. If the hon. Gentleman doubts that, I suggest that he speaks to any cross-section of Conservative voters in Edinburgh. At least, they will bear that out if they send their children to state schools.
The national vice-president of the EIS, Mr. Henry Philip, who I think is to be the local chairman of the EIS in Edinburgh and who I know is not a Labour supporter, said:
"Lothian used to be the leading education authority in Scotland, because of the richness of the curriculum it offered its pupils and because of its care for the individual child. It is slipping back into mediocrity.
The short-term savings on maintenance and equipment are already proving more costly in the end. Effects on material things always show up sooner."
The most remarkable feature about the report is the response of the education chairman, Councillor James Gilchrist, who said:
"I think this proves that the EIS are more opposed to the Conservative group than to the cuts."
He suggests that the teachers are against the Tory administration in Lothian, but are acquiescing in education cuts in Strathclyde.
I doubt that the EIS is acquiescing to that extent in accepting the cuts that the Government are trying to impose on Strathclyde. That chairman says that there will be virtually no end to the cuts in the standard of education that will be imposed in the forthcoming year on Lothian.
Constituents who supported the great campaign to reduce rates in Lothian believed that they would be much better off, but they did not realise what a pittance the rate cuts would be for the vast majority. Some, who have had significant reductions in their rate bills, were RAGE supporters. They are taking part in deputations to the education committee and doing everything possible to persuade local and national Tories that there must be some halt to the damage that is being done to services in Lothian. I hope that the Minister who replies—he is also a Scottish Member— will address himself to the enormity of the Government's actions in Lothian.
6.31 pm
Mr. Willie W. Hamilton: I shall not detain the House for long. The quality of life of ordinary working people on low incomes depends enormously on the services provided by local councils — housing, education, roads, police, recreational facilities, concessionary fares for old people and meals-on-wheels. The Tory Government, who are composed primarily of wealthy people, see that as anathema to their philosophy. They do not like the idea of ordinary working people receiving such services at the expense of taxpayers and ratepayers. They do not like a redistribution of wealth in terms of services.

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My right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. Mackenzie) made that point earlier when he talked about our objections to listening to the smooth speech of the wealthy Secretary of State for Scotland. He does not know how ordinary people live. He talks about spendthrift local councils, but he is a Cabinet Minister in a Tory Government who are to spend at least £700 million a year in each of the next three years on the Falkland Islands, with more than £100,000 on each prefabricated house that is being built there. Just this afternoon the Prime Minister said that we should not begrudge that expenditure, but the Government begrudge expenditure in Glasgow and Edinburgh. They should take Glasgow and Edinburgh to the Falklands and they would then have some idea of the catastrophe that must be faced. This is a matter of priorities and the will to spend money in the right directions.
Fife, Glasgow, Edinburgh and urban and rural areas throughout Scotland are deprived because the Government are not providing them with the resources to undertake measures to solve the unemployment problem. Youngsters, bricklayers, plumbers and electricians are raring to go, and throughout the country there are housing lists the length of an arm. For God's sake, bring the two together. Nurses and doctors throughout Britain are unemployed, yet they could be employed by the sensible, intelligent use of our resources.
We can indulge in an argy-bargy about figures and selectively cite one figure or another, but the basic question is: how do we distribute the country's enormous wealth? I take issue with the Scottish National party when it pretends that the simple solution is somehow to cut off Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom and everything will be all right. The problem is more fundamental than that.
In past years, we have had a succession of debates similar to this. Local democracy, with democratically elected councils, is in great peril. We are in 1984 and are seeing Orwell's prophecies coming into effect as a direct result of the Government's actions. That is why over the years all-party delegations from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities — Tories and Liberals — have said, "For God's sake, raise your voices against the dangerous trend upon which the Government have embarked." It is important that the people outside Parliament understand the problem. We are seeing dictatorship from the centre — the man in Whitehall and the woman in No. 10 Downing street with her son who know what is best for the British people. This is disgraceful and highly dangerous for the people of Scotland and the rest of Britain.
I wish to heaven that the Scottish Tory Members of Parliament had as much guts as their English colleagues showed last week when they made it clear that they did not like what they were seeing and would revolt too. In a previous debate I said to the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) that if the Government murdered his grandmother he would say that they had done the right thing. He is an example of the type of spineless individual and the type of Lobby fodder that one finds on the Conservative Benches. That is why the Government are doing this evil thing, and why we shall vote against the measure.
6.37 pm
Mr. Jim Craigen: Something that my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr.
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Hamilton) said about local authorities being imperilled made me recall the days when the Tories talked about keeping politics out of local government. We have come a long way from that. One of the most depressing aspects of today's debate has been the way Government Back Benchers seem to think that their role is to attack local authorities constantly while the defence of those authorities is left to Opposition Back Benchers. That is the message that is drummed out in many debates by people such as the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker). He seldom has a good word to say about local authorities.
Mr. Bill Walker: I have never in this Chamber criticised Perth and Kinross district, the Tayside region or the Angus district authorities.
Mr. Craigen: They will be relieved to know that. The Government can hardly chastise local authorities for local taxation when the Government came into office in 1979 with a mandate to cut taxation and taxation has increased since then by £18 billion. If we are to regard local authorities as a Government Department, that Department must be one of the most over-administered and much scrutinised because its affairs receive much attention from Government Back Benchers and Ministers. They have elevated local government to a blood sport. Government Members seem to show a certain relish in pursuing this matter.
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for enabling this rate support grant order to be debated in prime time as I remember the debates that used to take place after 10 pm, although one ruefully recalls that there were more resources for local authorities in those days. We now have more time but less money. The Secretary of State should be more forthcoming when addressing the general public. By failing to match the rate of inflation or prevailing interest rates and lowering the percentage of grant the rate support grant order will bring about a 4p in the pound rate increase at a stroke, irrespective of any action by any one of the 65 Scottish local authorities. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) pointed out, 36 of them will have a worse deal and lower guidelines for 1984–85 than they had for 1983–84.
I hope that the Minister will deal specifically with three further complaints raised today. Why are there to be 3,100 fewer teachers in Scotland, in addition to the 800 that local authorities currently estimate will not be in post, at a time when there is a real opportunity to raise education standards due to considerably improved pupil-teacher ratios, especially in the inner cities?
When bus fares in Glasgow are perforce so high, why are grants for transport being cut? Why are old-age pensioners and others eligible for concessionary fares likely to receive only a 20 per cent. discount when it is generally acknowledged that it should be 50 per cent.? The Secretary of State said that the Government recognised that the Strathclyde passenger transport authority had a special problem. I hope that he is dealing with that and not just giving out the old soft soap. We should make a fortune if we were in charge of a soap factory, as we certainly get plenty of it.
At a time of such high unemployment especially among young people, how can the Secretary of State say that the Government will cut the money available for leisure and recreation by 33 per cent.? At the very time when we need

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to use local authority facilities, schools and public buildings cannot be used as much as they otherwise would be to cater for young people outside school hours.
The truth is that on rating reform the Government have fled the field and the local authorities have to bear the burden.
The hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy)—what a mouthful! [HON. MEMBERS: "What a man!"]—referred to the Fort William pulp mill. Since they came to office in 1979 the Government have eroded the rateable value base in Scotland. At the time when the closure of the pulp mill was announced I was with a Select Committee delegation in Thurso taking evidence on the employment situation in the highlands and islands. One man told me how he had left Glasgow many years before and bought a house in Fort William in the belief that a whole new life was opening up for him, but all those hopes were dashed by the inept policies of the Government. The rateable value of the Invergordon smelter was £923,000 in its last year of operation. The rateable value lost to Fort William was £352,000. The rateable value lost with the Linwood car factory was £887,000. I recall leading a delegation to the Secretary of State at the time when the Singer sewing machine factory was closed. He told us one thing, then went next door and told the press something different. The factory closed anyway and the rateable value lost was £487,000. I hope that he is working a good deal harder than he seems to be in respect of Scott Lithgow as the rateable value of those operations is more than £500,000. If the rateable value base disappears fewer resources are available for local authorities.
Finally, local authorities should not be punished for the Government's economic failures. The authorities get all the stick but very little of the credit when they do their very best to operate within the guidelines. The most depressing aspect of the debate has been the way in which relationships between local and central government have been poisoned by the Government. That augurs very badly indeed for the present and the future of Scottish local government.
6.45 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Ancram): As I have suggested on other occasions, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Craigen) should speak louder, or none of us will hear him.
The hon. Gentleman did the House a great favour in drawing attention to the rateable values of industries in Scotland. Nothing could better emphasise the fact that, in talking about rate levels and poundages, we are talking about the money that industry and commerce have to pay and in so doing endanger the jobs of those working for them. Perhaps inadvertently, when no one else had thought to do so, the hon. Gentleman provided the possible case for the rate support grant levels proposed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.
Mr. Craigen: I know that the Minister has hardly begun, but I want an answer. Will he respond to the suggestion that I made on a number of occasions as a Back Bencher, that if the Government were serious about helping the plight of manufacturing in Scotland they would abolish industrial rating altogether?
Mr. Ancram: The hon. Gentleman cannot have consulted his own side if he regards that as Labour party policy. He may have suggested that when he was a Back Bencher, but I shall not embarrass him now that he is on the Front Bench by taking that as Labour party policy until he has had the chance to discuss it with his hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) and the hon. Member for Garscadden has had time to ask permission to go to the Shadow Cabinet for endorsement of that policy.
The hon. Member for Maryhill made the usual point about the rate support grant order forcing up rates, but he never stopped to think about the effects of possible expenditure reductions on rates. One cannot talk about the one without considering the other.
The hon. Member for Garscadden claimed to have proved that rate support grant orders increased rates so that the Government were responsible for the increases in rates. He said that expenditure in real terms had risen by a very small percentage, which he gave as 1·6 per cent., in the past five years, whereas rates had risen by 133 per cent. in the same period, so it must be the Government's fault. He failed to realise, however, that the expenditure figures that he gave were at constant prices, whereas the figures for rates were at cash prices. Had he compared like with like, he would have discovered that the cash increase in expenditure over that period was 113·5 per cent. compared with a rate increase of 133·5 per cent. Therefore, it cannot be argued that the Government are responsible for rate increases in Scotland in the past five years.
When challenged by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) about the Labour Government's record in reducing the proportion of rate support grant, the hon. Member for Garscadden said that he wanted to put to bed once and for all the suggestion that the reduction made when his right hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Millan) was Secretary of State had anything to do with trying to control local government expenditure. I suggest again that the hon. Gentleman should talk to his right hon. Friend the Member for Govan, because that is not what his right hon. Friend said at the time. According to my understanding, the explanation given at that time was that it was to reinforce the Government's public expenditure policy by reducing in real terms the financial resources that local authorities would receive from the Government. That is not what he said to the House tonight. Before making categorical statements of that sort, I believe that the hon. Gentleman ought at least to check their accuracy against the record of the Labour Government.
The hon. Gentleman dealt with a number of specific points. I am sure that he will realise that, in the time available to me, I cannot answer them all. However, there are one or two that I want to answer. He spoke about teacher redundancies, but failed to point out that pupil numbers are declining. That point was very properly made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth). The Government's provision reflects that fact. If it did not reflect it, it would be very strange. Local authorities are aware of the Government's view that teacher numbers should decline as pupil numbers decline. It is for local authorities to determine their own policies and priorities, but resources necessarily expended in one area—this is something about which all local authorities must think

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—mean insufficient provision for others or, as the hon. Gentleman will realise, higher rates. It is for local authorities to look at their budgets in those terms.
The hon. Member for Garscadden claimed that the rate in Strathclyde was likely to increase by 7 per cent. because of the grant changes. That is not so. The grant loss is £14·65 million, which is the equivalent of a 2·4p increase in the rates without expenditure savings. I believe that if savings of 1 percent. of Strathclyde's budget can be made, no rate increase would be necessary.
Mr. Dewar: The hon. Gentleman is, I think inadvertently, misrepresenting me. I said that the changes in the distribution formula, the needs element, had cost the Strathclyde region the equivalent of 7p in the pound. I was careful to go on to say that there were some compensating factors, by coincidence in other parts of the distribution formula. The authority that I said was claiming the final result was a 7p imposition was the Lothian region, which was quoting Brian Meek, the hon. Gentleman's Conservative colleague.
Mr. Ancram: If I have misquoted the hon. Gentleman, I apologise; but I think it is worth pointing out—and this can be demonstrated from the figures that I have just given— that looking at the raw figures is no way of assuring that the answers one gets from them are correct. What the hon. Gentleman has just said tends to underline that.
I shall deal briefly with one or two of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries. He knows, I think, that the distribution system introduced this year has been damped—and my right hon. Friend said this in his opening remarks — in order to protect those who might have lost most from having too great a change in their budgets in one year. I am sure that he would appreciate, from his time in local government, that one of the essentials in local government budgeting is to be able to assume a degree of stability over a period of time that will allow forward planning. For that reason, we agreed in our discussions with COSLA that the damping effect that we have introduced on the distribution system this year would occur. It is from that, I think, that his complaint arises. I think he understands, too, that had we not changed the distribution system and introduced the client approach this year, his regional authority would have received less in cash than it is receiving now. He may not be satisfied with what it is receiving now because, had we not damped, it would be rather more.
It is the same in the case of the hon. Member for Roxborough and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood). At the same time, I hope that he will point out to his regional authority, before it complains too much about the new system, that, had we not introduced it, it would have received less cash in grant support this year under the old system than it is receiving even under the damped system at present.
One of the important facets of the client group approach is that it is capable of being refined. There are primary indicators on which one makes the first calculations, and one can then adjust them by applying secondary indicators. The best example I can give my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries, in terms of his own region, is in education. The primary indicator may be the number of children. As against that, the sparsity in the number of schools, because my hon. Friend is in a rural area, would
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be taken into account as a secondary indicator. Rural considerations are, therefore, taken into account. I accept that the system is capable of further refinement, and COSLA and my Department are prepared to look at it again in future.
Mr. Albert McQuarrie: Is my hon. Friend aware that Banff and Buchan district council, on the rating review, was the lowest spending rating authority in Scotland, yet it had granted to it from the guidelines, 1983–84, only £50,000? Can he tell me what happened to the £120 million, about which my right hon. Friend spoke in July 1983 when discussing the rate support grant, that he said he would make use of to give relief to local authorities which were not high spenders, such as East Lothian?
Mr. Ancram: I think my hon. Friend must accept that a detailed question of that nature requires notice. I hope he will accept that I shall write to him on the subject.
The right hon. Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. MacKenzie), made an unusually political speech tonight. He raised the issue of concessionary fares, and asked me to deal with it. We are aware of the disparity between local authority budgets and the provision for concessionary fares. The planned level of provision is a general judgment of what can be afforded. It would be difficult to devise a criterion as the cost of concessionary fares depends on many variable factors, and there is no standard that could be applied to all local authorities. Within the constraints on public expenditure, my right hon. Friend has arranged that increased provision be made for concessionary fares. As a consequence, the provision for these fares is set at 27 per cent. above that provided in the 1983 order. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will accept, therefore, that his point was taken seriously at an earlier stage, and that my right hon. Friend has already acted on it.
I hope that hon. Members will forgive me if I do not deal with all the points that they have made. The hon. Member for Ross, Cromarty and Skye (Mr. Kennedy), following an attack on one of my hon. Friends for referring to his constituency, made a fair case for his constituency during the course of his remarks. I think it is worth his considering the effect of the order on his constituency and, in particular, looking at the guidelines because, as I am sure he will accept, his regional authority has done well out of the guidelines. The guidelines accept some of the specific difficulties in that area. As the hon. Gentleman said, we have made efforts to damp the changes in the distribution system. Overall, therefore, I believe that some of the complaints he made tonight were more in the cause of effect rather than based on reality.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Malone) made an important point, which was touched on by several hon. Members, when he talked about the leisure centre. He made it clear that he accepted the need for private investment in such projects. I believe that, if that message were heard throughout the local authorities of Scotland to a far greater degree than that, he would be able to see the sort of provision that so many people want without having to rely always on the public purse to provide it.
Every year since taking office, my right hon. Friend has reminded authorities and the House that local authorities must pay particular attention to their manpower policies. Manpower in Scottish local authorities fell by

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approximately 2 per cent. in the year to September 1983. That trend has continued. It is welcome, but it is slowing down. When we talk about local government expenditure, it is worth looking at the figures. After allowing for some previous under-recording, local authorities are still employing about 5,000 more than in the summer of 1977. Even this comparitively modest target masks the true situation. In 1977, there were 4,000 more teachers than there are today, simply because there were more pupils. In addition, such reductions as there have been elsewhere have been concentrated on manual workers. There are now 11,000, or 16 per cent., more non-manual local government workers than there were in 1977, and nearly 7,000 more than when we took office. I find these figures very difficult to square with charges of wholesale destruction of local government services, about which we hear so much from Opposition Members.
I suggest that Opposition Members should go back to their local authorities and ask them to look very carefully at their manpower figures. They should also tell those local authorities that before coining to the House, they should look at their own budgets and ask themselves whether they are being as efficient as they could be. If local authorities did that, very few of them would be able to put their hands on their hearts and say that they were doing what they could. Few of them have the courage to test that claim in the market place.
When we ask local authorities to put their services out to tender, we are not necessarily asking them to contract out. We are asking them to test them in the market place. Until local authorities do that, it is hard to take seriously their claim that they have been cut to the bone.
Mr. Maxton rose——
Mr. Ancram: Tonight's debate has generated much heat, but again it has been synthetic. Opposition Members know full well that local authority expenditure cannot be divorced from national economic requirements, and that the claims made to them by their authorities, like the claims made by Glasgow district to the hon. Member for Garscadden—which he echoed so faithfully last summer when we asked it to cut its rates—will ultimately turn out to be untrue.
Glasgow district said that the rate level that we forced on it last year was unacceptable, but it can now tell the people of Glasgow that it can sustain it. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman should ask that authority why it pulled the wool over his eyes last summer. He should then ask it to reconsider its expenditure and to see whether it can reduce its rates, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wishes.
The order provides for a large amount of central Government rate support grant to a still considerable level of local government expenditure. It seeks nothing which cannot reasonably be achieved, and demands no further burdens on ratepayers. It looks for greater efficiency, greater responsibility, and greater value for money. Those should be the common goals that unite us all. Therefore, the order deserves our support.
Question put:—
The House Divided: Ayes 273, Noes 201.

