Commons Sitting of 5 March 1985

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS

  SURREY BILL [Lords]
  Considered.
  Amendments made: In page 10, lines 34 and 35, leave out "howsoever propelled" and insert "propelled otherwise than manually".
  In page 20, leave out lines 1 to 11 and insert—
  "(8) The provisions of sections 99 and 102 of the Building Act 1984 (enforcement of, and appeals, against notices requiring the execution of works) shall apply in relation to any notice under subsection (7) above as if—

  (a) references in those provisions to that Act included a reference to that subsection;

  (b) in section 99(2) the words from 'and (b) without prejudice' to the end were omitted; and

  (c) for the reference in section 102 to the court there were substituted a reference to the Secretary of State."

  In page 20, lines 23 and 24, leave out
  "287(1)(a) of the Act of 1936"
  and insert
  "95(1)(a) of the Building Act 1984".
  In page 23, leave out lines 29 to 39 and insert—
  "(8) The provisions of sections 99 and 102 of the Building Act 1984 (enforcement of, and appeals, against notices requiring the execution of works) shall apply in relation to any notice under subsection (7) above as if—

  (a) references in those provisions to that Act included a reference to that subsection;

  (b) in section 99(2)(b) the words from 'and to a further fine' to the end were omitted; and

  (c) for the reference in section 102 to the court there were substituted a reference to the Secretary of State."

  In page 23, line 40, leave out
  "287(1)(a) of the Act of 1936"
  and insert
  "95(1)(a) of the Building Act 1984".
  In page 31, line 4, leave out
  "Section 287 of the Act of 1936"
  and insert
  "Sections 95 and 96 of the Building Act 1984". — [The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.]
  To be read the Third time.

Oral Answers to Questions
  EMPLOYMENT

    Youth Training Scheme
    Sir John Farrasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will extend the length of the youth training scheme.
    The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Tom King): This is one of a number of ways of increasing opportunities for young people which we are considering.
    Sir John Farr: Will my right hon. Friend consider extending the length of the scheme, as it has been so successful? If he extended it initially to one and a half years, and later to two years, would that not be a tremendous investment in the youth of Britain?
    Mr. King: I am grateful for the tribute that my hon. Friend has paid to the scheme, and I am encouraged by its success in many different respects. I am also encouraged by the expressions of appreciation from many hon. Members for the contribution that the scheme is making.
    Mr. Meadowcroft: Is not the problem a lack of flexibility in YTS, in that it suggests the possibility of a job in all cases, whereas it might be as well to help youngsters to survive if, alas, they cannot obtain jobs thereafter?
    Mr. King: Obviously, in different parts of the country the success rate in finding full-time employment varies. Some of the schemes, including those in the construction' industry, travel agents and hotels and catering, are outstandingly successful, with 90 per cent. or more of youngsters going into full-time work. However, we hope to keep the scheme flexible and to continue to improve it.
    Mr. Rowe: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the Manpower Services Commission told the Select Committee on Employment that it was worried about the status of YTS trainees, and especially about the absence of a form of contract such as is common in Germany. If my right hon. Friend extends the scheme, as we all hope he will, will he take that matter seriously into consideration?
    Mr. King: It is important that status is clearly established. If there were proposals to extend the scheme, my hon. Friend's suggestion would add to the improvements that we are considering.
    Mr. Park: Is the Minister aware that some youngsters cannot go on the youth training scheme because of the change in board and lodging allowance? The position is that any young person who does not live at home with his or her parents and who depends entirely on the money received under the youth training scheme finds it impossible to pay for lodgings and to keep himself on the money available under the scheme. Will the right hon. Gentleman consider that matter?
    Mr. King: We are constantly anxious to meet any such problems. In two successive years we have given what is called the Christmas undertaking that every young person aged 16 who does not go into further education or straight into a job will be guaranteed the offer of a place. We shall wish to ensure that that continues.
    Mr. Haselhurst: Is not an extension of the YTS to two years extremely necessary not only to put Britain on a par with other industrialised nations but to give us the opportunity to provide a proper blend of education and training for all youngsters up to the age of 18 before they seek work?
    Mr. King: An extension of the scheme would bring us more into line with other member countries of the EC. Anyone who has had the opportunity to study the scheme will realise how essential it is for the scheme to help in the transition from the world of education to the world of work, and to help to give people a proper founding and training for their future work.
    Mr. Sheerman: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that even if he takes on board Labour party policy and extends the scheme to two years, that will be no answer to the fact that we are the worst trained nation in the industrial world? Does he appreciate that we need a revolution in training if we are to face our competitors on a fair and square basis? Is he aware that it is the quality as well as the quantity of the youth training scheme that we need to increase? Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that if he makes the YTS compulsory at the same time as extending it, he will put a stigma on the scheme which will kill it stone dead for many young people?
    Mr. King: My hon. Friends will have taken pleasure at that supplementary question, as some Opposition Members have never stopped trying to find ways to criticise the scheme and carp about its operation. Not only is there more joy in heaven, but there is more joy in the Government if the Opposition have repented in their opposition to the YTS. I shall be delighted, should we be able to proceed to an extension, if that has the support of the Opposition.

    Wages Councils
    Mr. Leighasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on wages councils.
    Mr. Penhaligonasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement outlining the future for wages councils.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Peter Bottomley): The Government are considering the future of wages councils.
    Mr. Leigh: What is the point of the Government pricing young people out of jobs—real jobs created by the market place through the operation of wages councils and employment laws generally—and then forcing the taxpayer to price those young people into what are often temporary jobs by the operation of the YTS and the young workers' scheme? Is it not time to sweep away wages councils and thereby perform a great service for young people?
    Mr. Bottomley: The point that my hon. Friend makes about young people is most important, although I must remind him that some people, who have good contracts protecting themselves, argue for the abolition of all employment protection.
    Mr. Penhaligon: Will the Minister confirm that wages councils for adults often defend wages as low as £70 a
    760
    week? Does he agree that a socially responsible Government have a duty to the most vulnerable in society? May we have a guarantee that, at least for adults, he will not remove this protective measure?
    Mr. Bottomley: Many hon. Members on both sides of the House argue on behalf of those who are out of work. The gap between what some people get when they are unemployed and what they would get at or slightly below wages council rates might be filled by volunteers willing to work. It is important to remember the importance of trying to help those who are out of work as well as giving protection to those who are in work.
    Mr. George Gardiner: Does my hon. Friend recognise that many people in the business community would regard the abolition of wages councils as the acid test of the Government's resolve to make the economy more flexible and thereby to create more job opportunities?
    Mr. Bottomley: I accept part of what my hon. Friend says. It is worth remembering, however, that movements in pay rates and unit labour costs throughout the economy, as well as among the lower paid, are important.
    Mr. Robert C. Brown: Is the Minister aware—he does not seem to be—that wages councils cater for the lowest paid workers in Britain and that, because of the reduction in the number of inspectors, many firms covered by wages councils are not being inspected? Is he further aware that of those inspected last year, the vast majority were found to be paying below the statutory minimum rates laid down by Parliament? When will the hon. Gentleman start to prosecute such firms?
    Mr. Bottomley: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that Ministers do not take decisions on prosecutions. He will also be aware, if he bothers to examine the information that is available relating to the present and previous Governments, that he is wrong to assert that over half the firms inspected are paying under the statutory minimum rates.
    Mr. Roger King: Is my hon. Friend aware that when I started as an engineering apprentice in 1960 I was paid the equivalent of £18 a week at today's prices, whereas the equivalent engineering apprentice now receives £50 a week? Is it any wonder that in West Germany there are far more apprentices than there are in Britain?
    Mr. Bottomley: My hon. Friend makes the sensible point that young people look for the opportunity of gaining greater education and skill training and that many of them are willing to accept reasonable incomes if they have the prospects of improving their position and contributing more as they become worth more. The crucial point is that no employer will take on an employee unless he can see some benefit from doing so, and no employee will take a job unless he can see some benefit from taking it. Getting those two together is what really matters.
    Mr. Ron Brown: Why is it that police chiefs, judges and generals have not priced themselves out of their jobs, despite their high wages? Are those gentlemen doing the dirty work for the Tories in suppressing those who are protesting against their wages?
    Mr. Bottomley: No, Sir.
    Mr. Michael Forsythe: Is my hon. Friend aware that according to the Low Pay Unit the lowest decile of those

    761
    who are paid low wages earn a lower proportion of the average wage than their predecessors did 100 years ago? It would seem that wages councils have failed in their purpose. Does my hon. Friend agree that the reality is that the councils have destroyed jobs for young people and for members of the ethnic minorities and rewarded those in semi-skilled jobs at the expense of the unskilled?
    Mr. Bottomley: Many interpretations can be drawn from the available figures and all sorts of expectations can be built on the possible reform Or abolition of the councils. The questions which face the Government, and which may in time face the House, are whether it is right to allow people to take jobs which they are willing to take at rates of pay which employers are willing to offer and the sort of protection which is essential. It is clear that many industries which are not covered by wages councils pay equivalent rates and that the council's existence may hold down as well as hold up some pay rates.
    Mr. Evans: Will the Minister confirm that a recent Government report on wages councils inspections in the clothing industry revealed that in half of the workplaces visited some or all of the workers were being illegally underpaid? Does that not show that employers who pay illegal poverty wages and the Government who turn a blind eye to their actions should be condemned, and not the councils? Will the Minister guarantee that the Government will renew their international obligations on minimum rates of pay under the International Labour Organisation convention later this year? Will he also take the opportunity to condemn the report in today's edition of the Financial Times that the Government intend to remove young people from the protection of wages councils?
    Mr. Bottomley: I think that the hon. Gentleman would do well to reread the report of the wages inspectors in the three areas that are covered. I have no intention of commenting on press speculation.

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Winnickasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will publish in the Official Report the recent letter sent by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton (Mr. Clark) to the hon. Member for Walsall, North, about his new practice of answering written questions relating to unemployment statistics in different parts of the United Kingdom by reference to material in the Library.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Alan Clark): Yes, Sir. I shall publish all the letters that I have sent to the hon. Member on this subject and also that sent by me to all right hon. and hon. Members on 19 October 1984. I am grateful to him for drawing attention to the new arrangements that have been introduced into the Library to enable the House to have immediate access to a wider range of unemployment information at less cost. A written answer which, coming from the same source, would give identical information, would be slower and more expensive. But if the hon. Gentleman insists, we are ready to oblige.
    Mr. Winnick: Is the Minister aware that we do insist? It is unacceptable that hon. Members cannot seek information from Ministers on unemployment statistics. We can see that only as a cover up for embarrassing information—[Interruption.] The Minister says that if
    762
    we insist, the policy will be restored to what it was. Is that a firm pledge? Will the Minister confirm that that is the position?
    Mr. Clark: Of course. I have just said that. That is the position. I do not understand the confrontational setting in which the hon. Gentleman claims to see this topic. This arrangement was introduced to speed up the service that is available to members. There is ample precedent in "Erskine May" at page 341 for reference to published sources. If it is beyond the hon. Gentleman's ingenuity or if he is too busy to walk along the corridor to the Library to read the information for himself, he will, as I have said, consume our time and taxpayers' money and get a written answer. However, it will come about three days later than if he were to go to the Library.
    Mr. Malone: Is my hon. Friend aware that the new arrangements in the Library give far more detailed coverage of unemployment figures? In view of that, is it right that the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) should try to write his press releases at public expense?
    Mr. Clark: That is just about it. That probably explains why the hon. Gentleman's press releases are so turgid and dreary. Were he to devote some of his notoriously high IQ to drafting more convoluted questions, he would probably get better results for his local paper.
    Following are the letters:

    David Winnick Esq MP

    House of Commons

    LONDON SW1A OAA

    7 January 1985

    Dear David
    Thank you for sending me a copy of your letter of 4 December to Dr. Menhennet concerning the information requested in your parliamentary question on unemployment figures for the West Midlands to which I replied on 29 November.
    Now that I have replied to your further question about the change in practice in answering questions on unemployment statistics (Official Report, 6 December 1984, Vol 69, Cols 259–60) there is little for me to add. I should however emphasise that the new arrangements provide a more effective means of giving Members the figures they require. In particular data should be provided more quickly and conveniently than before. I would also add that the Library is only expected to deal with the more straightforward requests for data, extending the service they were already providing. We will continue to answer Members whose quest ions pose particular problems.
    As you may know, John Prescott has also written to Tom King on this matter and I enclose a copy of that correspondence.

    Labour Statistics

      ALAN CLARK
      David Winnick Esq MP

      House of Commons

      LONDON SW1A OAA

      23rd January 1985

      Dear David
      Thank you for your letter of 8 January about parliamentary questions on unemployment statistics.
      When we spoke about this matter, I said that any questions about the statistics, meaning questions about their coverage or the method of compilation, for example, would receive a reply. Such questions are distinct from straightforward requests for data.
      Questions asking for statistics which are not available in the Library, that is information which is not included in publications or readily accessible from the computer, will naturally be answered subject to the usual cost limits.

      ALAN CLARK
      On 19 October 1984, as sent to all honourable Members representing English constituencies
      When I wrote to you on 16 July, I pointed to a new development in the presentation of my Department's unemployment statistics, namely that they would be available for areas defined in terms of local authority wards. I am now pleased to be able to confirm

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      that figures for parliamentary constituencies, local authority districts, counties and travel to work areas for August were published in the September edition of the Employment Gazette, and will be henceforth. Back figures to June 1983 can also be made available.
      In addition, the service of providing unemployment data to colleagues has been significantly improved. A computer databank of this information has been established and a terminal link is now available in the House of Commons Library. This facility will provide you with a more convenient and speedier access to data previously only available through my Department. In order to provide as up-to-date information as possible the computer system is supplemented by summary data produced for the monthly press notice. It will therefore be possible to obtain the information for your constituency immediately following the publication of the monthly figure.
      Our new system is being introduced over a period of time. Until the middle of next year you will only be able to obtain information for Parliamentary constituencies, local authority districts, counties or travel-to-work areas. After the middle of next year, however, it will be possible to obtain information for any area in which you are interested as long as it can be defined in terms of local authority wards. You will be interested to know that the system will not only produce the data but it will also be possible to undertake simple analyses, for instance to rank areas. The terminals will be operated by the library staff at your request. One consequence of the ready availability of comprehensive unemployment data through the library is that in dealing with written PQs requesting straightforward information, Members will be referred to the library as the source of such statistics, thereby treating the computer data-base on a par with other published sources and extending our current practice in handling written PQs. I should emphasise, though, that where requests are complicated and require expert attention we will, as now, continue to provide the information in the written reply.
      The above procedure will lead to a prompter and more comprehensive access to unemployment statistics. I hope you will find the new arrangements welcome.

      ALAN CLARK
      Mr. Allan Robertsasked the Secretary of State for Employment how many people are currently unemployed; and what that is as a proportion of the labour force.
      Mr. Tom King: On 10 January 1985 the number of unemployed claimants in the United Kingdom was 3,341,000. This represents an unemployment rate of 13·9 per cent.
      Mr. Roberts: Is the Secretary of State aware that those devastatingly bad figures hide a much worse situation in many of the regions? In the Merseyside travel-to-work area, for instance, 20 per cent. of registered active males are unemployed, and the situation is even worse in the inner city areas. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the population of Merseyside is falling, so a bigger percentage of the work force is unemployed, rather than the other way round? Is he further aware that although Merseyside is one of the areas of lowest pay, that low pay has not provided anyone with a job? Indeed, the opposite is true. When will the Government introduce policies to reduce unemployment throughout the country, and especially on Merseyside?
      Mr. King: I am aware that the situation is significantly worse in some parts of the country than in others. The hon. Gentleman talks as though a wand could be waved. He is almost looking in the direction of his right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), who found that no wand was available to enable even him to prevent the sharp rise in unemployment. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take pleasure in observing that in the past year the number of those in work has increased by 340,000, and that at last we have turned the corner in the creation of more jobs.
      Mrs. Rumbold: How many people are employed in this country, and what proportion of the work force does that figure represent?
      Mr. King: I shall reply in percentage terms. Comparisons of unemployment rates are interesting. The unemployment rate in Italy used to be just under 10 per cent., but it is significant that only 55 per cent. of those of working age are in work. Sixty-six per cent. of our population are at work, and that is a higher proportion than in France, Germany or Italy.
      Mr. Leighton: It is futile for the Secretary of State to misrepresent the figures in that way. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) left office, 300,000 more people were in employment than when the Labour Government came to office. There are now nearly 2 million fewer people in employment than there were when the present Government came to office. Why does the right hon. Gentleman seek to misrepresent the truth?
      Mr. King: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that unemployment rose sharply. His hon. Friend the Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) has challenged us for failing to take instant action to correct it. He knows that fewer people are employed under Socialist Governments in Italy and France at present than there were four years ago. [Interruption.] It is no good shouting and screaming about a problem which the whole country realises to be far more serious than the Opposition suggest.
      Sir Dudley Smith: Is it not true that more jobs are being advertised both locally and nationally than there were three or four years ago, but that, unfortunately, nearly all of them require qualifications? Is that not a lesson which the young, in particular, should learn?
      Mr. King: It is certainly true that even in the north-east, which I visited last week, where there is serious unemployment, the first complaints that I heard from employers were about skill shortages. That fact brings home very clearly the importance of our work to improve the training programme.
      Mr. Prescott: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the fiddled answers that he has just given are like the Government's fiddled figures on unemployment, which are at least 500,000 less than the real figure? Does he agree that in this alleged third year of economic recovery unemployment is at unprecedentedly high levels, that employment is at unprecedentedly low levels and that unemployment has increased by 2,500 a week while the Conservatives have been in office? The right hon. Gentleman's time in office has been crowned by a record level of unemployment in the January figures. What is the Secretary of State's estimate of unemployment in January, and how many will be included for the mining industry if the Government's policy of closing down pits is forced through?
      Mr. King: The hon. Gentleman cannot have listened to the answers that I gave. We do not have an unprecedentedly low level of employment. We have just turned the corner, and there were 340,000 more jobs in the past year to September 1984.
      Mr. Prescott: Since when?
      Mr. King: Since September 1983. That is the last year for which we have figures. After years of job losses, we

      765
      now have a rise in employment. As regards the miners, expensive fuels produced from uneconomic pits would give the worst possible blow to competitiveness and employment.

      Skillcentres
      Mr. Hardyasked the Secretary of State for Employment when he will next meet the chairman of the Manpower Services Commission to discuss skillcentres.
      The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Peter Morrison): My right hon. Friend and I have regular meetings with the chairman of the Manpower Services Commission and discuss a wide range of issues with him.
      Mr. Hardy: Will the Minister advise the chairman of the MSC that, bearing in mind the good record of skillcentres serving South Yorkshire, they should have a greater rather than a smaller role, especially in view of our unemployment problems, which the Minister knows are great and which, we suspect, will become even more deplorable?
      Mr. Morrison: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman agrees that it is better to train as many people as possible with the money voted by the House for adult training. In the two MSC areas that cover the hon. Gentleman's constituency, as a result of decisions on the adult training strategy and the skillcentre training agency, 70 per cent. more people will be trained.
      Mr. Batiste: Will my hon. Friend confirm that it is vital to match facilities to needs, that no facilities can remain sacrosanct for ever, and that it is important that they be kept constantly under review so that the best facilities can be provided at all times?
      Mr. Morrison: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. It is important to be as flexible as possible, not least because the need for skill training changes quickly. That is precisely the aim of our policy.
      Mr. Heffer: How can the Minister justify closing the Aintree skillcentre, which is in an area of high unemployment and has existed since long before the second world war? As the Minister comes from near Merseyside, is it not a disgrace that he should allow the skillcentre to be closed without making any effort to ensure that skills are developed on Merseyside?
      Mr. Morrison: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that I visit Merseyside often, not least because my constituency is close to it. I appreciate the problems there. I am sure he agrees that it much better that approximately twice as many people are to be trained on Merseyside as a result of decisions on reorganising skillcentres.
      Mr. Holt: When my hon. Friend next meets the chairman of the MSC, will he reflect on the recent visit of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to my constituency, when employers made it clear that there was a skills shortage in the area, despite high unemployment? In view of that, will he reconsider the decision to close the Middlesbrough skillcentre?
      Mr. Morrison: My hon. Friend has made many representations about the Middlesbrough skillcentre and I understand that, but I hope he agrees that it is in the long-term interests of his constituents and everyone else in the
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      north-east to get more people trained, whether by skillcentres, colleges, private training providers or private companies.
      Ms. Richardson: Does the Minister accept that there are disgracefully few opportunities for women to train at skillcentres, and that the closure of skillcentres is worsening that situation? He confirmed to the House last year that only 3 per cent. of those training at skillcentres are women, and he undertook to monitor the situation. What are the results of that monitoring? Have there been any improvements, and if not, why not?
      Mr. Morrison: I assure the hon. Lady that it is important that women, just as much as men, should get training. As she will appreciate, women in the adult training programme are trained to a much greater extent outside the skillcentre network than they are inside, because the skillcentre network has concentrated on the traditional skills, as opposed to skills that are more appropriate for women.

      Labour Statistics
      Mr. O'Brienasked the Secretary of State for Employment what are the latest figures for the number of people who have been unemployed for over 12 months.
      Mr. Alan Clark: On 10 January 1985 a total of 1,316,000 claimants had been unemployed in the United Kingdom for over 12 months.
      Mr. O'Brien: Will the Minister accept the view of his right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health, who accepts that, without doubt, the great problems of unemployment affect the health of the nation, and particularly those recovering from mental illness? Will he give an assurance that he will work with local government and other agencies to reduce unemployment and therefore reduce the calls upon the overstretched social and health services?
      Mr. Clark: Yes, I would not deny, and nobody sensibly could, that the stresses and strains of being unemployed must have an effect on an individual's health. It is one component of an extremely tragic and distressing topic, but the cure for this by public spending is extremely elusive. The amelioration of it by social spending is another approach, and one in which we play our part.
      Mr. Andrew MacKay: Will my hon. Friend confirm that nearly 400,000 new jobs have been created in the past 12 months? Would he care to speculate on how many jobs have been lost through the disruptive strike in the coal industry?
      Mr. Clark: The strike in the coal industry is behind us and I am happy to confirm what my hon. Friend says about the creation of new jobs. We should not lose sight of the fact that there are encouraging signs, notably increases in vacancies, investment and overtime work.
      Mr. Fatchett: Will the Minister explain, against a background in which Ministers regularly advocate that lower wages will help the problems of the long-term unemployed, why it is that in West Yorkshire average earnings are below average and unemployment is above average?
      Mr. Clark: It is true that certain people and certain institutions price individual workers out of the market.

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      However, what is happening in West Yorkshire is related to regional factors, a point which should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment.
      Mr. Latham: With regard to the giant social evil of long-term adult unemployment, will my hon. Friend confirm that he and other Ministers in his Department are pressing my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer hard between now and Budget day for more action to expand the community programme?
      Mr. Clark: I am well aware of the feeling on this subject on both sides of the House. I assure my hon. Friend that his views are widely shared and that many other representations have been made.
      Ms. Clare Short: Will the Minister admit that 1,316,000 out of work for more than a year is unacceptable? Will he confess that that is nearly 40 per cent. of the total number of unemployed, and that half of those people have been out of work for two years or more? Does he understand, realise, or care that this means grinding poverty for millions of families who live in despair and demoralisation, and with very little hope? Does he realise that it is an enormous waste for the economy? These people would like to work and support their families and make a contribution to the economy. Will he confess that this figure is an admission of the failure of the Government's economic policies? In 1979, when the Tory Government took power—[Interruption.] Tory Members do not like the figures. In 1979, when the hon. Gentleman's Government took power, fewer than one in four people were long-term unemployed. Will he cease to pretend to care and start to take action by creating real, permanent jobs in the public sector, rather than ever more marginal schemes under the Manpower Services Commission?
      Mr. Clark: Unfortunately, as the hon. Lady must know, and as has been discovered by bitter experience by Socialist Governments all over the western world, the creation of jobs, as she calls it, in the public sector by draining the private sector of investment and capital never works, and in fact causes the situation to deteriorate. Of course, what the hon. Lady says is in part true. It is a highly distressing and intractable problem, and I can tell her that if we saw an easy solution we would apply it.

    Non-manufacturing Industry (Productivity)
    Mr. Favellasked the Secretary of State for Employment by how much productivity has increased in the non-manufacturing sector since 1979.
    Mr. Tom King: Labour productivity in all sectors of the economy fell between the second quarter of 1979 and the end of 1980. Since then productivity has increased by 12·5 per cent. for the whole economy, by nearly 28 per cent. in manufacturing industries and by 7·5 per cent. in the non-manufacturing industries.
    I will, with permission, circulate the full figures for 1979 to 1984 in the Official Report.
    Mr. Favell: Would my right hon. Friend care to take this opportunity of congratulating the manufacturing sector on its achievement? Would he also like to take this opportunity to remind those engaged in the non-manufacturing sector, in
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    particular the utilities, local government and public transport, of the importance of producing better services at less cost, not only for the profitability of the manufacturing sector, but for the well-being of the country as a whole?
    Mr. King: My hon. Friend has spotted the stark contrast between those two figures. I endorse the importance in the non-manufacturing sector, including the utilities and the other bodies to which he referred—many in the service sector, which is of great importance to the economy of the country—of a continuing level of productivity improvement.
    Mr. Skinner: Is the Minister aware that the non-manufacturing sector at No.10 Downing Street, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr Callaghan) left office, was costing £1·2 million to run? In the last financial year it has increased under the present Prime Minister's stewardship to £2·8 million and is now well on the way to £3 million. During the course of that stewardship she has thrown about 3 million people on to the scrap heap. How much productivity has there been at No. 10, apart from looking after Madam Dross herself?
    Mr. King: If No. 10 has played some small part in the halving of the overseas foreign debt which the Government inherited and in achieving the improvement that we have seen in investment and productivity, whatever the figures were—and I suspect that they were not exactly as the hon. Gentleman portrayed—I would have thought that that was undoubtedly an extremely good bargain for this country.
    Following are the figures:

    Index of output per person employed

    Whole economy*

    Manufacturing* Industries

    Non-Manufacturing† Industries

    1979

    1st Quarter

    100·3

    ‡101·7

    100·0

    2nd Quarter

    103·9

    ‡106·6

    102·9

    3rd Quarter

    102·2

    ‡102·8

    102·1

    4th Quarter

    102·6

    +105·2

    101·7

    1980

    1st Quarter

    101·6

    ‡103·2

    101·0

    2nd Quarter

    100·1

    ‡100·8

    99·9

    3rd Quarter

    99·3

    ‡ 98·6

    99·6

    4th Quarter

    99·0

    ‡ 97·4

    99·5

    1981

    1st Quarter

    99·9

    ‡ 99·0

    100·2

    2nd Quarter

    101·0

    ‡101·7

    100·6

    3rd Quarter

    102·7

    ‡105·5

    101·6

    4th Quarter

    ‡103·5

    ‡107·3

    102·1

    1982

    1st Quarter

    ‡104·3

    ‡108·1

    102·8

    2nd Quarter

    ‡105·6

    ‡109·8

    103·9

    3rd Quarter

    ‡106·7

    ‡110·7

    105·3

    4th Quarter

    ‡107·5

    ‡111·1

    106·1

    1983

    1st Quarter

    ‡108·9

    ‡115·4

    106·7

    2nd Quarter

    ‡109·2

    ‡115·9

    106·9

    3rd Quarter

    ‡110·9

    ‡119·3

    108·0

    4th Quarter

    ‡111·2

    ‡121·2

    107·8

    1984

    1st Quarter

    ‡111·1

    ‡121·7

    107·6

    2nd Quarter

    ‡110·6

    ‡122·7

    106·6

    3rd Quarter

    ‡ 111·3

    ‡124·5

    107·0

    * Source: Employment Gazette Table 1.8.

    † Source: Central Statistical Office.

    ‡ Revised.

    Government Purchasing
    Mr. Thurnhamasked the Secretary of State for Employment what measures will be taken by his Department following the conclusions of the recent report on Government purchasing.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: We shall ensure clear responsibilities and efficient procedures for purchasing and obtaining better value for money.
    Mr. Thurnham: Will my hon. Friend do all in his power to simplify Government purchasing procedures so that small firms can play their part in achieving the hoped for savings of £400 million a year?
    Mr. Bottomley: We shall do the best that we can, consistent with getting the best value for money.

    Building Industry (Apprenticeships)
    Mr. Alexanderasked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he is satisfied with the level of apprenticeship in craft skills being offered by the building industry and the training that is otherwise available.
    Mr. Peter Morrison: The Construction Industry Training Board is generally satisfied with the level of training in the industry. However, the board is encouraging employers to reform training arrangements so that national skill shortages are avoided.
    Mr. Alexander: Is it not the case that people who are trained in craft skills often find it difficult to obtain continuity of work and adequate rewards for their skills? Is there anything that my hon. Friend can do to encourage the use of craft skills, particularly in the building industry, or is it impossible that, for example, we should ever again build Westminster Hall?
    Mr. Morrison: I think that my hon. Friend and I would disagree on one point. As far as I am concerned, it is more important to get more people into the right sort of training. For example, thanks to the youth training scheme, in the Construction Industry Training Board area, 18,000 people last year had the first year's training, and 90 per cent. have gone on to further skills training. That has to be good for them and for the industry.
    Mr. Loyden: Does the Minister agree that because of system building and the virtual moratorium on public sector building the prospects of obtaining apprenticeships in the building industry today are poor? What efforts do the Government intend to make to ensure that the building industry is capable of providing apprenticeships for traditional building?
    Mr. Morrison: The hon. Gentleman cannot have heard my last reply, when I said that last year 90 per cent. of the 18,000 participants in the Construction Industry Training Board youth training scheme were taken on by the industry for a further year's training. That is a good record by any standards.
    Mr. Penhaligon: Would the Minister allow a young person who had completed the extra year's training to do major construction work on his own property?
    Mr. Morrison: That would depend.
    Mr. John Mark Taylor: Does my hon. Friend share the growing doubts about the role of the Construction
    770
    Industry Training Board? Is it not arguable that it is absorbing more in contributions than doing good in training?
    Mr. Morrison: If my hon. Friend consulted widely in the construction industry he would discover that the majority of employers still have confidence in the Construction Industry Training Board.

    Cumbria (MSC Operations)
    Mr. Campbell-Savoursasked the Secretary of State for Employment whether he will undertake a review of the Manpower Services Commission's operations within the county of Cumbria.
    Mr. Peter Morrison: I am not aware of any need for such a review, but I would be happy to hear from the hon. Member about any particular matters.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: In any decision taken nationally to increase the number of community programme places, will the Minster pay special attention to Cumbria, and to my constituency, where unemployment is over 20 per cent.? Does he accept that in a constituency where it is difficult to attract footloose industry the community programme is of special importance? In the discussions that take place annually with the Chancellor of the Exchequer before the Budget, has anything been said about the community programme for this financial year?
    Mr. Morrison: The hon. Gentleman and I have corresponded and we have discussed matters relating to his constituency and the community programme. I have watched carefully. I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is only fair for the number of places in his part of the country to reflect the total number of unemployed as a percentage of the whole.

    Community Programme
    Mr. Leightonasked the Secretary of State for Employment what would be the net cost of expanding the community programme to 500,000 places, taking into account benefit savings and tax flows.
    Mr. Tom King: On the 1984–85 basis, it is estimated that the gross cost of mounting a 500,000 place scheme would be £2,200 million. It is likely that such a significant expansion of the scheme would require changes in the rules and would be likely to result in rather higher net costs than the present estimate of some £2,200 per unemployed person.
    Mr. Leighton: Does the Secretary of State agree that the deprivations and hardships of unemployment worsen and grow the longer a person is out of work? Does he also agree that the figures for the long-term unemployed are growing alarmingly from month to month, and that the figures that he has announced today show that we could take about 500,000 people off the dole queues for an amount similar to that which the Chancellor suggests he will give away in the next Budget? Should not the Secretary of State therefore insist that the money be spent on expanding the community programme to help the long-term unemployed, instead of giving it away in cuts in income tax?
    Mr. King: The increase in the number of people in jobs is a result of the Government keeping control of inflation and public expenditure. It is important, when carrying forward any programme in which the Government have a number of measures to help in the short term, that we do not allow the costs to rise out of proportion.
    Mr. Kenneth Carlisle: Is it not important to improve training aspects in the programme so that those who leave the programme are better qualified to find work?
    Mr. King: I have announced the proposal to introduce training into the community programme in the coming year. I am encouraged by the first results, which show that people who have been on community programme schemes have three times as good a prospect of going on into work as other long-term unemployed people. That is a tribute to the quality of the programme.

    Job Creation
    Mr. Dykesasked the Secretary of State for Employment what studies his Department has made recently into methods whereby new public works schemes can give rise to new job creation.
    Mr. Alan Clark: The Government's approach to public works programmes is to consider each one on its merits in terms of rate of return to the community. It is our view that spending on Government investment schemes would be a very expensive way to create jobs.
    Mr. Dykes: Nevertheless, will my hon. Friend undertake to look at this again, perhaps in a joint study with the Treasury, in view of the growing evidence that there would be a very good effect on the multiplier in comparison with tax cuts?
    Mr. Clark: I do not know what my hon. Friend means by "growing evidence". To take the construction industry, investment last year increased by 12 per cent. and output by 4·25 per cent., yet employment went down. I know that in my hon. Friend's early-day motion dated 17 December 1984 he referred to a large injection of capital being desirable, but he did not suggest where it should come from.

