Commons Sitting of 28 February 1985

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
Mr. Speaker: Order. As all the private Bills have blocking motions, I shall, with the leave of the House, deal with them in a single group.
PRIVATE BUSINESS

  YORKSHIRE WATER AUTHORITY BILL (By Order)
  Orders for Second Reading read.
  To be read a Second time upon Thursday 7 March.

Oral Answers to Questions
  HOME DEPARTMENT

    Terrorism (Media Coverage)
    Mr. Alexanderasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will consider introducing legislation enabling him to ban media coverage of terrorist activities; and if he will seek the co-operation of other countries in similarly preventing terrorists gaining media coverage for their aims and opinions.
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Giles Shaw): No, Sir. Section 4 of the Broadcasting Act 1981 requires the IBA to ensure that its programmes include nothing which is likely to encourage or incite to crime or to lead to disorder, or to be offensive to public feeling. The BBC accepts the same obligations under its 1981 licence and agreement with the Home Secretary. Within this framework it is a long-standing principle in this country that the broadcasting authorities and the press should have full editorial responsibility for the content of what they broadcast or publish.
    Mr. Alexander: Is it not precisely what terrorist organisations require when they commit such outrages that, immediately they do so, the media tell the nation that those organisations committed them? Is it not surprising and even ludicruos that in the Republic of Ireland, which has tried to cut the publicity given to IRA extremism by not allowing any comment on television, viewers can simply switch to British channels and discover precisely what is going on and which organisation is alleged to have committed the offence?
    Mr. Shaw: I understand my hon. Friend's point. As to the first part of his question, the Government and the broadcasting authorities accept that the latter are appointed as trustees of the public interest in broadcasting and that they must carry a large measure of responsibility for what they do. As to the second part of his question, my hon. Friend will be aware that in the Republic of Ireland there has been a long tradition of media censorship in one form or another, which I am sure he would agree would be unacceptable in this country.
    Mr. Janner: Although I accept fully what the Minister said about editorial responsibility, is he nevertheless aware of the enormous that exists in India as a result of the coverage of the murder of Mrs. Gandhi, and especially the coverage of the views of those who support the organisation which was apparently responsible for the murder? Will he consult his Foreign Office colleagues and the Attorney-General to see whether the law can be strengthened so as to deal with what may be incitement but what is at present impossible to prove as such?
    Mr. Shaw: I appreciate the hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks, and I am aware of the sort of programme to which he refers. This is very much a matter for the broadcasting authorities rather than for the Government. However, I should make this observation: what is broadcast in the United Kingdom may be perfectly acceptable here, but if others seek to use it elsewhere, it may have different effects.
    Mr. Meadowcroft: Although I accept the good intentions of the hon. Member for Newark (Mr. Alexander), does the Minister agree that it is dangerous to treat the symptoms of the disease rather than the cause, and that we must achieve political settlements of those issues to prevent terrorism in the first place?
    Mr. Shaw: That goes extremely wide of the question, but I understand the hon. Gentleman's point.
    Sir John Biggs-Davison: May I ask my hon. Friend, who was a Northern Ireland Minister, whether, without resorting to censorship, there should not be consultations between the two Governments and the broadcasting authorities to see whether they can keep in step in any action to counter what Dr. Garret FitzGerald has called the "common enemy"?
    Mr. Shaw: My hon. Friend will be aware that discussions on all sorts of issues between the Governments of the Republic and of the United Kingdom have combined effects. My hon. Friend's question seeks to change the remit for public service and all other broadcasting in the United Kingdom, and I believe that we should take care before we do that.

    Coal Industry Dispute
    Mrs. Clwydasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many official complaints about police behaviour have been received during the miners' strike; and how many of these concern accusations of assault.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Leon Brittan): I understand that from 13 March 1984 to 26 February 1985, 549 complaints were made against the police in connection with policing the current dispute and 111 were withdrawn; 256 contained allegations of assault by police officers.
    Information on completed investigations of those complaints and their outcome is not yet available centrally. I understand that the Police Complaints Board's annual report for 1984 will contain some statistics on cases which reached it in that year and on which action has been completed.
    Mrs. Clwyd: Will the Home Secretary confirm that as charges of unlawful assembly made by the police against Yorkshire miners have been dropped, no further use will be made of that archaic and discredited law against miners and their supporters?
    Mr. Brittan: I give no such confirmation. The fact that in a particular case a matter is not proceeded with, proves nothing about the importance and usefulness of that offence in other circumstances.
    Mr. Mates: Among many wild allegations made during the miners strike are some that the police have been tapping trade unionists' telephones. Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that we know that he cannot confirm or deny individual cases, but is there some way in which he can try to allay those suspicions and lay to rest the allegations generally?
    Mr. Brittan: I am aware of the allegations that were made in a television programme which was not ultimately broadcast. The conduct of authorised interception is subject to continuing review by the monitor of interception
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    arrangement, presently the distinguished Law Lord, Lord Bridge of Harwich. In the light of recent allegations, however, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has asked Lord Bridge to examine the relevant papers to determine whether authorisations since May 1979 have named the individuals in question and, if so, whether those authorisations have been sought and given in accordance with the procedures and criteria in the Birkett report of 1957 and the White Paper of April 1980. Lord Bridge's findings will be made public so far as that can be done without damage to national security. As the allegations made in the programme relate predominantly to the period before May 1979, my right hon. Friend is seeking the agreement of the former Prime Ministers and Home Secretaries involved that this review should, in addition, cover their periods of office as far as is necessary.
    Mr. Barron: Were any of the 111 police complaints which were originally put down and subsequently withdrawn not proceeded with because of consultations with the Police Complaints Board similar to the consultations that I had, when I was told that I could not at that stage go ahead with any complaints about police action in South Yorkshire because of legal proceedings?
    Mr. Brittan: As I understand it, the complaints were withdrawn voluntarily. A number continue. As I have said, it is anticipated that the board's annual report will give information in respect of complaints considered in 1984. The report will be published in early May.
    Mrs. Currie: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that the actions of the police are widely praised in South Derbyshire, where they have been assisting my constituents to go to work? Does he agree that the police have behaved throughout with dignity, restraint and good humour, even when drunken hooligans have been chucking bottles at them, as we saw on television at the weekend? Does he agree that if agitators turn up looking for trouble they are lucky to be living in this country, where they do not get what they deserve?
    Mr. Brittan: With the welcome return to work of many more miners, it is as well to remember that those who preceded them and those who never stopped working were able to make that choice because of the steadfast resolve of the police to contain and defeat violence and intimidation by a relatively small number of striking miners.
    Mr. Maclennan: In view of the important inquiry that Lord Bridge is carrying out, and its clear relevance to the legislation which the Secretary of State proposes to put before the House next Wednesday, will he now withdraw that Bill until the House has Lord Bridge's report?
    Mr. Brittan: That is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, not for me.
    Mr. Favell: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that almost every problem arising out of the policing of this dispute has arisen because of the union's failure to follow guidelines on picketing? Will he introduce legislation as early as possible to ensure that in future unions encouraging mass picketing bear the cost of policing?
    Mr. Brittan: I agree that if the union had complied with its guidelines there would have been no policing or law and order problem, and that the large number of

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    policemen who have had to go on to the picket lines would not have had to do so. As to my hon. Friend's second point, the review of public order that is taking place will consider all aspects of public order, not only in relation to what has occurred in the miners' strike. I shall take account of my hon. Friend's point.
    Mr. Winnick: Is the Home Secretary aware, arising from his earlier comments, that if the allegations that are made in the film "MI5's Official Secrets" are true, such activities are unacceptable in a democratic society? Is he further aware that the view must be that the kind of activities carried out by the special branch and security services, if the allegations are true, are subversive, and it is wrong that individuals such as the CND chairman and general secretary should be harassed in this way?
    Mr. Brittan: I am not prepared to join the hon. Gentleman in that speculative examination, but it is right that interception and surveillance should follow the procedures and criteria, and the definition of subversion supplied by Lord Harris as long ago as 1975 has stood the test of time and is the right one. I have no wish to defend any interception or surveillance going outside that. I have no reason to believe that it occurred, but Lord Bridge will look into the matter.
    Mr. Andrew MacKay: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that one of the more positive aspects of this dispute has been the fact that the police have been able to maintain the rule of law, despite tremendous provocation, and this is why they have such wide respect and support from the great majority of the British public?
    Mr. Brittan: I can agree to that without any reservation.
    Mr. Kaufman: I thank the Home Secretary for giving me advance notice of the announcement that he made today about the inquiry by Lord Bridge. That announcement and the letter that the Prime Minister has sent to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition are unclear, and, in so far as they are clear, are inadequate and unsatisfactory. First, is he aware that it does not — [HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."] This is a major statement, and the Opposition have the right to respond to it.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. It is not a statement. This is Question Time. I accept that the Home Secretary made a longish answer, and I am giving the right hon. Gentleman some scope.
    Mr. Kaufman: Is the Home Secretary aware that the statement does not deal with the allegations of infiltration other than interception? Secondly, it does not deal with allegations of false classification of persons as being subversive. Thirdly, it does not deal with allegations that material obtained by MI5 has, against the principles of the Maxwell Fyfe directive, been used for party political purposes. Fourthly, it does not deal with unauthorised interception. [HON. MEMBERS: "Too long."] Mr. Speaker, I say, as a point of order, that if the Home Secretary—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that any point of order arises. There seem to be rather a lot of notes in front of the right hon. Gentleman. I hope that he will bear in mind that this is Question Time.
    Mr. Kaufman: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I shall put one or two more questions to the Home Secretary —[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] — because he has
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    behaved improperly in making a major statement, in response to a planted supplementary question and the right of the Opposition must be protected in such circumstances.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. No, I am here to protect the rights of Back Benchers at Question Time. It is unfair to treat what is, after all, an answer to a question as a statement. I said to the right hon. Gentleman that the Home Secretary had given a fairly long answer to the question. I have no idea whether it was planted. However, I ask him to put his questions briefly.
    Mr. Kaufman: I shall do so, Mr. Speaker, but I put it to you that the Home Secretary has made a major statement about an important inquiry. Let me proceed with the question. I put it to the Home Secretary that Lord Bridge's inquiry seems to have terms of reference that are deliberately designed to produce the answer that the Government want and that it is now quite inappropriate, to proceed with the Interception of Communications Bill until Lord Bridge has reported. Above all, the country will not tolerate a cover-up on this matter. It wants the truth and we insist on it.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall take the point of order after questions.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: The point of order is on this question.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I have told the hon. Gentleman that I shall take the point of order afterwards, as is the usual practice.
    Mr. Brittan: I shall leave aside the rhetoric of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman). I am sure that, on reflection, he will regret what he said and the imputations of it. I have no doubt that Lord Bridge will conduct his inquiry quickly, as his compass is comparatively narrow. The timing of the Interception of Communications Bill is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House. The right hon. Gentleman asked some important and legitimate questions. He is right. The inquiry is related to interception, which is the area covered by Lord Bridge as the monitor. With regard to false classification being subversive, that will come directly within Lord Bridge's inquiry, as he will cover interceptions contrary to the criteria. Party political views will also be covered. Unauthorised interception will be a matter for the criminal law under the Bill that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. Previously, it has not for the most part been covered by the criminal law.
    Mr. Skinner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    Mr. Skinner: I have tabled Question No. 14 and the Home Secretary has answered it already.
    Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman will sit down we might get there.

    Civil Defence College (Newsletter)
    Sir Geoffrey Finsbergasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if the Civil Defence college, Easingwold, will issue a regular newsletter to local authorities.
    Mr. Giles Shaw: We are aware of the importance of keeping local authorities and their emergency planning staff in touch with developments and are looking at how this might best be done. A newsletter is one of the possibilities under consideration.
    Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: In his discussions, will my hon. Friend consider informing local authorities which waste ratepayers' money on frivolities such as nuclear-free zones that their first duty is to protect their inhabitants and that there are means of injuring people other than by nuclear weapons?
    Mr. Shaw: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Relatively few local authorities have followed the GLC's lead in dealing slavishly with nuclear-free zones. We intend to carry through the recently issued regulations to ensure that all local authorities take their statutory duties seriously and implement them.
    Mr. Pike: If information on civil defence is to be given out, will the Minister bear in mind that this morning the early warning system in my constituency and neighbouring authorities in North-East Lancashire went off and that nobody knew what it was meant to be and took no notice of it?
    Mr. Shaw: I cannot think of a better reason for more active civil defence policies than obtain in the hon. Gentleman's constituency.
    Mr. Neil Thorne: In any publication such as this, will my hon. Friend ensure that due weight is given to civil emergencies as well as to military ones, as civil defence has an important role to play? The more we can get that message over to the public, the better.
    Mr. Shaw: I take my hon. Friend's point, but he will be aware that our prime purpose is to ensure that the preparations which local authorities are required to make by the 1983 regulations are made.
    Mr. Kirkwood: If the Minister is intent on disseminating information from Easingwold, will he ask local authorities to go one stage further and make available by newsletter or any other means they think most appropriate their detailed plans to interested members of the public in their areas? There is everything to be gained from making it clear what civil defence arrangements there are in local authority areas.
    Mr. Shaw: The hon. Gentleman is right. Local authorities are required to make preparations and councils in those authorities should be in a position to get to know them and give them wide publicity.
    Mr. Kilroy-Silk: Would such a newsletter not provide an admirable opportunity to end the Government's dishonest and hypocritical policy of pretending that there is some defence to a nuclear attack and to point out the consequences of a nuclear winter, which make irrelevant all planning for evacuation, relocation or shelter, and, more importantly, that, if we want to remove the threat of nuclear war, participation in peace negotiations is the most important and urgent task?
    Mr. Shaw: The hon. Gentleman's observation reveals a complete confusion which is frequently seen in the minds of Opposition Members. The Government are talking about civil defence preparation, which is a humanitarian and essential precaution to be undertaken whatever may be the threat.
    Mr. Patrick Thompson: Does my hon. Friend accept that many local authorities take their civil defence responsibilities seriously and that many of them—this is true in Norfolk — feel that they are not receiving the support on training that they should from the Government? Will my hon. Friend look again at the ways in which we can give the maximum support to those local authorities which are doing, or trying to do, a good job on civil defence?
    Mr. Shaw: My hon. Friend will be aware that the very existence of Easingwold and its importance is for training. That establishment is the bedrock of the training system, but I shall do my best to ensure that more training facilities are made available.

    Metropolitan Police
    Mr. Gould askedthe Secretary of State for the Home Department what representations he has received from individuals and organisations concerning the proposed reorganisation of the management structure of the Metropolitan police.
    Mr. Brittan: I have received representations about various aspects of the reorganisation from six organisations and from a number of hon. Members.
    Mr. Gould: Why were the consultative committees not consulted about the matter before the decision was taken in principle? Is there not a danger that the reorganisation, although aimed at decentralisation, will mean in some boroughs, although perhaps not in my own, that the consultative committees will find it more difficult to liaise with the police authorities at local level?
    Mr. Brittan: It is reasonable for the Commissioner to make arrangements about the internal organisation and management of the force in consultation with the police authority, but I agree that continued effective consultation arrangements are of great importance, and it is on those matters that there will be discussions with borough and district councils, community-police consultative groups and representatives of local communities about the arrangements in each area. I hope that they will lead to an arrangement that is satisfactory for all concerned.
    Mr. Stokes: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that probably the best way to improve the management structure of the Metropolitan police would be for it to have an officer class, in the same way as the armed forces, specifically trained and recruited for that purpose?
    Mr. Britain: I do not myself feel that that would be the most constructive way forward, but I understand the concerns reflected by my hon. Friend.

    Immigration
    Mr. Bidwellasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will name the countries from which there is pressure to emigrate to the United Kingdom.
    The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. David Waddington): There is pressure to emigrate to the United Kingdom from a number of parts of the world. Social, economic and political circumstances change and therefore the countries from where there is pressure to emigrate change over time. For example, from some parts of the Indian subcontinent there has been and is continuing

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    pressure. Elsewhere, pressure fluctuates according to circumstances in the country concerned, such as political or social unrest.
    Mr. Bidwell: Notwithstanding those facts of life, which I accept, will the Minister now state unequivocally that the long-standing British principles of the rights of families to come together where the breadwinner is, and the rights of male and female to join each other without discrimination in marriage, are not impaired? Will he undertake to overhaul the present immigration rules as they apply to those principles to ensure that they are adequate to meet the requirements of the European Convention on Human Rights, because many people, including the Commission on Racial Equality, do not think that they are?
    Mr. Waddington: Of course, men who are settled here have the right to have their wives and children join them, but those who apply for entry clearance in the Indian sub-continent must go through a process so that their claim to come here may be assessed. I have to say that some matters are overlooked. If a man chooses to come here on his own, we do not divide the family, and it must be recognised that half the people in the non-priority queue in Dacca at present are re-applicants. It would be stretching the imagination a bit to suppose that all those re-applicants are genuine in their claim, because it would mean that in every case the entry clearance officer and the appellate authorities were wrong as well. Therefore, those claims must be assessed, I am afraid, against a background of some fraud.
    Mr. Dickens: Will my hon. and learned Friend accept, without mincing words, that every immigrant who comes to this country either takes up a job, which we cannot afford, or goes on the welfare state, which we cannot afford, and that the vast majority of people in this country welcome our firm but fair strict immigration control policy?
    Mr. Waddington: I think that everybody in the House recognises that, obviously, we must have a firm but fair system of immigration control, and we cannot allow young people to come here and go straight on to the labour market at a time of high unemployment. I am sure that the vast majority of people in the House are as anxious as I am to see, for instance, that after we have tightened up on the work permit system, young men do not come here using marriage as a device. Unfortunately, it is plain that quite a number do.

    Drugs
    Mr. Raffanasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the increase in the quantity of hard drugs seized by the police in each of the last five years for which figures are available.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Mellor): Between 1979 and 1983 the quantity of heroin seized by the police increased by more than 12 times, and the amount of cocaine by two and a half times. The increase in the quantities of drugs seized by the police over the past five years, especially heroin, confirms the seriousness of the problem of drug misuse. The police are responding by giving increased priority to the investigation of drug and
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    drug-related offences: the Government are equally determined to follow a firm and coherent strategy to tackle all aspects of drug misuse.
    Mr. Raffan: As my hon. Friend says, while those figures are a great credit to the police, they reflect the serious increase in drug trafficking. When is the committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers, which is currently reviewing arrangements for drug operations, expected to report, and how regularly does that association hold a national drugs conference?
    Mr. Mellor: The Association of Chief Police Officers holds a drugs conference every year. That is a most helpful innovation. The committee will report in due course, but I cannot say precisely when. However, I can tell my hon. Friend that considerable changes have been made by the police in their operations, to reflect the increasing involvement of major criminals in drug-related offences, and it is estimated that up to half the time of regional crime squads is now being spent in dealing with serious drug conspiracies.
    Mr. Allan Roberts: Is the Minister aware that at my advice bureau last Saturday five different groups of people came to me complaining about teenagers taking heroin in their communities, and that the problem in Merseyside is growing, and reaching epidemic proportions? Is he further aware that, while we welcome the Government's campaign to inform parents about the problems of drug taking, the parents of Merseyside are already well informed? The Liverpool Echo, if nobody else, has told them in its campaign what the problems are. Is the Minister aware that the problem is that, having identifed the problem, parents have difficulty in getting their son or daughter to a rehabilitation unit or a hospital, because there are no places?
    Mr. Mellor: The hon. Gentleman seems to misunderstand the central problem of drug taking today, which is not that most people have reached the stage that they are so severely dependent on drugs that they need rehabilitation centres — although they are being established in increasing numbers up and down the country—but that they need advice, counselling and assistance. It is the purpose of the Government and the Merseyside regional health authority, working in collaboration with the local authorities, to provide this. That range of services is being developed, and I dare say that in his usual constructive way the hon. Gentleman is helping that process.
    Mr. Greenway: When my hon. Friend talks of providing rehabilitation services, will he accept that there needs to be adequate servicing for heroin addicts 24 hours a day in suitable places throughout the country?
    Mr. Mellor: It is plain that the Government are committed to developing a system of rehabilitation for hard drug addicts, and about £10 million has been produced in the past 12 months to facilitate that. It is also the case that the primary responsibility for providing health care services of this kind lies with the regional and district health authorities, and it is the purpose of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to ensure that that provision is made.
    Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the Minister accept that, while people are happy to see the increased police success, the increased publicity and the increased amount of money

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    for health funding, the missing link is the increased investment in Customs officers, sufficient to make sure that we do not have drugs in the country in the first place? Not until the numbers of Customs officers are satisfactory will we get to grips with this severe problem.
    Mr. Mellor: The hon. Gentleman is repeating the fallacy of his hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Mossley Hill (Mr. Alton). He should look at the figures. A further 160 Customs officers have been recruited specifically to deal with drugs matters this year. The number of specialist intelligence officers employed to deal with heroin in the Customs service has nearly doubled and success of the Customs in seizing nearly 300 kilos of heroin last year is good evidence of the considerable success that they are achieving.

    Immigration
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennettasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will meet the Commission for Racial Equality to discuss its report on the administration of immigration control.
    Mr. Waddington: The Commission has not asked for such a meeting, but if it were to do so I should be happy to meet it.
    Mr. Bennett: Are the Government not appalled by the findings of the report, which make it clear that the administration of immigration control in the country is racist? What are the Government going to do about it?
    Mr. Waddington: I am certainly appalled, because the report is disappointing and does not address itself to the real problems with which we are faced. It is absurd that the report should not face the fact that there is more pressure to emigrate from some countries than from others. To deny this flies in the face of common sense. It is inevitable that more people from some countries will try to enter Britain when not entitled to do so than from others. This will obviously be reflected in the failure rate.
    Sir Dudley Smith: Will my hon. and learned Friend confirm that there are many genuine immigration cases but that there are also many others where duplicity is practised? Is he aware that many of us feel that the Home Office just about gets it right and, if anything, errs on the side of leniency?
    Mr. Waddington: I am grateful for what my hon. Friend has said. I think that our entry clearance officers carry out a difficult job with great expertise. Although, obviously, one wants them to have the best training and one should be considering the quality of training all the time, I am disappointed that so much time is spent by the writers of the report in, for instance, criticising the entry clearance officers for noting in their files remarks which I freely concede are unprofessional but certainly do not warrant stringing up entry clearance officers by their thumbs and flogging them.

    Vandalism
    Mr. Freemanasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the current number of reported cases of vandalism compared with the previous 12-month reporting period and five years ago.
    Mr. Mellor: In the 12 months to the end of September last year, the latest period for which figures are available, the police in England and Wales recorded 486,000 cases of criminal damage compared with 432,000 in the preceding 12 months and 320,000 during 1979.
    Mr. Freeman: While acknowledging that significant increase in vandalism, may I ask whether my hon. Friend agrees that it is important to keep the first offender out of the criminal justice system, and is not one way of doing this to promote the use of juvenile liaison bureaux in local authorities throughout the country? Will he look favourably upon the development of one in my constituency?
    Mr. Mellor: I cannot comment on my hon. Friend's last point, but I can assure him that it is part of our purpose, wherever possible, to keep juveniles out of the criminal justice system. For instance, a proposal has recently been published to ensure that cautioning procedures are put on a similar footing throughout the United Kingdom, and this will assist in the process that my hon. Friend wishes to continue.

    Communications (Monitoring)
    Mr. Skinnerasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement regarding his Department's assessment of security requirements involved in monitoring the communications of pressure groups.
    Mr. Brittan: I have made it clear on a number of occasions recently that peaceful political campaigning to seek changes in Government policy or to influence public opinion generally does not fall within the very strict criteria under which the interception of communications may be authorised. Those criteria, and the associated procedures and safeguards, are set out in the White Paper "The Interception of Communications in the United Kingdom", published on 7 February 1985, Cmnd. 9438.
    Mr. Skinner: Is the Home Secretary aware that we do not believe what he has just had to say? Have his civil servants told him about the letter that I sent him regarding Mr. and Mrs. Wallis of Old School House, Clopton, near Molesworth? They are both peace campaigners. Over a period of five days relatives and friends of theirs rang them only to be answered by an answerphone. Subsequently, those friends annd relatives found that the Wallis's had never had an answerphone in their home. In the Home Secretary's eyes their only so-called crime was that they were trying to get American missiles off British soil. Is it not a scandal that this dictatorial Government should go to such lengths to hound decent British people?
    Mr. Brittan: The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong to come to that conclusion. He knows very well that it is not the practice to comment on individual cases. I do not for one moment accept the validity of his general observations. However, the Interception of Communications Bill, which the House will shortly be debating, will provide safeguards which have never before existed and which certainly did not exist when the Labour Government were in power.
    Sir Anthony Kershaw: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that if he is not watching these people, I want my money back?
    Mr. Brittan: Without going, as is customary, any further into these details, I can only say that my hon. Friend should not expect a refund.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Was that not a disgraceful question — [Interruption.] — a perfectly disgraceful question? How can the Home Secretary justify tapping the phone of an assistant to the leader of the Labour party — [Interruption.] Oh yes. That is what that programme showed. It means that a file on that woman now remains within MI5's records. How can the right hon. and learned Gentleman justify the fact that a woman who is now a Labour Member has had her phone tapped? How can he justify the fact that the phone of a peace-loving representative of CND was tapped? How can all those instances of phone tapping be justified by the Home Secretary, the Prime Minister and by senior Conservative Government officials when the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows perfectly well that every one of them was an intrusion into the civil rights of ordinary citizens? Why does he not come to the House and make a statement instead of hiding behind a question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd)?
    Mr. Brittan: If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the allegations made in the television programme, to which reference has been made, he will know perfectly well from what I have already said that they will be looked at by Lord Bridge, the judicial monitor, who will report to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. The hon. Gentleman will also know perfectly well that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has reiterated the statement that has been repeatedly made that there is no telephone interception of Members of Parliament, and that if such telephone interception were to become necessary or desirable, a statement would be made to the House before it was done.
    Mr. Aitken: Earlier this afternoon my right hon. and learned Friend made quite lengthy references to the television programme that has so far not been seen by viewers, but which sparked off many of the allegations concerning the alleged monitoring of pressure groups. As we have now had lengthy parliamentary exchanges, a screening of the programme in Parliament, and a statement this afternoon from my right hon. and learned Friend, would it not be fair and in the public interest to instruct the Independent Broadcasting Authority to take off its suppressing devices and let the public see for themselves what all the fuss is about?
    Mr. Brittan: The IBA came to its decision on the basis of the legal advice that it obtained. It has a duty to comply with the law. However, its decision is entirely its affair.
    Mr. Kaufman: Will the Home Secretary say whether the reports in today's edition of The Times, which tell us that the Government have decided not to prosecute Miss Cathy Massiter because the matters that she revealed were too secret to come before a court, are true? Is that an indication that if an individual wants to leak, he or she should leak very secret things?
    Mr. Brittan: The decision is for the Director of Public Prosecutions under the superintendence of the Attorney-General, and not for the Government. No decision has yet been made.
    Mr. Maclennan: I recognise that the Leader of the House is responsible for the management of the Government's business, but will the Home Secretary
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    acknowledge, bearing in mind his admission in answering the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) that Lord Bridge's report would be produced very soon, the inappropriateness of bringing forward the telephone tapping Bill next Wednesday?
    Mr. Brittan: No, I cannot make any such acknowledgement. Parliamentary business is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Marlowasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 28 February.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Marlow: Will my right hon. Friend tell the teachers that, however deeply they may or may not feel, a strike would be damaging not only to our children's education and to the respect in which teachers are held in the classroom, but to the status of teachers in society, and for that very reason their eventual remuneration?
    The Prime Minister: As I have said previously, we deplore the pursuit of a pay claim at the expense of the education of children. However strongly some teachers may feel, we do not think that anything can justify that action.
    Mr. Flannery: Is it not a fact that by driving the teachers to this desperate measure in the same way as they did with the miners, the Government — by not paying enough money towards teachers' salaries — are the root cause of any curbing of children's education? The teachers want to continue teaching and to do their best. It is the Government's refusal to give teachers decent wages and conditions that is harming our children. Responsibility lies with the Government and not the teachers.
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir. The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear that I do not agree with him. Teachers' pay has kept pace with inflation since 1979.
    Mr. John Browne: During my right hon. Friend's recent visit to the United States, did she note the enormous contribution to economic growth, new jobs, new technology and new revenues that has been generated by new and smaller businesses? Despite the valiant efforts of her Administration in Britain, does she not feel that planning and employment legislation still act to stifle new and smaller businesses? Will she please light a rocket to explode these shackles?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend that new jobs will come from new businesses and small businesses. That is where the vast majority of the 7 million new jobs in the United States over the past two years have come from. We are considering regulations with a view to diminishing their effect or repealing those which might prevent new businesses from starting up.
    Mr. Steel: Notwithstanding the action that the Prime Minister is taking following the Channel 4 programme, may I ask her not to close her mind to the setting up of a

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    permanent committee of Privy Councillors to oversee the security services and to deal with complaints about possible abuses from members of the public?
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir. That proposal has been put forward many times before and I do not think it a very useful one. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that since April 1980 the processes of interception have been subject to independent monitoring by senior members of the judiciary — first, Lord Diplock and, secondly, Lord Bridge of Harwich. They have been able to assure me in every one of their annual reports that they have satisfied themselves that warrants for interception have been applied for and issued in accordance with the procedures and criteria described in the White Paper on interception of communications, which was presented to the House in April 1980.
    Mr. Hirstasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 28 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Hirst: Does my right hon. Friend agree, now that the majority of miners are working, with 61 coal faces, £120 million worth of equipment, £700 million of miners' pay and many jobs unnecessarily but permanently lost, that it can all be put down to one man and that the biggest enemy of the coal industry and coal miners is Arthur Scargill?
    The Prime Minister: I agree that the strike has been highly damaging to the coal industry and to those whose future rests in that industry. It has lost customers and confidence, and the best way forward is for miners who are still on strike to take matters into their own hands and return to rebuild the industry which their leadership has shattered.
    Mr. Home Robertson: Has the Prime Minister seen today's report of the Select Committee on Social Services, which says that any fool can close a long-stay hospital, but that it takes time and trouble to do it properly? Does she agree that the cruellest fool of all is the one who does that sort of thing while saying that the National Health Service is safe in her hands?
    The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that there is a well-known procedure for the closure of hospitals. He will also be aware that the Labour party when in government closed more hospitals than we have closed, and that sometimes they are closed so that there may be better provision in newer hospitals. The hon. Gentleman will also be aware that under this Government the increase in expenditure on the NHS has reached 20 per cent. in real terms, after inflation has been taken into account.
    Mr. Robert Atkinsasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for 28 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Atkins: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the relative strength of the pound against the European currencies, especially as we are an oil producer, presents an ideal opportunity, in relation to the pound against the dollar, for us to be more competitive in our exports and therefore to do our GDP a power of good?
    The Prime Minister: One of the advantages of the strength of the dollar is that exporters have more chance to get more exports into the United States. Those who have never tackled that market before have a good opportunity to start to establish a position there, and then to keep it should the relative exchange values change.
    Mr. Kinnock: Has the Prime Minister noted the concern expressed today by her friends on the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee at the Government's policy, as they put it, of making the gas, electricity, water and other industries pay off debt and finance all future investment from current charges? How can she defend a policy that guarantees large and unnecessary increases in water, gas and electricity bills, both for ordinary families and for industries that are striving to compete?
    The Prime Minister: After last year's drought we thought it right to make increased investment in the water industry. In fact, a 9 per cent. increase in investment is being made in that industry; and if we have increased investment, it must be paid for. The right hon. Gentleman has a nerve to complain about electricity prices, bearing in mind that under the Labour Government they went up 2 per cent. every six weeks, whereas under this Government they have gone up by only 2 per cent. in two years.
    Mr. Kinnock: That is all very well, but again the right hon. Lady does not answer the question. Is she not aware that the policy she is operating means either substantial price increases so as to get investment, or lower price increases, with a consequent decline and decay in investment, with all the results of that on national economic prospects? Which does she want — higher prices so that we have some investment, or more stable prices so that we get economic decline?
    The Prime Minister: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that there can be increased investment without someone paying for it? If so, he is being absolutely ridiculous.
    Mr. Kinnock: The right hon. Lady used the instance of water in the Thames Valley. She will have to explain her theories to the chairman of that authority, appointed by her, who said that he could get higher investment and efficiency with a 3 per cent. increase. She forced a 9 per cent. increase on him. Is that what she means by efficiency?
    The Prime Minister: We have to look at the supply of water all over the country as a whole. Does he not?
    Mr. Fallonasked the Prime Minister whether she will list her official engagements for Thursday 28 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Fallon: Has my right hon. Friend had time to study the report in The Guardian that the Audit Commission has discovered that social services for the elderly could be improved by 20 per cent. without any increase in resources? Have not local authorities a duty to seek such savings?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I noted the report of the Audit Commission. It is very good evidence to support the view that we have been taking for some time that instead

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    of concentrating on increasing expenditure we should be concentrating on getting more services for the present expenditure. That is what the Audit Commission says can be done in the social services departments.
    Mr. Wigley: On the question of water costs, is the Prime Minister aware that the Welsh water authority has said that the cost of water would come down in real terms in the coming year but that, as a result of her Government's action, the cost will increase by a third of 30 per cent. over the next three years? Will she now admit that the costs that people are facing are a direct result of this Government's policy?
    The Prime Minister: We took a decision to increase, over the country as a whole, investment in water, reservoirs, pipes and everything else. I should have thought that that was in line with what I have often been urged to do—put extra resources into infrastructure. It was also necessary because of the drought. May I point out to the hon. Gentleman that, on average, water rates are about 20p a day. That is about the cost of a daily newspaper.