Division No.148

[7 pm

AYES

Aitken, Jonathan

Hanley, Jeremy

Alexander, Richard

Hannam, John

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Hargreaves, Kenneth

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Harris, David

Ancram, Michael

Harvey, Robert

Arnold, Tom

Haselhurst, Alan

Ashby, David

Hawksley, Warren

Aspinwall, Jack

Hayes, J.

Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

Hayhoe, Barney

Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

Hayward, Robert

Baldry, Anthony

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Henderson, Barry

Batiste, Spencer

Hickmet, Richard

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Hicks, Robert

Bellingham, Henry

Hind, Kenneth

Bendall, Vivian

Hirst, Michael

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Holt, Richard

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Hooson, Tom

Bright, Graham

Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A)

Browne, John

Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)

Buck, Sir Antony

Hubbard-Miles, Peter

Butcher, John

Hunt, David (Wirral)

Butterfill, John

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Carlisle, Rt Hon M. (W'ton S)

Hunter, Andrew

Carttiss, Michael

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Chapman, Sydney

Irving, Charles

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

Jackson, Robert

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)

Jones, Robert (W Herts)

Clegg, Sir Walter

Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

Cockeram, Eric

Key, Robert

Colvin, Michael

King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

Cope, John

King, Rt Hon Tom

Cranborne, Viscount

Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Knight, Mrs Jill (Edgbaston)

Dicks, T.

Knowles, Michael

Dorrell, Stephen

Knox, David

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

Lamont, Norman

Durant, Tony

Lang, Ian

Evennett, David

Latham, Michael

Fairbairn, Nicholas

Lawler, Geoffrey

Fallon, Michael

Lee, John (Pendle)

Farr, John

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Favell, Anthony

Lester, Jim

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

Fletcher, Alexander

Lightbown, David

Fookes, Miss Janet

Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

Forman, Nigel

Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Lord, Michael

Forth, Eric

Luce, Richard

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Lyell, Nicholas

Fox, Marcus

McCrindle, Robert

Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

McCurley, Mrs Anna

Freeman, Roger

Macfarlane, Neil

Fry, Peter

MacGregor, John

Gale, Roger

MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

Galley, Roy

MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

Maclean, David John.

Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

Macmillan, Rt Hon M.

Glyn, Dr Alan

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

Goodhart, Sir Philip

McQuarrie, Albert

Goodlad, Alastair

Major, John

Gow, Ian

Malone, Gerald

Gower, Sir Raymond

Maples, John

Greenway, Harry

Marland, Paul

Gregory, Conal

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

Griffiths, E. (B'y St Edm'ds)

Mates, Michael

Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

Mather, Carol

Grist, Ian

Maude, Francis

Ground, Patrick

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Gummer, John Selwyn

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

Mellor, David

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Merchant, Piers

Hampson, Dr Keith

Meyer, Sir Anthony

191

Miller, Hal (B'grove)

Skeet, T. H. H.

Mills, lain (Meriden)

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Miscampbell, Norman

Speller, Tony

Moate, Roger

Spence, John

Monro, Sir Hector

Spencer, D.

Montgomery, Fergus

Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

Moore, John

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

Squire, Robin

Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

Stanbrook, Ivor

Moynihan, Hon C.

Stanley, John

Mudd, David

Steen, Anthony

Neale, Gerrard

Stern, Michael

Needham, Richard

Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

Nelson, Anthony

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

Newton, Tony

Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

Nicholls, Patrick

Stradling Thomas, J.

Normanton, Tom

Sumberg, David

Norris, Steven

Tapsell, Peter

Onslow, Cranley

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Oppenheim, Philip

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

Temple-Morris, Peter

Ottaway, Richard

Terlezki, Stefan

Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

Parris, Matthew

Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

Patten, Christopher (Bath)

Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

Patten, John (Oxford)

Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

Pattie, Geoffrey

Thornton, Malcolm

Pawsey, James

Thurnham, Peter

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

Pink, R. Bonner

Trotter, Neville

Pollock, Alexander

Twinn, Dr Ian

Powell, William (Corby)

van Straubenzee, Sir W.

Powley, John

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

Viggers, Peter

Prior, Rt Hon James

Waddington, David

Proctor, K. Harvey

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Raffan, Keith

Waldegrave, Hon William

Rathbone, Tim

Walden, George

Renton, Tim

Walker, Bill (T'side N)

Rhodes James, Robert

Waller, Gary

Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

Walters, Dennis

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

Rifkind, Malcolm

Watson, John

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Watts, John

Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

Wells, Bowen (Hertford)

Roe, Mrs Marion

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Wheeler, John

Rost, Peter

Wiggin, Jerry

Rowe, Andrew

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

Winterton, Nicholas

Ryder, Richard

Wolfson, Mark

Sackville, Hon Thomas

Wood, Timothy

Sayeed, Jonathan

Woodcock, Michael

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Younger, Rt Hon George

Shelton, William (Streatham)

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Mr. Tim Sainsbury and

Silvester, Fred

Mr. Michael Neubert

Sims, Roger

NOES

Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

Blair, Anthony

Alton, David

Boothroyd, Miss Betty

Anderson, Donald

Boyes, Roland

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Ashdown, Paddy

Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

Ashton, Joe

Brown, N. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne E)

Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Bruce, Malcolm

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Buchan, Norman

Barnett, Guy

Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

Barron, Kevin

Campbell, Ian

Beckett, Mrs Margaret

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Bell, Stuart

Canavan, Dennis

Bennett, A. (Dent'n & Red'sh)

Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

Bermingham, Gerald

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Bidwell, Sydney

Cartwright, John

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Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Leadbitter, Ted

Clarke, Thomas

Leighton, Ronald

Clay, Robert

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

Cohen, Harry

Litherland, Robert

Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Conlan, Bernard

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

Loyden, Edward

Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

McCartney, Hugh

Corbett, Robin

McDonald, Dr Oonagh

Corbyn, Jeremy

McKay, Allen (Penistone)

Cowans, Harry

McKelvey, William

Craigen, J. M.

Mackenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Crowther, Stan

Maclennan, Robert

Cunliffe, Lawrence

McNamara, Kevin

Cunningham, Dr John

McTaggart, Robert

Dalyell, Tam

McWilliam, John

Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

Madden, Max

Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'ge H'l)

Marek, Dr John

Deakins, Eric

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Dewar, Donald

Martin, Michael

Dixon, Donald

Mason, Rt Hon Roy

Dobson, Frank

Maxton, John

Dormand, Jack

Maynard, Miss Joan

Douglas, Dick

Meacher, Michael

Dubs, Alfred

Meadowcroft, Michael

Duffy, A. E. P.

Michie, William

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

Mikardo, Ian

Eadie, Alex

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

Eastham, Ken

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Ellis, Raymond

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Evans, Ioan (Cynon Valley)

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Evans, John (St. Helens N)

O'Brien, William

Fatchett, Derek

O'Neill, Martin

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

Park, George

Fisher, Mark

Parry, Robert

Flannery, Martin

Pavitt, Laurie

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Pendry, Tom

Forrester, John

Penhaligon, David

Foster, Derek

Pike, Peter

Foulkes, George

Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

Fraser, J. (Norwood)

Prescott, John

Freud, Clement

Redmond, M.

George, Bruce

Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Richardson, Ms Jo

Godman, Dr Norman

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Golding, John

Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

Gould, Bryan

Robertson, George

Gourlay, Harry

Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

Rogers, Allan

Harman, Ms Harriet

Ross, Ernest (Dundee W)

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

Ryman, John

Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

Sedgemore, Brian

Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

Sheerman, Barry

Haynes, Frank

Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

Healey, Rt Hon Denis

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Heffer, Eric S.

Short, Ms Clare (Ladywood)

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Short, Mrs R. (W'hampt'n NE)

Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

Skinner, Dennis

Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

Smith, C.(Isl'ton S & F'bury)

Howells, Geraint

Smith, Rt Hon J. (M'kl'ds E)

Hoyle, Douglas

Snape, Peter

Hughes, Mark (Durham)

Soley, Clive

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Spearing, Nigel

Hughes, Roy (Newport East)

Steel, Rt Hon David

Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Stott, Roger

Janner, Hon Greville

Strang, Gavin

Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Hillh'd)

Straw, Jack

John, Brynmor

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

Johnston, Russell

Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Tinn, James

Kennedy, Charles

Torney, Tom

Kilroy-Silk, Robert

Wainwright, R.

Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Kirkwood, Archibald

Wareing, Robert

Lambie, David

Weetch, Ken

Lamond, James

Welsh, Michael

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White, James

Young, David (Bolton SE)

Wigley, Dafydd

Williams, Rt Hon A.

Tellers for the Noes:

Wilson, Gordon

Mr. James Hamilton and

Winnick, David

Mr. John Home Robertson.

Wrigglesworth, Ian

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the Rate Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1984, a copy of which was laid before this House on 19 January, be approved.

Housing Support Grant (Scotland)
7.13 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Ancram): I beg to move,
That the draft Housing Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1984, which was laid before this House on 23rd January, be approved.
The details of the settlement are already widely known and are described in the report which accompanies the order, and I need not delay the House long over them. There has, indeed, been a considerable measure of agreement between the Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on the technical aspects of grant distribution; and I should like to place on record my appreciation of the very helpful way in which the convention joined in the consultations. Rather than concentrate on the technical aspects, therefore, I should like to set the proposed settlement in the context of our general policy on housing.
For 1984–85 we have estimated eligible expenditure at £322·3 million and relevant income at £269·8 million. We have accordingly set housing support grant at £52·5 million to be distributed among authorities which cannot, in our view, be expected to raise sufficient income to cover their reasonable costs. While we judge that some authorities will be able to generate surpluses on their housing revenue accounts, we have not deducted these surpluses from the total amount of grant which will be distributed among authorities which continue to qualify for housing support grant.
The sum of £52·5 million will then be distributed among 26 authorities. Two authorities — Ettrick and Lauderdale and East Lothian—have fallen out of grant because of deductions made to take account of overpayment of grant in 1980–81; the remainder, as I say, could in our view generate a surplus on their housing revenue account next year. These figures compare with a total of £72 million distributed among 36 authorities in the current financial year and £228 million among all 56 authorities in 1980–81. Opposition Members may seek to present the figures as indicating a lack of concern for public sector housing and may suggest that they will give rise to unacceptable increases in rents. Before they do so I should like to demonstrate why they would be wrong.
The £52·5 million which we are distributing reflects the difference between what authorities can reasonably be expected to receive in income and what they can reasonably be expected to spend on their housing revenue accounts. Shelter has claimed — I quote from The Scotsman of today—that the fact that the majority of housing authorities are left without grant breaches
"the long established principle that local authorities are entitled to central support to meet housing costs."
I find that long-established principle difficult to understand. I do not know how the practice that the Government help housing authorities to balance their books became elevated to a principle of this kind. Whatever the position in the past, there can be no justification for subsidising the costs of authorities which can reasonably be expected to balance their own books now. Does the hon. Gentleman want to intervene?
Mr. George Robertson: The fact that the Minister is conceding time for interventions is almost as important as the principle of continuing to subsidise

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housing. As he pours so much scorn on the principle of public support for housing, will he start questioning the principle of income tax relief for mortgage holders?
Mr. Ancram: I do not think the hon. Gentleman was listening to what I was saying. Perhaps it was unfair of me to ask him if he wished to intervene, but he was sitting there like a terrier that has seen a rat. His anticipation was such that I noted it out of the corner of my eye and I felt it would be unfair to proceed without giving him the chance to intervene.
I am sure that he, as a reasonable man, would not support a principle which suggested that where there was sufficient income to meet housing needs without requiring public subsidy, nevertheless a subsidy should be paid as an ex gratia payment on the basis of principle. He will realise that any principle of that sort—which appears to be the principle enunciated by Shelter—is completely out of touch with economic realities.
Nor is it appropriate to compare the total of housing support grant now with that paid in the past without taking account of the drop in interest rates which has occurred over the past four years. Since loan charges account for 62 per cent. of authorities' expenditure on their housing revenue accounts, the costs which they have to meet naturally fall at a time of declining interest rates. We have assumed an average pool interest rate of 10·2 per cent. for the settlement before the House today, compared with 13·27 per cent. assumed for the 1980–81 order. Housing expenditure is extremely sensitive to changes in interest rates: a fall of a mere 0·1 per cent. leads to a drop in expenditure of £3 million and the 3 per cent. drop since 1980 is equivalent to savings of £92 million for housing authorities.
We have assumed, for the purposes of the settlement, that expenditure on management and maintenance will remain constant in real terms and that cash expenditure will increase by 5 per cent. bringing the figure to £262 per house. To those who argue that this provides insufficient resources to keep the housing stock in good repair I say that we are not convinced that there is a need to allow for an increase in real terms in the resources allocated to management and maintenance in the housing support grant settlement.
Mr. Alexander Eadie: The Minister says that he is not convinced of the need for extra funding. We met representatives of COSLA today. On what basis do the Government reach the assessment that no more funding is needed?
Mr. Ancram: In cash terms there is an increase of 5 per cent. I am talking of a real terms increase. The provision for housing management and maintenance expenditure is being held level in real terms. The hon. Gentleman asked how the assessment was made. This year half the Scottish local authorities have budgeted for management and maintenance expenditure which is lower than that provided for in the current year's settlement. That shows that our judgment is probably absolutely right.
Hon. Members might argue, however, that, whatever happens on the expenditure side, authorities can balance their books only if they make unreasonable increases in rents. As hon. Members might know, we have assumed that, for the purposes of the housing support grant settlement, rental income will increase by £1 per week per house over the level assumed for the current year, bringing
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our assumed figure up to £11·59 per week. I am aware that COSLA suggested that the combined effect of this increase and of the reductions which we have asked authorities to make on their rate fund contributions will be to compel authorities to raise rents by an average of £2·50 per week. I do not know how it did its sums, but it seems clear that it has ignored the changes on the expenditure side which have to be taken into account to determine the impact of the settlement and of the rate fund contribution limits on rents in the real world. We estimate that the combined effect of these changes can be met with an average increase throughout Scotland of not more than £1 per week, even when one allows for an increase of 5 per cent. in the cash spent on management and maintenance. It does not seem unreasonable to expect authorities to make an increase of that size.
The impact on individual authorities will vary. Authorities which have unreasonably held back rents in the past and incurred housing expenditure limit penalties might have to raise rents by more than the average but it was their decision to take that course of action. For next year we have set the aggregate limit to rate fund contributions at £100 million, which is an 11 per cent. reduction on the limits which we set for this year, so that the requirement to make reductions will fall most heavily on authorities which this year chose to exceed the limits and incur capital penalties. I might say in passing that we were disappointed that authorities budgeted to exceed the limits this year by a full £13 million, a sum which could be met only through reductions in capital expenditure.
Despite the variations, I regard the rental assumptions underlying the settlement as entirely reasonable. I need not remind the house that a relatively high proportion of Scotland's housing stock is in public ownership. I am sure that during the debate Opposition Members will draw attention to the need for substantial sums of capital expenditure to bring the stock up to modern standards. There is, however, only a limited sum of money which can be spent on housing generally. There is an idea prevalent in some quarters that the links between housing support grant and rent levels, and between rate fund contributions and capital allocations, are artefacts invented by accountants. Such an idea ignores the facts of life. The deeply ingrained habit of pre-empting a significant proportion of the sum available for housing to subsidise housing revenue — which of course means rents — through housing support grant and through excessive contributions from the rates has limited the amount available for capital expenditure on the housing stock for many years and has caused many of the difficulties which we face today. The point is brought home forcefully when one considers that council tenants in Scotland pay an average of £9·87 per week compared with £14 in England and Wales, while average manual workers' earnings in Scotland are, at £145·80 per week, slightly higher than in England and Wales.
Mr. Norman Hogg: Is there not a distortion with regard to earnings in Scotland, as workers in the north-east now receive higher earnings than before? Is it not also the case that the level of earnings is falling in parts of the country where most council houses are found?
Mr. Ancram: To say that there might be variations in wages is to state the obvious. I was careful to say that the