    Wages Inspectors
    Mr. James Lamondasked the Secretary of State for Employment if he has any plans to reduce the number of wages inspectors in post.
    Mr. Peter Bottomley: No, Sir.
    Mr. Lamond: Has the Minister noticed that hon. Members behind him who are quickest to respond when their own interests are affected by Government action are the first to call for the abolition of the wages councils and the removal of protection from the lowest-paid members of our society? Does the Minister feel ashamed to be spearheading a Government whose proposals are to do just that? Is there any compassion at all left in his Department?
    Mr. Bottomley: Except for the hon. Gentleman's last question, the answer is no.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Sir John Biggs-Davisonasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today. This evening I hope to have an audience of Her Majesty the Queen.
    Sir John Biggs-Davison: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in all this talk of victors and vanquished in the mining tragedy, the achievement of modern mines, high productivity and competitive energy prices will be the true victory for Britain and for Britain's miners, for whom Conservative Members retain, despite all that has happened, the greatest respect?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend that we want a prosperous coal industry. It is therefore necessary for the industry as a whole to convince the customer that it can provide a secure supply at highly competitive prices.
    Mr. Canavan: Is the Prime Minister aware that the miners' strike is not yet over, because the Scottish miners in pits such as Polmaise are as determined as ever not to go back until they get an assurance on the future of their pits and the reinstatement of all miners sacked during the strike? Will the Prime Minister stop demanding her full pound of flesh and insisting that miners be punished twice for the same alleged offence—first by the law courts and then by the kangaroo courts of MacGregor and Wheeler? It is they who should be sacked for vandalising the coal industry.
    The Prime Minister: With certain exceptions, and the hon. Gentleman refers to one, the return to work in the coal mines has been orderly and at a high rate. The strike is very nearly over and I hope that the mines will soon get back to normal working, because that is the way to build a highly competitive industry again. I do not think that there can be an amnesty in any way for those who have committed serious criminal offences.
    Mr. Bill Walkerasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Walker: Has my right hon. Friend noticed that despite the appalling problems that have been created by the miners' strike there has been a great sense of unity in other sections of the nation and productivity has increased dramatically, particularly in the steel industry at Ravenscraig in Scotland? Is this not an example which the coal industry should now emulate?
    The Prime Minister: I congratulate the workers at Ravenscraig on their most excellent record throughout the coal strike. Indeed, we should congratulate the steel workers as a whole, who put up production last year in spite of the coal strike. I also agree with my hon. Friend that the strike has demonstrated the enormous unity of other workers in the country, who are determined to carry on with their own jobs.
    Mr. Douglas: Will the Prime Minister reflect a little on the answer that she gave a moment ago in relation to the amnesty? While her Secretary of State for Energy says that it would be wrong to ask men to go back to work with those who have committed serious offences, will she take cognisance of the fact that in the Comrie colliery in Fife and Castlehill colliery and Solgirth, which are part of the Longannet complex, my men and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) are saying that they will not go back to work until the men who led the strike and who have been convicted, often of minor offences, are told that they are able to return to employment? Will she use her good offices with the NCB in Scotland to ensure that we do not have a Pontius Pilate school of management, but management that allows men to go back to work in unity and with self-respect?
    The Prime Minister: Serious criminal acts have been committed during the dispute against both persons and property of working miners, and against the property of the National Coal Board. People who commit such acts must expect to face the consequences. Other matters are for the management of the NCB. The hon. Gentleman is very well aware that when normal working is restored there is a procedure through which anyone can go if he wishes to do so.
    Mr. Needham: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the only solution to the teachers' strike is through conciliation and arbitration, and that without the introduction of the new assessment procedure the only way that money will become available is either through higher local government rates or fewer teachers?
    The Prime Minister: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for putting across that point. If there is to be extra money for teachers, it could come by having fewer teachers, or it could come from elsewhere, out of the education budget, or the expenditure budget. To give more than has been offered to those teachers would in fact mean cutting other people off from jobs.
    Dr. Owen: While Lord Bridge is investigating specific cases of ministerial authorisation of phone tapping, who will investigate the allegations that MI5 may have gone beyond the authorisation and made phone taps without specific ministerial authorisation? Will the Prime Minister make it clear that there has been no change in the practice of making individual assessments about phone tapping, other than offices, and that there is no blanket phone-tapping authorisation?
    The Prime Minister: I hope to be studying the result of Lord Bridge's inquiry later this evening. It has arrived, but I have not in fact seen it. With regard to any other allegations, for example of unauthorised interception, I and my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary are accountable to Parliament for the work of the security service. It is for us to satisfy ourselves that it conducts its operations strictly in accordance with the terms of its directive and that its responsibility is fully discharged, as it always has been.
    Mr. Parryasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Parry: Will the Prime Minister reflect today on the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, which she quoted
    774
    outside 10 Downing Street on being elected Prime Minister? Does she not agree that she has stood that great prayer on its head, and that where there was faith, there is now doubt, where there was hope, there is now despair, where there was pardon, there is now injury, and where there was joy, there is now sadness? If the right hon. Lady has any compassion, which I do not believe she has, will she consider an amnesty for miners who were defending their jobs, communities and families? Will the right hon. Lady have compassion for their families and children? If she does not, she will go down to posterity as a cruel, vindictive, ruthless and uncaring hypocrite.
    The Prime Minister: The worst discord that this country has seen for a very long time has been created by the leadership of the National Union of Mineworkers. It has split its own union and set family against family, brother against brother, and miner against miner. With regard to the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's question, there can be no amnesty for serious criminal offences.
    Mr. Foxasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Fox: Will my right hon. Friend-take time today to condemn the scurrilous contents of the full page advertisement in The Times, which was inserted by the drug companies? Is it not disgraceful that those with a vested interest—[HON. MEMBERS: "Yes".]—should prey upon the fears of the sick and the elderly in this fashion?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend that it is disgraceful that they should prey upon the fears of elderly people, who will continue to receive the drugs that they need on the National Health Service, even though they might be in a slightly different form from that to which they have been accustomed. It is the chemical, not the brand name, which creates the cure.
    Mr. Kinnock: In view of the fact that the rate of male unemployment in the South Wales coalfield and other similar areas is now 20 per cent. and more, will the Prime Minister tell us precisely what she is going to do to reduce unemployment in those areas?
    The Prime Minister: If the right hon. Gentleman is referring particularly to closures that may come about because of the situation in the mining industry, I can tell him that a special National Coal Board enterprise company has been set up. Should it not have sufficient resources, more will be provided.
    Mr. Kinnock: I am talking about the unemployment that already exists, not just about what will happen when the Prime Minister's axe falls upon even more mining communities. Will she tell us how she can justify, in these conditions of very high unemployment, further cuts in her own programme of job creation, training schemes and regional aid? Is it not a fact that the Prime Minister's whole record is one of wiping out jobs and closing down communities?
    The Prime Minister: We shall get extra jobs when ordinary people can create more enterprise, which produces goods and services that people will buy. That is the way in which it has been done in countries that have been successful. We should have a far greater chance of reducing unemployment if right hon. and hon. Gentlemen

    775
    ceased to support strikes and increased pay claims, regardless of the effect that this will have upon the jobs of others.
    Mr. Kinnock: When — Mr. Speaker, this is the question that the whole country is asking — is this miracle going to come about? Will the Prime Minister answer that question?
    The Prime Minister: It will come about when our people, instead of relying upon increased subsidies, do exactly what has happened in both Japan and the United States — set out themselves to create more small businesses.
    Mr. Heddleasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Heddle: In the light of the role played by the Trades Union Congress in the mining dispute, does my right hon. Friend recognise that a considerable number of members of trade unions, the majority of whom are moderate and reasonable, now recognise that management has a duty to manage and that discussion invariably succeeds where disruption always fails? Is not this a welcome sea change from the attitude that prevailed 10 years ago?
    The Prime Minister: Yes. As my hon. Friend knows, I saw the TUC in the closing days of the strike. It played a very helpful and constructive role. I agree with my hon. Friend that since we have got rid of a lot of regulations in industry as a whole, management has recovered both the right and the duty to manage. That is something upon which we can never compromise.
    Mr. Buchan: Does the right hon. Lady recognise that at present management in Scotland is not managing but mismanaging? The disruption that exists in Scotland is caused by one woman, the Prime Minister, and one of her officials, Mr. Wheeler. Will the right hon. Lady kindly tell him to call off his nonsense? He declared that there would be no amnesty, even before the decision to return to work was taken.
    The Prime Minister: I believe that the Opposition Front Bench agrees with me that it is right that there should be no amnesty for those who have committed serious criminal offences against miners and against the property
    776
    of miners and the NCB. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) also agree with that proposition.
    Mrs. Roeasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 5 March.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mrs. Roe: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, out of a total of 32 London boroughs, only seven councils supported the Labour GLC in its threat to approve an illegal budget on Thursday? Will she join the majority of Londoners in urging all Labour GLC councillors in their deliberations this afternoon on the estimates to adjust the GLC budget so that it does not exceed the limits set down by the Government?
    The Prime Minister: I hope that the GLC, ILEA and all other relevant councils will make it their duty to set a legal rate, otherwise services will not be delivered and there will be chaos and confusion. Action can be taken to surcharge councillors and disqualify them. I hope that that will not happen.
    Mr. Speaker: Application under Standing Order No. 10, Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody.
    Mr. Crouch: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Unless the point of order arises directly out of questions, I shall take it after the Standing Order No. 10 application.
    Mr. Crouch: It arises out of questions. I wonder whether you have noticed, Mr. Speaker, that questions to the Prime Minister today were proceeding quite well notwithstanding the fact that some hon. Members referred to their notes and were called upon not do so. I do not consider that to be as much a sin as the Leader of the Opposition popping up and down so often to ask his questions. This is a Back Benchers' occasion. Do you not think, Mr. Speaker, that we should try to observe Prime Minister's Question Time as a Back Bench occasion?
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The Chair has always given a certain licence to the Front Bench at Prime Minister's Question Time, but it remains true that every time the Front Bench gets up a Back Bencher cannot be called.

Transport Bill (Committee Proceedings)
3.32 pm
Mrs. Gwyneth Dunwoody: 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 report of the Select Committee on Transport and its conclusions on the Transport Bill which is currently in Committee."
This matter is specific because the Transport Committee report, from an all-party Committee, clearly damns the legislation. It talks about dangers to safety standards, where there will undoubtedly be a need for a considerable increase in already inadequate resources. It points out that concessionary fare passes are unlikely to be feasible under unfettered competition—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. This is an important application under Standing Order No. 10, and I cannot hear the hon. Lady.
Mrs. Dunwoody: The Select Committee fears wasteful and unsafe competitive practices.
It is vital that the House should debate the report, because the Committee stage is being pushed ahead without hon. Members having any opportunity to discuss the implications of the report. The matter is even more important because, if the Bill is passed without the Select Committee's report having been discussed, we shall not have the advantage of the helpful and informative evidence, including that of Ministers, given to the Committee. The matter is urgent because today it was linked with a most extraordinary attack by the Under-Secretary on the Chairman of the Select Committee. It was a disgraceful attack on the integrity and chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Cowans). My hon. Friend's only crime is that he obviously knows a great deal more about transport than the Minister.
The Committee consists of seven Tory Members and three Labour Members, one of whom is the Chairman and does not use his casting vote, except in the normal way to maintain the status quo. Yet today in Committee the Under-Secretary of State suggested in the most appalling manner that the Chairman has misused his responsibilities to change the contents of the report. It is vital that the House should have the chance to debate what is in the Select Committee report because Ministers are anxious that the legislation should go by without people realising the extent and damaging contents of the Bill.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that she believes should have urgent consideration, namely.
"the report of the Select Committee on Transport and its conclusions on the Transport Bill which is currently in Committee."
As the hon. Lady knows, the only decision that I have to take is whether this matter should take precedence over the business set down for today or tomorrow. I have listened carefully to the hon. Lady, but I regret that I do not consider that the matter she has raised is appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 10. I cannot, therefore, submit her application to the House.
778
Later—
Mr. Don Dixon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your guidance about an incident that happened in Standing Committee A this morning. The Committee was dealing with the Transport Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) has referred briefly to the disgraceful attack on the character and integrity of my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Cowans), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Transport. During debate on the sittings motion this morning, reference was made to the Select Committee's report—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must stop the hon. Gentleman, because I cannot rule in this Chamber on anything that happens in Standing Committee. It is not for me to do so. The hon. Gentleman must put to me a question that I can answer. I cannot rule on anything that happens in a Standing Committee.
Mr. Dixon: I am not asking for your ruling, Mr. Speaker, but for your guidance. What should members of Standing Committees do when Ministers attack hon. Members who are not members of the Standing Committee? The Select Committee's report was referred to during debate on the sittings motion this morning. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, West (Mr. Parris) said that the report was carried on the casting vote of the Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge. The Minister, when winding up the debate on the sittings motion—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is now doing exactly what I asked him not to do. I cannot deal with anything that goes on in a Standing Committee. That is not a matter for me. The matter is well outside the responsibilities of this Chair and our rules here.
Mr. Dixon: If it is not a matter for you, Mr. Speaker, can you tell hon. Members where they can raise the matter so that hon. Members who are not members of a Standing Committee should not have their character or integrity attacked by a Minister? To whom can the members of the Committee go for guidance?
Mr. Speaker: I can answer that question very easily. The hon. Gentleman should take the matter up with the Chairman of the Standing Committee.
Mr. Harry Cowans: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will recall that it was the House, not one political party, that set up the procedures of the Select Committees. The idea was that the Committees should be all-party Committees and should take evidence from all sources and reach a view. I am not complaining, but I cannot think of one Select Committee that does not have a built-in Conservative majority.
I seek your guidance, Mr. Speaker, on the following point. The wishes of the House should be obeyed and the Select Committees should have the freedom to reach a balanced view. Is not that situation put in jeopardy when the integrity of the Chairman is challenged, from whatever source and on whatever view? An attack on me is an attack on every Select Committee Chairman, who should, in carrying out the wishes of the House, be free to chair that Committee and to reach a conclusion whether or not the Government of the day happen to agree with it. If that

779
freedom does not exist, is there any future for the Select Committees, or are the Chairmen under direction to meet with the Government's—any Government's—desires?
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not know about what the hon. Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Cowans) has said, but I will say—and the whole House will agree—that he is a man of the highest integrity. I would be very surprised if any accusations to the contrary were ever made. Let us move on.
Mrs. Dunwoody rose—
Mr. Ted Leadbitter rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We have a lot of business ahead of us.
Mr. Leadbitter: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. What happened this morning was a serious matter. I note your kind remarks about my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge (Mr. Cowans). Nevertheless, according to Standing Orders, the conduct or misconduct of an hon. Member in Standing Committee is not something that the Standing Committee or its Chairman can deal with. The Standing Orders make it abundantly clear that, if the offending words are not withdrawn, the matter should properly be reported to the House. I accept that the matter cannot be proceeded with at the moment, but I suggest that if my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne Bridge still feels offended—that is the conditional purport of what I am saying—the matter should be the subject of a proper report to the House unless the hon. Gentleman who used the offending words withdraws them in the Standing Committee. Subject to that proviso, I hope, Mr. Speaker, that you will accept a report, if the principals involved in the matter feel that a report should be made.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman helps us out of a difficulty. He is a distinguished Chairman of Committees and he is, of course, quite right.

Miners (Dismissal)
3.37 pm
Mr. Gordon Brown: 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,
"directives from the National Coal Board in Scotland, supported by Ministers, which have led to the arbitrary dismissal of 185 miners."
The matter is specific, because, on the pretext of misconduct, these miners—many in my constituency—have been dismissed and up to 200 more may be dismissed without adequate explanation or proper justification, wholly against previous practice in the coal industry and stated procedures in the rest of the country.
The matter is important because, contrary to what the Prime Minister told us today, some of the miners who have been dismissed in Scotland have been admonished and fined no more than £10 for taking coal and no more than £50 for the most trivial breach of the peace offences committed far from Coal Board premises and involving no violence against fellow miners. Although those miners have hitherto had an impeccable record in the eyes of the law, the National Coal Board in Scotland, with the public support of the Secretary of State for Scotland, has refused even to consider a review of such cases. It is a Scottish policy which, on the admission of the coal board director, may include sackings by the coal board even before summonses by the court, coal board dismissals even when there have been court acquittals and coal board checks and surveillance of miners not at their work place but at home in their villages and towns.
The dismissals are arbitrary because the coal board in Scotland has offered us no criteria for what constitutes a sackable offence; anomalous because miners have been punished twice for the same crime, and authoritarian because the diktat of one man, the NCB director in Scotland, determines whether a man will have his job or lose it. The NCB has found in some trivial offences a pretext for the selective dismissal of active trade unionists.
The matter is important because there are now two types of law— a criminal law, and now a coal board law; magistrates' justice, and now MacGregor's justice; a coal board blacklist of people in 1985 after a coal board hit list of pits in 1984. Throughout the past year, we have had industrial relations not by negotiation but by starvation. We now have management not by conciliation but by victimization. Yet, in the midst of such victimisation, this week the Prime Minister has the effrontery to talk of reconciliation. Miners in my constituency would feel safer with Viscount Whitelaw wielding his gun than with the Prime Minister wielding her olive branch.
The matter requires urgent consideration because today the Scottish coal board is shamefully impeding a settlement of the coal dispute, misleading the public over the reasons for these selective dismissals, abusing any common-sense view of natural justice and permanently injuring any efforts at the reconciliation that the coal board says it wants to achieve.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the

781
House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that should have urgent consideration, namely,
"directives from the National Coal Board in Scotland, supported by Ministers, which have led to the arbitrary dismissal of 185 miners."
I understand the concern expressed by the hon. Gentleman, but I have to give him the same answer which I gave to his hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody). I do not consider the matter that he has raised to be appropriate for discussion under Standing Order No. 10 and I cannot, therefore, submit his application to the House.

Interception of Communications Bill (Bridge Report)
3.40 pm
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your advice and assistance in your role as guardian of the rights of the House. You will recall that last Thursday, in the guise of an answer to a planted supplementary question, the Home Secretary announced the setting up of an inquiry by Lord Bridge of Harwich into certain aspects of telephone tapping. I asked, in the light of that inquiry, that the Interception of Communications Bill should not be proceeded with. The Home Secretary replied that that was a matter for the Leader of the House.
Accordingly, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition raised the issue at business questions that same day. The Leader of the House replied:
"I understand the importance which the right hon. Gentleman attaches to the Bridge inquiry — I am sure that the whole House believes it to be important—and 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 made similar responses to other hon. Members. For example, in reply to the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) he said:
"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."
To my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick), he said:
"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." — [Official Report, 28 February 1985; Vol. 74, c. 471–2, 475, 479.]
The Interception of Communications Bill is down for Second Reading tomorrow. The Bridge report has not yet been made available to the House, and, as far as I am aware, will not be made available to the House until tomorrow, only a few hours at best before the Second Reading debate starts. At Question Time this afternoon—
Mr. Speaker: Order. With the greatest respect, the right hon. Gentleman knows that I am not responsible for the business put before the House. If he would kindly make a point of order that I can answer, I shall do my best to answer it.
Mr. Kaufman: That is what I am seeking to do, Mr. Speaker, but I thought it only proper to put before you and the House the evidence on which I wish to base my point of order.
The Prime Minister, at Question Time only this afternoon, confirmed that she has already received the report and that she will be studying it this evening. The Government will have the time and the opportunity to study the report before preparing their arguments for the debate, but the rest of the House, of whose rights you, Mr. Speaker, are the custodian, will not have the opportunity of studying that report while preparing for the debate. Therefore, the balance of the debate and of the House will be disturbed because other Members of the House, apart from the Home Secretary, will be placed at an intolerable disadvantage in relation to the Government.

783
The spirit of the assurances given by the Leader of the House on the matter, which I quoted, will have been violated. As a result, the debate will be seriously distorted. It is essential that this controversial Bill, whose content and circumstances are fundamental to freedom in our society, be properly debated by all Members of the House of Commons on either side. Therefore, I ask for your advice on how we can secure the postponement of the Second Reading of the Bill until the House has had sufficient time properly to study the contents of the Bridge report.
Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman asks for my guidance on this matter. As I have already said, and as the House will know, it is not a matter for me. The right hon. Gentleman answered his question by directing it to the Leader of the House, who is present. It is not a matter on which I can answer.
Mr. David Winnick: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. As we understand the position, it is your wish to protect the rights of Back-Bench Members. You have said so on numerous occasions, and you said it when you were elected to the Chair. The position with which we are faced—this is why we are seeking your advice—is that tomorrow, when we debate the Second Reading of an important and controversial Bill, a document that is very much related to the content of that Bill and to the debate will not be available until the debate starts. It is right to say that hardly ever, when we have had a Second Reading debate, has a document that it is necessary for right hon. and hon. Members to read and understand not been available until the debate starts. In those circumstances, surely you will agree that it makes a mockery of our procedure and of the debate that is due to take place tomorrow. Therefore, as we have tried the Leader of the House and all possible channels, in the last resort we appeal to you, because you are there, as you have reminded us, to protect our rights. Our rights are being abused, and it would be completely wrong for the Bill to be debated tomorrow. [Interruption.]
It is all very well for Conservative Members to jeer, but when the civil liberties of our people are at stake—we know of the widespread abuse by MI5 and the special branch — it is all the more important that the entire House should be concerned about this matter, not simply the Labour party.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. You will recall that, at Question Time today, the Prime Minister referred to the Bridge report. Is it not a convention of the House that once a Minister refers to a document, that document shall be laid on the Table so that all hon. Members can consult it? As the Prime Minister said that she had a copy of it, and used it in reference to her answer, is it not her duty now to lay a copy on the Table so that hon. Members can consult it?
Ms. Harriet Harman rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Allow me to deal with that point of order before I call the hon. Lady. A document must be laid before the House only if it is quoted by a Minister, not if it is merely referred to.
Ms. Harman: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It is not only Lord Bridge's report that is not available and that should be considered before we debate the Bill tomorrow; I have not received a reply to my letter to the Prime Minister of nine days ago. Since I have not been able to obtain answers, I cannot table questions if they mention MI5 and it is impossible for me properly to consider the Bill unless I know whether my telephone has been tapped and what is in my MI5 file. The Prime Minister is obviously so busy reading my file that she does not have time to answer my letter.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. If it is difficult to protect the rights of Back-Bench Members — I understand the difficulty — could I appeal to you to protect the rights of former Home Secretaries? The Prime Minister properly asked former Prime Ministers and Home Secretaries whether they would agree to have telephone-tapping arrangements in their period of office considered by Lord Bridge. Of course, the report will go first to the Prime Minister. It is on her desk and she will not read it until tonight. The debate, which is tomorrow afternoon, will consider a period of office other than that of the Prime Minister. The report will not be available until tomorrow morning. Surely the Leader of the House will make a statement. This is not just any other little piece of business; this is a constitutional Bill which will be debated entirely on the Floor of the House. We must have the right to see that report in exactly the same way as the Prime Minister has the right to see it.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You will recall that about a fortnight ago the Government foolishly tried to telescope two stages of the Transport Bill and attempted to take the Committee and Report stages together. That attempt resulted in a series of points of order being raised by hon. Members who felt that an injustice was being done, especially as insufficient time had been provided for the tabling of amendments.
It appears that the House is now being placed in a similar predicament. You will recall, Mr. Speaker—because you were heavily involved in the matter—that when statements were made about a change of business, you felt it necessary to remain in the Chair—not to allow Mr. Deputy Speaker to take over—because you thought that the House of Commons was being placed in some difficulty.
I will not go into the detail of what happened after those points of order had been raised on that occasion. You will have gathered from what has been said today, Mr. Speaker, that many of my hon. Friends feel that we are about to witness tomorrow the Second Reading of a Bill which we shall not be able adequately to debate because of the absence of the document to which reference has been made, and therefore the inability of hon. Members to digest its contents.
While I am unable to forecast what may occur, it is clear that many hon. Members who are hostile to the very process of tomorrow's debate feel that it is an affront, not least to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Leader of the House, who can change the business of the House eight times in three weeks—and do so at various times of the day and night, including at 10 o'clock—should not have the guts and decency to stand at the Dispatch Box now and make the matter clear.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Once again I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) for his concern for my position—[interruption] I mean it. I do my best to defend the interests of Back Benchers. Among the many responsibilities which I bear, the organisation of the business of the House is not one. There is therefore nothing I can do about that; the matter is in other hands.
Mr. Kaufman: Further to my original point of order, Mr. Speaker, and in relation to what you have said in answer to me and to other points made by my hon. Friends, I recall that, at an earlier stage of this series of points of order, you gave what appeared to be a broad hint—I apologise for saying so, if such a matter never crossed your mind — that the House could be helped out of its difficulty by the Leader of the House making a statement from the Dispatch Box about the Government's intentions. The right hon. Gentleman sits in his place. I think he is awake. I suggest that it would be courteous to you, after what you have said, if the right hon. Gentleman now rose and announced that the Bill will not be proceeded with tomorrow.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am not able to do what the right hon. Gentleman suggests, and I hope that any facial expressions of mine do not betray my emotions. I may have private thoughts, but I do not express them.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: I wish to raise with you, Mr. Speaker, a point of order which relates to a letter that I received today from the Home Secretary. It is on the subject of the tapping of hon. Members' telephones. The letter states that the rules governing the tapping of our phones were laid down in a parliamentary answer on 17 November 1966, when the then Prime Minister, now Lord Wilson of Rievaulx
"said that he had given instructions that there was to be no tapping of the telephones of Members of Parliament; that remained the policy of the Government, and that, if there was a development which required a change in the general policy, he would, at such moment as seemed compatible with the security of the country, on his own initiative make a statement in the House about it. The Government regard this undertaking as applying to both postal and telephone interception."
My understanding is that that reply puts the Government in a position in which they are not required to make a statement about the tapping of an hon. Member's phone.
When, a few days ago, in a supplementary question to a question asked by the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) I asked what the current position was, the Home Secretary appeared to be changing the rules, when he replied:
"if such telephone interception were to become necessary or desirable, a statement would be made to the House before it was done."—[Official Report, 28 February 1985; Vol. 74, c. 461.]
To many of us, that clearly meant that a change in the rules was occurring, and we left the Chamber in the belief that the Home Secretary was making a concession. In the letter which I received this morning from the Home Secretary, he has re-established the original rules and has asked me to table a question to elicit that response from him.
Is it not an abuse of procedure for the Home Secretary to ask an Opposition Member to place a question on the Order paper so that he can re-establish a policy to which a majority of the House would take wholesale exception?
Mr. Speaker: I cannot say that that is an abuse of the House, but perhaps it is unusual.
Mr. Michael Foot: Further to the point of order. It seems from what has been said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and others, and from undertakings given last week about the nature of the debate and the discussions that would take place, that the House will be in an extraordinary position when we embark upon the Second Reading of the Interception of Communications Bill tomorrow. We shall not know the Government's response to all the appeals that have been made. Secondly, we shall not be aware of what is in the Bridge report, which is bound to be involved in the debate.
I put to you, Mr. Speaker, a matter which I am sure it is within your province to consider. In view of the exceptional circumstances, the background to tomorrow's debate and the fact that great sections of the House will be denied the right to debate the Bill properly, I ask that at an early stage in the debate you consider a motion for the Adjournment of the House. That would be a matter for you to consider, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: That is something that I shall consider at the time.
Mr. Gregor MacKenzie: I appreciate that the business of the House does not lie with you, Mr. Speaker, but there is a matter that I wish to add to those which have been raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) and some of my hon. Friends. It seems that we are not to have before us a valuable report that will become the property of Parliament. It appears that it will be available to us only a few hours before tomorrow's important debate. A number of us have felt offended over a number of years by the growing practice of handing out reports with press notices long before the reports become available to hon. Members. As you are the guardian of our rights, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that it is for you to ensure that no hon. Member is denied a privilege that is given to someone outside this place. Members of the press should not be given reports before they are given to hon. Members.
Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman has raised a matter on which I have frequently given my view in the past. If information is given to the press and it is embargoed, it should not be used before hon. Members have it in their possession.
The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): I recognise, as I did last week, the desire throughout the House that the Bridge report should be made available ahead of the debate tomorrow. I shall ensure that it is available to the House tomorrow morning. Perhaps the matter could be discussed through the usual channels.
Mr. Kaufman: The Leader of the House has intervened in an attempt to defuse the justifiable concern of the House. However, the House remains in the same difficulty. The Government are in possession of the Bridge report and members of the Government, including the Home Secretary, will be able to study the report this evening. They will be able to prepare for the debate in the full knowledge of the contents of the report. At an unspecified hour tomorrow, with only a short time to pass before the debate starts, the Government will condescend to consider whether and at what time they will place the report in the hands of the other 649 Members. That sort

787
of approach is not satisfactory to the House of Commons. If the report is not to be made available to Parliament until tomorrow, the Second Reading of the Bill should not take place tomorrow.
Mr. Speaker: Unfortunately, I can do nothing about that, as the matter is not in my province. Representatives of the usual channels are present and I am sure that the matter will be resolved satisfactorily.
Mr. Foot: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. What the Leader of the House has said does not resolve the situation at all. In some ways, what he says makes it worse. The right hon. Gentleman is aware that there has been strong pressure that the debate should be postponed. That case is all the stronger now that we are told that a report is to be presented at some unspecified time.
I know, Mr. Speaker, that you cannot solve the problem for the House. I am sure that you would if you could, here and now. However, I put it to you that it would be possible for some hon. Member, at the beginning of the debate tomorrow, to move that the debate should be adjourned. The question whether that motion were accepted would then rest with you. I ask you to give sympathetic consideration to such a motion, if it is moved at the beginning of the debate, so that the overwhelming and just desire of the House should be met through your action.
Mr. Speaker: At the moment, the right hon. Gentleman's proposition is hypothetical. I have already said that, should that eventuality arise, I would of course consider it. In the meantime, there is a hopeful sign that the matter will be discussed, and I hope resolved, in the usual way in which we do such things.
Sir Kenneth Lewis: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I told my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House the other day that I thought that we should be given the report before the debate. The Government should be congratulated on having the report produced so quickly. The report has been produced in a few days—more quickly than any other during my time in the House.
There are very good printing machines in the House. I suggest that since the report is now before the Prime Minister, we might do better than tomorrow morning. A certain number of copies might be printed tonight and given to Front Bench spokesmen and any other hon. Members who cared to go to the Vote Office. The number might not be large, but some reports would be made available later this afternoon or early this evening.
Mr. Speaker: That is a very good suggestion, as long as the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that I should do the reproduction.

Scottish Parliament
4.8 pm
Mr. John Maxton: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to establish a democratically elected Scottish Assembly with legislative and administrative powers to deal with all matters at present administered by the Secretary of State for Scotland and those powers of the Secretary of State for Education and Science in so far as they apply to Scotland; such Assembly to have tax raising powers; and for connected purposes.
We live in a centralised state—a state in which all legislative power is concentrated here and practically all genuine administrative power is concentrated in the Government of the day. The process of centralisation has been accelerated and the situation made worse by the present Government through their policies on local government.
It has always been my view and the view of the Labour party in Scotland that the establishment of a Scottish assembly would be the first step towards a more decentralised state in which decisions were taken by people locally. If other areas of the country seek assemblies similar to that which I seek to establish in Scotland, with exactly the same powers, including tax raising powers, I believe that they should be granted such assemblies. I and my colleagues would support such a move.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) moved a similar Bill last week because this is the sixth anniversary of the referendum on an assembly in Scotland. He observed that 52 per cent. of those who voted in the referendum voted in favour of establishing an assembly. The assembly was lost only because of the iniquitous 40 per cent. rule. The Scottish National party voted with the Conservatives to bring the Labour Government down, the Conservatives were returned and they quickly forgot the promises that they made in their election manifestos of 1970, 1974 and during the referendum campaign. Lord Home of the Hirsel said that he would urge the introduction of a Bill to give more power to a Scottish assembly.
It is right for us to raise the issue of devolution at this time of year to show that it is not dead. Anyone who watched Scottish television, read the Scottish press or listened to Scottish radio last week would have been convinced that the issue is far from dead. Indeed, interest in devolution is growing. If the House continues to ignore the legitimate demands of the Scottish people, it will do so at its long-term peril.
We are celebrating the anniversary of the referendum and the centenary of the establishment of the Secretary of State for Scotland, or rather the Secretary for Scotland as the office was known when it was established in 1885. The Secretary for Scotland and about 10 others ran what was known as the Scotch Office. During the past 100 years, the Secretary of State has gradually acquired powers. In 1892, he became a member of the Cabinet, and it was 1927 before he became a Secretary of State, although even then he was paid less than other Secretaries of State. Since then Parliamentary Under-Secretaries of State and Ministers of State have been added. In 1939, the headquarters of the Scottish Office was moved to Edinburgh — by a Conservative Government. The Scottish Office has gradually acquired powers from other Departments and now has 10,000 civil servants. All of those powers have

789
been given grudgingly. It would be fitting to add the democratic element this year. That would give the Scottish people the right to control their own affairs.
The present Secretary of State is not elected by the Scottish people. His party has only 21 seats out of a possible 72 in Scotland. He runs an enormous administration without a mandate from the people of Scotland. I am not suggesting that the Government have no mandate. The people of Scotland have been denied their democratic rights for too long.
Mr. Bill Walker: Rubbish.
Mr. Maxton: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would be more prepared to listen to a quotation:
"I would never adopt the view that Scotland should be forced into the serfdom of socialism as a result of a vote in the House of Commons".
That was said by Mr. Winston Churchill in the Usher Hall in Edinburgh during the 1950 general election campaign. It is a complete denial of the argument that Parliament is sovereign over the affairs of Scotland. If it was right for Mr. Churchill to say that in 1950, it must be even more right for the Scottish people to say that the tyranny of Thatcherism should not be imposed on Scotland by votes in this House.
You know the procedures of the House, Mr. Speaker. Practically only Scottish Members speak on Scottish Bills, comprise the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, the Scottish Grand Committee and Standing Committees on Scottish matters. Yet legislation peculiar to Scotland is carried by a majority, which includes hon. Members who come from elsewhere in the United Kingdom. There must be a Conservative majority in Standing Committees on Scottish legislation, so it is impossible for the Government to get through more than one Scottish Bill at a time as they have insufficient Scottish Back Benchers to man more than one Committee. That process is undemocratic.
There is already much devolution to Scotland. We should continue that process by establishing an elected assembly to consider matters peculiar to Scotland. The logical conclusion of the argument of Conservative Members who are shaking their heads is not to continue with the status quo but to abolish the Scottish Office and disperse its powers to other Departments. My Bill is the best way forward for democratic control of Scottish affairs.
4.18 pm
Mr. Mark Hughes rose—
Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Gentleman wish to oppose the Bill?
Mr. Hughes: Am I allowed to register a case for abstention?
Mr. Speaker: Unless the hon. Gentleman is opposing the Bill, I cannot call him.
Mr. Hughes: In that case, I should like formally to oppose the Bill—with deep regret, because I agree with everything that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) has said regarding Scotland. However, if such provision is not made available to the north-east of England, the north-west of England and Wales, enabling them to have an adequate status in the realm, I cannot support the Bill.
I have every sympathy with the desires of Scotland to have an elected assembly with tax-raising powers.
790
We in the northern region have an equal preponderance of Labour Members over Tory Members to that in Scotland, and we should like to look after our own affairs. All the regions need devolution from Whitehall. If we support this Bill, we run the risk that we remain disadvantaged for a decade or more. That is why I and many of my hon. Friends from the north-east were reluctant to support devolution under the Labour Government. Therefore, with deep regret, while I shall not divide the House on the Bill, if it is forced to a Division I shall abstain.
Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 15 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of public business): —
The House divided: Ayes 95, Noes 169.

Division No. 138]

[4.20 pm

AYES

Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

Howells, Geraint

Alton, David

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

John, Brynmor

Ashdown, Paddy

Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Kennedy, Charles

Ashton, Joe

King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

Beith, A. J.

Lambie, David

Benn, Tony

Lamond, James

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

Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

Bermingham, Gerald

Loyden, Edward

Bidwell, Sydney

McCartney, Hugh

Boyes, Roland

McGuire, Michael

Bray, Dr Jeremy

McKay, Allen (Penistone)

Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

McKelvey, William

Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

Mackenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Bruce, Malcolm

Maclennan, Robert

Buchan, Norman

McTaggart, Robert

Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

Madden, Max

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

Maxton, John

Carter-Jones, Lewis

Meadowcroft, Michael

Cartwright, John

Michie, William

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Clarke, Thomas

Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

O'Neill, Martin

Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

Parry, Robert

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

Patchett, Terry

Deakins, Eric

Penhaligon, David

Dewar, Donald

Richardson, Ms Jo

Eadie, Alex

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Edwards, Bob (W'h'mpt'n SE)

Robertson, George

Fatchett, Derek

Sedgemore, Brian

Faulds, Andrew

Sheerman, Barry

Fisher, Mark

Short, Ms Clare (Ladywood)

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Skinner, Dennis

Foulkes, George

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

Fraser, J. (Norwood)

Strang, Gavin

Freud, Clement

Straw, Jack

George, Bruce

Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

Godman, Dr Norman

Torney, Tom

Golding, John

Wainwright, R.