    York
    Mr. Gregoryasked the Prime Minister when she next intends to make an official visit to York.
    The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so.
    Mr. Gregory: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the York electors will be saddened that the Prime Minister has not yet found time, with her very busy diary, to visit the medieval city of York? Nevertheless, when she does have that opportunity, I am sure that she will deplore the loss of rail revenue through the coal dispute and say that, as the Government have put a greater amount of money into rail investment in the last five years in real terms than any previous Government, the quickest way to continue a successful transport policy is to ensure that coal freight is returned to the railways from the roads.
    The Prime Minister: I did indeed visit the excellent railway museum when I went to York, and very good I found it. I agree with my hon. Friend that the coal strike has damaged jobs in industries far beyond the coal industry itself. It has very much damaged the railwaymen's prospects of getting the freight they need and I fear that that will result in the loss of jobs by railwaymen because of the loss of coal freight.
    Mr. Ewing: Does the Prime Minister realise that York played a very important part in the early history of the Post Office and that when a postman got tipped in York in the early days he did not have to pay income tax on it? How on earth does the Prime Minister now justify the decision to charge postmen income tax whether or not they receive tips? Does the Prime Minister tip her postman and, if she does, should the tip be taxed? If she does not, should tips be taxed?
    The Prime Minister: The question of how and by how much tips are taxed is a matter for the Inland Revenue. It comes up from time to time in connection with any occupation in which tips are received, and the practice has not changed.
    Mr. Hoyleasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 28 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Hoyle: Will the Prime Minister take time today to look at some of her previous statements on the relationship of the pound to the dollar? For instance, does she recall saying on 6 April 1976 of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer when he rose to open his Budget
    "last year the value of the pound was $2·37. When he rose to open it this year the value was down to $1·87 … That is the best barometer of the world's confidence in the" — [Official Report, 6 April 1976; Vol. 909, c. 284.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman has said enough.
    The Prime Minister: I think that I answered that question yesterday, and since then the pound has improved against the dollar.
    Mr. Greenway: Does my right hon. Friend agree that strikes by teachers every year are terribly damaging to children, especially those who do not have homes to go to during the day while the teachers are on strike, those preparing for examinations and all other children? Has not the time come for teachers to talk to employers to try to obtain an agreement that will last for two or three years so that schools are strike-free during that time?
    The Prime Minister: An agreement that would last for two or three years would be very welcome. I agree with what my hon. Friend said about strike action. However strongly some teachers may feel, no strike action that damages children — especially those coming up to examination time — is justified. As my hon. Friend knows, teachers were offered arbitration but chose not to accept it.

    Question Time (Procedure)
    3.31 pm
    Mr. David Winnick: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. As you know, there is a great deal of pressure during Question Time. Today, the Home Secretary referred to the inquiry being carried out by Lord Bridge at the request of the Prime Minister. My point of order is simple and clear—[Interruption.] We know that Members on the Conservative Benches are not concerned with civil liberties. I am directing my point of order to you, Mr. Speaker.
    The inquiry being conducted by Lord Bridge is obviously of a serious nature—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must not prolong Question Time. That is a bad practice, which I thought we had ended.
    Mr. Winnick: I consider that there should have been—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. With great respect, it is not a matter of what the hon. Gentleman considers. He must put a point of order to me to answer.
    Mr. Winnick: Was it not an abuse of the House that a matter of such importance should have been dealt with during Question Time, with no statements being made by the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is seeking to prolong Question Time.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I shall deal with one point at a time. I am not responsible for the questions that hon. Members table on the Order Paper for answer. There was a long answer to question No. 4, and we were able to reach question No. 14, which was broadly similar. I think that that was entirely due to the foresight and perspicacity of hon. Members concerned.
    Mr. Eric Forth: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it in order for an item raised during Question Time to be deemed by a Front Bench Opposition spokesman to be a statement and treated as such to prolong the questioning of the Treasury Front Bench?
    Mr. Speaker: As I understand it, the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) was given a copy—[Interruption.] He said so. He was given a copy of the answer. I think that he may have been under the misapprehension that it was actually a statement. That is what he said. That is probably how the misunderstanding arose.
    Mr. Gerald Kaufman: Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), Mr. Speaker. I put it to you that, in your role of custodian of the proceedings of the House and the rights of Members of Parliament, an important matter is involved. My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd), in question No. 4, asked the Home Secretary
    "how many official complaints about police behaviour have been received during the miners' strike; and how many of these concern accusations of assault."
    The Home Secretary answered that question. Then, obviously by prearrangement—not with you, of course, as I would not allege that for a moment — the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) — and the Home Secretary was ready with his reply — asked a question which enabled the Home Secretary to give an answer which in no way related to the question put by my hon. Friend, but was instead used as an opportunity for the Home Secretary to make what in other circumstances would more properly have been a statement about the Prime Minister instituting an inquiry into allegations made in a television programme which was banned by the Independent Broadcasting Authority earlier this week.
    The point that I put to you as a point of order is simply this: is it not an abuse of Question Time for the Home Secretary to use a question in no way related to the statement that he wanted to make so that he might make a statement in response to a planted supplementary question?
    Mr. Speaker: May I say to the right hon. Gentleman and to the whole House that I have no knowledge of any planted question or anything of that kind. I called the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) because he happens to be Vice Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee. That is a very good reason. I had not anticipated that such a long answer would be given. I am not responsible for answers, but there used to be a system whereby, if we had questions of such complexity, they were answered at the end of Question Time. That would be a good way out for the future.
    Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is recognised in most parts of the House, that you are very zealous in protecting
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    the rights of Back-Bench Members, particularly at Question Time. How was it that a statement relating to a question still unasked, but described by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufmann) as a statement, could be exchanged between members of the two Front Benches but not circulated to any other party or any other Member of the House? That seems to be an abuse of procedure.
    The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Leon Brittan): Further to that point of order. I ought to correct what has been said. I think the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) will recall that he was good enough to thank me for sending him a copy, not of any answer to a question, but of a letter that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister sent to the Leader of the Opposition. He was not sent anything that related to what I answered.
    Mr. Kaufman rose—
    Mr. Speaker: I think it would be for the benefit of the whole House that we should not prolong this and that the matter should now be finally cleared up.
    Mr. Kaufman: Further to the point of order raised by the Home Secretary, Mr. Speaker, I made it clear at the time, and I make clear now in response to the Home Secretary, that he sent me a copy of a letter which the Prime Minister had sent to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. At the same time, it has to be said—you will appreciate what I mean, Mr. Speaker—that it came as absolutely no surprise that the Home Secretary then used the basis of that letter as an answer to a supplementary question. Furthermore, as I said in my earlier point of order, no one was alleging in any way that you, Mr. Speaker, were a party to the planting of the supplementary question. Nevertheless, it was obvious to everyone in the House that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was ready for the supplementary question. It may be that the position of the hon. Member for Hampshire, East made him confident that he would be called by you to ask a supplementary.
    Mr. Speaker: All that is as may be. The right hon. Gentleman, who has been in government, knows that this is as old as the hills.
    Mr. Jack Ashley: Further to that point or order, Mr. Speaker. In the earlier exchanges, you said that you interpreted the Home Secretary's response as an answer and not as a statement. Of course, we all respect that interpretation and understand it. Although it was in the form of an answer, it was a carefully prepared major statement of policy. Because that major statement was put in a form which you accepted in good faith as an answer, I suggest that the Home Secretary misled you and the House of Commons.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I am in no way concerned with answers, nor is it my role to be interested in them, even though I may be.
    Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. The question that was asked by—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I say to the hon. Member that if he is now going to attempt to expand on Question Time when he was, in fact, called to ask a question, I shall look upon it very badly indeed.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Two days ago, during Defence questions, I asked a question. Before the Minister could reply, you rose to your feet, Mr. Speaker, to point out that my question was not in order. The precedent is set for a judgment by you as to whether a parliamentary question is in order. I direct you to question No. 4 today, which was about police behaviour. The question was accepted by the Table Office and answered by the Minister. The hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) asked a supplementary question. I simply ask you to make a judgment and to rule whether the question asked by the hon. Member for Hampshire, East was in order in so far as it did not relate to police behaviour. [Interruption.] It was about surveillance. If the question was not in order, is it correct to say, in so far as the Minister made a statement in response to that question, that the Minister's reply was equally not in order? If you rule, following my point of order, Mr. Speaker that both the question and the answer were not in order, the House could require the Home Secretary to make a new statement on the question, thereby enabling many of my hon. Friends to raise questions.
    Mr. Speaker: I interpreted the question of the hon. Member for Hampshire, East as being in order; otherwise I would have ruled him out of order. The House knows that I listen very carefully to questions. I am not responsible for what the Home Secretary says in his answers. I am sensitive to the moods of the House, and that is why—I hope the House understands this — we moved on fairly rapidly to arrive at the question again and to have a further exchange on it. In my view that was the right way in which to proceed.
    Mr. Dennis Skinner: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. There are a couple of points. There is the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and my right hon. Friend
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    the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) about abusing Question Time. I well understand your predicament, Mr. Speaker. The Home Secretary was able to answer a question on a matter with which he wanted to deal. There is a long standing convention that a Minister answering a question is not expected to answer another question that is lower down on the Order Paper. That is the second abuse this afternoon by the Minister.
    Because of the absence of some hon. Members, and because the House was able to race down the Order Paper, we reached question No. 14. I make two suggestions, Mr. Speaker. First, if you are going to pull up Back Benchers for straying from the subject, Ministers must be pulled up as well, secondly, you should ensure that you stop Ministers abusing the ability to answer questions lower down on the Order Paper when they are answering questions put by another hon. Member.
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member would make a very good Deputy Speaker.
    Mrs. Ann Clwyd: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will recall that question 4 was my question. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I shall ask for an Adjournment debate on the subject.
    Mr. Winnick: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman must raise an entirely different point of order or I will not hear it.
    Mr. Winnick: I am asking you whether in future—not today — you will make it clear to Ministers that when a matter is likely to be the subject of much controversy and a statement is clearly required, they should try to arrange that? What we had today was a serious abuse of Question Time.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is seeking to put me in a position of finding out what answers will be given.

Business of the House
3.45 pm
Mr. Neil Kinnock: Will the Leader of the House state the business for next week?
The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 4 MARCH—There will be a debate on a motion to take note of the Government's expenditure plans, 1985–86, Cmnd. 9428.
TUESDAY 5 MARCH—Second Reading of the Food and Environment Protection Bill [Lords]
Consideration of the Water (Fluoridation) Bill.
Remaining stages of the Companies Consolidation (Consequential Provisions) Bill [Lords], which is a consolidation measure.
WEDNESDAY 6 MARCH — Second Reading of the Interception of Communications Bill.
THURSDAY 7 MARCH—Motions On the Local Elections (Northern Ireland) Order and on the Appropriation (Northern Ireland) Order.
FRIDAY 8 MARCH—Private Members' motions.
MONDAY II MARCH—Opposition Day (9th Allotted Day): Subject for debate to be announced.
Mr. Kinnock: I understand that this afternoon, in an entirely unsatisfactory way—indeed, one that abused the procedure of the House — the Home Secretary announced that Lord Bridge of Harwich will be asked to examine recent allegations about the interception of communications made in the "20:20 Vision" television programme for Channel 4. In view of that announcement, it would be completely inappropriate for the Second Reading of the Interception of Communications Bill to proceed before Lord Bridge has reported and his report is presented, as the Prime Minister has undertaken, to the House. Clearly this is a subject of immediate and immense controversy about which more facts must be discovered, and the Bill would benefit if its Second Reading was postponed until after we had heard from Lord Bridge.
In view of the Prime Minister's address to the United States Congress, in which she expressed her eagerness for British participation in the star wars research programme, will the Leader of the House ensure a debate on the so-called strategic defence initiative as quickly as possible, since it appears that Britain will be dragged into it willy nilly, at least before the next general election, after which we shall put a stop to all that nonsense—[Interruption.] Watch the polls.
The Leader of the House will have heard of the controversy about the amount of money which employers and teachers were apparently led to believe was available to pay teachers if they were willing to accept some structural changes in their profession. In view of the conflicting evidence that seems to exist, will the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretary of State for Education and Science to make a full statement to the House next week, setting out the exact position of the Government and the discretion which they are prepared to allow to employers in the hope of making some progress in terminating the current dispute?
Mr. Biffen: I understand the importance which the right hon. Gentleman attaches to the Bridge inquiry — I
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am sure that the whole House believes it to be important —and to the desirability of his findings being available before the Second Reading of the Bill. We shall keep an eye on that matter through the usual channels.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the strategic defence initiative last week, and I commented then. I cannot helpfully add to what I said, except to say that I am sure that this will be a matter of lively political debate, as he promises.
I am certain that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science has made the Government's views on resources and restructuring clear. I know that there is a family interest in the matter, and I shall at once refer the point to my right hon. Friend and tell him that a statement has been requested.
Mr. Terence Higgins: On Monday's debate on the Government's public expenditure White Paper, may I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the fact that the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee, as a result of a great deal of hard work by the Clerks and a miracle of production by the printers, has managed to produce a report on that White Paper which is relevant to the debate and which is now available in the Vote Office?
Mr. Biffen: I am happy to take the opportunity to pay tribute to the hard work to which my right hon. Friend refers, and, of course, the report will be made available for the debate on Monday.
Mr. Jack Ashley: Does the Leader of the House recall that the Government have rigged the committees on the social security review and packed them with Conservative supporters? Many hon. Members wish to see the reports of those committees, but we now find that they are not to be published. Will the Leader of the House arrange for full publication of those reports?
Mr. Biffen: I shall draw that point to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services.
Sir Kenneth Lewis: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that as we have plenty of legislation to keep us going there will be no harm in postponing the Interception of Communications Bill either until later in this Session or until next Session?
Mr. Biffen: As ever from my hon. Friend, that was a constructive suggestion.
Mr. Max Madden: The Leader of the House will remember that at business questions last week my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition pressed for a debate on the report by the Commission for Racial Equality which has been criticised by the Minister of State, Home Office who took part in Home Office questions today? What news does the right hon. Gentleman have on that debate?
Mr. Biffen: The immediate news is that it does not feature in next week's business, but I shall continue to bear in mind what has been said.
Sir Dudley Smith: In view of the importance of what was published in The Times today about an alleged new danger in fluoridation, does my right hon. Friend think that it would be sensible to

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withdraw the Water (Fluoridation) Bill temporarily to allow a period for mature reflection to enable the DHSS to come up with the answer?
Mr. Biffen: I know that some of my hon. Friends are determined to make parliamentary history and I shall have to observe their efforts. I am sure that the report in The Times will feature in our discussions on Tuesday.
Mr. Dave Nellist: Is the Leader of the House aware of the proposals made on 17 December by the Prime Minister to remove 234,000 teenagers from receiving supplementary benefit and of the answer that the Prime Minister gave during Prime Minister's Question Time last week that the youth training scheme was a good scheme and useful for young people? In the light of that and of the fact that more than 5,000 unemployed teenagers are lobbying the House this afternoon, will he arrange for the Prime Minister to make a statement showing why, if YTS is such a good scheme, she feels the need for the industrial conscription of 500,000 youngsters by denying them the right to supplementary benefit?
Mr. Biffen: The best reply that I can give to the hon. Gentleman is that during Employment Question Time next Tuesday he will have the opportunity to take his arguments further.
Mr. Michael Latham: As my right hon. Friend is a former Secretary of State for Trade, will he consider carefully the possibility of a debate soon on whether the multi-fibre arrangement should be extended because many of my hon. Friends are far from happy at the tenor of Ministers' replies yesterday?
Mr. Biffen: I take account of the importance of the multi-fibre arrangement and I shall bear in mind the point that my hon. Friend makes. He will realise that there is always pressure on time available for debates, but he touches upon an important arrangement affecting an important industry.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: On the Interception of Communications Bill, and in view of the developments over the past few days on the "20:20 Vision" programme, does the Leader of the House recognise that the subject of bugging is equally as important as that of telephone tapping but that it is not contained within the Bill's long title? Will he consider taking back the Bill to ensure that that aspect of interception is included, or at least acknowledge that it would be suitable to have a wide-ranging debate on Second Reading?
Mr. Biffen: It is not for me to anticipate the rulings of the Chair, but I think that the points that the hon. Gentleman seeks to make would probably be within the bounds of a Second Reading debate.
Mr. Henry Bellingham: Has my right hon. Friend seen early-day motion 396?
[That this House condemns the decision of the Inland Revenue to tax postmen on the assumption that they earn £150 yearly in tips when there is absolutely no evidence to support that assumption; and urges the Chancellor of the Exchequer to instruct the Inland Revenue to rescind that decision.]
Does he agree that it would be grossly unfair if postmen and milkmen were made to pay tax on their tips and gratuities? Will he ask my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make a statement as soon as possible?
Mr. Biffen: This is an echo of the old argument that there used to be about Easter offerings. We are so near to the Budget and all that flows from it that my hon. Friend will probably be able to make his point then.
Mr. Chris Smith: In view of the report in The Times today that Ministers have said that they do not wish a prosecution to be brought under section 2 of the Official Secrets Act against Cathy Massiter, will the Leader of the House arrange for an early debate on section 2, which seems to get in a deeper mess with every week that passes? Will he arrange for Ministers to make statements to the House about their comments on a matter that we were told only two weeks ago was entirely for the Law Officers? What has changed—is the whole Cabinet now back from holiday?
Mr. Biffen: That is a matter for the Law Officers. The hon. Gentleman will find that he will be able to make the first point during the Second Reading debate on the Interception of Communications Bill.
Sir John Farr: In view of the fact that nearly 500,000 people are employed in the knitwear and textile industries in Britain and that their jobs are largely dependent upon the multi-fibre arrangement, which comes to an end next year, will my right hon. Friend look upon this matter with much more urgency? Will he arrange for an early debate so that we can come to a decision about the negotiations that are necessary for the continuation of the MFA?
Mr. Biffen: I take account of what my hon. Friend says. I know that he has a substantial constituency interest in the matter. I think that I gave a measured reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham), and I should like to let the matter rest there.
Mr. Andrew Faulds: In view of the critical decisions taken by the National Theatre of Britain in terms of cutting down its activities because of the inadequacy of the Government grant, when will the House have an opportunity to discuss this important matter, not at the fag end of a tired day in an Adjournment Debate but in a full sitting of the House?
Mr. Biffen: I have no immediate plans, but I have a lively respect for the artistic lobby in the House. I have no doubt that it will find opportunities to ensure that the matter is debated.
Mr. Patrick Thompson: With regard to the Interception of Communications Bill which we are due to debate next week, was my right hon. Friend as surprised as I was to hear the business of the House announced on Radio 4 this morning? Will he make representations to the BBC to the effect that the House should hear its business first? May we shortly have a debate on the BBC and the licence fee?
Mr. Biffen: I agree profoundly with those sentiments. I am never surprised at the BBC.
Mr. Stuart Randall: In view of the fact that the British information technology industry has recently been described by the National Economic Development Office as being in a serious crisis, and bearing in mind that the industry in the United Kingdom is slipping behind not only the Japanese and the Americans but the French and the Germans, will the

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Leader of the House, with a sense of priority, find time to have a debate on this important matter, and in particular on the reports that have been produced by NEDO?
Mr. Biffen: Inasmuch as the hon. Gentleman"s political philosophy suggests to him that public expenditure is the means of promoting these industries, he could take advantage of Monday's debate.
Mr. Randall: No.
Mr. Biffen: I am sorry that what was meant to be a constructive suggestion should be cast aside. I can offer no early prospect of a debate on this industry in Government time, but as we are approaching the season of the Budget I am certain that the hon. Gentleman will have plenty of opportunities to make his points.
Mr. James Hill: I am sure that my right hon. Friend is aware that the United States Government will be spending about $26,000 million in the next five years on a strategic defence initiative. Many research contracts could be available to the United Kingdom. Is it not time to have a debate on this far-reaching research programme? Although I do not normally approve of what the Leader of the Opposition says, I think that there is a strong opinion in the House for such a debate.
Mr. Biffen: A coalition of my hon. Friend and the Leader of the Opposition is a formidable proposition which reminds me of what will be increasing pressure to have a debate on this subject, but there is no immediate provision for one.
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: May I reinforce what others have said, that it would be intolerable to reach Wednesday and debate the Second Reading of the Interception of Communications Bill without having had a ministerial statement, if not Lord Bridge's report, beforehand? In view of the interdisciplinary nature of the Food and Environment Protection Bill, will the Leader of the House consider referring the Bill, after Second Reading, to a Special Standing Committee so that taking evidence from outside witnesses can be considered?
Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman will have noted the tone of my reply to the Leader of the Opposition and I hope that he will have been encouraged by it. I do not think that the Food and Environment Protection Bill would be appropriate for the Special Standing Committee route, not least because it has already received considerable consideration in another place before coming here.
Mr. Andrew MacKay: Will my right hon. Friend reconsider the wisdom of curtailing Foreign Office questions to 3.10 pm on Wednesdays, as the great majority of the House would much rather that European questions be merged back with Foreign Affairs questions?
Mr. Biffen: I note what my hon. Friend says and believe that he echoes a widely held view. There is now virtual agreement on the matter and I hope that changes can take place quite soon.
Mr. Roland Boyes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of a document entitled "Sleeping out in London" which says that conditions in
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hostels for homeless people are so bad because of lice, danger of physical and sexual assault and bad hygiene conditions that many people prefer to sleep in the streets? Is he also further aware that the Government's proposals for cutting supplementary benefit for those living in bed-and-breakfast hostels has received an unprecedented 520 submissions to the Social Services Advisory Committee? In view of the growing public and political anxiety about the plight of the homeless, will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for an early debate in Government time on this subject?
Mr. Biffen: I have no plans for such a debate next week and I do not travel that hopefully for a debate in the medium future. As the matter concerns the budget of the DHSS, the hon. Gentleman might well make his arguments on Monday.
Mr. David Maclean: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he is greatly admired on this side of the House for his support of just and fair issues? Would he care to earn even more of our esteem by providing an early opportunity for a debate on alternatives to the present iniquitous system of rating?
Mr. Biffen: This course has been run so many times that the hoof marks are embedded. My hon. Friend might like to bear in mind Question Time on Wednesday when the Department of the Environment could be exposed to his scepticism on these affairs.
Mr. Robert Parry: Has the Leader of the House seen early-day motion 421 concerning the campaign of the Transport and General Workers Union on low pay, which has been signed by more than 90 hon. Members?
[That this House notes that the European Social Charter considers 68 per cent. of average earnings to be fair remuneration for men and women to be able to enjoy a decent standard of living; notes that Her Majesty's Government have completely failed to take any appropriate measures to alleviate low pay but have, in the interests of market-place ideology, withdrawn a number of legal safety nets for the low paid, and are now threatening wages councils; notes that the Government have also introduced schemes, such as the young workers scheme, to drive down low wages even further; notes also that the Government concentrates its attack on the wages of the low paid, in a determination to reduce our poorest workers to absolute poverty or the dole queue, while allowing the highest paid in the land to enjoy greater and greater increases and top-hat fringe benefits without restriction; and calls upon the Government to abandon the politics of the workhouse and sweatshop and take urgent measures to ensure that every full-time worker enjoys a living wage of at least £100 per week, in line with the Transport and General Workers Union's Living Wage Campaign.]
May we have an early debate on this important subject or at least a statement from the Secretary of State for Employment?
Mr. Biffen: The hon. Gentleman raises a lively and contentious issue. I shall draw his request for a statement to the attention of my right Friend the Secretary of State for Employment.
Mr. John Stokes: Is my right hon. Friend having any success in the aim to reduce

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the amount of business which is still coming before the House next week and, as far as we can see, will come before us for many weeks which, I am told, is inclined to exhaust Ministers and to make other hon. Members somewhat restive?
Mr. Biffen: I hope that that is not a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Mr. Laurie Pavitt: The Leader of the House represents all Members, and many right hon. and hon. Members from all parties are indebted to Westminster hospital for health services. Is the Leader of the House aware that, on 11 March, the regional health authority will have to make a decision about stopping cardiac surgery at Westminster hospital? Because that decision is so imminent, will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for the Secretary of State for Social Services to make a statement so that we may question whether closure is in the best interests of people with heart problems?
Mr. Biffen: I shall certainly comply with that request.
Mr. Tony Marlow: As we are to have a debate on public expenditure on Monday, and as the hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) said earlier this week that if we surrender control over the public purse we surrender our sovereignty, could my right hon. Friend have produced for hon. Members a short and intelligible document setting out how the European Community is entitled to funds from the United Kingdom and how it can supplement those funds and what authorisation the House would require to let the Community have those extra funds? I am sure that my right hon. Friend would not wish the sovereignty of this House to be surrendered through ignorance or sleight of hand.
Mr. Biffen: Being asked to provide anything short or intelligible on the finances of the European Community is a challenging proposition. Nevertheless, I shall refer my hon. Friend's request to the Treasury and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and we shall have to see what happens.
Mr. Kevin Barron: Will the right hon. Gentleman seriously reconsider taking the Interception of Communications Bill on Wednesday, not least because of what happened in the Chamber earlier today? Nothing less than a statement from the Home Secretary was curiously drafted into a question on the policing of the miners' dispute. The right hon. Gentleman told my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition that he is prepared to keep his eye on the matter. That is precisely why we should like the Bill's Second Reading to be delayed—we want to find out from the inquiry whose eye is on what.
Mr. Biffen: I note what the hon. Gentleman says. I think that I had better leave my reply as it was in response to the Leader of the Opposition.
Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Following the announcement in The Times on Monday that the House is sitting later and more regularly, what suggestions is my right hon. Friend putting forward, knowing that he is arranging for an inquiry?
Mr. Biffen: I do not think that my hon. Friend should be too gullible when he reads The Times.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Is not the Leader of the House abusing our procedures in
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suggesting how we should use proceedings on the Interception of Communications Bill? Can he not see that there is a distinction between the Bill and its consideration and dealing with the allegations made on a television programme? Is he aware that it is impossible for hon. Members to take an objective view on phone tapping before the Bridge report has been presented to the House? Why does he not reconsider? It is not fair to the House for him to say that he will leave his answer at what he said to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition? He must give us the answer. Parliament requires that its questions be responded to fully.
Mr. Biffen: I am simply not prepared to go any further with the hon. Gentleman than I went with the Leader of the Opposition. I think that that is a reasonable sense of priorities.
Mr. Alan Howarth: Has my right hon. Friend noted that no fewer than 100 hon. Members have expressed their support for early-day motion 326 on the reform of student unions?
[That this House, recognising that all students are currently compelled to join a students' union and that since the majority of such unions are affiliated to the National Union of Students most students are in practice compelled to belong to two closed shops, and noting that students' unions and the National Union of Students consume some £40 million of taxpayers' money, calls upon the Government to take steps to give individual students a free choice as to whether to belong to student organisations and while continuing to give financial support to the provision of sporting and recreational facilities to prohibit the use of taxpayers' money for political purposes, including the payment of affiliation fees to the National Union of Students.]
Is he further aware that some interesting and encouraging amendments have been tabled by Opposition Members? Does he agree that this provides an excellent basis for debating conscript membership of student unions and the abuse of taxpayers' money used for political purposes by those unions? Will he arrange for an early debate on these matters?
Mr. Biffen: Alas, I must disappoint my hon. Friend, as I do not think that I am able to arrange for a debate in Government time, but this is the type of lively debate which might well distinguish private Members' time.
Mr. David Winnick: Does the Leader of the House accept responsibility for two matters? First, we are told that no prosecutions will take place arising from the television film, but there has been no statement from the Attorney-General. Secondly, why was no statement made by the Prime Minister today on the inquiry to be carried out by Lord Bridge? Is the Leader of the House aware that, on those two matters, there has been a serious abuse of the House of Commons for which he should take due responsibility? Although those matters may not give rise to genuine points of order that we can raise with Mr. Speaker, they concern us deeply, and, presumably, the right hon. Gentleman has some responsibility for them.
Mr. Biffen: Yes, and I am sensitive to the interest that there is in the Interception of Communications Bill. The decision of the Attorney-General on the "20:20 Vision" programme is entirely a matter for him and I have no

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comment on that. Information was made available today by the Home Secretary. The Leader of the Opposition has made representations to me about the desirability of having the Bridge report before Second Reading, and I responded to that in, I thought, a forthcoming fashion.
Mr. John Browne: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the United States budget deficit is not only massive in scale but largely out of control with more than half being unmonitored by the American congress? While the size of the budget deficit is not directly the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government, it has a massive impact upon our economy and currency. May we have a proper debate on that?
Mr. Biffen: We are coming to the Budget with everything that happens thereafter, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will have plenty of opportunities to contribute to those economic debates.
Mr. Michael Brown: Will my right hon. Friend explain the logic of Tuesday's business? In the first part the House will be asked to approve a Sensible measure which seeks to control the amount of poisons being foisted upon the people of this nation, and yet after 10 o'clock we shall be asked to support, or the Government are trying to persuade us to support, a measure which seeks to foist a poison on the people of this nation. Will my right hon. Friend accept that, if one takes away from the Division lists of this past week the right hon. and hon. Members who have supported that measure and notes that they are either on the payroll or seeking to get on the payroll, there is no support whatever for that measure in the free vote of free men in the House of Commons?
Mr. Biffen: Whatever the raw arithmetic, there is a qualitative difference between the two divisions.
Mr. Michael Colvin: Is my right hon. Friend aware that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services has now seen ht to extend his original list of 30 selected drugs to about 100? Will the House have an opportunity to debate that list and the thinking behind it before it is introduced on 1 April?
Mr. Biffen: It is my understanding that these proposals will eventually be contained in regulations which must be confirmed by the House.
Mr. Christopher Murphy: Will my right hon. Friend arrange for a statement to be made on Government policy towards the future level of profits and investment in the important pharmaceutical industry?
Mr. Biffen: I shall certainly draw that request to the attention of my right hon. Friend who is a sponsoring Minister of the pharmaceutical industry.
Mr. Keith Best: How many days has my right hon. Friend set aside in future for the passage of the Water (Fluoridation) Bill?
Mr. Biffen: We are still taking bets on that issue.

Agriculture Council
4.13 pm
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. Michael Jopling): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I wish to make a statement on the Council of Agriculture Ministers meeting in Brussels on 25 to 27 February. My hon. Friend the Minister of State and I represented the United Kingdom.
The Council agreed to certain modifications to the milk supplementary levy regulations in order to ensure the implementation of quotas throughout the Community in 1984–85. Two of these are particularly important to our industry.
The first is a provision enabling producers who have two quotas, one wholesale and one for direct sale, to switch between the types of quota according to the marketing needs of their businesses.
In order to avoid abuse, there will be strict administrative controls. This is a change for which I have been pressing at successive meetings and I am delighted that we have now obtained an agreement.
The second important element for milk is a provision, for one year only, to permit unused quota to be switched between producers and between regions. Provided there is no abrupt change in levels of milk production, I would expect this to relieve all liability for levy on wholesale milk sales in the United Kingdom in 1984–85. This is of particular benefit to Northern Ireland. We would also expect liability for levy on direct sales to be substantially reduced, though it is not possible at this stage to say whether it would be eliminated.
The package did not deal with a number of points which are of particular importance to some other member states, including the Irish request for an additional 58,000 tonnes of quota. This issue will be further discussed in the price fixing. It was made clear that subsequent decisions on this or other matters were in no way prejudiced by the decisions taken at this Council. I emphasised that we remain opposed to the Irish request.
I am also pleased to announce that the Council agreed on a series of important measures to bring wine production under control. These implement the outline agreement reached by the European Council in Dublin last December.
The new measures contain three main elements. The first element is an effective guarantee threshold so that surplus production will be removed by compulsory distillation at low prices, so as to dissuade producers from increasing output.
The second element is a system of aids for producers who grub up their vineyards and go out of production, thus leading to a permanent reduction of the Community's vineyard area.
The third element is a commitment to a restrictive price policy for as long as a significant structural surplus remains. This is a crucial part of the agreement and was one of the Government's major objectives.
During negotiations I was successful in reducing substantially the cost of the package to the Community without undermining its effectiveness. The Commission's original proposals would have cost over the next five years 740 million ecu—about £460 million. But this has now been reduced to 435 million ecu—about £270 million.