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figure was an average. That is also true for the level of rents which I gave. Nevertheless, the comparison is valid and should be made. The figures show that a manual worker receiving average earnings in Scotland pays less than 7 per cent. of his weekly income on housing. If I am criticised—I suspect that I shall be—for ignoring the unemployed or the low-paid, I remind the House that some 50 per cent. of tenants receive support for the cost of their rent and half of them have their rents paid in full.
Several hon. Members who represent Glasgow constituencies are present. If the citizens of Glasgow or another Scottish housing authority complain that their houses are in urgent need of modernisation—the right hon. Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. MacKenzie) made this point in the earlier debate— I suggest that they need only look at their rent demands to find out why.
As hon. Members know, we have made provisional allocations totalling £244 million on the housing revenue account for the financial year 1984–85. With the £160 million that we have allocated on the non-housing revenue account, that represents a considerable investment in the modernisation and improvement of our housing stock in the public and private sectors. I point out to hon. Members who have suggested that these allocations are too low that the £404 million provisionally allocated in December is £54 million greater than that allocated in December 1982 for the current financial year. Moreover, authorities will be able to increase the resources available to them by maximising the sale of council houses. I have never hidden the fact that I want there to be a vigorous sales policy, in the interests of tenants, councils and the economy as a whole. The 45,000 house sales which have been completed since the right-to-buy policy was first introduced in 1979 are a welcome beginning, but we have a long way to go.
The capital available to housing authorities next year will, as I have said, depend on their own decisions about rate fund contributions. The fact that the ruling group in Glasgow district has already decided to pre-empt capital resources to increase the subsidy on its tenants' rents suggests that it does not regard capital expenditure as being as important as do some of the hon. Members who represent that area in the House.
The housing support grant settlement represents, in the Government's view, a reasonable level of support for authorities which remain in need of assistance, and it assumes rental levels and expenditure which are, in the circumstances, entirely appropriate. It is in the interests neither of the country as a whole nor of individual tenants to continue to underwrite a low rents policy at the expense of capital expenditure on the housing stock. Those who argue for continued high levels of Government support to sustain such a policy cannot have thought through the impact of their proposals. The settlement before the House is fair to tenants, ratepayers, taxpayers and local authorities. On that basis, I commend it to the House.
7.29 pm
Mr. Jim Craigen: It is unusual for the Minister, who normally is not very forthcoming in answering our questions, to anticipate our questions on these issues. The housing support grant is heading for extinction under this Government. This is a miserable little order for £52 million. Despite what the Minister says, it
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will result in 58 per cent. of the housing stock no longer receiving financial assistance and backing from central Government. Much of the council housing in Scotland is beyond the pale to the Government, who have lost interest in it and no longer provide the support that they should.
Since the Secretary of State came to office there has been a steady erosion of the housing support grant. That is perhaps understandable when we recollect that housing is no longer seen as a priority, which is reflected in the Secretary of State's general approach to housing. The construction industry and housing stock have taken the brunt of public expenditure cuts. These cuts have had a very unhappy effect on the construction industry and the employment openings that it provides.
The housing support grant has been reduced in real terms since 1979–80, when it covered about 39 per cent. of the annual housing costs. Last year only about 11 per cent. was covered and, there will be a further reduction. Despite what the Minister says, the housing support grant is a misnomer, because it no longer caters adequately for the needs and priorities of Scottish housing.
I must take up the Minister's retort to my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson), who referred to open-ended tax relief. There is a difference between the positive approach of the Government paying subsidies, and what might be regarded as the negative approach of forfeiting revenue, which the Government might prefer for political reasons.
Because of the very high interest rates which prevailed not so long ago, when they touched 15 per cent., and when mortgages were very high, the Treasury has been forced to forgo a considerable amount of revenue which might otherwise have been brought in. There is no question in that case of means testing, so there cannot be any evenhanded approach to public expenditure on housing.
The Minister tried to make light of maintenance and repair. Some of us in the Opposition had maintenance and repair up to the gills in the Committee on the Tenants' Rights, Etc. (Scotland) Bill. The Minister will recall that he tried to persuade Committee Members to accept his consultation document on the right to repair. It is interesting to note that it was pointed out to me only this afternoon that when the Perth and Kinross district council studied the theory in that document and reflected on the possibility of each of its tenants claiming £500 towards repairs, it estimated that rents would have to be increased by £10 a week.
Mr. Ancram: The hon. Gentleman quoted a source which he has not named. Does he agree that if that were to happen it would be because no repairs had been done for tenants in Perth and that under the scheme they would wish to claim the money for those repairs to be done? Is he suggesting that that is so in Perth and Kinross? If so, my hon. Friend the Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) might like to ask him to make that suggestion outside the Chamber.
Mr. Craigen: I was not complaining that the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) was not here. I did not say that the practicalities had been considered. I said that the district council had been looking at the theory of the document. I am not a journalist, so I can give the Minister my source—Councillor Jim Proudfoot. He was on the COSLA delegation. What he said made nonsense of the Minister's consultative document. In fact there were many nonsenses in that document.

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The Minister commented on the fact that local authorities were reducing maintenance and repairs. That is a double-edged sword. There is evidence that because of the public expenditure cuts which the Government have been imposing on local authorities, and because the repairs and maintenance budget is invariably large, it is the first to be examined when possible reductions are considered. However, in the long term that will not do the housing stock a favour.
Some authorities are becoming increasingly alarmed at the cost of structural repairs to non-traditional housing which they are likely to face. I understand that Lochaber district council has been trying to arrange a meeting with the Secretary of State to discuss a problem affecting 167 Dorran houses which have major structural defects, fire hazards which must be urgently seen to and asbestos cladding. I do not know whether the Minister has been able to accede to that request. However, it is only the tip of the iceberg of the pressures on local authorities and the responsibilities which they must take on if they look after the interests of their tenants properly.
I am glad that the Minister talked about the disparities between the estimate from the Scottish Office of the likely rent increase and the figures produced by COSLA some time ago. It is difficult to reconcile what I call the Ancram £1 rent increase with the figure of £2·60 which COSLA originally suggested would result from the Government's battery of housing policies. I hope that when he replies to the debate the Minister will take up that point. It would surprise me if a Minister who claimed that he so regularly consulted COSLA told us that he still did not know how COSLA arrived at those figures.
The Minister also referred to Shelter in Scotland. Only today right hon. and hon. Members have received a circular drawing their attention to the considerable concern in many households about the threatened £3·10 reduction per week in benefit, which will affect about 90,000 youngsters daring to live at home. It is absurd that when the Prime Minister preaches the virtues of family life, young people are being encouraged to seek alternative accommodation because under the Government's crazy system of social security they will be financially better off. The Minister should explain why, if rents are not too high, the majority of households in Scotland are on incomes which make it necessary for them to have rebates and assistance of one form or another.
I hope that the Minister will deal with some of the problems which continue to plague us on the non-HRA aspect. There is a considerable amount of legally committed work in the pipeline. The home improvement grant repairs scheme was a success, and it is much to be regretted that the Government decided to cut it in its prime. There is so much to digest now that there may be little scope for new work, never mind work which would have been in the pipeline if applications had been in in time and approval had been given before the circular letter of 19 October of last year.
The Minister tried to suggest that we should not worry about this housing support grant order. He said that it would not minimise the importance which the Government attach to housing in Scotland. In fact, it is just one of a series of measures which are economically daft. The cost of repairs that are not carried out, sheltered housing that is not completed, and so on, is incalculable, and the Government's whole approach to housing will be socially disastrous.
7.42 pm
Mr. Barry Henderson: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Craigen) has great experience of housing, but the most disappointing aspect of his speech was that he allowed his practical knowledge and experience to be submerged in the advocacy of outdated housing concepts to which the Labour party is thirled. The Labour party has fixed ideas on the subject and cannot change them, although housing priorities in Scotland have been changing rapidly for some time.
During the past few years, we have moved to a stage at which there is just about equilibrium between the number of households and the number of houses. That is dramatically different from the position that obtained during most of our lifetimes, when there was an essential need simply to create more houses. That difference is at the root of the need to review and take a different view of housing priorities today and in the future. It is discouraging that the Labour party does not seem able to speak about the new priorities, new ideas, new methods and new attitudes that we need if we are to solve the housing problems of the future.
One of the new needs that is emerging is that of rectifying the faults of previous generations of house building — not least some of the vast concrete filing cabinets in some cities, particularly Labour-controlled cities—often at vast cost, and often sharply criticised by Conservatives at the time.
Mr. Norman Hogg: Does the hon. Gentleman include Edinburgh in what he is saying? It seems to have had its share of that problem, and it was Conservative-controlled for most of my lifetime.
Mr. Henderson: We have the high rise problems in many cities, but the problem is particularly difficult in Glasgow, which spent large sums of money, against all sensible advice. The hon. Gentleman should think about the red road flats and all the controversy that surrounded them when they were being built. Their building costs were very much more than the cost of normal council houses at that time. Could the hon. Gentleman say whether anyone is anxious to live there now, in view of the present condition of the flats?
Mistakes have been made in the past. The Select Committee heard evidence from many groups, local authorities and professional people about the difficulties that face us today as a result of design and building errors in the past. That is a priority now, and I believe that it will become an increasing priority in future housing needs.
Mr. George Robertson: Does the hon. Gentleman concede that whatever the errors—usually made in good faith—of some of the housing ideas after the war, it was the criminal failure not to provide proper and adequate housing for people before the war that necessitated the crash programmes that were undertaken after the war?
Mr. Henderson: That is a ridiculous point. The hon. Gentleman will remember that a Minister of Health, later a Conservative Prime Minister, started the whole concept of providing houses through municipal endeavour at reasonable rents for people who could not afford decent accommodation. Here again, major changes have taken place. The hon. Gentleman must accept the changes that have taken place in society and in public provision of all kinds, not least those in social and housing benefits, since

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before the war. The fact that the Labour party cannot get up to wartime, never mind 40 years later, makes the point that I made at the beginning of my speech.
Mr. Michael Forsyth: Does my hon. Friend accept that the real crime of the post-war was the vendetta that was pursued by the Labour party and others against the private rented sector through the Rent Acts, which put great pressure on the public sector demand for houses?
Mr. Henderson: My hon. Friend is right to point out the disadvantage of the distortion that has occurred in the housing market, for all sorts of interventionist local authority reasons. On top of that, for many years there was a desperate need to increase the number of houses.
Now we have to improve the stock of older houses. I hoped that the Opposition Front Bench spokesman would have said something to the Government's credit in this regard, because there are now 37,000 fewer houses below the tolerable standards. As we move towards an era of large-scale building each year, we shall need to pay more attention to improving the older stock. Apart from the financial implications, I hope that we shall learn more about the management implications, because the improvement process is sometimes a traumatic experience for tenants.
Last but not least, I wish that the Labour party could take on board the fact that the new priorities are different. There is an increasing need to concentrate resources for new build on the special categories which now emerge as areas of priority, such as housing for the elderly, single people and couples. There is a serious shortage of such housing everywhere—it is particularly marked in my own area—and I hope that increasingly the resources of new build, including sheltered housing, will be addressed to such categories. There will be some local problems associated with local needs for houses of special kinds, but the broad emphasis of policy should change. Rather than just building houses anywhere, we should recognise special needs and attempt to satisfy them, at the same time as improving and rectifying older houses.
The second important change in housing policy has been the development of the sale of council houses. That has not only been of great social and economic benefit to the tenants who wish to buy, to the areas in which they buy and to the community as a whole, but it has helped to reduce the burden on local authorities in managing their housing stock. In the short term, selling council houses involves administrative costs, but in the long term it reduces the burden of management costs which local authorities have to bear.
More dramatic still are the financial benefits to tenants and ratepayers from the sale of council houses—the way in which the product of the sales comes back to the council. That takes me back to my original point about the need to match the resources of today with the priorities of today. The most dramatic benefit of the sale of council houses is that enjoyed by the whole community. Such sales give the local authorities new resources — resources which would not otherwise have been available — to meet today's housing needs and priorities.
The Minister with responsibility for home affairs and the environment — my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Ancram)—is not present at the moment. No doubt he is taking a brief and well-earned rest
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during a very long day in which he has helped us considerably. However, I should like to ask him whether a more sophisticated method might be evolved for the determination of housing support grant. The procedure has largely grown out of the historical expenditure practices. Very few efforts have been made to determine what the needs are, what resources are available to meet those needs, and why one local authority may have higher management or building costs than another.
In my own area, a small district council owns council houses which are spread around in many different communities. That housing stock is more difficult and expensive to manage than the stock of a council whose houses are in a tightly knit complex. Similarly, the large numbers of listed buildings in my area, in both the public and the private sectors, must have cost implications.
Mr. Craigen: The hon. Gentleman has made two interesting points. Does he share my regret that the Scottish housing advisory committee was abolished by this Government? That committee could usefully have examined such matters and made recommendations.
Mr. Henderson: The hon. Gentleman's point may be fair, but perhaps if the committee had done such things it would not have been abolished.
A variety of factors affect the costs of providing and managing local authority houses. The housing support grant could be determined on a more clear-cut, fair and rational basis. For example, the councils which do not get any housing support grant at present must feel bitter about the fact that tens of millions of pounds go to Glasgow in housing support grant. According to the 1983 rating review, average expenditure on management and maintenance costs per home per year for Scotland is £276, but the figure for Glasgow is estimated to be £368. That difference between the Scottish average for the cost of management and maintenance and the Glasgow figure takes a lot of explaining. It may be argued that Glasgow has greater problems, because it is a large city with inner city difficulties. The hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) appears to agree.
However, let us compare Glasgow with two other great cities —Liverpool and Manchester. According to local authority comparative statistics, produced by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy in 1983, the figures for Liverpool and Manchester are only £220 and £253 per home. Both those figures are lower than the Scottish average, which itself is significantly lower than the Glasgow figure. My right hon. Friend should draw the attention of Glasgow district council to the fact that its management and maintenance costs are enormously different from those of other local authorities. He might suggest that some effort to rectify the situation would be of great benefit to every other local authority. Perhaps an improvement in the formulae for working out the housing support grant would help to explain why such differences arise.
My penultimate point is about rate fund contributions. I understand that in 1983–84, 27 district authorities deliberately chose to forgo £13·5 million that they could have spent on capital projects if they wished. It is generally accepted throughout the House that there is an unfortunate tendency for local authorities to reduce expenditure on capital and to increase expenditure on revenue account. There is a feeling that more effort should be devoted to

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expenditure on capital. At present, the Government can encourage local authorities to take a responsible view of the rate fund contributions to housing revenue accounts only through their ability to reduce the amount of capital allocated to councils if they overspend on the rate fund contribution. That has resulted in a reduction in capital spending when, in many places, an increase is probably needed. I am glad that there is a clause in the Rating and Valuation (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill—I hope that the Committee will debate it before long—that will give my right hon. Friend powers to impose a limit, by order, on the contributions that the local authority rate fund can make to the housing revenue account. That would help to create a better balance between revenue and capital expenditure.
The hon. Member for Maryhill talked as though the order would create terrible problems in Scotland—that rents would rise and houses would not be built. It might be helpful if I drew the attention of the hon. Gentleman to an announcement on 26 January 1984 made by the North-East Fife district council. That council, which receives no housing support grant and does not make a rate fund contribution to the housing revenue account, has announced that it
"will not be increasing rents of Council house tenants for the forthcoming financial year."
The chairman of the council said:
"This will be achieved without any Rate Fund contribution to the Housing Revenue Account and despite the fact that the Council will receive no Housing Support Grant in 1984–85."
That has everything to do with the reality of housing today. One of the two reasons given for that by the chairman was the receipts from council house sales. The chairman said:
"North East Fife District Council have achieved a very high rate of sales, having sold some 13 per cent. of housing stock since 1980. The receipts have been applied directly in reducing the outstanding Loan Debt on the Housing Account."
Another reason was that interest rates were lower than had been anticipated. Interest rates would not have been lower than anticipated if the Government had not been worried about public expenditure, including local authority expenditure.
I believe that it is true, as COSLA is saying, that attitudes to expenditure have changed. The efforts of my right hon. Friend and his Ministers to persuade local authorities to take a more responsible attitude have been successful in most cases. It is probably true that local authority expenditure is coming under control. We are not far away from the target that my right hon. Friend has always sought to achieve—total expenditure not greatly different from that of 1978–79. It is still a little above, but not much. It has been difficult to make local authorities understand the necessity to control expenditure.
I hope that central and local government have reached broad agreement on expenditure levels and that we can move towards dealing with the present generation's problems, and achieve the stability that will enable local authorities to plan for long-term development.
8.2 pm
Mr. George Robertson: If I had started by calling the Minister a rat I should rapidly have been called to order, if only to defend the rodent population. To have the Minister confess to a similarity to that animal is a remarkable achievement. After this evening we might refer to the Minister as the "Roland Rat" of the Tory party. The only problem is that he has the opposite effect on the
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ratings to those of the famous rat on TV-am. That is a lighthearted introduction to the proceedings and a warning to the Minister that quickness of tongue can land him in trouble.
Mr. Craigen: Is my hon. Friend suggesting that there may be a spark of truth in what comes from the Scottish Office?
Mr. Robertson: It is clear that the Minister was trying hard to be frank, but perhaps his reference to terriers and rats was the closest that he came to frankness. The theme of his speech was fairness. His peroration, which bore the hallmark of his work as distinct from that of his civil servants, which characterised the remainder of his speech, was based on fairness. However, the speech contained no evidence that the order was fair to authorities, tenants or ratepayers. The order and the Government's housing policy have nothing to do with fairness.
If I may remind the Minister of my intervention which brought his remarkable confession, there has been a longstanding traditional belief by Governments of all political hues that there is a genuine necessity for the public purse to look after the population's housing needs. Conservative and Labour Governments have accepted that. This Government have said that the responsibility to one section of the population will remain and increase, but that another section, which generally does not vote for the Conservative party, will be considerably and increasingly penalised. The figures bear that out, because there has been support from the housing support grant for public sector rents in Scotland and from mortgage income tax relief for owner-occupiers.
The Minister and I are in the happy position of being owner-occupiers. A large section of the Scottish population are not. Some people choose not to be. It is interesting to compare the position of public subsidy for mortgage holders and that for public sector tenants, because last year the figure of support for the public sector was £83 per tenant. The figure for the average owner-occupier mortgage holder was a staggering £437. That compares with the figures for 1979–80, when the Government took over, of £184 for the tenant and £290 for the owner-occupier mortgage holder. There had been a substantial shift in the amount of public support for two different types of home occupier. I suggest that the people who need most help are those who are not receiving it.
Mr. Michael Forsyth: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not intend to mislead the House. The figures which he has quoted are based on the historic capital cost of the council house as the element of subsidy, whereas with a mortgage owner-occupiers are paying the current capital cost. When making a comparison, would he not be wise to take a revalued basis—the capital value of the council houses — in reaching his assessment? If he does that he will find that the council tenant receives a good £100 more subsidy than the owner-occupier.
Mr. Robertson: The hon. Gentleman can fiddle around with the statistics to his heart's content. Any accountant could show that remortgaging to the limit permitted by the Inland Revenue based on the capital cost of private housing has to be taken into account. One cannot take the historic cost as being the relevant value. The point that I make is not influenced by statistics put forward by