Gould, Bryan

Wallace, James

Gourlay, Harry

Weetch, Ken

Hamilton, James (M'well N)

Wigley, Dafydd

Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

Hardy, Peter

Tellers for the Ayes:

Harman, Ms Harriet

Mr. Dennis Canavan and

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Mr. Dick Douglas.

Home Robertson, John

NOES

Alexander, Richard

Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

Ancram, Michael

Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

Best, Keith

791

Biffen, Rt Hon John

Freeman, Roger

Biggs-Davison, Sir John

Gardiner, George (Reigate)

Blackburn, John

Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

Body, Richard

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Boscawen, Hon Robert

Glyn, Dr Alan

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Greenway, Harry

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

Gregory, Conal

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Ground, Patrick

Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

Grylls, Michael

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

Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

Budgen, Nick

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Burt, Alistair

Hargreaves, Kenneth

Carlisle, John (N Luton)

Harris, David

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Haselhurst, Alan

Cash, William

Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

Chalker, Mrs Lynda

Hayes, J.

Chapman, Sydney

Hayhoe, Barney

Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

Hayward, Robert

Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

Henderson, Barry

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

Cockeram, Eric

Hirst, Michael

Coombs, Simon

Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

Cope, John

Holt, Richard

Corrie, John

Hordern, Peter

Couchman, James

Howard, Michael

Cowans, Harry

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

Cranborne, Viscount

Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

Crouch, David

Jessel, Toby

Dixon, Donald

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Dunn, Robert

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Durant, Tony

Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

Eyre, Sir Reginald

Lamont, Norman

Fallon, Michael

Lang, Ian

Farr, Sir John

Lawler, Geoffrey

Favell, Anthony

Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

Lee, John (Pendle)

Fookes, Miss Janet

Lester, Jim

Forrester, John

Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

Forth, Eric

Lightbown, David

Fox, Marcus

Lilley, Peter

792

Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

Ryder, Richard

Lord, Michael

Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

McCrindle, Robert

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

McKay, Allen (Penistone)

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Maclean, David John

Spencer, Derek

Major, John

Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

Malone, Gerald

Squire, Robin

Marland, Paul

Stanbrook, Ivor

Marlow, Antony

Stern, Michael

Mates, Michael

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

Mather, Carol

Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

Maude, Hon Francis

Stradling Thomas, J.

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

Merchant, Piers

Terlezki, Stefan

Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

Thatcher, Rt Hon Mrs M.

Mitchell, David (NW Hants)

Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

Monro, Sir Hector

Thurnham, Peter

Morris, M. (N'hampton, S)

Tinn, James

Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

Moynihan, Hon C.

Tracey, Richard

Murphy, Christopher

Twinn, Dr Ian

Neubert, Michael

Viggers, Peter

Onslow, Cranley

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

Walden, George

Pawsey, James

Warren, Kenneth

Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

Whitfield, John

Pike, Peter

Whitney, Raymond

Pollock, Alexander

Wiggin, Jerry

Portillo, Michael

Wood, Timothy

Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down)

Yeo, Tim

Powley, John

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Price, Sir David

Younger, Rt Hon George

Proctor, K. Harvey

Pym, Rt Hon Francis

Tellers for the Noes:

Renton, Tim

Mr. Bill Walker and

Rhodes James, Robert

Lord James Douglas-Hamilton.

Question accordingly negatived.

Orders of the Day

  Food and Environment Protection Bill [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  4.31 pm
  The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John MacGregor): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  I know that there is great interest in the Bill from varying points of view, so it might be best if I deal with its general background and broad principles in my opening speech. I have no doubt that detailed points will be raised, many of which we will have to deal with in Committee and to many of which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, who has specific departmental responsibilities for parts I and III, will respond if she catches your eye for the wind-up speech, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
  The Bill deals with the three distinct subjects of contamination of food, deposits in the sea and pesticides. Although these each raise widely differing questions, there are important common threads running through the Bill in the protection of the environment and its living resources, the protection of food and the protection of human health. This range of subject matter serves to underline the fact that my Department's responsibilities run wider than purely agriculture, fisheries and food. In particular, we are responsible for a number of major environmental issues, and we take our responsibilities very seriously. The fact that we are legislating in this area demonstrates my Department's continuing strong concern for environmental issues and its willingness to recognise the need for changes and to take action upon them when that is shown to be necessary.
  Much concern is expressed nowadays about the need for greater protection of the environment. In this Bill we have identified certain priorities, and are taking action which we believe to be desirable and at the same time practical. Such action must clearly take account of the need not only to protect the environment, but to avoid placing unnecessary burdens on our industries. Although a balance needs to be struck, these two considerations are not as much in conflict as is sometimes argued. We believe that a basically free market economy works best within a reasonable regulatory framework. It is always a question of getting the right balance. At the same time the "polluter pays" principle is of importance in ensuring that environmentally correct signals are given. It is also true that environmental protection is feasible only in cooperation with technological and economic developments rather than in conflict with them. I believe that the Bill is consistent with those principles.
  To return to the free market issue, let me say specifically that part III on pesticides is designed to strengthen raher than weaken that market. Our existing arrangements were excellent in themselves, but they did not take enough account of the need for pesticides products to be traded freely across national frontiers when they were known to be safe — a topic in which the European Community Commission began quite properly to interest itself.
  Sir John Farr: It might be worth calling the attention of my hon. Friend and of the House to the fact that the alleged green parties, those of the alliance, have not bothered to have a single Member in attendance in this important debate. That probably gives some indication of how it arrives at its calculations.
  Mr. MacGregor: My hon. Friend makes a good point, which I hope is fully recognised outside the House. Further, I stress that there is wide attendance on the Government Benches, which I think demonstrates our interest.
  As a result of the Bill, we will for the first time have the powers we need to exclude products which have not been approved here, but both traders and farmers will have available a rapid clearance system when they wish to import pesticides which are identical to products which in contrast we have already approved. I believe that on balance this will not amount to an artificial restriction on trade, but rather the reverse, since the interest of farmers and small traders is in finding low-priced sources of well-known products for which approval will be readily available.
  The Government's objective is to ensure that high standards of environmental protection are set. As l shall explain, each part of the Bill has a firm foundation in existing practice or legislation, but we have nevertheless concluded that some further attention is needed in all three of them. Our aim is to set a high standard for the years to come, and I hope that the House will agree that the Bill is a major step forward.
  Part I would provide greater protection to the public in the event of food becoming unsuitable for consumption following a release of harmful substances. I should explain the background. The Government have reviewed the existing procedures for ensuring the safety of food, and that review has revealed a gap in our legislative powers. Were there to be a serious emission of dangerous substances — such as, for example, the accident at Seveso in 1976—the Government at present would have no power in law to take precautionary measures to safeguard the public's food. They would be unable, for example, to prohibit the sale of food in the affected area while its safety was being checked. Part I would close that legal gap.
  I must make it quite clear that the powers here would be activated only in serious emergencies, where there appeared to be a threat to the safety of food; they would not be used in relatively minor cases of contamination of food where there is no need to supplement the existing powers of local authorities. When responding to emergencies in the past we have relied on voluntary arrangements, and these have worked well on the very few occasions they have been used. An example was the sinking of the Aeolian Sky off Portland Bill in 1979, a ship carrying highly toxic chemicals. The Government had no statutory powers to act on that occasion. The fact that we are now taking such statutory powers does not mean that we expect a serious incident. We do, however, regard the power to take safeguarding measures as a prudent insurance policy.
  One of the most important features of part I is that the procedures could be operated very quickly—if necessary within hours—and over whatever area was involved. Clause 1 provides for emergency orders which would contain provisions prohibiting any or all of the activities

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  listed in schedule 1. Emergency orders would come into effect immediately but would require affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament in order to continue beyond 28 days.
  After an emergency order had been made, clause 2 would give Ministers the power to give directions as to how unsuitable foodstuffs should be dealt with. It is important to appreciate that emergency orders would contain prohibitions wherever ministerial directions would generally require people to do things.
  Mr. Douglas Hogg: The Minister has mentioned clause 1 and the fact that emergency orders can be introduced quickly and will contain prohibitions. As he will know, they are approved by the affirmative procedure, which gives no powers of amendment. In those circumstances, will he consider the possibility of producing model regulations before any eventuality so that they could be the subject of consultation?
  Mr. MacGregor: I should be willing to consider that and we can discuss it in Committee. The difficulty is that we do not know precisely what we will face on some occasions. We shall have to apply our minds to that. If my hon. Friend is on the Committee, perhaps he will raise the matter again.
  I was talking about clause 2. It would be possible to give directions after the expiry of the emergency order in case food that had been rendered unsuitable by the incident subsequently came to light, or if new scientific information became available suggesting that further action was desirable.
  Clause 3 deals with the authorisation of investigating officers and enforcement officers. There is a distinction between the two. Immediately following an incident, investigating officers would advise Ministers on whether an emergency order should be made and what should be done under it. That is relevant to the matter raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg) because different action might have to be taken under an order on different occasions.
  After the emergency order had been made, enforcement officers would enforce the prohibitions contained in it and ensure that Ministers' directions were carried out. The Bill makes a distinction between the two kinds of officers because investigating officers would require greater powers than enforcement officers — in particular, the power to enter premises before an emergency order was made.
  Clause 4 and schedule 2 deal with the powers of investigating and enforcement officers. These powers vary according to the type of officer and whether they are used before or after the making of an emergency order.
  It might be helpful if I demonstrate briefly how the powers in part I might operate. As soon as the Ministry of Agriculture heard of a serious incident which could affect food in England we would send investigating officers to the scene. They would be specialists from the Ministry's regional organisation and its food science division. They would take samples of crops or food and, if they judged that it was necessary in the circumstances, advise the Minister that an order should be made. My right hon. Friend would then make an order selecting, as appropriate, prohibitions from schedule 1. The order would come into effect immediately, Ministers would have the power under
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  clause 2(3) to issue directions and enforcement officers would then have the power to enforce the prohibitions contained in the order and any directions issued by Ministers. These officers could be drawn from the Ministry's existing staff, but it is also likely that some of them would be local authority officers.
  As time went on, it might be possible to relax the application of the restrictions imposed at the start of the emergency by using the power in clause 2(1) which allows Ministers to consent to anything prohibited in an emergency order.
  It has been suggested that the Bill should mention local authorities, to make it clear that it does not prejudice their existing responsibilities and to ensure that they are fully involved in any emergency action. We gladly acknowledge the important role which local authorities have played—and will continue to play—in dealing with emergencies and food safety. We would certainly expect them to be actively involved following an incident; indeed, they might well be the first to hear of it. Nothing in the Bill inhibits this in any way and it would be quite unnecessary to lengthen part Ito spell it out. Nevertheless, the Government recognise the importance of having administrative arrangements in place as soon as possible after Royal Assent to ensure that, if the powers in the Bill ever had to be used, they could be brought into operation smoothly and effectively. With this in mind, we are holding discussions with local authority organisations and others.
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: How will the officers who are investigating be able to differentiate between one product and another? Might there not be an overlap and might not some products be excluded, even though the Minister intended to include them, because of the framing of the order?
  Mr. MacGregor: I hope that that can be sorted out at the time. The investigating officers would be skilled in dealing with such matters, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman's anxiety will be covered in an emergency.
  It has also been suggested that the Bill should provide for Government compensation for those affected by emergency prohibitions. It does not do this, for the simple reason that part I is designed to protect the public from the polluter. The Government are simply seeking power to carry out protective measures that responsible people would in all probability eventually agree to carry out voluntarily. If action taken under the Bill led to any economic loss, compensation should be a matter for the original polluter.
  Mr. John Carlisle: Is not my hon. Friend worried that in a major disaster the polluter might not have the resources to pay compensation? What happens then?
  Mr. MacGregor: We can examine that aspect in Committee but insurance is the probable answer.
  Part II deals with dumping at sea. Unlike other parts of the Bill, we are in part II bound by the provisions of two international conventions—the Oslo convention and the London dumping convention—and we are amending, rather than introducing, legislation. In 1974, the framework of control over sea dumping set down in the conventions was translated into United Kingdom law by the Dumping at Sea Act 1974. That Act has served us well

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  for ten years and I cannot stress too strongly that part II does not in any way weaken the control which we now have over dumping. But ten years of operation of the Act have shown us where it is deficient; and ten years of progress under the conventions mean that we need to update it. The changes that we propose are not radical, but they are valuable improvements.
  It may be asked why the Bill does not refer specifically to these conventions. The answer is that they impose obligations on Governments, who must then decide on the best method of implementation. Part I achieves this for the United Kingdom, giving Ministers all the necessary powers to fulfil our obligations under the conventions. The very structure of part II — involving testing, licensing, imposing conditions and enforcement — and the criteria against which applications are assessed stem directly from the conventions. Any more explicit reference would be unnecessary.
  Clauses 5 and 6 set out the activities for which a licence will be needed. The most significant change here is the introduction in clause 6 of specific controls over incineration at sea. Little marine incineration is done by the United Kingdom, but we must have the means to control it, not least because it is the subject of a protocol to the Oslo convention which the United Kingdom must ratify. Other extensions of control relate to scuttling, deposit from floating containers, and foreign vessels.
  The Dumping at Sea Act only controlled the loading of foreign vessels in the United Kingdom and their dumping within three miles if they had loaded there. As foreign vessels are used from time to time, especially for incineration where there are no British ships, it is desirable to extend our control. Under the Bill, licences would be needed for loading as before, and for operations taking place within British fishing limits—200 miles or median lines — where the vessel had loaded in the United Kingdom. Similarly, the power of inspection of foreign vessels is extended out to British fishery limits.
  Clause 7 provides power to make an exemption order. This will close a loophole in the 1974 Act, which referred to "permanent" deposits, and enabled people to claim that their operation did not need a licence because the deposit was only "temporary". The Bill therefore in principle covers all deposits, leaving the exemption order to spell out precisely what is exempt. The orders would thus cover activities such as deployment of fishing gear, incidental discharges from ships, and the deposit of human remains. I must stress that clarification is the aim here. There is no question of the power being used to exempt any kind of dumping which should be licensed.
  We have not put the exemptions in the Bill because we want to consider the views of those affected before we commit ourselves to legislation. So there will be further wide consultation before the order is made, and my colleagues and I will be taking particular note of what is said in the House this afternoon and subsequently before we get down to drafting.
  With clause 8 we come to the licensing procedure—the means by which the conventions are put into effect. We have stuck very closely to what the conventions require and to the Dumping at Sea Act. There are two changes, however. First, we have spelt out more clearly — the Dumping at Sea Act was not very clear on this point—the factors that Ministers may take into account in licensing dumping. Secondly, there are two changes to the
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  provision on licence fees: these are to broaden the basis on which fees may be charged to include monitoring work and to require consultation before fees are fixed.
  The next improvement is in clause 10, which is a new power enabling Ministers to take remedial action following illicit dumping and to recover the costs if there has been a conviction. We hope this power will he used only rarely. In some cases remedial action will not be practicable—for example, where the waste was a liquid — while in others it is hoped that those responsible would take any necessary action.
  Clause 12 is also new. It gives Ministers power to test oil dispersants and other substances which are used to treat oil spills at sea. Once tested and approved, these will be exempted under clause 7. This is a good example of the way in which the exemption order will be used. It w ill also considerably simplify the requirements for use of these products.
  Clause 13 retains the requirement to keep a public register, which was in the Dumping at Sea Act, but we have now set out in schedule 4 the information which the register must contain. As with many of the changes from that Act, the emphasis is on retaining what we have while making the law clearer.
  Part III concerns pesticides. Let me make it clear from the start that with this part of the Bill we would be legislating to control not only agrochemicals but all pesticides covered by the present pesticides safety precautions scheme. This means that we are concerned not only with chemicals used on farms and gardens but also with those used in food stores, factories, sewers, restaurants, kitchens and hospitals to kill pests and protect public health, as well as with those employed to preserve wood in houses and other buildings. I am making this point to emphasise that all of us benefit every day from the use of these products.
  The benefits of pesticides are many and obvious, ranging from the eradication of disease to the protection of food, clothes and buildings. The hazards of misuse may not always be so obvious, but for many years successive Governments have recognised the absolute necessity of ensuring that pesticides are used in such a way as to maximise the benefits and to minimise the risks.
  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle: As my hon. Friend knows, there are many fears about part III, particularly because the regulations are not known. He has said how important it is for herbicides to be safe. Is he aware that many herbicides are very volatile and that when a fanner sprays his crop the herbicide can settle on his crop and then, under certain conditions, vaporise and drift over on to the hedgerow and the next-door crop, doing considerable damage to the plant life in the hedgerow and to the other crop? This is obviously a matter of detail, but I should like to have my hon. Friend's opinion at this stage. Would it not be possible to introduce a test of volatility so that only those chemicals which do not vaporise easily can be used?
  Mr. MacGregor: I shall be saying something in due course about the fact that the regulations are not known. The problem of vapour drift is certainly well known. Many products of the kind that cause some vapour drift have been withdrawn by the industry and labels agreed under the scheme which I referred to earlier—the PSPS—for a

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  few remaining products include appropriate warnings. But this is certainly a point that we could look at in detail in Committee.
  One point that I want to stress in approaching part III is that we should all recognise the excellent safety record of the industry under the scheme. Fatalities have, happily, been kept so low that it must now be possible to aim to eliminate them entirely. I believe that the figure is roughly two or three a year. The poisoning cases investigated in 1983 led to the identification of 12 incidents on the farm, in which 16 members of the public or agricultural workers suffered some chemical poisoning. I give these figures simply to emphasise that the agriculture industry is extremely conscious of the importance of the safety of pesticides, and they show that we have an excellent record.
  Nevertheless, the number of concerns we face on pesticides — and I believe that farmers fully recognise this — is increasing. For example, what happens to them in water, in the soil and as residues in food, and what is their effect on beneficial insects? The range of products, the application systems and the possible crop uses are also increasing.
  In these circumstances we do not think it possible to depend entirely on a non-statutory system. I believe that we are all agreed that the time has come to put our controls on a statutory footing.
  I referred earlier to the important matter of imports, which is of course another reason for doing what we are doing in part III, which consists of only three clauses.
  The first, clause 15, was the subject of considerable discussion in another place. It has emerged with several major additions, which we believe can rightly be regarded as improvements. It begins with a few succinct lines which encompass the objectives of part III: to protect the health of human beings, creatures and plants; to safeguard the environment; and to secure the safe, efficient and humane use of pesticides.
  The remainder of the clause enables Ministers to meet those objectives by providing them with five main powers: first, power to set up an approvals system, including provisions for review, alteration and revocation of approvals; secondly, power to specifiy maximum pesticide residue limits in food, crops or feeding stuffs; thirdly, power to require information in connection with approvals or to fulfil international obligations on exchange of information; fourthly, power to disclose some of the information supplied in support of an approval, subject to certain safeguards; and, finally, the requirement to consult an advisory committee on all aspects of approvals and to consult the Health and Safety Commission about any regulations affecting the health and safety of workers.
  Mr. Peter Hardy: It might be very useful if the hon. Gentleman could say a little more about the projected composition of the advisory committee. Will he ensure that this is not dominated by any particular interest group and that the environmental organisations have a say?
  Mr. MacGregor: My hon. Friend might wish to say something further about that in winding up. I think it important that the advisory committee contain people who are specialists in these areas and able to bring specialist knowledge to bear. It should not be regarded as a
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  committee that simply represents various interest groups. My hon. Friend is giving a great deal of attention to this aspect and will no doubt wish to say something about it.
  Clause 15 also describes the offences and defences relating to this part of the Bill, while clauses 16 and 17 enable Ministers to levy fees from persons seeking approval for a pesticide and provide the appropriate enforcement powers necessary to back up the proposed controls.
  I believe that these three clauses constitute a practical and flexible statutory framework which will enable us now and in future to ensure the safe, efficient and humane use of pesticides. These measures would not only provide controls over sale and supply which, through non-statutory agreements, we have had for some time, but for the first time provide powers to control all aspects of the storage, advertisement, use and disposal of pesticides which might impinge not only on safety but also on efficacy and humaneness.
  Mr. Roger Freeman: Would my hon. Friend confirm that under these clauses dealing with pesticides new penalties will be available for the control of aerial crop-spraying where pesticides drift on to neighbouring land?
  Mr. MacGregor: My hon. Friend will know that a large part of the control is the responsibility of the Civil Aviation Authority. He will recall that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Transport made further announcements about this in July of last year. I am very much aware that we shall want to consider spraying in detail in Committee and exactly what the Bill offers.
  The extension relating to safety is undoubtedly an important step forward. This is, of course, primary legislation, which must and will be followed by implementing regulations.
  I now come to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. Carlisle). My noble Friend the Minster of State assured another place that the regulations will appear later this year. I repeat that assurance. He has tabled a paper that has come to be known as the "statement of intent", which describes the controls that the Government intend to implement. I have arranged for that paper to be updated to take account of the discussions in another place and of the amendments made there to part III. Copies of the revised paper are available in the Vote Office.
  There is a further assurance, given before, which I now repeat. We shall consult all interested parties — whether representative or environment groups, consumers, agriculture, food manufacturing, the pesticide industries and, of course, Members of both Houses of Parliament who are interested—once the Bill is passed and before the regulations are drafted in final form.
  Mr. Brynmor John: I apologise for interrupting the Minister, but this matter is central. I do not see how both those assurances can be right. If the regulations are to be enforced by the end of the year and consultations with all parties, which I very much welcome, are to take place, the draft regulations, or the main body of the draft regulations, must have been prepared already. If they have been, why should they not be available to the Committee?
  Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: Would it not be the right way to proceed, as this is a purely enabling

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  Bill, to draft the regulations first in their entirety, following consultation with the industry, and then bring the Bill forward so that, when we move into Committee, we shall be able to deal with the matter entirely rationally?
  Mr. MacGregor: I recognise the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North (Mr. Skeet) and of the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John). The important point is to have enabling powers. After all, we are talking about not just part III, but parts I and II. To ensure that we have them, we are carrying out thorough consultation on the details. If the draft regulations had been drawn up in the form that the hon. Gentleman suggested, we would have made them available. We have made the statement of intent available because we wish to consult — it will be an intensive process — all those interested before we finally draw up the draft regulations.
  One other pont is quite important. The statement of intent refers to the areas that the regulations will cover, but they are not drawn up in the detail that the hon. Gentleman has in mind because we want to consult—there is much to be consulted about.
  In view of the concern that has been expressed by both the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend, we shall listen carefully this afternoon to the views of hon. Members on both sides of the House on how they wish to be consulted in the process of drawing up the draft regulations.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: Do the draft regulations currently exist?
  Mr. MacGregor: I thought I had made it clear that the form of draft regulations that the hon. Member for Pontypridd had in mind — which I assume are the draft regulations that will come forward to the House after the Bill receives Royal Assent, if it does—do not exist in that form at present. What exists is the statement of intent, which has been tabled. That exists in a form that can be put before the House, because we are anxious to be as helpful as possible.
  Mr. John: With respect, I was not asking that. I think that we are all at one. There is no division across the Floor about the Bill. We want to make it as good as possible. What has been asked of the Minister is not whether regulations exist in a form that will ultimately come before the House—indeed, there would be no virtue in that, as we want an input into the content of those regulations—but whether any regulations, as opposed to a statement of intent, exist in any form at the moment.
  Mr. MacGregor: No, we do not have the regulations in a complete form. Obviously, there are some thoughts about what should be in the regulations, which are in the statement of intent. If the Bill receives Royal Assent, we shall circulate all interested organisations with a series of proposals as to how we intend to proceed together with as much of the regulations as possible, with a view to consultation. I recognise the concern of the House. After all, this is an enabling Bill. I take the point that a crucial part of what we eventually intend to achieve will rest with the regulations. That is why I have said—I repeat it—that we shall listen carefully this afternoon to the views of hon. Members as to how they wish to be consulted in the drawing up of the regulations.
  We are moving from a non-statutory scheme on the safety of pesticides to a statutory scheme controlling how pesticides are supplied, advertised, stored and used, and
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  to introduce criteria of efficacy and humaneness at the same time—indeed, for the first time. We must he sure that we preserve the best of the present scheme but we must also, in society's interest, take real advantage of the decision to legislate so that the new arrangements are sure, enforceable and open and offer greater environmental protection. At the same time, instead of the restrictive agreements on which we had to depend in the past, we shall have a clearer basis for trade.
  There is little that I need add on the remaining clauses and schedules. Clause 20 provides a general defence of due diligence for the offences in the Bill and will protect those who have taken steps to avoid the commission of an offence. Apart from schedule 2, which relates to all three parts of the Bill, the schedules set out detailed provisions on matters that I have already mentioned. We have prepared the usual notes on clauses, which I shall circulate to members of the Committee as soon as they are appointed and we know who they are. I should warn them that the notes on clauses are fairly voluminous.
  I hope that I have covered all the main points of the Bill.
  Mr. John Carlisle: One point that is not covered in the Bill is the provision of seed corn and the chemical treating of seed corn. Will my hon. Friend say a word about why that was not specifically included in the Bill, or does he understand that it is included?
  Mr. MacGregor: That is not the point on which I wanted to finish my peroration. I am not absolutely sure what the answer is. However, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will make sure that that point is dealt with when she winds up.
  I repeat that the Government believe in setting high standards of environmental protection. That is what the Bill is aimed at. I commend it to the House.
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  Mr. Brynmor John: As the Minister has said, the Bill deals with the effects of development that threatens not only the three areas of our habitat but the creators of that development. That which is intended to liberate us can also endanger, as we have recently discovered, not only immediately but often many years afterwards.
  I think that this is the answer to the question asked by the hon. Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr). Many hon. Members in all parties in the House have realised that there is no such thing as an unqualified benefit in this area. The Bill is a response to the growing awareness of that fact. There are penalties for all sorts of chemical developments which aid us in other areas.
  As it stands, the Bill improves the present unsatisfactory legal position in those three areas. Because it does, we shall not attempt in any way to deny the Bill a Second Reading. This subject crosses party lines. The duty of legislative safeguard is not laid upon the Government alone; it lies fairly and squarely on the whole House of Commons. Our object must be to provide not simply a better legislative framework than that which we now have, but the best possible framework within the limit of our current knowledge. Judged by that standard, the Bill is not entirely satisfactory to us.
  As the Government admit, this is an enabling measure. In many cases, as the Minister said to his hon. Friend the Member for Grantham (Mr. Hogg), it enables them to

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  make regulations. But that which gives Ministers the power to do all that is necessary also gives them the discretion not to do so. I do not believe that in this case it can be left to such wide ministerial discretion. I give notice that in Committee we shall try to ensure that it is not left to such wide ministerial discretion.
  The passage of this Bill is the last opportunity that the House of Commons will have to express concern not only about the form of the measure but about the contents of the regulations. The Government have promised that wide consultations will take place with the organisations that are affected both during and after the passage of the Bill. However, when the House of Commons next considers these matters, they will be in the form of regulations which we shall have to accept or reject as a whole. That is an entirely unsatisfactory state of affairs. We shall be unable to improve them or to reflect the dissatisfaction that is felt by any organisation which believes that its views have been ignored during the consultation period.
  Sir John Farr: There is Report stage.
  Mr. John: No. With respect, the hon. Gentleman is not following the argument as closely as he normally does. We are referring to regulations which will not be available to the House throughout the passage of the Bill. If by his interjection the hon. Gentleman means that although the regulations are not available to us now they ought to be available at a later stage of the Bill, I should say that I intend to deal with that point and I very much agree with him. However, my point is that the draft regulations will not be available to the House on Report. The regulations will be available only when they are laid, prior to their coming into force. At that stage we shall be able only to accept or reject them. We cannot amend them. I do not claim that this House has a monopoly of wisdom on the subject, but I believe that a large number of hon. Members who are interested in the subject could subject the draft regulations to fairly searching scrutiny which would result in the regulations being as near as possible to the ideal that we all want — namely, the best possible form of legislation to cover this subject.
  I return to the point made by the hon. Member for Harborough, that we are entitled to ask the Government to present the regulations to the House in draft form by the time we reach part III of the Bill in Committee or, at the very latest, on Report, if the undertaking given by the noble Lord Belstead, that these regulations will be in operation by the end of the year, is not to be hopelessly wrong.
  I come back to the point that I made in my intervention: that the Government must have made good progress with their drafting of the regulations. Those who have held ministerial office know perfectly well that the regulations could not be in operation by the end of the year unless the draftsmen have already started to tackle them. Indeed, a calendar month has passed since the Bill completed its passage in the other place. If further progress has not been made since the passage of the Bill through the other place and now, one is entitled to ask what this month has been all about. I believe that this matter could have been debated earlier. Unless there is to be a long period between the coming into force of the Act and the regulations, without which the Act is ineffective, those regulations must be hurried on.
  Mr. Skeet: Has the hon. Gentleman considered that, although we may have to wait for a considerable period before the regulations appear in draft form, since this is an enabling Bill, which involves many regulations, they could be included as schedules to the Bill? If they were included as schedules to the Bill, they could be examined by Parliament.
  Mr. John: I should be prepared to accept the laying of the regulations piecemeal. The House should consider as much as possible, bearing in mind the time constraints which are placed upon the parliamentary draftsmen. All I am saying is that we deserve something more than we are likely to get, given the present rate of progress. According to the timetable, it is possible that there will be a very long gap between the Bill becoming an Act and the regulations being laid. If the regulations have not yet been drafted and we have to wait until the Bill becomes an Act before they can be drafted and sent out for consultation, I believe that the Minister's statement that the regulations will be in force by the end of the year is so optimistic as to be totally valueless. I regret that I have to put it so harshly. Nevertheless, I believe that it has to be said because the Minister's assumption is unrealistic.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: May I ask my hon. Friend whether the Minister is in danger of misreading the spirit of the House? If the Bill contained political overtones, we might understand his position and he could argue his case. However, the Bill contains no political overtones. Every hon. Member seeks to improve legislation that governs pesticides. If it is the will of the House that the draft regulations should be put before it, surely it is in the interests of the wider public to ensure that they are made available and that the Minister responds.
  Mr. John: On those rare occasions when there is all-party agreement, I believe that the maximum amount of information should be provided. The Minister has provided the House with an amended and updated declaration of intent. However, it is no more detailed, accurate and useful than the declaration of intent given by the noble Lord Belstead. All that will really satisfy me is the production of draft regulations. However, even if the Minister is unable to provide draft regulations, why does he not imitate the actions of Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Security who, when they have to provide regulations following an Act, make known precisely, although in general terms, the topics that will be covered by the regulations. That would enable both the House and those bodies which have to be consulted to find out whether there are any notable omissions and to consider the regulations in the most useful way. I repeat that this House will not tolerate having to wait a long time for the regulations while consultations amble along and nobody can contribute to the discussions.
  I shall now deal with the three parts of the Bill in the order in which the Minister dealt with them. Although pesticides have captured most of the interest, all three parts of the Bill are of the greatest importance if we are to safeguard our environment and welfare.
  As the Minister pointed out, part I of the Bill deals with the consequences of a man-made disaster upon our food. Clearest in our minds is the ghastly tragedy at Bhopal. I well remember the great effect that the Flixborough disaster had upon this House. Both of those disasters are emergencies of the kind about which the Minister has