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Our calculations show that these decisions will lead to significant savings for the Community budget by way of reduced distillation costs.
The agreement of the Council will be put into legal form as soon as the European Parliament has given its opinion on a small element of the package, which has only been recently proposed by the Commission, to restructure some Greek vineyards. We made it clear that this element is still subject to scrutiny in this House.
The Council also carried forward discussion on the more general agricultural structures regulations. The Commission formally proposed a new article authorising member states to introduce aids in environmentally sensitive areas. As the House knows, I have been pressing for such a provision. I am glad to say that it had a wide measure of support in the Council. I would expect discussion on the structures package to be resumed at the next Agriculture and Finance Councils, when I hope it will be possible to reach final decisions.
The Council adopted a regulation which allows the Commission to acknowledge applications submitted to it for aids for improvement in processing and marketing facilities. Without a prior acknowledgement from the Commission, work in hand is rendered ineligible for aid. This technical change was, therefore, needed in order to allow people to press ahead with investments. It is an important change for many British firms which wish to make improvements urgently.
Finally, I raised the question of the preferential tariff for supplies of gas to the Dutch horticulture industry. The Commissioner told the Council that the Dutch Government have now been informed that this tariff is incompatible with the Community's state aid rules. The Dutch have one month to respond to the Commission's communication. I emphasised that the Dutch growers had already benefited from reduced heating costs for most of the current season. I said that this was a thoroughly unsatisfactory situation and that the growers should be required to repay the aid. The Commissioner said that he would be giving further thought to this in the light of the Dutch response.
This was a highly satisfactory Council for the United Kingdom. The wine decisions are the second major step, after milk, to bringing reality into the common agricultural policy. The modifications of the milk regime are of great importance, as is the proposal on conservation. The Council has cleared the way to press ahead with the price-fixing negotiations.
Mr. Brynmor John: I repeat the welcome that we gave to the changes to the milk quota scheme when they were debated in draft in the House last week. They are welcome because they will make the scheme a little less rigid than it was. Particularly welcome is the reprieve given to direct sellers through greater flexibility. Several of them were faced with possible heavy penalties, and that reprieve must rid them of considerable anxieties. However, the direct seller sector is only one of the major sectors that are seriously affected by the milk quota scheme. As the Minister will know, what we call the development cases face greater hardship. Therefore, is there any hope that a future Agriculture Council can be induced to do something to help them?
Secondly, I should like to ask the Minister about the proposal for redistributing unused quota to other parts of
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the United Kingdom. As he said, the present agreement extends only for this year. However, the Financial Times, reporting the Council's proceedings this morning, said:
"pressure is growing from several member states to make it permanent."
How realistic is that report? Is the United Kingdom one of the countries which are pressing for a permanent scheme? Again, I rely on the newspaper accounts for this matter. Will the Minister give us an account of the general review of the milk quota scheme, bearing in mind the tale of insuperable difficulties in Italy in implementing the scheme? When will we see the scheme actually working everywhere rather than just in the United Kingdom, as it is at the moment?
We also welcome the measures on wine, but the retails are a little less certain than they were. They are somewhat complicated by the fact that Italy is one of the countries that is most affected. From the reports that we read in the newspapers, we see that there is a slight difference between what is reported and what the Minister said today. I should be grateful if he would clarify whether the grant is given for people who grub up their vineyards or for those who forgo replacing their vines with new vines. There is a world of difference. It is a dangerous concept to pay farmers for not doing something. At the back of our minds all of us are thinking of the number of phantom vineyards that will be spawned if the grant is to be paid for not doing something. I understand that the exact amount of money involved in the grubbing-up, or non-planting, scheme has not yet been decided, and will not be decided until the end of the year. I hope that the Minister will resist any substantial expenditure upon such an activity.
Most importantly on that aspect, I must ask the right hon. Gentleman what will be done with the surplus wine. I understand that most of it, after distillation, is going into storage. The Minister will know that the United Kingdom is the major manufacturer of industrial ethyl alcohol in the EEC, with about 50 per cent. of the production, and major chemical plants at Baglan bay and Grangemouth are dependent upon it. As I understand the situation — perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will clarify it — the use of such surplus distilled wine as industrial alcohol would be uneconomic without the introduction of a heavy subsidy to assist sales. I hope that the Minister will undertake clearly to the House that he will not consent to a scheme for such subsidies, which would undermine production and employment in this country.
The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned some progress on the environmental input to the structures agreement. Will he refresh the House's memory, because it is such a long-running serial? For how long has the structures agreement been on the agenda for the ministerial meeting? Is the right hon. Gentleman's confidence that it might be dealt with finally next time realistic, or are we to have a continuation of the serial?
I should like to ask when our hard-pressed growers are to be relieved of the unfair competition of the Dutch gas subsidy. What the right hon. Gentleman said, welcome though it is, promises that the subsidy will creep on from month to month, and month by month it is severely afflicting the horticulturists in our industry who have to put up with that. It is not good enough for the Commissioner to say that he will give further thought to it in the light of the Dutch response, because that will mean it being at least

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three months from today before any penalties are imposed. Will the right hon. Gentleman assure us that it will happen much earlier?
Mr. Jopling: The hon. Gentleman asked many questions, and I shall do my best to answer them. I am grateful for what he said about the changes that we have been able to make in the milk arrangements. His comments were particularly helpful.
Milk producers who have applied for an expansion of their quota have virtually all been dealt with by the panels and the tribunal. I hope that the decisions of the tribunal will be transmitted within the next few weeks. As soon as we know where we are with the total amount that has been awarded by the tribunal, we can move much more quickly towards the finalisation of secondary quotas. We want to get on with that.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the permanence of the regional exchanges that I mentioned. That is clearly for this year alone. The Commission has made that absolutely clear, and we were prepared to accept it for this year, but no further at this stage.
The hon. Gentleman said that the milk quotas were working only in the United Kingdom. With respect, that is not true. With the principal exception of Italy, where the Commission has taken legal proceedings, milk production is moving towards the quota levels. That is happening in virtually all the other member states. Therefore, it is not fair to say that the quotas are working only in this country.
With regard to wine, the hon. Gentleman referred to ensuring that those who grub up their vineyards stay out of production. I remind him of the words that I used. I referred to a system for
"producers who grub up their vineyards and go out of production, thus leading to a permanent reduction of the Community's vineyard area."
I think that that answers that question. That point is taken on board. We must make sure that the acreage does not just come back through the back door.
The hon. Gentleman asked about the use of surplus wine and its compulsory distillation into alcohol. I assure him that on many occasions in the Council we have raised the problems that can arise because of the impact on firms such as British Petroleum of that sort of industrial alcohol. We keep a close eye on that matter and on several occasions we have drawn the difficulties to the attention of the Commission, and we shall continue to do so.
The hon. Gentleman asked me for how long the environmental point had been discussed. I think I am right in saying that I first raised it in the summer. I began by having no friends whatsoever on the conservation arrangements. To the best of my memory, the structures regulations have been discussed for about 18 months, but our environmental initiative has been much more recent. I am glad that we have gone from having no friends to having the support of the Commission, which proposed those regulations.
The hon. Gentleman asked the question about Dutch gas that I have been asking at every meeting of the Council since that anomaly arose, the question being, "When will relief come?" I have been pressing the Commission, and will continue to do so, so that what I regard as an illegal subsidy is ended as soon as possible.
Sir Peter Mills: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his persistence and first-class effort in these matters. Will he bear in mind that what he has done will be particularly welcomed in the south-west of England by the producer-retailers of Cornish and Devonshire cream, which is so important for our tourist industry? Surely my right hon. Friend will agree that it is far better to get rid of dairy products by consumption rather than by storage. Having achieved that great result, will he now move on to the next problem, which, of course, is the sale or leasing of quotas and a further extension of the outgoers scheme?
Mr. Jopling: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his generous remarks. I have had very much in mind the special problems of the south-west and the cream trade, about which over the last 20 years he has told us so much, and its importance, which I support.
On the question of leasing and sale, as my hon. Friend will know, we have been consulting the industry about how we should proceed to achieve greater flexibility in milk production—whether we should go for leasing or for the sale and purchase of quotas. We have considered it our first priority to deal with the question of mixed businesses, and we shall now be able to give more attention to the question of flexibility. I have had recent discussions with the National Farmers Union on this subject. I have explained to the House in the past that I have a good deal of sympathy for the prospect of leasing to create the greater flexibility that we need, and I hope to be able to make an announcement soon.
Mr. James Nicholson: May I take this opportunity to add my congratulations to the Minister on the outcome of the negotiations, which, without doubt, will be of great assistance to the dairy farmers in Northern Ireland.
May I also take the opportunity to remind him that, while we welcome the improvements, in many ways they have come too late for those producers who kept within the law as it was and did not produce extra milk during the year. Such producers will now be seriously disadvantaged.
I ask the Minister to make it clear that this is not the end of the quota system, as many farmers may assume that Brussels will never collect the money. I ask him to do this so that we will not be in the position next year that we were in this year. I ask him to emphasise that point.
I also remind the Minister of the great difficulty that arises in Northern Ireland because of the lack of uptake of the outgoers scheme, and I ask him to bear that in mind. That problem has still to be overcome and solved in Northern Ireland.
Mr. Jopling: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his earlier remarks.
I understand that it would have been more helpful if we could have negotiated this change many months ago. The hon. Gentleman will know that I began pressing for the change last June, since when I have pressed for it at every meeting of the Council. Although I would have preferred it earlier, I am glad that it has come before the end of the year.
As to the outgoers scheme, I know that this has been going slowly in Northern Ireland. It has been re-opened. I hope that any farmers who are contemplating leaving the industry will take advantage of the scheme, which is very generous.
Sir Hector Monro: I add my warm congratulations to my right hon. Friend on his outstanding success over milk quotas. May he have equal success with the sheepmeat regime and the beef premium.
Is my right hon. Friend aware that his remarkable progress on conservation is much appreciated by those with conservationist interests in the countryside and by farmers who are equally keen that the countryside should remain as pleasant and as beautiful a place as it is already?
Mr. Jopling: I am grateful to my hon. Friend on two counts; first for his earlier remark and, secondly, for his reference to what he called our remarkable progress on conservation. I find that my colleagues in the Council of Ministers are becoming more and more conscious of their responsibilities in the matter of conservation, and we shall keep up the pressure.
Mr. John Morris: Will the Minister answer a simple question? Is he saying that he has agreed on a system of extra wine distillation without agreeing on a system for its disposal? How will it be disposed of, will there be a subsidy, and will there be an affect on the British chemical industry? Will he give an assurance that he will not agree to a step-by-step extension of the common agricultural policy into this part of industry?
Mr. Jopling: As to the alcohol which is produced by compulsory distillation, the current cost of the wine surplus has been running at about 1 million ecus a year, or approximately £600 million. This is the absurd situation from which I believe we must now move away. We are spending a great deal of money to reduce the acreage of vineyards and to ensure simultaneously that the surplus is taken off the market at the low price at which it is uneconomic to produce.
A great deal of the alcohol which comes from this distillation goes into store. As I said to the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John), we have been vigilant in ensuring that this does not distort the market, and we have been defending the interests of such firms as British Petroleum for a long time.
Sir John Farr: May I add my congratulations to those of my other hon. Friends, and, indeed, other hon. Gentlemen, to my right hon. Friend on the successful conclusion of his visit.
Does my right hon. Friend recall the performance of the Dutch who, in recent years, have repeatedly been about to give up unfair subsidies and practices, as we have been told by successive predecessors of my right hon. Friend? The fact is that they continue to act outside the law. I ask my right hon. Friend to follow up the Dutch question with his usual energy. I congratulate him again on what he has secured abroad.
Mr. Jopling: My hon. Friend is generous. I can give him the assurance that I shall not miss any opportunity to press the Commission to deal with the illegal actions of the Dutch Government until they are finally stopped.
Mr. David Penhaligon: I wish to raise two points. Can the Minister say whether the agreement on the wine lake has any effect on the fledgling wine-producing industry in this country and, indeed, in my constituency? Can he confirm that it is still the Government's intention to deny milk farmers in my part of the country and, indeed, iii the rest of the country, the full quota allocated to them under the development system of inquiry?
Mr. Jopling: The agreements that we made have no effect on English wine. An exemption from obligatory distillation was secured for English wine.
With regard to the milk situation, my difficulty is that I cannot produce milk quotas which I do not have. I suppose that it might have been possible for me to fulfil all the awards of the panels and tribunal if, for instance, I had taken from all milk producers more than the extra 2·5 per cent. — say 3 per cent. I have to balance one against the other. If I had had the milk available to give to the developers, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned, it would have meant everybody else having that much lower quota.
Mr. Colin Shepherd: May I add my congratulations to those of my right hon. and hon. Friends, which will have made my right hon. Friend aware that the persistence with which he has pursued these problems will earn him the warm recognition of the industry, which, in my view, he is serving well.
Is my right hon. Friend aware that overall fairness is still considered to be of great importance in the industry? Is he happy that the rules that he has negotiated in the change between wholesale quota and retail quota are capable of being properly enforced, especially in France? Secondly, will he remain aware that the Irish question continues to be regarded with great suspicion by producers in the United Kingdom, and will he make certain that Irish farmers do not pull a quickie?
Mr. Jopling: My hon. Friend in his generous remarks asks about the enforcement of the arrangements that I described concerning mixed businesses. As I explained in my statement, there are some administrative provisions to ensure that abuses do not occur.
There was a good deal of disquiet about the possibility of a large amount of milk being transferred from direct to wholesale quota — the opposite of what we want. In Italy there was a suggestion of approximately 1 million tonnes. That suggestion was specifically excluded from the arrangement. I hope that we shall not see abuses on that account.
With regard to the Irish claim for a greater milk quota, in my explanation to the House I made my position very clear.
Mr. Donald Coleman: May I refer the right hon. Gentleman back to the measures designed to deal with the wine lake and reinforce what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) said? The production of industrial alcohol in south Wales represents a considerable means of employment. Will the Minister give the House an absolute guarantee that there will be no subsidy that will cause difficulties for the producers of industrial alcohol in Britain, and particularly those in south Wales?
Mr. Jopling: I am very conscious of the danger, and we have been very much aware of it for a long time. The whole purpose of these provisions is to reduce the amount of surplus wine and thus to reduce the amount of alcohol that is compulsorily distilled from it, which is in danger of distorting the market. We have been trying to bring wine production closer to the level of consumption, so that such distortion is much less of a danger.
Mr. Nicholas Baker: My right hon. Friend's announcement will be warmly welcomed by the

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dairy farmers of Dorset, and he is to be congratulated upon it, but is he aware that producer-retailers represent the one sector of dairy farmers who have increased the amount of product sold? Will my right hon. Friend now turn his attention to the problems of those dairy farmers who have provisionally been allocated secondary quotas, and who find on appeal that those allocations have been reduced?
Mr. Jopling: In the discussions that we had not long ago on the Bill to arrange the outgoers scheme, I told the House that it would be necessary to have cuts in the awards of the panels and of the tribunal. I said that I thought the figure might be about 35 per cent.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: With regard to the Irish bid for additional quota, did the right hon. Gentleman make it absolutely clear that if any additional quota was going, there was a very strong case for it going to help those farmers who are suffering in Britain, and particularly in Wales? In that context, given the mechanisms that exist in the EEC and which could be used to help producers, did the Minister make any application for additional assistance for milk producers in the less-favoured areas?
Mr. Jopling: With regard to the Irish proposal, I have continually made it clear to other Ministers and to the Commission that we would be opposed to that suggestion, and that if there is to be extra milk for anyone, we are just as anxious to suggest candidates as, I imagine, are all the other Ministers.
Mr. Teddy Taylor: Is not this very costly scheme to give additional subsidies to farmers to grub up vineyards in order to get rid of wine lakes very similar in character to the Common Market scheme of some years ago, which paid people millions of pounds for killing cows in order to get rid of the milk lake, which has, of course, grown enormously since then? Is the Minister at all confident that the scheme will be fairly applied by the Italian and French Governments, given that the Italian Government already pay substantial sums of Common Market money to the Mafia for non-existent vineyards and for the destruction of non-existent tomatoes?
Mr. Jopling: There is provision to set up a register of vineyards throughout the Community, and that will go a long way towards solving the problem. Steps have been taken to deal with any dangers of imaginary vineyards. The assistance given to people to grub up their vineyards includes a provision to ensure that they do not come back into wine production.
Mr. Robert Maclennan: With regard to the proposed new article allowing the payment of aid in environmentally sensitive areas, will the Minister confirm that it is to increase and not to reduce farmers' incomes in those areas? I welcome his gradual conversion to the policy of the Social Democrats in allowing greater flexibility on quotas by trading them.
Mr. Jopling: One of the first things that I said when I came out from the final negotiations on the milk quotas was that they were much too inflexible and that sooner or later we would have to work in a system of flexibility. The hon. Gentleman asked about the environmental arrangements. I hope that we shall be able to get final agreement on that matter within the course of the next Council, and that we shall then be able to continue our progress so that
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extra assistance can be given to farmers in certain sensitive areas to encourage them to continue with traditional systems of farming.
Mr. David Crouch: Although I recognise the great achievement in reducing the amount of surplus wine, I am concerned, as one involved in the chemical industry—as I think my right hon. Friend knows—that the vast wine lake may one day be unloaded on the market in the form of distilled alcohol, thus greatly disturbing one of our most successful industries. As one who is also concerned with health, may I say that if I had to give any advice to my right hon. Friend, I would say that it was better to advise people to drink more wine and less cream.
Mr. Jopling: From what I hear about some of the table wine that goes for compulsory distillation, I would rather my hon. Friend had to drink it, and not me. I hope he will understand that the prime purpose of the negotiations is to reduce the surplus wine so that less distillation then has to take place, and so that there is less of this alcohol around, which is extremely expensive to dispose of.
Dr. Roger Thomas: Although I do not wish to tarnish the Minister's halo today, will he recognise that there are at least 10 other areas affecting the dairy industry that badly need his attention before that industry can even get on the first rung of the ladder to recovery?
Mr. Jopling: When it comes to helping the dairy industry back to recovery after the imposition of milk quotas, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recall — particularly as he comes from an area that has many small producers — that one of the principal purposes of the outgoers scheme is to return the small milk producer to a level of quota that is the same as his level of production in 1983, before quotas ever came into being.
Mr. William Cash: Will my right hon. Friend accept the congratulations of my constituents in Stafford who had certain difficulties about the milk quotas during the by-election? He has achieved considerable success in the recent negotiations. In practical terms, how will policing measures be pursued in the European Commission to ensure that the level of production—for example, in France—has fallen as far as it should have done? I believe that at present the French have managed to reduce production by only about 1·3 per cent., whereas the figure for Britain is about 8·9 per cent. What practical administrative measures are being taken to ensure that the French fall into line with the rest of the Community?
Mr. Jopling: I refer my hon. Friend to the distinguished weekly news sheet, Agra Europe, which shows in its current edition that there has been a very large reduction in milk production in France during the past month. I think that it is true to say that the Commission is becoming more and more expert in policing regulations, and that the weapon of disallowance is being used much more frequently. Although there is still a long way to go, we are moving in the right direction.
Mr. Andy Stewart: I am sure that not only the farmers but the taxpayers will welcome my right hon. Friend's statement. He has informed us that the scheme to administer the dairy surpluses will lead to a reduction of £200 million. Is it not interesting that his statement coincides with the report published in one of our daily

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newspapers that dairy farmers' margins for concentrates have increased by 18 per cent. since the introduction of quotas?
Mr. Jopling: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has said. I am glad that the dip in the sales of dairy concentrates which took place in the months following the introduction of milk quotas is now reduced and that the level of production is moving back towards previous levels.
Mr. Roy Beggs: I, too, offer my congratulations to the Minister and his colleagues on the successful way in which the negotiations have been concluded. However, I ask him to move forward and consider how the provision of quotas can be made available to young entrants to dairying who wish to make dairy farming their career.
Mr. Jopling: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I was conscious from the start of the milk quota regime that the inflexibility would cause difficulties and problems for young men trying to enter dairy farming. That was the main reason for my urging that we should introduce greater flexibility. I intend to press the Commission and the Council to give more attention to this problem now that the problem of inflexibility between direct and wholesale quotas is out of the way.
Mr. David Maclean: I add my personal congratulations to my right hon. Friend and his ministerial colleagues on the splendid deal that they have pulled off in Brussels on wholesale and retail quotas. I assure my right hon. Friend that many of his right hon. and hon. Friends will, in their own inimitable way, help him all that they can to reduce the European wine lake. I ask him to redouble the strenuous efforts that he is making to bring some relief to tenant farmers. Will he consider making tenant quotas a tenant right?
Mr. Jopling: My hon. Friend has been extremely kind in his remarks. The problem of landlord and tenant goes with the desire to make the transfer of quotas more flexible. Tenant rights and compensation are very much involved. Many legislative problems accompany any move that might be contemplated into the deeper grounds of tenant rights and arbitration. However, these are options that we have very much in mind for the future and we are discussing them with the farmers' unions.
Mr. Keith Best: Anglesey and Wales will welcome my right hon. Friend's statement, because it proves that my right hon. Friend and his ministerial colleagues are doughty fighters who are capable of winning on behalf of our farmers. If there is insufficient quota to meet the requirements of farmers who engaged in considerable industrial expansion to produce more milk in the past, will he consider whether there are any other ways in which he can help those who have made considerable capital investment? When we debated this issue last year, my right hon. Friend was good enough to say in response to my intervention that he would reconsider the matter if there was insufficient quota to meet these requirements.
Mr. Jopling: My hon. Friend has said kind words about the arrangements which we were able to negotiate. I am prepared always to consider what can be done to help those who are in particular difficulties over milk quotas,
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and the work of the panels and the tribunal is one way of doing this. My hon. Friend will know that the injection of further Government funds behind his worthy aim is a much more difficult problem.
Mr. John: I return to the issue of industrial ethyl alcohol. The right hon. Gentleman's answers will cause real anxiety to those who are employed in the industry. I ask him to confirm two points which I put to him originally and which he overlooked, no doubt because of the number of questions I asked. Will he confirm that, without a subsidy, the industrial alcohol that is distilled from the wine surplus will not be competitive with industrial ethyl alcohol manufactured in Britain? Secondly, will he confirm that he will not give his consent to money being made available from EEC funds to subsidise the use of wine alcohol in this way?
Mr. Jopling: The hon. Gentleman has heard what I have said about this. Distillation is an extremely expensive way of dealing with surplus wine production. It means that, at heavy cost, we obtain alcohol that is distilled from wine. In the past, huge sums of public money have gone into this process. As I told the House a short time ago, the cost of the surplus is running at about £600 million. The product of that sum is industrial alcohol that has been distilled from wine.
We are seeking to reduce the amount of wine that is produced. Therefore, there will be fewer hectolitres of wine which need to go to compulsory distillation. Less alcohol will be produced and there will be less danger of the market being distorted. I can produce chapter and verse to support my claim that we have been raising this matter almost endlessly since I became the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and I believe that it was being raised before my appointment. Every effort has been made to try to ensure that anomolies do not occur and that British firms, such as British Petroleum, are not put at a special disadvantage.
Mr. Geraint Howells rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was in the Chamber at the beginning of the Minister's statement. However, I am prepared to trade off a question now for a shorter speech from him in the Welsh debate.
Mr. Howells: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to ask a question of the Minister. I shall be brief in the Welsh debate as well. What plans does the Minister have to help dairy farmers who bought their farms in 1983 and who find life difficult as they do not have a quota that will keep them in business? They are in financial trouble. What specific plans does he have to help them?
Mr. Jopling: It is extremely difficult to do anything for those with no quota who were not producing milk when the scheme began on 1 April 1984, other than to have their cases considered sympathetically and carefully by the panels and the tribunal. The hearings of those bodies have now finished and I hope that their decisions will be transmitted within the next few weeks to all farmers who believe that they have a grievance under the rules of the arrangements. I am not able to go beyond that.

Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974
4.57 pm
Mr. Allan Roberts: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 10, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the adverse effect of the operation of the Prevention of Terrorism Act on community relationships on Merseyside."
This request to adjourn the House is not a sign that I support violence or terrorism. I do not believe that the Prevention of Terrorism Act helps to prevent terrorism. Indeed, I believe that it is counter-productive and causes us to play into the hands of the IRA.
The issue is specific because it relates to statements made in a broadcast on Radio City — which is Merseyside's local radio station—by three Irishmen who were detained under the Act, two of whom, after seven days in custody, were released without charge. One of the three, James McCormack, was fined £150 for giving false information to the police. He said that his name was Jimmy Young. He was drunk in Liverpool on Christmas eve and as he was Irish as well he was arrested under the Act.
The issue is specific because all three men make serious allegations about how they were treated while in custody. These allegations include being kept in a cell with a large light shining on them all the time, being released in driving rain wearing only socks, having their houses raided by detectives who found nothing, being made to wear only paper overalls in freezing cold, being fiercely and unfairly interrogated and threatened, and being subjected to many other acts designed to cause degradation. These three men were held without evidence. Two of them were never charged and surely they were innocent until proven guilty.
The issue is urgent because of the effect that the Act is having on Merseyside. Once again, sectarian conflict is, regrettably, occurring on the streets where previously Catholics and Protestants of Irish descent have lived in harmony. If a debate were allowed on this issue, I could speak passionately as one brought up a Protestant who represents probably one of the most Catholic of constituencies. The matter is urgent because the Act's implementation is seen to be anti-Irish and anti-Catholic. Merseyside holds the record for the number of people detained under the Act since 1974. I understand that on Merseyside 1,354 have been detained and only one has been charged under the Act.
This is an urgent and serious matter, as the House should hold dear our civil liberties. We are opposed to the people of violence because such people would destroy our liberties. But the very liberties that we wish to safeguard are now being destroyed by the Act.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 10, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he believes should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the adverse effect of the operation of the Prevention of Terrorism Act on community relations on Merseyside."
I have listened with interest and care to what the hon. Member has said, but I regret that I do not consider that the matter he has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 10. I cannot therefore submit his application to the House. However, I think that he will find other ways of raising the matter.

Open University
5.1 pm
Mr. Clement Freud: I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 10, for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the reaction of the Secretary of State for Education and Science to the report of the Visiting Committee of the Open University."
The matter is specific in that the Open University was set up by Act of Parliament and does not have a UGC or NAB to act as an intermediary. The long-awaited paper which was published yesterday, coming, as it does, after seven years of real-term losses in funding, gave the Open University a glowing bill of health and expressed the hope that the Government would be prepared to state their confidence in the university and in its continuing role, so as to help dispel the concern that is being felt in the institution, and to encourage it to look to the future.
It is an important matter because, despite a positive and enthusiastic assessment, the Secretary of State has awarded a niggardly £100,000 out of a total provision of £50 million, though he has moved a cut—a severe cut at that — from 1986 to 1987. The allocation of £1·6 million for redundancies is money that should be spent on education.
An urgent debate is necessary because if nothing is done to persuade the Secretary of State of the error of his ways, students will be lost, teachers will be dismissed, broadcasts will be cancelled, and, perhaps most importantly, the Open University's ability to react to national needs will be destroyed.
The cuts are deeply and disproportionately damaging to an institution with high fixed costs. An increase in grant would enable a 20 per cent. increase in student enrolment. The present ungenerous award will mean not just a diminution in student numbers but a substantial slap in the face to a worthwhile, innovative and well-run institution that should be enabled to plan ahead. I beg you, Mr. Speaker, to grant Parliament the opportunity of a short debate on this subject in the light of the report.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Cambridgeshire, North-East (Mr. Freud) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 10 for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
"the Secretary of State's announcement of the grant for 1985, 1986, and 1987 for the Open University."
I regret to tell the hon. Member that I must give him the same answer as I gave to the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts). I do not consider that the matter that he has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 10. I cannot therefore submit his application to the House.

Unborn Children (Protection) Bill (Committee Proceedings)
5.4 pm
Mr. Willie W. Hamilton: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I received notification yesterday that I had been selected to serve on the Standing Committee dealing with the Unborn Children (Protection) Bill. I was also notified yesterday that that Committee was to start its proceedings on Wednesday next.
You will understand, Mr. Speaker—I will not go into the merits of it — that that is a technical, complex, highly controversial and emotional Bill. It is imperative, therefore, that hon. Members who are to serve on that Committee have ample time in which to consult outside specialist bodies so as to frame intelligent amendments.
I gather that the procedure that has been followed in getting the Bill into Committee so early is entirely within the rules of order and that nothing untoward has been done either to bend or break the rules. I gather from information that I have received from the Public Bill Office that it is within your discretion, Mr. Speaker, to allocate Bills to particular Committees and that it is also within your discretion to change your mind.
I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that Back Benchers have the right to protection when a situation occurs in which we are not able to play a proper part in ventilating our views and the views of many members of the public on matters of critical importance. In this matter, it is abundantly clear that we shall not have time to frame amendments, still less to consult interested parties outside.
The matter is within your discretion, Mr. Speaker. I do not know how it could be done, but perhaps there is a way by which we could delay — for an indefinite period or for whatever the period might be—the initial meeting of the Committee to enable us to do the things that we want so much to do.
Mr. David Crouch: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I, too, was notified yesterday that I was to serve on the Standing Committee. I was astounded when I saw that the Committee was to sit next week. I had no idea that that stage of the Bill would come forward so quickly. It is normally the procedure of the House that private Members' Bills go to Standing Committee C. From a reading of the Order Paper and the Vote, it was clear that a lot of business was before Standing Committee C and therefore I had not anticipated that I would be required to prepare myself within a week for this important Committee.
We are speaking of no ordinary Bill. It is no light measure and it is not an easy matter on which to speak. I made that point when I spoke on Second Reading. The speech that I made on that occasion took several days' preparation and involved a great deal of professional and scientific advice from outside the House. If I am to serve minority interests on the Committee — because the House gave an overwhelming decision in favour of the Bill, whereas I am against it — my arguments will depend on medical and scientific advice and I cannot be ready by next Wednesday. As one of the minority on the Committee, I shall be severely prejudiced.
When I pressed the Minister for Health in the House to bring forward his own measure, he pleaded that he could not do so in the time because of the great amount of
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research and study that would be required. He has every facility on which to draw — scientific advisers, chief medical officers and a host of scientists. The ordinary Back Bencher seeking to speak on the Bill—one of the most complex scientific and moral measures to come before the House for many years — must be at a great disadvantage when rushed in this way. I therefore appeal to you, Mr. Speaker, to give consideration to the matter.
Mr. Leo Abse: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. I plead with you to heed the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) and the supporting comments of the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch).
I suddenly find myself a member of the Standing Committee. Today, Thursday, one is expected to prepare oneself for the Committee proceedings next Wednesday. However experienced we may be as parliamentarians, this preparation requires a great deal of work. I support my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central in his insistence that it requires an extraordinary amount of consultation with outside medical and scientific bodies. We cannot do all this between now and Wednesday. Surely, on a Bill which requires such careful scrutiny and has such awesome consequences, the minority on the Committee must have an opportunity of being sufficiently informed.
In asking you, Mr. Speaker, to use your good offices to see that the Bill is postponed for at least some weeks, we are asking you to protect the minority on the Committee, who will have a heavy burden and will need constantly to consult with people who, by their very nature, are not very easily accessible. It cannot be expected that doctors engaged in clinical practice and scientists distributed throughout the country can become immediately accessible to give advice and guidance to those of us who will certainly require them. I therefore trust that there can be a hiatus so that we can have an opportunity of putting forward considered, carefully drawn amendments which may help to shape the proposition, which at the moment a minority of us regard as one that would adversely affect the interests not only of the scientific community but of perhaps a million infertile people, who, as I well know from my correspondence, are deeply concerned about this Bill.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am not one of those selected for the Committee although I am working in co-operation with hon. Members who have an interest in this Bill, as I believe you know. I too would like to support the points that have been made. I have been in contact with medical people involved in research on disability. I was given advice that led me to believe that there were at least a few weeks before this Bill would come to Committee and those medical people told me that it would the end of March or the beginning of April before they would be in a position to give a considered opinion on this matter.
In view of the short period between the publication of the Bill and Second Reading and the fact there have not been opportunities for medical people to make proper representations, and bearing in mind the small number of people opposed to the Bill on the Committee because of the balance of the vote on Second Reading, I press very strongly indeed that you take the points made this afternoon.
Mr. Speaker: I have listened very carefully. I did have some foreknowledge that this was going to be raised. As the House well knows, it has been the practice for many years that an hon. Member—or a right hon. Member in this case — who has a Bill, can if he sees a slot in another Committee, transfer it from Committee C, which is the Committee that normally considers private Members' Bills. I have no authority to delay it.
The course for hon. Members who feel very strongly about it is to consult the Chairman of that Committee, because it is he who decides the day on which it will meet. The Chairman, as hon. Members probably know, is the hon. Member for Staffordshire, Moorlands (Mr. Knox). If they consult him, I am sure that he will listen carefully to their request.
Mr. Alan Williams: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am grateful for the information and the guidance that you have just given to my hon. Friends. However, it might be for the convenience of the House, as the Leader of the House has just come in, if he could consider the representations that are being made, because it was quite unexpected that this private Member's Bill would be transferred from the normal private Members' Committee to what would normally be the Government's Committee, Committee D. Therefore the Leader does become involved in this process, and perhaps he could intervene on behalf of my hon. Friends and hon. Members opposite.
Mr. Speaker: I do not think that it is anything to do with the right hon. Gentleman. This has been the practice for many years. The House well knows that I had some responsibility for this sort of thing some 10 years ago, and it has always been thus.

Unborn Children (Protection) Bill (Committee Proceedings)
  BILL PRESENTED
    WORKING CONDITIONS OF GOVERNMENT TRAINEES
    Mr. Dave Nellist, supported by Mr. Terry Fields, Mr. Tom Clarke, Mr. Gerald Bermingham, Mr. Eddie Loyden, Mr. Dennis Skinner, Mr. Roland Boyes, Mr. Tam Dalyell, Mr. John Evans, Ms. Jo Richardson, and Mr. Dennis Canavan, presented a Bill to amend the law relating to health, safety and other working conditions of the trainees on Government training schemes; to make further provision with regard to conditions of employment and payment of such trainees and the responsibilities of the Manpower Services Commission to them; to regulate the terms of youth training schemes; and to establish the right to a job of trainees who complete the youth training scheme: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 8 March and to be printed. [Bill 95].