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the hon. Member. Whether he is right or wrong, it does not alter the fundamental point that there has been consistent support by the Government for people who buy their houses on mortgage. At the end of the period of mortgage they gain the capital value of the house.
There has been consistent public support for the house purchase policy irrespective of interest rates. Therefore, the level of support varies depending upon the interest rates being charged by the building societies and banks. I am not arguing the niceties of the precise figures. I suggest that there was a traditional record of Government support for people who were buying their houses and for those who were renting their houses. One has changed and the other has not.
Mr. Henderson: I appreciate the important principle which the hon. Gentleman is trying to establish. However, he damages his argument by using the spurious figures produced by an outside source — figures which I have also seen. The figures about council houses relate to all council houses and all council house tenants on the average, yet he does not relate the figures for the private sector to all private houses and all owner-occupiers on the average.
If the hon. Gentleman did that he would realise that the balance has not really changed. He is comparing past figures which were arrived at on a fair basis of comparison, with current figures, which were arrived at on a different basis of comparison. He should be careful about that.
Finally, but not least, many owner-occupiers now receiving mortgage relief were local authority tenants not so long ago.
Mr. Robertson: Very few of them were council tenants, because the figures which I quoted relate to a period before the substantial rise in council house sales.
The hon. Gentleman passed some disparaging comments on the statistics and their source. I must tell him that the source was an answer to a parliamentary question in April 1983. He should be wary of denigrating the source of material, even if he wishes to quibble about my point.
There has been long-standing traditional support for the provision of housing in Scotland, but the Government are breaking that. The housing support grant order is yet another illustration that the grant to many local authorities is being savagely cut. That is clearly a break in the consensus.
If that were my only condemnation of the Government, I should be happy to bandy statistics all night. In addition to cutting the level of housing support, they are increasing the level of rents considerably in excess of the rate of inflation. Through their housing policy they have cut the resources for new build. Because of their ham-fisted way of cutting home improvement grants they have almost halted the renovation of older property — a problem which will have to be dealt with in future. Finally, their policy on unified housing benefit has caused considerable and justifiable criticism across a wide range of opinion.
Those are the ways in which the Government are pursuing their housing policy. It clearly shows that they have no coherent view about the future of housing stock. Nor have they any genuine appreciation of the real crisis that affects Scottish housing today.
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When the Government took office they introduced the gimmick of selling council houses to sitting tenants. When that proved a minor success, they increased the bribes needed to sell more houses. I accept that more houses have been sold. I do not underestimate the Government's success in some areas. A large number of people, including some of my constituents, have bought their council houses. For many of them it was their first opportunity of home ownership. Therefore, I agree that the Government have had some success in that area, and perhaps some of the election results last year proved that.
What worries me is what lies underneath that sucess. It is only a superficial success, usually benefiting those wishing to buy the better houses in the better areas. Underneath that superficial success lies a miserable picture of those left in decaying public housing which no one wants to buy. What about those left on the housing waiting lists or those living in overcrowded homes? They are not helped by a programme which sells the best houses at knock-down prices to people who have been living in their homes for a long time.
The real record of the Government's housing policy comes before every right hon. and hon. Member at every surgery and advice centre. There cannot be any hon. Member who, week in and week out, is not faced with the catalogue of misery of those living in overcrowded and bad housing. Indeed, there is a total lack of housing in many parts of the country. One may think that a record of success in selling council houses is something of which the Government can be proud, but if that policy results in a declining housing stock and people living in miserable circumstances, it is surely only a superficial success.
I must tell the hon. Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Henderson) that there was a time when even the Conservative party could boast of its success in dealing with Scotland's post-war housing crisis. Before I was born, there was a serious problem in Scotland with slums. At that time the Conservative party was doing reasonably well in Scottish elections. It was proud to boast about the dramatic alteration in the housing standards in Scotland. I wish that the Conservative party of today — that miserable monetarist party — would look back to that time and note how the housing standards of the 1930s and 1940s were dramatically changed.
We must look carefully at the housing waiting lists. There is a desperate need for sheltered housing. It was a bit of a cheek for the hon. Member for Fife, North-East to say how wonderful the Government are and how brilliantly they are performing—despite the decline of new build housing to 1920 levels—and then to tell us about the need for sheltered housing in his constituency. Every constituency needs more sheltered housing. We know that, and the Government know that, but they will not provide the necessary resources. That is one charge which the Minister must answer tonight.
There is also a need for special housing for the handicapped, large numbers of whom could live in the community rather than in institutions if we provided the necessary custom-built accommodation. The Government should be ashamed of their record in those areas. They should not try to pretend that they have something of which to be proud.
On Friday night I addressed the annual dinner of the Slate Trade Benevolent Association — an august organisation. About 500 members of the building trade and construction industry in the west of Scotland attended.

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I dare say that a large number of them voted Conservative at the last election. There were no red flags flying at the Albany hotel last Friday. They may have voted Conservative at the last election, but I have yet to hear an audience more bitterly critical of the Government on the issue of improvement grants, the damage that the Government's policy has caused to the construction industry, the chaos and confusion caused to local authorities and the disastrous effect that their policy will probably have on the future stock of housing which was being so consistently and effectively improved. There is a deep and growing bitterness over the gross injustice of the Government's decision, not only in the construction industry and among others directly affected, but among a wider section of the community.
Hamilton, the area which I represent, is a cross-section of the west of Scotland, not dominated by public housing, but with a large section of private housing, new and old, and the experience there is probably characteristic of Scotland as a whole. In the last four years Hamilton district council's housing authority has suffered a cut of over 54 per cent. in its housing support grant — the fourth highest cut of all the local authorities in Scotland. That has happened despite the fact that in the last two years rents have increased by over 27 per cent., one of the largest increases in rents of all local authorities in Scotland. Where is the justice in that situation?
The Government have no right to be proud of their housing record and I hope that tonight, by highlighting the problems of the Scottish housing industry, we will persuade the Government slowly to come to their senses. Their housing record is characterised by bungling, incompetence, shortsighted housekeeping and, worse, a singular indifference to the misery which their policy will cause. They blunder on, forcing up rents, slashing the resources available for building, demolishing the improvement grants scheme, yet they seem utterly oblivious to the long-term consequences of their actions. Conservative Members personally will probably not share in those consequences, but millions of Scots who will do so will not forgive the malicious shortsightedness of this Government.
8.22 pm
Mr. Malcolm Bruce: This debate — it seems to have been going on, on and off, since this session began six months ago—has reached the point when it should move on from a rather sterile altercation about the level of rents and whether council house sales are good or bad to our acknowledging certain changes that are taking place. On both sides of the House we should look at some areas which are not being addressed by the Government's present housing policy.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Craigen) said that, from the present trend of housing support grant, in two years or so it would disappear completely. I do not hear any denial of that from the Government Front Bench, and I think that that is the direction in which we are moving. What is the thinking of the Government beyond that? May we be told the direction in which they are going on this issue?
In the short term, we understand the motives behind the Government's policy. They are seeking to achieve increased rents for council tenants overall; to force up rents has been part of the deliberate aim of their policy, and the calculation this year is that this cut will lead to an
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average increase in rents of 9·4 per cent. The trouble with this policy — followed in a narrow sense, as it is at present— is that it tends to hit the middle and lower income groups hardest. We have had a fiasco of housing benefit assistance— it has yet to be unravelled —and arguably the Government can say that those on the lowest incomes qualify for housing benefit and that they are to some extent protected from rent increases, although not fully.
Those who have the good fortune to be buying their homes on mortgage get extremely generous tax relief, and that is obviously a contribution to the incomes of that section of the community. If the Conservatives pursue a policy of abolishing direct assistance to people who wish to make a start on buying their first homes or who wish to be housed in the public sector, and give support only to those who are owner occupiers, they will leave an extremely vulnerable and lopsided form of assistance, one which is likely ultimately to be phased out. I suggest that supporting private owner occupiers when they are withdrawing support from public sector tenants and those with low incomes wishing to make a start would make the position indefensible.
Mr. Michael Forsyth: I am having some difficulty in following the logic of the hon. Gentleman's argument. Council tenants who cannot afford to pay are given support through the housing benefit scheme. More to the point, I do not understand his suggestion that because we are reducing the housing support grant, rents will necessarily go up. To give two examples, last year north-east Fife and Perth and Kinross no longer received housing support grant, but rents did not go up. Therefore, the hon. Members's logic is defective.
Mr. Bruce: The deliberate motivation of Government action in this sphere is to iron out the policy of keeping rents low in certain areas, and I agree that there are variations among local authorities. It is true, nevertheless, that if one withdraws support that was provided earlier, that has an effect on the overall budget, and rents will obviously be affected. I am puzzled by the hon. Gentleman's intervention because the Government have made no secret of the fact that they wish to see council house rents on average go up; that has been a considered aim of Government policy in recent years.
Accepting that, let us look at the consequences, given the overall thrust of Government policy on housing. As I said, those who do not qualify for benefit—in other words, those who are on sufficiently high incomes to be out of the benefit levels but who are not on high enough levels to be in the market to buy their own homes—are the most vulnerable, and they represent a large slice of the ordinary working population. In housing terms, they are becoming the most disadvantaged in our society. That is an area to which the Government should be addressing themselves.
Hon. Members receive in our surgeries every week—and have telephoning and writing to us every day—people who are trying to get a house of their own, either by renting or buying, and who are finding that they are faced with extreme difficulties. A lady who falls into exactly that category attended my surgery last Saturday, and I have sent a letter to the Minister. Her case is an example of the gap that exists. She and her husband have a tied cottage, in which they have lived for 13 years.

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Because they are in tied accommodation, the council accepts no serious responsibility for housing them. They are unable to buy because their income is too low even to get on the bottom rung of the private market, and all the housing associations on whose lists they wish to be placed are fully committed and cannot accept them. What will the Government do to meet that sort of gap, a gap which is becoming increasingly apparent?
The Government will not inspire confidence in me and many others if they concentrate the entire thrust of their policy on the sale of council houses. That does not help those who do not have a council house in the first place and it does not help those who cannot buy in the private market and who cannot get on a housing association list. The Government must show that they have an interest in that type of problem. They must demonstrate that they have a commitment to meeting the housing need in Scotland generally, and not just in following a political gimmick—one from which, as I said at the outset, we should move on.
The selling of council houses is well established, there is no doubt that it has been politically successful and that it has met a need. But to suggest that it represents a comprehensive housing policy is inadequate, and it is time that the Government came forward with a more constructive policy to meet the problems that hon. Members are encountering in our surgeries.
An important element in the housing support grant is repairs. Not only do we have a number of types of houses, such as those built in the 1950s and 1960s, with problems, but by definition we are selling the better council houses and those that have been better maintained, with the result that the stock remaining needs more repairs. The Government have perhaps not taken full account of the fact that the average cost of repairs is likely to increase in the light of the changing nature of the housing stock.
In my area there is a clear anomaly. In one case, I cannot complain—I do not think that my district council of Gordon would complain — about the allocation of funds under the order. There has been a reduction and there still are problems—and I should like to see more going to meet the needs that I have identified—but a cut from £1,750,000 to £1,621,000, by comparison with what is happening in the city of Aberdeen, is minor. Aberdeen's grant has been cut from £3·75 million to £1·75 million. It is receiving a grant which is only slightly more than that which will be given to Gordon district council, despite the fact that Gordon district council has 5,900 houses and Aberdeen has 38,900. I think that I know the reason behind the cut.
I have spoken to the leader of the Liberal group of councillors, who the Minister might acknowledge is not one who generally seeks confrontation with Government. He tries to promote a responsible attitude within the council. He has done so when the Liberals have had influence on the Labour group, which, unfortunately, is not the present position.
The leader of the Liberal group considers that Aberdeen is being clobbered by the Scottish Office and that the house-building programme in Aberdeen is rapidly becoming non-existent. None the less, Aberdeen is a growth area. In the view of the leader of the Liberal group, the Government are pursuing a course of confrontation with local authorities. The fact that Aberdeen is Labour
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controlled may provide some relish for him in taking that view. However, we must consider the needs of those living in the area, including the provision of housing.
House building has come to a virtual standstill in the public sector. The repair programme has reached a critical level. As I have said, these are comments from someone who is not prone to making irrational statements. He has been working with his council over a long period and he feels the real problems of an area that is experiencing growth and considerable pressure. A wide variety of housing demands are not met by global allocations which the Minister knows are inadequate to meet the demands on the council.
When the Minister replies, I hope that he will not merely repeat what he said at the beginning of the debate in attempting to justify the fairness of the allocation, which has not been accepted by Opposition Members. I hope that he will address himself to what the Government will do to meet the needs of those who are not being covered by the Government's present housing policy and by the order. I hope that he will do so in the interests of moving on from the present stage into a more positive approach.
8.33 pm
Mr. Tom Clarke: The hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) made a number of interesting remarks. I think that he reflected a view which is held sincerely in the local authorities with which he has been associated. The speeches of the Minister and his hon. Friends have lacked a reflection of that healthy kind of relationship between the Government and local authorities that I believe is in the interests of ratepayers as well as council tenants.
There have been a number of references to the delegation from COSLA that we received today, which I understand made itself available to all of the political parties. It is appropriate that we put on record the claims that COSLA is making and which the Minister has been unable to persuade me are not justified. It has said that total housing support grant has been reduced from £213·4 million in 1979–80 to the £52·5 million that is proposed for 1984–85, a fall of 75 per cent. in six years. It claims that if the order is accepted, 30 out of the 56 eligible authorities——
Mr. Gordon Wilson: The hon. Gentleman says that COSLA sought out all the political parties. That is not so because it did not seek out the SNP members, and I gather that it did not consult Liberal Members either. How can we take COSLA seriously if it chooses not to consult on what it wants Parliament to do? I think that COSLA has made a serious mistake and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that that is so.
Mr. Clarke: If the hon. Gentleman is right, that is an error that I would not condone. I am sure that COSLA will pay close attention to what he has said. Nevertheless, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be gracious enough to consider the important figures which COSLA is advancing, which reflect the views of local authorities of all political persuasions, including those that are shared by Liberal and SNP members.
COSLA draws attention in the paper that is presented today to its claim that 30 of the 56 eligible authorities, or those which would have been elegible, will not be receiving housing support grant as a result of the order.