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  spoken. Therefore, the principle greatly commends itself and commands the support of the House. I am only sorry that it has been soured by the astonishing failure of the Government to consult local authorities in advance. No adequate information has been provided.
  The Minister said that the local authorities which he failed to consult in advance have very wide powers over matters of this kind. There must, therefore, be a clearer definition of what is meant by a major emergency. The Minister referred to a serious national emergency, but nowhere in the Bill is the emergency of which he spoke defined. That emergency must be defined for two reasons. First, we must avoid both the Government and local authorities each seeking to tackle exactly the same emergency, thus creating an overlap. Secondly, we must avoid a possibly fatal hesitation because the Government think that the local authorities are tackling it, or because local authorities think that the Government are tackling it. An easy way to dispel that suspicion would be to clarify the definition and to record local authority responsibilities on the face of the Bill, which is what local authorities of all political persuasions want.
  I turn to the point made by the hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle). I shall not take the same example, because I do not think that it was as apposite as the two illustrations that I shall give. What will happen when the "polluter must pay" principle is inadequate? There are two ways in which it could break down. The first is where an emergency is declared, no pollution arises and yet a perishable crop, such as soft fruit, is ruined. I understand that the noble Lord Belstead said that his view was that if the Government made a gross mistake a legal action could be taken against them by the food producer. I am dubious about that. I do not understand the distinction that is being drawn in the other place between a gross and an ordinary mistake. If the declaration of the emergency is mistaken, it leads to compensation or it does not.
  The second way is where the polluter cannot be identified. That is not as fanciful as it appears, because in many cases water authorities, in Wales and elsewhere, have the greatest difficulty in tracking down those who cause the chemical pollution of waterways. Prosecutions are often inhibited because of the authorities' failure to identify the polluter. In such cases, the Government must make it clear whether the affected producer is to bear the loss or whether there will be some form of compensation scheme if there is no other adequate cover.
  On dumping at sea, I agree with the Minister that, despite some alarmist comment, what is in the Bill for the most part greatly strengthens the existing Act. It is difficult to determine whether the deposit is permament or temporary and whether it is in territorial waters. One of the criteria placed upon the licensing authority is that it must consider the protection of human health. That is a wise and a sensible precaution. It is one of a number of improvements contained in the Bill.
  Curiously, the Bill repeals section 6 of the Dumping at Sea Act 1974. The Bill was introduced twice in 1974 with the support of both parties that formed Governments in that year. During that time my hon. Friend the Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan) and the noble Lord Stodart of Leaston regarded that section, which provides power to check a dumping vessel from another convention state with the consent of that country outside our territorial waters, as an important safeguard.
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  The Government's answer is that the provision had not been used for the 10 years of its existence. I find that unconvincing, because the section may have been a deterrent. It would be unfortunate if, even with the consent of the other signatory state, we could not deal with a foreign vessel which is dumping just outside our territorial waters. We want the Government to tell us why that backup power is no longer necessary. Otherwise, I give the Minister notice that the Opposition will seek to restore it in Committee.
  The dumping of radioactive waste is a worrying problem. The trade unions, in particular the National Union of Seamen, have helped to focus public anxiety on that subject. That led to the Holliday report. We require an assurance from the Government that the report's recommendations will be implemented in full and that ideas currently being discussed for storing such waste under the seabed will be covered by the Bill which relates to dumping on the seabed.
  I hope that the Government will reconsider the preliminary view of the Secretary of State for the Environment that the committee which will review disposal and storage options should be internal. The matter is so sensitive that the public will be reassured only by participation, and that dictates an independent inquiry.
  Britain needs to review its policy on dumping at sea. Of the Oslo convention countries, we are responsible for 98·8 per cent. of the sewage sludge dumped at sea. Despite suggestions for the constructive use of that waste, we appear to have no strategy for the future. We are the second worst country for the dumping of industrial waste. Whereas the worst country, France, dumps from one industry, Britain dumps from a wide range of industries. Most other western European countries now plan to phase out marine dumping. If the United Kingdom continues, it is threatened with isolation by the end of the decade. We cannot risk that, and I hope that the Government will actively pursue a change of policy.
  Part III of the Bill relates to pesticides. It has evoked great interest, but those of us who remember the pre-pesticide era of food production will know that pesticides have benefited food production not just in this country but in Third world countries.
  We cannot consider banning pesticides or indulge ourselves in a yearning for a supposed organic golden age. It never existed. We are, however, dealing with poisons. The exact amount of damage may be a matter for conjecture, but there is evidence that they cause the deaths of birds, butterflies and bees, damage to crops, and affect health. We do not yet know whether they cause insidious damage to human health.
  With the known risks from those poisons, the Opposition reiterate that the heedless, indiscriminate use of pesticides, as in the past, must cease. In a nutshell, the Opposition believe that the use of pesticides must be the minimum necessary to make them effective, coupled with the maximum possible accuracy in their application.
  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle: The hon. Gentleman mentioned the need to be accurate when spraying. It is therefore necessary to have the most up-to-date and precise machine for spraying herbicides. I do not know whether he agrees that it would be helpful if the Advisory Committee on Pesticides could also advise on the new techniques which are coming forward to ensure that they are accurate.
  Mr. John: The hon. Gentleman may have hoped that I was passing from the subject, but I assure him that that was one of the topics with which I was going to deal. I was going to tell the Minister what I believe the regulations should contain under three headings. First, they should deal with who should apply the pesticides; secondly, how they should be applied—that is the point raised by the hon. Gentleman—and, thirdly, which pesticides should be applied.
  There is some merit in repeating the American distinction between what they call general pesticides and restricted pesticides. General pesticides are the less toxic, such as the ones that we use in the garden. If the correct strength is used, they can be applied without any formal training or supervision, but there are strong arguments for saying that those who apply more toxic pesticides should be trained. The most clear case is for training of those who contract to spray for others. The danger is that such firms will affect neighbouring properties and people nearby.
  Even more important is the need for control of those involved in domestic and industrial pest control. Amazingly, that did not even raise a mention in the debate in the other place. Such spraying and treatment involves sensitive aspects, such as hospitals, and often occurs in confined spaces. The capacity to cause harm unintentionally is great. Although we have been fortunate to date, because no great harm has been done, there could be major incidents.
  There is every reason to believe that trade associations would welcome compulsory registration of those who contract to spray for others. The trade associations believe that there is no place for cowboy operators when poisons are used. Perhaps BASIS, which is a scheme for pesticide suppliers, and its domestic industrial equivalent should have statutory force to ensure that those who contract to spray for others are qualified and registered. The yellow pages of any telephone directory show dozens of firms which say that they are qualified in pest control and which offer to contract to spray but one does not have the slightest idea whether their operators have any qualifications or training. That intolerable position must be changed.
  Applications by farmers and their employees are of more practical difficulty although they are equally important from a health and safety point of view. Even though the number of farmers who apply pesticides to their farms is comparatively small and the occasions on which they use the pesticides comparatively infrequent, farmers need to be aware of the dangers. Farmers now admit the temporary ailments they suffered from the organochlorines and organophosporous pesticides. With the use of new insecticides and pesticides, the risk to those farmers should not be allowed to continue. Perhaps the agricultural training board could undertake training and certification of those using the pesticides.
  I urge the Government not to hive off the licensing function. I hope, because of the answer I received on 4 December 1984 from the Parliamentary Secretary, that the Government will be open to considering whether to use the trade associations to undertake licensing. We are talking about the protection of human health and the natural environment. The Government cannot and should not even try to avoid their responsibilities for those aspects.
  Mr. David Crouch: The hon. Gentleman is not quite correct. He might even be unintentionally
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  misleading the House. The Bill is about the protection of human health; it is not about the protection of the environment on the land. The Bill does apply to the sea. Nothing in the whole of part III applies to the protection of bees, birds or butterflies—three species to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I hope that in Committee the hon. Gentleman will consider tabling amendments to cover this type of environmental protection. The Bill's title includes "Environment Protection".
  Mr. John: Far be it from me to eschew an opportunity. In part III, clause 15(1) states:
  "The provisions of this Part of this Act shall have effect with a view to protecting the health of human beings, creatures and plants, safeguarding the environment and securing the safe, efficient and humane use of pesticides."
  Mr. Crouch: Not enough.
  Mr. John: I accept that it is not enough. That is why I am saying what I believe should be in the regulations. The hon. Gentleman must not set me up as an Aunt Sally to knock down and then courteously pick up the point again. People are bruised in that process, and I do not intend that to happen in a subject for which, for once, I bear no responsibility.
  Overwhelmingly, spraying in the United Kingdom is done from the ground. Often too much pesticide is applied and sometimes it is applied inaccurately. Damage can be caused by spray drift or vaporisation. Far too many of the appliances used are old and badly maintained and, because of their design, inaccurate. A continuing search for more accurate, and therefore more economical, means of application of pesticides is necessary. Concern has been expressed about the fact that that search might be inhibited by the passage of the Bill. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will reassure us that the regulations will not hold back the technology that will promote a more accurate application of pesticides. I believe that the Government should do everything possible to ensure the continuance of such technology, and that means the testing of equipment.
  A small proportion of spraying — I believe about 2 per cent.—is done from the air. Although the proportion is small, that is the most visible and most accurate form of spraying. It has led to highly publicised incidents, about which Ministers have more reason to know than the rest of us. There is obviously a need to spray upland bracken from the air, but many of us are unconvinced about the need for the present volume of spraying from the air at low levels. Of all the subjects raised in this debate, I believe that this will be the most closely examined, because the divided responsibility between the Department of Transport and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food does not encourage reporting of incidents or the easy enforcement of the regulations.
  Domestically, the United Kingdom has had a good record under the pesticides safety precautions scheme, but imports have caused the voluntary scheme to break down. We are anxious for safety and efficacy to bear equal weight in this testing. There are difficulties in enforcement. The Health and Safety Executive is charged with a major enforcement role, yet it is being given only 18 additional staff. We all know of the manpower difficulties faced by the HSE. The allocation of 18 more people will not make for efficient enforcement, and that is a great pity.
  Although assessment cannot supplant enforcement, assessment at an earlier stage — by the Advisory Committee on Pesticides — has assumed greater

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  importance. Suggestions have been made to broaden the committee. Some quarters have suggested that its functions should be transferred to the HSE. I would favour giving the Advisory Committee on Pesticides wider scope. The committee should include representatives of the trade unions whose members work with pesticides and should represent consumer interests and environmental organisations. The committee's independence should be underlined by giving it an independent secretariat. At present the committee relies on MAFF for is staff requirements.
  The Government should show more imagination towards the committee by charging it with following up the ecological consequences of the use of pesticides. The committee could be involved in promoting new techniques and investigating a subject which I believe we should all take seriously — reduced dependence on pesticides. We are in a high input, high output agricultural economy. The high input side needs to be revised drastically, thereby securing control of what is applied.
  That is not enough. We must know what substances are being used for spraying. The Government are making sympathetic noises about information. The question is: how far will they go in making the information available to the public? We believe in the maximum possible disclosure of the toxic effects of pesticides. Of course, there are commercial considerations, but that is true in the United States of America where competition is just as fierce and where development costs are at least as great. Yet there is available publicly in the United States information which is denied to the United Kingdom public about the toxic effects of pesticides. In the United States no one seems to think that the availability of the information undermines commercial confidentiality. We want the new regime to go well. We accept it and want it to be accepted by the public. For that very reason, we need to legislate for the maximum disclosure of information.
  Let me underline the concern of many people regarding the export of pesticides. Pressure for greater production in the Third world often obscures the dangers of the substances. We cannot beat that by a unilateral veto, but the hazards of pesticides should be made known to the Governments concerned. Powers to ban the export of pesticides exist already, but there is a feeling abroad that the Government are resisting the principle of prior informed consent, thus seeming to put us against the Food and Agricultural Organisation in this regard. Third world countries do not have as much to fear from us as they do from many other countries. That is why support for the principle of prior informed consent would set an important example which the rest of the world could adopt with profit. We should give a lead in this sector.
  As the Minister said, to adapt slightly a Chinese proverb, we will be living with interesting committees. This will be one of them. Many important issues will be debated. I have had time only to outline them. It is our very agreement with the principle which makes us determined that, when the measure becomes an Act, it will be one of which all hon. Members can be proud.
  5.42 pm
  Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: Many will support the Bill. Part I, which gives Ministers widespread powers to make emergency provisions to prevent the public eating food that may have been
  810
  contaminated following a major disaster, will be particularly welcomed, as will the provisions regarding dumping at sea.
  I want to address my remarks particularly to part There has been talk about the need for balance in the debate. In a sense I think I can provide that balance because I have in my constituency the headquarters of the World Wildlife Fund, as well as part of ICI's plant protection division which deals in agrochemicals.
  Many people have been worried about the increasing use of pesticides. In 1972 the World Health Organisation estimated that over 500,000 people were poisoned by pesticides each year with 5,000 fatalities. In justice, it must be said that Britain is not represented proportionately in these figures. In 1982, for example, out of 4,000 nonfatal accidents on farms only 28 involved pesticides. Clearly, the incorrect use of pesticides can endanger crops, harm wildlife and contaminate food. Organisations such as the World Wildlife Fund have brought to public attention examples, such as the increasing residue of poison at Clear lake in California where the over-zealous use of DDD to deal with the gnat population almost eliminated the population of Western Grebe, a local diving bird.
  Pesticides inevitably involve risks to users, bystanders, consumers, livestock and domestic animals, as well as to the rest of the environment. It is important to give a balanced view of the role played by pesticides. Between 1955 and 1965 it was estimated that 15 million people throughout the world were saved from dying from malaria by the use of DDT. It also prevented the spread of typhus epidemics following world war 2 by providing a cheap, effective mechanism for controlling lice. Above all, pesticides have meant that people can enjoy good quality food at low prices.
  I welcome the remarks of the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) about the part played by pesticides in the Third world. We know that 30 to 50 per cent. of the crops are lost through natural causes. A further 30 per cent. would be lost without the use of pesticides.
  In addition, the part played by the agrochemical industry in the United Kingdom needs to be emphasised. I have already said that within my constituency I have part of the plant protection division of ICI. In 1983 a total of 7,300 people were employed in the agrochemical industry, 2,000 being involved in research and development. This is very much a technological area. Over half the production goes in exports, which were valued in 1983 at £361 million. There has been considerable expansion in recent years in ICI alone, the turnover having risen from £10 million in 1966 to £650 million in 1984.
  I am confident that there will be a widespread welcome for the proposals that no pesticide should be sold or used in the United Kingdom unless it has been exhaustively tested and found to be safe for its recommended use. Non-statutory arrangements depending on good will and voluntary co-operation have worked well for the most part. The pesticides safety precautions scheme, a voluntary scheme set up in 1977 and now estimated to cover 90 per cent. of the products in use, has given the country an excellent record in the safe use of pesticides for 27 years. There have been no fatalities on our farms arising from the recommended use of pesticides. There has been a declining level of residues in foodstuffs. Recently credit was given by the Consumers Association in its report on the subject. There has been a reduction in wildlife

  811
  incidents involving pesticides. Demands for safe and effective crop protection have increased. It is right that the Bill extends beyond manufacture to the safe use of pesticides and will provide a statutory requirement for product efficacy.
  There are areas of concern to which I should like to draw attention. In regard to the ownership of safety data, it is expensive to meet the safety requirements on new products. This has been estimated at about £7·5 million. Considerable resources and expertise are involved. I appreciate the public's need for reassurance, and their desire for information to inspire confidence, but it is important to provide a balance between the provision of information for the benefit of the public and the provision of information that can benefit commercial rivals. We must take account of the commercial interests of manufacturers.
  With regard to exports, 90 per cent. of sales from the United Kingdom go in exports which are valued, as I said before, at £361 million. I hope we shall not fall into the trap of dictating to Third world nations about which products they should and should not buy. That is patronising and inappropriate. It is not for us to calculate the risk-benefit analysis as it may appear in other parts of the world.
  Mr. Hardy: I am following the logic of the hon. Lady's approach. I agree that we should not be patronising to the Third world, but would she not agree that if we are to sell to the Third world a product that we ban here, or whose use we limit severely, it would be at least honourable for us to tell the Third world that it is a dangerous product?
  Mrs. Bottomley: I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's point, but it is important to say that there is a difference between products that are banned here and products that are not cleared here. Some products that are produced in Britain do not need clearance here if, for example, they are designed for use on rice, tea or coffee crops. That important distinction is not always immediately apparent. I certainly believe that all the relevant information should be available, and that the fact that a product is banned should be made known. However, our efforts should go more towards training Third world countries about the importance of clear labelling and about the ways in which pesticides are used. It would be ridiculous if the outcome of the Bill was that we were extremely restrictive and bureaucratic with regard to exports but permissive with regard to imports.
  I join the hon. Member for Pontypridd in asking whether it would be possible to consider extending powers to enable my right hon. Friend to support the British agrochemical supply scheme. It was set up in 1978 by the manufacturers to set standards for distributors and for the storage of pesticides, and has brought about a great improvement in this area.
  I welcome the Bill. I hope that it will provide improvements and inspire confidence in the public that the Government are establishing a balance between the needs of the environment and the needs of the population, not only to maintain health but to provide reliable, long-term sources of good quality food.
  5.51 pm
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: There can be few issues on which public anger surfaces where political positions on the Floor of the House do not divide us. The Bill gives the House an opportunity to examine pesticides objectively and to draw on the substantial public anxiety that exists on this matter. I shall direct my remarks to part III of the Bill, which is the most important part. It has certainly elicited most response outside the House, although I am sure that those who are fortunate enough to serve on the Committee will deal in great depth with all aspects of the Bill.
  During the past few days I have approached many hon. Members, including Conservative Members, to discuss privately with them their views on the Bill and their general attitudes to pesticides control. There is a clear consensus on the matter. If anything, the Minister was slightly out of step today when he refused to be more forthcoming about the draft regulations that are being considered by the Ministry. If he published those draft regulations, even in the elementary form that they exist today, the House would be grateful and the Committee would be indebted to him, because that would provide for a far more reasonable and rational debate, which is what the country expects of the House of Commons.
  In 1979, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution summed up its attitude to pesticides by saying:
  "Pesticides are by design biologically active and hence hazardous chemicals however stringent the tests applied to them. There is the possibility of unforeseen and unforeseeable effects. They should be used with care in the minimum quantities needed for effective pest control and increasing usage should be questioned."
  That cautionary statement encapsulates many of the reservations that have grown about the current level of pesticide use and its control. There is a deep-rooted suspicion in the minds of the public that pesticides pose a greater hazard than is generally admitted, and even farmers are beginning to question some of the underlying assumptions that have governed pesticide use since the war. That fear is by no means irrational. It is now accepted that a significant proportion of chemical spray ends up in the food that we eat—a fact that was brought to public attention by the discovery of large residues in a survey of supermarket food last year. Pesticide residues arrive in food through crop overdosing and spray drift from neighbouring fields and because some farmers apply pesticide shortly before harvesting, although there is usually supposed to be a gap of several weeks between spraying and eating the crops.
  Three sets of problems confront us in this debate—problems for the people, problems for the farmer and problems for the Third world. To take problems for the people first, there is strong evidence that many more people suffer ill health from pesticides than official figures suggest. A survey of 80 farmers discovered that more than half had been poisoned at some time or another, but that only one had bothered to report it. That is completely at variance with the statement by the Minister, who seemed to write off any damage to health when he referred to isolated cases.
  Recent reports from Friends of the Earth and the Soil Association show that many pesticide incidents are never reported. Pesticides can produce immediate symptoms, such as nausea and headaches, but many are also suspected of causing cancer, and there is a growing belief among

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  researchers that they also cause allergies. Although most pesticides used in Britain have been passed by the pesticides safety precautions scheme, some have been banned in other countries; the popular paraquat has been banned in Germany. I have to say that insufficient monitoring and a generally laissez-faire attitude to agrochemicals have allowed health problems to build up for decades without being effectively challenged. Indeed, it is hard to measure to what extent that has happened during the years.
  There are also substantial problems for farmers. It would be misleading to criticise pesticides solely on environmental or health grounds. Farmers have pragmatic reasons for being unhappy about the current levels of use. The prospects of substantial cuts in farming subsidies, along with current quota problems, mean that farmers have an urgent priority to reduce waste. One way to do that would be to pursue a major rationalisation of pesticide policy.
  During the past few decades, pesticide research has been strangely lopsided. Chemical formulations have become progressively more complex, while their delivery methods have changed little since the 19th century. Using conventional hydraulic nozzles, less than 1 per cent. of the sophisticated and expensive pesticide reaches the pest at all. It might be true that more efficient delivery methods are being developed and, in some places, used today, but until now they have received little encouragement from the wider farming community, and indeed some positive discouragement from some sectors interested in continuing high pesticide sales. I was pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) drew attention to that point in his speech, and we must follow it up in detail in Committee.
  There is also a growing problem of pesticide resistance. Heavy reliance on insurance spraying means that pests are evolving resistance to some chemicals more quickly, thus seriously shortening the useful lives of the chemicals. Several pesticide firms already have problems financing new products as a result of pests quickly developing resistance because of pesticide over-use, and reports suggest that some are likely to go out of business as a direct result.
  Far from being more efficient, farmers continue to use grossly wasteful methods of applying spray and are becoming progressively hooked into using more and more chemicals, to rapidly diminishing advantage. Many farmers are well aware of the contradictions inherent in relying on chemical companies, which sell pesticides, for advice on how to use them. They can see no alternative. They look to Parliament for an initiative, and the Bill, if wisely considered and amended in Committee, offers that opportunity.
  At present, Britain, along with our European partners and the United States, is benefiting from pesticide exports to the Third world. This puts us under a strong moral obligation to ensure that these pesticides really are useful to the countries involved, an obligation which is all too frequently being sidestepped.
  It is a matter of international disgrace that many pesticides which are banned or restricted in Western countries on health grounds are still exported to countries with less stringent safety regulations. It was estimated recently that 25 per cent. of all United States pesticide exports involved formulations banned for use in the United States. Oxfam believes that there are about 375,000 cases
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  of pesticide poisoning each year, including 10,000 deaths. That is a very different picture from the presentation given by the Minister. I hope that the Minister who replies will qualify that earlier presentation, especially as the figures that I have given are believed to be on the conservative side.
  There is another problem with thoughtless pesticide exporting. Many seed firms are now owned by chemical companies which develop seeds and pesticides in an integrated fashion, breeding crops for high yield rather than pest resistance. This can be disastrous in a country where land and capital are particularly unevenly divided.
  Rich farmers get higher yields from the new strains, but the poorer growers cannot afford them and lose out as the relative prices of crops fall. These farms are then gradually bought out by richer farmers, who often convert to cash crops, making the inequalities even more acute and acting as a destabilising influence, often on the whole region.
  These and other problems are coming to a head at a time when a growing number of farmers are turning their backs on chemical-based farming and are turning to an expanding wholefood and basic food market. The Bill has brought many green groups into the pesticide debate for the first time. The wide range of organisations which have been involved in lobbying, including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Friends of the Earth, the Soil Association, the National Society for Clean Air, the Royal Society for Nature Conservation, the Joint Committee for the Conservation of British Insects, the Flora and Fauna Preservation Fund and Oxfam, shows the urgency with which the legislation is regarded.
  Recently I chaired a meeting in the House of most of the major organisations concerned with the pesticides issue. At that and subsequent meetings, nearly all the organisations—with the exception of those with a clear commercial interest, such as the NFU and the British Agrochemicals Association, which, I must confess, to be fair, were not invited to participate in our final discussions—came to a broad agreement about the main changes for which to lobby at this stage.
  The targets were not chosen easily, and many groups resisted such a general approach, having individual priorities, which will continue to be followed up in Committee, after the Bill becomes law and when we discuss the regulations. Despite this, a series of recommendations were put forward which, while not meeting all the objectives, provide a broad consensus of the most important points at this stage in the pesticides debate.
  The first is aerial spraying, which provokes by far the most pesticide-related public complaints, although aerial spraying accounts for only 2 per cent. of British spraying. Virtually all the industrial groups admit privately that stricter controls are needed, but often they cannot say exactly what they have in mind when asked for suggestions.
  Such regulations as exist are often ignored in practice, and aerial spraying would be uneconomic in many cases if all the regulations about not spraying near houses and roads were taken really into account. Many groups have called for an outright ban, and there is support for that in the farming community and even among hon. Members on both sides of the House.
  However, there has also been a strong lobby in support of continued aerial application for forestry and bracken control, and for this reason the consensus among the green

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  groups is that there should at least be a ban on aerial spraying of arable crops where viable alternatives exist. That would avoid hazardous aerial spraying in well-populated areas.
  The problems of inefficient and poorly maintained equipment could be solved to a large extent by the adoption of a series of British standards for spray equipment. Starting with general points about upkeep and safety, standards could in time be adopted for other factors, to include droplet size, amount of drift and chemical wastage. That would provide considerable insurance for the public against dangerous spray practices and would give farmers more confidence about the efficiency of machinery before they actually bought it.
  At present, people wanting information about pesticide testing can often obtain it via the freedom of information regulations in the United States, while it remains secret in the United Kingdom. This situation gives the lie to claims that a more open system of pesticide regulation would necessarily give competitors an unfair advantage—the argument often used by the industry—whereas it really shows the need for similar statutes in Britain. These could be introduced along with safeguards to protect manufacturers. For example, all safety testing could be subject to examination to ensure that it was actually carried out by the firm seeking the licence, thus dispelling fears that safety data would be stolen.
  The fourth area in which the green lobby is united concerns export controls and the principle of prior informed consent. Under that principle, the exporting country would have to provide full details of pesticide hazards to the importing country. Export would not take place unless the importing country gave its positive consent to the importation principle of prior informed consent.
  The principle is incorporated in the draft of a code on the use and distribution of pesticides at present under consideration by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and the code has the backing of many countries. The Government should support the code, and the principle of prior informed consent should be introduced in this legislation as a first step towards the control of pesticide exports to the Third world.
  Many other issues are of great concern to the green lobby. A strong case has been made for the compulsory training and licensing of spray operators, as in some other countries. This would minimise the harmful effects of pesticides and maximise the efficiency possible with new spraying technology. Many accidents occur because of ignorance rather than malice, and proper training could help enormously. The process of education could be helped by insisting that advertisements carry information about health effects and the pest resistance of the products they describe.
  It has been suggested that a 10 m buffer zone at field edges would help reduce losses of wildlife from spray drift. I urge the Government to examine that proposal carefully. Likewise, I draw attention to the need for proper records to be kept by all sprayers, so easing the process of proving from where damage has come when spray drift occurs.
  816
  It is vital for us to debate pesticides. Deep concern is felt throughout the United Kingdom about the matter. I hope that, in considering the Bill, Parliament measures up to the importance of the issue.
  6.10 pm
  Mr. David Crouch: I listened carefully to the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours), who spoke with passion and emotion, which the subject properly deserves. As the House knows, I have an interest in the chemical industry but I do not think that that involves the manufacture of pesticides. That does not mean that I am against the manufacture of such products. Both sides of the House, including both Front Benches, have expressed the belief that pesticides make a valuable contribution to human welfare. The Bill is concerned to ensure that we control most carefully the use of pesticides so that human welfare is not jeopardised in any way.
  Reference has been made to the British Agrochemical Association, which I believe has described the aim of the Bill as well as any other body. It speaks of the use of pesticides and how they should properly be used
  "without harm to the applicator or bystanders, to the consumer of treated products, or to the environment at large."
  With that I would agree. Those are worthy aims of this important measure.
  I welcome the Bill because it gives strength to the existing voluntary system that is known as the pesticides safety precautions scheme, which has been a voluntary system for the past 27 years and has given us a measure of protection. It has been a better form of protection against the use of pesticides for the consumer of food than the systems which have been introduced in other countries.
  The National Farmers Union has spoken about the importance of the
  "safe and efficient use of pesticides".
  We welcome its controlled attitude towards these important but hazardous products. The NFU speaks of
  "reducing pesticide usage to the minimum consistent with efficient food production".
  I would say amen to that, but what exactly does that phrase mean? I think that it needs some explanation. What a fanner considers to be efficient food production might need some qualification by those concerned with the consumer or the environment. That is what we are considering, and that is what we shall go on to consider in Committee. It is our intention to achieve the right balance. I do not think that the NFU would disagree with the contention that there is a need for balance.
  Sir Peter Mills: My hon. Friend is right to talk of the need for balance, bin one of the reasons why the farming organisations take the view that he has quoted is that sprays are so expensive that farmers restrict their use to the minimum. That is important for their profits and to ensure that sprays are not wasted by being allowed to pollute elsewhere.
  Mr. Crouch: That is a good argument and I concede that point to my hon. Friend. However, I do not think that I have lost my argument. We must hope that farmers will not be in such a state of affluence that they become wasteful of these expensive products. It seems that they will no longer be in that state in the arable sector.
  I go along with the argument that there is a need to keep the public informed about the hazards of pesticides. I believe that the public have a right to know what is being

  817
  done to farm products — to the food that they will ultimately consume—by the application of pesticides. What about harmful residues? Who decides what is a harmful residue? According to the Bill, and bearing in mind the regulations that will flow from it, it seems that the decision will be made by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and his advisers. However, we must know about the harmful levels of pesticides that may build up in harvested crops. We should consider full disclosure, notwithstanding manufacturers' commercial interests.
  Full disclosure is required in the United States. Some years ago, under President Carter's Administration, the United States went through a traumatic period of environmental legislation. Perhaps that Administration overdid it a bit. It established the Environment Protection Agency, whose powers transcend any that we give to our agencies. The United States said that the public were entitled to know and that full disclosure must be made about these possible hazards. It is an environmental nation but it is also an extremely commercial nation.
  The United States devised a system that safeguarded manufacturers' commercial interests while allowing the public to know exactly what might be at stake or what hazards might be present. A system was devised whereby a manufacturer could claim that the data revealed to the public related to his product alone. This would be supported by the responsible Government Department or agency as the case may be. This seemed to satisfy the United States manufacturers. Perhaps the provision of greater information could be considered, while safeguarding manufacturers' commercial interests to a satisfactory level. We must remember always that we must find a satisfactory level of protection for the consumer. In dealing with these important subjects we must put the customer, or consumer, first. The consumer, or customer, is extremely concerned, and rightly so, about health hazards and the environment.
  I live in Kent in an area which endures a good deal of aerial spraying, which often takes place on quite small fields. It is used on oilseed rape, barley, wheat and beans. It is extraordinary that small fields of fewer than 20 acres are treated to expensive aerial spraying. There is the problem of spray drift and the possible danger that is posed by spraying aircraft. Parliament has an obligation to impose a duty on the Civil Aviation Authority to ensure that there is no hazard, or a very small hazard, from spraying aircraft. I live in a converted oasthouse and it seems to be much too high in the sky when the spraying aircraft are operating at a height that is below the level of my oasthouse in the course of spraying the nearby fields. There is spray drift all over the place. The spray goes over the roads and the surrounding houses. There is no control—
  Sir Peter Mills: That is not fair.
  Mr. Crouch: Well, there is some control, but I am talking about the man who is flying the spraying aircraft. He is concerned not to hit trees or oasthouses. What happens to the spray that emerges from the pipes of his aircraft is another matter. I am not saying that aerial spraying should not take place and I do not want to over-emphasise the problems and possible dangers. We are advised that aerial spraying accounts for about 2 per cent.
  818
  of all agricultural land sprayed. However, there is a hazard that we should bear in mind. It is one that must not be neglected.
  Mr. John Carlisle: My hon. Friend says that he does not want to over-emphasise the problems and possible dangers of aerial spraying, but that is precisely what he has done. Perhaps he will tell us what accidents have occurred while civil aircraft have been involved in spraying over the past few years. Secondly, perhaps he will take back some of his remarks about spray control. Aerial operators are stringent in complying with regulations while carrying out their task. My hon. Friend has exaggerated a minor problem.
  Mr. Crouch: I shall let my case rest. The House will have listened to my hon. Friend. My car has been sprayed while I have been driving in Kent. This has happened while the sprays have been drawn by tractors in the fields. One is alert to "spraying today" signs and I avoid the lanes when such signs appear. On occasions I have been unable to see through my windscreen because of the spray that has been blown across on to the lanes. Perhaps this has happened because I live in a small out of the way place. My final comment on aerial spraying is horses for courses and planes for plains. It is not suitable to use aircraft for spraying on hills and down valleys. Aerial spraying is much safer when it is carried out over flatter country—perhaps that which is to be found in East Anglia.
  I intervened in the speech of the hon. Member for Pontypridd to comment about the Bill's title. I did not interrupt my right hon. Friend the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food because he endured so many interruptions. I feel that the Bill is wrongly titled. It is more about the protection of food and the use of pesticides than environmental protection. Not enough mention is made in the Bill about the protection of the environment and our wildlife. My attention has been drawn to the fact that clause 15(1) states that
  "The provisions of this part of this Act shall have effect with a view to protecting the health of human beings, creature and plants".
  That is the only mention in the Bill of creatures and plants, apart from another reference in clause 15(15), in which they are not mentioned with a view to their protection. Subsection (15) tells us that
  "'pesticide' means any substance or preparation prepared or used for any of the following purposes—

  (a) destroying organisms harmful to plants or to wood or other plant products;

  (b) destroying undesired plants;

  (c) destroying harmful creatures".

  Subsection (16) tells us that "pesticides" include substances used for

  "(a) protecting plants or wood or other plant products from harmful organisms …

  (c) giving protection against harmful creatures;

  (d) rendering such creatures harmless;

  (e) controlling organisms with harmful or unwanted effects on water systems, buildings or other structures…

  (f) protecting animals against ectoparasites".