Welsh Affairs
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]
5.15 pm
The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Nicholas Edwards): The year since our last Welsh Day debate has been overshadowed by the coal strike. The dispute has brought suffering, hardship, violence and waste that seem all the more tragic because of the unity and loyalty displayed by Welsh miners. That loyalty has been cruelly misused by Mr. Scargill. After seven rounds of negotiation had failed; after proposals from ACAS had been rejected; and after Mr. Scargill had repeatedly boasted that he had not budged an inch, the TUC painstakingly produced a formula that it thought offered a fair and reasonable basis for a settlement. As The Guardian put it last Friday,
"it was an honourable and decent framework and the NUM Executive tore it up".
We are confronted today, as we have been for nearly a year, with the impossible demand that no pit should be closed on economic grounds. It is a demand that every Labour Government would have regarded as an absurdity. Yet we continue to be faced with a dispute that is closing coal faces, wasting resources, losing markets and damaging hundreds of other businesses. National economic growth has been less than it would otherwise have been; unemployment higher than it would have been.
The TUC has discovered as painfully as the rest of us that it is impossible to negotiate with Mr. Scargill. There is only one way now to end this tragic dispute and that is for the miners to end it themselves. They have the best offer on the table since nationalisation; there is the prospect of new pits in south Wales; there is a bright future for the industry if losses can be reduced and if the industry is prepared to compete again on quality and price.
If the miners hesitate they could do no better than to look to the example of the steel industry. Its performance has been remarkable. Despite the obstacles placed in its path, it has maintained production, held its market share and kept its customers' confidence at home and abroad. The health of steel is a crucial element in determining the future size and shape of the coal industry in Wales. The strike has proved very clearly that steel can and will be produced without Welsh coal, using imported coal if necessary. It is not the steel industry that has been damaged by the strike but the long-standing partnership between coal, steel and rail. For the railwaymen in particular the strike has been a disaster. They have lost business and jobs that I fear they will never recover.
It was a privilege to be present at the annual dinner to mark St. David's day at Llanwern a couple of weeks ago, along with the chairman, management, trade unionists and representatives of every section of the works, together with those who have operated the convoys and the wharves and the men who have controlled an immensely difficult operation to keep the great steelworks in full production.
Mr. D. E. Thomas: Do I understand that the right hon. Gentleman is now saying that the continual danger experienced by road users, including myself, on the M4 during the period of the strike, with the convoys that are such a danger to motorists, should continue?
Mr. Edwards: What I am saying is that the steel industry will decide what is the most economic and

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sensible way of moving the raw materials it needs and that I think it likely that some of its materials that had previously been carried by rail may well continue to be carried by road in the future.
It is a particularly sad fact in the light of the efforts of the steel men that one consequence of the mining dispute has been to postpone investment decisions that affect the industry, particularly the decision about the highly important concast scheme for Llanwerne. But at Port Talbot very good progress is being made on the £171 million project for refurbishing the hot strip mill. It has been a tremendous feat by those at Port Talbot that has maintained very high levels of production, despite the inevitable disruption and despite the coal strike. At Shotton, BSC is working on a £25 million galvanising line that is expected to start production in 1986.
The positive reaction that we have seen in the steel plants and generally throughout manufacturing industries in Wales has been particularly important in view of the continuing very high level of unemployment, with 185,529 on the register. Particularly disturbing has been the increase in long-term unemployment, which causes the greatest social distress and is the firmest indication of this country's continuing inability to compete even in a situation of rising demand.
One of the more sobering sets of statistics that I have seen recently showed that in this country unit costs have risen by 5 per cent. or more over the last year during a period when they have fallen by 5 per cent. in Japan. If we cannot reduce the differential between high unit costs here and overseas, there is no possible course of action that Government can take to get unemployment down. Neither the policies of this Government nor any of the alternatives that are proposed can work if we fail to compete with other countries.
It cannot be a shortage of demand that is the cause of high unemployment. The demand is there. Output has been rising for nearly four years. It passed the 1979 peak in 1983; it went higher still last year and all the latest economic forecasts — including two this week — suggest that it will continue to rise substantially in 1985. That increase in demand, the sharp rise in company profits and last year's 13 per cent. increase in manufacturing investment are now creating a substantial number of additional jobs so that there are approaching half a million more people in employment in the United Kingdom than there were 18 months ago.
The good industrial relations we have in Wales and the determination of individual companies to lower costs and compete, especially at a time when export opportunities are so strong, is the best way of accelerating that process of new job creation. When David Jenkins, secretary of the Wales TUC, joined our inward investment team in Japan last autumn, he and I found one striking change from the response during my previous visit three and a half years earlier. Then, every Japanese industrialist expressed anxiety about British industrial relations. On this occasion, they went out of their way to tell us that they understood that the coal strike was wholly exceptional and that industrial relations and performance in their plants in Wales and in their suppliers' plants were first-class. That is why we shall see this year very substantial investment by Japanese companies in major new projects in Wales.
This investment will not just be Japanese. I think it likely that after two years of exceptionally high levels of capital investment by manufacturing companies, both
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foreign and British, the volume of manufacturing investment will be even greater in Wales in the year ahead. I am encouraged in that view by the number and scale of the projects notified to the Welsh Office. During 1984, 245 offers of regional selective assistance were made with a value of over £53 million, and nearly 18,000 jobs were associated with those offers. In 1984 we saw a doubling of the number of new industry projects and expansion schemes and all the indications are that in 1985 we will do better still. Since we established WINvest in April 1983 we have secured 46 entirely new projects by overseas companies involving capital expenditure in excess of £200 million with a promise of nearly 4,500 new jobs and in the same period we have had the announcement of 24 investment projects by overseas companies already operating in Wales involving capital expenditure worth over £100 million and more than 2,000 new jobs. In 1984 we successfully maintained our 1983 achievement in securing around 24 per cent. of new overseas projects and jobs coming to the United Kingdom. Taking new projects and expansions by overseas companies together, Wales has increased its share from 14·4 per cent. to 18·5 per cent. of the total number of United Kingdom jobs created. That is a magnificant record.
Mr. Dafydd Wigley: The Secretary of State referred to selective financial assistance. Does he accept that the rush of applications to the Welsh Office in recent months has been caused by the deadline for investment grants? Does he further accept that the areas that will receive selective financial assistance will not obtain the old-style investment grant and are in real danger of missing out when the rush comes to an end? Areas outside development areas, but which have similar industries based in them, will qualify for consideration for investment, which means that development areas will miss out.
Mr. Edwards: We are receiving a very large number of new applications, including applications from the areas that will be eligible only for selective assistance. New visits by those interested are running at a very high level. Interest in investment in Wales continues, and I do not think that the hon. Gentleman's fears are justified.
Mr. Keith Best:Is it not a fact that since 1 July 1975, 79 per cent. of all jobs associated with selective financial assistance applications that have been accepted have actually come under a Conservative Administration?
Mr. Edwards: It is undoubtedly a very high figure — I think, more than 70 per cent. The level of investment is rising substantially.
What is encouraging in the light of the present unemployment figures is that many of the largest projects that have been announced in recent years have only just begun to reach the point at which they start to make a significant impact in terms of jobs. For example, the buildings for Parrot at Cwmbran and Sharp at Wrexham, which between them will provide some 900 jobs, are now just at the point of occupation. The Invacare Bridgend project and Laura Ashley at Newtown and Wrexham, together providing more than 1,000 jobs, have not yet made an impact on the employment figures. At Newport, the work force at Inmos has been building up steadily at Dyffryn park, and we are looking for over 600 further jobs

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at the assembly and test facility at Coldra, now in an advanced stage of construction. In Clwyd, the Shotton paper mill project is on schedule and will start providing significant permanent employment in the months ahead. These are only a few examples of a large number of cases where investment already made is going to contribute to the number of people in work during the next 12 months.
The new investment requires new skills and it will be an increasing priority of Government to see that the expenditure on employment and training measures, which at present are costing more than £2 billion in the country as a whole, are used effectively to provide the training and skills that we need and as the means for ensuring that employers themselves provide training on the scale that is required. We have already announced a major expansion of training provision by the MSC. In Wales as a whole, the number of training opportunities to be made available through the MSC will increase by some 65 per cent. from just over 4,700 in 1984–85 to over 7,700 in 1985–86 and is expected to have almost doubled by 1986–87.
To achieve the maximum amount of the most effective training does involve a reorganisation of existing provision and a re-examination of skillcentre provision. But MSC's plans—far from reducing skillcentre training—envisage an overall increase by 1986–87 in the number of people trained in skillcentres in Wales. The MSC strategy has identified particular places, notably Llanelli and Pontllanfraith, where it believes scope may exist for better use of skillcentre provision and its replacement by other types of training. However, I emphasise that no final decision will be made about the future of any skillcentre, including those at Llanelli and Pontllanfraith, until I am satisfied that arrangements are in place that safeguard the quantity, quality and accessibility of training in the areas concerned.
Mr. Gareth Wardell: I am grateful for those remarks. Can the Secretary of State confirm that my understanding is correct, that the decision to close the Llanelli skillcentre has not been taken and that, if the MSC review is favourable, that skillcentre will be kept open?
Mr. Edwards: It is correct that no final decision has been taken. The chairman of the MSC has used the same words that I have just used about the necessity to ensure that alternative arrangements will provide the necessary quantity, quality and accessibility of training before any decision is taken.
I referred to the role of local authorities, and I welcome the fact that Dyfed and South Glamorgan have now joined the other Welsh education authorities that have decided to launch projects based on the technical and vocational education initiative. I have also made arrangements for additional financial provision for the advanced further education sector in Wales.
Having referred to the schools, I want to deal with the allegation that is so frequently made that there has been a substantial cut in education provision. In reality, and taking account of inflation, the figures show that expenditure on the education service has not been reduced at all during our period in government, despite the fall in pupil numbers that has taken place. Current expenditure on education, excluding meals and milk, in real terms has remained virtually constant, though the number of pupils
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has declined by more than 10 per cent. As a result, pupil-teacher ratios have improved and the expenditure per pupil has risen. Undoubtedly individual schools face real difficulties; but when we have the best ever pupil-teacher ratio and the best ever expenditure per head this must be because local authorities are not making the best possible use of resources.
If improved training and education are one contribution we can make to economic recovery, the effective use of capital expenditure is clearly another. I have already referred to the fact that manufacturing investment is sharply up and that we are seeing a surge of major capital projects. Capital investment is not confined to the private sector. We are running very large public sector capital programmes in Wales. Over the next three years, on present plans, capital expenditure by local authorities, the Welsh Office and its agencies is likely to be of the order of £2 billion.
Investment in the trunk road programme has averaged about £116 million over the last three financial years and will average about £126 million over the next three. We are spending over £42 million this year on building new hospitals, which is over 11 per cent. more in real terms than when this Government took office. The Welsh water authority, which is spending £40 million this year on capital projects, is planning to increase expenditure to £55 million next year and approximately £70 million the year after. One consequence of the relative success by Welsh local authorities in holding down current expenditure—I am glad to see that average rate increases in Wales are likely to be less than 7 per cent. this year — has been that net capital resources that we have been able to make available to local authorities are at a level nearly double those of England in per capita terms.
It was in the course of the Welsh day debate just two years ago, in February 1983, that I announced the first projects to be approved in Wales under what was then the new urban development grant scheme. The present position is that 31 projects have been approved under the UDG scheme. They include industrial, housing, hotel, office and commercial developments, and grants amounting to some £10·5 million are helping to bring forward total investment of over £65 million in urban areas throughout Wales. One of the most encouraging features of the UDG scheme in Wales has been the way in which it has stimulated private housing development in some of our valley areas where there has been little or no new private housebuilding for many years.
Recent UDG approvals have included a grant of £1·4 million o ensure that much-needed refurbishment of the Kingsway shopping centre in Newport will go ahead shortly. The total development will cost £4·8 million and there are good prospects of very substantial additional shopping investment as a direct spin-off from the refurbishment scheme.
In Cardiff the Holiday Inn project, which I announced two years ago, is going well. In the Welsh day debate two years ago, I called upon local authorities, public bodies, landowners and developers to come forward with imaginative proposals for the comprehensive redevelopment of the largely derelict dockland areas of Cardiff south of the main railway line. I was heartened by the enthusiastic response from all quarters and proposals came forward from several major development companies.
Proposals put forward by Tarmac plc were eventually selected and submitted to me by South Glamorgan county

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council for consideration for urban development grant support. I am delighted to be able to announce today, following discussions in which the county council has been fully involved, that I have approved an urban development grant framework based on a grant of £8·5 million in respect of the Tarmac proposals. There are, of course, many points of detail still to be resolved and I must emphasise that no development can take place until all statutory procedures associated with the acquisition of the necessary land are fulfilled. But, subject to those provisions, I am confident that the UDG framework which I have approved will enable the county council and Tarmac plc to proceed with the detailed work involved in implementing its exciting proposals for the regeneration of this part of our capital city. The chairman of Tarmac assured me today that he was enthusiastic to go ahead with the scheme and that the company would do everything it could to make the scheme work as it was originally conceived. He committed the resources of Tarmac, and I for my part said that we would approach our commitments with the flexibility that is necessary for a scheme of this scale and complexity. This is a very important day for Cardiff. My one regret is that Michael Roberts is not with us to see it through; he was in at the start.
While on the subject of capital projects I want to say a word about the Severn bridge. Hon Members will recall that our programme for the maintenance and strengthening work on the Severn bridge was announced as long ago as February 1984. The hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) sought information in a parliamentary question last week, and there was no new information in the answer except that a lot more work has now been done on the detail of the five-year programme. A major objective of the timing of this programme is to avoid delays on the bridge; immense care is being taken in planning the work to achieve that.
I can also tell the House that the consultants who were appointed in August 1984 to carry out a study of the second crossing have now completed the first part of the study and copies will shortly be placed in the Library. Moreover, they have already started work on the second phase and it is the intention of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Transport to give full details of the possible options very shortly. I can assure the House that we are absolutely determined to safeguard this vital crossing and to ensure that there is the minimum possible interruption to traffic at any stage during the repair programme. Nothing has changed since the announcement of the repairs and the feasibility study on 7 February 1984 and it is irresponsible for the hon. Member for Newport, East to suggest that there are new and unknown factors that give cause for alarm. I can assure him that there are not.
I have described the way in which we are using capital resources in the public sector to improve the infrastructure and the social and working environment in Wales. Increasingly that public sector investment is being paralleled by the contribution from the private sector. The developments that are taking place in Swansea, Cardiff and Newport are examples of urban renewal based on that partnership.
Health care is, and will remain, pre-eminently and overwhelmingly the responsibility of the state; but here too the private sector can supplement the resources available to the National Health Service. This Government have provided a substantial increase in real resources to the Health Service. With these extra resources we have been
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able to provide an increase of over 15 per cent. in the numbers of front line staff — doctors, dentists, nurses and others directly concerned with the care of patients. We are achieving a substantial increase in the number of inpatient and outpatient cases and the introduction of important new regional services.
One important reason for involving the private sector in the provision of renal dialysis services within the NHS is not just to make use of the considerable experience of the firms involved but the fact that they are providing capital resources for the units at Carmarthen and Bangor amounting to about £400,000, enabling us to spend comparable sums on other services. My "open door" policy for renal dialysis with a network of subsidiary units is the first of its kind in the United Kingdom. The third main renal unit at Swansea, which I announced at this lime last year, is nearing completion and will begin to accept patients in March. The bone marrow transplant programme, which I also spoke of at that time, has been in operation for some months. On other fronts, we are now at the detailed planning stage of the expanding cardiac surgery and cardiology service and are relocating the burns and plastic surgery unit. I take this opportunity to reaffirm my previous commitment to the all-Wales strategy for the development of services for mentally handicapped people.
To make the best possible use of resources I have taken decisions to strengthen at all levels the general management of the NHS in Wales. I was delighted to be able to appoint Mr. John Wyn Owen to be the new director of the NHS in Wales. He has very wide relevant experience both inside the Health Service and in the private sector, and he is already making his presence felt. All district health authorities in Wales have now appointed district general managers. In 1985 I shall set timetables for the introduction of strengthened general management, including the appointment of general managers, in each health unit.
The past year has been intensely difficult for farming and particularly for the livestock sector. The dairy industry is undergoing a traumatic process of readjustment following the introduction of quotas for milk. This is having a spin-off effect on other sectors, notably beef and the suppliers of agricultural machinery and feedingstuffs. Added to these difficulties, farmers in Wales were badly affected by the drought during 1984.
There will be a warm welcome among milk producers, as there was from the Opposition Front Bench earlier, for the announcement made by my right hon. Friend that milk producers who have both direct and wholesale quota can now switch their production between these two within their overall quota. Representations from farmers in Wales are concentrating on three main areas of concern. The first is the outcome of the consideration by the tribunal of exceptional hardship applications and appeals against local panel decisions, together with the allocations to be made under the outgoers scheme. The tribunal has completed its work, except for a few straggler cases, and is notifying producers of its decisions as quickly as possible. We are all indebted to the chairman and members of the tribunal and its local panels for their hard work — it was very hard work — in completing a difficult task under considerable pressure. Our present estimate is that development awards will be scaled down by between 35 per cent. and 40 per cent.
All applicants under the outgoers scheme have been asked to indicate by 13 March whether they wish to join.

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We expect that, taking England and Wales as a whole, we shall obtain sufficient quota to meet our objectives to offset exceptional hardship claims and ensure that producers selling less than 200,000 litres will have their 1985–86 quota restored to the 1983 pre-quota production levels. That would be of immediate benefit to 54 per cent. of Welsh producers.
The second subject about which we are receiving representations is the CAP price-fixing proposals. The prime concern of livestock producers will be to correct the imbalance that exists between cereals and livestock. Bearing in mind that there are still huge surpluses within the Community it must be in the interests of this country to avoid price increases. A 5 per cent. cut in cereal support prices, required by the guaranteed threshold, should be applied, and the British Government have made it clear that we would have preferred a further reduction in the co-responsibility levy to the target price increase of 1·5 per cent. for milk. Other key objectives will be the maintenance of the sheepmeat regime in essentially its present form and the retention of the beef premium scheme. Against a background of excess production and United Kingdom spending on CAP measures and national price guarantees that together are expected to amount to over 1·4 billion in 1985–86, it is not unreasonable that we should seek some savings in expenditure on capital grants.
The third matter to which the Government are devoting a great deal of thought and on which they are consulting widely is the way in which we can develop policies that will enable farmers to plan for the future with greater confidence. There will be a need, for example, to reach agreement on more flexible rules for the transfer of quota and provision for new entrants; but, more generally, there is a need to devise support systems that maintain rural communities and family farms without creating excess production at a cost to the taxpayer that is unacceptable. During the period ahead, it will be vital to ensure that Welsh farmers continue to benefit from England and Wales support and marketing arrangements. The advantage of such England and Wales arrangements can clearly be seen in the outgoers scheme, which will transfer substantial quota from England into Wales. Wales has surrendered about 11 per cent. but it is estimated that it will receive about 25 per cent. of reallocated quota.
There are those who urge us to seek special quota from the European Community for Wales or for Dyfed, the part of Wales worst affected by milk quotas. I have regretfully come to the conclusion that it would not be helpful to Welsh farmers to seek to reopen the European Community 1984–85 agreement on milk quotas. The Commission has made no proposals to change the quota package including the special quota reserve but already, as we heard this afternoon, the Irish are bidding for more, and it is unlikely to be in the interests of British farmers to have a revision of quota limits. It would be difficult to do as was suggested earlier and resist that Irish demand and at the same time make a comparable demand ourselves.
In any case, other producers in the United Kingdom outside Wales with similar problems would demand similar special treatment. Producers with similar problems deserve similar treatment whichever part of the Milk Marketing Board area they come from. I have no doubt at all that, if the special treatment were conceded to Welsh milk producers the integrated Milk Marketing Board for
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England and Wales would come under stress and there would be a counter demand to separate Wales from the England and Wales arrangement. We faced and resisted just that demand in connection with the outgoers scheme. I can think of nothing that would be more disastrous for Welsh agriculture than to find itself isolated in this way.
Mr. Thomas: Will the right hon. Gentleman comment on the argument of Dyfed county council that there is a case for special treatment for Welsh producers in view of the relatively greater importance of the milk industry in Dyfed and other parts of Wales and in view of the impact of the quota system on production and employment in the industry?
Mr. Edwards: I understand that argument. It has already been advanced by producers from the south-west who hurried off to Brussels in pursuit of those from Dyfed. Dr. Ventura from the Commission has told my Department that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to add a region to the reserve and that we have no chance of getting a share of the reserve for Dyfed, which could not be considered as a region in European Community terms. There are immense difficulties.
During this period of change, Welsh agriculture will particularly need to improve the marketing of its products. I welcome initiatives such as that of Welsh Lamb Enterprise and studies by the development agencies. These initiatives will need to be vigorously pursued. I am sure that the House will be glad to know that Mr. John Elfed Jones has accepted my invitation to join the Council of Food from Britain. He played a key role in marketing the industrial advantages of Wales during his period as industrial director at the Welsh Office. He, together with the chairman of the development agencies and the tourist board, met me recently to discuss the effective marketing of Wales.
The House must understand this: it is absolutely crucial, if we are to create the jobs, the opportunities and the kind of environment for living that we would all like to see, to sell successfully Welsh products, the industrial advantages of Wales, the tourist attractions of Wales and the potential of Wales for investors and financial institutions. We have to make better known the cultural and creative activity that is going on within Wales. We of course have difficulties, but a great deal is changing for the better as well.
Tonight we shall no doubt hear the usual dirge from the Opposition. There will be every sort of complaint. In strident terms, for their own political advantage they will run their scares, repeat their libels and sell Wales short. That is always their cry and it does some damage. Fortunately, fewer and fewer people listen and more and more recognise and applaud the transformation taking place in Wales and wish to be part of it.
5.49 pm
Mr. Barry Jones:
"The Welsh people are having to pay for the profligate folly of this Government through higher interest rates, higher mortgage rates and the loss of jobs. It was totally unnecessary."
Those are not my words, but the words of the Secretary of State when he held my position in 1978.
The Under-Secretary of State said then:
"We shall return to the subject of employment time and again in all the ways open to us, because we regard it as of supreme importance to the people of Wales. It is important to us as a party and we shall never let the Government forget that there are still

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more than twice as many unemployed now as when we left office in 1974." — [Official Report, Welsh Grand Committee; 29 November 1978, c. 23, 77.]
Just before the Secretary of State finished his speech he tried to libel the Opposition, but I have faithfully reproduced his and his hon. Friend's words when they tried to libel the then Government.
I note that the Secretary of State has promised us massive inward investment and, by implication, many jobs in the coming year. Of course, we shall need those jobs, because he failed to get the Nissan project. I wonder whether, if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Under-Secretary of State will be able to tell us whether the Honda company visited the Secretary of State. The headline in the Western Mail of 27 February concerning Cardiff was:
"Blow for city as 400 jobs are axed."
Recently in Delyn, Courtaulds announced 232 job losses; Sealink in Anglesey talked about 70 job losses; in Aberavon, Borg Warner announced about 800 job losses; and in Cardiff and Swansea, Howells Motors announced about 90 job losses. The Opposition wish to make the point that, however many hundreds of jobs the Secretary of State promises in the year ahead from inward investment, they are unlikely to equal the number of jobs lost during the past few months.
Mr. Best: Does the hon. Gentleman know what he is taking about in relation to my constituency? He mentioned 70 jobs, which will go by way of voluntary redundancy. Is he aware that those redundancies are being sought to secure a freight liner contract for the next five years which will put beyond doubt the continuance of the container service — an issue which under his Administration was hanging by a slender thread?
Mr. Jones: I do not accept the hon. Gentleman's point, but I was pleased to give him the chance to make it. In his constituency of Ynys Môn there are 4,951 jobless people. In Holyhead, male unemployment is 25 per cent. I look forward to hearing the speech which the hon. Gentleman may make later in the debate urging the Secretary of State to take action so that some of the unemployed in his constituency might have work.
The Secretary of State slanted much of his speech in the direction of the economy and of unemployment. I must remind the House that there are 185,000 jobless Welsh people, which represents an increase since 1979 of 125 per cent. In Wales as a whole, one in five men is jobless. in the Secretary of State's constituency of Pembroke, 7,151 are jobless. In my travel-to-work area, 13,517 people are jobless and male unemployment is 20 per cent. The question that I must ask the Secretary of State is this: when, under his policies, will our fellow Welsh citizens have a reasonable prospect of work? For five years he has promised us the broad sunlit uplands, but unemployment increases inexorably, Wales is deindustrialised, public expenditure is cut, the rate support grant is slashed, regional aid is cut, the Welsh Development Agency and the Development Board for Rural Wales are given insufficient funds to carry out their onerous tasks, and the housing budgets are cut.
Why do the Government wish to close skillcentres during an unemployment crisis? Both Welsh centres scheduled for closure are supported by local industrialists and trade unions, and they are vital to the needs of the area. The west Gwent centre at Pontllanfraith serves a vast
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industrial, densely-populated area, and it is immensely popular with local industry. People attend it for top-level training from throughout the south Wales valleys — an area with unemployment of more than 20 per cent. I would argue that it is among the worst afflicted areas of Great Britain.
If the Pontllanfraith centre is to close, people who require skillcentre training will face journeys of up to 60 miles each day to the nearest centres at Cardiff and Newport. There is a clear need for the west Gwent centre, because, with such high unemployment, it is criminal to reduce training in the valleys. I have visited the centre, which runs a superb industrial electronics course. Llanelli has 18 per cent. unemployment, and more than a third of the unemployed have suffered the indignity and despair of being without work for more than a year. During a visit to that centre I saw some superb examples of success. I saw teenagers engaged in learning skills which will increase their chances of permanent jobs. If the centre at Llanelli is closed, there will be no skillcentre to the west of Port Talbot. The Llanelli centre can already boast a 72 per cent. placement record.
It sometimes happens that industry suffers a shortage of skilled labour at the peak of a boom in the economy, but in Wales we are suffering skill shortages at the trough of a depression, with the Principality losing 145,000 jobs in five years.
Many of us fear that the Secretary of State is in danger of exchanging the substance for the shadow of a peripatetic training team system. We fear that the new system will be lacking in quantity, accessibility, continuity and quality of skill training. I shall always sponsor improvements to skillcentres, but I warn the Secretary of State that the local communities are deeply offended by the closure proposals. It is now arguable that there is no longer a majority of MSC commissioners in favour of the closure proposals. The Scottish local authority member has resiled from his previous position, and the Opposition argue that there is now a six to four majority against doing what the Secretary of State for Employment announced in the House last week.
Scotland has outpaced Wales in the electronics industry. The silicon glen has proved to be a thundering success, and Scotland enjoys 40,000 jobs created by more than 200 new companies. It has the highest concentration of integrated circuits in Europe. I believe — the Secretary of State may agree with me — that high tech for Wales is crucial and that we must aim to have a modern, 21st century economy. But the silicon valley has yet to make its mark, and I believe that the Secretary of State has been remiss in this area. I urge him to increase the number of research places at our universities, to enlarge the links between the electronics industry and secondary schools, to double the places for electronics graduates at Cardiff and Swansea universities and to push ahead with his plans for science parks in north and south Wales. The Deeside industrial park and the University College of North Wales at Bangor could be growth points for technology.
The right hon. Gentleman did not dwell upon housing in Wales. The Government allow some 18,000 Welsh building workers, drawing an estimated annual dole payment of £90 million, to remain jobless when Welsh housing conditions are the despair of our housing officers.
A recent report into housing conditions in Cynon Valley showed that a staggering 48 per cent. of all privately

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owned homes were unfit and that almost one quarter lack the most basic amenities. The belief held by Welsh housing experts is that such dismal statistics are not limited to Cynon Valley—there is a similar problem in many of our poorer communities — and that with the continued lack of Government investment the position is likely to worsen. What they and I find most disturbing is that Ministers seemingly have little knowledge of the scale of the problem. The Cynon Valley figures came to light because of a detailed investigation by that district authority.
Housing authorities' new build in Wales is down 50 per cent. on the figure for two years past. Repair schemes have been cut and large numbers of renovation grants are outstanding in every Welsh district authority area. All sectors have repeatedly made the point that Wales, with its disproportionate number of old and decaying properties, is a special housing case and that it needs special levels of investment.
With those disturbing figures from Cynon Valley in mind, it is clear that we need a meticulous and detailed investigation into the Welsh housing problem, taking the country district by district. That call has also been made by south Wales chief housing officers.
Mr. Best: Can the hon. Gentleman explain why under the last Labour Administration public sector house building fell by 85 per cent?
Mr. Jones: I believe that the record of Labour Administrations compares well with that of Conservative Administrations. I urge the hon. Gentleman, if he can catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to remind his right hon. Friend that 4,951 of his constituents are out of work and to urge him to step up house building so that many of his unemployed constituents can obtain jobs building houses for unemployed people.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Wyn Roberts): The hon. Gentleman has talked about the need for special measures with regard to improvement grants. The Government are spending about £80 million this year, and we spent about £107 million last year on improvement grants. That compares with a total of only £58 million or so during the whole of the five years in office of the previous Labour Government.
Mr. Jones: I must remind the Under-Secretary that the Association of District Councils said that capital spending for Welsh local authorities had suffered a real cut of £100 million in two years and that the brunt of that reduction was being borne by the housing services, for which capital spending was being cut by one third, or £80 million. Housing in Wales is, of now, the Augean stables of the Government's activities, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will give some account of himself if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
There is a savage irony for Welsh people. They have seen their cash-starved local authorities suffer reduced spending through Government interference, targets, penalties and the threat of rate capping, yet the Government now interfere with the water authorities in the opposite way. The Government denounce local authorities for raising their rates higher than the rate of inflation, but force the Welsh water authority to increase its charges
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hugely. Despite prudent budgeting and severe cuts in the labour force, the Welsh water authority has been forced by the Government to increase domestic charges by more than 12 per cent. It is clear that the authority does not want to impose such a savage increase. It is equally clear that, with inflation running at 5 per cent., those increases in water charges will be the cause of fierce resentment in Wales.
The harsh point is that the water authority has said that it prefers to keep its charges in line with inflation. Its attempts to budget carefully and to keep the interests of the consumers to the forefront have been sabotaged by the Government. At present Welsh water consumers find their already unfair position worsened through what amounts to a tax on the water that they use.
The Flintshire branch of the National Farmers Union wrote to me about the proposal to increase water charges by 12·5 per cent.—as it put it—for 1985–86. It said:
"It is difficult to understand why a Government which takes strenuous steps to keep down inflation to 5 per cent. directs Water Authorities to increase their charges by 12½ per cent. We believe that the Government is applying pressure on Water Authorities to make excess profits in order to avoid capital borrowing. … It surely must be wrong for a Government to raise revenue from a public monopoly which is indispensable to everyone but which bears harshly on many least able to pay these charges."
The right hon. Gentleman referred to agriculture. I, too, must welcome the relief that he has announced to those who produce wholesale and retail milk. It is an important step. He has had many representations from throughout Wales. The industry has taken harsh knocks during this past year. Wales was dismayed by the cuts at the Welsh plant breeding station at Aberystwyth. The milk quota crisis created unprecedented apprehension among dairy farmers, and it caused financial and business difficulties.
There have been strains in the sheepmeat and beef markets. Cuts in capital grants have been badly received. It is calculated, allowing for inflation of 4 per cent. for 1985–86, that the Welsh Office agriculture budget faces an 8 per cent. reduction in real terms this coming year.
I warn the right hon. Gentleman that, as Wales has one quarter of Britain's 9 million sheep, he had better carefully consider the sheepmeat regime. The same applies to the beef sector. Welsh farmers in those sectors expect better of the Government than the dairy quota saga, which hurt so many small farmers. I must stress that 90 per cent. of Welsh farmers depend upon livestock for their living. They have no prospect of turning elsewhere if they have to leave that sector.
The Opposition are anxious about the declining prospect for rural Wales. The dairy quota crisis carried with it job losses in the creameries. We fear job losses and declining services in villages and towns as a result of the Transport Bill. The parliamentary opposition to the Transport Bill will be the stiffest possible.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned coal. A programme of pit closures in south Wales will leave many valley communities desperately vulnerable, both economically and socially. The male unemployment figures for the south Wales coalfield are too serious to contemplate closures. In Gwent, male unemployment stands at 20 per cent.; in mid-Glamorgan, 23 per cent.; in west Glamorgan, 20 per cent. and in Dyfed, 20 per cent. It is arguable that unemployment may double to 40 per cent. in some of the pit communities in the valleys. We know of an area—
Mr. Stefan Terlezki: Will the hon. Gentleman give me a straight answer? Does he agree with the TUC or with Mr. Scargill on pit closures?
Mr. Jones: The situation is far too serious for the hon. Gentleman to attempt to precis a complicated matter. It does no right hon. or hon. Member any good to push too hard on issues which may be being resolved now, or which may be resolved soon.
Last month, when I visited St. John's colliery in Maesteg, the lodge officials told me that their town could ill afford to lose the colliery's 900 jobs. They reminded me that the Llyfni valley once yielded 10,000 coal-mining jobs, but today has only 1,100. They were young men with families, and they were worried about the prospects for the boys and girls leaving school. They wanted to know where these young people could get jobs locally. They told me that they could see no prospect of alternative jobs if the colliery closed.
The Secretary of State was not able to say how, in the years ahead, he could see mass unemployment in Wales being reduced. These are the questions which the mining communities, and the valley communities as a whole, are asking. Where will new jobs come from, given mass unemployment as it now exists? The Secretary of State and the Tory party are not giving many answers to that crucial question.
The Welsh coalfield has special and vital coals that are in short supply. Britain is short of anthracite, prime coking coal and first-class domestic fuel coal, and we shall need every tonne of power station coal as well. There is a market for more than 9·5 million tonnes of Welsh coal a year. On this basis, we support the south Wales NUM. At best, there are only 20,000 jobs in the pipeline for the next four years. What hope can this present to the almost 50 per cent. of Wales's jobless who have been unemployed for more than a year?
The Secretary of State should tell his colleagues in the Treasury that Wales needs jobs and hope. We need a reversal of housing cuts, an immediate announcement of a second crossing over the Severn, a greatly strengthened regional policy, the restoration of the cuts that have been announced in regional aid, high-tech coal faces for our coalfield, major rail investment programmes, including the electrification of the Crewe-Holyhead and Swansea-Paddington lines, action on Wales's decaying sewers and water mains, and the setting up of co-operatives in the knowledge that they generate jobs in the manufacturing sector and offer full worker democracy. These projects are desirable in themselves and are capable of generating many new jobs.
I have travelled extensively in Wales and frequently to areas which I previously visited as a Minister in the 1970s. I am concerned at the incidence of poverty, the degeneration in housing conditions and the despair created by unemployment and its frequency.
The consensus in Wales—that is, of all but the most obdurate and ideologically committed Conservatives—is that urgent action must be taken to lessen the evils of the mass unemployment problem. At Merthyr last Monday, 300 people crowded into the town hall to attend a conference on unemployment. I report to the House anger and fear at the lack of prospects for the jobless. It was not an assembly of extremists—indeed, it was addressed by the Archbishop of Wales. It is clear from meetings such as that at Merthyr that the Welsh people are desperately
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anxious for a change of course in the Government's policy. The Opposition suggest that the Budget presents the Government with a major opportunity to lessen the evil consequences of their policies. We want to see a lessening of the misery and despair that mass unemployment creates. We demand from the Secretary of State and the Government an urgent and decisive change of policy in favour of the unemployed.
6.15 pm
Sir Raymond Gower: The hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) made a long speech attacking the ills of the Welsh economy, but one cannot consider the ills of Wales without considering the Welsh economy in the context of the British economy, the EEC economy and the world economy, which he entirely failed to do. The factors that have handicapped industry in Britain and Wales in the past decade or more have not been those that can easily be rectified solely within the Welsh setting. Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that the loss of the captive markets of the Commonwealth and the decline of the old basic industries such as coal, iron, steel and tinplate have happened not only here but in every comparable country? The lateness of Britain's entry into the Common Market created another great disadvantage with which we had to contend.
Mr. Roy Hughes: You can say that again!
Sir Raymond Gower: No, it was the lateness of our entry that caused the problem. Had we entered the Common Market sooner, we should have been in a much stronger position.
We have a bad heritage not only from obsolete machinery but from obsolescent labour attitudes in industry, bad labour relations and bad practices to which, even now, we have not found a solution. The hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside does not recognise the effect that the vast growth in the economies of Japan and many other countries in the far east, such as South Korea, the great competition that has emanated from there and even the growth of the industrial economies of countries such as Spain has had on Britain and Wales.
The new technologies have made our traditional skills relatively less important and the burden of excessive bureaucracy, not only in our administration but in our public industries and, to some extent, in private industries and overmanning in industry have all created problems that we have not even yet succeeded in solving. There has also been the failure of successive United Kingdom Governments—I include Governments of both parties—to recognise in full the magnitude of these changes. They have not been tackled when they could have been tackled more easily.
All this is a heritage that is extraordinarily difficult for a country to overcome. The result has been that the huge task of not only changing but reviving the Welsh economy and meeting these new challenges has not been carried out.
On the other hand, some encouraging features have not yet been mentioned. It is a great advantage that for some time there has been a consistently low rate of inflation. It is still not sufficiently low, and is still greatly in excess of that of many comparable industrial countries in Europe and elsewhere in the world. We should be encouraged by the proportion of the newer industries, both internally