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That represents 58 per cent. of the Scottish housing stock, which would previously have been eligible. Even if the figures are remotely correct—my judgment is that they cannot be all that far out—there will be a considerable decline in the Government's contribution to the public sector over the period covered by COSLA's paper. If the figures are incorrect, I challenge the Minister to tell the local authorities that are represented by COSLA that they are wrong, and to tell the district and island authorities that are responsible for housing that the housing support grant order represents a larger figure. I think that the Minister will have great difficulty in convincing the House that that is the position.
It is not the first time in this Parliament that the House is facing blind prejudice in place of the realism that the people of Scotland, and the people of Britain generally, are entitled to expect. Rents have increased considerably since the Government took office. I shall go through the COSLA figures as quickly as I can, which are well above the rate of inflation. In 1980–81 the increase was 19·5 per cent. In 1981–82 it was 30·54 per cent. It was 17·2 per cent. in 1982–83 and 9·8 per cent. in 1983–84. The projected increase for 1984–85 is 17·4 per cent.
In the situation that my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) described, in which the Government have recognised the position of owner occupiers over the years, we are seeing nothing less than a vendetta against council tenants. Why is that? It is not unrelated to the fact that two authorities have been able to freeze their rents and at the same time have the highest level of sales of council houses. The Government's housing support grant theme is to force all local authorities into persuading their tenants that it is far more sensible to buy their council houses than to pay inflated rents, which are being imposed upon them by fear. The hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) is representative of that policy.
Mr. John Maxton: The hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) makes Adam Smith seem Left-wing.
Mr. Clarke: Considerable problems are being faced by council tenants in district after district. In addition, there are the problems of the unemployed, who have to face the consequences of the Government's policies, not least unified housing benefit.
We have been lectured this afternoon on manpower levels. It seems that local authorities in Scotland are being asked to be ashamed of their figures. Who did the Minister expect to deal with unified housing benefit when the responsibility was passed to the local authorities? The hon. Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Henderson) criticised Glasgow for losing £12 million in grant as a result of its rent policy.
Mr. Maxton: The Government changed the rules.
Mr. Clarke: Exactly. As my hon. Friend says, the Government changed the rules. The decision to relate rents to the availability of housing capital was made by the Government not by Glasgow district council, North-East Fife district council or any other council.
Mr. Maxton: I confirm what my hon. Friend is saying. Even if Glasgow had increased rents by the amount that the Minister was seeking and had achieved the full amount of the allocation, it still would not have been able next year to build one new council house—sheltered or any other type. It would be able only to carry out repairs.
Mr. Clarke: I accept my hon. Friend's contribution. When the Government are criticising local authorities for allegedly high manpower levels, the local authorities are taking their responsibilities more seriously. How dare the Government come to the two district councils that I represent — Strathkelvin and Monklands — where unemployment is running at 25 per cent. and tell them that they ought to be putting more people on the dole? How dare the Government go to those authorities and introduce this measure when, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton has pointed out, they have been cutting housing support grant? I regret that the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Hirst) is not in the Chamber, but I put it on record that Strathkelvin district council, which he and I represent, was livid about the Government's decision on grants for housing improvement.
My constituents in the owner-occupier sector in south Lenzie, Miltonof, Campsie, Millerston, and Coatbridge were just as livid when their hopes were dashed with the enormous publicity by the Government before the election. Nothing in the housing support grant is helpful to council tenants or ratepayers. Council house tenants are ratepayers also. Above all, nothing in the housing support grant helps Scotland to improve the unemployment level. We have heard lectures from the hon. Member for Fife, North-East, who is paying less attention to me than I did to him, and from other Conservative Members about the conditions of council houses. They ought to be more humble and return to their Conservative friends, especially those in Edinburgh, because some members of the Scottish Select Committee including the hon. Member for Fife, North-East had the opportunity to see schemes such as those at Pilton and Bingham which were a disgrace. Those schemes occurred in a district where rents are considerably higher than in Strathkelvin, Glasgow and most other places in Scotland. There is no evidence that high rents mean necessarily better quality housing—if Edinburgh is any place to go by.
We have had yet another assault on the living standard of the Scottish people and Scottish local government. The fact that today we had an all-party delegation at the House was a sign that that is the people's view.
The hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor), who is leaving the Chamber, and I found agreement on the Common Market the other evening. I suspect that if he stayed longer in the Chamber we would find ourselves in agreement on the problems of Castlemilk.
Yet again, we are being asked to approve a housing support grant order which will mean that local authorities will face even greater problems in providing housing than has been the case. I believe that the Minister insulted local authorities when he implied that some of them do not spend much time on their budgets. I am bound to say that, from my experience of districts from Dumfries and Galloway to the highlands and islands, whatever their political complexion, local authorities take their budgets, policies and decisions to set rates seriously. It would help the Minister, the Government and the people of Scotland considerably if the Minister took on board the views expressed by the local authorities. I have no confidence that that will be the case. For that reason, I shall have great pleasure in voting in the Lobbies against the Government's measure.
8.45 pm
Mr. Michael Forsyth: The hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) showed all the indignation of someone caught with his hands in the till. For years, the Labour party in Scotland has bribed the electorate with the electorate's money and argued, "We are the party that will give you lower council rents, despite what it will cost other people." The Labour party has consistently gone to the ballot box on that theme. The hon. Member and other Labour party members are indignant that the Government are starting to deal with that problem. I understand their indignation, but it is an indignation that the Scottish people see for what it is. I say to the hon. Member for Monklands, West, who has described council house sales as a type of political gimmick, that the Labour party is even further out of touch with council tenants in Scotland than I had imagined.
Mr. Norman Buchan: I have two points of concern: the statement about my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke), and the statement about bribing people with their own money. Will the hon. Gentleman explain? His statement seemed to be nonsense.
Mr. Forsyth: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me an opportunity to explain that point to him. Contrary to the myths that are believed in the Labour party, the people who are paying for this expenditure are no longer the mythical rich, but those who, as they keep reminding us, must struggle to make ends meet. Subsidies in rents, for which they argued, must be paid for in taxation. Perhaps 100,000 or 200,000 of the Labour party's supporters in Scotland have come to the view that it might be more efficient to leave the money in their pockets than to employ a large bureaucracy to take that money from them before it is returned to them.
Mr. Buchan: Is that the answer?
Mr. Forsyth: I congratulate the Minister on his courage on housing policy and on his statement. While in a charitable frame of mind, I pay tribute to my local authority — if only to provide a few surprises in the series of speeches in which, with monotonous regularity, the Labour party trots out the same old platitudes. Stirling district council is worthy of praise because it has been transformed, I am told, under the guidance of the Minister into an authority that is now committed to council house sales and is having meetings with private builders to discuss equity sharing schemes, building for sale and sheltered housing provided with the support of the private sector. A Marxist council is now pursuing——
Mr. Maxton: What do you mean, Marxist council?
Mr. Forsyth: —policies to increase home ownership within its domain.
Mr. Maxton: It is Labour party policy, by the way.
Mr. Forsyth: It may be Labour party policy, but it seems that every time one questions the Labour party on this matter it is reluctant to make any commitment about where its policy lies.
The Minister should realise in his discussions with the local authorities that there shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth and that Stirling district council believes that it is about to tackle the housing needs of its people by using the resources within the private sector. It
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is doing that not because it is Labour party policy but because it has run out of money. The Government have turned off the tap and prevented the authority from trotting out the usual platitudes about building more, doing more and meeting unlimited demands
I believe that it was the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) who said that I made Adam Smith look Left-wing.
Mr. Maxton: No, it was me. I claim credit for that.
Mr. Forsyth: In that case, I remind the hon. Gentleman that it was Adam Smith who first pointed out that as the price of a commodity approaches zero, the demand approaches infinity. The reason why all of us face constituents at our surgeries who rightly claim that they cannot find housing is because the price of the good has been allowed to approach zero too quickly. We are subsidising people who may have council houses due to an accident of birth at the expense of those who, as the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce) pointed out have extreme difficulty in finding housing.
It is almost offensive to hear the hon. Member for Hamilton complain that it is our fault that those people cannot find housing and that housing conditions in Scotland are so poor when the housing crisis about which we hear so much is the creation of Socialism. It was the Socialists who destroyed the private rented sector which could provide respite for those in tied accommodation. Socialist engineering did that. The hon. Gentleman said that it was our duty to provide housing for those people before the war. It is that notion of dedication to providing housing for the people that has produced the appalling estates in Scotland. The slums that the Socialists set out to destroy were created by Socialist councils with money provided by the taxpayers of Scotland.
Mr. Wilson: The hon. Gentleman is younger than some of us, but does he appreciate from his study of history the appalling housing conditions that prevailed in Scotland from the 19th century onwards, often due to the rushed building which took place in that century when the population increased fairly quickly? Does he agree that in the face of those conditions it was necessary for Government and local authorities to step in and provide a decent standard? That does not mean that we cannot criticise both central and local government for failures in housing policy which have led to conditions such as those at Castlemilk, Whitfield or Easterhouse, which unfortunately now afflict so many cities.
Mr. Forsyth: I agree entirely that anyone in his right mind would condemn the conditions then prevailing by comparison with modern standards. Taking the matter a stage further, however, I might argue that 300 years ago people in my constituency lived in little more than mud huts and that the progress made up to the middle of the 19th century was not the result of public enterprise, but that is not the argument. The hon. Gentleman should look at his own constituency or across to that of the hon. Member for Dundee, West (Mr. Ross) to see the appalling example, albeit created with the highest motives, of Socialism in practice. Ghettoes have been created in which people live in fear.
We have just been reading the Select Committee report on dampness——
Mr. Michael J. Martin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Forsyth: No, I shall not give way. I have been very generous so far.
Hon. Members can look at the Select Committee report on dampness, if and when it is published, to see the conditions in which people are living in their true scale. Socialism is to blame for the appalling housing conditions in Scotland. If we are anything at all we should learn from the mistakes of the past.
Mr. Buchan: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Forsyth: No, I shall not give way.
Mr. Buchan: The hon. Gentleman's history is very bad.
Mr. Forsyth: I shall not give way to the hon. Gentleman again.
Mr. Buchan: Moreover, the hon. Gentleman is wrong.
Mr. Maxton: He is wrong on everything.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. The hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) is clearly not giving way.
Mr. Buchan: You think that he is not giving way, Mr. Deputy Speaker?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: He is clearly not giving way.
Mr. Buchan: His history is very bad indeed.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Mr. Forsyth.
Mr. Forsyth: Thank you for your support, Mr. Deputy Speaker——
Mr. Maxton: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) referred to a Select Committee report on dampness which has not yet been published and put before the House. I am sure that it is not in order to comment on the contents of such a report.
Mr. Henderson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker——
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps I may deal with one point of order at a time.
Mr. Henderson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) was quoting from evidence given to the Select Committee, which has been published. He was not quoting from the Select Committee report, which has not been published.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman was quoting evidence that has been published, he was in order. If he was commenting on the contents of a report that has not yet been published and presented to the House, he was out of order. Perhaps he will clarify that.
Mr. Maxton: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
Mr. Forsyth: I was, of course, quoting from the evidence. Anyone who has studied that evidence will well understand why Labour Members are not keen for me to quote from it.
The notion central to the order is that we should shift the emphasis away from subsidising houses and towards subsidising people. That must be right. The parallels between tax relief on mortgage interest and rent subsidies
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are completely misguided because mortgage interest tax relief means that people do not pay so much tax because they are making provision for themselves. That is quite different from subsidising decaying blocks of bricks and mortar for which we have paid far too much and which we have been far too dilatory in maintaining.
The Opposition keep talking about people living in miserable housing in Scotland who do not benefit from council house sales. In fact, not only is there a bonus in the receipts from those sales but there is ample evidence, even in the concrete filing cabinets in Edinburgh and elsewhere to which my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Henderson) referred, that even in Martello Towers, Easterhouse and elsewhere people are prepared to buy property that the local authority cannot rent to them in any circumstances. Not even people housed under the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act were prepared to live in them, but people are prepared to buy and improve them. Conservative Members who are concerned to see an overall improvement in the housing stock are not so wedded to any dogma as to say that this must be achieved in any one particular way. I appreciate that the Opposition's ideology precludes their coming easily to that conclusion. I pay tribute to authorities such as Stirling district, for whom the penny has actually dropped.
The extraordinary thing that emerged from the speeches of Opposition Members is that they seem not to have caught up with those who represent their party in local authorities throughout Scotland. In discussing the level of rents, their arguments are singularly bogus. The very authorities who bleat most about lack of support in order to keep rents down are those who contribute most to keeping rents high by running inefficient and irresponsible direct labour organisations which in turn pass on the fat to the struggling council tenant whom the proponents of the DLOs are apparently so quick to defend. Opposition Members, in their support for the in-house provision of maintenance in local authorities, are trying to walk a tightrope from which, in fact, they have long since fallen. If they were serious about looking after the interests of their tenants, they would be looking to invite tenders and to find the most efficient means of providing maintenance of their estates and managements of their estates, as so many authorities south of the border have done.
It is nothing less than a scandal that Glasgow should be charging an extra £2 per week out of the rent to cover the maintenance costs of its notorious direct labour organisations.
Mr. Maxton: I take the point the hon. Gentleman makes about repairs in Glasgow, but has he looked at the figures on administration? He will find that the local authority district council with the highest per capita cost for administration is not Glasgow, but Bearsden.
Mr. Forsyth: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, on examining the figures for the increases in staffing levels among the non-manual local government officers, I should not be at all surprised to find that is so.
I have no brief to argue that any local authority in Scotland is as efficient as it should be. Indeed, if I were to criticise any aspect of the order, I would say that it is too generous. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister likes me to do that, because it shows him to be the very moderate gentleman that he is.
I conclude by referring to the splendid occasion mentioned by the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr.

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Robertson), who I think has left the Chamber — the roofers' and slaters' annual dinner held in the Albany hotel, obviously reflecting the hard times that have befallen them because of the Government's improvement grants policy. I should be very surprised if the gentlemen who make up that august company could look one in the eye and argue that they were being hard done by because the Government introduced, as a temporary measure, a 90 per cent. scheme that has been an absolute beanfeast for them, a beanfeast that they are still enjoying and will enjoy no doubt for a year or two to come. If Opposition Members believe that, because notice has been given that that bonanza is over, somehow or other these gentlemen are going to change their minds and vote for the Labour party — [Interruption.]—if that were true, I would fear for the roofs of the people who have benefited from their services. I am sure that they are very much more aware of the reality of that position.
The fact is that the Government, through their generosity on the improvements grants scheme, have done more at a stroke, to coin a phrase, for housing in Scotland than years and years of Labour Government.
9.2 pm
Mr. John Maxton: I seem always to have the misfortune of following the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth). He always takes my breath away by the sheer reactionary tone of his speech, so much so that I am surprised he was not mentioned in last night's "Panorama", although I suppose he would consider it to be rather Left wing to be counted among the company that was mentioned on that programme.
The hon. Gentleman always gets his facts wrong. He says, for instance, that we have got rid of the private sector, yet, thank God, we got rid of a large amount of the private rented sector, because it was exactly the sort of slum property which we wanted to get rid of to ensure that ordinary working people had proper houses in which to live.
The hon. Gentleman said that we were bribing people with their own money. The implication is that we were using rates and taxation to keep down council housing rents. At present, he will admit, the level of support which the Government give to housing is a quarter of what it was in 1979. As the hon. Gentleman said, if he had his way it would be considerably lower than that. Despite that great reduction by 75 per cent. of the money given by the Government to local authorities for housing, despite all the other cuts that they have made, despite all the cuts in education and the cuts in leisure and recreation, as the House has heard in earlier debates, the average individual in this country, with the exception of a few wealthy people, pays more taxation today under this Government than he paid in 1979. It is difficult for Conservative Members, and particularly the hon. Member for Stirling, to explain that anomaly. The Government have cut public expenditure while at the same time increasing taxation.
Mr. Wilson: The Government have cut the economy.
Mr. Maxton: I do not always agree with the hon. Gentleman or the SNP, but on this occasion he is right. The Government have cut investment and increased unemployment and part-time working. Large sums of public money are now, in a sense, being spent on useless
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items, instead of on useful things such as ensuring that there is employment and that more public housing is built, thus providing more employment in the construction industry. That must be borne in mind.
I am disappointed that the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Hirst) is not in the Chamber. Some months ago he expressed great interest in housing and in the grants being given to private owner occupiers for repairs if their properties were below a certain rateable value. I recall that the hon. Gentleman was going to start a great campaign to ensure that the rateable values for the scheme were raised. A personal friend of mine in the Labour party attacked me because I did not take up the hon. Gentleman's point. But now the hon. Gentleman does not even bother to attend housing debates. He is no longer interested in housing or in the fact that Tory councillors are attacking the Government because of their housing policy in that area. We do not hear a cheep out of him. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Craigen) said, we have not heard a word from the hon. Gentleman on the subject of housing.
The people of Bearsden, Milngavie and Eastwood continually use the facilities paid for by Glasgow district council's ratepayers. In particular, they use the leisure facilities and are parasites upon those ratepayers. Lord Wheatley's original report on local government was right. The suburbs of Glasgow should have been part and parcel of Glasgow district council and should not have been kept out, as they were under a Tory Government. If they had been part and parcel, there would still have been a Labour majority now, and we would have had more money to spend on the facilities. [Interruption.] We would still have Strathclyde, but Glasgow district council would have been there too.
At the end of the day the important factor is not the fear of the hon. Member for Stirling or the figures involved in the order, but the effect of such orders on our constituents and on those council tenants who live in the constituencies of Conservative Members. A person's home is the most important thing that he has, whether it is rented or owned. People want to be able to live in their homes in comfort and warmth, and in the knowledge that they can carry out any necessary repairs themselves or, if it is a council property, that the council will carry them out for them. However, that is no longer the case in cities such as Glasgow. Housing support has been cut drastically. As I pointed out to my hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke), even if Glasgow kept its rents at the level that the Government wanted, and even if it received the full capital allocation, my information from Glasgow district housing department is that it would not be able to build one new house next year.
Much housing needs to be replaced in the public sector and there is also a great need for specialist housing, particularly for the elderly, because the elderly population in Glasgow is increasing. Not one sheltered house is being built by the local authority. In my constituency — I cannot speak for the rest of the city—not one sheltered house will be built by housing associations such as the British Legion or the Hanover housing association because they have said that they do not have funds to build. Again, that is because of local authority cutbacks. Therefore, many elderly pepole are living in houses which are too large and for which they are paying too high a rent. If they were in sheltered homes they would be paying lower rents.

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Many people in my constituency are living in houses which are very damp. The hon. Member for Stirling mentioned the evidence of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. My ears misheard him, or perhaps he will be put right by the Official Report tomorrow. I thought he said "report", but perhaps he meant "evidence". I shall give him the benefit of the doubt.
I went with the Committee when it visited Castlemilk. We saw housing in an appalling state because of dampness. The problems could be solved by spending large sums of money. The Secretary of State will tell us that he does not have the money, but he has plenty to spend on nuclear weapons. He has bags of money to spend on building houses costing £100,000 or £110,000 each in the Falkland Islands; the contract obviously should never have gone to the person who got it at a price above the other bids.
It is a matter of priorities. The Government could solve the problems of damp houses in Scotland if they had the will. They do not have that will. They are not interested in council house tenants in Scotland, because they believe that those tenants do not vote for them. In that they are right, despite what the hon. Member for Stirling said about council house tenants no longer voting for the Labour party. That is garbage. We won the last election in cities like Glasgow. Council house tenants voted overwhelmingly for the Labour party and they will do so again in the district elections in May.
Mr. Ancram: As the hon. Member knows, the Labour party in Scotland lost a quarter of a million votes in the election. Where does he think it lost them?
Mr. Dennis Canavan: The Tory party lost more.
Mr. Maxton: As my hon. Friend rightly points out, the Tory party lost a great many more.
Mr. Ancram: No.
Mr. Maxton: I shall tell the hon. Member where we lost our votes. It was not in the area——
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. George Younger)rose——
Mr. Maxton: The Secretary of State is always unwilling to give way to me in these debates, so I shall not give way to him.
We did not lose votes in Scotland among council house tenants in places such as Glasgow and Edinburgh. We lost them in the highlands, where the Tory party lost its support. We retained our seats; the Tory party did not.
The Government's housing policy is deliberately and vindictively against council house tenants. The Government believe that people should not rent property but that, if at all possible, it should be owned. The Government's attitude is rather like that of the hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Pan-is) who spent a week masquerading as a social security benefit claimant and said that it was difficult to live on social security but that that was right because it would force social security claimants to look for a job. That is much the same as the Tory philosophy on housing—make it as rotten, nasty and expensive as possible so that people will get out of it.
The Labour party aims to provide people with decent, properly wind-proofed, heated and affordable houses in a
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decent environment. In the past five years the Government have tried to destroy those conditions. The Labour party will be returned at the next election and restore them.
9.15 pm
Mr. Bill Walker: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) has just shown clearly how the Labour party has singularly failed to live up to what he believes is its aim—to provide for the people of Scotland housing which is all that he says it should be. He also knows that there are too many council houses in Scotland which do not meet those standards. The people who live in them live in misery. The reason for that is that, after the second world war, successive Governments were judged by the number of houses that were built during their tenure of office. Nobody considered bad design, bad building or houses being built in the wrong place.
The result has been misery for many families. No one who is involved with housing in Scotland can be proud of that. Families live in conditions which can only be described as horrific and ghastly. Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money has been wasted. That is the result of investing in buildings rather than in people. That is the fundamental difference between the two major parties. The Conservatives believe in investing in people. We do not have a doctrinaire view about the type of property in which people should live or about where they should live.
As members of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee know from evidence that it was given in public and from visits, no humane society should ask people to live in such conditions. I accept that it will cost a massive amount of money to rectify the errors. It would be madness for any Government to continue the policies that have produced the problem. That is why I welcome the shift in the Government's policies. I welcome the fact that, in these difficult times, it has been recognised that we must move resources from buildings to people.
Mr. Wilson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Walker: Yes.
Mr. Speaker: Order. We have very little time. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be brief.
Mr. Wilson: I shall be brief. The hon. Gentleman says that the Government are investing in people and not in buildings. Under the housing support grant, investment in buildings has been reduced but at the same time the Government intend to cut housing benefit, which is an investment in people.
Mr. Walker: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to develop my argument. The Government are adopting a fundamentally different approach to housing.
Labour-controlled authorities in Scotland have deliberately made ratepayers make massive contributions towards rents paid by people who are well able to pay an economic rent. Perth and Kinross district council recognises that and has set its rents at an economic level. That is why it sees no need to raise rents now. The interesting fact is that there is no shortage of people who want a council property in Perth and Kinross. The reason is clear. People who cannot afford to pay an economic rent are subsidised by the Exchequer. I do not argue with that, because a caring society must look after people who are unable to meet the demands of an economic rent.