  That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about giving a little strength through the Bill to the protection of wildlife, and lending our support to the wildlife lobby. If I were a member of the Standing Committee, I would move three amendments dealing with birds, butterflies and bees.
  Mr. Skeet: Why is my hon. Friend not on the Committee?
  Mr. Crouch: Tomorrow morning I embark upon another long Committee journey. That will take up much of my time, and, in any case, there must be opportunities for all hon. Members to take part in Committee work. Therefore, I can only make my observations here.
  I speak on the wildlife question as seriously as the hon. Member for Workington. Too many birds have disappeared from the British scene. In Kent the bullfinch has been shot to death because it feeds on apple and pear blossom. I can understand the farmer not liking creatures that feed on his crops, but could we not spare the blackbird, the thrush, the fieldfare, the wren and the nightingale? Could we not protect the many inhabitants of our island that make it such a beautiful place? Bees have a vital job to do. Kent, the Garden of England, could not manage without bees. We import them from abroad to fertilise the apple orchards. Butterflies are important too. Those factors are not unimportant. Let us write such species into the Bill. Let us be a little more definite about the protection of wildlife, as though we meant business.
  6.24 pm
  Mr. Geraint Howells: This is a most important debate. It is very unusual for us all to be united in our deliberations. There may have been the odd hiccup now and then during this debate but in general we are all in favour of the Bill. At a time when technology is advancing by leaps and bounds, it is more important than ever that we should have sufficient controls over the use of that technology. That is as true in the world of agriculture as in any other, and it is most encouraging that we have been given this opportunity to discuss such matters.
  As a farmer, I am naturally in favour of improving production and making the farmer's work easier. However, that need not be done at the expense of the environment or by endangering people or animals.
  I hope that the Minister can clarify one point. According to clause 15(2), Ministers will have power to
  "(k) specify how much pesticide or pesticide residue may be left in any crop, food or feeding stuff; and
  (1) direct that, if there is more pesticide or pesticide residue in any crop, food or feeding stuff than the proportion specified by virtue of paragraph (k) above, either of the Ministers shall have power … to seize or dispose of the crop".
  As we are now full members of the EEC, I wonder whether the Minister who replies to the debate can tell us what the situation is with regard to commodities imported into this country. That would be most helpful.
  I do not entirely agree with all the recommendations of Friends of the Earth—I consider that some of those recommendations are impractical—but we all owe that organisation a debt of gratitude for drawing public attention to the dangers caused by human beings to the earth around them.
  Part III deals with pesticides and their use in food production. My noble Friend Lord Mackie moved an amendment to ensure that applications of pesticides should be made only by, or under the supervision of, licensed operators. I understand that that amendment was flatly rejected by the Government, despite the fact that efficient licensing and training schemes are in operation in both the United States and Canada and, furthermore, that the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution recommended such a scheme for the United Kingdom. I wonder why the Government are so opposed to such a scheme. I should be glad of an explanation from the Minister today.
  820
  With the Government cuts in the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service, the users of pesticides could become entirely reliant on chemical company salesmen for all their information. The salesmen's interest is mainly in selling the product, not in warning of the problems.
  The clause covering the monitoring of residues leaves much to be desired. In the outline proposals published last summer, there was a clause covering the way in which an approved product should be used, the method of use, where it could be used and the amount and timing of use. That clause has now been lost and the Bill has in consequence become weaker.
  In clause 15(2)(j) The Government have made some concessions towards freedom of information. However, in my view, there should be further clarification of the conditions
  "that the Ministers consider appropriate"
  for the provision of such information. I would welcome a statement from the Minister on that point too.
  We are also concerned about the promised regulations, which will obviously have a bearing on further discussion of the Bill. Is the Minister consulting on those regulations? If so, who is being consulted and when will the process be completed so that the regulations can come before the House? The Minister said that there will be consultations this year and that the recommendations will be presented to us before the end of the year.
  I believe that the whole House considers that the consultations should include the National Farmers Union, the Scottish National Farmers Union, the Farmers Union of Wales, the Ulster Farmers Union, the Country Landowners Association and the Young Farmers Clubs movement, which includes the farmers of tomorrow. If possible, representatives from such bodies should be on the advisory committee. We should also get in touch with the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers as its members apply pesticides. Many other organisations have been mentioned. I hope that the Government will get in touch with all the organisations concerned. If everyone is consulted, we shall get the regulations right.
  I endorse the views of Oxfam on the export of toxic substances to the Third world. I should greatly welcome export controls to help safeguard people in less developed countries who are at risk from pesticides that are banned in Britain.
  The agriculture industry is worried about the Government's determination, in spite of all reasonable opposition, to cut scientific research by some £30 million during the next few years. The cut will obviously affect research into pesticide use. It is also distressing that the soil survey for England and Wales is being pruned so drastically. I am worried whether there will by any proper long-term research into the effect of pesticides on soil. There should be more research into application techniques and the effect on people of drift and monitoring of pesticides in the environment. None of that will be possible if there is no money for research.
  The Agricultural Development and Advisory Service, which is most valuable, is also being pruned. That is a great shame. Who is to carry out all the monitoring and provide advice? Without sufficient research and expert advice, the Bill could end up being just so many well meaning words. Nevertheless, my colleagues and I welcome the Bill and will not oppose its Second Reading. It does not go far enough, but we hope that the

  821
  Government will heed what has been said today. The most important thing is to get it right. The whole House is determined to get the regulations right this time. I hope that the Minister wiill assure us that we shall be able to examine the regulations in draft and in their final form before being asked to accept them in this House so that we can get them right.
  6.34 pm
  Sir Peter Mills: I welcome the Bill and congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on bringing it forward. I apologise for not being here during his speech — I was in my Agriculture Committee.
  I welcome the initiative taken on the contamination of food. The Government are right to take powers under clauses 1 and 2 but I hope that there will be no tragedies which mean that part I has to be implemented. Farmers and processors feel ever more strongly about quality control. Vast sums of money are now being spent in the food industry to ensure that food is pure and of good quality. We must congratulate the processors on what they are doing.
  The National Farmers Union has asked some questions, which I should like to draw to the attention of the House. One concerns compensation when food cannot be sold as a result of a tragedy that requires Government to take their emergency powers under part I. The union writes:
  "No-one would criticise the Government for acting cautiously to protect the public, but equally no-one would bear the cost of protecting the public except the unfortunate individuals on whom restrictions are imposed in the circumstances. The NFU believes this is unjust, and that the Government should ensure that innocent third parties are not penalised in the interests of protecting the public. They should be compensated for their losses, which could otherwise ruin their businesses."
  I am sure that my hon. Friend the Minister will deal with that important matter.
  Although there are criticisms about farmers' use of pesticides, I am sure that the House agrees that farmers do not deliberately cause annoyance or other problems. The modern farmer is highly intelligent. He knows the business and the dangers of pesticides and will try to protect people and nature. Moreover, farmers have shown that they will co-operate on these matters.
  Contrary to what one might imagine from listening to some people, pesticides are not evil. They are of great benefit to the community and, in a hungry world with an ever-increasing population, they play an important part in ensuring adequate food supplies. Bearing in mind the startling increase in food production overseas where modern pesticides have been introduced, we can only thank scientists and pharmaceutical and chemical firms. There would be a tremendous increase in hunger if pesticides were not used. Of course they must be used carefully, but we should not exaggerate the problems.
  We have had voluntary arrangements and they have worked well. It is no use the Government having the proposed compulsory arrangements without providing and paying for inspectors. It is easy to put into the Bill that one needs to do something, but one must also provide the finance to pay for the inspector to check on something that has been done on a voluntary basis in the past. I should like to hear the views of the Minister.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) made an interesting speech, in particular about the problems that he was experiencing in his garden and his
  822
  motor car. Such problems result from the inefficient use of pesticides. The efficient use of pesticides is essential to the farmer. The most costly item in his production is the use of pesticides. No farmer will deliberately start spraying my hon. Friend's car with his chemicals because he will not waste it. He will not want to see it go in the ditches and pollute the environment because he does not want to spray the caterpillars, butterflies or the birds.
  Mr. Skeet: When a man who is doing aerial spraying is about to make his turn, what incentive is there to stop him from spraying right over the hedgerows and my house, spraying me as well, and then going back on to the run again? There is no incentive for him to economise on his client's account.
  Sir Peter Mills: With respect to my hon. Friend, there is an incentive. He has to be cost conscious, otherwise he will not get the contract to go on spraying the farmers' crops. From my knowledge of it, which is perhaps just a little more extensive than that of my hon. Friend, I should say that aerial sprayers are careful in these matters They are also strictly controlled and a pilot can lose his licence if he does not keep to the rules and regulations.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury mentioned bees. By law or custom, the beekeepers are notified before spraying, so that the bees can be locked up before spraying is carried out. We must take note of what my hon. Friend and others are saying in these matters, but aerial spraying is most important. When crops are a certain height, if one runs over them with a land sprayer, once can damage them considerably. There are times of the year when it is so wet that one cannot get on to the land, but one can put on fertilisers and sprays by aircraft or helicopters. We need to do this in the modern world to produce the food at the price that will be paid for it.
  Imports are important and in the south-west, with a ferry service between Plymouth and Roscoff, farmers find it handy to run over to the continent and buy cheaper sprays and chemicals. While there should be strict control over these matters, I do not see why farmers should be denied the right to fetch their own chemicals and sprays from abroad, as long as the products come up to the standards that we require. It would be useful if some of the instructions were written in English, as it would help the farmers in the south-west to facilitate the spraying of their crops.
  Farmers have played an important role in developing new techniques of pesticide application, using reduced quantities of pesticide, either through new designs of machines or with conventional equipment. This must be right, because the less spray is put on, the better for all concerned, not only for the farmer, and his profit, but for wildlife or anyone else, even my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury.
  A number of pesticides have been cleared, for example, for use on cereal crops, that are just as effective on the pests that attack flowers, fruit and vegetables. We want flexibility. The farmers should be allowed to use a spray that is cleared for cereals and other crops. This may be a minor point, but I believe that Lord Belstead made it clear in the other place that the Government were considering this.
  I support the Bill. It is right that we have it. We should tread carefully, but it is in the interests of the consumer to have pesticides and farmers who care about these matters.
  6.45 pm
  Mr. Ron Davies: Like other hon. Members who have spoken, I shall concentrate on part III of the Bill. I assure the hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) that there is a considerable difference of opinion between hon. Members on the contents and objectives of the Bill, and its practicality. I freely confess that I bring a different approach to the debate from that put forward by the hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West. I have no vested interest to declare or advance. My interest is that of one who represent the individuals in my constituency—
  Sir Peter Mills: I accept the hon. Gentleman's point of view, but do we not both have a common interest in that we are consumers and have consumers in our constituencies who are concerned about the food that they eat?
  Mr. Davies: I accept the hon. Gentleman's point and I am sure that if he stays for the rest of the debate he will hear the rest of my argument.
  There is a body of opinion, which certainly exists in my constituency, that looks at the legislation from a different point of view from that which has been put forward tonight. We can identify several principles that should direct our thinking on the subject. First, when we consider the use of pesticides in the countryside, we must recognise that we expect the countryside to produce our food. However, we also expect it to be a safe place for those who work there and for those who enjoy recreation there. I think that we would all agree on that. But that principle has not been advanced or safeguarded in the Bill.
  Secondly, I think that we would all agree that we must have a heritage to leave to our children and our grandchildren, a heritage that is safe and of which we can be proud. The Bill falls short in several regards on that principle.
  Thirdly, we should have an informed public. If there is to be a public debate, and if people are to examine the issues raised by the hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West, who has now left the Chamber, they should do so on the basis of choice. Choices can be made only when people are aware and informed of the details and of the effects of pesticides that are to be used.
  Fourthly, there is a principle that has been highlighted most graphically in my constituency as a result of recent international events. We should be aware of the trading relationship between our country and the Third world and of the effects of technology on developing practices in the Third world. Unfortunately, the Bill falls short in this regard as well.
  Within that general framework, there are particular points of concern. The hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West spoke about the plus side of pesticides, and we would all accept his argument that pesticides are useful. We want them to be used and we recognise that they are an important part of the productive use of our land for food. However, a difference of opinion arises when we say that we are opposed to the indiscriminate use of pesticides. Pesticides are all right, but not when they are used in the wrong place, or at the wrong time, or when the wrong pesticides are used or used indiscriminately and allowed to affect not only other crops but our natural environment, animals, pets, workers and a whole range of other people. In those circumstances, pesticides are not
  824
  acceptable. In that respect, I have considerable reservations about the Bill. We are all aware of the potentially lethal effects of pesticides on the general environment.
  I was surprised to learn of the effects of these pesticides, and I was concerned to understand the scale of usage of pesticides in Britain in 1984. Figures I have received from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food indicate that last year 1,000 million gallons of pesticides were sprayed on to our countryside. That is a horrific figure, particularly when one considers the effect of those pesticides not only on the specific pests at which they are directed but on the whole range of the natural environment outwith the specific pests.
  Mr. John Carlisle: With regard to the figure quoted by the hon. Gentleman, I think he must mean that the spray was put on with water, and that it was not neat pesticide, as he hinted by his comment. I think that he will find that water was included.
  Mr. Davies: The figure of 1,000 million gallons clearly implies that there is an element of dilution. I suggest that the hon. Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) has a word with his hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North (Mr. Skeet) and asks him whether he is content to be sprayed by a dilution of pesticide.
  I wish to deal next with the effect of the pesticides and insecticides on the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food approved list of 1983. Eighty-eight per cent. of those insecticides were dangerous or harmful to fish; 46 per cent. were dangerous or harmful to bees; 43 per cent. were dangerous or harmful to livestock; 42 per cent. were dangerous or harmful to wildlife and game. It may well be that the hon. Member for Luton, North is content to condone a situation in which 1,000 million gallons of pesticides are sprayed on to the countryside, knowing the lethal impact that this can have on the whole of the natural environment.
  It may well be that the hon. Gentleman, who shakes his head, says that that does not apply because pesticides are used in controlled conditions, at the appropriate time, on the appropriate crops, in the right conditions and using the right equipment, but I must tell the hon. Gentleman that that is not true. All the evidence that has been produced and all the material, which I am sure will have been sent to the hon. Gentleman as it was to me and to other hon. Members, indicates that that is not the case and that a great deal of damage is being done, not necessarily deliberately and wantonly, but carelessly, to the natural environment.
  I believe that there is a direct responsibility on Government and on the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, if they are to codify the practices and the procedures under which these pesticides are to be used, at least to ensure that proper safeguards are built in. In my view, that requirement is not being met.
  I recognise the pressures on the farming community. I believe that those pressures stem from the Ministry of Agriculture, from the common agricultural policy and from the consumer, all of whom wish to see more food produced at prices lower than last year's prices. I recognise the work done by the agricultural community in that respect. However, I also recognise the pressure brought on it by the chemical industry, whose representatives go round from farm to farm extolling the virtues of particular pesticides and urging greater and more frequent application of those pesticides.

  825
  I refer the Minister to the agriculture and pollution report of the Royal Commission on Environment Protection, 1979:
  "We think that there should be a considerably more questioning attitude than is now apparent, especially in the government departments concerned, to the scale of pesticides usage and we believe that this should be exemplified by a declared policy aim to reduce usuage to a minimum consistent with effecient food production. We have been told by some farmers that they feel themselves to be on a 'treadmill' with regard to pesticides usage—compelled by circumstances to depend on chemicals to an extent which they, as countrymen, intuitively find disturbing".
  Those are the real economic pressures that I understand and that I am sure all hon. Members understand.
  When legislating, we must be aware of the overall impact of Government policy. If there are dangers and discrepancies in the way in which our declared policies are operated, surely we must be prepared to build safeguards into the legislation.
  The Minister made a reference to the impact of aerial spraying. I am not sure whether this was the intention of the Minister, but the implication was that aerial spraying was more or less a thing of the past, and that we need not be too concerned about it or about indiscriminate spraying.
  I tabled a question to the Secretary of State for Transport who, under the rules of this strange place, has responsibility for the distribution of pesticides by air. In his reply, the Secretary of State stated that, whereas in 1981 295,000 hectares were sprayed by air, in 1982—the last year for which figures were available—a total of 360,000 hectares was sprayed by air. That concerns me particularly because I have seen the impact of aerial spraying on Forestry Commission land near my home. I know that the impact of a specific herbicide is not confined to the specific target species, but that almost an entire ecosystem is wiped out. In addition, the Minister informed me that some 5·3 million hectares of crops and grass were treated with pesticides once or more often in 1982. That is the scale of the problem.
  The response from the Government earlier today surprised me. They said that they cannot lay draft regulations, and I understand some of the reservations of the Government about laying such draft regulations. In effect, the Government said very much what I was told in reply to a written question on 29 November 1984. I asked the Minister:
  "if he will make a statement on the proposals in the Food and Environment Protection Bill [Lords] to control advertising of pesticides."
  The Minister replied:
  "The powers afforded by clause 15(1)(c) would be sufficiently wide to permit Ministers to control the advertising of pesticides if they considered it necessary." — [Official Report, 29 November 1984; Vol. 68, c. 589.]
  That sums up my criticism of the legislation. This is an enabling Bill and, whatever questions we put to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Ministry of Transport and other Departments, the answer is that the powers are in the Bill. When the Minister has been challenged on the detailed regulations, the reply has been, rather like producing a rabbit out of a hat, that they now have a statement of intent.
  I have had a half an hour or so to consider the statement of intent, and I must tell the Minister that it does not satisfy my criticisms; in fact, it raises more questions than it answers. Paragraph 9(c) of the statement of intent states
  "that the pesticide be applied within minimum and maximum dilution rates in terms of concentrate per volume".
  826
  Frankly, I had hoped that the Minister would be considering new research in terms of technology and methods of applying pesticides. I hoped that, in producing the statement of intent, the Minister would include a provision to the effect that the Government would take all necessary steps to ensure that pesticide use was by the controlled droplet application system. Paragraph 13 of the statement of intent states:
  "Regulations would prohibit the aerial spraying of all pesticides".
  It qualified that rather blunt statement by saying
  "except those specifically approved for application from the air."
  What are we to believe'? What credibility can the Government have when they say on the one hand that they will ban aerial spraying of all pesticides and on the other hand that they will grant specific approval? Such an approach is not good enough, particularly as the matter will be debated in detail in Committee. Neither the Minister, supporters of the legislation, lukewarm supporters of the legislation nor opponents of the legislation will have the faintest idea of how it will be applied in practice.
  I take issue with the Minister on two points to which I hope he will reply. The last sentence of paragraph 16 states:
  "Record-Keepers would be required to make these records available to Ministers or their authorised officers when requested."
  That refers to the set of regulations on pesticides and their use.
  Does the Minister realise that people other than Ministers and their authorised officers are worried about the effect of pesticides? Farmers might be interested in the information. Agriculture workers will be interested and will want to know the effect of the pesticides if they accidentally receive a faceful when the wind changes. Environmental groups will want to know the impact of the pesticides when they are used indiscriminately in the countryside. Many people clamour to know what is happening to our environment. The Minister might say that the information should be kept private and secret and that it should be known only to Ministers. If she does that she will fly in the face of the major environmental development of the last 20 years.
  Mr. John Carlisle: Does not the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) realise that the explanatory leaflets provided with all the major agricultural chemicals contain information about what to do in the case of accident and what antidotes should be administered? The hon. Gentleman paints an exaggerated picture.
  Mr. Davies: I accept that. I am encouraged that the advice that the hon. Member would give to an agriculture worker who was sprayed accidentally by a pesticide would be to go to the nearest stream and wash it off. Frankly, that is not good enough. That is the palliative suggested to the person who is affected by pesticides. The point at issue is not the necessary remedial action, but the knowledge about a particular pesticide. If the information is available, if the result of research and the impact of a pesticide on humans, animals and plants is known, it should be made available to the public.
  The second point on which I take issue with the Minister involves disclosure in the wider sense. Paragraph 17 of the statement of intent states:
  "The Regulations would provide for the public disclosure of information obtained by Ministers under the powers described in

  827
  paragraphs 4 and 16 (a) — (c); information which would prejudice the commercial interests of those supplying it would be withheld."
  The Government say that they will provide the information, but they say that they will decide what information they wish to withhold. The statement continues:
  "The degree of disclosure would be a matter for consultation with all interests involved".
  The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will have a cosy discussion with representatives of the agriculture chemical industry, the National Farmers Union and others who are directly involved and will neglect to tell any other interested party the information required. Perhaps Government supporters are happy to continue to support legislation which does that, but I believe that if something is good enough for the Americans it is good enough for us. If it is good enough for the Americans to have freedom of information legislation, it is good enough for us. I refer the House to the code of practice in the United States. Last week I received a letter from the Campaign for Freedom of Information which stated:
  "The United States Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act requires full disclosure by the environmental protection agency of safety data submitted by manufacturers, but, for a fixed period, allows only the manufacturer who originally produced the data to make use of it in support of pesticide registration applications."
  We realise that commercial interests exist. We accept that research is necessary and that there must be reinvestment, profit and the protection of commercial secrets. However, a limit must be drawn on the extent to which commercial secrets are allowed to affect the proper interests of those directly involved in the use of pesticides and their impact on the wider community.
  By accident I came upon another quotation today. I came across it just after the Minister had told me not to worry about the details because everything would be in the regulations and that everything would be all right on the night. The quotation goes back to 1838 when Benjamin Disraeli said:
  "all power is a trust—that we are accountable for its exercise—that, from the people, and for the people, all springs, and all must exist."
  If the Minister and her colleagues want the support of the House and an endorsement of their proposals if they want the House to allow them the power to use the regulations, they must tell us what they propose in the regulations. So far they have been singularly silent.
  My last argument is about the Third world. Some hon. Members have taken the view that if someone wants to buy a product it is OK to sell it to them. It is a shocking indictment of the chemical industry's relationship with the Government, and of the Government themselves, that they are prepared to sell overseas products that are prohibited in the United Kingdom because they are known to be dangerous and because we know the adverse impact that they will have on our agriculture systems and environment. In view of the human and environmental disasters of recent years and of the knowledge that we have of the impact of western technology on underdeveloped agricultural communities, we should not agree to use underdeveloped countries as a dumping ground for products that are considered unsuitable for use here.
  The legislation was prompted by actions in 1981, which resulted in a cartel being broken. The Government said
  828
  that they did not want imports that would undermine our chemical industry and could not be controlled. Now they have the opportunity to prevent the export of undesirable materials and they are running away from the question. That is a matter of prime concern.
  Some useful debates took place in the House of Lords. Lord Mackie summed up the argument about the export of pesticides when he said:
  "However, we really cannot export dangerous chemicals to third-world countries which people do not know how to use and excuse that by saying that others will do so if we do not. It is rather like the old argument in the cartoon—which I always admired—of the two executioners, torturers, with their black masks, their execution axes, and so on, talking to each other at an idle moment. One of them is saying to the other, 'The way I see it, if we don't do it, someone else will!' I do not think that that is a good policy for a highly moral Government trying to help the third world." — [Official Report, House of Lords, 22 November 1984; Vol. 457, c. 728]
  There are very many reservations about this Bill; that is one of them. I certainly hope that the Bill will be improved in Committee.
  7.11 pm
  Sir John Wells: I apologise to the House for having come in only moments ago. As hon. Members will know, I was here earlier. I am sure that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and hon. Members will appreciate that, as I am in the Chair of the Committee dealing with the Transport Bill, I can come in for only a short time during the dinner break.
  I want to follow for a moment the speech of the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies), because I think that he has got wrong the attitude of the chemical manufacturers in this country to the Third world. I believe that the British chemical industry takes an extremely responsible view, and when the hon. Gentleman reads what he said he may regret the criticisms that he made.
  The point that is frequently misunderstood is that the chemical manufacturers formulate and manufacture in this country many items that are used on crops to control unpleasant things that mercifully do not exist in this country. In a question in the Indian Parliament in August last year, it was suggested that certain items of a DDT nature ought to be banned in India. The Indian Government made it abundantly clear that that was quite impossible if their malaria eradication programme and other similar programmes were to go forward. So, although we may not use in this country some of the chemicals that we make, their export to the Third world, provided the Third world Governments approve and their professional advisers know what is being done, is totally honourable.
  Mr. Ron Davies: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Sir John Wells: I am sorry. I want to be very brief, and the hon. Gentleman did speak at great length.
  ICI Plant Protection at Yalding is the biggest employer in my constituency which has a very large horticultural presence. Therefore, this is a very important debate for my part of Kent. What concerns me particularly is a fear that we may be too liberal about import restrictions and rules and too tight about export restrictions. Lord Belstead in another place indicated that the present informal arrangements, under which MAFF gives quick clearance to farmers' direct imports, will be incorporated in the regulations. I apologise to my hon. Friend if he repeated that, but I did not hear his speech.

  829
  Individual farmers, particularly in my part of the country, where the continent of Europe is only a few miles away, are experienced men. They have friends on the continent of Europe and they can go shopping and know what they are bringing back. Provided the products that they bring back are labelled in English and their workers understand and follow the safety regulations, that is fine. I am far more concerned about the indication, as I understand Lord Belstead's words, that there may be a large quantity procedure for merchants bringing in such items, provided the safety regulations are formulated in English. But these items of chemical manufacture may well not come from Europe. They could come from anywhere — even the Third world—and some of the formulation may be extremely doubtful.
  I am therefore most anxious about any liberalising of imports, unless we look at the matter very closely indeed. Provided imports are guaranteed to be of the same quality and have the same protection instructions for the workers, I do not think that that is a bad thing, but I must emphasise the importance of quality.
  I turn now to the question of confidentiality and the right to know, to which the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) referred in passing. Within the United States there seems to be total freedom of information. At first sight, that is very praiseworthy, but the patents are steadily running out and, once they run out, the whole world will have not only freedom of information but freedom to copy. Unless a manufacturer is protected for a few years, expenditure on research and development will be reduced. That is something that I fear very much. Other hon. Members have already pointed out the vast contribution that this industry makes to the well-being of agriculture throughout the world. Unless research and development are protected, the ultimate consumer, particularly the consumer in the Third world, will be at risk.
  The hon. Member for Workington spoke about the possibility of a ban on aerial spraying. I must declare to the House that Headcorn airstrip, in my constituency, houses one of the most efficient aerial spraying units in this country. That firm is spraying not only in the United Kingdom but world wide. Its pilots go all over the world. If British pilots are unable to qualify and gain experience, not only will we lose a valuable export, but the Third world will lose the services of British pilots, who are extremely skilled and experienced and responsible in the use of chemicals. Before we get over-excited about any safeguard proposals, therefore, we need to look at the overall pattern.
  It is important that we consider enforcement. As I understand it, it is proposed that there should be 16 or 18 people to carry out enforcement. That seems to me to be nonsense. I believe that Her Majesty's Government have gone over the top in listening to the EEC style of debate with demands that voluntary control is unacceptable. The Minister and I know that at least one City livery company is providing policing in an important sector of another industry that comes under his umbrella. He will know that the Salters Company—and I have no authority from that company or from any of its officers to make this remark—makes a great contribution to the well-being of the chemical industry.
  Surely an absolutely impartial organisation, such as a City livery company, could have taken its place in the British agrochemical supply and industry scheme which,
  830
  after all, has brought in tremendous control. I believe that other hon. Members have spoken about that already. The Minister is aware of what has been done. Can we not break out of that European mould and realise that the British style of voluntary policing of schemes like this can work very well?
  7.20 pm
  Mr. Peter Hardy: I was glad to have the reassurance of the hon. Member for Maidstone (Sir J. Wells) that the British chemical industry behaves responsibly abroad. It if behaves responsibly abroad—I have no evidence to suggest otherwise—I should dearly like to know which chemical industries do not, because there is ground for real misgiving that some practices by OECD member states in the Third world leave a great deal to be desired. That leads me to the fear that, as we have a development of trade and a more liberal trading arrangement, and as the Third world becomes ever more depressed, perhaps as a result of American economic policy, those irresponsible chemical industries may wish to come here.
  I should like to refer to the final point that the hon. Member for Maidstone made. Whether we have an adequate involvement of skilled and competent voluntary agencies or not, and whether the provisions and plans of Her Majesty's Government provide for a proper public monitoring of such matters, which are vital, I have reason for very real anxiety about the future.
  That anxiety was not relieved by the Minister of State's speech. He is an experienced and able occupant of the Treasury Bench. He must have known that there is concern on both sides of the House, perhaps more among Opposition Members. I was deeply distressed by the absence of the alliance Members, who claim to have an interest in these matters. If they had been here, they would have shared my anxieties about the Minister's speech. As I said, the hon. Gentleman is able and experienced, and must have expected the House to require rather more than high-minded commitments to high standards. Throughout his speech he kept telling us that the Bill was evidence of the Government's commitment to high standards and environmental decency. Then he passed the buck to the Parliamentary Secretary who, again, is an able and experienced Minister. He left her to reply at the end of the debate knowing that he had not given the House any detail. I suspect that the hon. Lady will not give us any either.
  It is not good enough for the Minister to say that the Government have grasped the common thread that runs through serious problems and accepted the broad principles and commitments, but will refer to the detail in Committee. I do not know whether I shall be on the Committee, but, while it may take the same view that I take and say that it wants much detail, the Minister might avoid giving that detail if he can. It is not good enough. There is so much anxiety about modern chemicals in our society that the Government have an obligation to provide the House with information so that the House and the country are assured that regulations to protect the public interest exist.
  It is interesting that in the debate two Conservative Members, who have been criticised mildly by their colleagues, spoke of their anxieties about the effect of aerial spraying on their gardens. The obvious answer is for them to invite their hon. Friends to go and sit in their gardens while the aerial spraying is proceeding. That

  831
  might be a sufficient reason for me to begin to look more kindly on aerial spraying. However, the fact remains that two experienced hon. Members expressed their anxiety, which is shared by hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens. The fact that that anxiety exists justifies the call for more information to be provided. I hope that when the Parliamentary Secretary winds up the House will be given some meat instead of merely the prospect of a little bone.
  The risks are very serious. For example, I recall taking part in a debate in the Council of Europe only a little while ago, when I said to the OECD that there is an urgent necessity for adequate international conventions to cover the use of chemicals within the environment. I believe that the OECD would welcome the opportunity to take a leading role in that development. I trust that if the Government are so committed to high standards and are embracing the principles to which the Minister referred, we shall see a vigorous pursuit of that approach.
  However, I have anxieties, because I recognise that the Government have been very laissez-faire in their commercial policies. I recognise that the South Yorkshire county council that they are about to abolish had to spend three years demonstrating that we were importing dangerous household electrical appliances, but it was difficult to get the Government to take any interest. I recognise that when the British hand tool industry was being destroyed by unfair competition, and when it won cases abroad by demonstrating that there was counterfeiting practice, the Government would not do anything about it. I have real fears that, when those irresponsible chemical industries—we have established that there are some—find that, because of world economic recession, their markets in the Third world or in other countries that are wiser than ourselves are contracting, they will see a more glistening opportunity in the United Kingdom. The present Government's record will compound the anxieties that are already expressed.
  I am not in any way a Luddite about the environment. I am concerned about it. I share the view expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) that there can be no yearning for a rural setting of idyllic value in which man starved, and became brutalised. However, at the same time, millions of our fellow citizens believe that the creation of a sterile landscape in a society with enormous farm surpluses and an environment in which man is utterly dispirited is not acceptable either.
  Therefore, I welcome the Government's action if it is to make sure that the Bill is not merely a convenient whitewash that will satisfy our European partners, present no hindrance to the irresponsible and merely allow some liberal trade in poison that could be internationally and nationally disadvantageous. I hope that we can have an adequate assurance in the wind-up speech and sufficient information in Committee to provide us with some satisfaction.
  I made an intervention in the Minister's speech about the nature of the advisory committee. There will have to be not merely the voluntary involvement of guild companies in monitoring but adequate contact and dialogue with the environmental organisations. I serve on the council of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. As the Minister knows, it is a substantial organisation. It has people of high quality and worth within its employment. I hope that that body, perhaps the
  832
  largest of the environmental organisations in Britain, will have adequate involvement in and representation on any committee that is established.
  The Agricultural Engineers Association has expressed the view that the pesticides safety precautions scheme clearance arrangements are themselves insufficient. I looked at the documents that I received from that body. As the Minister will appreciate, we have received an enormous weight of briefing material. Looking at that body's evidence—it is not an organisation with which I have had previous contact—I believe that such people should also be involved so that a balance can be achieved in the advice that the Minister receives. The manufacturing industry must not have the dominant voice. The view of the Public Health and Industrial Pesticides Council seemed very valuable. The National Society for Clean Air also has a legitimate view to express. Such organisations should be assured that their opinions and qualifications will be recognised.
  I believe that we have an international role to play. If we are to play that role, we must establish adequate protection within these islands. In spite of the Minister's high-minded commitment to decency, which was not supported by any factual content, my anxieties remain. However, I maintain the hope that there will be a bipartisan approach, which my hon. Friend suggested was possible.
  7.30 pm
  Mr. John Carlisle: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy), whose views on the environment are well known and well respected in this House. Many hon. Members have listened in the past to his speeches with great interest. The points he has put before the House today are worthy of attention.
  I have to declare an interest, as I have worked in agriculture virtually all my life, but more actively before I was elected a Member of Parliament. I was involved for a time in the sale of spray chemicals to farmers. Before BASIS was set up and when spray chemicals were first used in large quantities upon farms, the sale of those chemicals and the advice that was given to farmers was somewhat haphazard. Therefore, the new voluntary schemes and this Bill, which will, I hope, become an Act, are to be welcomed.
  The industry has been concerned for some time about the fact that a rather haphazard attitude towards chemicals is still prevalent in certain tiny sectors of the farming community. It is to the great credit of the Government that they have introduced this Bill. It is also to the great credit of the Opposition parties that they support it. It is interesting that there was virtually no dissension about the Bill in the other place, even though various amendments were moved with great aplomb and interest by its Members. There has also been very little dissension on the Floor of the House this evening. Therefore, I hope that the Bill will have a fair wind.
  We are all concerned about this problem, but I am worried that certain lobbies may jump upon this Bill as a vehicle to put forwards their own exaggerated views. I am sorry that the hon. Members for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) and for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) are not present to hear my remarks, although I hope they will read them in the morning in the Official Report.

  833
  There is a danger that the anti-farming lobby and the Friends of the Earth, although I do not place those two bodies on the same level, and certain "green" movements which have been described in the past have painted a somewhat exaggerated picture of the spraying of chemicals on farmland. If in Committee amendments and new clauses are put forward by these groups, without any real knowledge of what takes place on farms and of the responsible attitude shown by farmers, the trade, manufacturers and those who advise them it will be a great shame. I hope that the Committee will resist any such attempts. The hon. Member for Workington made some exaggerated claims which he should back up in Committee. I say the same to the hon. Member for Caerphilly. Nevertheless, I do not doubt their good intentions in putting forward their views.
  We are all agreed that full safeguards must be provided for some of the very expensive and dangerous chemicals that are being used by farmers. It is to the credit of the industry that there have been very few accidents. Nevertheless, one must not forget that accidents have occurred and that some accidents have not been officially reported. My hon. Friends the Members for Bedfordshire, North (Mr. Skeet) and for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) gave graphic descriptions of how they have been affected by spray drift. In no way would the House denigrate what my hon. Friends have said or diminish the force of their argument. However, it must be set in the context of the marvellous safety record that the industry has enjoyed during the last few years.
  I am concerned that, because of the somewhat restrictive nature of the Bill, we might begin to devalue the great contribution that pesticides and herbicides and fungicides, which are not mentioned in the same context, have made to agriculture. The agricultural revolution of the last decade had been largely due to the careful and selective use of chemicals. The massive yields of corn and vegetables that we now enjoy and the fact that we have weed-free fields and pest-free vegetables are due to the research and development that has taken place in the chemical industry. It has been of great value to agriculture and should never be devalued by the House during its discussion of the Bill.
  We must also never forget the great value of pesticides and herbicides to the Third world. Many Third world countries, which are in dire need of food and better agricultual practices, would be in an even worse position if it were not for the availability of chemicals, many of which have been manufactured and developed in this country. One has only to look at the extent of the maize crop in the African continent to understand that if the locust pest had not been controlled by chemicals, mainly from the air, the yield from those crops throughout the continent would have been disastrous.
  The House would also be well advised to remember the value to our export trade of these chemicals, in particular chemicals for use in agriculture. We export each year chemicals to the value of £360 million. The amount of employment that is generated within the chemical industry, particularly in terms of agricultural chemicals, is very great. At present, 7,268 people are employed in the industry. If I have any misgivings about the Bill, they are that if restrictive clauses or amendments are made to it the chemical industry may suffer and unemployment may follow.
  834
  As my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone (Sir J. Wells) said, during the last 25 or 27 years we have had the advantage of the voluntary pesticides safety precautions scheme, which has an advisory committee. Farmers have been advised by that committee. As a result, the number of accidents has been minimal and the misuse of chemicals has been very small. In addition to that scheme, the system known as BASIS was introduced in 1978. It was inaugurated by the United Kingdom Agricultural Supply Trade Association—a merchants' organisation. My hon. Friend the Minister of State has already mentioned that UKASTA made representations to him that BASIS should be continued. I believe that he will be sympathetic towards that argument. There is no doubt that BASIS has been a great success. It has meant that merchant representatives and others who sell chemicals have gained far greater knowledge, that the storage of chemicals has been made much safer and that the transportation of chemicals has been improved because the various problems that surround their transportation have been reduced.
  I ask my hon. Friend to consider whether the amount of voluntary assistance that BASIS has given to the chemical industry is dealt with in the Bill. The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) made that suggestion. I believe that it would attract a great deal of support from both sides of the House. The advantage of monitoring and administration by BASIS is that it would cost the Ministry nothing. I bear in mind what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone that any new appointments which have to be made will inevitably cost money. When a system is working satisfactorily on a voluntary basis, I believe that it is important for the House and the Ministry to look very carefully at that system.
  Certain questions remain to be dealt with, and in the few minutes that remain to me I should like to air them. This is an enabling Bill. Some disappointment has been expressed this evening on both sides of the House, and in another place, at the fact that the regulations have not been put forward. We are debating half in the dark because we do not know what regulations will be put forward and which chemicals will be recommended. I have great faith in the Ministry, my hon. Friend the Minister and his team, and I am sure that he has taken that point on board. If any way could be found to introduce the regulations in Committee, it would be of great value to the members of the Committee, and would allay many of the fears that have been expressed this evening.
  I hope that the Bill will retain its flexibility. I was encouraged by my noble Friend Lord Belstead when he said that the Bill was not meant to restrain trade. We want as little compulsion in the Bill and the regulations as possible.
  I am also interested in chemicals from abroad being available. In the past we have been a little worried about some of the material that has come in under the description "black drum material". The fact that some of the instructions on that material have not been in English has been mentioned. The PSPS has worked well with those chemicals, and the new regulations will be much tighter. Those chemicals should be available if farmers and growers wish to use them. Provided that they satisfy the regulations which will follow the Bill, I hope that those markets will be available for the agents who wish to import such material.
  I am worried that the smaller manufacturer might find himself at some disadvantage against the larger

  835
  manufacturer when the Bill becomes law. The House will be aware that most agricultural chemicals are manufactured by the large companies. Manufacturers should be able to introduce chemicals to the market with the protection and safeguards that the Bill provides.
  Many chemicals and many of the solutions to the problems posed by weeds and pests are stumbled upon by accident. Plant Protection, part of ICI has been mentioned. I believe that even the chemical gramoxone, which has probably completely revolutionised cereal farming over the past few years, was stumbled upon by accident. Small manufacturers can develop chemicals, and I hope that the Bill will not stifle their endeavours.
  I should like my hon. Friend the Minister to deal with the disposal of stocks. When the Bill becomes law, some fairly large stocks of chemicals may have to be withdrawn. I hope that some phasing out will be available, or a fair warning given to stockholders who have goods which they will find impossible to sell.
  It is imperative to emphasise the educational part of the Bill. Storekeepers should understand the complexity and dangers of the chemicals that they handle. The advice given to them must be sound and based upon manufacturers' experience, research and development.
  The transportation of the chemicals must be regulated; and it is most important that all operators should have full training. One of the great advantages and successes of BASIS is that operators have been brought into the scheme and educated. That is an essential part of the operation.
  Mr. John: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that UKASTA wants BASIS to be made compulsory, because UKASTA is disadvantaged in training operatives by the cowboy operators who have no qualifications for the contract spraying that has been mentioned?
  Mr. Carlisle: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He mentioned that point in his speech. I go a little further. The anxiety that UKASTA is showing about BASIS is that if the regulations become law, as we all hope they will, the scheme will collapse. There are already signs that people are leaving BASIS. UKASTA must do some hard talking to my hon. Friend the Minister to work out how BASIS can be kept going.
  The Bill does not mention seed. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will know that there is a fairly large industry involving seed, 10 per cent. of which has been chemically treated. In Committee, some provision must be made for the import and export of such seed.
  I hope that the officials who will monitor the scheme will have a great deal of knowledge, and that no cost or time will be spared in ensuring that the official investigators know the problems that they and farmers will face over the years.
  This is a first class Bill. It deserves support from both sides of the House. Its success will depend upon the co-operation of farmers, growers, the trade and manufacturers. On the Floor of the House and in another place, we have seen and heard that that co-operation will be forthcoming. Therefore, I wish the Bill a fair wind.
  7.46 pm
  Mr. Ken Eastham: It is rather unusual for me to join in a debate on agriculture because I do not represent an agricultural area. I represent a highly
  836
  industrialised city. However, whenever Bills that mention food are presented to me I take an interest so that I can air one or two points that are dear to me.
  The Bill is called the Food and Environment Protection Bill. We all recognise that there is a need for it. It is not contentious, although hon. Members on both sides of the House have spoken of their misgivings and reservations and of what they would like added in Committee.
  I recognise — I am sure that we all do— that the production of feed is essential to the health of the community. None of us is so foolish as to wish to inhibit or restrict good legislation. The Minister mentioned many of the hazards. Hazardous materials are becoming common. Pollution is causing great anxiety.
  There have been one or two hiccups in some of the chemical factories in Manchester. Explosions have justifiably worried residents. Contamination floating over industrial areas can ultimately pass to agricultural areas. We recognise that the Minister needs the legislation.
  The Bhopal disaster, involving methylisocyanate, was a salutary lesson for everyone and should make us doubly determined to see that such accidents do not happen again. Nevertheless, we must prepare ourselves. If anything should go wrong, there should be protection to ensure that people are safe.
  Occasionally there have been one or two close calls. We all recognise that industrial chemicals can cause mishaps. Because of the possibility of major incidents, extreme caution must be exercised by the Ministry.
  I am not an authority on pesticides, but I am sure that the Minister recognises that the general public are increasingly worried about the addition of chemicals and fear that far too many chemicals are used in crop management. I am sympathetic to that view, although a chemical company operates in my constituency, and I am obviously interested in its success. I am sure that it operates responsibly. It provides valuable opportunities for my constituents. The company must, however, face up to its responsibilities and be accountable. I am sure that the main chemical companies operate from that standpoint.
  I have reservations about the Bill, especially clause 1, which gives powers to Ministers. On seeing such references in documents we think of delays. In too many crises, red tape and the transmission of information from remote areas to Westminster lose valuable time. That is not in the interests of quick decisions and remedies.
  The Minister said that local government officers may carry out certain functions, but I have strong reservations about that. We need new administrative machinery to deal with these matters. I have an interest in the Institution of Environmental Health Officers. For a number of years I have been active as an honorary vice-president of that association and have referred to the problems confronted by environmental health officers. Those officers have high skills and great expertise. It is sad to realise that they lack statutory powers.
  Only a few months ago I asked questions about the handling of food. I always register an interest when I look at the titles of Bills. On seeing the title "Food and Environment Protection Bill," I wondered why the various Departments did not get their act together to inspect food. I asked about salmonella poisoning which has occurred in geriatric hospitals throughout the country. Too many people have died from salmonella poisoning.