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created and from abroad, that have come into the Principality. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned this point, and it is encouraging that the rate is far greater than we might have anticipated. It is an enormous achievement for us to have 24 per cent. of such industries coming into a relatively small part of the United Kingdom. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside seldom refers in Welsh debates to the credit side of the balance.
The work of the industrial division of the Welsh Office and of the Welsh Development Agency is highly to be commended. Their achievements have not been inconsiderable and have exceeded many of our expectations.
Mr. D. E. Thomas: It would be helpful if the hon. Gentleman would comment on the practice of some multinational companies in Wales which recently threatened employees that, unless they accepted wage cuts, investment would be deferred. Some have also demanded early retirement, as happened recently in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd).
Sir Raymond Gower: I deprecate such threats, but we lack realism. When, three or four years ago, there was industrial difficulty in the United States, trade unions accepted reductions in earnings. That agreement has borne remarkable fruit. I do not attribute blame to one side of industry, but we must recognise collectively the magnitude of the task. The hon. Gentleman's intervention shows that he does not recognise it. I have no evidence of such threats, but I accept the hon. Gentleman's word that there might have been some in some obscure place. I have not heard of any in a major industry.
Mrs. Ann Clwyd: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way as he referred to my constituency as an obscure place. Is he aware that the Japanese company Hitachi recently asked employees aged over 35 to take early retirement?
Sir Raymond Gower: I did not refer to the hon. Lady's constituency. I am aware that Hitachi has been in some difficulty.
Mr. Nicholas Edwards: We should welcome the substantial investment that Hitachi is making to provide future employment.
Sir Raymond Gower: Indeed. I should have thought that all hon. Members would welcome that investment.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside welcomes the institution of the first Welsh business centre for technology in his constituency. The hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) must be pleased that a similar business technology centre has been established in Newport. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred to the setting up of WINvest for inward investment and the establishment of WINtech to stimulate the technological development that the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside agrees we badly need. We must admit that Wales still lacks high technology. Like the rest of the United Kingdom, Wales lacks robot technology. Unfortunately, Britain is lowest in the European league in that innovation.
I do not disagree with the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside that far too many of our people are out of work.
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I agree that far too few jobs are available. I assure him that worry on that count is not confined to one side of the House. We also are keen to find a solution, but it will not be easy to reconcile the control of inflation and management of the economy with the creation of new jobs. Nevertheless, that must be our objective. It is an operation that will require the co-operation of every interest and person in the Principality. Wales cannot act in isolation.
Ministers must not be reluctant to explain or to desist from explaining the urgency of the task. The solution cannot be achieved by Government alone, or by industry alone. However, I do not believe that things are as dismal as the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside would have us believe. There is now greater confidence in industry than there was a few years ago. Most of the jobs that have been lost have been in the old industries which have been in difficulty throughout the world, while the not inconsiderable number of new jobs are in modern industries. That is encouraging.
Mrs. Clwyd: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in one of those new industries — electronics — Wales has lost 521 jobs during the past 10 years?
Sir Raymond Gower: When new industries start, some will falter and some will fail. It is remarkable how, in difficult circumstances, many have established themselves and are contriving to do reasonably well. Britain must contend with highly competitive markets.
Although there are signs of revival in industry, companies have been handicapped by the coal industry strike. It is understandable that people in mining areas are worried about employment, but the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside must agree that it is extremely sad that the continuance of the strike has imperilled some pits that were not originally threatened. There cannot be a victor in a strike such as this, but it would be a sombre day for Wales and for Britain if it appeared that violence and mass picketing has triumphed. We must hope that an early resolution of the dispute will be followed by a readiness on both sides to reconstruct and restore the industry.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned the Severn crossing. We can expect the publication of the feasibility study in just over a year. I hope that it will be followed by prompt and fearless action by the Government to ensure that we have a reliable link across the Severn. If it is practical, I should prefer a Severn barrage with a road over the barrage. Such an imaginative development would be beneficial on both sides of the Bristol channel. I assure my right hon. Friend that, if the Government show a lack of readiness to take effective measures after publication of the study, right hon. and hon. Members from Wales will be united in trying to force a quick response from the Government. This is not a partisan issue. It is particularly important to the southern half of Wales.
An unpleasant disease has appeared in Wales, which is colloquially described as AIDS. I have long taken an interest in the work of the Welsh transfusion centre at Rhydlafer which, until recently, was in my constituency. I have asked Ministers in the Welsh Office, the Department of Health and Social Security and the Scottish Office many questions. Whatever Ministers may say, the signs that we have from other countries of the growth of that disease, with which medical science has only a limited

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ability to deal, show that this is a much more dangerous and horrific disease than either the British medical profession or Ministers are prepared to acknowledge.
I am afraid that there is an undue amount of complacency about this terrifying disease. I am particularly worried about the position of those who administer our blood transfusion centres. I hope that Ministers will bear in mind the strong case, which has so far been resisted, that AIDS should be a notifiable disease. If ever there were a case for making any disease notifiable, this is it. Health in the Principality is part of my right hon. Friend's responsibility. This may be one of the most formidable and horrifying problems with which he has had to deal.
6.31 pm
Mr. Leo Abse: Tempting as it would be to take up the remarks of the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Sir R. Gower) on AIDS and his foolish suggestion that it should be a notifiable disease, which would probably drive the whole issue underground and undoubtedly add to the genuine concerns of all of us about that, I shall not do so.
Fortunately, as a result of the vigorous and wide-ranging speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones), there is no necessity for us to concentrate upon the broader issues. Instead, we can deal with those particular issues which Back Benchers fortunately have the opportunity to deal with on a Welsh day.
It will not surprise the Secretary of State for Wales to hear that I shall be returning to all the problems that are arising out of the proceedings relating to bad work in our hospitals in Wales. I do not wish to recall again the attempts to mask the now notorious settlement of the University of Wales hospital. I do not want to go again into the details of how the surveyors' report was denied to the House and never placed in the Library until more than 12 months after the settlement. I do not want to go again into the details of how that settlement was presented only after vigorous press and House of Commons questions. I do not want to go again into the detail of how derisory it was and how it sought to exclude parliamentary surveillance and how evasive even when the storm had burst was the Secretary of State's approach, hiding, as it was, the revealing statement of claim of the action until he was forced to disgorge it.
Wales has made its judgment on the bungling and failure to monitor the issues with which the Secretary of State for Wales has so recently been involved. The taxpayer groans again as he observes that he will now be likely to be compelled to pay yet again as the architects sue the Secretary of State because of his appallingly maladroit handling of the issue.
I record these matters only to emphasise that it would be intolerable if, in the new set of claims on which the Secretary of State's agency is now embarking in respect of the defective work of the residential blocks of the Bangor hospital, we were to find displayed the same equivocation and bungling that characterised the University of Wales hospital affair. Those new claims, of which we are now belatedly learning, involving as they do two main companies, IDC Ltd. and HDC Ltd., with both of which Mr. Denis Thatcher is associated, raise issues which are deeply troubling.
Mr. Nicholas Edwards: The Hospital Design Consortium consists of S. W. Milburn and Partners, W. T. Hill and Co., quantity surveyors, and W. S. Atkins, engineers. I know of no connection between that consortium and Mr. Thatcher. The hon. Gentleman is muddling that consortium with another organisation.
Mr. Abse: In September 1981 The Times referred to the IDC Group Ltd., of which Housing Development Construction Ltd. is a wholly owned subsidiary. I would welcome the chance to give the Secretary of State the opportunity to explain that there is no association in respect of that company with Mr. Denis Thatcher.
Mr. Edwards: The hon. Gentleman has answered his own question. He gave the name associated with the letters that he spelled out. The Hospital Design Consortium was appointed in 1970 under the old Welsh hospital board and carried through the design work on that hospital. I have given the hon. Gentleman the companies that comprised that consortium.
Mr. Abse: If the acronym is misleading, as the right hon. Gentleman is seeking to point out, I welcome that. But it does not detract from the main substance of what I want to say since, clearly, the main company concerned, IDC Ltd., is associated with Mr. Denis Thatcher. Would the right hon. Gentleman like to intervene again to dissociate Mr. Denis Thatcher from IDC Ltd.? I notice that he does not and I am not surprised.
I notice in a vigorous and lively column by Mr. Paul Foot in the Daily Mirror that, on being questioned, IDC Ltd. was not prepared to say that Mr. Denis Thatcher was not associated with it.
The tactics that were adopted over the University of Wales hospital to mask the facts have, I regret to say, evidently taken place again. The evasion first began when the Welsh Office was questioned by the press about the defective buildings at Bangor. The Western Mail has made it clear how the press were initially sidetracked. On 20 February Mr. John Hibbs reported:
"Two weeks ago in response to press enquiries the Welsh Office provided details of legal action against the consortium responsible for the overall design of the hospital complex at Bangor. But it said nothing then about the preliminary action under contract against IDC or a sub-contractor both of which were involved in the construction of the nurses home."
We began with what I believe to be an evasion. The press did not then appreciate and was not helped to appreciate that IDC, the company with which Mr. Thatcher is associated, was in any way involved.
My hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside raised the issue on 11 February when, among other questions, he asked the Secretary of State:
"may I ask the right hon. Gentleman to say whether legal proceedings and writs are involved involving any other major hospitals in the Principality?"
How did the Secretary of State reply? He said:
"A writ was issued on 1 November in respect of Ysbyty Gwynedd and a statement of claim is being prepared."—[Official Report, 11 February 1985; Vol. 73, c. 4.]
Did the right hon. Gentleman say against whom? Did he mention in any manner or form that one of the companies, the major company involved, was the company with which Mr. Thatcher was associated? No. He displayed extraordinary reticence.
What happened next? A statement was made in the House of Commons. My hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside asked:

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"Has he issued writs against the construction company that built the nurses' home, which has major problems? Is the IDC construction company the company that built the nurses' home? What is the scale of moneys that the right hon. Gentleman seeks as compensation?"—[Official Report, 12 February 1985; Vol. 73, c. 172.]
Those were three clear, important and unequivocal questions that the Secretary of State was asked, and he did not show that he was pressed for time in the statement that he made on that day. One can look through Hansard, read it again and again, and find no answer at all to any of those three questions. However, the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside had revealed that IDC Ltd. was involved inevitably meant that the Welsh Office was bombarded with questions, knowing the association of IDC with Mr. Denis Thatcher.
Then and only then, after all that diffidence, out of the blue came a letter from the Secretary of State addressed to my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside, dated 18 February. Suddenly it appeared that the Secretary of State for Wales was using Hansard for his light reading — it was nothing to do with the bombardment of questions on the Welsh Office in respect of IDC. The letter came spontaneously, saying:
"On reading the Official Report for 12 February I see that although I gave a generalised answer there were specific questions that you asked about the IDC construction company and the nurses home in Bangor which I did not answer."
So out of that light reading, not prompted by civil servants or the bombardment of questions on the Welsh Office, suddenly that spontaneous letter came in which the right hon. Gentleman felt he should reveal what we now know. The credibility of that will be judged by Wales, as it will be by the House. In the statement we learnt that a claim had been submitted to IDC Ltd., which was the main contractor, about defective construction work. In his letter the Secretary of State said:
"This is presently the subject of negotiation. The question of a writ will only arise if negotiations are not successful."
The right hon. Gentleman added that IDC Ltd.
"has also been joined as a Third Party by the sub-contractors, Haden Young Ltd., against whom WHTSO has issued proceedings as a result of fire damage to the residences."
Mr. Alan Williams: Does my hon. Friend recognise that he is luckier than some of us in the House have been when we have tried to probe the Thatcher involvement in commercial contracts? Many of us spent five months trying to establish whether the Prime Minister knew or did not know of her son's involvement in the Cementation contract at the time that he was in Oman with her. She evaded and evaded in the same way that the Welsh Office has evaded for several months. She successfully evaded for five months, using every blocking system available. Therefore, I congratulate my hon. Friend on having completed that investigation, so we can return to the Oman question.
Mr. Abse: I shall return to the Oman question as I seek to develop my argument because what my right hon. Friend says is relevant to the issue.
I should like to know how those matters between the Secretary of State for Wales and the company concerned will be dealt with by him. Let me put the issue to him bluntly. How can the taxpayers feel confident that the Secretary of State, without fear or favour, will pursue those claims against his premier's husband? In particular,
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how can Wales feel confident that the claim is being pursued vigorously when it is known that the Secretary of State intervened at Mr. Thatcher's request—some would say command—on behalf of that self-same company to expedite a planning hearing?
Wales recalls the "Dear Nick" letter written on 10 Downing street notepaper to the Secretary of State and how, thanks to a leak in The Times, we learnt how the Secretary of State responded to that letter from Mr. Thatcher. He responded like a circus dog to his trainer. He said:
"The explanation … had better be good and quick: ie, this week."
Such obeisances by the Secretary of State in the past do not encourage the belief that he will now pursue Mr. Thatcher's company for every penny that is due to the taxpayers, money which, evidently, Mr. Thatcher's company is refusing to acknowledge is due.
Let me make this clear. The fact that the Secretary of State and Mr. Thatcher are on first-name terms does not necessarily mean that the Secretary of State would feel inhibited from dealing with that matter. After all, the Secretary of State writes to me quite frequently. He calls me Leo. I am bound to say that when I send copies of his letters to my constituents, I hope that they do not so misinterpret that as to imagine that I have any friendship with the Secretary of State. However, we know that the relationship between the Secretary of State and Mr. Thatcher goes far beyond that. On 18 September 1981, the Secretary of State boasted to The Times:
"I have known Denis Thatcher for a long time. He is a friend of mine. We meet quite frequently."
I do not know what is involved as we have not yet been told. I do not know whether hundreds or thousands, or millions, are involved. What I do know is that the more we examine the issue, the more unnerving it becomes from the point of view of the taxpayers of Wales. After all, IDC has been a haven for Conservative politicians out of office, from the right hon. Member for Waveney (Mr. Prior) to the former Member who represented Ashford.
Mr. Thatcher's role is far from clear. As The Times put it on 18 September 1981:
"The reason for the group appointing Mr. Thatcher is vague."
—Indeed it is.
"A spokesman said: 'He has wide business experience and it was thought this would be of benefit to IDC.' He said Mr. Thatcher's duties covered general business and organisational matters."
No doubt that includes letter writing.
With this background, clearly there are certain questions that have to be put to the Secretary of State. How much is involved? How much are the claims that are being pursued? There are two claims. There is the claim against the subcontractors with which IDC is joined, and the direct claim upon which the Secretary of State has said that he is negotiating. We want to know how much is being claimed. Indeed, since if any of these claims are compromised, suspicion is bound to loom over such settlements, it is important at this stage that we know the figures claimed so there can be no question again, I trust, of derisory settlements, this time favouring Mr. Thatcher's company.
In view of the friendship declared between Mr. Thatcher and the Secretary of State for Wales, I think that we are entitled to ask what steps the Secretary of State is taking to distance himself from his friend. Has any correspondence taken place on these issues between the

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Secretary of State for Wales and Mr. Thatcher since that last publicised and ill-fated leak in the correspondence about IDC at that time? Is the Secretary of State for Wales still meeting his friend frequently, as he was?
Mr. D. E. Thomas: In the case of this much publicised event in the constituency of Meirionnydd, I remind the House that relevant essential parts of the Welsh Office file are still missing.
Mr. Abse: These facts, if such are the facts, only add to the aura of suspicion with which these matters are surrounded and only make it more necessary that we should he given full, clear and not diffident explanations now.
Has the Secretary of State for Wales, because of this relationship, considered whether it is right that he should use his offices to endeavour to obtain a settlement? If he has, has he failed? Does he intend to use his private links to meet Mr. Thatcher privately and, if so, how does he intend to ensure that any settlement, which may well be genuine, is seen to be in the interests of the taxpayers and not in the interests of Thatcher's company? There is clearly need for full clarification from the Secretary of State of how he sees the position and how he intends to deal with it now that Denis Thatcher's association with this company has led to the position that the Secretary of State has had to issue against his boss's husband's company a writ, and is presently engaged in negotiation with that selfsame company over what may well be a large sum.
The third and most important question that I put to the Secretary of State for Wales is this. Has he made representations to the Prime Minister pointing out how impossible his personal situation is in these claims because of her husband's association with this company? I, of course, do not know whether this association of Mr. Thatcher with the company is continuing. We know that it was in existence in 1982, and it appears still to be in existence. What we do know is that in no way, even if he had already left, would it be irrelevant to what I have been saying, since the claims arise in respect of work done between 1978 and 1982 when we know Mr. Thatcher's interest to have been in existence; and, short of full disclosure of the terms of his financial association, any detriment or profit arising to the companies out of that period would clearly affect Mr. Thatcher personally. It would of course assist in the future if we knew that Mr. Thatcher had broken his connection with those companies, but, as I said earlier, I am not encouraged to believe that that has happened. The Secretary of State perhaps can tell us—he must know. Will he tell us?
I am not suggesting that Mr. Thatcher, if he chooses to continue with his private commercial life while he is the Prime Minister's husband, does not have the right to do so. There may be many justifications for his motivation. After all, he may be feeling insecure. The election is a long way off. [Interruption.] The knives are out on the Tory Back Benches now and indeed Conservative Members may find it less droll if I remind them of one other reason why Mr. Thatcher may feel that he should continue in his commercial activities. We all remember — it may be recent enough for even the young fogeys on the Conservative Benches to remember—
Mr. Best: I would rather he a young fogey than an old fogey.
Mr. Abse: We all remember that in the early 1970s food shortages could have arisen had people panicked and purchased excessively. We all remember the example that the Prime Minister, as the then Secretary of State for Education, set. She was discovered to be a hoarder. Her unconvincing apologia for that shabby behaviour was:
"With my husband facing retirement, I see the prices rising so one does lay in a quiet store of food and household things that one thinks one will need."
If it is within such a family domestic ambience that Mr. Thatcher is living, it may well be that he continues to feel sufficiently insecure that he must go out to work and, if he does so, we are in no position to criticise him. That is his right. However, whatever may be the motivation for his desire to continue in commercial life, I say that Caesar's husband is no ordinary man.
Mr. Best: Caesar was heterosexual. [Interruption.]
Mr. Abse: Conservative Members will not be able to laugh this one off, as they will find. When the last incident took place, The Times carried an editorial about the "Dear Nick" letter containing comments with which I entirely agree. The Times said:
"Ministers and MPs are rightly expected to make their business commitments public, and in some cases to lay them aside. Their husbands and wives are under no such obligation, and should not be; nor can they be expected to keep their business and political friendships in sealed compartments. Nevertheless, the power they may have behind the scenes can be considerable, and all the more formidable in that its extent is impossible to access from outside."
The editorial concluded, a conclusion with which I agree:
"If ambiguous situations are to be avoided in the future, a little more care is needed than Mr. Thatcher has shown on this occasion."
Mr. Nicholas Edwards: This squalid little smear has been well heralded. I should like to take the opportunity to say about four things to the hon. Gentleman. First, this contract was entered into in 1978 under the last Labour Government. Secondly, unlike the situation in the Heath hospital, when no effective action of any kind was taken during the period of the Labour Government to protect the interests of the taxpayer, on this occasion prompt and effective action was taken to protect the interest of the taxpayer arising from the errors in design and construction that occurred in the hospital. The work done by IDC is a small part of the total. The claim will be, and is being, vigorously pursued. I shall not hesitate to take legal action if that is necessary. A substantial offer has been made by the company, negotiations are taking place, and I shall report the outcome of them or the terms of the settlement fully to the House, and the House will be given full details.
Mr. Abse: The Secretary of State seems to be suggesting that I am querying the fact that the contract was given to IDC. I have never queried it in any way — [Interruption.] Perhaps the Secretary of State would like to intervene again.
Mr. Nicholas Edwards: The hon. Gentleman has suggested so many squalid things in the course of his squalid speech that I am at least entitled to point out that this contract—as far as I know the only contract that the company has had in Wales — was placed at the time of the Labour Government.
Mr. Abse: I am not impugning the giving of the contract. The Secretary of State does not wish to recognise that I am saying that, in the light of what he did for IDC, he is in an impossible situation in negotiating this claim.

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What is squalid about the matter is that, despite the advice and guidance of The Times and others in 1981, Mr. Thatcher still continues to co-operate in the work of a company that seeks public contracts. It is inappropriate that the Prime Minister's husband should be joined with a company that seeks contracts from Ministries. If the Secretary of State thinks that I am being squalid in identifying that problem, he should bear in mind that I am trying to identify a problem that could easily have been resolved if the Prime Minister had had the necessary tête í tête with her husband, and had removed him from that position.
Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Before the hon. Gentleman adds yet another squalid little smear to his now long list, may I say that I am not aware of the company seeking any contracts, at least from my Department. I repeat that the only contract, as far as I know, that the company has entered into in Wales — and I have answered a parliamentary question on this subject—was entered into under a Labour Government. That Government must answer for the circumstances in which they entered into contracts.
Mr. Abse: The Secretary of State is stubbornly and wilfully refusing to see the point. Judging by the example of that hospital, the company is obviously the sort of company that goes out—as it is entitled, in the normal course of events, to do—to seek public contracts from Ministries. I repeat that it is inappropriate that the man who acts as the consultant to that company should be the Prime Minister's husband. It is no use the Secretary of State trying to defend his friends by suggesting that even to query such matters is lesé majesté. That is no reason for him to suggest that any probing of the issue is squalid. His defence does not stand up, because he is not facing up to the constitutional position.
The Secretary of State said that he would monitor the situation carefully and that he would ensure that the matter was vigorously pursued. But how can he expect any credibility when everybody knows that no one is more subservient to the Prime Minister's policies? Everybody knows that he is the Prime Minister's representative in Wales, and that he is not the voice of Wales, representing Wales in the Cabinet. With his hubris, I doubt whether he understands how small his credibility is on this issue, particularly in view of the squalid manner in which he dealt with the University of Wales issue, and in view of the way in which, even in this matter, he attempted at the beginning of the probe to conceal from public knowledge the allegations that have been made.
I have had my say, and others outside will have their say. After the issues raised as a result of Mr. Thatcher's intervention over IDC Ltd, no one will be satisfied that there can be a fearless approach to the claims that are being waged against that company as long as those claims are in the Secretary of State's hands.
7.5 pm
Sir Anthony Meyer: That interminable, irrelevant and distasteful speech was entirely characteristic of the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse).
Mr. Ian Grist: Hardly honourable.
Sir Anthony Meyer: Indeed, perhaps "honourable" is stretching it a bit. I intend to be no less controversial than
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the hon. Gentleman, but I shall be a great deal briefer. Unlike him, I do not intend to deprive those very few Opposition Members who have taken the trouble to turn up to this debate of the opportunity to speak in it.
This is a big day for those of us who have the honour to represent Welsh constituencies, and naturally we want to use it to draw attention to the matters that are of principal concern to them. In my own case, now that the threat to put Colwyn Bay power station on to daymanning only — a threat that was causing the gravest possible concern to the people of Colwyn Bay, due to the many residential homes for the elderly — has been lifted, my constituents' principal concern extends well beyond the boundaries of the constituency. Their concern is directed at the decision of some teachers' unions to back their pay claim by action that can only damage the well-being of the children in their charge, and that gives the children an appalling example, by the refusal to acknowledge any duty higher than personal advantage.
I want, in this speech, to touch on the wider and deeper issues which underlie the now crumbling miners' strike. That strike has been supported more fully in Wales, or rather in south Wales, than in any other part of the country, not even excluding Yorkshire. I shall be saying some pretty harsh things about the Labour party, which comes out of this affair far worse than the leadership of the NUM. I want to be fair.
There are two things to be said in defence of the NUM in south Wales. First, as far as the rank and file of striking miners are concerned, and as far as their leaders in south Wales are concerned, this is a strike to defend jobs. In fact, it is only too horribly clear that more miners' jobs will be destroyed by the strike than were at risk from the original closure proposals. But it is precisely because this strike, unlike the teachers' antics, is a strike to defend jobs—and not always only one's own job—and is not just a strike for more pay, that it has until the last few days commanded such an extraordinary degree of support in south Wales.
That brings me to the second point that I wish to make in support of the NUM in south Wales. Although there have been appalling individual acts of thuggery — perhaps the worst in the entire country — I do not believe that intimidation has played a decisive part in maintaining the solidarity of the strike in south Wales.
The miners of south Wales believe, perhaps wrongly, that they are fighting a battle to save their and their mates' jobs, and to save the communities in which they live, and they will fight to the end. Both as regards the objective which they pursue and as regards their chances of victory, they are tragically, heroically, but excusably wrong. The Labour party, in the half-hearted support that it has given to the strike, is knowingly, cravenly, and inexcusably wrong. Labour Members know perfectly well that the uneconomic pits push up the price of coal so as to make the cost of heating for old people, and the cost of energy for industry, much higher than it need be. They know that the money and the men poured into keeping those pits open are not thereby available for developing pits with a bright, long-term future. They know that promising new projects such as oil from coal are being starved of funds by the drain of resources to keep these uneconomic pits open.
Mr. D. E. Thomas: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that very point?
Sir Anthony Meyer: No, I will not.

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They know that it is vital for the future of Wales to keep moving steadily away from dependence on traditional industries into new patterns of economic activity of the sort of which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales spoke with such hope and which the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) acknowledged. New patterns of economic activity will create greater wealth and provide better jobs. Labour Members know that the coal strike is a tragic and mistaken attempt to arrest this essential process of change.
In short, Labour Members know better than anyone else about the path of self-destruction along which the miners are being led. Worse still, they know why the miners are being led along that path. They know that Arthur Scargill brought about the strike and kept it alive for purely political reasons; to try to destroy by direct action a Government who cannot be destroyed by constitutional means. Every Labour Member knows — every one of them says, in private, of course — that Arthur Scargill represents as great a threat to the Labour party as he does to the coal industry. He is no threat to my party. Indeed, he is our most handy weapon since General Galtieri.
Is there a Labour Member who will dare to say in public what every one of them says in private? Even now, with the big, brave bulk of Mr. Norman Willis to shelter behind, Labour Members dare not speak out lest they spoil their chances of reselection. Let them remember that they will not be reselected by being cowardly and running away. I can speak with some experience about that.
In north Wales, Nottinghamshire and elsewhere, some miners have continued working throughout the dispute. Others have had the sense to realise that they are being led to disaster and they have returned to work. They are all members of the National Union of Mineworkers. They have all scrupulously obeyed the overtime ban. Most of them, despite all that has happened, are still loyal supporters of the Labour party. Which Labour Member has stood up for them?
The hon. Members for Alyn and Deeside and for Wrexham (Dr. Marek)—the latter has not honoured us with his presence today — pride themselves on being great champions of their constituents. When did either of them last publicly salute the courage and good sense of the many hundreds of their constituents who are union members and Labour party members and who are working at Point of Ayr or Bersham?
The hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) likes to pose as the champion of the steelworkers of Llanwern. He has not had much to say about the achievements of those steelworkers in keeping their plant going and maintaining production despite all the efforts of NUM leaders to close it down.
What about those two exhausted volcanoes, the right hon. Members for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) and for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Callaghan)? What about the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris)? What have they done to help the miners of south Wales get off the hook on which they have been impaled by Mr. Scargill's revolutionary scheming? I know that those three wily old birds know what needed to be done.
And then there is the Duke of Plaza Toro himself, the right hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Kinnock), the Leader of the Opposition, who is leading his army, as ever, safely from behind. He, more than any one else, knows that, so
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long as the party that he is supposed to be leading continues following Mr. Scargill's seductive piping, his chances of getting to Downing street are zero.
We know that the right hon. Member for Islwyn condemns violence. Indeed, he abhors violence. When some of us were beginning to hope that he was growing a backbone and might screw himself up to denounce Mr. Scargill's connivance at violence—we all love the right hon. Gentleman dearly—he explained that the violence which really bothered him was that of policemen trying to uphold the law. There is not much chance of that right hon. Gentleman giving the miners a brave lead back to the path of sanity.
Hon. Members on both sides of the House know that I am no uncritical supporter of the Government. I am especially unhappy about the sour relations which they have allowed, and on occasions seem positively to have encouraged, between central Government and local government. However, I must acknowledge that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has at least tempered bad policy with firm and clear administration.
I am more profoundly unhappy about the conscious refusal of some Ministers to call on latent feelings of national solidarity which would make the prosperous south-east more sharply aware of the very different state of affairs in Wales and in the north of England, or which would make those lucky enough to have a good job—perhaps their wives are in good jobs as well — more ready to accept sacrifices if that would help those who are trying desperately to find employment.
Over and above this, I know something of greater importance. There is no future for Wales and no future for Britain unless we make our industries competitive. There is no world system of supplementary benefit to keep an impoverished Britain from starvation. There is no world subsidy to keep open the Great Britannia mine when it is no longer economic. It is this Government, with all their harshness, clumsiness and all too frequent incompetence, who have the guts to take the tough decisions. The Labour party, for all its professed solicitude for the poor and the unemployed, does not have the courage, when the c hips are down, to take any decisions which might upset its own extremist supporters.
The Labour party has done nothing to help the miners in their agony. It will have no contribution to make to the process of reconciliation, which must surely begin now, even before the final convulsions of the strike, to bring peace to our strife-torn communities, peace between those who have been striking and those who have been working.
I hope to God that the party and the Government which I support can now find restraint, generosity and vision to match the courage and resolution which they have shown in the past 12 months.
7.18 pm
Mr. Geraint Howells: We are all well aware that this debate is held traditionally to mark St. David's day. I shall not celebrate, because we in Wales have little to celebrate on this day. Over the past months and years we have witnessed a most savage attack on our institutions, our industries and our way of life by a Tory Government who resolutely refuse to admit that their policies are damaging the fabric of Welsh life. At a time of high unemployment, those in government have removed the development status of vulnerable areas in various parts of Wales. They have