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Aid is provided by substantial funding from the Department of Health and Social Security and other sources. More than 50 per cent. of council tenants have their rents and rates paid partly or in full by such funding. I do not argue with that. However, such provision makes nonsense of claims by Opposition Members that increasing rents means that people in that section of the community will suffer. The problem is solved by the Exchequer making substantial sums of money available to the housing funds of local authorities.
More important, if that is linked to a policy of selling council houses to those who can afford to pay the economic rent, but who judge that they are better off under Conservative policies, authorities will be better able to channel funds towards those in greatest need. If benefits are spread widely to cover everyone, those in greatest need get the thinnest proportion. That does not make sense.
Mr. Martin indicated dissent.
Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce), speaking from the Liberal Benches, was right to say that a small section of the community will miss out. Those people are above the level where assistance is available from the Department of Health and Social Security, but below the level at which they can receive benefits from mortgage option schemes and other provisions. I hope that Ministers will take that into account. Any Government who care to help those in greatest need must consider the needs of the individual in that sector.
We are debating housing support grant to see what can be done to help all the people. I hope that the Government will look carefully at the Select Committee report when it is published. There is no doubt that what the report covers is the most important area of housing need in Scotland. We must tackle the problems of those who have been afflicted by bad local authority housing. We have a duty and responsibility, first, to examine that carefully — [Interruption.] I do not want to pre-empt the Committee's findings, and I am sure that Opposition Members would not wish me to do so, but I hope that the Government will take note of the report, when it is presented, and will return to the House with positive proposals for housing in Scotland.
I can continue only for a short time, so I shall be unable to respond to the mutterings of Opposition Members. Home improvement grants were a good thing while they lasted, but no one expected such high spending to go on for ever.
I have never been one to suggest that the public purse is open-ended and should be a great big chest ready for dipping into. We must look carefully at the entire housing stock, as in areas outside Scotland, and use what funds are available in these difficult times to help those in need. That is why I welcome expenditure on grants, where there is a statutory requirement on local authorities. I hope that it will continue.
Despite all the rhetoric from Opposition Members, only the Liberals have put forward constructive proposals to help those in Scotland who need the most help.
9.24 pm
Mr. John Home Robertson: Like the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker), I was a
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member of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs in the previous Parliament. Like him, I saw the evidence, to which the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) referred, on some of the truly gruesome housing conditions in Edinburgh, parts of Glasgow and, no doubt, throughout Scotland. It is being suggested through what the Government are doing that the people who live in those appalling conditions should pay the whole cost, and a little more besides, for getting themselves out of those appalling conditions. That is not reasonable.
I give the hon. Member for Tayside, North a warning. He is in great danger of being outmanoeuvred on the Right by the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth). I was watching the expression of the hon. Member for Stirling when his hon. Friend was speaking. I never thought that I would see the day when I would describe the hon. Member for Tayside, North as a closet liberal, but now that we have been joined by the hon. Member for Stirling, that day might have arrived.
I shall make one preliminary point that hon. Members might expect me to make. There is a specifically Scottish aspect to what we are debating. There is a more specifically Scottish aspect to it in that, if there were an elected Scottish assembly, for which the people of Scotland have repeatedly voted, it is most unlikely that anything like this order would be foisted on tenants, housing authorities or anybody else in Scotland. That assembly would not be juggling scarce housing funds in this cynical manner. I hope that people in Scotland are aware of what this minority administration headed by the Secretary of State is foisting on them. He has a pretty tenuous mandate to do such a thing. He is exercising that power, but he should not be surprised if people begin to challenge it more as the months and years go by.
In the Minister's introductory remarks, in a characteristically elegant turn of phrase, he said that my constituency of East Lothian would drop out of grant. That might be his way of balancing books or of explaining what is going on in the housing support grant, but I believe that that dropping out of grant is extremely bad news for thousands of tenants in my constituency and will cause significant hardship.
We understand that rents in East Lothian district council houses will go up by about 16 per cent., by between £1·60 and £1·70 per week. Since 1979–80, the average annual rents paid by council tenants in East Lothian have gone up from £255·15 to £616·36. That is a direct consequence of the fact that the housing support grant for East Lothian district council has fallen from about £5 million to nothing this year. That is out of the control of the local authority. It is a direct consequence of decisions taken by Ministers in the Scottish Office. I have no doubt that tenants in my constituency will be aware of the difficulty that is being created for them. It is a false economy in the Government's own terms. It means that more tenants will be eligible to claim housing benefit. I hope that they do so. They are entitled to claim if they are under hardship.
There is also the rather convuluted and complicated question of the linkage between the rate fund contribution to housing revenue accounts and the housing capital allocations. I am greatly indebted to Mr. Kennedy, the director of finance of East Lothian district council, for giving me some briefing material on the way in which the problem affects my constituents. I must challenge the double standards involved in the decisions taken by the

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Secretary of State in regard to the amount of rate fund contributions to housing revenue accounts, whereby capital expenditure is reduced by the Secretary of State if the rate fund contribution figure is exceeded.
In a sense, that is an academic argument for East Lothian district council, because it has no capital allocation for 1984–85. However, it has been put to me that if the new Valuation and Rating Bill became law—I earnestly hope that it will not, and I am doing all that I can in Standing Committee every Tuesday and Thursday to ensure that that date is delayed as long as possible—the Secretary of State would have power to determine the rate fund contribution to housing, and no doubt the figure that he is using now would be continued.
The argument is that it is clearly unfair to have a double standard. The Secretary of State's powers should be limited so that the figure used in the housing support grant calculation is used to determine the rate fund contribution. The Secretary of State should not have power to decide personally, because that will give him—and, I suppose has given him—total control of the rents set in each local authority area. It takes the local decisions on rents for local authority housing once and for all out of the hands of elected local authority councillors and puts them into the hands of the Secretary of State for Scotland.
In the case of East Lothian, the rate fund contribution is limited to £605,000 for 1984–85—I want to try to find out where that figure of £605,000 for the year came from; perhaps the Minister can get some advice on the matter during the remaining minutes of the debate—while the degree of rate support taken into account in the Housing Support Grant (Scotland) Order is approximately £14·64 per head of population, which in East Lothian comes to £1·185 million. That leaves a shortfall of some £585,000.
On the basis of East Lothian's estimated expenditure for 1984–85, although the expenditure on repairs and maintenance is between £45 and £50 per house less than the deemed amount in the housing support grant calculation, to achieve the Secretary of State's rate fund contribution—his target—the average rent would be approximately £618 per annum, as against the national figure of £606·73 used by the Secretary of State in this order. If, however, the rate fund contribution was in the region of £1·184 million—as in this order—the average rent would be about £580 per annum. So the tenants, not the Government, would reap the advantage of the repairs policy of East Lothian district council.
I cannot understand where the figure of £605,000 comes from, unless it is simply because of East Lothian's former record. Certainly it is not based on facts, because the housing problem varies annually. As the Minister will realise, I have been quoting extensively from a brief produced by the director of finance of East Lothian district council, who also cannot understand where the figure comes from. It is surely reasonable, in a debate of this nature, to try to find out where such an arbitrary figure has come from. We are entitled to a public explanation, because it affects many households and families, not only in my constituency but in many other comparable areas of Scotland.
Many of my hon. Friends have referred to the stark contrast between what is happening to tenants in my constituency and throughout Scotland, and what the Government are doing elsewhere. We hear of the squandering of untold millions of pounds on housing and
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other items in the south Atlantic, the extension of mortgage tax relief over £30,000, and so on, in contrast with the cuts that people who can least afford them are having to face. I deplore what the Government are doing. My hon. Friends and I are entitled to answers to our detailed questions. In due course I shall, of course, join my hon. Friends in voting against this pitifully inadequate order.
9.35 pm
Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: Were the fantasy assembly imagined by the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) ever to be set up, my first motion would be the hon. Member for East Lothian should be the Speaker of that Assembly. That appointment would not add any dignity to the Assembly, but it would prevent the hon. Member from reading out gibberish which even he himself does not understand. The resulting silence would be welcome to those who surround the hon. Gentleman, as well as those who do not.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) made a most important observation. He said that the most important thing for every family is its home. I agree with the hon. Gentleman. However, he added, "whether it is rented or owned". I do not think that that is so. I do not believe that there is a family in Scotland who would not rather own than rent their home.
For a short period following the first world war, there were not enough rented houses available for those who required to move and could not afford to buy. That was why the concept of local authority housing was developed. It has been grossly distorted and unnecessarily expanded until, for instance, there are housing estates in Glasgow which are 10 times the size of many Scottish towns.
Mr. Maxton: Ten times?
Mr. Fairbairn: Yes. How many people live in Easterhouse? Fifty thousand. How many people live in Crieff? Five thousand.
Those who live in those vast housing schemes would infinately rather live in their own houses. If the Secretary of State has done one thing that is right, it is to say that we shall make an end of that serfdom. Those who live in local authority houses do so only because they have no alternative. They would rather live in their own houses, and that is why in Perth and Kinross we do not build council houses. We build sheltered houses for those in need——
Mr. David Lambie: They build castles—and how many tied cottages are there?
Mr. Fairbairn: Those are cheap jibes. However, if everybody bought a house which was available for housing—bought it for £100, as I did, and made it into a home — the problem of Scottish housing would be solved.
I congratulate the Secretary of State. We have been wise to move the people of Scotland against what they do not want. They do not want to live as the serfs of the local authority — [Interruption.] They do not want to be subject to the local authority's rate increases, extravagance, planning, repairs and everything else. They want security, and tenancy is not security. Let us move from the concept of tenancy to the concept of ownership. The Secretary of State's proposals on this matter are without doubt a move in the right direction.
9.39 pm
Mr. Michael J. Martin: It is all very well for the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) to talk about serfdom. No doubt he represents an area where there are many tied cottages, whose tenants know a great deal about serfdom. I wonder whether the private owners of estates, whose farmworkers have tied cottages, will be selling off those houses to those who live in them.
Many Conservative Members referred to Scottish local authorities, particularly in cities such as Glasgow and Edinburgh, not wanting to know about the private sector. That is nonsense. Every time they talk about the cost of council house maintenance, they are talking not only about direct labour receiving finance from local government; they must surely know that many private companies—I accept that many of them do a good job in the city—do very well out of local government. If local government is to be condemned for spending money on local authority housing, Conservative Members must accept that many private companies benefit.
When Conservative Members talk about Glasgow's vast housing estates they must be aware that not all council housing estates, including the big ones, are undesirable. In my constituency there are large housing estates, not as big as Easterhouse and Drumchapel, but nevertheless bigger than those that the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross mentioned, or Barmullod and Balornock, which are areas of reasonably high demand. He spoke about sprawling housing estates.
I lived in the Glasgow slums as a young boy. My mother was a private-sector tenant. The only time the landlord visited the property was when anyone was in arrears with the rent. It embarrassed the tenant who was in arrears. The pressure upon local authorities then was tremendous. Many senior officials in Glasgow district council can testify to the fact that when they built Easterhouse, Drumchapel and Castlemilk the then Tory Government would not allow them to build shopping centres, nurseries or the type of facilities that with hindsight we say should have been built.
The late Charles Murdoch, who was a highly respected chief executive of Glasgow district council, put it on record that when he was a junior planning officer he had to lie to the Secretary of State for Scotland to obtain nursery facilities in estates such as Drumchapel. He would say that a 10-classroom school was needed, but two of those classrooms were in fact for a nursery. That is the type of pressure that was then on local government. It is about time that the Tories faced up to the fact that they had a hand in Drumchapel, Easterhouse and the other estates that exist.
I can take hon. Members to many parts of the Drumchapel and Easterhouse estates where there is a great demand for the houses. They are happy communities in which people have brought up their families since moving there in the 1950s, and young couples who have grown up there wish to remain.
Many council houses in Glasgow that are of excellent quality are for sale. People who live in damp conditions in houses which have sometimes been designed by crooked private contractors cannot obtain transfers to decent houses because the homes to which they wish to move have been sold. If the argument is that every council estate is a bad estate, why do people seeking a transfer ask
226
for one not into the private sector but into other local authority housing? That must be a credit to local authority housing.
Glasgow has a great many problems which need the help and assistance of Government. If Government denies that help, they are denying the people whom they pretend to represent.
9.45 pm
Mr. Norman Buchan: I intend to be brief because I know that the House wishes to conclude its proceedings. I am glad of the opportunity to speak about housing. I have been in the House for a long time, but have generally left the subject of housing to the housing experts.
It is obvious that Conservative Members do not know the nature of the nation in which they live. How can they suggest that the proper solution for tenants is to buy a castle more cheaply and rebuild it to help prove the virtues of private ownership? How can they extol the virtues of privatisation? It might have been better had the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) declared an interest, because privatisation covers a wide area. The ideology of privatisation has been useful to many people, and Conservative Members should have said so when advocating it.
I accept that there are massive elements of bad housing in the public sector. Of course certain schemes should never have been planned and should never have been built, but I remember David Gibson, who killed himself in the process of carrying out some of the schemes in Glasgow, believing that that was the solution to most of the problems.
I was a member of the first team which analysed Glasgow's housing in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In 1951, 400,000 people in Glasgow lived either in single end or room and kitchen houses. I do not know whether Conservative Members have ever seen a single end——
Mr. Fairbairn rose——
Mr. Buchan: Sit down. I shall deal with the hon. and learned Gentleman in a moment.
Four hundred thousand families lived under those conditions, and some of the so-called bad schemes came about because rapid action was needed. The Government should remember that the available acreage was restricted because of the Scottish landowners. Most of the dampness was in buildings built by private contractors — and I could name a few of them. Unless Conservative Members understand the reasons for the bad schemes, they should keep quiet.
Mr. Fairbairn: In the centre of Glasgow the tenements were knocked down by the local authorities in favour of carrying out the housing schemes. The tenements that remain—what the hon. Gentleman referred to as single ends—have been modernised by local authorities and private contractors and they make wonderful houses. How does the hon. Gentleman explain that appalling cataclysm?
Mr. Buchan: I can explain that by the injection of public money to restore lousy housing. But the Government are now cutting that money in the housing support grant by 300 per cent.
It has been suggested that the sale of council houses will provide additional funds. The councils are being "cribb'd, cabin'd and confin'd" by the Government's programme.