  837
  My questions about the handling of food were referred to various Departments—a question about hospitals was referred to the Department of Health and a question about the handling of food in prisons and remand centres was referred to the Home Office. On every occasion on which I asked whether it was possible for environmental health officers visiting the establishments to have statutory rights to inspect food, I was told that it was not possible. Governments seem to be hiding behind Crown immunity. The various Departments replied saying that medical officers or governors of prisons and remand centres can invite environmental health officers to inspect food, but I am dissatisfied with that. I believe that environmental health officers can provide a valuable service in protecting health and giving advice.
  I hope that one day the various responsible Ministers will get their act together to deal with pesticides and other chemicals and ensure the safe handling of food. That matter is as important as the other aspects that we have debated. Environmental health officers should have extra powers making it unnecessary for them to have to be invited to inspect premises. They should have the right to deal with the contamination of food.
  I believe that there is no difference between poisons in crops and poisons in the food that arrives on our plates. Environmental health officers working for the environmental health authorities, and indirectly for the Government, should be given more responsibilities and rights. Because the Government wish to cut expenditure, they are not keen to accept applications by local authorities to increase the number of environmental health officers in their service. The additional expenditure incurred in regulating the handling of food is an important consideration. I am sure that the environmental health officers would appreciate a comprehensive review, but I do not expect the Parliamentary Secretary to give us a positive assurance that that will occur. I am sure that the nation will be healthier and that there will be fewer deaths in our geriatric hospitals from salmonella poisoning if Ministers recognise the importance of food hygiene.
  Unfortunately, the various Departments involved do not co-ordinate in using vital services. I do not understand why the Department of the Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Home Office and the NHS cannot get on the same wavelength and provide protection in relation to the handling of food.
  7.59 pm
  Sir John Farr: I join hon. Members on both sides of the House who have welcomed the Bill. We are glad to receive it from the other place. I am sorry that some Opposition Members have not spoken well of pesticide manufacturers and users. It is all very well for the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) and the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) to advocate the banning of aerial spraying or the introduction of a new penal code of conduct. The only result would be that their constituents would ask them why the price of foodstuffs had increased so much. Unless normal economical farm spraying, under strictly controlled conditions, is allowed to continue, the cost of food which the housewife has to buy will increase.
  I was particularly interested in the Bill because I was one of the few Members on either side of the House who did not think it was necessary. I have followed the records of farm accidents involving machinery and chemicals and
  838
  all the other incidents which affect agricultural life. Over the years, the one scheme that has worked well is the voluntary scheme which has been in operation for 27 years and which the Bill seeks to abolish.
  I cannot easily accept the abolition of an excellent scheme without a better reason than has been given for the Bill. I listened very closely to the excellent speech of the Minister of State, and I do not think he gave a meaningful reason for proceeding with the Bill. I do not regard the present voluntary control system for the use of agricultural chemicals as anything but excellent and first class. We have a record of safety and safe conduct unparalleled in modern chemical history.
  I cannot understand why we must proceed apace with the Bill when so many other problems concern our electors, such as the Auld report on shop hours and the Errol report on licensing hours. Although this is a helpful and useful little Bill, I cannot understand why it is being pushed through at this stage in the life of this Parliament, instead of continuing with an excellent voluntary scheme which no one can say has fallen down in any way.
  Mr. John: I am following the hon. Gentleman in his references to the voluntary scheme. There are at least two voluntary schemes involved in the Bill. One is BASIS in regard to the application of chemicals and the other is the pesticides safety precautions scheme. As I understand it, the Bill is necessary because imported chemicals made the voluntary scheme break down. That is why the Government have been forced to reconsider the voluntary code.
  Sir John Farr: As always, the intervention by the hon. Gentleman is helpful and very much to the point. That was not my understanding. Perhaps I am wrong. No doubt the hon. Gentleman will be on the Standing Committee and will have an opportunity to pursue that point.
  I was not aware that the voluntary scheme was not coping adequately as of today. There may be problems ahead. One cannot say for certain that that will not be the case, but the voluntary PSPS and the other legislation which impinges upon the manufacture, sale and use of pesticides have for 27 years given the country a level of protection for man, animals and environment which is second to none.
  One used to read of unfortunate accidents when a deadly mix of farm chemicals had by mistake been put in the wrong container, perhaps a lemonade bottle, and unfortunately drunk by a child who later died. That has happened from time to time, but fortunately that stupid practice has been more or less wiped out. I assure the House that there has been no call either from users or manufacturers for the elaborate new code of practice which will be incorporated in the Bill.
  This is not a Bill without cost. It will be necessary to employ 34 inspectors to operate the new compulsory system. I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will tell the House who will pay the extra cost It may be recouped by charges or by a levy on the pesticides as they are sold, but it is certain that eventually it is the consumer who will have to pay. The House should be given further details. I gather that the 34 inspectors in the new team will be employed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and by the Health and Safety Executive in the Department of Employment.
  The most contentious provisions of the Bill are in part III. As hon. Members on both sides have said, it is difficult

  839
  to debate such nebulous provisions. We must have some guidance on the form which orders will take, or we will be giving any Government a licence to print money. The House will eventually insist that there must be much more detail about the form of the orders.
  Part III says that regulations will lay down how advisers, contractors, and users of agriculture chemicals, from the date of the coming into force of the regulations, should act safely in the use of pesticides. The use of certain products from the air may be prohibited. There will no doubt be a provision requiring protective clothing to be worn. Other matters which will probably be covered in regulations are the minimum dilution rate and a restriction on application by systems other than those agreed by Ministers to be safe and efficient for the purpose. There will be other restrictions in the regulations, but without having them in front of us it is difficult to have a sensible debate about them.
  When the regulations are produced, they should provide that no pesticide will be sold in Britain without instructions relating to its use being in English. It does not need a complicated or high-powered committee to realise that most of us do not understand foreign languages. For the sake of the public, rules relating to the safe handling, disposal and use of these materials should not be in a language other than English.
  I would also like the shelf life of the chemicals to be incorporated in the regulations. Some chemicals behave differently when they reach a certain age. Often, after 18 months or two years pesticides change dramatically. They can break down and become dangerous to handle. As with cartons of milk or cream, I would like the recommended shelf life to be included in the regulations when they are produced.
  It is also important to consider the obligation of the farming community to comply with part I in relation to the contamination of food. Several of my hon. Friends have said that the Bill provides widespread powers to the Minister to order the destruction of foodstuffs in certain circumstances. When referring to part I, my hon. Friend the Minister said that those powers would be used only in serious emergencies. Of course, the House accepts that such steps must be taken in serious emergencies, but why are not the words "serious emergency" included in the Bill? I suggest to the Minister that those words be inserted in the Bill in Committee so that the provision is not left in its present vague form.
  I endorse what was said about the need for the draft regulations to be discussed and debated. It is essential that all the organisations concerned with the production and use of chemicals on the land are consulted properly. For instance, some technical items that are not included in the Bill have been raised by the Agricultural Engineers Association, which supports the Bill. It wishes to make some detailed points about the sort of spraying equipment used. It fears that the regulations will be based on the more usual sorts of spraying equipment and that more sophisticated and less used equipment will not be considered. The association believes it important to have ministerial assurances that it is consulted before the regulations are finalised, because it is responsible for making up sprayers and pumping machinery.
  The association, like Opposition Members—I agree with them — believes that it would be sensible for
  840
  operators to attend regular courses. They do not need instruction in the mechanics of operating a pump, but they need to know about scientific changes in chemicals. Although an operator may be familiar with every chemical in 1985, in 1990 it may be a different picture and he may be completely out of date.
  With those few words, I support the Bill. It is not one of the most important measures of this Parliament, but during its passage it will receive my support.
  8.14 pm
  Dr. Norman A. Godman: I welcome the Bill, but I have reservations about several clauses. I hope that the Bill will be strengthened in some areas, but that task must be left to the detailed scrutiny of the Committee.
  Part I deals with the need to tackle large-scale emergencies on land and at sea in as prompt and efficient a way as possible. That is a laudable objective, but I believe that local authorities should be featured on the face of the Bill. For example, the Shetland Islands council is deeply worried about the perennial threat of major oil spillages in and around Sullom Voe. Edinburgh is a long way from Sullom Voe, and I believe that authorities such as the Shetland Islands council should be involved in the scheme.
  I shall concentrate on parts II and III and their attendant schedules. Few hon. Members have spoken about part II, but it is of enormous importance to all of us in these islands. I do not wish to be parochial, but I am talking only about Scotland and its islands. It is especially important to our fishermen. I relate my remarks to the fishing industry, marine pollution and the offshore oil industry. In some ways, the fishing industry and our fisheries are more important than oil production, because oil, whether it is used for fuel or for the development of protein, is finite, whereas fish—the British Isles are surrounded by what could be called fish-rich seas—is a renewable resource, if it is managed properly and is not too badly affected by marine pollution.
  Paragraph 3.1 of the Rayner report on marine pollution stated, in a paragraph entitled "Scrutiny of fisheries research and development":
  "The importance of dumping to the UK as a relatively cheap means of waste disposal is considerable."
  It also said:
  "Our pre-eminent position in the dumping of industrial waste and sewage sludge puts us under severe and mounting international pressures; the onus is on the UK to justify its position."
  I have no doubt that Ministers will say that the Bill deals with that responsibility.
  It is important to emphasise that oil pollution in the North sea and elsewhere is caused partly by shipping. I remind the House—Ministers may not need reminding of this — that collisions and founderings are only a small, if spectacular, part of such pollution. It has been estimated that founderings and collisions cause only about 25 per cent. of pollution. A much larger problem of marine pollution by oil arises from the deliberate flushing of oil tanks with sea water.
  The Minister will no doubt say that there is legislation to deal with that. I agree, but it is not a particularly effective form of control and enforcement. The Economist stated on 11 February 1984:
  "contrary to popular belief, shipping is not the main culprit in North Sea oil pollution. Land run-offs, eg, from the flushing of

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  used motor and industrial oils into drainage systems, generally contributes 65–75 per cent. of the oil in the sea. A paltry 1 per cent. comes from minor accidents on offshore oil rigs."
  Having referred to pollution caused by land-based industries, I must compliment the river purification boards for the marvellous work that they do. I live on the Clyde and I am thrilled to hear — I have not seen them for myself—that salmon are returning to the upper Clyde. That is a tribute to the Clyde river purification board and the way in which it has dealt with pollution in that river.
  Other aspects of pollution of our seas were outlined in that article in The Economist. For example, it reported:
  "There is no international agreement directly covering pollution in the whole of the North Sea. Instead, there is a welter of laws and conventions, national and international, designed to control specific problems. However, some are relatively permissive; others poorly enforced; yet others languishing for lack of ratification."
  I hope, because I welcome the Bill, that the proposals in part II will put right that driech state of affairs.
  Pollution problems associated with oil exploration and production are of importance to the people of Scotland, particularly those who obtain their employment in the Scottish fishing industry. Oil can present many problems for fishermen. For example, oil-related pipes and other debris are sometimes washed up on beaches. The oil industry should accept responsibility for removing and disposing of such objects.
  Damage is often done to fishing gear by oil-related debris. After an exploration rig has completed drilling, all debris should be removed by those directly involved in that exploration. Following a survey, a certificate should have to be obtained by those concerned stating that the area has been checked and is free of debris. Such a step would greatly help Scottish fishermen.
  I could give various examples of the problems that we face north of the border. Recently, a large anchor and 1,000 feet of chain were picked up in Coalgrave sound by a tanker waiting to berth at Sullom Voe. People in Shetland believe that the anchor and chain were almost certainly lost—I cannot believe that they were discarded—from a vessel engaged in offshore construction. The tanker picked up that anchor and chain when lifting its own anchor.
  I may be seen to be defending the fishermen—it is right that I should be seen doing that—but I admit that they are not entirely blameless in relation to marine pollution. For example, The Scotsman in an article on 27 January last said about fishermen:
  "plastic pollution is killing millions of birds, fish, whales, seals and sea turtles, marine scientists report … Large pieces of plastic nets often break off, becoming what are called 'ghost nets' that present a continuous floating threat. Mr. Robert Day, an ornithologist at the University of Alaska in Fairbank, said seabirds often became entangled when they dived for trapped fish."
  I readily acknowledge that fishermen also have a part to play in reducing the pollution of our seas.
  Monitoring is dealt with in clause 12. The Rayner report—I hasten to point out that it was published in 1982—said about monitoring:
  "Monitoring arrangements are not uniform. Some sites receiving only limited categories of waste are not monitored at all while others, notably those receiving sewage sludge and liquid industrial waste, require a high level of effort. Because of staff shortages"—
  the hon. Member for Harborough (Sir. J. Farr) spoke of the numbers of staff monitoring the whole programme—
  "the monitoring programme is well behind schedule as regards the assessment of data collected and the publication of reports."
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  Have the recommendations in paragraph 3·47 of that report in relation to the need for additional staff been adopted by the Government?
  I welcomed the Minister's remarks about exemptions, as provided for in clause 7. He spoke of static gear and the need to protect it. This is an important issue for many fishermen in Scotland, particularly those in the Western isles. Will the exemptions cover fish farmers who have put down sea cages in sea lochs and in the voes in Shetland? Will they also cover offshore exploration and research?
  In considering part II of the Bill and the scuttling of vessels, it is interesting to note that the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines "scuttle" as
  "To withdraw in a precipitate and undignified manner from the occupation or control of a country."
  That is not the definition we seek in this context. However, it goes on to give another definition of "scuttle":
  "To cut or bore a hole or holes in the sides or bottom of (a vessel, for the purpose of sinking her)."
  Will this definition cover the abandonment of offshore drilling structures when or after they end their operational lives? This is an important issue which we, the Norwegians and others will have to face. What will happen to the concrete structures, to the sub-sea systems, once the oil has gone from certain fields? Do these rigs or structures come under the term "marine structure" that appears in the Bill? These are important issues to our fishermen. The fishing industry is important to the nation and the House will recall that I talked earlier about the fish-rich seas surrounding the British Isles.
  I shall address myself now to part III. As the son of a Hull fishergirl and the grandson of an Aberdeen fishergirl, I know rather more about fishing than agriculture but that will not prevent me from putting some questions to the Minister. I welcome the attempt more effectively to regulate the use of pesticides in the British Isles. However, I want to see some changes made to the Bill. I hope that I am selected as one of those to consider the Bill in Committee, but that is beyond my powers to influence.
  I acknowledge that clause 15(4) requires Ministers to consult the Health and Safety Commission over proposed regulations with health and safety implications. Such an arrangement does not facilitate free and open representation of the main interests involved in pesticide control. In fairness to Ministers, I should declare an interest. I am sponsored by the Transport and General Workers Union, of which the union representing agricultural workers is now a part. In the light of widespread lack of public confidence in the pesticides safety precautions scheme as a voluntary or statutory scheme, will the Minister give an assurance that agricultural workers and their representatives will in future have a direct input into the decision-making procedure on pesticide safety clearance? I remind the Minister that it has been suggested that under the new arrangements no information about pesticides should he disclosed to the public without the consent of manufacturers. I ask the Minister to give the House an assurance that no such escape clause will be available to manufacturers. Does she agree that the public have a right to all information that is required to be disclosed to authorities under the proposed statutory scheme?
  It is proposed that the number of agricultural inspectors be increased by 18 to enforce the proposed pesticides controls. Will the Minister state how such enforcement can be undertaken properly when the number of inspectors is insufficient to deal with the majority of occupational

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  health and safety risks that are faced by agriculture workers and others in related industries, bearing in mind the numerous undertakings in which pesticides are used?
  I note the proposal that Ministers should have powers to lay down the maximum permissible residues for pesticides in agricultural products, but will the Minister confirm that this will not provide a means for circumventing the EEC scheme for statutory maximum limits for residues in favour of the existing UK voluntary scheme? Given the current reliance on company information and expertise from within the agrochemical industry and the attendant lack of public confidence in toxicity assessment, will the Minister give the House an assurance that adequate resources are available to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for the implementation of the Dumping at Sea Act and to the Health and Safety Commission to allow the appointment of independent inspectors?
  In view of the hazards attendant upon the use of pesticides and the responsibility of both manufacturers and suppliers to the user, does the Minister intend to make approval of specific pesticides conditional upon the provision of adequate instruction and training by suppliers for all users, who in turn will have a similar duty to train workers? I do not expect answers to all my questions this evening. However, I shall be grateful if the Minister says that she will write to me to respond to the questions that she does not answer this evening.
  I give the Bill a cautiously optimistic welcome. Marine pollution is a serious problem for one of our indigenous industries. The Minister knows that I keep a rather sharp eye on what takes place in Brussels on the common fisheries policy. If the fishing industry is managed properly and if we reduce marine pollution, the industry will be with us for many more generations than offshore oil and gas. As I have said, I give the Bill a cautiously optimistic welcome in the belief that a good deal needs to be done in Committee.
  8.38 pm
  Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: The hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) has raised some interesting matters which I hope he will pursue in Committee. He talked about petroleum installations in the North sea. It would be necessary to obtain the consent of the Government or the Department of Energy before the installations and structures could be sited and are obligated to remove them at the termination of work in certain fields. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising such matters, and I shall study them in great depth.
  My hon. Friends the Members for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) and for Harborough (Sir J. Farr) raised some fascinating issues, some of which I shall take up.
  We have the Bill before us because of an infringement of article 85 of the treaty of Rome. I think that the Minister will acknowledge that the operation of the voluntary scheme was considered to be a restrictive practice. However, I must pay tribute to the remarkable work of those associated with it and their success over the past quarter of a century. The successful operation of the scheme and the existence of a monopoly practice which was inconsistent with the competition theories within the
  844
  Community made it necessary for the Bill to be introduced. If a statutory undertaking replaces a voluntary one, there is no reason to say that the successor will be unsuccessful. I wish the Bill success.
  A statement of intentions on the regulations has been issued by the Minister. That will help us to a certain extent. On 12 February, in a written answer, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary referred to the need
  "to circulate a new consultation document detailing the proposed regulations and the administrative arrangements which will accompany them in the late spring."
  Surely that document will appear before Report. I hope that the intervention will be timely and that we will be able to discuss the document then. My hon. Friend continued:
  "The consultations on these proposals will continue for as long as necessary, but our aim is to lay the regulations in Parliament this autumn, with a view to their entry into force early in 1986." — [Official Report, 12 February 1985; Vol. 73, c. 107.]
  That is a long shot. It seems to me that part III of this enabling Bill, which is very important, will never be properly discussed. That is not the right way to handle the legislation.
  I know that my hon. Friend the Minister of State is extremely sympathetic and has been doing remarkable work in his Department. However, he will understand the difficulties of Back Benchers who wish to grapple with important matters. I hope that he will reconsider the matter and make the documents available to us in draft form even though that may not be the final form—so that we can see their general format and decide what arguments should be adduced.
  On part I, I agree that the Bill gives no definition of an emergency. I am thinking, for instance, of Bhopal in India; of Windscale, where radioactive iodine and polonium escaped; or at Seveso where there was an escape of toxic chemicals in 1976. Those were serious emergencies.
  The Energy Act 1976 covered emergencies, such as oil creating an emergency in the market. The Government have substantial powers to intervene in such cases in order to set the price of oil, to purchase it, and so on, but no attempt was made in that legislation to define an emergency. Flexibility is required. It is essential that the Government should be able to operate quickly. Local authorities could not expect to be consulted in circumstances in which Governments have to operate with lightning speed to mitigate any damage.
  Reference has been made to the idea of compensation for innocent third parties. Companies may go into liquidation. Tragedies may occur. A farmer may lose half of his stock or all of his crops. The Government should table an amendment to set up an ex gratia fund for compensation.
  On part II of the Bill, I take up the question of dumping at sea, to which the hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow has referred. I noted with alarm the repeal under clause 14 of the Dumping at Sea Act 1974, but have been agreeably surprised that the legislation has been reborn in the Bill. It includes the Oslo convention of 1974 and the London dumping convention of 1975. The protocol to the Oslo convention of 1983, covering incineration at sea, is also incorporated.
  The independent review of the disposal of radioactive waste at sea—the Holliday report—was published last November. We had been utilising our authority under the convention to dump low-level waste in certain deep-water

  845
  areas of the Atlantic, and I was glad to see in the Holliday report that the dumping had only a very limited impact on man and marine life. It would be a great shame if permanent discontinuance could disturb the nuclear industry and it could not resort to such dumping in future. My hon. Friend the Minister will say that the ad hoc scientific review of the London dumping convention has yet to appear, and he will probably refer me to the site suitability review of the Nuclear Energy Agency, but he should say something today. Is that avenue to be closed for ever so that nuclear waste cannot be dumped at sea at all? If so, an important option will be lost. If dumping cannot be done at sea, or in space — which is too expensive—Governments will have to dump the waste on land. One must consider the most suitable environmental option available. I think that the sea should be considered further.
  The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) made an interesting point about burial under the seabed. It stands to reason that if waste cannot be buried in the Atlantic, even in canisters, it will also be forbidden to bury it under the seabed, because one would have to operate through the water. The only alternative would be to burrow out from the shore and form caverns under the sea. Perhaps my hon. Friend will clarify such points. It is important that the Committee should know what it is talking about.
  Turning to part III, I pay tribute to the pesticides safety precautions scheme, which has done a remarkably good job for a number of years. It has coped with about 4,500 pesticides. The agricultural chemicals approval scheme covers another 700 chemicals. A Royal Commission recommended that the two bodies should be merged. Is that in my hon. Friend's mind?
  The Minister has given the Advisory Committee on Pesticides a statutory form. We shall have to study its constitution, and it will be discussed in Committee.
  I am surprised that in such a long debate no one has mentioned one problem connected with agriculture. The scale of pesticide use will be reduced further and further as, in the course of time, chemicals cease to be effective. Chemicals are becoming less and less effective as insects develop greater resistance. As the insects are strengthened, the chemicals grow weaker.
  No one has referred to the growing area of biotechnology, which is providing some of the routes ahead. Biotechnology has stimulated crop yields. It is making crops resistant to disease by fortifying their immunity, and it is being utilised to alleviate environmental stress. Crop protection agents based on microorganisms — for example, provide the fungal material that controls aphids and white fly in glasshouses — is a case in point. From bacteria grown in a fermenter, a product has been developed by Microbial Resources Limited for the destruction of the mosquito larvae. If chemicals will not function, perhaps we should consider these alternatives. It preserves the environment and has no side effects with which we need concern ourselves.
  As to the export of pesticides, an article in The Times of 16 December 1984 said:
  "Britain, the world's third largest manufacturer, has no notification procedures and no restraints on exports."
  As a result of the Bill, we shall have modified procedures. I pay tribute to the other place for making some useful amendments. Clause 15(11)(b) was one, and that requires exporters
  846
  "for the fulfilment of the government of the United Kingdom of any international obligation to supply information".
  Paragraph (c) makes provision:
  "to enable the government of the United Kingdom to determine what action it should take in order to fulfil an international obligation of any other description."
  The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) said that there have been about 10,000 deaths in the Third world nations. The United Kingdom has had nothing like that. It is incumbent on the Governments of industrial countries to take deaths in the Third world seriously. I should like clause 15 to be tightened. That could be considered in Committee.
  I have a document which says that it is not the full answer for the exporting country to inform the importing country of its regulations relating to pesticides and the reasons for them and, having been given that information, the importing country must specifically request that the export takes place. It should be remembered that some of the people involved are not erudite in the sciences but have a problem that must be dealt with immediately. The result is that they import the material and it leads to many casualties. While considering a major Bill, we should address that problem by suitable amendments.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) said that aerial crop spraying is important. I agree that it is probably the only way in which forests can be sprayed adequately. If the industry is faced with large-scale infestation, aerial spraying is essential. However, is it essential to spray from the air crops in a field of perhaps only two or three acres? A vehicle is manoeuvrable but aircraft are not, and yet they must turn in a small space. While turning, therefore, they spray hedgerows, allotments and gardens, doing unaccountable damage to all species, including insects and birds. We should not forget that aerial spraying might account for only 2 per cent. of pesticide applications.
  The hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Hardy) I said that, of the 5·3 billion hectares of crops that were treated with pesticides in 1982, 360,000 hectares were sprayed from aircraft. That represents a significant proportion—6·8 per cent. As many firms are involved, could e not screw down more rigorous conditions to ensure that people and the countryside are safeguarded? My hon. Friend the Minister will rightly say that the Civil Aviation Authority will do all the necessary monitoring. I have already said that I have been sprayed during the past five years. I was not notified by any farmer that there would be spraying. I understand the problems associated with aircraft—that they have to come straight down the hillside and turn fairly sharply at the boundary. Notification procedures alone are not satisfactory. I should have thought that my hon. Friend could work out a much better system. Perhaps a licensing system would be more effective.
  I dare say that my hon. Friend the Minister will say that the permitted distance has been extended from 75 ft to 200 ft on a horizontal path from houses, but is that adequate when dealing with aircraft flying at 200 ft? The Belgians have stipulated that spraying should not be done within 2,000m of dwellings or within 300m of a single house. Denmark specifies 300m for a single house, the Netherlands between 100m and 150m and the Federal Republic of Germany 50m to 100m.
  I support the Bill. It has been thrust on the United Kingdom, but we have no alternative. We can argue about it in Committee, but I regret that we shall have our hands

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  tied behind our backs. It is enabling legislation which it will be hard to modify without understanding completely what is going on. However, I trust the Minister to do his best in the interests of industry, the environment and the country.
  8.57 pm
  Mr. Simon Hughes: I apologise for not being here at the beginning of the debate but the Committee considering the Local Government Bill was sitting most of this afternoon. I therefore left this issue in the capable hands of my hon. Friend the Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells). We rarely feature together. It is relevant that the last time was a debate on overseas aid during a Supply day initiated by the Liberal party. The issues associated with the Bill and food to the Third world are related. They concern the health of people and the health of our planet.
  In answer to a question posed earlier by the hon. Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr), the Bill is before us because it is a response not only to international pressure, which I support when it moves in this direction whether it emanates from the general diplomatic community or from the European Community, but in response to a public mood. The public believe that it is essential for there to be control of activities that are a necessary part of our food production process, but that have sometimes been a threat to the right balance between the technical developments and the natural response to looking after our heritage.
  I know that the Government accept that it is important that we see this legislation in the context of its international dimension. Therefore, is the Parliamentary Secretary satisfied that if the intention behind the legislation is carried through, and we see the details of the subordinate legislation, we shall have legislation as good as that of any of our European partners or of western Europe generally? That must be our objective in controlling pollution by chemicals, in regulation and marketing, and in making sure that our food is healthy. We must move increasingly to a healthy food society away from what is called the trash food society, and we must ensure that we have the highest standard among our colleagues and competitors.
  The Parliamentary Secretary must address another important point. In the past, outline legislation such as this has been introduced but it has been a decade or more before it has been firmed up. The best example, which does not emanate from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, is the Control of Pollution Act. The Parliamentary Secretary will know that only recently has a large part of that Act been enforced, 10 years after it was first enacted. I hope that with this Bill we shall see the whole work soon and are not left to wait for the subordinate legislation for years. People want to see not just the outline but the substance.
  I am glad to see the hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) in his place. He will know that we have to ensure that the Bill is not full of loopholes and exemptions that will result in us coming back again. As the Parliamentary Secretary will know, tomorrow we are debating in Committee the Wildlife and Countryside (Amendment) Bill, a Bill required because the first Act did not deal with
  848
  a blatant loophole. That loophole meant that sites of special scientific interest could be ploughed up and got rid of in the first three months after notification.
  It has been asked why we need compulsion when the voluntary arrangements had — the hon. Member for Harborough said — worked well. The answer is that unless there is a statutory framework, one cannot guarantee that people do not abuse the freedom that they have. The Wildlife and Countryside Act evidenced that in a way that the whole House recognised and by which it was appalled. I hope that the Minister will accept that that is why we cannot allow the Bill to have exemptions through which a coach and horse could be driven. We must have tightly drawn provisions. We must not be persuaded away from the right path in making the legislation effective.
  The Bill may reflect a move away from the industrial revolution of the last century and the agricultural revolution of this century, to the environmental revolution of the next century. I hope that it does. Rightly, we responded in the 19th century to the needs of industry. This century, we responded to the requirements put upon our farmers to produce more food. We need to ensure that the food that is desperately required, not just by us but by the world, is produced. One could go into the best ways of doing that worldwide. We now need to ensure that in doing all these things—these are the tasks that Ministers are charged with supervising and dealing with — our production society is increasingly environmentally sensitive.
  The hon. Member for Greenock and, Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) and other hon. Members have said that we have to ensure that all that we do is in that context. For example, we should ensure that our litter is biodegradable. Milk containers, which may be thrown on the ground, should not be harmful to the environment, and should not be pollutants. We have to ensure that we use and control our chemicals in a way that is sensitive and sympathetic to what we require our producers — the farmers and fishermen—to do.
  It is increasingly important that, whatever Government are in power—I am trying to avoid party political points — there is greater co-ordination between Departments, not only between the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Department of the Environment but between those Departments and the Welsh and Scottish Offices. In what we do we must ensure that the information base, the data banks, the available statistics and the comparisons with our partners in Europe and elsewhere are used by us properly across the range of development — and obviously this applies to the Departments which have responsibility for energy, trade and industry and so on. We must ensure that the best information is available so that the enforcement mechanisms provided by the Bill are used across the spectrum of our national life.
  All of us are, in the time span of this world, here for a minute time. It is our principal task while we are here to make sure that time is not ended by our activities.
  Mr. John: The hon. Gentleman is waking my neurosis.
  Mr. Hughes: The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) is getting worried because he has stolen a few marches on me, but he will well know that that does not dictate the order in which we are called away from our task on this planet, and that must be a consolation to him. He