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caused the rundown of major industries without replacing jobs or making adequate provision for those who have found themselves on the dole.
The Government have forced cuts in primary and secondary schools and have threatened the well-being of our institutes of higher education. Even now, they are planning to cut our research establishments and to centralise Government Departments. I was told at the end of January that the Government contemplate making cuts of up to £30 million within research establishments in Britain. I have been told that that will mean that 1,000 employees in various institutions and agricultural research stations throughout Britain will be made redundant and that many stations will be closed.
The Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Conwy (Mr. Roberts), will reply on behalf of the Government at the conclusion of the debate. He knows that we are proud in Ceredigion and Pembroke, North of the Welsh plant breeding station at Gogerddan, Aberystwyth. I wonder whether he will say that the future of the establishment will be secure and that he will do everything in his power to ensure that the world-renowned establishment in Ceredigion will remain intact.
With the Transport Bill, the Government are threatening to disrupt the whole structure of public transport in Wales. I have been in touch with district and county councils in Wales and the response from them is entirely hostile to the Government's plans. They express great concern about the utter chaos that will result from deregulating bus operations, and they fear that standards of safety will fall drastically. Rural areas in particular will suffer as cross-subsidisation will no longer keep non-profitable routes going.
I have often criticised the agriculture policies of the Government and their mishandling of the quota system for milk producers. Those policies have caused great hardship in some areas and, as I have said before, too little has been done too late to help agriculture in Wales through this difficult period.
I am sorry that the Secretary of State has left the Chamber, because I wish to make a personal appeal to him, one that he has refused on many occasions to heed from Opposition Members. As the right hon. Gentleman has full responsibility for agriculture in Wales, I urge him to go to Brussels on behalf of our farmers, in particular our dairy farmers. Even if he is not successful in his deliberations this year, the dairy farmers of Wales will be complimentary to him, for he will have tried to defend their rights.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not shake his head every time we ask him to go to Brussels. He is duty bound, in his role as Secretary of State for Wales — being responsible for agriculture—to go to Brussels now and then to defend the rights of those who are in dire trouble.
Many people have complimented the Government on the outgoers scheme. I do not believe that it is working well. At the end of the day we shall have about 300 fewer small dairy producers in Wales. It is a shame that we should be getting rid of small producers—dairy farmers with fewer than 40 cows — to ensure that other small producers in Wales may remain in business.
I am wondering what advice the Welsh Office gave to farmers who accepted the outgoers scheme. I am sure that
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many of them now regret having signed on the dotted line, as their little farms, without milk quotas, are worth much less now than they were 12 months ago. No real advice was given to them. It is a pity that so many of them have left the industry. That is why I appeal yet again to the Secretary of State to go to Brussels on their behalf.
Many dairy farmers who bought their farms in 1983 are in dire financial trouble. Those young people decided to expand. They heeded the advice of the Government. Those who bought in 1983 and who do not have a quota have large financial commitments to the banks. I am afraid that many small dairy farmers in Wales will go bankrupt, having been persuaded by the Government and the banks to expand their smallholdings. I am worried on their behalf, especially those families with children. For many of them there is no alternative but to sell up and get out, at the same time becoming bankrupt.
Agriculture and tourism have become the two biggest industries in Wales. Tourism is important not only to the economy but to the community. In many areas, tourism is the lifeblood of the community, providing a livelihood for the shops, garages, pubs and other services. In Welsh-speaking communities it is helping to curtail rural depopulation by boosting the local economy, thereby ensuring the survival of the Welsh language and culture.
Tourism can successfully be linked with agricultural opportunities. In these days of changing economic fortunes, it is reassuring to have a supplementary income to the main farming activity. The growth of farm tourism is one of the big success stories of rural Wales. Recent research shows that there are about 6,000 agricultural holdings in Wales engaged in some tourism enterprise. There are about 1,250 farm guest houses providing accommodation and meals. In many cases, tourism is used to subsidise the traditional types of agricultural activity.
A feature to have emerged clearly in recent years is the increasing professionalism of all those involved in rural tourism. Marketing is becoming more professional, with the formation of group marketing co-operatives and the introduction of central booking facilities.
The Wales Tourist Board has done excellent work in recent years. The current agriculture policies being applied to Wales are not creating jobs. Indeed, confidence in agriculture is at its lowest ebb since the war. I hope that by helping those engaged in the tourist industry, we are also helping those engaged in agriculture.
Today, the day before St. David's day, is a suitable occasion on which to press the Secretary of State on his intentions about the future of Wales as a nation. Does he consider that Wales is a nation with problems and peculiarities that place it apart from the rest of the United Kingdom? Or is he content to regard it as just another region of the United Kingdom?
Does he have any plans for devolved government for Wales? It has been amply illustrated during the lifetime of this Administration that centralised government from Westminster has failed to help Wales and that the ills that have befallen us are due largely to the mismanagement of politicians, far away from the Welsh borders, who have no conception of the problems further north than Watford and further west than Reading.
It is essential that we look once again at the possibility of a Welsh assembly that would bring power closer to the people of Wales and give them a measure of control over their destiny. I am sure that, when he replies to the debate, the Minister will refer to what happened on 1 March 1979,

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when, he will say, the Welsh people voted overwhelmingly against devolution. But they did not vote against the principle. They voted against the proposals. The principle still stands that we should have our own assembly to look after the interests of the Welsh people.
Has the Secretary of State any plans to support further the Welsh language and the culture of Wales? I have in mind the introduction of a new Welsh language measure to bring legislation up to date, to suit the present situation in Wales and safeguard the future of the language. Is he in favour of the principle of bilingual schooling throughout Wales and will he support wholeheartedly the movement that has been set up to extend Welsh language education? Is he in favour of the independent authority for the development of Welsh language education?
Dr. Roger Thomas: While the hon. Gentleman is on the subject of bilingual schools, will he impress upon Ministers the need for extra finance in order to carry children from outside catchment areas to the schools, because there are huge areas of Wales that do not fit within any particular catchment area?
Mr. Howells: I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Dr. Thomas). He has stated the facts as he sees them in Carmarthen and I hope that the Under-Secretary will listen to his plea, which is genuine and sincere.
Finally, may I ask the Secretary of State whether he has taken any action since my early-day motion of last year, which called for St. David's day to be declared a public holiday so that the people of Wales may be able to pay a tribute to the memory of their patron saint and renew their commitment to Wales and its future. Here we are on the eve of St. David's day and I am afraid that 12 months from now, on the eve of St. David's day 1986, the unemployment figure in Wales will have risen and very little will have been done to save the language, the culture and the historic institutions that belong to us as a nation.
7.31 pm
Mr. Stefan Terlezki: On the eve of St. David's day, what pathetic, appalling, synthetic speeches have been made by the Opposition so far. I except the last speaker, the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells), and I agree with him that the Welsh heritage, culture, tradition and education should be preserved, if that is what the people of Wales wish. Every nation is entitled to its history and tradition and everything that goes with them.
I was appalled to hear the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) saying absolutely nothing about Wales, Welsh culture, Welsh history, the Welsh language or the Welsh economy, but merely talking about Mr. Thatcher, Mr. Thatcher, Mr. Thatcher, and credibility. Let me say to the hon. Gentleman, who is now absent, that the credibility of the present Secretary of State for Wales is very high indeed in the Principality. I shall introduce some records about education, the economy, transport, and social structure, grants, housing and many other things that will show how much our present Secretary of State has contributed to Wales in comparison with previous Secretaries of State under Labour Governments.
Strikes, mining communities and mining leaders have been mentioned. How regrettable, appalling and, indeed, unethical it is for Labour Members always to attack the
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police, their behaviour and their obstruction, but never to attack the behaviour of the pickets and of what I would call the apparatchiks within the NUM and on the pickets lines. Nobody on the Labour Benches has mentioned, in the past or this afternoon—nor will they mention in the future—the behaviour of the pickets in south Wales and the tragedy that occurred when an innocent taxi driver was killed taking a miner to work, a miner who wanted to earn his livelihood to keep his family. That was the cruel killing of an innocent man.
Mr. Brynmor John: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This is a matter which is the subject of a murder charge. Is it proper for even this Chair to allow that sort of innuendo and that sort of prejudicial material to be spoken about in the House?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I do not think that this matter is sub judice. If it is, the hon. Gentleman must not refer to it.
Mr. Donald Coleman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. This particular case is now before the courts; it has been referred to a Crown court.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I understand that this case is sub judice, in which case it is out of order for the hon. Gentleman to refer to it.
Mr. Terlezki: I accept your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and if I have to withdraw, I will do so.
A great deal has also been said about the leader of the NUM—Scargill. That man, who deceived his members, the people of this country and the world, thought that he was the king of the miners. He is not. He never will be anything but a pathetic political Marxist, having helped to lose millions of tonnes of Welsh coal for export and approximately £10,000 in wages for every miner in Wales. He is the most discredited man, nationally and internationally, in a civilised society and the industrial world. He has divided mining communities. He has instilled fear and hatred in the mining people of Wales through intimidation, which I am afraid will continue for many years to come. He deserves no help whatsoever from anybody, now or in the future.
Of course, in matters of the economy and expenditure there is always room for improvement and we must not be complacent about the Principality. I think that it is a matter of so far, so good, in the present circumstances. But Labour Members, with their synthetic rhetoric and crocodile tears are saying that more should be done. We certainly would like to do more. What they do not say as how much it is going to cost to do more. Is it £1 billion, £2 billion, £5 billion or £10 billion? Why do they not spell out the projects that they have in mind? If they wish there to be implemented, let them put a figure on them, then we shall know what we are talking about.
As it was in the past, so it will be in the future. Labour Members have done nothing good for Wales; they never did and they never will. Our electoral results prove the point. In 1963 there were only three Conservative Members for Wales. Now we have nearly a rugby team, and we shall have a full one.
A lot of statistics have been quoted by the Opposition in connection with housing, transport, WDA, tourism, education and, indeed, coal mining. I shall concentrate on some of those statistics and figures.
I was most encouraged by what the Secretary of State said about the redevelopment of Cardiff, South — the

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docks area. This is wonderfully encouraging news, since it means that there will be some employment available for the people in Cardiff, West whom I have the honour and pleasure to represent in the House. I cannot wait to see the increased employment that will come to the Principality. I hope that it will rub off on my constituency. It is wonderful news. The £250 million project will mean job creation in the future. The Holiday Inn in Cardiff is adding to the number of bedrooms, which will make Cardiff more attractive for conferences and other events.
I regret to say that my constituency has many old council houses. More should be done by way of improvement grants for people living in Ely, Fairwater, Caerau, Canton and Riverside who need sanitation amenities inside their homes. The general standard of repair work needs to be improved.
Council tenants who have spent 30 or more years in their homes and paid rent have, in effect, bought their homes three or four times over. I believe that the councils should give them their houses. They should not spend taxpayers' and ratepayers' money on improvements, but should give the houses to the tenants who could then carry out their own improvements. I am sure that the tenants would be delighted if they were told that from tomorrow their houses would be theirs. I hope that the Minister will take that point on board.
Opposition Members quoted synthetic and pathetic figures on housing. I shall give the facts about housing expenditure and renovation grants in Wales. I hope that the Opposition will take note of the facts and be more accurate in future. Under a Labour Government in 1978–79, only £10·2 million was allocated for house renovation grants. Under the Conservative Government in 1983–84, £144·5 million was allocated. The Government have an excellent record and all credit goes to the Secretary of State for Wales for fighting hard to spend that money.
Between 1974–75 and 1978–79, the Labour Government spent £58 million on home improvement grants. The Conservative Government more than doubled that in 1983–84. We are proud of our record and Opposition Members should be ashamed of theirs.
A total of £5 million was allocated to 15 Welsh local authorities through an enveloping scheme in 1984–85. Between 1974 and 1978 only 2,713 local authority homes were sold to tenants in Wales. By the end of March 1982, 12,000 local authority homes had been sold under a Conservative Government. Opposition Members want to keep tenants in their tight-fisted hand so that they can direct them to do what they want them to do. They do not want tenants to have castles of their own and be proud to own them.
I want to give some facts on expenditure on roads in Wales. In 1977–78, only £55 million was spent on roads by the Labour Government. In 1982–83, the Conservative Government spent £120 million. Many road improvement schemes will begin before the end of next year, including expenditure of £216 million on the A55 covering 18·2 miles, £16·3 million on 8·5 miles of the A40 and £20·3 million on 8·6 miles of the A48. Work on the A483 will cost £51·75 million and will improve 15·7 miles of road. That is something of which the Conservative Government can be proud.
The Opposition have shed crocodile tears and spread scaremongering stories about the Severn bridge, which has
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hindered potential industries coming to Wales. They said that the bridge was unstable and was collapsing. Two years have passed, and the bridge is still standing. The Conservative manifesto pledged to strengthen and repair the Severn bridge to meet the requirements of modern traffic. The Government are committed to that and stand ready to begin building a second crossing when that is necessary. They will adhere to their pledge.
I am pleased to put certain statistics on the record about selective regional assistance. From July 1975 — [Interruption.] If Opposition Members do not like statistics, they should not quote them—I will not repeat them. During the periods 1 July 1975 to 30 April 1979 and 1 May 1979 to 26 February 1985, the number of offers of selective regional assistance in south Wales alone were 46 and 149 respectively.
Factory allocations by the Welsh Development Agency have been at a record level for the past two financial years. Let me remind the Opposition of their record. In 1978–79 under Labour the space allocation was 1 million sq ft; as for new job promises, they were zero zero. In 1983–84 under the Conservative Government the space allocation was 1·59 million sq ft and new job promises were 6,100.
Mr. Geraint Howells rose—
Mr. Terlezki: I will not give way.
As for tourism, I am very proud of the tourist board, which is doing an excellent job in Wales. Over 90,000 jobs have been created in the tourist industry. We must look ahead. More jobs should be created in tourism because people now have much more leisure. We also need foreign currency. The income from tourism is about £500 million per annum. I hope it will not be too long before we can double that figure so that we can employ more people and show our beautiful Wales to more people from outside the United Kingdom.
In regard to education, under Labour from 1975–76 to 1979–80 there were 56,620 school leavers with no formal qualifications. Under the Conservatives from 1981 to 1983 the relevant figure was 25,930. That shows that we care about education and about the children. We have spent a record capital amount on education. Again, that is a record of which we are proud.
Enough has been said by the Opposition to convince me that no one will take any notice of them. For the sake of the Principality they should not keep on knocking their own country but should try to see how they can beautify it and help it. Members of Parliament represent people of all persuasions and colour. Those people need guidance; Opposition Members should not mislead them. Opposition Members should not discredit Wales and the people they represent. They should not have the audacity to stand up in this Chamber and criticise their own people and their own country.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. May I appeal for shorter speeches? We have had some very long speeches from both sides of the House. There are many right hon. and hon. Members who still hope to speak.
7.53 pm
Mr. Michael Foot: I should have preferred to follow the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer), who has provoked me to intervene. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman, who made the charges

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that he did, has left the Chamber. He insulted all Members on this side of the House and the National Union of Mineworkers in Wales by suggesting that what we have advocated in this House throughout the dispute has been different from what we have said in the country. That is absolutely false, and he should know it.
We have sought throughout to get a decent, honourable settlement of the dispute. If our advice had been accepted, or if our warnings had been listened to, in the first few days or weeks of the dispute, there could have been a settlement then and the rest of the strike could have been avoided. As some hon. Members may remember, it was the Government who prevented the Department of Employment from taking action which might have avoided the strike in the first place. The Government said that they would not intervene. The claim of the Government, of the Secretary of State for Wales and of the Department of Employment was that they would not intervene. As we know, that claim was false. A committee was meeting all the time. We do not know whether the Secretary of State for Wales had any influence upon it.
During the early part of the dispute the Government were sitting back gloating over it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer even had the nerve to come to the House and say that it was a worthwhile investment. All through those weeks and months we were urging that there should be a proper negotiated settlement. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme), acting on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition, sought to get negotiations going before many of the horrors and difficulties developed. Right from the beginning of the dispute all of my hon. Friends have been trying to get a negotiated settlement.
All the Welsh Labour MPs have been seeking from the beginning of the dispute right up to today to get a proper negotiated settlement. That is why we went to see the Secretary of State for Energy. The Secretary of State for Wales was there on that occasion. The church leaders in Wales had put forward reasonable proposals for a settlement. If the Secretary of State for Wales had been doing his duty he would have given support to those proposals, or at any rate would have sought to ensure that they were properly considered. When we saw the Secretary of State for Energy, he said that he did not want the strike to end with people being forced back to work because they could not keep their families together. He wanted a negotiated settlement.
The following day the Secretary of State for Energy saw representatives of the churches from Wales. They knew much more about both sides of the dispute than Ministers have ever tried to find out. They put forward proposals which should have won the backing of any Government who wanted a decent, honourable settlement, but the Government would not do anything about it. When the Secretary of State for Energy made some moves to try to get a settlement, and when NACODS tried to get a settlement, on each occasion the Prime Minister intervened and blocked it at the essential moment.
When the full story of the strike comes to be written, it will be shown that time and time again during the past 12 months there could have been a settlement if the Government had been doing their job properly. If they had tried, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East did, with the full backing of the Leader of the Opposition, the strike could have been settled. It is
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absolutely false for the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West to say that we have not acted consistently to try to get the dispute settled. No one bears a heavier responsibility than the Secretary of State for Wales. He should have lifted his finger at some point to try to ensure that there were decent negotiations.
Mr. Nicholas Edwards: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman welcomes the fact that more than half the miners are back at work at Abertillery. Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that the Government should intervene to prevent the TUC from achieving a settlement?
Mr. Foot: The Government should have gone much further. They should have responded earlier to the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East. The Secretary of State dares to talk about the miners in my constituency who have shown courage, determination and comradeship. The right hon. Gentleman should just sit quietly on his backside, as he has done during the past 12 months. Of course, a number of miners in my constituency who have supported the strike are now going back to work. They are doing so not because they wish to see a breach in the ranks of the NUM but because of what they have had to bear. They owe nothing to the Conservative party. Throughout the dispute my hon. Friends, including my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones), have tried, in association with the NUM, to achieve an intelligent settlement.
The background to the strike is the economic situation, which the Secretary of State accepts. The right hon. Gentleman has shown deep complacency about the strike. Wales is facing the greatest economic crisis since the 1930s. Some years ago my hon. Friend the Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) presided over a Select Committee which inquired into problems in Wales. With unemployment increasing at such a pace, the Government should attempt by every means at their command to assist Wales, but instead, one door after another has been slammed. The Government's actions have prevented us from dealing with the problems. Instead of recognising the seriousness of the unemployment figures and the industrial crisis in Wales, the Government have repeatedly taken measures that add to our difficulties.
How dare the Secretary of State mention skillcentres? I can speak with some authority about skillcentres, because one of the first actions that my constituency faced after the 1979 election was the Government's decision to back the MSC's proposal to close a skillcentre. That skillcentre had played a notable part in bringing new industries to the region, and we were determined that it should not close. The Government said, "Close the skillcentre and let the people go to Pontllanfraith." They now propose to close the skillcentre at Pontllanfraith.
The people in my constituency said that they would maintain the skillcentre and that, if the Government would not provide the money necessary to maintain it, they would do so, even if that meant placing an extra burden on the rates. That skillcentre has been kept. Hundreds of jobs and scores of industrialists in my constituency have paid tribute to the contribution of skillcentres. A person has a much better chance of obtaining a job in Ebbw Vale because of the skillcentre. People in Pontllanfraith and Llanelli have a much better chance of getting a job if there are skillcentres there.
The Secretary of State says that he bears the responsibility for deciding whether closures should occur

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and that he will not shuffle the decision on to the shoulders of the MSC but will ensure that training as good as that provided by a skillcentre is available. Skillcentres should be provided in Wales on a larger and more imaginative scale, and the idea of closing them is absurd. The proof can be seen in what we did in my constituency. We said, "If the Government will not do their job, we shall do it."
I can extend one note of congratulation to the Secretary of State. He was wise not to mention regional policy. He did not dare do so, because he has taken several millions of pounds from Wales, especially the special development areas, with his new form of regional policy. He threatens to take great resources from us, but we shall use every means in our power, just as we did with skillcentres, to circumvent the Government's proposals. It is no good the Secretary of State smirking as though he were clever in dealing with these matters. We had to fight to save the skillcentres, and we shall keep the regional assistance that he tries to take from us. The right hon. Gentleman should restore special development status and the moneys that go with it to parts of Wales.
The Government acknowledge that there must be special assistance for some areas where there are pit closures. Under the Government's policies there will certainly be large-scale pit closures in many parts of Wales. The Labour party, because it was the first party that had to deal with the problem in the steel industry, said, "We shall establish a system whereby the British steel industry has a special department to provide assistance to certain areas." This Government now say that they will do the same for the coal areas, and I hope that they will do so. I hope that they will provide this assistance, but not on a derisory scale. Initially, to provide for the most hard-hit pit areas, the Government said that they would spend £5 million throughout Britain. They have now increased the amount to £10 million, but that money could be spent successfully in my constituency alone. Most of my hon. Friends face the huge scale of this problem.
The Government should tell us that the scheme, under which £10 million will be provided, has been entirely overhauled and that increased funds will be available. It is no good the Secretary of State talking about the transformation of Wales, because the transformation in the parts of Wales that are most heavily hit is appalling. Month after month, year after year, there will be more closures. Shops are closing in the streets of Welsh towns. We have to fight against the same types of problems as those against which we fought during the 1920s and 1930s. Of course the valley towns will not give in. The Tories will not beat us today, any more than they were able to do before. We shall fight them at every turn.
In speaking as he did about the transformation of Wales, the Secretary of State showed that he has no idea of what is happening in many parts of Wales. On many grounds, the right hon. Gentleman is totally unfit for his job. That is why he should be cleared out of it. The Secretary of State should change the economic atmosphere in Wales and provide the backing and support for which the Labour party cries out.
8.8 pm
Mr. Keith Raffan: During last year's Welsh day debate the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Dr. Thomas) said that I had made a bad-tempered speech. After the
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contribution by the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), I certainly cannot be in line for that bouquet tonight. It is sad that such a distinguished member of the Labour party could not summon up one word in support of working miners, such as those at Point of Ayr in my constituency, who have so bravely gone to work throughout the dispute. They are much more representative of the people than the right hon. Gentleman.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer) said, this is an important day for Wales. His speech rose to the occasion. It was a noble speech. I have always been proud to be his parliamentary neighbour, and I am even more proud to be his neighbour tonight. As long as the Conservative party can accommodate independent-minded men like him, it will never be defeated by the Labour party, whose members' independence of mind is currently being squashed by reselection.
This is the major Welsh debate in the parliamentary year, and it is only right to focus on the central problem in Wales — unemployment. First, I should say that the Opposition have no monopoly of care and concern for the unemployed. My constituency is as hard hit as any; indeed, I believe only about half a dozen Conservative constituencies have higher unemployment than mine. I am fully aware of the tragedy. Perhaps I may quote the words of my fellow Scot, Thomas Carlyle:
"There is a perennial nobleness, and even sacredness, in work … in idleness alone is there perpetual despair."
At my surgeries every weekend I meet that despair, and I know it and understand it as well as any Opposition Member.
The second point I wish to make is that, if the debate is to be balanced, we must have the whole picture. Opposition Members cannot be selective. It is extraordinary how amnesia seems to afflict Labour Members so easily, from the University of Wales hospital to unemployment. It is not that they wish to rewrite history; it is almost as though they want to erase it. It is as though they say to themselves, when their record fleetingly catches their attention, "Better by far we should forget and smile, than that we should remember and be sad." But we shall remind them constantly that they once had the responsibility of government, and they cannot get away from their share of responsibility. They were in office between 1974 and 1979, although I noticed that the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones)—I am sorry that he is not here now — said, no doubt with a slip of the tongue, that they left office in 1974. Would that they had.
In February 1974, there were 38,424 unemployed in Wales; in May 1979, the figure was 78,200. Yes, they doubled it. Their policies failed then, and the people of Wales are entitled to ask, as we are, "Why should policies that failed then work now?" Labour Members suffer not only from amnesia but from blindness—blindness to the good news, because every bit of good news is another nail in their political coffin, another blow to the lingering political hopes that the few of them here have. The rest are no doubt attending constituency reselection conferences.
Let the House hear some more of the good news we have already heard from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and from my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Terlezki). Since 1979, the number of Welsh businesses has increased by 13·5 per cent. That is good news. In 1975, there were 12 advance factory

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allocations in Wales; in 1983, there were 456. That is good news. My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) talked about the dramatic percentage of total selective financial assistance offers that had been made by this Government. In 1976, the Labour Government made 90 offers of selective financial assistance; in 1984, the figure was 232. That is good news.
When the Welsh Grand Committee debated regional policy as it affects Wales, the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside asked the Secretary of State, as he did again today, why the Secretary of State for Scotland had so greatly outpaced my right hon. Friend in the sphere of electronics. He said, "They have silicon glen. Why can we not have silicon valley?" It has escaped his attention, and apparently that of the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd), that there is a silicon coastal strip in Wales. Scotland has 40,000 electronics jobs in 200 companies. Wales has 20,000 jobs in 150 companies and it is more than keeping pace with developments in Scotland.
The indigestion of Labour Members must be beginning to suffer from this surfeit of good news now, and they are looking a little tired. The last bit of good news that I shall inflict upon them concerns inward investment in Wales. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was his usual modest self and used statistics only sparingly, but let me give more of them. The share of new projects funded by overseas companies in Wales in 1979 was 9·8 per cent; in 1984, it was 23·4 per cent. — a dramatic increase. In 1979, as a percentage of the United Kingdom total, the number of jobs created by those new projects in Wales was 6 per cent.; in 1984, it was 23·9 per cent. That is not good news; it is great news. It is greatly to the credit of the Welsh Office, Ministers and officials alike, that Wales, with only 5 per cent. of the population, should have 25 per cent. of all inward investment.
My right hon. Friend prefers me to keep quiet on this issue. I am speaking loudly this evening because 612 of our colleagues — the English, Irish and Scottish Members—are not in the Chamber and therefore cannot hear me. If they could hear me, they would be breathing down the back of his neck, and my right hon. Friend's Cabinet colleagues would be on top of him, too. I do not wish to inflict that on my right hon. Friend. He has enough problems, although not many from the Opposition. This is a great achievement, and it is set to accelerate — [Interruption.] I am glad to welcome the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) to our midst. His learning process on Welsh affairs will continue as long as he listens obediently to my speech.
The Government's success in attracting inward investment is set to accelerate. Overseas company visits to Wales last year were up 78 per cent. on the year before. That is good news. No wonder that Opposition Members cannot bear it. The true picture is that the sun is shining through in Wales, except for the Labour party. All that we have from them, as my right hon. Friend said, are dirges. Today all that we have heard is doom and gloom. The speech of the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside reminded me of the opening lines in Jan Morris's new book:
"Brooded over by mist.… drizzled rather than storm-swept."
Labour Members have perpetuated this myth of Wales, denigrating the achievements of my right hon. and hon.
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Friends. That only damages our industrial reputation and drives away investors. That is not just irresponsible—it is much worse.
Mr. Brynmor John: As it is good news day, and the hon. Gentleman seems to be acting like an American evangelist, can he say whether he expects the current unemployment level of 180,000 to fall to below 150,000 at the end of this Parliament, and whether my constituency, which is by no means the worst for unemployment, will have fewer than 27 people chasing every job?
Mr. Raffan: The hon. Gentleman will not tempt me into predicting levels of unemployment. All that I will say is that I shall do everything I can to reduce unemployment, and I am trying to do so. I know that one man can do only a little, but I hope that what all of us can do in our constituencies will help. However, I shall not be tempted into the statistics game, and the hon. Gentleman, who has followed me in debates previously, should know better.
Much the same criticism can be made of the Labour party's attacks on regional policy changes. They should know that 90 per cent. of the working population in Wales lives in the new assisted areas; that assistance is now linked far more to the creation of jobs, which is what the Welsh TUC called for. It was absurd for the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside to suggest in the Welsh Grand Committee that areas such as mine have been downgraded. They have not. They still have the highest level of grants.
When are we going to get that through to the hon. Gentleman and to other Opposition Members? That crucial point has been made not only by Ministers but by the chief executive of Clwyd county council, Mr. Mervyn Phillips, who is no great admirer of me or my party. It has also been made by the chief executive of Delyn borough council, who said that, as a result of the changes, the Delyn enterprise zone is now the
"most attractive industrial location in Wales."
It is true that £60 million has been saved by changes, but that sum has been more than counterbalanced—two and a half times counterbalanced — by the £140 million given back by the Government to industry in Wales as a result of the abolition of the national insurance surcharge — that iniquitous tax on jobs imposed by the Labour party.
Enterprise zones are a part of regional policy. But if the Labour party had its way, we would have no enterprise zones. During the previous Welsh Question Time, the hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Coleman) was sceptical about the zones. I was glad to hear the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) speak up for enterprise zones. The Opposition Front Bench has greatly criticised them. In a former incarnation, the shadow Home Secretary said that he would have no more of them. While the Labour party in Parliament takes that view, its local councillors do not. Local councillors in areas where there are enterprise zones strongly support them. The Opposition had better change their views about them before we go to the country the next time around.
I speak for Delyn borough council tonight, even though it is a hung council. It is grateful to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the £4·6 million so far invested in the enterprise zone. So far 260 jobs have been provided. That does not sound many, but when we consider that those jobs have been provided in a 1·5 acre site out of an enterprise zone of 190 acres it is a stupendous

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achievement. I pay tribute to council officials and all who have been involved in the Welsh Office and the WDA. The clearance of the derelict land and the infrastructure there is near completion. The enterprise zone is poised to take off. I welcome that wholeheartedly.
Mrs. Clwyd: The hon. Gentleman has been fond of using quotations tonight. As he mentioned the infrastructure, will he tell me whether he agrees with this quotation from a recent survey on Wales in The Economist:
"It is the roads and rails within Wales between north and south and east and west that would disgrace a newly emerging African country."
Mr. Raffan: I read the profile in The Economist. I read a great many things in The Economist. How did it describe the Labour party's policies — "prehistoric and in-coherent"? I think I quoted it in my speech last year. There were worse things about the Labour party than that, but I am in a charitable mood tonight. I should love to see improvements. The hon. Lady is in grave danger of extending my speech by tempting me into a prolonged discussion with the Government Front Bench about the Northop bypass. I shall not get on to that subject because it would probably finish off my right hon. Friend.
Of course we need to improve the roads and the railway system. We need communication from north to south. I agree with the hon. Lady. However, we must also find the money to pay for such developments. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West said, that is the fact that the Opposition will never face.
It is true we are still seriously affected by the rundown of old industries. In the Welsh Grand Committee debate the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside spoke of "hundreds of redundancies" announced at Courtaulds in the Delyn area. It is not hundreds. I am glad today that he has done his homework. He came out with the statistic of 232.
Mr. Wardell: That is hundreds.
Mr. Raffan: That is an old statistic. If the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside had bothered to consult me, he would know that it is now less than 200. That is still far too many, but I pay tribute to the work of the trade union officials — for example, Jackie Jones, the chief shop steward of the TGWU. He is a good friend of mine, if not a political supporter. He has worked hard with his colleagues to reduce the number of redundancies.
The hon. Gentleman, in his speech in the Welsh Grand Committee, quoted a letter from the chief executive of Delyn borough council, Mr. John Packer, which said:
"My Council are particularly concerned that strenuous efforts made by Local Authorities and other Agencies in reclaiming land, building factories and attracting new industries to the area are nullified by the continuing rundown of existing industries".—[Official Report, Welsh Grand Committee, 23 January 1985; c. 14.]
There was a clear implication in the hon. Gentleman's speech that the chief executive was criticising the Government. On behalf of the chief executive, I wish to make it clear that no such criticism was intended or implied. In fact, the chief executive has some difficulty in seeing how his letter could be interpreted in such a way. Let me quote him. He said:
"The rundown of old industries has taken place under Labour as well as Conservative Governments."
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That is true. The largest redundancies at Courtaulds were under the previous Labour Government, in 1976 when there were 440 and in 1977 when there were 1,553. The chief executive continued:
"The rundown in the textile industry is due, of course, to external factors outside Government control."
That is true. The decline in the viscous fibre market was expected but it has been much steeper and more dramatic than anticipated. It has been largely due to the Chinese flooding the world market with low-priced cotton.
I wish to put on record what the letter was about, because the hon. Gentleman quoted it selectively. In the chief executive's words, it was about
"more help of the kind so very generously given by this Government in past years."
Whether the redundancies at Courtaulds are one or 200, the tragedy is the same. The shop stewards at Courtaulds know how strongly I feel about the matter and how I have worked with them. They have been kind enough to pay tribute to what I have been trying to do for the plant. I have had a long meeting with my right hon. Friend about Courtaulds, and three weeks ago I had a morning-long meeting with Courtaulds' chairman, Sir Christopher Hogg, and the chairman of its fibre division, Dr. Norman Wooding.
I should like to tell the House some more good news. Earlier this afternoon Delyn borough council issued a press release with my permission and that of Sir Christopher Hogg saying that as a result of our meeting negotiations had been initiated between Courtaulds and Delyn borough council for the transfer to Delyn borough council of a major portion of Courtaulds' No. 1 unit at Greenfield. The chief executive's press release stated:
"The transfer of No. 1 unit to the Borough Council will provide the opportunity of a major initiative to bring new jobs to the site by the clearance of some 18 acres for new industry and the utilisation of existing surplus buildings."
In my short time in the House, nothing has given me greater pleasure or delight than to help initiate this transfer. I should like to pay tribute to John Packer, Delyn's chief executive, and David Warburton of the land division of Courtaulds for so speedily and so efficiently carrying out those negotiations. David Warburton struggled up to north-east Wales two weeks ago in the worst weather. This transfer is more good news for the Opposition that they will find hard to take.
Last, and most certainly least, I come to the policies of the Labour party — last because, like my speech, they are near their end, and least because they are no longer relevant to the future of Wales. On 21 October last year the shadow Secretary of State unveiled a major economic survival plan for Wales. I was not sure whose survival was involved. Was it that of Wales or his? It was, of course, a pure coincidence that the plan was unveiled just four days before the shadow Cabinet elections. It was difficult to avoid the conclusion that the plan was designed to have an inflationary effect on his vote in those elections. That is not where the inflation would have ended. The policy, of course, was not costed or analysed, but then, as The Times said recently of the leader of the party—in this, if nothing else, Opposition Members follow the Leader faithfully—
"He is not renowned for interest in the nuts and bolts of policy."
The same is true of the shadow Secretary of State.
I can understand the Labour party's reluctance to have the policy costed because it calls for extra expenditure on

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everything. We should all like that. There is to be extra capital investment in industry, a regional investment drive, the extension of RDGs to buttress existing jobs, more investment in the coal industry — it already amounts to £2 million a day, and I do not know how much more was being talked of — an extension of nursery education, an expansion of academic research and a blitz on housing expenditure—four times the amount that we are currently spending is to be spent over 15 years—and the electrification of the Crewe to Holyhead railway plus further new railway investment. It is fruit machine politics. We press the button, and if three lemons come up in a row we hit Barry's jackpot. The Labour party will carry no credibility with the people of Wales as long as it talks in that way.
I understand the Labour party's reluctance to have its policy costed. When I was a journalist I covered the by-election of the hon. Member for Gower (Mr. Wardell) and I remember questioning the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent at a press conference about Labour's alternative economic strategy and the Treasury model. He looked quizzically at me when I said "Treasury model" as if one of the Treasury's more nubile officials had suddenly appeared on page 3 of The Sun. When that alternative economic policy was put through the Treasury computer, it blew a fuse, and the same would happen with the policy put forward by the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside. "A policy to save Wales" is what the shadow spokesman on Wales called it. It would not save Wales; it would sink it.
The Opposition Front Bench resembles nothing so much as one of those old Hollywood film sets. From a distance, it might almost deceive the eye, but the nearer one gets, the more unreal it becomes, until one recognises it for what it is — one-dimensional and propped up somewhat precariously from the rear. I and my hon. Friends can afford sympathy for the hon. Members for Alyn and Deeside and for Newport, East. After all, they pose no threat to us. They are a living, almost joyous reminder of what the Labour party has become—a party in irreversible decline. Is the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy (Mr. Thomas) nodding in agreement? I thought he would hope to benefit from that.
We know what the Welsh people think of the Labour party. Some 20 years ago, it had 60 per cent. of the vote in Wales, but now it has only 37 per cent. Some 20 years ago, it had 32 out of the 36 seats, but now it has only 20 out of the 38 seats. Not only do we know what the Welsh people think of the Labour party; we know what its former leader thinks of it.
In the words of Lord Wilson of Rievaulx,
"today the Labour party hardly presents the image of the natural party of opposition."
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Mr. Gareth Wardell: The name of Saatchi and Saatchi comes to mind after the speech of the hon. Member for Delyn (Mr. Raffan), because it did a wonderful job at the last election, with the help of an uncritical press. It helped to persuade the British people, and the people of Wales, that, given a further period of office, not only would the record low of the economy be put right, but services would be improved, with the added bonus that they would pay less for them because of tax cuts. These promises were made nearly two years ago.
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Wherever I go in my constituency, people ask me why things are so bad and where the improved services are. There are no improved services for the families on supplementary benefit. DHSS staffing levels have been cut at a time when more people than ever before need help from local offices. There is no improved service for the homeless and young couples waiting for a home of their own. The home improvement and house building programmes have been cut and are to be cut again by restrictions on local authority capital spending. There is no improved Health Service because Government spending in this sector barely allows the NHS to stand still, let alone cope with more elderly patients and the use of improved techniques for better care. There is no improved education service, because rate capping and the cuts in the rate support grant have meant local authorities cutting to the bone, not only on the periphery of education, in transport and school trips, but on books and repairing school buildings.
People are concerned about the cuts in services in the wide-ranging and complicated sectors of welfare, housing, health and education. They find it difficult to pinpoint a sector and say that there should not be a cut there because they know that if the reduction is not enforced there, it will be made somewhere else. However, in one of their services they are facing a cut with which they can come to grips and which they want to prevent. They do not want to lose their sub-post offices. The postal service operates profitably without a subsidy from the Government, but last year the Government decreed that the Post Office should make a 4 per cent. profit on turnover for the financial year 1984–85.
As we know, the Government have no method of allowing for social benefit in the costings of the Post Office. The right price for the Post Office is one with a high profit margin, while the level of service and the social obligations to communities, which have traditionally been part of our Post Office, have gone by the board. The Post Office response to this demand has been its document, "The Post Office Counters Network: A strategy for the future". This document is nonsense and has very little relevance to the Post Office service which the people of Wales want or need. The strategy begins by explaining and showing how the British Post Office service is the best in the world in terms of access and the facilities provided, but by the time it gets to section 4 it is outlining ways to reduce a service which it describes as "above standard". In what other sector can Britain boast that it is the best in the world, and then use that as an excuse for making the service worse?
By 1987, the Post Office plans to serve the whole of Britain by 1,493 plush, posh Crown offices, all bristling with faceless new technology. It plans massive investment to move into the bank and building society business, where there is already tremendous competition. It plans to do this in the town and city centres, where there are already banks or building societies every three or four blocks. To pay for this misguided policy, it will close about 5 per cent. of the urban sub-post offices.
National savings and the National Girobank together make up 23 per cent. of Post Office business. These are the facilities which the Post Office wants to expand in city centres. However, common sense tells us that many people who use the Girobank do so because there are many outlets and they have a bank on their doorstep, in their local post office.