227
Because of the cut in capital for housing, the waiting list queues extend in our surgeries each week. Having reduced the waiting time for families—especially young couples—to a few months, we now see the waiting time becoming two, three or four years.
Those who have been living in good houses are able to buy their homes, largely at the expense of the rest of the tenants, while those who have been living in bad houses will never get out of them. I know dozens of good tenants who would love to move house—they would like to own their own homes, and I have nothing against private ownership and flexibility in housing—but they have no hope of doing so. I have everything against a system of housing under which those who have lived in better housing will stay in good housing, while those in poor conditions are stuck there for ever. The Tories do not know the conditions of the people whom they claim to represent and, until they understand the position, they should speak with a little more humility.
9.51 pm
Mr. Dennis Canavan: The original intention when housing support grant was introduced by the then Labour Government was to unify the system of housing subsidy. It is now being abused by the Tories to reduce the overall housing subsidy. Between 1979–80, the first financial year when housing support grant was introduced and the coming financial year, it has been reduced from £213·4 million to £52·461 million.
Today, the majority of housing authorities in Scotland get no housing support grant at all. One of them, Falkirk district council, is the housing authority covering my constituency. In Falkirk district as a whole there are over 32,000 council houses and over 3,000 Scottish Special Housing Association houses, making up over 66 per cent. of the total housing stock of the district. In other words, two out of three people living in Falkirk district live in public sector housing.
What has happened to their level of support since the Tories took office? In 1979–80, the housing support grant for Falkirk district was £7·96 million. By the current year it had dropped to zero and for the coming financial year it will be zero again. That is reflected in increased rents, because if the local authority is not getting income into its housing revenue account by way of housing support grant, it may have no alternative but to increase rents.
In 1979·80, the average rent of Falkirk district council houses was £205 per annum. By the coming year, 1984–85, that will have increased to £556, an increase of over 171 per cent. That has all happened since the Tories came to power. Despite what the Government say about winning the price battle, they have witnessed, and been partly responsible for, an increase in the retail price index of 60 per cent. since May 1979. The increase in council house rents throughout Scotland in general, and in Falkirk district in particular, has been far in excess of the percentage increase in the retail price index. In other words, the Tories have singled out council house tenants as the target for a vicious attack on living standards, an attack out of all proportion to any increase in inflation as measured by any objective statistics.
Fortunately, the Labour-controlled district council in Falkirk is trying its best to avoid massive rent increases. Indeed, although the Secretary of State would like to see another huge increase in rents, I understand that the council has told the Secretary of State where to get off and
228
has said that it intends to increase the rents of its tenants by only 50p per week. I ask the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn): who is cheating, or trying to cheat, the people of Falkirk district? Who is trying to treat them like serfs? Are the councillors of Falkirk trying to do that? The answer is no. It is the Tory Secretary of State for Scotland who is trying to treat them like serfs by pushing up their rents to an extent that is out of all proportion to their living standards or to the increase in the rate of inflation. Yet this is the same Government who can spend over £7 million on 54 prefabs on the Falkland Islands—in other words, about £130,000 per house for people in the South Atlantic and no housing support grant at all for council house tenants in Falkirk district.
The debate is one of a long series over recent years. Colleagues from south of the border are now beginning to see what we in Scotland have been witnessing ever since the Tories took office in 1979 — an increased centralisation of power and decreasing power for elected representatives at local authority level. The increased centralisation of power by way of intervention, whether by the decrease of rate support grant, rate capping or instructing housing authorities to limit their rate fund contributions into the housing revenue account, is combined with a decrease in central support for local government.
Right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House are pointing to the constitutional significance of that trend. Even the Prime Minister's press secretary has been forced to write confidential memos urging the neutralisation of Tory Members and Tory councillors who in their heart of hearts are gravely concerned about the consequences of this type of order. It is a pity that Scottish Tory Members do not have the guts of some of their colleagues south of the border such as the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), and the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, South-East (Mr. Pym). It seems that Bernard Ingham does not need to bother to neutralise the average Scottish Tory Member. It appears that he has been tranquilised or anaesthetised already.
The Secretary of State and his lackeys and minions on the Government Front Bench have no mandate from the people of Scotland to impose an order of this sort. The people of Scotland did not vote for them. The majority of the people of Scotland, who live in council houses, rejected this Tory Government. Despite what the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross says—he lives in a castle — they are quite happy to continue living in council houses provided they are paying reasonable rents and are getting reasonable maintenance, repairs and modernisation programmes. The majority of these people rejected the Tory party at the 1983 general election and they will continue to reject the Tory Government. We shall see justice for the people of Scotland on housing and other matters only when we get a Scottish Parliament or Scottish Assembly.
9.59 pm
Mr. Ancram: It is not surprising that the hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) strayed so far from the subject of housing support grant. As he attended the debate for such a short time, he probably did not understand what the debate was about. Before he starts accusing Conservative Members of not understanding problems

229
relating to council houses and not having a mandate in Scotland, he might care to reflect, as I suggested to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton), that at the last election the Labour party in Scotland lost 250,000 votes—more than the Scottish Conservatives. If the hon. Gentleman cared to check the statistics to see from where those votes came, he would find that they came from council estates in Scotland because the people living on those estates believed that the Labour party no longer represented their interests.
This has been a wide-ranging debate. The problems of Glasgow were raised by the hon. Members for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) and for Glasgow, Springburn (Mr. Martin). I am sorry that the hon. Member for Cathcart has left the Chamber. He made a strange assertion. He criticised the amount of housing revenue account allocation made available to Glasgow. I am sure that he is as aware as I am that the main problem in Glasgow is not building new houses but improving the quality of the houses that exist, because there is a surplus of housing in the city. The hon. Members for Cathcart and Springburn showed a surprising ignorance in concentrating so much on the need for new housing, when that is not Glasgow's main need.
Mr. Martin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Ancram: I shall not give way. I should like to set on the record——
Mr. Martin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Speaker: Order. Only one hon. Member should be on his feet at a time.
Mr. Martin: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Is the hon. Member raising a point of order, or is he seeking to make a statement?
Mr. Martin: The Under-Secretary made an allegation that I made certain remarks, and he is not giving me an opportunity to reply. He is misleading the House.
Mr. Speaker: Hon. Members do not mislead the House.
Mr. Ancram: The hon. Gentleman made his speech, and I am entitled to respond to it.
This year Glasgow is receiving £132·72 million in terms of consent. Under the last Labour Government in 1978–79 it was receiving £66·9 million. I find it difficult to understand how any hon. Member representing Glasgow can say that the Government have not recognised Glasgow's needs.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Craigen) referred to a number of problems, and I may not be able to deal with them all. He asked how I could argue that rents are too low when half the Scottish tenants are receiving housing benefit. The hon. Gentleman could ask himself why the taxpayers continue to subsidise the rents of people who can well afford to meet a greater proportion of their housing costs. That is the reverse of the position that the hon. Gentleman posed. My hon. Friends the Members for Stirling (Mr. Forsyth) and for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) were right to say that it makes greater sense to subsidise a person than to continue subsidising the bricks and mortar of the building that that person inhabits. That is the correct policy of the Government.
230
A number of accusations were made by the hon. Member for Maryhill and the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Robertson) about the effects of the announcement last November on the repairs and improvement grant scheme. I wonder whether those hon. Gentlemen live in the real world. The amounts that have been made available to cover those grants show that during the past two years about £200 million has been spent on improvement and repairs under the scheme. Next year, about £160 million will be spent on non-housing revenue account, and a record figure of about £140 million is likely to be used for forward commitments on that scheme. It is impossible for those hon. Gentlemen to say that there will be no work and that builders and contractors have been ruined by the announcement.
My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Henderson) made an important and thoughtful speech about housing finance and housing subsidy. I hope that he will forgive me if I deal with just one or two of the questions that he raised. He very appropriately asked how the additional management and maintenance costs of districts with special difficulties would be recognised in the formula for providing housing support grant. The formula takes account of special factors by attributing additional allowances to urban authorities in respect of high-rise and super-high-rise houses and to rural authorities in respect of additional problems in managing small housing stocks. The allowances in the formula were all arrived at with the full agreement of the COSLA and I hope that my hon. Friend will appreciate that, so far as possible, the problems to which he referred are taken into account.
The hon. Member for Maryhill and the hon. Member for Gordon (Mr. Bruce), who spoke for the Liberal party but then disappeared and has not returned to the Chamber, both raised the question——
Mr. Dick Douglas: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The Minister's comments may not be all that illuminating, but some of us would like to follow them. There is a great deal of noise coming from beyond the Bar of the House.
Mr. Speaker: I can hear quite well at this end, but if what the hon. Gentleman says is correct, will hon. Members beyond the Bar please remain silent?
Mr. Ancram: The hon. Members for Maryhill and for Gordon referred to the effect of the announcements in the order on rents in Scotland. The hon. Member for Maryhill must have had difficulty in deciding which brief to follow. He said that COSLA had assumed average rent increases of £2·60 as a result of the order. The Shelter brief, however, assumes an increase of £1·26 on the same basis. That is a considerable difference between two august authorities which claim great knowledge of housing. As I have said, I believe that the differences have appeared because to varying extents neither organisation has taken full account of changes in expenditure and especially reductions in interest rates.
The changes that we have made will involve an average rent increase of no more than £1 per week, although there will, of course, be variations. Aberdeen is a good example. On our assumptions, rents there would have to be raised by some £2 per week, but I should tell the hon. Member for Gordon that this reflects a consistent policy on the part of that authority to keep rents unreasonably

231
low. An increase of £2 per week would bring rents in Aberdeen to £9·98 per week, which is only 11p above the present Scottish average. The people of Aberdeen cannot claim that that would be a tremendous hardship.
The hon. Member for Hamilton referred to slums being created by the Government. Again, I wonder where the hon. Gentleman has been. Our housing record shows that between 1980 and 1983 we reduced the number of sub-tolerable standard houses from 113,000 to 82,000. I do not wish to sound complacent about that, but it certainly gives the lie to the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that the situation is getting worse. If that momentum continues—and we intend to support it—the problem that remains is not unmanageable.
I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) who rightly said that the Government had introduced the relationship between rate fund contributions, rents and capital. I do not deny that we introduced the system of penalising capital expenditure by authorities which budget for excessive rate fund contributions. The alternative to penalising individual authorities would have been to reduce the capital expenditure of all authorities, whether or not they budgeted for excessive rate fund contributions. I agree with the hon. Gentleman, however, that it is undesirable to have to cut capital expenditure to pay for excessive subsidies from the rates. I expect that, on clause 6 of the Rating and Valuation Bill, for that reason we shall have his support.
A number of other matters were raised. We have had a long debate, and I have covered as many of the matters as I can. Once again, Opposition Members have tried to disguise the weakness of their arguments in a welter of emotionalism and exaggeration and they must, if they wish to be considered a serious Opposition, begin to recognise the facts of economic life.
Mr. Canavan: The Government are the Opposition in Scotland.
Mr. Ancram: Housing expenditure is a large and important part of public expenditure as a whole, and within it the balance must be struck between the genuine needs of public sector housing and the people who live in it on the one hand, and on the other the public from whom in one way or another the resources must come. Housing support grant must be applied on this same basis, not as a general subsidy, but where it is justifiably required. To do otherwise would be a negation of the responsibility of Government to ensure that public money is properly applied. The Opposition by their statements tonight would have us believe that it should be a general and unjustified subsidy. They may cynically believe that this is good politics. I can say to them that it is irresponsible, and it is an irresponsibility that we on this side will not share.
The order provides a fair balance between need and the proper application of public funds, and I ask my hon. Friends to support it.
Questions put:—
The House divided: Ayes 266, Noes 196.

Division No. 149]

[10.10 pm

AYES

Aitken, Jonathan

Aspinwall, Jack

Alexander, Richard

Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

Amery, Rt Hon Julian

Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

Ancram, Michael

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Arnold, Tom

Batiste, Spencer

232

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

Holt, Richard

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Hooson, Tom

Bottomley, Peter

Howarth, Alan (Stratf'd-on-A)

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

Browne, John

Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

Hubbard-Miles, Peter

Buck, Sir Antony

Hunt, David (Wirral)

Bulmer, Esmond

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Butcher, John

Hunter, Andrew

Carttiss, Michael

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Chapman, Sydney

Irving, Charles

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

Jackson, Robert

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Clegg, Sir Walter

Jones, Robert (W Herts)

Colvin, Michael

Key, Robert

Cope, John

King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

Cranborne, Viscount

King, Rt Hon Tom

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

Dicks, T.

Knight, Mrs Jill (Edgbaston)

Dorrell, Stephen

Knowles, Michael

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

Knox, David

Durant, Tony

Lamont, Norman

Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

Lang, Ian

Eggar, Tim

Latham, Michael

Emery, Sir Peter

Lawler, Geoffrey

Fairbairn, Nicholas

Lee, John (Pendle)

Fallon, Michael

Lester, Jim

Farr, John

Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

Favell, Anthony

Lightbown, David

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

Fletcher, Alexander

Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

Fookes, Miss Janet

Lord, Michael

Forman, Nigel

Luce, Richard

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Lyell, Nicholas

Forth, Eric

McCrindle, Robert

Fox, Marcus

McCurley, Mrs Anna

Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

Macfarlane, Neil

Freeman, Roger

MacGregor, John

Fry, Peter

MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

Gale, Roger

MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

Galley, Roy

Maclean, David John.

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

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

Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

McQuarrie, Albert

Glyn, Dr Alan

Major, John

Goodhart, Sir Philip

Malone, Gerald

Goodlad, Alastair

Maples, John

Gow, Ian

Marland, Paul

Gower, Sir Raymond

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

Greenway, Harry

Mates, Michael

Gregory, Conal

Mather, Carol

Griffiths, E. (B'y St Edm'ds)

Maude, Francis

Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Grist, Ian

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Ground, Patrick

Merchant, Piers

Grylls, Michael

Meyer, Sir Anthony

Gummer, John Selwyn

Miller, Hal (B'grove)

Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

Mills, Iain (Meriden)

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

Hampson, Dr Keith

Miscampbell, Norman

Hanley, Jeremy

Mitchell, David (NW Hants)

Hannam, John

Moate, Roger

Hargreaves, Kenneth

Monro, Sir Hector

Harris, David

Montgomery, Fergus

Harvey, Robert

Moore, John

Haselhurst, Alan

Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

Hawksley, Warren

Moynihan, Hon C.

Hayes, J.

Mudd, David

Hayhoe, Barney

Neale, Gerrard

Hayward, Robert

Needham, Richard

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Nelson, Anthony

Henderson, Barry

Newton, Tony

Hickmet, Richard

Nicholls, Patrick

Hicks, Robert

Normanton, Tom

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Norris, Steven

Hind, Kenneth

Onslow, Cranley

Hirst, Michael

Oppenheim, Philip

233

Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

Stevens, Martin (Fulham)

Ottaway, Richard

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

Parris, Matthew

Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

Patten, Christopher (Bath)

Stradling Thomas, J.

Pattie, Geoffrey

Sumberg, David

Pawsey, James

Tapsell, Peter

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Taylor, Rt Hon John David

Pink, R. Bonner

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Pollock, Alexander

Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

Powell, William (Corby)

Temple-Morris, Peter

Powley, John

Terlezki, Stefan

Prentice, Rt Hon Reg

Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

Prior, Rt Hon James

Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

Proctor, K. Harvey

Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

Pym, Rt Hon Francis

Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

Raffan, Keith

Thornton, Malcolm

Rathbone, Tim

Thurnham, Peter

Renton, Tim

Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

Rhodes James, Robert

Tracey, Richard

Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

Trippier, David

Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

Trotter, Neville

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Twinn, Dr Ian

Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

van Straubenzee, Sir W.

Roe, Mrs Marion

Vaughan, Sir Gerard

Rossi, Sir Hugh

Viggers, Peter

Rost, Peter

Waddington, David

Rowe, Andrew

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

Walden, George

Ryder, Richard

Walker, Bill (T'side N)

Sackville, Hon Thomas

Waller, Gary

Sayeed, Jonathan

Walters, Dennis

Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

Watson, John

Shelton, William (Streatham)

Watts, John

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Wells, Bowen (Hertford)

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Wells, John (Maidstone)

Silvester, Fred

Wheeler, John

Skeet, T. H. H.

Wiggin, Jerry

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Winterton, Nicholas

Speller, Tony

Wolfson, Mark

Spence, John

Wood, Timothy

Spencer, D.

Woodcock, Michael

Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

Yeo, Tim

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Squire, Robin

Younger, Rt Hon George

Stanbrook, Ivor

Steen, Anthony

Tellers for the Ayes:

Stern, Michael

Mr. Tim Sainsbury and

Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

Mr. Michael Neubert.

NOES

Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

Campbell, Ian

Alton, David

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Anderson, Donald

Canavan, Dennis

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Ashdown, Paddy

Cartwright, John

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Ashton, Joe

Clarke, Thomas

Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

Clay, Robert

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Cohen, Harry

Barnett, Guy

Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

Barron, Kevin

Conlan, Bernard

Beckett, Mrs Margaret

Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

Bell, Stuart

Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

Bennett, A. (Dent'n & Red'sh)

Corbett, Robin

Bermingham, Gerald

Corbyn, Jeremy

Bidwell, Sydney

Cowans, Harry

Blair, Anthony

Craigen, J. M.

Boothroyd, Miss Betty

Crowther, Stan

Boyes, Roland

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Cunningham, Dr John

Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

Davies. Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)

Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

Brown, N. (N'c'tle-u-Tyne E)

Davis, Terry (B'ham, H'ge H'l)

Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

Deakins, Eric

Bruce, Malcolm

Dewar, Donald

Buchan, Norman

Dixon, Donald

Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

Dobson, Frank

234

Dormand, Jack

Marek, Dr John

Douglas, Dick

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Dubs, Alfred

Martin, Michael

Duffy, A. E. P.

Mason, Rt Hon Roy

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

Maxton, John

Eadie, Alex

Maynard, Miss Joan

Eastham, Ken

Meacher, Michael

Ellis, Raymond

Meadowcroft, Michael

Evans, loan (Cynon Valley)

Michie, William

Evans, John (St. Helens N)

Mikardo, Ian

Fatchett, Derek

Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Fisher, Mark

Nellist, David

Flannery, Martin

Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

O'Brien, William

Forrester, John

O'Neill, Martin

Foster, Derek

Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

Foulkes, George

Park, George

Fraser, J. (Norwood)

Parry, Robert

Freud, Clement

Pavitt, Laurie

George, Bruce

Pendry, Tom

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Penhaligon, David

Godman, Dr Norman

Pike, Peter

Golding, John

Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

Gould, Bryan

Prescott, John

Gourlay, Harry

Redmond, M.

Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)

Harman, Ms Harriet

Richardson, Ms Jo

Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Hart, Rt Hon Dame Judith

Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

Haynes, Frank

Robertson, George

Healey, Rt Hon Denis

Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

Heffer, Eric S.