  849
  will know, as I do, that anybody with Welsh blood lives a longer and richer life than many other people. Indeed, all Celts are normally included in that category, and I can claim Scots blood too.
  Because we are here for such a short time, our task is to be stewards in all that we do. We are lucky — in words that are familiar to everybody, not only to Members of Parliament — that we have in this country a very green and pleasant land. We must therefore be on our guard to ensure that the short-term gain does not lead to a long-term loss.
  That is what the Bill is concerned with, producing for tomorrow but losing for the future. Because of our great responsibility as stewards, we must make sure that we frame not hollow legislation but an expanded series of enactments to do the job of stewarding with increased vigour and effectiveness.
  It is trite nowadays to say that the world faces a food catastrophe. The people who live in the Horn of Africa are probably the most evident examples of that. We know that the world also faces an environmental catastrophe. Less and less of our land is cultivable for an ever growing number of people. The population growth projections are horrifying when one reflects upon them. We therefore have a collective responsibility to make sure that our bit of the world, the bit that is our backyard, has proper food and environmental protection. We hope that the Bill will be the launch pad for effective proposals in complete, not outline, form which will be increasingly supported by all parties in the near future.
  9.7 pm
  Dr. David Clark: The debate has been constructive. At times I felt that the only slightly beleaguered person was the Minister. No doubt the Parliamentary Secretary in her reply will explain her situation in that respect.
  It was particularly apposite that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) made the point that hon. Members throughout the debate have been constructive. We are conscious that this Bill, like so many Bills which are of a semi-technical nature, may easily be wrongly drafted so that the end product is defective. As outlined by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 has been agreed by hon. Members on both sides of the House to be defective. I must apologise to the House for having been absent from the Chamber for part of the debate. Through the usual channels, I have been involved in discussion of the business of the Committee which tomorrow will consider the Wildlife and Countryside (Amendment) Bill. Hon. Members on both sides of the House are anxious to correct the anomalies of the 1981 Act.
  This Bill is yet another example of agriculture impinging on the environment, or possibly the environment impinging upon agriculture. I wish that the Government had treated the subject in that way. It would have been better if a Minister from the Department of the Environment were to respond to the debate. In the Committee on the Wildlife and Countryside (Amendment) Bill tomorrow a Minister responsible for agriculture will be part of the team.
  The debate and the advance publicity has tended to concentrate on pesticides. That is not surprising because many of us realise that the events in Rachel Carson's
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  "Silent Spring" have not been true of our island in the way that some people thought in the 1960s, although they can be applied to many parts of the world.
  The hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Howells) was right to criticise cuts in expenditure on soil surveys. The nation cannot afford to allow its soil to go unresearched and unmonitored. Halving the money available bodes ill for the future of agriculture. Anxiety about that is felt on all sides of the House.
  The debate has been useful and constructive because the issues affect all our constituents, whether they live in town or in country. The hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills) stressed that we are all consumers and that we are all worried about what is in our food. Pesticides used to treat crops have an effect on our food.
  I hope that the Opposition's approach is not neolithic. My hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) made it clear that pesticides have brought great advantages to agriculture, horticulture and forestry. We have managed to increase cropping and to take some of the hard work out of agriculture. However, we must get the Bill right.
  As the Minister said, the debate is not about agriculture alone, but about pesticides and other chemicals, used in hospitals for example. The issue affects all people who work with chemicals.
  On 20 November 1984 my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) asked about the link between cancer among workers and the use of pesticides. On 12 February my hon. Friend the Member of Workington (Mr Campbell-Savours) also raised that issue.
  In the Lancet of 14 May 1983 an interesting table was published. I mention it, not to try to prove a point but to remind the House that the Lancet concluded that there was a higher incidence of malformations among the children of agricultural workers and groundsmen— people who use chemicals—than in other groups. I do not argue that that is conclusive, but I remind the House that we are talking about almost every occupation.
  Pesticides obviously spell danger. They can cause danger to users and, as the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, North (Mr. Skeet) said, to innocent bystanders. The spray might go off course and affect people who are walking on a footpath, standing by the roadside or driving along a street. So it is not only the people who use the pesticide who are at risk, nor is it only people. The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) raised a point on clause 15, which affects flora and fauna, and suggested that perhaps more attention should be paid to this. Modern pesticides are more effective and more complicated than their predecessors and there are therefore more accompanying worries and dangers in addition to the problems of production.
  I shall deal with the Bill in chronological order and say a few words about each of the parts.
  Part I deals with the powers and duties of the Government in the case of emergency, and obviously the Opposition understand the reasons why it is being brought forward and support the motives for introducing this par of the Bill. We are a little concerned, however, about the way in which local authorities appear not to have been consulted and the fact that there does not appear to be a role for them. I understand absolutely the need for speed—that is the whole point of an emergency—but I feel that there should be a much greater initiative to try to involve the local authorities. It is often the local authorities

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  that have the skilled personnel and the officers experienced in the quality of food. In view of the restricted numbers of staff available to the Minister, it is quite plain that he will have to rely on local authority staff. So I hope that he will pursue that further and perhaps during the Committee stage give us a little more reassurance on that point.
  I wonder whether the Minister could also give us some assurance about accidents that might occur at sea. Since I represent a port constituency, I am very conscious of this danger. I have put down a number of questions to try to glean information and I know that the Government have been trying to identify certain safe havens along the United Kingdom coastline to see where damaged tankers or vessels with dangerous cargoes could be isolated if an emergency occurred. The Minister quoted the case of the Aeolian Sky off the Portland Bill, which came to nothing, as it happened, but in this case we are involving the Ministry of Defence, the Ministry of Transport and other Ministries. Is the Minister absolutely certain that his fellow Ministers are aware of and able to co-operate in this particular exercise? We recognise the need for action and we must get it right if we possibly can.
  Part II deals with dumping at sea. My hon. Friend the Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) elaborated on this point and made some very useful and sensitive inquiries. As we all know, this Bill repeals the Dumping at Sea Act 1974. When an Act is repealed it is inevitable that there is concern. The fact that the Oslo conference and the London dumping conference, which basically govern the Government's attitude and action with regard to the sea, are not mentioned in this new Bill causes us some concern.
  Basically, however, my worry is about clause 8 of the Bill, which says that the licensing authority, when deciding whether material should be disposed of at sea,
  "shall have regard to the need — (i) to protect the marine environment … and (ii) to prevent interference with legitimate uses of the sea".
  That is quite clear, but it goes on to say:
  "may have regard to such other matters as the authority considers relevant."
  I think that the Minister of State reiterated the point today that he made in a written answer on 14 February, when he said that the Bill
  "contains all the necessary powers to implement the international conventions on dumping at sea". — [Official Report, 14 February 1985; Vol. 73, c. 263.]
  Certainly part II contains powers, but what it does not always do, in common with part III, is impose obligations. There is a difference there, which we shall want to probe in Committee.
  I should like to explain that further. As the House knows, our attitudes and actions are governed by the Oslo convention. Implementation was incomplete. In a sense, the Bill does nothing to rectify that. The key aspect of the Oslo convention, which goes unmentioned in the Bill, is in the final section of annex III. Dealing with the principles governing the issue of licences, it states:
  "in applying these principles, the practical availability of alternative means of disposal or elimination will be taken into consideration."
  That is a very important point. When it has been raised on previous occasions the Government have come up with three answers. First, they have said that it would not be relevant to certain operations such as the deposit of materials from harbour works. Secondly, they have said
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  that one should not single out any one criterion from the Oslo convention annex. Thirdly, they have said that the availability of alternatives to sea dumping was in any case always taken into account by the licensing authorities.
  Let me examine those three answers. The first reason is spurious. If there are no other means of disposal, the dumping licence could always be granted. Again, the second point seems to be invalid. The need to consider alternative disposal options is not a criterion like others in the annex, but an obligation. That comes back to the point that I was making about powers and obligations. That leaves only the third reason. Why on earth cannot the Government accept an amendment if they already do what is required? I hope that the Government will feel able to amend the Bill in Committee, perhaps to alter schedule 3 to include a provision meaning that the alternative practicable means of dumping are considered.
  I emphasise this point strongly. I have said it previously at the Dispatch Box. I see that there is a statement in today's edition of The Guardian that emphasises it. The Prime Minister of Sweden is again beginning to call for economic action against Britain. We are now the bad neighbours in Europe. That applies to acid rain and dumping in the sea. As my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd made clear, we use the North sea as a dump far more than any other nation. Some 98·8 per cent. of the total sewage sludge dumped in the North sea is dumped by Britain.
  I checked the licences from my area to see what is being dumped. If my people realised what was being dumped in the North sea off the port of Tyne, they would be horrified. Industrial effluent from fine chemical manufacture is dumped in liquid form—I am not talking about dredged spoil or sewage. Ammonium salts and salt solution from fine chemical manufacture are dumped. Pulverised fuel ash and sewage sludge are dumped. I could go on. I am worried immensely that phenolic effluent, the remains of pesticide manufacture, is dumped. That material is licensed by the Government to be dumped in the North sea. That causes alarm to the fishermen in my constituency and also to our neighbours across the water. I warn the Government that unless they become environmentally conscious, which they are not in spite of their self-proclamation, they will be isolated in Europe and we shall pay the economic cost for it.
  May I deal with the regulations. Almost every hon. Member who has spoken today pressed the Government on this point. We are being asked to buy a pig in a poke. We understand the Minister's intention. We have before us his declaration of intent. However, a number of Opposition Members doubt the Government's commitment to delivering many of the things that they say they can deliver. In the other place, and from both sides of the House tonight, there have been demands that the draft regulations must be put before us. It is ridiculous for those draft regulations to be withheld.
  The Minister of State said that he did not want to prejudge the outcome of the consultations with other groups, but he is consulting because he is releasing the proposals for regulations without which the Bill is an empty vessel. The Minister must be well aware that the elected Members of Parliament have the right to a say in the formulation of those regulations and that all the groups he is consulting, ranging from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds to the National Farmers Union, are

  853
  calling for the regulations to be laid before the House before the Bill is passed. I urge the Government to do this as strongly as I can.
  Just before the Bill left the other place the Minister promised peers that he would consider whether it would be possible to circulate a detailed statement about the proposed regulations. I understand that his right hon. Friend has retracted that promise, which I very much regret. I am referring not to the declaration of intent but to the announcement by Lord Belstead on 5 February that he hoped to be able to publish a detailed statement of the proposed implementation regulations. We understand that they will not be forthcoming. I am referring not to the declaration of intent—I may be wrong about this—but to the reference sheet issued by the Library of the House of Commons, the consultation paper on the regulations. I urge the Government to honour the pledge given by Lord Belstead.
  One of the other reasons that was advanced for this move is that one can trust civil servants. I am afraid that over the years a number of hon. Members have become a little worried about civil servants. I asked somebody to look at the official records for 30 years ago, which have just been released by the Public Record Office. I had not realised that just 30 years ago a working party was set up to consider the precautionary measures to be taken against toxic substances used in agriculture. It was chaired by no less a person than Professor Zuckerman as he then was. There was also a panel that considered the retail sales of proprietary pest control products. These committees met between 1950 and 1953. It was fascinating to discover that 30 years ago they recommended the same controls as we are discussing tonight and, indeed, further controls that we are not even discussing tonight. There is a lesson to be learned from that. I would advise hon. Members to check the records because they are very illuminating.
  It was suggested in the first report that warning notices should be put up on field gates where spraying had taken place or was taking place. This was to be done "in the public interest." I am sure that that would appeal to the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, North. Another point that was raised was that doctors and hospitals should be forewarned if spraying with organophosphorous pesticides was to take place in the area. One of the problems nowadays is that doctors are unable to treat those who have been affected by spray drift because they do not know what that spray drift consists of. It is interesting to note that both those recommendations were suppressed by the Ministry committee which met subsequently. That is what happened to the regulations that were advanced 30 years ago.
  Lord Zuckerman's second report said that all new pesticides should be registered by law and all pesticide contractors should be licensed. That report, again, was emasculated by Ministers and when the regulations appeared in draft they were in a different form. Although the committee recommended statutory control, it never happened. If we look through all the records we find that similar things come up time and time again. We are worried at the idea of regulations being left in the hands of bodies other than the House.
  We are not just talking about pesticides affecting crops; we are talking about pesticides eventually affecting individuals. That is why there has been a demand for freedom of information from both sides of the House. I cannot understand why matters are being kept secret. It is
  854
  no use the Minister going half way because the information is available. Most of the agrochemical companies are multinationals and most of them have American connections.
  As an experiment, together with the Friends of the Earth, I wondered whether we could obtain information about glyphosate. It is a chemical rather similar to paraquat but more effective. We filed to the United States and we have the information. It is available here on microfiche. It is available to anyone, and to any other chemical company. If it is available in the United States it should be available here. A further point that is often raised is that its availability would disclose company information. That is not so. I have the print-out of some of those microfiches and the company information is left blank. The microfiche does not tell us how to make the chemicals. People do not want to know that, but it tells them what is in the chemicals.
  The important point is — the Americans have this right and we must, too—that such information protects not just the public; a proper screening method also protects the manufacturer from other unscrupulous manufacturers.
  There are many other matters about which I could have talked, but my hon. Friends have covered them. We believe that the Bill is sound, and the framework is right. We should like to play our part in filling that framework because from experience it has seemed to us, for example, with the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, that when we have left matters to regulations they have been found wanting.
  9.32 pm
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mrs. Peggy Fenner): Beleaguered I may be, but I am grateful for all the points which have been raised today. My hon. Friend the Minister of State and I have listened to them with great attention, and I feel that we have had a constructive debate. The variety of points made shows how widespread is the interest in the subject of the Bill and how strongly held these views are. The fact that so many hon. Members have spoken today and their general support for the principles underlying the Bill strongly vindicate the Government's decision to bring forward legislation on this matter.
  My colleagues and I shall of course consider carefully all that has been said. Some of the points raised we had heard before in another place but some of them were new. I shall ensure that they are all given full attention before the Bill moves on to its next stage in the House.
  It is understandable that many of the questions put to the Government today were about the way in which we shall use the powers that we are seeking. We shall endeavour to provide answers to those questions as the Bill proceeds, and I hope that we shall be able to reassure questioners that the Government are anxious to introduce practical, realistic and environmentally sound arrangements. On the matters on which there will be further consultation, I can give a firm undertaking that final decisions will not be made until the views of those affected have been examined.
  I took as many notes as I could during the debate. If I do not answer all the points that were raised because of the

  855
  limited time, I assure hon. Members that I will respond to them later. Of course, many of them are Committee points.
  Many hon. Members wanted to know what would be in the regulations and wanted the opportunity to express their views on them. This is a basic matter and it is natural and reasonable that they should want further detail. There is at present no power to make such regulations. The first necessary step is to take these powers, which means that Parliament must decide exactly the scope of the powers and what they should be. That is why the Bill is before the House.
  The next step is to draft regulations. That is a detailed job and necessarily involves a very full discussion between the Government and all those bodies with any interest in pesticide use — manufacturers, users, environmental groups, distributors and so on, all with an informed, valuable and differing contribution to make. That process of discussion must take place before regulations can be prepared. It will begin as soon as the Bill becomes law.
  Of course, preparations are already being made, but to argue that the regulations ought to be ready now is to argue that the Bill should wait until everything else is finalised. There is no reason why the enabling legislation should be held up until the subordinate legislation has been drafted. The Government are acting in a logical order.
  Hon. Members seem to underrate the statement of intent which was made available to them. I urge them to examine it again. It gives a fair general picture of the matters that will be covered in regulations and, in regard to the need for future consultation, it gives an indication of what will be provided. I assure hon. Members that the Government's consultation document and all the proposals discussed with interested organisations will be made available to them. My right hon. Friends will be more than willing to receive the views of hon. Members while the process of consultation is taking place.
  Mr. John: Do I take it from what the hon. Lady says that the only opportunity that we will officially have as a House of Commons to debate the matter will be on take-it-or-leave-it basis when the regulations are printed?
  Mrs. Fenner: I shall have to consider carefully the views that have been expressed by the House today. I pledge to do that.
  Mr. Campbell-Savours: Is it true that officials of the Department have submitted to the manufacturers draft regulations?
  Mrs. Fenner: So far as I am aware, no. A consultation document will be prepared which will go out to all interested bodies.
  Mr. Hardy: If the consultation paper is prepared, can we be sure that it will also be submitted to the Committee, or that it will not be sent out to the manufacturers about two days after the Committee has concluded its deliberations?
  Mrs. Fenner: Hon. Members can all have the consultation paper. I know I must not quote directly, but my noble Friend said exactly that:
  "The Government intend to issue a consultation paper on the details of the regulations and to get down to drafting the regulations when we have received the responses."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 5 February 1985; Vol. 459, c. 1052.]
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  I trust that that answers the hon. Gentleman.
  The hon. Member for Pontypridd (Mr. John) asked for a definition of an emergency under part I. It is the nature of an emergency that it cannot be defined in advance. Someone must decide whether an emergency has arisen. The Bill puts that responsibility on Ministers and then rightly provides Ministers with the powers necessary to deal with it. To give Ministers flexibility, part I is intentionally not specific about the circumstances in which it would be used. As my hon. Friend the Minister made clear, part I is intended to deal only with major emergencies including those at sea where the help and co-ordinating power of central Government will be needed in addition to the skills and resources of local authorities. Part I in no way detracts from the legal powers that local authorities already possess.
  The hon. Member for Pontypridd asked about the distinction under part I between a gross and an ordinary mistake by a Minister in declaring an emergency. Under part I the Minister might—indeed, probably would—take measures which subsequently proved more than were strictly necessary. It is the nature of precautionary measures that they are taken before the full facts can have been established. The courts would assume that a potential polluter could understand that. It is an inevitable consequence of the Bill that a polluter would be responsible for the results of all reasonable precautionary measures.
  Mr. John: Including the damage to a soft fruit crop which was lost irretrievably even though there was no pollution?
  Mrs. Fenner: The polluter would be liable because of the event that caused the Minister to take that action.
  The hon. Member for Pontypridd asked what would happen if the polluter could not be identified. Part I is intended to be used only in emergencies—not to deal with relatively minor incidents. It is extremely unlikely that an emission of dangerous substances sufficient to require the issue of an emergency order would arise without the source becoming apparent. However, if such an incident occurred, those who were affected would not be deprived of benefits under their insurance policies because the person legally liable could not be sued. Financial responsibility should remain where it properly belongs, and the legislation should not encourage it to be transferred elsewhere.
  The hon. Member for Pontypridd asked about the role of local authorities. It is not necessary to refer to local authorities in the Bill, because their existing power under the Food Act 1984 to condemn unfit food will remain exactly as it is. The Bill will enable Ministers to impose safet-first restrictions in a major emergency. Moreover, it is not necessary to protect the ability of local authorities to make representations to Ministers. Any responsible body or person could ask Ministers to use their powers, and Ministers would be bound to consider any reasonable representation.
  The hon. Member for Pontypridd was concerned about the repeal of the Dumping at Sea Act 1974. That Act gave power to make arrangements with other convention states for mutual enforcement of conventions. It was enacted on an assumption that such arrangements would be elaborated under conventions; in fact, they were not. Enforcement has remained with individual contracting parties, so it

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  cannot be true that this would have a deterrent effect. In fact, no work has been done in that regard in 10 years. Our approach has been to strengthen the controls that we have—for example, to extend control over foreign vessels.
  The hon. Gentleman asked about nuclear dumping. The Government have already broadly accepted the Holliday recommendation. But further work is required, and we are actively pursuing this matter. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, at a meeting which I attended yesterday, made representations to the TUC to examine a follow-up to Holliday. I assure the House that the action recommended by Holliday will be taken.
  The hon. Gentleman also asked about waste disposal on the sea bed. That is a new concept for waste disposal whose feasibility and legal position have not yet been fully examined, but the consensus so far in the London dumping convention is that the LDC is the place to discuss it. If it is shown to be feasible and safe, such disposal should not go ahead until a regulated framework has been worked out in the LDC. The international legal position is so unclear that it would be premature to try to deal with that subject in the Bill.
  The hon. Gentleman added that the Government should review their policy of reliance on dumping. United Kingdom policy has always been firmly based on a scientific examination of requests for dumping licences in order to protect the marine environment. The Bill contains that principle. Indeed, it strengthens our control where such strengthening has been shown to be necessary. The United Kingdom also places importance on observing the provisions of international conventions, and the Bill gives us power to do that. Subject to that scientific and environmental background, the Government believe that some wastes can safely be disposed of at sea. My hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North (Mr. Skeet) said that the best disposal option should be found. The Holliday report recommended that various options should be reviewed, and that study is being organised. Meanwhile, the Government have said that the dumping of nuclear waste will not resume until the review by the London dumping convention is complete.
  The hon. Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow (Dr. Godman) raised several matters on part II and said that there were many forms of pollution. I agree, but there are many different causes of pollution, which can all have adverse effects on fisheries. The Bill deals with one area — dumping and incineration. Dumping means the deliberate disposal from ships, marine structures and floating containers. The protection of fisheries is a major consideration in licensing. The hon. Gentleman asked about staff shortages for monitoring as evidenced in the Rayner report. I am glad to say that those vacancies have been filled. He asked whether marine structures included oil rigs, and I can confirm that they do. He asked about the abandonment of oil rigs. I agree that that is an important matter, but the problem will not arise for several years. The Bill does not deal specifically with that matter, because it is not how oil rigs will be disposed of. However, it is clear that the fisheries must be safeguarded when that time comes. The hon. Gentleman will agree that his other points can be taken up in Committee.
  Pesticides have taken up most of the debate today. Many hon. Members have dealt with this part of the Bill, and I hope that I will not sound perverse for a Government Minister if I say that I welcome the detailed expression of their concern. This part of the Bill is evidence that the
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  Government are also anxious to establish a system under which we can do whatever is proved necessary over time to control the use of pesticides. I do not pretend that we have all the answers now, but I regard the questions that hon. Members have raised today as an essential test of the Bill. Does it provide powers to control matters if some of our worst fears are realised? At the same time, are its objectives clear enough so that it does not arouse fears of unnecessary intrusion into the lives of those who earn their livings in the industries involved? The Government believe that the Bill meets both tests, and they wish to persuade hon. Members of that.
  I group some of the concerns that have been expressed by hon. Members by dealing first with the system of approval of pesticides. The Government's decision to build the Advisory Committee for Pesticides into the approval system—to make it clear that the committee controls its agenda and is to be consulted in the preparation of regulations as well as approvals — has been welcomed. But a number of hon. Members have asked either that the ACP should have a wider membership, including representatives of trade unions, environmental groups and so on, or that the Health and Safely Commission, with its tripartite consultative machinery, should play a bigger role in the approval of pesticides.
  We do not think that it would be appropriate to change the nature of the ACP by adding interest groups to its membership. However, we propose to review the structure and membership of the specialist panels which assist the ACP and the scientific sub-committee on such things as container design, labelling and wildlife issues, and which must in the future concern themselves with the issue of economy and safety in application systems.
  We would welcome an input from representatives, for example, of the trade unions, on these important panels and will consult appropriately when we have a detailed proposal to make.
  Many hon. Members have raised the question of exports. I fully appreciate the concern of those who wish to commit the Government to a particular policy on exports in the belief that it is necessary to bring under strict control the export of materials which are either banned or severely restricted in use in the United Kingdom.
  We could argue at length about the desirability of such a control, but I put it to the House that the Bill, together with the Import, Export and Customs Powers (Defence) Act 1939, provides Ministers with all the powers necessary to control the export of pesticides, should they feel that to be desirable and in the interests of industry. It seeks to clarify when those powers would be used, which is in the fulfilment of an obligation entered into internationally with our trading partners. In the Government's view, this strikes the right balance.
  Hon. Members raised points about the disclosure of information or our willingness to make publicly available the data which is deposited with Departments as the basis for the safety assessment which leads to approval. It would not be right to give specific commitments at this stage to the detail of the information which the Government will disclose.
  But our policy is clear. The Departments which hold this information now are "pollution control authorities" in the terms of the tenth report of the Royal Commission on environmental pollution, and the Government accept the thrust of the commission's overriding recommendation that

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  "There should be a presumption in favour of unrestricted access for the public."
  Several hon. Members raised the question of the development of alternative forms of plant protection. The hon. Member for Pontypridd and my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Sir P. Mills)—my hon. Friend explained that he might have to leave before the end of the debate—raised that matter, and I will gladly deal with it.
  Our concentration in the Bill has been largely on chemical-based systems of control, and that is necessary because that is what we are currently trying to regulate. But the Government are keen to see a high level of activity in the public and private sectors in improving plant varieties and propagation material, including resistant varieties, in developing biological systems of pest control—my hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, North (Mr. Skeet) spoke about that — and in developing integrated control systems with careful monitoring of pest levels to enable the choice of the most effective chemicals and the optimum stage at which to apply them.
  At our Boxworth experimental husbandry farm there is a major project to determine the long-term ecological effects of different levels of pesticide inputs in animal and plant species. Similar research to help reduce pesticide usage in the stored crops sector is under way at the ADAS Slough laboratories. This is all part of our policy on pesticides, and part III of the Bill would not make sense without it.
  In the last few minutes of the debate I shall try rapidly to take up some of the issues raised by my hon. Friends. Some of them talked about cost and enforcement. We hope that the cost of implementing part I will not be much. The provisions in part I are intended to deal with an emergency which we hope will not happen. The costs incurred in the implementation of part II will be offset by fees for licensing. As for part III, I have informed the House of the intention to appoint 18 additional inspectors for the Health and Safety Executive and 16 extra staff for the Ministry. There will be fees for applications for approval.
  Mr. Simon Hughes: Does the Minister accept that some of us will be happy if there is additional cost provided that there is an effective result? We will not mind a few extra appointments to ensure that the Bill works properly. We shall not object if that price has to be paid.
  Mrs. Fenner: Indeed. I felt that I should reassure the House about the nature of the cost.
  Several hon. Members have spoken about training. The regulations would require that after a transitional period those wishing to supply and distribute pesticides must satisfy Ministers that they have reached appropriate standards in the suitability of their premises and the training of their staff. Such evidence would be required at
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  regular intervals. Ministers could have regard to evidence from such organisations or centres which could satisfy them that they had tested to the required standard.
  Mr. John Carlisle: In satisfying herself and the Department of the standard of those involved in the scheme, would it not be as well for my hon. Friend to visit the United Kingdom Agriculural Supply Trade Association to talk to those involved in the basic agreement? She would find there people who are already qualified. They have passed examinations and have great experience within the industry. They might be of great assistance to her.
  Mrs. Fenner: Yes. My hon. Friend advanced that argument earlier and so did my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley). They spoke of the value of BASIS and we hope that there will continue to be voluntary support for the scheme. It is right that consultation with the organisation would be helpful.
  The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) referred to a report in the The Sunday Times about high pesticide residues. The Sunday Times publicised a survey that had been conducted by the Association of Public Analysts. The data were wrongly interpreted. Residue levels were low and The Sunday Times did not publish a correcting letter. The extensive monitoring of the Government's working party on pesticide residues demonstrates that residues have fallen steadily over the past 20 years as a result of controls.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North (Mr. Carlisle) asked about seeds and wanted to know whether they are covered by the Bill. The answer is yes.
  The hon. Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) referred to Rachel Carson and "Silent Spring". We are rather proud of the voluntary pesticides safety precautions scheme, which predates Rachel Carson. I do not accept from him any criticism of the Government on environmental matters. We do not have all the answers now, but we are seeking to ensure that the Bill is enveloped in good, sound environmental arrangements.
  Dr. David Clark: The Minister gave us a hint that she would be prepared, perhaps, to open up the freedom of information provisions. Will she give the House an assurance that her officials will consider carefully the scheme that the United States has produced to tackle the problem?
  Mrs. Fenner: I can assure the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) that we have already had a cosy talk, to take up the accusation of the hon. Member for South Shields, with the freedom of information campaign. Perhaps that will answer questions on that score.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 42 (Committal of Bills).

  Sittings of the House
  9.59 pm
  Mr. Tony Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am sure that you, like me, are an assiduous reader of The House Magazine. In this week's issue, which has appeared since the business was put down last week, we read that so far in this Session 50 per cent. of sitting days have ended after midnight. I believe that it is the first time in living memory that that has happened. I believe that when my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House set the business before the House he was probably unaware of the facts—
  Mr. Speaker: Order, order. The Ten o'clock business motion.

  Sittings of the House

    BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
    Motion made, and Question put,
    That, at this day's sitting, the Water (Fluoridation) Bill, the Ways and Means Motion and the Companies Consolidation (Consequential Provisions) Bill [Lords] may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Lang.]
    The House divided: Ayes 194, Noes 75.

    Division No. 139]

    [10 pm

    AYES

    Alexander, Richard

    Fenner, Mrs Peggy

    Ancram, Michael

    Fletcher, Alexander

    Anderson, Donald

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

    Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

    Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)

    Garel-Jones, Tristan

    Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

    Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

    Batiste, Spencer

    Goodlad, Alastair

    Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

    Gower, Sir Raymond

    Best, Keith

    Gregory, Conal

    Biffen, Rt Hon John

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

    Biggs-Davison, Sir John

    Ground, Patrick

    Blackburn, John

    Gummer, John Selwyn

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

    Bottomley, Peter

    Harris, David

    Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

    Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    Hayes, J.

    Boyes, Roland

    Heddle, John

    Boyson, Dr Rhodes

    Henderson, Barry

    Bright, Graham

    Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

    Brinton, Tim

    Hirst, Michael

    Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

    Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

    Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

    Howard, Michael

    Budgen, Nick

    Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)

    Bulmer, Esmond

    Hunt, David (Wirral)

    Burt, Alistair

    Hunter, Andrew

    Butterfill, John

    Jackson, Robert

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

    Chalker, Mrs Lynda

    Jessel, Toby

    Chapman, Sydney

    Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

    Chope, Christopher

    Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

    Churchill, W. S.

    King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

    Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

    King, Rt Hon Tom

    Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

    Knowles, Michael

    Colvin, Michael

    Lang, Ian

    Coombs, Simon

    Lee, John (Pendle)

    Cope, John

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Couchman, James

    Lilley, Peter

    Currie, Mrs Edwina

    Lord, Michael

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

    Lyell, Nicholas

    Dicks, Terry

    McDonald, Dr Oonagh

    Dorrell, Stephen

    Macfarlane, Neil

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

    MacGregor, John

    Dunn, Robert

    MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

    Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

    McQuarrie, Albert

    Durant, Tony

    Major, John

    Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

    Marland, Paul

    Eggar, Tim

    Marshall, David (Shettleston)

    Fatchett, Derek

    Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

    Favell, Anthony

    Maude, Hon Francis

    862

    Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

    Spence, John

    Mayhew, Sir Patrick

    Spencer, Derek

    Mellor, David

    Spicer, Jim (W Dorset)

    Miller, Hal (B'grove)

    Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

    Mills, Iain (Meriden)

    Squire, Robin

    Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

    Stanley, John

    Mitchell, David (NW Hants)

    Steen, Anthony

    Moate, Roger

    Stern, Michael

    Moore, John

    Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

    Moynihan, Hon C.

    Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

    Murphy, Christopher

    Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

    Neale, Gerrard

    Stewart, Ian (N Hertf'dshire}

    Needham, Richard

    Stradling Thomas, J.

    Nelson, Anthony

    Taylor, John (Solihull)

    Newton, Tony

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Nicholls, Patrick

    Terlezki, Stefan

    Onslow, Cranley

    Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

    Osborn, Sir John

    Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

    Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

    Thurnham, Peter

    Page, Richard (Herts SW)

    Townend, John (Bridlington)

    Parris, Matthew

    Tracey, Richard

    Patten, Christopher (Bath)

    Trippier, David

    Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

    Trotter, Neville

    Pattie, Geoffrey

    Waddington, David

    Pawsey, James

    Wakeham, Rt Hon John

    Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

    Waldegrave, Hon William

    Pike, Peter

    Walden, George

    Pollock, Alexander

    Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

    Portillo, Michael

    Wall, Sir Patrick

    Powell, William (Corby)

    Ward, John

    Powley, John

    Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

    Raffan, Keith

    Warren, Kenneth

    Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

    Watson, John

    Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

    Watts, John

    Rifkind, Malcolm

    Wells, Bowen (Hertford)

    Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

    Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)

    Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

    Wheeler, John

    Rumbold, Mrs Angela

    Whitfield, John

    Ryder, Richard

    Whitney, Raymond

    Sackville, Hon Thomas

    Wilkinson, John

    Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

    Winterton, Mrs Ann

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Wood, Timothy

    Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

    Woodcock, Michael

    Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

    Yeo, Tim

    Shelton, William (Streatham)

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

    Younger, Rt Hon George

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

    Mr. Michael Neubert and

    Soames, Hon Nicholas

    Mr. Peter Lloyd.

    NOES

    Alton, David

    George, Bruce

    Ashby, David

    Godman, Dr Norman

    Ashdown, Paddy

    Golding, John

    Bellingham, Henry

    Greenway, Harry

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

    Hardy, Peter

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Hargreaves, Kenneth

    Brandon-Bravo, Martin

    Haynes, Frank

    Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

    Holt, Richard

    Caborn, Richard

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

    Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

    Howells, Geraint

    Campbell-Savours, Dale

    Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

    Canavan, Dennis

    Janner, Hon Greville

    Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

    Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

    Carlisle, John (N Luton)

    Kennedy, Charles

    Carttiss, Michael

    Lawler, Geoffrey

    Cash, William

    Lawrence, Ivan

    Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

    Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

    Clegg, Sir Walter

    McKay, Allen (Penistone)

    Crouch, David

    McKelvey, William

    Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

    Maclean, David John

    Dixon, Donald

    Meadowcroft, Michael

    Dobson, Frank

    Merchant, Piers

    Eastham, Ken

    Michie, William

    Fairbairn, Nicholas

    Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

    Fallon, Michael

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Farr, Sir John

    Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

    Fookes, Miss Janet

    Nellist, David

    Forth, Eric

    Norris, Steven

    863

    Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

    Sumberg, David

    Ottaway, Richard

    Thornton, Malcolm

    Patchett, Terry

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    Prescott, John

    Walker, Bill (T'side N)

    Proctor, K. Harvey

    Wareing, Robert

    Rogers, Allan

    Winterton, Mrs Ann

    Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Skinner, Dennis

    Soley, Clive

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Steel, Rt Hon David

    Mr. Tony Marlow and

    Stevens, Martin (Fulham)

    Mr. Peter Bruinvels.

    Straw, Jack

    Question accordingly agreed to.

  Food and Environment Protection Bill [Lords] [Money]
  Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Food and Environment Protection Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorize—

  (a) the payment out of money provided by Parliament—

  (i) of all sums required for the purpose of making payments on behalf of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom to the international organisations mentioned in the Act;

  (ii) of any expenses of a Minister of the Crown or government department incurred in consequence of the provisions of the Act;

  (b) the payment into the Consolidated Fund of the receipts of a Minister of the Crown or government department under the Act.—[Mr. Durant.]

  10.12 pm
  Mr. Michael Brown (Brigg and Cleethorpes)This is the first time that I have used the opportunity afforded in a money resolution to draw the attention of the House to an important matter in a Bill. The resolution should always be considered at some length so that we know precisely the financial implications involved in the Bill, and should not simply go through on the nod.
  The Food and Environment, Protection Bill [Lords] is an excellent Bill and I welcome it, having heard my hon. Friends the Minister of State and the Parliamentary Secretary.
  However, we should consider the implications of the money resolution, and the House will need to refer to clauses 21, 12 and 17. The money resolution is on the Order Paper in the name of my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I do not think that he is here, so perhaps my hon. Friends representing the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will listen to what I have to say and will be able to answer some of the questions that I should have wanted to put to the Treasury if there had been a Treasury spokesman here to answer it.
  The resolution says:
  "That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Food and Environment Protection Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorize—

  (a) the payment out of money provided by Parliament—

  (i) of all sums required for the purpose of making payments on behalf of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom to the international organisations mentioned in the Act;

  (ii) of any expenses of a Minister of the Crown or government department incurred in consequence of the provisions of the Act;

  (b) the payment into the Consolidated Fund of the receipts of a Minister of the Crown or government department under the Act."