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The mail service makes up 22 per cent. of Post Office business. DHSS payments make up 33 per cent. and this is the part of the service that matters. It matters to the people, because those collecting pensions and benefits are those who physically cannot get into town or who cannot afford the bus fare to go to collect their payments. They need a facility in their community, and a local service. This matters, or it should matter, to the Post Office, because if a local service is not available, these people will transfer their business to the very banks with which the Post Office seeks to compete. So much for the sense of the strategy.
Wales will suffer at least as much as other areas of Britain from the cut in the number of urban sub-post offices. However, Wales, apart from Cardiff, does not have a city with a population of more than 250,000. We do not have urban areas comparable to those of London, Birmingham or Manchester. Our urban sub-post offices are usually the second office in a town. In many cases they were the village post office before the town grew. These sub-post offices are very much part of the communities which are separate from the town and retain their own identity. The differentiation between "urban" and "rural" sub-post offices has little relevance to Wales. That is why the people of Wales are so annoyed at the cut in their services.
Merthyr Tydfil borough council, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) is to be congratulated on its initiative in drawing together the campaign to oppose these closures and to redefine in Wales the status of urban sub-post offices. There is no doubt that these closures will cause hardship to many pensioners and great inconvenience to others, especially young mothers.
There is a further aspect of the Post Office strategy document that causes me great concern. I am referring to the code of practice which will be followed when a sub-post office is being considered for closure. The Post Office promises to take into account considerations such as the type of business done, whether a large number of pensions are paid, the difficulties that customers would face in getting to another office, whether there is a bus service and whether there are steep hills, the ability of nearby offices to absorb extra work and the likely future development of the area.
I have a sub-post office in my area, at Bolgoed road, Pontarddulais, where the code of practice has proved to be useless and has not been applied. Bolgoed road is used by many pensioners—nearly 100 of them have written to me. The alternative office is the main one in Pontarddulais. The Post Office has measured it as being 0·4 miles away, but it has not taken into account the fact that all the Bolgoed road business will go to Pontarddulais. It will not be split between two or more offices, and many people walk nearly 2 miles to get to Bolgoed road. There is no bus service. Bolgoed road is at the top of hilly Pontarddulais, and few pensioners will be able to walk down into town and back again. Those who can will swell existing queues at the Pontarddulais office — queues which existed before the DHSS strike. Moreover, there are plans to develop Pontarddulais, and an old people's complex is under construction, but still the office is to be
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closed. If the code of practice cannot be applied to the closure of Bolgoed road sub-post office, it is meaningless and the supposed consultations are a farce.
The Post Office should rewrite its document and rethink its strategy for Wales, especially in regard to urban sub-post offices. The Government should actively encourage the Post Office to do so. If the Government cannot get right the services that they provide in a small area such as post offices, what hope is there that they will get right the level of welfare, housing, health and education services?
8.42 pm
Mr. Gwilym Jones: I strongly welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's strong and hopeful speech. We all congratulate him, his fellow Ministers and officials on the excellent level of inward investment achieved for Wales in 1984. As in 1983, Wales secured almost one quarter of all inward investment in Britain. That is a most worthy achievement. I was also pleased that he announced that, subject to final strings being tied up, he has concluded an £8·5 million urban development grant framework for Tarmac for the development of south Cardiff. It is excellent that that project is progressing so well.
I should be depressed if I took too seriously the dismal Johnnie approach which is too common in Wales, especially among those who claim to represent Wales. A good example is South Glamorgan county council. How can anything be achieved if, at every turn, the response is to throw in one's hand? A negative stance can produce only negative results. That approach was shown up clearly in the reply to a parliamentary question tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) to the effect that, from July 1975 to May 1979, 39 offers of financial assistance were accepted and produced 2,000 jobs and that, since 1979, 198 offers of assistance have been accepted, producing 9,700 jobs.
The recent changes in regional assistance policy were also greeted with a negative attitude on the part of South Glamorgan county council. One would have imagined that a tax had been put on jobs. The Labour party knows that there used to be such a tax — the national insurance surcharge — which the Government abolished, thus relieving Welsh industry of having to find £140 million. Following the changes in regional policy, Cardiff has intermediate status. That enables all new ventures to apply for assistance here or from the Common Market. Only last weekend I had a letter from South Glamorgan county council asking me to note that it is unhappy about moves to make further education more responsive to the needs of training and to provide skills that are essential for the jobs to combat unemployment. The council objects especially to the involvement of the Manpower Services Commission, which is especially relevant in training and jobs. I am appalled at the council's apparent lack of concern about unemployment.
It is time that more people adopted a positive approach, such as some of us have already taken. Cardiff is a great place to locate. We do not need to rely entirely on bribery to attract industry because we have too much going for us already. We have good communications, ease of access to all important markets, an excellent industrial relations record, a beautiful city, pleasant countryside and a forward-looking planning authority, which responds correctly to opportunities. Two examples of that are the expansion of Amersham International and the new plant

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for AB Electronics adjacent to the M4. We are a sunrise location, playing an increasingly important part in high technology.
Our forward-looking planning authority played a strong part in support of my right hon. Friend in securing the location of Chemical bank, which has brought many jobs and will bring even more. South Glamorgan county council would do well to emulate the capital city of Wales.
I should like to consider a local matter — the University Hospital of Wales. We all know that the Welsh Health Technical Services Organisation recently settled for £300,000 on condition that there be no publicity of that settlement. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for ensuring that all of the information about the settlement was brought out. By his statement of 12 February, he overturned the "no publicity" condition, despite threats of a suit being lodged against him by those who wanted to maintain the confidentiality. There is much to be worried about in the handling of the claim by WHTSO, which the Select Committee on Welsh Affairs ought to examine. The claim might come within the purview of the Public Accounts Committee, but its handling is of great public interest. The Select Committee on Welsh Affairs ought to consider how WHTSO acted and whether it acted in the spirit of public accountability.
Much of what happened in regard to the university hospital occurred before 1979 and questions about responsibility have already been asked. On the same day that my right hon. Friend made his statement, there was another in another place. It is ironic that the noble Lord who asked questions on behalf of the Labour party was none other than Lord Prys-Davies, who was the chairman of the Welsh hospital board.
It was to that board that the University Hospital was handed over in October 1970. The responsibilities of the Welsh hospital board were transferred to WHTSO on reorganisation in 1974.
I had intended to refer to that matter before the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) made what I can only describe, in the same way as my right hon. Friend, as a squalid speech on that matter. His speech was entirely designed to achieve headlines in tomorrow's papers in Wales, but it will present the journalists on the papers in Wales with tremendous difficulties. While they will find glaring headlines, they will find no content in his contribution today. It was a speech entirely filled with innuendo, rumour, gossip and guilt by association. I do not know what motivated the hon. Gentleman. I do not know whether it was his difficulties in achieving reselection. Nor do I know what odd words are being said in odd places, including around the House. I certainly do not know what odd words are being said in, say, Annie's Bar. But one odd thing has occurred to me. Recently I gave an interview on the subject of the University Hospital and the reporter put to me what I thought then was a peculiar question. I now see a peculiar coincidence in the matter of the other hospital where the contract was let under the Labour Government.
The reporter asked whether yet another attack was being made on the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones), who, as a junior Minister at the Welsh Office during the period until 1979 had responsibilities for health matters. I shall make no comment on the subject, as I am sure that he is well able to answer for himself in the matter. But in view of the fertile imagination of the hon. Member
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for Torfaen I wonder what Machiavellian actions are taking place. They are actions with which I do not want to become involved.
Instead, let me deal with a matter of particular local concern. South Glamorgan county council has proposed to sell off of school playing fields, in particular the Ton yn Ywen playing field in my constituency. South Glamorgan county council says that it is being instructed by the Government to sell that off. That is not correct. The county council has chosen to spend at a particular level and it is financing that spending by selling off land.
Naturally, many of my constituents have looked to the Welsh Office in the hope that it could act as a court of appeal in this matter. I realise that my right hon. Friend's responsibility in planning affairs is limited and certainly does not extend to a matter of purely local concern, with no strategic or other significant implications. I fully appreciated that when he announced last week that he could not call in that planning application. But it is understandable that my constituents look to the Welsh Office as a court of appeal.
An applicant putting forward a planning application may be turned down and he has the right to make appeal to the Welsh Office, but this does not apply to others who use public open spaces—sports clubs as well. Here we have a county council acting in complete disregard of the people. It can act as judge and jury and can profit substantially by turning land over to housing, giving itself planning permission and obviously increasing the worth of the land substantially. At the same time, it ignores an offer by the city council to preserve it as public open space.
In response to public concern, my right hon. Friend put a stop on that while he considered whether to call the matter in. However, the county council pressed on and the matter will now be settled irrevocably within a short time if it has not already been settled. I wrote to my right hon. Friend to suggest that the matter might be held up until after May but he correctly told me that that would not be a normal use of his powers. Many in south Glamorgan would ask what mandate the county council now has for acting in complete disregard of the people. If the matter had been delayed beyond May it would have allowed the electorate to make a judgment on the matter. There are important matters for us to consider and I am grateful for this opportunity to do so, and particularly to raise matters of local concern.
8.54 pm
Mr. D. E. Thomas: I shall not follow the hon. Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) but I want to point out some facts. The hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Terlezki) insisted that we should do that. In particular, let us look at the Government's public expenditure tables and at the fall in expenditure on housing. The figure for housing in Wales in 1979–80 was £206 million. That has dropped to a projected £130 million for 1987–88. Those are cash figures, not real terms figures They are paralleled only by the massive drop in nationalised industries' external financing limit, which will fall from £37 million in 1979–80 to a projected £10 million in 1987–88. Not surprisingly, if we turn to the section on nationalised industries, we find that the cash limits for the National Coal Board are not yet determined. The public sector starts in Wales over the same period show a drop from 5,198 in 1971 to 1,150 in 1984. Those are the real facts of the Tory Government.
Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Let me complete the facts. The hon. Gentleman has quoted accurately the net figures. He will realise that gross housing expenditure is a great deal higher because of the proceeds from sales.
Mr. Thomas: I am also well aware that the Secretary of State has recently reduced the ability of local authorities to use those capital receipts for their own purposes.
Much of the debate has turned on the mining strike and I make no apology for concentrating on that. I only wish that some Conservative Members had followed the lead of the hon. Member for Clwd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer) by talking of conciliation rather then continual conflict.
The Secretary of State has a grave responsibility to the people of Wales as a result of the stance that he has taken personally in the dispute. He assumed that it was his role to represent the Prime Minister and the chairman of the NCB in Wales. He took a personal hand in the so-called campaign to get miners back to work and made speeches along those lines. It is about time that he apologised to the House and to Wales for some of his speeches at that time. He should realise that he has been unable to defeat the strength and solidarity of the South Wales miners. He should have the courage of his hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West to pay tribute to the community values that inspired that stand and solidarity.
The fact that the right hon. Gentleman will not intervene now to do that shows that he cannot take his defeat gracefully. He must realise that the dispute has been a personal defeat for him. Not only did he take the Prime Minister's side and denigrate Welsh miners and their families but he compared the men in South Wales with people involved in terrorism. He made that speech in Cardiff and I gave him the opportunity during Welsh questions to withdraw those remarks and he refused to do so. I give him the opportunity now.
Mr. Nicholas Edwards: That is pure invention. If the hon. Gentleman looks at the text of my speech—I shall send him a copy—he will discover that, and I hope that he will withdraw that remark.
Mr. Thomas: I read the right hon. Gentleman's speech at the time. I also read press reports and had conversations with Conservatives who were present at the dinner and who were equally appalled. I shall not withdraw the remarks. He has a personal obligation to make his position clear and to say that he supports the conciliation attempts of his hon. Friend the Member for Clwyd, North-West.
I shall be brief, as I know that other colleagues wish to intervene before the wind-up speeches. I should like to refer to the central issue of the dispute, which will not go away, however the dispute is resolved — the central argument about the economics of energy policy, to which Conservative Members, yet again, have failed to address themselves. I refer in particular to the major report on the coal industry in Wales, produced by the economists and social historians at Aberystwyth — Tony Cutler, Colin Haslam, John Williams and Karel Williams. It is entitled, "Aberystwyth Report on Coal". I ask the Secretary of State and his officials to find time to read it because I am sure that they will find within it a critique of Government policy that it might be a useful exercise for them to read. If there are Clive Pontings in the Welsh Office, that might inspire them.
The conclusions to that report make it clear that the NCB accounts do not provide a basis for the definition of
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an economic pit or an economic coal industry. Indeed, that follows on the calculations made in the Andrew Glyn report and the studies published in Accountant's Magazine showing the inadequate basis of the NCB's accountancy. In particular the report stresses the argument that, it is the failure to invest that makes uneconomic pits. I spoke about that in the coal debate recently, and I do not want to repeat those remarks. However, it is important that we should make the one clear argument that, if the Government were to implement the policies of the European Community on environmental conservation, particularly the policies on clean coal, Welsh coal and Scottish coal, which is cleaner in its sulphur content, would immediately become much more economic.
Indeed, economists such as Dr. Mark Barret, from the Open University energy research group, have stressed the difference in value per tonne of coal that would result from the imposition of sulphur emission controls on power stations in the United Kingdom. That is one clear example of the way in which the economics of an extractive industry and electricity generation are not the same as the economics of the production of commodities in manufacturing branch plants. I only wish that Conservative Members applied the same argument to the economics of energy policy that they are prepared to apply to the economics of farming, another extractive industry.
There is no such thing as a free market in energy. The Secretary of State lectures the Welsh miners by comparing them with steel workers. Those are two entirely different industries. In Britain we have reserves of coal to maintain an energy policy for well over 250 years, yet the Government are going for the nuclear power option, which is much more expensive and environmentally unacceptable. That is the Government's decision because they are keen to defeat the forces that have massed in the NUM and among its supporters.
Therefore, there is no such thing as a free market in energy. The NCB has been used to subsidise the Central Electricity Generating Board over the years. The decisions to centralise coal production in high investment areas have led to an economics that denies the viability of the so-called peripheral coalfields in Durham and south Wales. Because of that, the basic question about the nature of uneconomic pits cannot be dealt with in terms of unit costs of individual pits allocated in order to calculate the viability of each pit. The economics of the coal industry has to take into account the overall economics of energy policy. The Government's failure to do that and their willingness to treat coal as if it were another commodity demonstrates a long-term failure in planning. Of course, one does not expect long-term planning from the Government. We can see clearly a failure to take account of the real issues, and rather than addressing themselves to economic policy, the Government have determined on the destruction of the communities of south Wales.
Of course, the Government will have to pay a high price for that, because it is the Government themselves who have adopted that course of total confrontation with the south Wales mining communities. At the same time, the Tory party has been trying to polish up its image in other parts of Wales as the party that distributes largesse to S4C and specific client groups in Welsh education. However, the people of Wales are not conned by that strategy. The basis of Wales is a sound economy that is controlled for the benefit of the community of Wales. The Secretary of State is not interested in developing such an economy. He

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is interested only in ensuring that the Tory party can achieve additional support from certain sections of the Welsh population while destroying the basis of Welsh democracy as represented by the NUM and the coalfield communities. However, what the Secretary of State has succeeded in doing in the dispute is to create in Wales new forces of extra-parliamentary opposition, which will survive his period of office as Secretary of State. I refer to the Wales Congress in Support of Mining Communities, which has the support of the Labour party in Wales, Plaid Cymru, the Communist party, the churches, language groups, and trade unions beyond the coal industry — a broad spectrum of radical opinion in Wales opposed to what the Tory Government are doing to Welsh communities.
As a result of the way in which the Secretary of State has declared class war upon the people of Wales and their communities, we shall respond in specific terms. We shall defend our communities. We shall defend the values of solidarity and culture that are part of those communities. The communities of Wales will triumph over his rule as governor-general in Wales.
9.5 pm
Mr. Ian Grist: I think that the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) will find that his rainbow coalition of forces will have as much effect as the democratic presidential candidate found it to have last year in the United States. The right hon. Gentleman served the people of Wales ill, as leader of his party claiming national leadership and helping to lead them to believe that strikers could triumph over the democratically elected Government of this country. They could not triumph, and they will not do so.
The right hon. Member had a bit of a cheek to suggest that this Government failed to negotiate with the unnegotiable Mr. Scargill in the autumn, when he was in full cry and his members were terrorising miners who wanted to work, especially as they now reject, at the very last gasp, negotiations that have been worked out by the TUC. If they reject those negotiations now, what on earth would they have been doing accepting anything from this Government in November or October of last year? That was a pipe dream, just as the right hon. Gentleman's leadership of his party at the last election was a pipe dream. Those Opposition Members who had to fight on the manifesto — which was, I think, described by a fairly well-known right hon. Gentleman as the longest suicide note in political history — will remember that it called for £35,000 million or £40,000 million in extra public expenditure.
We did not hear that today from the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones). He just wanted a little more expenditure—just the odd few thousand more—but not £35,000 million or £40,000 million. But of course the hon. Gentleman had to stand by that manifesto at the time. The hon. Member knows that breaking off from the EEC would be suicide, but the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent did not seem to know that. It is the curse of the lack of standardisation in our products and services that is dragging down Europe. Unemployment, and the slow disregard of Europe in the face of Asia and north America, is a European problem. We must seek standardisation, and it is the Government's policy to knock down those internal barriers to the Common Market in order to create a real Common Market that will create the jobs that we need.
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At present, jobs are going to the bigger international economic units and not to the European countries If the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent really believes in the medicine that he sought to give the country at the last election, why does he not look to President Mitterrand, who sold it with much more panache to the people of France, but who had to turn smartly on his heels in a 180 degree turn? President Mitterrand is now pursuing monetarism and showing a regard for economic reality and discipline in the market that puts even this country and Government in the shade. That was French pragmatism facing up to reality in a way that I am afraid Opposition Members have signally failed to do.
Incidentally, like my hon. Friends, I welcome the Tarmac announcement today. I know that the development of south Cardiff is dear to the heart of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and I and the people of Cardiff thank him for it. Many things point in the right direction. Investment is now running at a record level. That will mean jobs in the future. We do not hear quite so much about the need for investment, of course, now that it is high. Inflation is being held, but with the fall in the pound it will be even more important to keep down the rise in labour costs, as otherwise inflation will increase.
Exports are rising faster than the growth in imports, and the fall in the pound means that the increased export volume should outstrip the growth in imports for the first time since 1977. Our efforts to bring industry to Britain, and in particular to Wales, should be helped by the cheaper pound, especially with regard to America. The ending of the miners' strike will have a signal effect on the economy in all sorts of ways. Last year the strike dragged down our growth rate by at least two clear points. Presumably that rate will rise by an extra two points once the strike is ended. That will begin to restore jobs and will provide people in Wales and in the rest of the country with an opportunity. Oil imports will fall. The strike has also affected electricity. The British Steel Corporation and, we hope, the railways will be assisted by the ending of the strike. In addition, small shops will be helped, and the money diverted in various ways by councils will now be put into the proper coffers or left to fructify in the pockets of local people.
All those things should flow from the ending of the miners' strike, and all of them have been damaged by it. We hope that interest rates will begin to fall, but responsibility for them rests partly with the United States. I hope that Opposition Members will not go off again this year and support the teachers' strike, which is wilfully damaging youngsters in schools in Wales. Opposition Members know perfectly well, just as the Labour chairman of the south Glamorgan education committee knows, that if the employers pay more than is on offer at the moment, the money will come out of the allocation for school books, equipment and other materials needed by the pupils.
I should like to have said more about the youth training scheme. I wish next to mention some of the points which the Economist article brought to the fore and which the hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) mentioned. The Economist said of Wales:
"To many industrialists it is a place where fierce unionised workers live in small terraced houses alongside derelict steelworks and slag heaps."

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That is precisely the image that Opposition Members always like to paint. If that image has got out, it is because they help to push it out year by year. The Economist continues:
"Never mind that these are gross calumnies. So long as they are widely believed, the country will not attract sufficient investment from manufacturers, financiers and the tourist industry.
The first thing that Opposition Members can do to help Wales is to stop painting this picture.
Praise was given to the Welsh Development Agency for helping to bring Japanese industry to Wales by drawing to its notice the other advantages in coming to Wales besides its regional policies, matters to which I always draw attention—our golf courses, theatres, beaches and the great beauty of the countryside, all the assets that we enjoy. The Economist says:
"Companies, especially hi-tech companies"—
by inference, the young people in charge of them—
"in searching for a site are often now as interested in finding a nice place to live and work as they are in making money."
I hope that they make money as well. The Economist continues:
"So poor is Wales' quality of life image … that those who actually take a look at the place are bound to be pleasantly surprised."
That is another matter. We want to bring people into Wales. What better way than bringing them in as tourists in the first place? Only 3 or 4 per cent. of international tourists come to Wales, and we must increase that figure. We have to have better hotels. There is to be a Holiday Inn in Cardiff. We need more international sized hotels of first rate standard to begin to draw in international tourism. From tourism, one can begin to produce business as well. The twinning of towns should be advantageous in bringing in foreign industrialists.
The Economist puts its finger on another point concerning Cardiff:
"Cardiff is a fine city, large enough to be interesting, not so large that it is impersonal. Its St. David's Centre is one of the best anywhere. The city has good music … In a single month last year St. David's Hall advertised appearances by the BBC Concert Orchestra, the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, Van Morrison, Bob Hope, Segovia, the Commodores, Tom Paxton, Roberta Flack, the Everley Brothers, and the Band of the Welsh Guards."
One could perfectly well have added darts, the iron maiden and wrestling. Those are the things which help to bring people to Wales.
We are an attractive country and we have much to sell. If we sell ourselves properly, we will also get the jobs to go with it.
9.12 pm
Dr. Roger Thomas: Exactly a month ago the Secretary of State for Wales issued an unprecedented press notice bitterly attacking the expenditure plans for his own home county of Dyfed. It was the action in my opinion of a panic-stricken and desperate person. The elections of May will soon be here. It is obvious that the Secretary of State has to bolster the flagging influence of his own constituency's ultra-Tory representation on the council. As a result of the Secretary of State's roughshod intervention, we could well, thank God, have a Left radical coalition majority on Dyfed county council after 2 May this year. The balance of
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opinion in that elected council has brought about a cautious response since the council came into being in 1974, erring on the side of prudence rather than profligacy, but even those most prudent people are now being punished by the Secretary of State.
Dyfed has always attempted to strike the right balance, but the present situation is that if it spends £1 above the penal target figure of £130 million the authority is penalised £1·50. An extra £1·4 million for services means that the ratepayer would have to pay £4 million. This is the financial balance of the madhouse because it is the central Exchequer and not the people of Dyfed, the receivers or the givers, who ultimately benefit.
The search for constant efficiency is there for all to see, but the Secretary of State is dissatisfied and is determined that Dyfed services and staffing are to be undermined. The authority's expenditure next year is to be reduced to the target figure that the Secretary of State has set. It will be £3 million below that which the Welsh Office assesses that Dyfed needs to spend. Dyfed ratepayers know what reductions of such magnitude will mean. Since 1977, Dyfed councillors, parents and electors generally have become more uneasy and worried about the effect of constant cuts. The cuts in the education service in Dyfed have amounted to £9 million since 1979.
The Secretary of State accuses Dyfed — I quote his press release—of
"distorting the facts and abrogating its responsibilities."
He advises Dyfed
"to avoid a confrontation course."
But Dyfed finds itself with a target figure that is well below that which the Welsh Office assesses Dyfed council should be spending. The target is a full £3 million below that assessment.
The voters of Dyfed will be told in the May elections exactly what reductions in services they will have to face if control of the council remains in the hands of the independents, who will have kow-towed to the bully-boy tactics of the Welsh Office and its "I-know-best" attitude. That attitude is constantly coming our way in Dyfed from the Secretary of State.
The people of Dyfed know that the result of further cuts will be the closure of rural schools. We all know of the effect on communities when rural schools are closed. These schools are the focal points of community life in Welsh Wales. Community care will suffer. We all know how the Government have decided to close hospitals and to send patients out into the community, which is often ill-prepared to receive them. Those who are sent out often require mental care.
There has been a deterioration in the roads and infrastructure of south-west Wales. We need good roads and infrastructure if we are to bring jobs to south Wales, especially in the Teifi valley, which has an unemployment rate of between 20 and 25 per cent.
We in Dyfed are not prepared to accept the bully-boy tactics of the Secretary of State. When the education committee meets on Tuesday next, I hope that it will reverse the county council's decision to impose cuts amounting to £2 million in the education service. I hope that it will seek to maintain our standards of education of which we in Dyfed are proud, even though I doubt sometimes whether the Secretary of State shares our pride.
Mr. Speaker: I call Mr. Bright.
9.18 pm
Mr. Keith Best: I hope that the few minutes available to me, Mr. Speaker, will be bright indeed, although I cannot claim to have that name. I shall not follow the path taken by the hon. Member for Carmarthen (Dr. Thomas). The hon. Gentleman is a nice man but it is unfortunate that he often speaks in a way that is as miserable as the way he sometimes looks. He must do himself a favour by trying to match the visage that he now presents to us—he bears a smile on his face—with some of the things that he says.
The hon. Member for Carmarthen talked about Health Service cuts. If he had taken the trouble to consider the facts, he would not have made those remarks. The hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) accuses the Government of being profligate. I suspect that that is an accusation that he will live to regret. However, he is right to say that their spending on the Health Service is profligate, as is their spending on welfare payments. The spending in both directions has increased dramatically under this Government. It is somewhat amusing when the hon. Gentleman talks about housing being the Government's Augean stables. The hon. Gentleman cuts an unlikely figure as Hercules.
The hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside was right when he said that Wales needs jobs. He must understand that Wales is going through a change in its society as fundamental as the industrial revolution. Unfortunately, the Labour party cannot comprehend that. The Government have comprehended fully this change and they are taking the appropriate measures.
It is typical of the Labour party to talk about the massive shopping list of expenditure that it would have, without making any costings whatsoever. It is the shopping list of the man who knows that he will have to burgle the house next door before he can pay for any of the goods that he wants to buy.
It is a pity that the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside did not take the trouble to read a comment that was made by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) shortly after the 1983 general election, when he attributed the defeat of the Labour party to its £17 billion unemployment package and added:
"It sounded too good to be true. What should have been our greatest advantage was turned into a drawback."
It was a drawback because nobody believed it, and nobody believes it now.
The hon. Members for Alyn and Deeside and for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) are the Owl and Pussycat of Welsh politics. They sit there, one hunched up spreading misery and gloom, eyes unblinking, the other wishing to claw like a pussycat at anything that he can grab hold of. If they really want to do a service for the people of Wales, they will sail away in their pea-green boat, because both they and their policies have no further relevance.
9.21 pm
Mr. Roy Hughes: This annual Welsh day debate has turned into a sort of annual general meeting of hon. Members who represent Welsh constituencies. It is the time when we take stock of the economic state of our beloved homeland.
We had the usual fairy story from the Secretary of Slate, with ample reference to the closure of uneconomic pits. There was no mention of National Coal Board
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Enterprises, the vehicle which will allegedly provide new jobs in our mining communities. We should have been told whether there is to be a Welsh dimension to that organisation and what revenue will be available to it. The miners and their families will draw their own conclusion. It was left to my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), in an eloquent speech, to develop that point.
I begin where we left off on 28 February 1984, when the Under-Secretary's first words were:
"A dark and gloomy Wales, heavily overcast by black economic clouds blown there by Government policy."—[Official Report, 28 February 1984; Vol. 55, c. 220.]
Admittedly, he was trying to ridicule the image of Wales portrayed by Labour Members, particularly in respect of what had been said about the effects of Government policies. But 12 months later we are entitled to ask the Government: where is the sunshine?
The Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to live in a world of his own. He believes that we are going through an economic boom. His contention reminds me of a song — I was a boy at the time — that Bing Crosby used to sing, "It's June in January." The hon. Member for Bury, North (Mr. Burt) appreciates the contradiction. In a recent article in Reformer, the journal of the Tory Reform Group, he wrote:
"To be told that we are in the fourth year of recovery with unemployment at 3½ million is a definition of an economic boom unknown to me."
He is right.
Let us examine more closely the Welsh unemployment figures. In our annual Welsh day debate last year we were told that the number out of work in January 1984 was 174,707, or 16·3 per cent. By January 1985 it had risen to 185,529, or 17·4 per cent. Almost 11,000 more people had joined the dole queue, a sort of "Rake's Progress". By any logic, the dark clouds are hardly breaking.
When, in years gone by, there was high unemployment in Wales, people moved to other parts of the country. My mother's brothers, for example, moved to Birmingham. Others went to Slough, Oxford and elsewhere.
I am very glad that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has made such a wonderful recovery from the terrible Brighton bombing. He became famous for his advice to the unemployed to "get on their bikes" In present conditions this advice seems to me to be absurd. We all recognise that unemployment is now 3·5 million and, according to William Keagan, the economics editor of The Observer, in his article last Sunday, the vacancies are now 157,000 and there is a huge imbalance in the labour market. The country is simply crying out for new investment, which this Government are not prepared to sponsor.
My hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) outlined the sort of programme which a Labour Government would engage in to try to eradicate this problem. But even with those in work there is still a sort of uneasiness. People are looking nervously over their shoulders and wondering whether it will be their turn next — for the chop, that is. This is the hallmark of Thatcherism.
It could be argued, of course, that there are economic benefits when people are cowed in this way, but such benefits are only temporary. It is certainly no way to run the economy of an advanced industrial country in the closing years of the 20th century. Today, industry can be efficiently and effectively run only by co-operation and