Rogers, Allan

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Ross, Ernest (Dundee W)

Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

Ryman, John

Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

Sedgemore, Brian

Howells, Geraint

Sheerman, Barry

Hoyle, Douglas

Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

Hughes, Dr. Mark (Durham)

Shore, Rt Hon Peter

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Short, Ms Clare (Ladywood)

Hughes, Roy (Newport East)

Short, Mrs R.(W'hampt'n NE)

Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

Skinner, Dennis

Janner, Hon Greville

Smith, C.(Isl'ton S & F'bury)

Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Hillh'd)

Smith, Rt Hon J. (M'kl'ds E)

John, Brynmor

Snape, Peter

Johnston, Russell

Soley, Clive

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Spearing, Nigel

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Steel, Rt Hon David

Kennedy, Charles

Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

Kilroy-Silk, Robert

Stott, Roger

Kirkwood, Archibald

Strang, Gavin

Lambie, David

Straw, Jack

Lamond, James

Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

Leadbitter, Ted

Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

Leighton. Ronald

Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Tinn, James

Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

Torney, Tom

Litherland, Robert

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Wareing, Robert

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Weetch, Ken

Loyden, Edward

Welsh, Michael

McCartney, Hugh

White, James

McDonald, Dr Oonagh

Williams, Rt Hon A.

McKay, Allen (Penistone)

Wilson, Gordon

McKelvey, William

Winnick, David

Mackenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Wrigglesworth, Ian

Maclennan, Robert

Young, David (Bolton SE)

McNamara, Kevin

McTaggart, Robert

Tellers for the Noes:

McWilliam, John

Mr. James Hamilton and

Madden, Max

Mr. John Home Robertson.

Question accordingly agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Housing Support Grant (Scotland) Order 1984, which was laid before this House on 23rd January, be approved.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS
Ordered,
That, notwithstanding the provisions of paragraph (3) of Standing Order No. 79 (Standing Committees on Statutory
236
Instruments, &c.), the Town and Country Planning General Development (Amendment) Order 1983 be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c. — [Mr. Douglas Hogg.]

County Durham
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Douglas Hogg.]
10.23 pm
Mr. Jack Dormand: My hon. Friends the Members for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) and for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Foster) will probably try to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker and I understand that the Minister has no objection. We will not overrun our time.
No part of the country has suffered more at the hands of the Government than Durham. When the Labour Government went out of office in 1979 male unemployment and total unemployment were 7·9 and 6·7 per cent. respectively. At the end of 1983 the relevant figures were 19·2 and 16·2 per cent. As in other parts of the country, youth unemployment is horrifying. At the end of January 1984 there were 2,753 registrants — that figure excludes people on the youth training scheme—and 17 registered vacancies. If that statistic does not shake the Government out of their complacency, nothing will.
There is a link in County Durham between unemployment and migration from the county. Within one year of the 1981 census there was a drop of 3,000 in the population and a further drop of 13,000 is expected by 1991. As a Durham man, I deplore the fact that so many of our people are being driven out of the area. That is especially depressing for me as most of the migration is from my constituency.
I need not remind the Minister that County Durham relies heavily on the coal industry for employment. Bearing in mind the social and economic circumstances in the county, I should have thought that the Government would be only too pleased to give the industry every possible support. However, they can hardly wait to close uneconomic pits. That is a cause of great uncertainty and anxiety in our mining communities. There is the strongest possible social and economic case for retaining pits while the present difficult circumstances exist.
I said that there was an economic case for keeping the pits open. Some researchers, including those of the National Union of Mineworkers, have produced figures which I quoted the last time I spoke on the coal industry and which suggest that the cost of redundancy and social security payments is greater than that involved in keeping the pits open. In present circumstances, the onus is on the Government to refute that submission. We are not talking merely about the effect on miners and their families; we are discussing the effects on tradesmen and the entire fabric of mining communities.
We also want the newer industries. The most successful agencies in the county for attracting them are Peterlee and Aycliffe development corporations, which are associated with those two new towns. They bring in well over 50 per cent. of the county's new jobs of all types. When I asked a question about unemployment last week, the Secretary of State for Employment paid tribute to Peterlee development corporation's efforts in attracting employment. However, what does the Secretary of State for the Environment propose to do about those corporations? It sounds impossible, but he proposes to abolish them next year. Any rational Government would be encouraging their expertise, expanding them and providing them with
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additional resources, but not this Government. They are proposing to cut off the lifeline for a significant part of County Durham. The Minister concerned has promised to think again on the matter. I hope that that is not an empty gesture. I beg the Minister to add to the pressure on the Department of the Environment to keep the new towns in existence for at least five years. That is what we need if we are to reduce unemployment in County Durham.
The Labour party has expressed its utter opposition to rate-capping. I do not wish to repeat the case against it. To apply that policy to County Durham is sheer lunacy. The instructions which our local authorities have received will mean that they will not be able to maintain present levels of services, let alone make much-needed improvements. Housing and education—two extremely important services—will be especially badly hit. Those services should receive positive discrimination as compensation for the deprivation which our county has suffered under the Government.
It would be some consultation if we could assume that the Government's recently proposed regional policy would benefit our county, but all the evidence, not least the proposal that aid will be selective rather than automatic, as at present, suggests otherwise. If the Minister does not accept my view, perhaps he will listen to the chairman of the northern Confederation of British Industry, who only last week said that in future we will be unable to stop the rot in places where we did before with regional development grants. He went on to say that north-east firms could be prevented from modernising because of cuts in the regional grants, and in addition that the proposals could force more branch firms with headquarters outside the region to cut back drastically on expanding their northern operations.
What could be more damning than those comments by the head of the business community in the northern region? The regional policies will produce worse results than those foreseen by him, but more important is the fact that County Durham is more vulnerable than anywhere else to such half-baked proposals. I urge the Government to have discussions with the county to assess the effects which such policies will have on an area such as ours, otherwise the changes could be very serious.
In spite of all their difficulties, the people of Durham refuse to be disheartened by the lack of interest shown by the Government. They are responsible and fair, work hard and believe in self-help — no begging bowls for the people of Durham. I hope that the Government will heed the pleas made in the debate, so that there will be some hope for the future.
10.32 pm
Mr. Derek Foster: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) on initiating the debate. I am glad to be able to take part.
We dwell upon the problem of unemployment because it underpins most of the other social problems in a county such as Durham. There has been a net loss of 23,000 jobs since 1979 in the county, but one statistic is even more revealing. There was a net loss of 6,000 jobs in the service sector between 1979 and 1982. If we are to believe the Government, it is to the service sector that we must look for the jobs of the future, yet in county Durham there was a net loss of 6,000 jobs in those three years. I hope that the Minister will comment on that.

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You are familiar with the district of Wear valley, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Some 25 per cent. of all the males are out of work in that district, and 14 per cent. of all manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 1979. That is the highest loss in the whole of the county. In some estates in Bishop Auckland, which is in the Wear valley district council, between one half and three quarters of all the males are without work. That is a tragedy of monumental proportions.
In Wear valley, 75 per cent. of the council tenants receive housing benefit. If that is not an illustrative figure of grave deprivation and great need, I wonder what is. In some families in those estates, the mother, father and all the teenage children are looking for work. We know very well that within the county of Durham the prospect of those who go through the youth training scheme is that as soon as they are finished they are back on the unemployment register. Those young people have no hope. They have nothing to look forward to. Is it any wonder that they drift into crime and even suicide? Such is their plight.
Yet look at what the Government are doing for the county of Durham. Even in Wear valley, and with 25 per cent. of males out of work, one sees that they have refused any special development area status. For the second year running, there has been no development on any of the major industrial estates in Wear valley district council.
In my constituency, and four miles from Bishop Auckland, is Shildon. We had a big debate about Shildon. I shall not go over that ground again. Some 2,600 jobs are disappearing in a town of only 14,000 —1,700 have already disappeared, and the rest are to go before the end of this year. In spite of all those problems, the Government have set their face against continuing the Aycliffe corporation, which is on the doorstep and which has been the most successful job hunting agency in the region.
My hon. Friend mentioned rate capping. In spite of all our human and social problems, we have this dreadful measure inflicted upon us, stopping the local authority responding to those problems in a humane fashion.
10.35 pm
Mr. Tony Blair: My hon. Friends have rightly drawn attention to the dreadful situation that exists in County Durham. The tragedy is particularly great, because County Durham has tremendous potential and resources, if only we had the sense to use them. Vacant industrial sites are on offer. Almost 5,000 gross hectares could be used or let to businesses, if they could be developed. Sedgefield district council, for example, took over land vacated by Courtaulds when it left the region and is attempting to let it. There is a research and development centre for high technology industries, set up by Durham university in conjunction with the English Industrial Estates Corporation, in an attempt to provide the technological expertise that we need. We have a work force that is only too willing and able to work. Indeed, no one has suggested that the problems of county Durham arise from any desire on the part of its people not to work. I say "no one", although I believe that a Minister suggested as much, but it is quite untrue. So the tragedy is all the greater because of the resources that are available in the region.
Since 1979, 23,000 jobs were lost, and about 6,000 jobs were lost in 1982. In parts of my constituency, male unemployment is about 40 per cent. What can we do in the
240
face of that structural decline? Surely, the only sensible thing to do is to say, "Let's harness the region's resources in a sensible structural plan." That is not a new concept. Perhaps I can quote Lord Hailsham, who once took an interest in these matters.
Mr. Douglas Hogg: He still does.
Mr. Blair: I am glad to know that he still does, and it is a pity that some Conservative Members do not. He said that one of the problems was that
"there was no one authority with money to spend, local or national, which could view the problems of the region as a whole. Moreover, there was no adequate focal point at which effort could be co-ordinated regionally on the spot".
Lord Hailsham saw his task then as promoting not only the well-being of the north-east, but regional planning throughout the country. In case that is thought an outdated approach, let me read also what the Regional Studies Association wrote recently. It said that it had
"clearly identified the increasing number of structural deficiencies which threaten to undermine the region's long-term economic viability. Policy recommendations acknowledged that policies must be long-term, co-ordinated, positive and sensitive, backed up by an effective administrative framework".
How very sensible that suggestion is, and how very different from what we hear from the Government.
The only policy paper that we have had recently on this question is the Government's White Paper on regional policy. It offers no hope whatever to people in our region, but worse than that, it is a cowardly paper, because it implies that there is no need for regional policy, although it does not have the guts to say so.
How is the problem to be circumvented? The answer that was given by Conservative Members, both at the 1979 and the 1983 elections, was that individual private initiative would somehow regenerate our region. That has signally failed to happen. The only alternative—and it is an alternative based on common sense and not on dogma — is to use, in a sensible and planned way, the resources that we all know are there. Why do we still have to ask for a northern development agency? What possible objection could there be to a funded body, regionally based, that was able to take a long-term and coherent view of the region's problems and to plan ahead?
A young man came to see me at my surgery in Ferryhill the other day. His problem was all too typical of County Durham at present. He is not over-ambitious. He does not want a Rolls-Royce, or a yearly holiday in the Bahamas. He wants to be able to support his family, and to have the dignity and self-respect that would come from being in work and supporting them. The role of a sensible, caring and sensitive Government would be to allow him that opportunity. The failure of the present Government is that they have deprived him of it.
The paper produced by Durham county council describes the tragedy that besets our region. It is up to the Government to do something about it.
10.46 pm
The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Alan Clark): I am glad to have the opportunity to reply on behalf of the Government. I congratulate the hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Dormand) on his good fortune in the ballot. The Government know him as a skilful and persuasive interrogator on behalf of his constituents. I have listened with great interest to the points that he and his hon. Friends have made, and I shall attempt to answer as many of them as possible in the time we have left.

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I was in the north-east only last week for a meeting of the Newcastle-Gateshead inner city partnership committee. I was able to learn on the spot something about local social and economic conditions and also to appreciate the concerned and constructive attitude of so many who are involved. The whole of the north-east, including Durham, has been going through a difficult time in recent years. However, when the hon. Member for Easington said that the region had suffered at the hands of the present Government, he was—even allowing for the hyperbole which must be expected in party political exchanges at this time of night — deliberately ignoring the fundamental fact, which he later admitted, that it is an area which has relied historically on heavy industry such as coal mining, iron and steel, the railways and associated engineering. The decline of those industries, together with the effect of the recession, has had serious social and economic consequences.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the closure of loss-making pits. He argued that it would be more economical to keep them open, if the savings in benefits and redundancy payments were taken into account. That is an argument that we have heard before, but I will see whether some data can be made available to the hon. Gentleman. It is the duty of those who make decisions to weigh up all the factors involved. I cannot promise, however, that he will be happy with the data or the conclusions.
Although mining and quarrying is still dominant, industry in Durham has become much more diversified, in response to the challenge of changing circumstances and the shift in emphasis. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there is a trend away from heavy engineering to high technology enterprises. In Consett, for example, over 1,700 new jobs have been created since the town's steelworks closed and the figure is expected to rise to over 3,000 over the next two years. A number of impressive high technology projects are involved, including computer firms such as Integrated Micro Products and Brit Pharm, an expanding high technology pharmaceuticals operation.
The clothing industry has also been through a traumatic period and inevitably there have been significant reductions in employment, but the industry now appears to be in a healthy position with profits in a number of Durham-based clothing firms rising encouragingly.
The hon. Gentleman asked about new town corporations. Although that is not the responsibility of the Department of Employment, I am ready to put on record the information that I received about this from the Department of the Environment. I do not know whether it will add to his store of knowledge.
Under the new towns legislation, the corporations are wound up when the new towns have become established as viable communities and no longer need the special support of the corporations. When a corporation is wound up, the relevant new towns will no longer obtain direct aid from the Department of the Environment under the new towns Vote. They also cease to benefit from the corporations' promotional role. However, the wind-up dates are targeted and have not yet been confirmed.
The review of the targeted dates for the north-east, new towns will not be completed until 31 March. Meanwhile, the Department of the Environment has been considering what other bodies might take over the corporations' promotional role.
242
The fundamental problem that was mentioned in all three speeches is the human tragedy of unemployment. One must admit that conditions remain difficult and that competition is fierce. I am aware that the unemployment rate in Durham and the rest of the country continues to be high. To have 3 million of our people out of work, of whom 38,000 are in the county of Durham, imposes a cruel strain on society and the individuals involved. Unemployment is not just a human tragedy; it is a terrible waste of one of Britain's most precious assets — the skills and abilities of her workers. We all want to see new jobs created as quickly as possible, but the present position has not come about overnight, and, inevitably, it is taking time to solve the problems.
Most people now recognise that a lasting reduction in unemployment depends upon our firms being internationally competitive in cost, prices, quality, design and marketing. Hon. Gentlemen and their constituents will know that the only lasting cure for unemployment is full order books.
The Government's contribution to all this is to create a climate in which customers can be won back and new markets developed. The signs are that we are beginning to succeed. The combination of 3 per cent. growth with low inflation of about 5 per cent. is the best since the early 1960s. Unemployment is levelling and our cost competitiveness in manufacturing has improved by about 20 per cent. since 1981.
The latest CBI survey is encouraging.
Mr. Roland Boyes: You say that every month.
Mr. Clark: It is not usual to intervene on such occasions, but, on the contrary, CBI surveys tend to be rather pessimistic and carping. This is the first time that a CBI survey has sounded an encouraging note.
The survey shows strengthening business optimism and further increases in output over the past four months. Significantly, a substantial increase in investment is predicted for this year. That bears out the Government's view that the recovery is well under way.
The Government have played their part by such measures as the reduction in the national insurance surcharge, which is worth about £2 billion in a year and the "support for innovation" schemes set up by the Department of Trade and Industry.
One vital area in which my Department has a major role to play is that of training. We need a better educated, better trained and more adaptable workforce. We lost jobs to competitors in the past partly because they paid more attention to training than we did. We must have a coordinated strategy for dealing with the training needs of both young people and adults.
Our adult training strategy, announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment this afternoon, makes it clear that we are maintaining our overall level of support for adult training. In future we shall be putting much more emphasis on training for specific job opportunities, especially in new technologies. Our training opportunities scheme will continue to play an important role in securing skill supply and in providing training for the unemployed, but, in future, it will concentrate more on the provision of skills in those areas that are in real demand. Adult training will be much more closely linked to individual employers' needs. We shall

243
also be seeking to deliver training in much more flexible and cost-effective ways so that, within the same total level of resources, we can help more people more effectively.
Our Open Tech programme, already under way, has had its budget expanded and will form an integral part of the adult training strategy. The programme has a major role to play in making access to training easier for individuals and companies alike. In the very near future, the Manpower Services Commission hopes to sign a contract with the northern regional management centre for the delivery of a distance learning programme for supervisors, in conjunction with the Northumbrian consortium of colleges and the national examinations board for supervisor status.
Young people are particularly at risk in times of high unemployment. They lack the skills and experience to offer an employer and, therefore, are without the means to compete in a difficult labour market. Last summer, the Government announced a major extension to our technical and vocational education initiative, which aims to stimulate the further development of technical and vocational education for 14 to 18-year-olds, by providing resources for local education authorities to run pilot schemes.
Further proposals were submitted to 68 local authorities and the Manpower Services Commission has recommended to the Government that, subject to negotiation, it should support 46 proposals. Of the eight local education
244
authorities in the north-east that submitted bids, seven—including the county of Durham—have been recommended for acceptance. I am sure that hon. Members will welcome that. That sort of success rate not only testifies to the quality of the proposals put forward by those authorities but reflects the Government's concern that the north-east should be well represented in significant national initiatives of that kind.
The hon. Gentleman made some rather grudging references to the Government's regional policy. I remind him that between May 1979 and October 1983, more than £39 million was made available to firms in the county of Durham under sections 7 and 8 of the Industrial Development Act 1982. The White Paper published on 13 December reaffirms the Government's firm commitment to an effective regional policy and invites comments on, among other things, rates of grant and assisted area map coverage. I am sure that interested groups within the county—I hope that hon. Members will encourage this — will take the opportunity to air their views. One change proposed in the White Paper that I am sure will be welcomed in the county is the extension of the regional development grant scheme to the service sector——
The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
Adjourned at seven minutes to Eleven o'clock.