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consent. The Government have gone completely against principles of this sort. For example, they planned the confrontation with the miners.
There is no need to speculate about this; it is on record. We have the so-called Ridley report, the leak of which appeared in The Economist of 28 May 1978. I will put it on record once again:
"The group believes that the most likely battleground will be the coal industry. They would like a Thatcher Government to: (a) build up maximum coal stocks, particularly at the power stations; (b) make contingency plans for the import of coal; (c) encourage the recruitment of non-union lorry drivers by haulage companies to help move coal where necessary; (d) introduce dual coal/oil firing in all power stations as quickly as possible.
The group believes that the greatest deterrent to any strike would be 'to cut off the money supply to the strikers and make the union finance them'."
Finally it says:
"There should be a large, mobile squad of police equipped and prepared to uphold the law against violent picketing. 'Good non-union drivers' should be recruited to cross picket lines with police protection."
These plans were laid well before Mr. Scargill came to power in the National Union of Mineworkers. The only fact that the document left out was that an American hatchet man was to be recruited, at extraordinary cost, to carry out the exercise. The Ridley report is an important social document. It will be recalled in south Wales for generations to come, long after all the twaddle about Caernarfon castle and malicious old maids has been forgotten.
I cannot do other than applaud the magnificent stand of the south Wales miners. Their loyalty, solidarity and dedication to their cause has been of the highest order. They have been fighting for their communities. They, as much as anyone, recognise that unemployment is the No. 1 problem and the greatest social evil facing Wales today.
What are the Government doing about that dreadful position? The traditional method of inducing new jobs to an area is regional aid. Yet the Government have recently taken a considered decision to cut regional aid by £60 million—money that is sorely needed in Wales. In the Welsh Grand Committee on 21 January, I said that a major international company was considering a major development in Newport, which would use new plant and new technology and employ 700 people. I received a report that the Secretary of State had made a derisory offer to that company and, ultimately, it said that if it was not more favourably treated the development would go to the Continent where the company already had other operations—
Mr. Raffan rose—
Mr. Hughes: No. I heard enough from the hon. Gentleman earlier.
During Question Time in the House yesterday, and also during Welsh questions on 11 February, I raised the issue of the Honda motor company and the fact that it has acquired a 330-acre site in Swindon. Yesterday, the Minister tried to clothe the issue in secrecy. To add insult to injury, he more or less implied that he could not care less whether a Japanese company wanted to invest millions of pounds in Swindon. The Government have no concern for the regional imbalances in the British economy.
Surely the Secretary of State for Wales should be concerned about that matter. Will he tell us what part he
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has played in the Honda project and what efforts he is making in bringing such a project to Wales? I am waiting to hear from the right hon. Gentleman, and I shall willingly give way. He seems to have lost his tongue.
In just over two hours it will be 1 March, the national day of Wales. If Dewi Sant were to come back, he would wish to continue his missionary endeavours. His efforts would not be confined to Wales; he would be concerned about the rather more affluent communities in the southeast of England. However, he would first have to get to the south-east of England, and I do not know what he would make of the masses of bollards on the Severn bridge. We shall never know. They certainly give a most deplorable impression to visitors to Wales.
Nearly 18 months ago, in an Adjournment debate, I revealed the true state of the Severn bridge which apparently the Government were trying to hide. Subsequently the Secretary of State for Transport made great play of the fact that £30 million was to be spent on repairs and maintenance of the bridge. In answer to a parliamentary question last week the Minister of State, Department of Transport again talked about the £33 million which was to be spent. In a corkscrew type of answer he said that, since the bridge had opened, £10·3 million had been spent on repairs and maintenance. The bridge was opened in 1966 and a lot of money was spent before we had the announcement about £33 million.
What is more, the Minister of State indicated that the work would take another five years. This is a snail's pace, which the Secretary of State tried to gloss over this afternoon. Does it mean that there is an attempt not to make too big a dent in the finances of the Department of Transport? In other words, are a few million pounds being allocated for the work each year? This is not good enough. We are entitled to ask what the Secretary of State is doing to speed up vital work on this most important artery for Wales. Again I offer to give way to the Secretary of State if he wants to give an explanation, but he seems rather shy.
Mr. Nicholas Edwards: The problem of doing major work is to keep the traffic flowing over the bridge. The sort of programme that the hon. Gentleman is advocating would cause traffic jams that I should have thought he would want to prevent.
Mr. Hughes: What I have complained about is the disastrous image of Wales that the bridge gives to visitors. There are lane closures and traffic hold-ups from time to time. I live fairly close to the bridge and I have been able to see it better than the Secretary of State.
Last Thursday, 21 February, there was a very interesting article in the South Wales Argus by its deputy editor, Mr. Steve Hoselitz. He showed that Welsh consumers pay more for gas, electricity and water than is paid in the rest of Britain. Surely this is wrong when Wales is suffering from mass unemployment. We have not seen such unemployment in Wales for 50 years. It is wrong that public utilities, at the instigation of the Government, should cane people in this way. Again I ask the Secretary of State what he is doing in the Cabinet to defend the interests of Wales.
As we approach our national day the dark clouds are getting ever blacker because of the policies being pursued by the Government. There will be no sunshine for Wales while the Government remain in office. Towards the end of the second world war Sir Winston Churchill said, when

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he realised that Britain would be in an impoverished state when the war was over, that the future was full of foreboding and gloom. So it is with this Government. They have failed Wales, and they should get out.
9.39 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Wyn Roberts): This is an historic occasion. This is probably the only time since the war that a Welsh day debate has ended with more Welsh Conservative Members present in the House than there are Labour Welsh Members. I wonder what Jim Griffiths, Nye Bevan and the great Labour stalwarts of the past would have made of that.
Listening to the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) I could hardly believe that I was hearing an hon. Member who has had 25 new factory units built in his constituency since May 1979 with a further two units planned. He should be smiling, not frowning, at this generous Treasury Bench.
We all have our normal, individual, loving view of Wales, but in a debate such as this, of necessity, we must be highly selective and present a partial view only — partial especially in the political sense. I understand that the Opposition feel obliged to concentrate on the pimples on the fair face of the Principality — it is in their political interest to do so. The closer the leading spokesmen of the Opposition can get to the anchorite of Llanddewi Brefi's description of Wales after the death of Saint David, the happier they are. He said:
"And then was heard a cry arising from all, a wail and lamentation and weeping and people exclaiming 'Woe to us that the earth does not swallow us, that fire does not burn us: would that God would raise the sea over the land and cause the mountains to fall on us'."
And so on—just like a Western Mail leader.
The hon. Members for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) and for Newport, East did pretty well in cataloguing Welsh woes but I hope, for all our sakes, that no potential inward investor reads their speeches. The summit of a volcano would seem to be a safer place to invest than any of our valleys.
We might brush off these cataclysmic dirges as hackneyed and Labour out-of-office verbiage if it were not for the fact that they are taken up by the mentally impoverished media, which seem only to be able to sell a preconceived, gloom-and-doom view of Wales. Any success we may have has to fit in with their eschatological view that, if the end of the world is nigh, it is nearer in Wales than anywhere else.
To think, as so many of the Opposition seem to think, that the solution to unemployment is a quick injection of public funds is superficial and dubious in the extreme. The London Business School's "Economic Outlook" as reported last Monday in the Financial Times gave a fair assessment of that proposition. Referring to the authors of "Economic Outlook", the article stated:
"They conclude that, on balance, the Government should stick to its financial strategy for reducing its borrowing, money supply growth and inflation. But special measures, including particular investment projects or tax-cutting measures, could help provide jobs in the short-term."
"The Government's Expenditure Plans 1985–86 to 1987–88" in January show that we in Wales have had the capital resources this year, and will have more next year, for major investment programmes. The total capital expenditure within the sphere of responsibility of my right
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hon. Friend the Secretary of State will grow from £570 million in 1984–85 to £586 million in 1985–86. My right hon. Friend has indicated some of the areas where this additional money will be spent. The local authorities will also have more capital available to them.
Of course the Opposition want still more, as my hon. Friends the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Terlezki), for Delyn (Mr. Raffan) and for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) realise. The Labour party wants a massive flood of public expenditure which will burst through the banks of governmental constraints, leaving our policies as tattered as the Labour Government's policies were when the IMF came in to pick up the pieces in 1976. A fat lot of good that would do for the unemployed in Wales.
An area where there can be more capital investment next year is the Welsh water authority. As a result of the increased target rate of return on net revalued assets, the authority can increase its capital investment to £55 million, compared with a likely figure this year of £40 million. It has also been possible to increase the authority's external financing limit to £20 million despite the overall reduction in EFLs for the water industry in England and Wales. So there will be a substantial programme of infrastructure improvements in this important area of the environment, and I hope that those who have called for the improvements and more investment will welcome our decision.
While on the subject of water, which was raised during Prime Minister's Question Time this afternoon, let me clarify the position on charges. The Welsh water authority has managed to keep its main charges increase to 8 per cent. — one of the lowest in England and Wales. Charges to industry, commerce and agriculture — the hon. for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells) should listen to this—will be below the rate of inflation for the second year running, and that should give heart to those sectors of the economy. As to domestic charges, of the 12 per cent. increase, 5·25 per cent. is to cover the expected increase in costs, 4 per cent. is due to the authority's own scheme for making charges as between non-domestic and domestic consumers more equitable, and 2·75 per cent. only is attributable to the Government's new target regime.
We have heard a great deal about defective buildings and alleged deficiencies in the Health Service and not half enough about the advances made in treating patients. The hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside made no secret of his interest in the National Health Service's shortcomings in his letter to district health authority chairmen. He said:
"It would be helpful if you could list projects that may not go forward because of funding difficulties."
Is he not interested in the projects that will go ahead, and in the initiatives that have been, are being and will be taken by the Government?
The hon. Gentleman made no mention of the 40,000 more in-patient cases and the 250,000 more out-patient attendances dealt with in 1983 as compared with 1979. The House is familiar with our 10-year strategy to develop services for the mentally handicapped. It knows of the development of bone marrow transplantation, cardiac surgery and cardiology, the main renal unit at Morriston and subsidiary renal units at Carmarthen and Bangor. The House knows, too, of the continuing work of the perinatal mortality survey group and the Health Education Advisory Committee, and of the five-year heartbeat programme designed to reduce the 10,000 deaths a year in Wales from

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heart disease and the 25,000 who suffer from angina and related conditions. On 8 March, we shall announce our further proposals to combat hard drug abuse in Wales. Several initiatives—less dramatic but no less important — are progressing, including the establishment of the new independent family practitioner committees, the appointment of new district general managers and computerisation.
The NHS in Wales is advancing on many and varied fronts and yet again, as my right hon. Friend announced earlier this week, there is to be an increase in funding next year. As the biggest employer in Wales and spending some £900 million a year of the taxpayers' money, it would be a miracle if the NHS was without its problems. None is more important than the problem of the individual patient whom the system appears to have failed. As some hon. Members will know, such individual patient problems are often taken up by Ministers and we give them our fullest, most detailed attention. The Prime Minister brings her own personal influence to bear on the thorough and intensive examination of such cases to ensure that the rights of patients and relatives are fully respected and safeguarded. Against this background, I am appalled by the squalid, paranoid attack launched against my right hon. Friend in connection with Ysbyty Gwynedd.
We all know that the hon. Member for Torfaen (Mr. Abse) is the hatchet man of the parliamentary Labour party. A Labour hatchet man fighting for reselection throws his hatchet with the accuracy of an injured Indian brave.
My right hon. Friend has already made a clear statement to the House, spanning three or more Administrations, on the university hospital of Wales, Cardiff. He has made a full disclosure of the facts. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) appreciates that.
There are questions still to be asked. Let me pose a few questions. What happened during the period up to 1973 when the first piece of mosaic cladding fell, when the Welsh hospital board was responsible and when Lord Prys-Davies was chairman of the board? He was singularly reticent on that point when he questioned my noble Friend, Lord Caithness, on his statement about the hospital defects in the other place on 12 February. He did not even declare his interest.
What happened during the five years of the Labour Government from 1974 to 1979 when the right hon. and learned Member for Aberavon (Mr. Morris) was in charge with Lord Prys-Davies, as his special adviser and the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside as his Under-Secretary with responsibility for the NHS? Did Ministers approve the issue of the final certificate in 1975 when, according to Mr. West, the clerk of works, "hundreds of defects" were being reported? The issue of that certificate proved to be a serious obstacle to the pursuit of legal remedies. Why was it left to the incoming Conservative Government to pursue such claims as were open to us? The last Labour Government have a great deal to answer for.
With regard to Ysbyty Gwynedd, the contract for the residences was awarded to IDC in 1978 under the Labour Government. It was left to us to remedy the defects and to ensure that the taxpayer gets full value for his money.
The hon. Member for Torfaen, as a solicitor, should know well that it would be wholly inappropriate for me to
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give figures relating to current claims subject to negotiation and possible litigation. The House will be informed in due course.
With regard to the hospital itself, a writ has been served on the hospital design consortium. Proceedings are therefore under way and again it would be wholly inappropriate for me to give details. Again, the outcome will be reported in due course. We make periodic reports to the PAC.
Mr. Abse rose—
Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman has had a fair time. I have a great deal to answer.
A number of hon. Members have mentioned housing. All arguments about housing come back in the end to the question of finance, and this afternoon the Opposition have again charged us with providing inadequate levels of housing finance, but that charge is again not supported by the facts. Public capital expenditure in Welsh housing during the first five years of this Administration exceeded £790 million. That is over £80 million more than in the last five years of Labour Government. In the past two financial years alone, capital expenditure on housing totalled about £460 million. Those are substantial figures and compare well with the Opposition's record. In real terms too, the comparison is good—expenditure in 1983–84, when we conducted a major attack on the problems of unfitness in the private stock, was the highest in real terms since 1976–77.
This time last year, I was forecasting housing capital expenditure for 1984–85 of about £200 million, based mainly on the gross provisions for local authorities and the Housing Corporation. We know now that expenditure by the year end will be higher than that, but I remind the House that we expect gross housing capital expenditure for 1985–86 to be very close to the 1984–85 provision of some £200 million. The Housing Corporation's net provision of £39 million has been maintained for next year, and gross provision for local authorities, at £146·5 million, is only £5 million, or 3·3 per cent. down on this year's provision. That reduction is entirely due to falling receipts. In fact, we have estimated that receipts income will be nearly £20 million less in 1985–86 than that forecast for 1984–85 and we have protected authorities' expenditure to a very large extent by increasing net provision by nearly £15 million.
Labour Members accuse us of making swingeing cuts in the education service and I am sorry that they have been joined by the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North. We have not heard much on that line during the debate, perhaps because the hon. Member for Alyn and Deeside remembered the time when he had ministerial responsibility for education in Wales. In 1975, he had to predict that there would be little scope for major new initiatives in the coming year or two. He had to admit that increased resources were not the only way to safeguard and improve the standard. It is worth my confirming what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, that current expenditure on education in Wales has remained virtually constant in real terms.
The fortunes of Wales are inextricably tied to those of the rest of the United Kingdom, and we should be glad that the prospects for the United Kingdom are as healthy as they are. They are so because of the Government's relentless pursuit of the strategy of reducing inflation by monetary restraint and stimulating output and jobs by

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enabling our economy to adapt to new demands, as some of my hon. Friends have appreciated—my hon. Friends the Members for the Vale of Glamorgan (Sir R. Gower) and for Clwyd, North-West (Sir A. Meyer) in particular. The strategy is working. We have lowered inflation, output has been growing over the past four years and employment is higher than in the first quarter of 1983. With inflation under control, those trends are expected to continue and we in Wales can expect to benefit along with the rest of the United Kingdom.
We are going through a long period of change in the structure of the Welsh economy. Nobody should doubt that there is still a major role for coal and steel in Wales, but we need a wider base on which to stand firm — hence the new industries that we are attracting. We have done extremely well. The Opposition have not paid due credit to my right hon. Friend for some of what he announced today. The people of Wales are highly adaptable and our work force is second to none, as the many foreign companies that have established themselves in Wales will testify. In addition to continuing our effective coal and steel—
It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Welsh Affairs

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That, at this day's sitting, the Companies Consolidation (Consequential Provisions) Bill [Lords], the Companies Bill [Lords], the Company Securities (Insider Dealing) Bill [Lords] and the Business Names Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Neubert.]

Orders of the Day

  Companies Consolidation (Consequential Provisions) Bill [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  10.1 pm
  The Solicitor-General (Sir Patrick Mayhew): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  It will be for the convenience of the House if I deal also with the Companies Bill, the Company Securities (Insider Dealing) Bill and the Business Names Bill.
  The labours that have produced this consolidation have been Herculean, as it is the first consolidation of the company law of Great Britain since 1948. They demand an expression of our admiration and gratitude to all concerned. I should like to name the distinguished retired Parliamentary Counsel Mr. Godfrey Carter, who was responsible for the drafting. I should like also to mention the members of the Joint Committee on Consolidation, &; Bills under the Chairmanship of Lord Brightman. The perceptiveness, accuracy and celerity of their, work have been of the greatest value.
  In deference to all that has been done, it is only fitting that we should note the daunting scale of the task. The Companies Act 1948 is still the principal Act, but since 1948 there have been five major company law statutes and other primary legislation which have affected company law. There has also been a great deal of subordinate legislation regulating matters concerned in the main Act It is not surprising that it has taken four years to consolidate all of this.
  There has been some discussion about the structure of the consolidation. The Business Names Bill and the Companies Securities (Insider Dealing) Bill deal with matters that are freestanding and essentially outside the mainstream of company law. The Companies Consolidation (Consequential Provisions) Bill deals with transitional and technical matters which are essentially of secondary importance and are more conveniently wrapped up in a separate Bill. On the recommendation of the Law Commission, it repeals a few obsolete provisions, otherwise everything is contained in the main Companies Bill.
  Views were invited on a radically different structure by which the consolidation would have been split into some 10 separate Bills, each dealing with a discrete topic. The scope of the main Bill would have been limited to matters affecting the formation, capital, administration and investigation of companies. Consultations showed opinion to be clearly in favour of a single main Bill on the classical model of the 1948 Bill. The structure of the consolidation accordingly reflects directly the wishes of those who will have to use it.
  As to publication and implementation, the need for a further consolidation has long been recognised, and the general view of the business community and of the legal and accountancy professions is that the Bills should be implemented as soon as possible. That is also our view. We cannot complete consideration of the consequential provisions Bill tonight because some small amendments are required to correct technical deficiencies in schedule

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  1. I nevertheless hope that we shall be able to deal with all stages of the other three Bills tonight. Once they receive Royal Assent, the Acts will be published before the end of April to give users as much time as possible to familiarise themselves with the form of the new legislation before it comes into effect on 1 July.
  Since the Bills were first introduced in another place, the only criticism of the consolidation has been that further legislation will start to undo its good effects almost as soon as it reaches the statute book. That is regrettably true, but I fear that it is an outcome that cannot be avoided, because the pace of change in company law is such that if this consolidation had waited on other measures now before Parliament or in preparation, it would have been delayed indefinitely. As it is, the consolidation brings fresh order to the present tortuous state of the law in this area and provides a firm base for future reform. That is its object. Each of these Bills has been approved by the Joint Committee on Consolidation, &c., Bills, and I commend them to the House.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I am sure that the House will approve of the Solicitor-General's suggestion that we should deal with the Bills together on Second Reading, and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Brown) may like to do likewise. After that, in the interests of good order, I shall have to put the Questions on them separately.
  Mr. Nicholas Brown: I endorse what the Solicitor-General said, particularly his remarks on the work of the Joint Committee on Consolidation, &c., Bills. The Committee performs a useful duty and saves the House and another place a considerable amount of work that we would otherwise have to find another way of dealing with. The Opposition, having been party to the Bills as they went through the consolidation process, support the product of those deliberations and express their thanks to the people who put hard and painstaking work into achieving them.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House. — [Mr. Neubert.]
  Committee tomorrow.

  Companies Consolidation (Consequential Provisions) Bill [Lords]

    COMPANIES BILL [LORDS]
    Read a Second time.
    Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House. —[Mr. Neubert.]
    Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported, without amendment.
    Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, without amendment.

    COMPANIES SECURITIES (INSIDE DEALING) BILL [LORDS]
    Read a Second time.
    Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House. —[Mr. Neubert.]
    Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported, without amendment.
    Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, without amendment.

    BUSINESS NAMES BILL [LORDS]
    Read a Second time.
    Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House. —[Mr. Neubert.]
    Bill immediately considered in Committee; reported, without amendment.
    Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put and agreed to.
    Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed, without amendment.

  Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge (Liver Transplants)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Neubert
  10.11 pm
  Sir Anthony Grant: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important issue in the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James), in whose constituency Addenbrooke's hospital used to be, is equally concerned about the matter, and has taken an equally keen interest as I have myself. As I shall be critical of Government handling of Addenbrooke's hospital, let me say straight away that I greatly admire both the Minister for Health and the Parliamentary Under-Secretary who is to reply. In my view, they are among the most successful Ministers of this Administration.
  I broadly support — and indeed enthusiastically support—the Government's policy towards the National Health Service. In particular, the policy of privatising the ancillary services and curbing excessive expenditure on drugs in order to release more funds for essential medical services meets with my complete approval. I am delighted that, since 1979, the Government have doubled the overall amount allocated to the NHS.
  I am very proud that Addenbrooke's hospital is in my constituency. It is one of the best hospitals in the country and probably, indeed, in the world. Outstanding medical work is done there, especially in liver transplants, under Professor Calne. As the Minister has said publicly,
  "liver transplantation is a life-saving procedure."
  Following the case of little Ben Hardwick, which was widely publicised on television, the public responded with their traditional great generosity by contributing £150,000 for a special unit for liver transplants at Addenbrooke's. Not unnaturally, however, the health authority's delight was tempered with anxiety because the actual cost exceeded that sum, and there would be continuing costs each year. But then a good fairy arrived in the shape of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health. On 30 April 1984 he told the health authority that he certainly did not envisage that the authority would be expected to divert money from its own patient care to what was a national service. He said:
  "It is certainly not my intention that other services at Cambridge should suffer."
  On the strength of this, the authority went ahead and submitted its estimated cost of about £1·3 million to £1·4 million to a departmental expert committee. That committee, without any explanation, announced that it would provide the sum of £859,000. Although this was less than was asked for and needed, it was hailed with pleasure in my constituency by professionals, patients and public alike.
  Then the bombshell landed because, of that sum, it transpired from the Minister's subsequent statement that no less than £567,000 of existing spending by the authority was to be deducted, leaving only £290,000 new money for a new and vital life-saving service. This, according to Professor Calne, the distinguished surgeon, is barely enough to carry out the 40 operations per annum, let alone the 50 envisaged. Therefore, 10 patients per annum will be at risk unless the local regional budget is raided.
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  The result of all this—it is a disease well known in Whitehall that I call accountant-itis—is that Cambridge will have to cut other services if it is to sustain the number of liver transplant operations envisaged. If liver sufferers are to be saved, services such as development of the intensive care unit, the work on bone marrow transplants and, indeed, other local medical services will be hit in order to pay for what is acknowledged by the Minister to be a supra-regional or national service. In this context, therefore, let me stress that less than 5 per cent. of liver transplant cases at Addenbrooke's hospital come from the local area; these cases come from the whole country and, indeed, some come from abroad.
  All this—and I must say this in forceful terms—is in direct contrast with what the Minister for Health said in April 1984 on which the authority based its future plans. This accountant-itis has caused dismay in the area and deep anxiety for those unfortunates whose lives may depend upon this unique service. Frankly, this is not good enough.
  The amount involved is small in the context of the National Health Service budget as a whole. I have worked out that it is ·004 per cent. of the amount spent each year by the Government on the National Health Service. It is dwarfed by some of the appalling waste to which I could refer if I had the time. Nor, indeed, is it the sort of expenditure that will be repeated all over the country. These operations require a high degree of skill which can be exploited only at Addenbrooke's and King's. It would be tragic if, through bureaucratic obscurity and/or Treasury parsimony, this skill was lost, and lives were lost in the process.
  I know that the Minister believes, as I do, in the importance of giving priority to patient care. There are few patients who are in need of such care as are the sufferers of liver disease, many of them little children like the famous Ben Hardwick. Therefore, I beg the Minister with all the force at my command to think again, and to give the life-saving service that is carried out at Addenbrooke's the resources that it needs.
  10.20 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. John Patten): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South West, (Sir A. Grant) for raising this subject on the Adjournment, as it gives me the opportunity to clear up some misunderstandings that seem to have arisen. My hon. Friend has been pursuing this issue vigorously with both myself and my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health. Indeed, he has already addressed us both on the issue personally, has written to us and has been successful now in raising the subject on the Adjournment of the House. He has pursued the whole issue with his customary vigour in the interests of his constituents, and I know that his concern is shared by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James), in whose constituency Addenbrooke's hospital used to lie.
  I think that there have been some misunderstandings, and I welcome this opportunity to try to set the record straight. But to do so I shall have to go into some detail about the mechanisms of funding what are now known as supra regional specialties. So I hope that my hon. Friend and the House will bear with me for a moment. However, let me first make clear at the outset that the Government

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  support the development of liver transplantation as a lifesaving procedure. We value the work of the talented and skilled transplant surgeons who undertake such work, supported as they are by devoted nursing staff and ancillary workers. Among those distinguished people, we value the work done by Professor Calne and by all those who work in his unit.
  We have just announced that liver transplantation is to be designated as a supra regional service with effect from 1 April 1985, and it may be helpful if I begin by outlining the general arrangements for the designation and funding of supra regional services before moving on to the specific point about the funding of the Addenbrooke's unit that my hon. Friend has raised so forcefully and eloquently. We need to set the case, the problem and the misunderstandings that surround the Addenbrooke's issue within the overall context of how we fund such services nationally. It is impossible to understand one without the other.
  Early in 1983 my Department agreed with regional health authorities and with the Joint Consultants Committee, which represents hospital consultants, on the introduction of new arrangements for the funding of a small number of highly specialised and very advanced health services which, in order to be economically viable and/or clinically effective, need to be provided for a population that is significantly larger than that of any one single health region. These are services that are provided by very few regional health authorities to meet a substantial part of a national caseload. It would clearly be unreasonable to expect any one region at present to provide funds out of its own resources for these very advanced forms of medical treatment. However, typically in the National Health Service, that is how things begin — with a few centres of excellence. Thus these techniques will undoubtedly be disseminated from centres of excellence such as Addenbrooke's to other hospitals until we no longer need to designate services as supra regional services, because they can be taken up within the generality of the NHS. That has been the story of many medical advances, particularly since the second world war. Under these arrangements, a supra regional services advisory group has been established with certain terms of reference. It is important to put them on the record. They are:
  "To advise the Secretary of State, through the Chairmen of Regional Health Authorities, on the identification of services to be funded supra regionally, on the centres where these services should be provided, and on the appropriate level of provision."
  The advisory group is chaired by an experienced regional chairman, Mr. Tony Driver of South-West Thames, and we are grateful to him and to the group's membership. The group is made up of representatives of health authorities and of the medical profession. Thus it is very much a case of the Health Service itself making decisions about how these funds should be allocated and to whom they should be allocated, on the grounds not just of economy or of economic viability but of the clinical service and the excellence of the units themselves.
  Each autumn the advisory group finalises its recommendations on funding for the next year. These are then put to a meeting of regional chairmen — the 14 regional chairmen who serve the Health Service so well, like Sir Arthur South, the chairman of the East Anglian regional health authority — so that they have an
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  opportunity to comment. The recommendations are then forwarded to the Secretary of State, who announces his decisions just before Christmas or, as was the case this year, just after Christmas.
  Four services were designated as supra regional at the outset—spinal services, services for children who suffer end stage renal failure, services for the management of chorion carcinoma, and the national poisons information service. Since then the four services have had added to them neonatal and infant cardiac surgery — which are right at the boundaries of surgery — and now liver transplantation. I should make it clear that these arrangements do not apply to services that are still at the research or development stage. They apply only—quite properly to our mind — to services that are clinically established and which are already being provided and funded by one or other of a small number of regions to meet what, it appears, will be established clinical needs.
  This means—these are important matters in trying to fill in the background to the Addenbrooke issue — that when a service is designated as supra regional for the first time, the regions concerned will already be spending part of their allocations on its provision. It would not be reasonable for this existing expenditure to be disregarded when the regional allocations are made. This money is "protected". In other words, it is reserved specifically for the unit providing the service.
  This "protected" sum is not an additional allocation from central funds. On the other hand, the region receives some benefit in that the amount is excluded from the calculations when decisions are made about future allocation levels for the region's general services or, to use technical language, which is perhaps not the best thing to do at this time of night, when it is disregarded, to use the deathless prose of NHS administrators through the ages, when calculating the region's distance from its regional allocation working party target, which is used in redistributing health services within the country so that areas which historically have been under-funded and under-provided, such as East Anglia, now experience substantial rates of growth that are far more substantial than other parts of the country.
  East Anglia has been, and will remain, one of the fastest growing regions in the development of medical services. The picture is rosier for East Anglia, despite the problems that it faces, such as the Addenbrooke problem, than it has ever been. I am sorry that no Labour Members are in the Chamber to hear me say that East Anglia suffered terribly between 1976 and 1978–79 from cuts in NHS funding, which affected adversely capital expenditure on new hospitals and hospital building and revenue allocations to East Anglia. The Government have worked hard since 1979 to ensure that East Anglia catches up. It is worth while getting that clear.
  The region benefits also in the method of calculation that I have described, in that it is relieved of the responsibility of finding any additional money to finance any expansion of the service that may be required. It is open to the supra regional services advisory group to recommend that additional money be allocated from central funds if it decides that the service should be expanded.
  I will summarise that aspect because it is crucial to the debate. Money already being spent on the provision of a service is protected within the region's general allocation and is disregarded in calculating the region's future

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  general allocations, whereas money for the expansion of the service beyond its existing level is found from central funds.
  After that general and, I hope, clear exposition of the present situation of funding, I come to the specific case of liver transplantation, from which I can proceed to the Addenbrooke's issue, which is uppermost in my hon. Friend's mind.
  In the case of liver transplantation, applications for the service to be designated as supra regional were received early in 1984. The supra regional services advisory group then asked the Royal College of Physicians for its views, and the Royal College set up a working party which reported in the autumn of 1984.
  The report advised that liver transplantation met the criteria for supra regional designation and that four units — Birmingham, the Royal Free and King's College hospital and Cambridge—should be designated as supra regional centres for its provision.
  The advisory group endorsed that advice and made recommendations as to the amounts of money that should be allocated to each of those centres. Those recommendations were made on the basis of financial and workload information obtained from the four regional health authorities responsible for the four centres. We accepted the advisory group's recommendations.
  For the liver transplant unit at Addenbrooke's, it was estimated that the amount of money being spent on the service during 1984–85 was £567,000, and this was the sum that was protected and earmarked within the region's allocation specifically for the unit.
  Although that estimate had to be based on data received in the middle of the financial year—not always the best time to obtain accurate data — we have no reason to believe that it is substantially wide of the mark. In addition, the advisory group recommended that the work of the unit be expanded, and a further allocation of £292,000 was made from central funds, making a total according to our calculations—calculated in the way in which I explained—of £859,000 available to the unit for the coming financial year, 1985–86.
  We greatly regret that there have been misunderstanding about the nature of the funding arrangements for the Addenbrooke's unit, and to be frank, the Minister of State and I were rather surprised, too. The arrangements that I described at some length—anxious, as I was, to explain the position to my hon. Friend and his constituents—were set out in a health notice which was issued in 1983.
  That type of notice is well understood. It set out the procedures that I had understood were well established and well known in the National Health Service. They have been applied to all the other designated supra regional services without giving rise to any difficulties; no other unit in the country has complained about the situation in the way in which Addenbrooke's has complained.
  In other words, all other hospitals and units seem to have understood the method of funding set out in the health notice and the way in which the recommendations of the group were being applied.
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  My hon. Friend referred to the text of a letter written by the Minister of State about the Ben Hardwick bed I must make it clear that that letter was primarily concerned with the financing of the Ben Hardwick bed, and that was not an appropriate context for spelling out in full the way in which the central funding of supra regional services works. That letter was concerned with the Ben Hardwick bed—nothing more and nothing less.
  On the key issue which so radically concerns my hon. Friend it is perhaps worth noting that an officer of the East Anglian regional health authority is a member of the supra regional service advisory group and was party to its recommendations. The East Anglian region was represented at the regional chairmen's meeting in November last year, and thus there was a clear opportunity for the region to comment on the recommendations before they even got to my right hon. and learned Friend and to me. I understand that no comments were made.
  However this unfortunate set of misunderstandings has come about, it is particularly to be regretted that a substantial increase in the funds allocated to the unit, amounting to almost £300,000, should have been reported locally as a savage cut. That seems to us to be an unusual interpretation.
  That having been said—and I am sure that my hon. Friend appreciates that I must set out as clearly as 1 can the facts as I and my right bon. and learned Friend see them — of course we have the welfare of this unit at heart. The die is cast for 1985–86, but we shall continue during the course of the year to keep the work and the needs of the unit under review.
  Sir Anthony Grant: I appreciate what my hon. Friend has said, and I have been listening to him very carefully. I am anxious that he should not close the door on this. I want him to be absolutely clear that he will follow the course of this vital unit and that a chink of hope can be given to it for the future if this is a success.
  Mr. Patten: We will certainly keep the work of the unit under close scrutiny. Together with the advisory group, we shall keep the situation continuously under review during 1985–86.
  I should like to end as I began by paying a tribute to the unit for the work it is doing at Addenbrooke's. This is something which unites my hon. Friend and myself tonight. The unit carried out a substantial number of liver transplants in 1984 and is the only unit to have developed expertise in liver transplants in children.
  The additional money that we have allocated for 1985–86 is clear evidence of our commitment to the unit, whose future we shall keep under review. I hope that our support will enable its work to go forward on a firm footing.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes to Eleven o' clock.