  Clause 21 of the Bill gives rise to some questions that I wish to pose to the Treasury, if necessary through my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Clause 1(1) states:
  "There shall be paid out of money provided by Parliament all sums required for the purpose of making payments on behalf of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom to the international organisations."
  On Second Reading, of course, I would not expect my hon. Friends to go into the sort of detail that can be covered when considering a money resolution. However, one has to consider the sort of international organisations to which

  865
  the Government in the name of the United Kingdom pay sums of money. For example, it is appropriate to draw a parallel with the problems that the United Kingdom is encountering in regard to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. It has been argued that, because of the rather squalid use of moneys paid to that organisation, the Government may conclude that the annual subscription to UNESCO is unjustifiably high.
  I do not know what sort of international organisation might benefit after the enactment of the Food and Environment Protection Bill. Presumably a number of international organisations might hold international conferences at which the Government wished to be represented. Parliament should have some indication from the Treasury or the Ministry of Agriculture of the amount of money involved in sending representatives of the Government to discuss food and environment protection issues at such international conferences.
  Might such international conferences be organised by the European Community? Might they involve the Third world? The hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) drew attention to the implications of the Bill for the Third world. It is reasonable to assume that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food might wish to send a representative of the Department or a Minister to a conference attended by participants from the Third world to consider the effects of food and environment protection. If such an international conference involved all the countries in the world — that is, not only member countries of the European Community and of the Western world, but possibly member countries of the Warsaw pact, the Soviet Union and Third world countries — where would such a conference be held, how frequently would it take place and would attendance at it benefit this country?
  We tend sometimes to be a little glib as a Parliament in authorising the attendance of representatives of Government Departments and Ministers to attend conferences of this nature—although I am sure that they make some contribution to food and environmental protection in the world. On the other hand, there are a number of examples, to which my hon. Friends and Opposition Members may point, of Government representatives attending international conferences at considerable expense under the terms of an Act of Parliament that was passed some years ago. When one is in the process of considering the provisions of an apparently innocuous Bill, one is not always aware of the amount of money that is involved.
  Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Clause 5 refers to the advisory committee and the number of members of that committee who might be eligible for allowances, as determined by Ministers, with the Treasury's consent. Is that not another example of a large sum being expended in the interests of the advisory committee when we have no idea of those sums or of the number of people on the advisory committee?
  Mr. Brown: I must be careful, because the money resolution is narrow and I do not wish to be out of order. Clause 21(2) of the Bill covers that matter, which is also referred to in clause 12. I shall discuss that later. At present I am discussing clause 21(1) which was not written into the Bill for the fun of it. The parliamentary draftsmen who have been advising Agriculture Ministers obviously
  866
  realise that the Bill, if it is to have international relevance—bearing in mind that pesticide control has international repercussions—must recognise that it might be necessary for the British Government to be represented on some kind of international organisation.
  Mr. Tony Marlow: I am sorry to stop my hon. Friend in mid-flow. I do not want to make a long intervention. My hon. Friend talks about United Kingdom representatives on international organisations. Can he put the House out of its misery? If one of those international organisations had something to do with the European Economic Community would the funds be provided by the EEC or would the British taxpayer have to find the money? That might have an effect on how we feel.
  Mr. Brown: Clause 21(1) is specific. If the international organisation came under the umbrella of the European Community
  "all sums required for the purpose of making payments on behalf of Her Majesty's Government"
  would be paid out of money voted by this House. There is no question but that the British taxpayer would pick up the tab. The clause could not be more clearly drafted. There is no question of money being paid by the European Community, indirectly. The Government, under the authority given under clause 21(1), would be able to make whatever payment they were asked to make by an international organisation if that organisation came under the auspices of the European Community.
  The clause refers to "the international organisations." That implies that such organisations are already established. Perhaps the Government and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food have already been represented on them. I hope that the Minister can explain which international organisations already exist, whether the Government already participate, and in what international organisations, as a result of the Bill, the Government might participate in the future.
  It is clear from this that there must be a whole range of no doubt very worthy international organisations already established which probably play a vital role in maintaining the protection throughout the world that this Bill seeks to apply in the United Kingdom. I think it right to use the opportunity afforded by this short debate to find out what sort of costs are involved. We are just two weeks from the Budget.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Could my hon. Friend refer to the excellent brief on this Bill sent out by the National Farmers Union and the section of it that relates to pesticides? With regard to the particular concern about the way this Bill might affect imports into this country it says:
  "The Government must ensure that the new system will in no way hinder competition through the international trading of safe products, and must provide the resources to ensure the rapid clearance of safe products imported from abroad."
  Bringing my hon. Friend back to the home scene, has he any idea, and has the Minister given any indication, whether the resources to ensure the rapid clearance of safe products imported from abroad are to be provided and if so in what amount?
  Mr. Brown: Again, I must be very careful, because it is a very narrow resolution to which we are speaking. There is some relevance in the point made by my hon.

  867
  Friend in that the question of pesticide imports and exports from countries such as the United States, which export pesticides banned in their own country, would be a legitimate subject for an international organisation to consider.
  This Bill refers to a considerable extent to imports of pesticides, and a number of Opposition speakers, in particular the hon. Member for Workington, have drawn attention to the fact that some countries produce and manufacture pesticides that they are not able to use because of their own domestic law, but which they export to other countries. Thus the United Kingdom could well be the recipient of such pesticides.
  That is entirely legitimate material for an international organisation of the kind referred to in clause 21(1) to consider and I do not think that one should necessarily object to the fact that the Government would want to be represented at meetings of such an organisation.
  Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: Assuming we were to be represented at such a conference, can my hon. Friend tell me whether he can discover from the Government whether any substance, whatever its form, in sufficient dilution would be beneficial if added to the water, and in any other concentration would not be?
  Mr. Brown: My hon. and learned Friend, as always, puts temptation in the way of all of us. That is the great problem about giving way to him — one never quite knows what is coming. My concern tonight is not what is a dangerous substance in a liquid form. It may well be that my hon. and learned Friend, if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, when we move on to another subject, may speculate on that question.
  The crucial point here is that there are dangerous substances—possibly even the substance which my hon. and learned Friend had in mind—referred to in the brief quoted my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton), which clearly have international repercussions. Therefore, I accept that it is in order and right and proper for the Ministry of Agriculture to ask Parliament to give some kind of authority for Her Majesty's Government to be represented in such an international forum. That is perfectly legitimate. I do not quarrel at all with the implications behind subsection (1), but the House is entitled, having spent six hours on the Second Reading debate, to have some indication as to the nature of the international organisations, who is represented in those bodies, and the extent to which those bodies represent a continent or countries from all over the world. Therefore, I hope that my hon. Friends will take the point that I am raising seriously.
  I thought that there would be no reference whatsoever to the financial implications of the Bill, but, in fairness to my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, she referred to them in the closing moments of her speech. She said that no financial implications would be involved in part I unless there was an emergency. We must take that statement on trust. Who knows what the scale of an emergency might be, when the Bill might apply? You will recall, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that in a previous incarnation in the House I represented the constituency known as Brigg and Scunthorpe. In that constituency is a famous village that the whole House will know, called Flixborough. If such a dreadful accident, which occurred
  868
  in 1974, were to recur, perish the thought, after the Bill reached the statute book, there is no question but that its provisions would be effective. The measure might be effective in preventing such an accident, but if it occurred, it would be possible to deal more adequately with such an event.
  An emergency on that scale would incur grave financial consequences under part I, which presumably would have to be borne by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary referred to an emergency fairly glibly—I do not blame her, because one hopes that an emergency of the sort that I have described will happen once in a lifetime, if at all. However, even part I has some financial implications, certainly to any hon. Member who either represented or now represents the constituency containing the magic name "Flixborough".
  The Parliamentary Secretary said that she did not foresee any financial implications in part II because the Government would make certain charges in respect of granting licences. She felt that the charges would ensure that any costs of the Bill in terms of the granting of licences would be borne by the revenue that was so generated. I come therefore to subsection (2) of clause 21, which is the relevant subsection.
  Mr. Marlow: Unfortunately, I was unable to be here, as so often happens, when the Bill itself was being discussed, because I was in Committee. My hon. Friend has been passing through the subject of licences, and no doubt the cost of licences and of administering them. I wonder whether we know, and whether my hon. Friend can tell the House, what the licence fee is likely to be, and whether it will cover the cost of administering the licence. Would my hon. Friend prefer the licence to be a net revenue raiser, in which case in what fields should that revenue be raised, and how much should be raised?
  Mr. Brown: That is one of the small weaknesses of the Bill. If one wanted to nit-pick, one would say that that is a weakness of the Bill. I would not expect there to be any such indication, because it is largely an enabling Bill. I believe that all hon. Members will acknowledge that it is only right and proper for a Bill of this kind to be an enabling piece of legislation. The Government, quite rightly, would not expect to set out the kind of questions posed by my hon. Friend until they introduced secondary legislation by means of the statutory instruments or Orders in Council which are provided for in the Bill. However, in this debate, it is legitimate to be given a hint by my hon. Friends about the scale of the licence fees. Since no such hint was given in the speech of my hon. Friend who opened the debate or in the speech of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary at the end of the debate on Second Reading, it is during this debate on the money resolution that matters of the kind that my hon. Friend has raised should be raised with our hon. Friends on the Front Bench.
  Mr. Marlow: The point I am trying to make is whether it is intended that, net of administrative costs, the licences should be revenue-raising or whether they should be neutral.
  Mr. Brown: If one looks at the financial effects of the Bill in the explanatory and financial memorandum, one sees that the intention is that the effect should be neutral. It says:

  869
  "Expenditure on licensing of deposits and testing of substances for treating oil spills under Part II and on approval of pesticides under Part III (including the costs of the advisory committee, which will replace a non-statutory body) would be small and would be offset by income from fees."
  The implication is that it is not intended to be a revenue raiser, that the expenditure would be entirely offset by the income from fees.
  My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary used the word "small", which is contained in the explanatory and financial memorandum. Many Ministers have come to the Dispatch Box and advised the House that the sums of money that the House was being asked to vote were small. But what is small? A layman would ask, "How long is a piece of string?" In any discussion of the financial implications of a Government measure that the the House is asked to approve, Ministers, whether Conservative or Labour, always say that they will be small. So how small is small? What figure would my hon. Friends insert in place of the word "small"?
  Mr. Fairbairn: I am disturbed by even the concept of "small". Another measure may be considered tonight which it is alleged has no financial implications. What are we talking about?
  Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: The wrong Bill.
  Mr. Fairbairn: If there is anything I can do to discomfort the idiocy of the Liberals and upset them I shall do so. [Interruption.] On a financial resolution, how do we discuss the concept that in one measure it is suggested that there are no financial implications and that in another there is a small financial implication? Who is to be the judge of that mad implication?
  Mr. Brown: My hon. and learned Friend has raised an important point. For that reason, when every Second Reading debate takes place, there is usually an opportunity to raise such a question. It is invariably our own fault if we do not take the opportunity afforded by the money resolution to ask the question that has been asked by my hon. and learned Friend.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Part I relates to the contamination of food. My hon. Friend referred to the speech of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary. She talked about some "small" cost, to pick up the word used by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn). Will my hon. Friend seek to solicit from my hon. Friend the parliamentary Secretary the amount of compensation that might be paid to those who imported perishable foods that were alleged to be contaminated? There may not just be a Flixborough; there could be many smaller incidents of contamination. It would be wrong for a person whose supply of food is alleged to be contaminated but is ultimately found not to be so contaminated to be responsbile for losses that in some cases might well ruin his business.
  Mr. Brown: I am conscious of the limited scope of the debate. I have to be careful when responding in detail to the point raised by my hon. Friend. If he were to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he might be able to develop his point and remain with the rules of order.
  Mr. Peter Bruinvels rose—
  Mr. Brown: I am raising two serious points.
  Mr. Marlow: Get on with it.
  Mr. Brown: I am anxious to get on. My hon. Friends are making it difficult. I am used to having difficulties with sedentary and genuine interventions from the Opposition.
  Clause 21(2) provides:
  "Any expenses of a Minister of the Crown or government department incurred in consequence of the provisions of this Act shall also be paid out of money provided by Parliament."
  That is the hat under which we are being asked to vote money for the purposes mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn). We should concentrate upon the Bill's provisions and ascertain from my hon. Friends at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what those expenses might be.
  My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary hinted that there would be income from fees. We need to know at what level the fees will be set in secondary legislation. It will be important for those who will be affected by the Bill — manufacturers of pesticides and those who might apply to benefit from the legislation and who would have to pay money to the Ministry. [Interruption.]
  Mr. Marlow: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft) is trying to ham up this thing. This is a serious debate and there ar some serious points to be made.
  The Bill states:
  "In determining whether to issue a licence a licensing authority … may have regard to such other matters as the authority considers relevant".
  The Bill also states:
  "Subject to the following provisions of this Part of the Act, a licence is needed—
  (a)for the deposit of substances or articles in United Kingdom waters".
  One of the matters that the authority may consider relevant is the raising of revenue; and, as the Bill is drafted,
  "the deposit of substances or articles in United Kingdom waters"
  could include the clearing of a ship's bilges.
  Mr. Meadowcroft: I do not believe it.
  Mr. Marlow: It is very difficult for me if the hon. Gentleman keeps up a running commentary. I am trying to make a short intervention. If the licensing authority wanted to charge a fee for the clearing—[Interruption.]
  Mr. K. Harvey Proctor: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am trying to follow the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown). I cannot do so because of the sedentary interventions.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): This is a short debate, and interventions should be brief.
  Mr. Marlow: I am trying to make my intervention brief, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If a licensing authority can charge a fee to clear the bilges of any ship in United Kingdom waters, one must ascertain how that fee is calculated. The Bill states:
  "Fees under this section shall be determined on principles settled by the Ministers with the consent of the Treasury and after consultation with organisations".
  We have potentially—I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will reassure the House on this point — a vast revenue-raising mechanism without the

  871
  need for further recourse to the House. The House should be concerned about that aspect. I should be interested to learn what my hon. Friend has to say about that point.
  Mr. Brown: I think that I would be out of order if I were to dwell at any length on the implications of clause 8. I think that you would have pulled me up on this point by now, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I were wrong. Unfortunately, those implications do not fall within the terms of the money resolution.
  Mr. Marlow: They do.
  Mr. Brown: I am sure that if I dwelt at length on those implications I would be at the outskirts of order. I am trying to debate a narrow point. The money resolution is concerned with clauses 12 and 21 and, to some extent, clause 17. I must resist the temptation to go down the road of clause 8, which is more a matter for a Second Reading debate.
  Mr. Peter Bruinvels: We are obviously not talking about a small sum. We are considering a substantial sum. Are any funds coming from the EC? I should have thought that some funds would come from the EC because, no doubt, we have had to co-operate with the EC on the Bill.
  Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend is some way from the subsection with which I am dealing. He has been a little unfair to the Ministry of Agriculture, because I have not at any stage suggested that the expenditure will be vast. The terms of the money resolution hint that the commitment that Parliament is asked to give us is open-ended. It is worth raising that point in this short debate so that my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench can reassure us. If millions of pounds were involved, the Ministry would presumably have mentioned that expenditure in the money resolution. The Ministry has committed itself by saying that the expenditure is small. I wish to find out how "small" is small. That is a difficult question.
  The question whether money will come from the EEC is outside the scope of the money resolution. We are asked to give parliamentary authority to expenditure to send Government representatives to attend meetings of international organisations. I believe that it is fair that the Government should be given authority by Parliament to send representatives to an EEC gathering. I do not think that we should expect the EEC to make moneys available. I do not like moneys being voted to the EEC and then being spent elsewhere. All moneys spent on behalf of the country should be voted by the House. That is why it is legitimate for the Government to ask for parliamentary authority under British, House of Commons legislation to defray such expenditure as might arise under the Bill, if it becomes an Act.
  To return to subsection (2), we are concerned with a small amount of money, most of which the Ministry of Agriculture hopes will be covered by the fee income generated from the granting of licences. It would be helpful to have a hint as to the extent of the licence fee that will have to be paid by those who will be affected by the Bill. Obviously, it will be significant to producers of pesticides. I represent the company now known as Norsk Hydro, which used to be known as Fisons. It is the largest employer of labour in my constituency. It will be greatly affected by the provisions of the Bill. The licence fee will have an effect—
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: May I ask for clarification? My hon. Friend has said that he represents that company. Does he mean that he has the honour to represent it in the House because it is a company located in his constituency where many of his constituents work, or that he has a vested interest and is declaring it to the House, or that he seeks to represent the company as a parliamentary consultant?
  Mr. Brown: I can assure my hon. Friend on that point. I have no pecuniary or financial interest whatsoever in the company, nor do I expect to have. Any Member of Parliament who has a company in his constituency with 700 employees, as Norsk Hydro has, has an indirect financial interest in that company to the extent that if that company feels that the expenditure to be incurred under the provisions of the Bill are such that it has cause to attack the Government, obviously the work force will take it out on the MP at the next general election. To that extent I have a personal interest, but my interest is as one who represents a large number of chemical factories on the south Humber bank. Those companies will have to pay the licence fee. If companies are producing pesticides and are to take advantage of the provisions of Government legislation it is right that they should be expected to pay for the time of the inspectors employed by the Ministry of Agriculture.
  In my constituency there is not only Norsk Hydro but SCM Chemicals, which produces titanium dioxide. There is considerable concern about the pollution that is generated from the production of that commodity in the area — a concern that I do not share because the manufacturers produce the chemical in a responsible way. There will be charges to that company under the provisions of the Bill. It will want an indication from me as its Member of Parliament when I next go there to discuss the passage of the Bill as to what those charges will be. It will want to know how much the legislation will cost it as a company.
  The Minister of State, Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John MacGregor): As my hon. Friend has conceded that this is an excellent Bill, I am a little puzzled as to why he is labouring the point so much. Perhaps in due course he will sit down to enable me to answer one question to add to the many that he has already answered himself.
  Mr. Brown: I apologise to my hon. Friend. I had forgotten that there was a time limit on this debate, and I would very much like to hear—
  Mr. John Golding: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Brown: I will not. It is probably appropriate for me, having drawn attention—
  Mr. Golding rose—
  Mr. Brown: I must press on, because time is short and the whole House is waiting to hear what my hon. Friend the Minister wishes to say. I shall not give way, but I shall draw my remarks to a conclusion and ask my hon. Friend the Minister to take seriously the points that I have raised about the money resolution. I hope that he will turn his attention to the points that I have made under subsections (1) and (2) of clause 21.
  Mr. MacGregor: As I said, my hon. Friend, by referring to the financial memorandum, has answered most

  873
  of the questions that he raised. He will be glad to know that the cost of the Bill is modest, which is another reason why I am a little surprised that he has spoken for so long. His first point, which he made a long time ago, related to the subscriptions to the international organisations that are mentioned in clause 21(1). I should make it clear that this subsection makes available money to pay subscriptions to two organisations, or indeed only one. There are two organisations under the Bill—the London convention and the Oslo convention—and the payment is made to the secretariats of those conventions. I am glad to say that both are in London.
  Mr. Golding: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. MacGregor: It is not necessary for me to give way, because the hon. Gentleman is achieving his purpose. In practice, we make a specific payment under the Bill only to the Oslo convention, which continues a provision in the Dumping at Sea Act 1974, which the Bill replaces, since subscriptions to the London convention are covered by membership of the international maritime convention, which provides a secretariat and whose
  874
  subscriptions are covered elsewhere. I hope that that rather involved description will enable my hon. Friend to see that there is very little—
  It being three-quarters of an hour after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 3 (Exempted Business).
  Question agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Food and Environment Protection Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorize—

  (a) the payment out of money provided by Parliament—

  (i) of all sums required for the purpose of making payments on behalf of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom to the international organisations mentioned in the Act;

  (ii) of any expenses of a Minister of the Crown or government department incurred in consequence of the provisions of the Act;

  (b) the payment into the Consolidated Fund of the receipts of a Minister of the Crown or government department under the Act.

  Water Fluoridation Bill
  As amended in the Standing Committee, further considered.
  10.57 pm
  Mr. Tony Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I regret not having given you notice of this point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, which I think might well be a complex and technical one. Therefore, I shall be as brief as I can. The last time this issue arose—the issue that we have not got on to yet, but which we may be about to debate — was on 26 February. On that occasion, at 11.45 pm, after an hour or so of debate, I sought to raise a point of order. A little while after I got up to raise a point of order, the deputy Patronage Secretary—my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Mr. Cope) — got up to move, That the Question be now put. There followed from that engagement a series of points of order from myself to the Deputy Speaker who was here at the time. The Deputy Speaker who was here at the time put the Question. That the Question be now put. He did so on the basis that my hon. Friend had risen to his feet before I had risen to my feet to make my point of order.
  There was a dialogue between me—wearing a hat, as was appropriate at the time — and the Deputy Speaker—
  Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: He ruled.
  Mr. Marlow: He ruled, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, that we should proceed with the Division. Since that time, we have had the opportunity to look at the Official Report. As you will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Official Report has tape recorders and means of deciding these things, and of knowing what is what. In the Official Report you will find that I raised my point of order before my hon. Friend got to his feet to move, That the Question be now put.
  11 pm
  The point of order that I was seeking to make was important because it related to Standing Order No. 31, which is entitled "Closure of Debate" and which says:
  "After a question has been proposed a Member rising in his place may claim to move, 'That the question be now put,' and, unless it shall appear to the chair that such motion is an abuse of the House, or an infringement of the rights of the minority".
  The point that I was endeavouring to make at the time and which, sadly, was not made, was that although, as we see from the Official Report, I made my point of order in time, I was unable in the circumstances to point out that the rights of the minority had been infringed, for we know that, apart from its spokesman, the Liberal party—
  The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Order. I think that I have understood the substance of the hon. Member's point of order. The matter to which he refers is always within the discretion of the Chair, and the closure always takes precedence. There is no doubt that everything was quite in order.
  Mr. Marlow: I appreciate what you are saying, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I assure you that I am not being awkward. The occupant of the Chair at the time stated that I had got to my feet after my hon. Friend the Member for
  876
  Northavon, but we have since discovered that that was not so. My point, therefore, is that the decision of the Chair was made without the proper information. In other words, the Chair had the wrong information when the decision was made. Had Mr. Deputy Speaker, then in the Chair, heard the point of order that I was seeking to make, he might have ruled differently. That is why this is a matter of some substance, which we should consider at this stage.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Either way, the matter was within the discretion of the Chair. The ruling which was given was quite in order.
  Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are dealing with a matter of voting principle. You may be aware that on that occasion there was an alleged Whip—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have already ruled on the point of order raised by the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow). The hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) is now raising a further matter on the same point of order. I said that the matter was within the discretion of the Chair, the occupant of which gave his ruling and, as I said, he was quite in order.
  Mr. Fairbairn: I appreciate the ruling that you have given, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but I am raising a different matter, one of principle, out of which the objection of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) arose. It arose because there was an attempt by the Government, under the false pretence that there was a free vote, to have a forced closure—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. As the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, what the Whips may have been deciding is not a matter for the Chair. I have ruled on the issue. The matter is straightforward and the House should accept the ruling.
  Mr. Nicholas Winterton: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I seek clarification because one of your responsibilities is to support Back Benchers and ensure that their interests are protected in the House. We can now speak with hindsight and with the benefit of the Official Report of what occurred on 26 February, and at column 288 there appears the true record of what took place.
  While not seeking in any way to imply that the Chair could not take a particular decision, may I ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, whether it was in order, when an hon. Member was on his feet—as is clearly established from column 288—raising a point of order, for the occupant of the Chair not to take that point of order before any other business moved by another hon. Member?
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is saying that unless the closure took precedence, points of order could be raised ad infinitum and delay the closure. The closure takes precedence. That was the ruling of the Chair. It is my ruling tonight and I cannot take any further points of order on that matter.
  Mr. Marlow: If I could just—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman is pursuing the matter, I repeat that the closure takes precedence. If that were not so, points of order could be

  877
  raised over and over again and delay the proceedings of the House. If the hon. Gentleman is pursuing that issue, he is wasting the time of the House.
  Mr. Marlow: I, above all others, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would not wish to waste the time of the House. Of course the closure takes precedence. I am saying that Mr. Deputy Speaker, at the time to which I refer, allowed the closure on wrong information because he thought that a point of order had not been raised at that time. As we now know, a point of order had indeed been raised. Had Mr. Deputy Speaker at the time known that that was the case, he may well have made a different decision. You yourself were not here, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but your colleague who was may at this stage wish to reconsider the decision that he then made. I think that this is a perfectly proper point.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have made it clear to the House what the procedures are. We now come to amendment No. 6.
  Mr. Ivan Lawrence: I rise only—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: With amendment No. 6, it will be convenient to take amendment No. 17.
  Mr. Lawrence: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will be aware that I have taken no part in anything which might remotely deflect us from the following important business. I think that in the point of order of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) there is an important point of principle for the House, and I ask for your advice. You said, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you had exercised your discretion and, of course, your discretion is binding.
  In the courts the question of discretion is a matter entirely for judges and will not be reconsidered by the Court of Appeal in a certain category of cases. But the Court of Appeal has ruled that before it can decide whether there has been a proper exercise of discretion by the court there must be an opportunity to consider the facts so that the discretion can be properly exercised. If there is a situation in the House which calls for the exercise of the discretion of Mr. Speaker, must there not be some period in which Mr. Speaker must consider the arguments for and against or give an opportunity for the arguments to be rehearsed? If not, it cannot properly be said that there is an exercise of discretion.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker rose—
  Mr. Lawrence: I should like to finish my point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am not wishing to delay the proceedings.
  It is important that we should have a ruling on what the position is when an hon. Member—a minority, perhaps — is seeking to raise an issue and the occupant of the Chair, Mr. Speaker or Mr. Deputy Speaker, decides to ignore him and then to say, "As an exercise of my discretion I accept the closure." That seems to be a situation in which Mr. Speaker or Mr. Deputy Speaker cannot give expression to the rights of the minority. If he is so quick off the mark, there is no opportunity for the exercise of discretion. As the courts have had to decide this very issue — whether there is an opportunity for the exercise of dicretion — so Parliament, which is itself a court, and which in many respects mirrors the justice of the courts, should come to some decision for the guidance of minority Back Benchers. I ask you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to refer the matter to Mr. Speaker, or to which
  878
  ever body considers these matters, for future consideration. It seems to be a matter of the utmost importance if we are to safeguard the rights of Back Benchers in this place.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have listened very carefully to the hon. and learned Member for Burton(Mr. Lawrence), but I must remind the House that we are not in the courts — we are in the House of Commons. I remind the House of Standing order No. 31, which states that
  "unless it shall appear to the chair that such motion"—
  that is, a motion "That the question be now put"
  "is an abuse of the rules of the House, or an infringement of the rights of the minority, the question, 'That the question be now put,' shall be put forthwith.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker did that, and I have reiterated that decision to the House. I hoe that we can now proceed to discuss amendment No. 6.
  Mr. Lawrence: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Of course I accept what you have said, but the important phrase is
  "unless it shall appear to the chair"
  The point of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North is that there must be some opportunity for Mr. Speaker and Mr. Deputy Speaker to be able to form an impression on the facts, so that it can be said that something "shall appear" to him. Otherwise, all that happens is that an hon. Member rises on a point of order, the closure is moved, and there is no opportunity for anything to "appear" to Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: I remind the hon. and learned Gentleman of Standing Order No. 31. The occupant of the Chair must make his decision forthwith. He made his decision forthwith, exercising his discretion. I call Mr. Best to move amendment No. 6.
  Mr. Peter Bruinvels: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are about to debate some very important clauses. For the benefit of the whole country, it is important that we should realise—and I am sure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you would be the first to appreciate it—that there are free votes and free votes. Back Benchers have a free vote, but Ministers have not.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a matter for me. I call Mr. Best.
  Mr. Michael Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Before my hon. Friend moves the amendment, would it be appropriate for me to raise a point of order about an article that appeared in New Scientist last Thursday entitled "How fluoride might damage your health". The article adduces new evidence not previously available to the Department of Health. Had that article appeared before the Bill was. Introduced—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that matters relating to the debate that is to take place are not matters for me. I call Mr. Best.
  Mr. Brown: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would it not be appropriate, before we debate the Bill further, to have a statement of the Government's intention with regard to the—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is not a matter for me. I cannot ask the Minister to make a statement to the House.

  Water Fluoridation Bill
    Clause 1

      FLUORIDATION OF WATER SUPPLIES AT REQUEST OF HEALTH AUTHORITIES
      Mr. Keith Best: I beg to move amendment No. 6, in page 1, line 15, leave out from `force' to end of line 17 and insert 'for one year.'
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 17, in clause 3, page 3, line 4, at end insert—
      '(2A) This Act shall lapse twelve months after coming into force unless before that date its continuance is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.'.
      Mr. Best: We are discussing serious matters. With the greatest respect to the House and to those of my hon. Friends who wish to speak, I must say that I hope that we can retain a sensible level of debate — that the debate will be informative and not necessarily designed to delay the deliberations of the House.
      I was accused last Tuesday of filibustering. I found that allegation offensive. It was never my intention to filibuster.
      Mr. John Golding: Will the hon. Gentleman withdraw the allegation that filibustering, at any time, can be offensive?
      Mr. Best: I shall not rise to that intervention, although I am prepared to be schooled by the hon. Gentleman in matters of filibustering. I gave the House information. The debate ranged over many amendments which needed to be dealt with in full. If hon. Members are good enough to read my speech they will see that I did not repeat myself.
      11.15 pm
      I like to think that I was acquitted of any charge of filibustering by my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health, who said on 26 February that all the evidence that I had given had been rejected because it ran
      "in the teeth of more reputable and more acceptable scientific evidence that goes in the opposite direction." — [Official Report, 26 February 1985; Vol. 74, c. 217.]
      Inherent in that statement is the suggestion that I had not articulated the other side of the case. As I said to my right hon. and learned Friend at the time, had I done so, I should have delayed the House even longer. That would have been intolerable. Later in the same debate, my right hon. and learned Friend said that I had touched on only some of the arguments raised in various parts of the world about adding fluoride to the water. I did not go into detail, because I did not wish to delay the House unduly.
      Amendment No. 6 concerns the duration of an application made under clause 1 and seeks to make it last no more than 12 months. I hope that the Minister accepts the amendment, which does no more than require a health authority to consider the fluoridation of water supplies annually.
      There are now 111 amendments to this most unpopular Bill. That demonstrates the opposition to it. I suspect that proceedings tonight will show that this is a matter of individual conscience and that there is no unofficial Whip on those who oppose or want to ameliorate the Bill. I accept that the artificial fluoridation of water supplies in certain circumstances might be beneficial to children's teeth, but if we cannot have individual choice in all matters of health — which I should prefer — we should at least have local decision making.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have listened carefully, but so far have not recognised that the hon. Member is speaking to the amendment. I hope that he will do so now.
      Mr. Best: Inherent in amendment No. 6 is consideration of whether local views should be taken into account. Requiring health authorities to examine the matter every 12 months would enable any change in the views of local people to be taken into account. It is they who will have no choice but to drink fluoridated water.
      It is important that I make my position on this matter clear, because if individual choice cannot be manifest in the Bill, at least the collective voice of people should be accepted by the health authority. It would be more able to do that if the matter were to be brought before it every 12 months for renewal or discontinuance.
      I have said to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health that if he were able to accept this amendment, although I could not guarantee that I would be successful, I would use my best endeavours with those of my hon. Friends who feel strongly on this matter to persuade them that the amendment should pass without unduly prolonged debate, because it would be a valuable concession. If the amendment were passed, it would ensure that this matter would be debated every 12 months by the health authority.
      Mr. Nicholas Winterton: My hon. Friend has advanced extremely good arguments throughout the whole of the debate. Many of us have grave doubts about the long-term effects of fluoride in the water upon human health. Should not the dismissive attitude taken by the Government to any evidence that has been submitted that does not agree with the evidence that they have led us to believe that they would not show good faith? It is clear that they are not prepared to heed any of the substantial evidence submitted by learned professional people that does not go along with the view of the Department and its advisers.
      Mr. Best: Unlike my hon. Friend, I am an eternal optimist, and I am ready to hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will take account of the evidence. I hope that he will be prepared to accept the amendment, because, for the life of me, I cannot see what objection can be advanced against it. It would enable a health authority to look at the matter every 12 months and take into account the expressions of opinion that have been advanced by the local population.
      If my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary were able to do that, hon. Members would be able to take the debate on this amendment at a fairly quick pace. I cannot be certain, but it might lead to discussions between my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health and myself and other hon. Members. There might then by a concession by the Government. My right hon. and learned Friend has said that he will introduce his own amendment in the other place to ensure that there will be consultation. It might be conceded that that consultation will be given due cognisance by the health authority and will be acted upon.
      I suspect that those who support this amendment, whatever their views on fluoridation might be, will have one thing in common. The essence of the amendment is to ensure the greater ability of the health authority to take into account the views of the local population, who are directly affected by this measure. I have said before, and make no apology for saying again, that I cannot understand

      881
      why it is that those who advance the argument in favour of fluoride seem to be so frightened by the idea of leaving it to public decision.
      Why must this remain the preserve of the health authority? Why not let there be public debate on the matter and leave the decision to the good sense of the British public? In fact, the amendment does not go that far, but at least it seeks to ensure that the health authority will take that consideration into account.
      Sir Dudley Smith: Does my hon. Friend agree that this will be an important declaration of faith on the part of the Department of Health and Social Security, which apparently believes in fluoridation, and it will give an opportunity for those who have doubts — not necessarily the opponents of fluoridation — to reassess and reaffirm their position every year? That surely is the democratic process. From the Department's point of view, it would be giving nothing away. The Department would not be abandoning the idea of fluoridation, but this would give those who have to make the decision time to check any new evidence, such as that which came forward only last week.
      Mr. Best: My hon. Friend exhibits his usual fairness, as the House has come to expect of him. I agree that this would be a gesture of good faith. However, I reiterate that the amendment does not even seek to give voice to the public feeling. It seeks only to ensure that a health authority will reconsider the matter. That is in no way inimical to the main thrust of the Bill.
      I cannot share my hon. Friend's optimism that the Department of Health and Social Security is apparently in favour of the Bill. We know that certain Ministers are not in favour of the Bill. Unless they have changed their minds—
      Mr. Golding: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Best: No, I will not give way. I gave the hon. Gentleman a chance to intervene earlier, when he was engrossed in reading. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I must advance my argument a little further before I allow him to intervene.
      Mr. Marlow rose—
      Mr. Best: I wish to advance my argument and, with due respect to my hon. Friend, he is not doing me any service in attempting to intervene. I am sure that, if he is successful in catching your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker, he may well give pleasure to the House. In any event, if he is successful, he will be able to advance his own argument.
      The amendment is not alien to the main thrust of the Bill, but is an amelioration which would be beneficial by ensuring that health authorities discussed the matter every 12 months. I have advanced one reason why they should do so — that true representation should be given to the voice of the local population, who after all comprise the recipients of fluoride in the water supply without any democratic decision having been taken.
      Mr. Marlow rose—
      Mr. Best: I am coming now to a most important point, and I hope that my hon. Friend will allow me to advance it.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) referred to a report that appeared in the New
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      Scientist of 28 February in the section entitled "Science" under the heading "How fluoride might damage your health". I will not quote the article in full, but I wish to quote the last paragraph which I believe contains the gravamen of the matter:
      "The anti-fluoride MPs and their supporters seem to be a defeated political lobby. Suddenly they have been given proof positive of what fluoride does to the hydrogen bonding of one vital component of the living cell. But are they capable of understanding the weapon they have been handed by Edwards, Poulos and Kraut?".
      Those are the three scientists who have advanced these new findings. The article continues:
      "However, all is not lost, for there is one chemist in government who should understand hydrogen bonding and its importance. Let's hope she reads New Scientist".
      That article was about the hydrogen bonding of enzymes and I do not pretend to understand the subject.
      Mr. Toby Jessel: Would it not be more appropriate to discuss these matters under the next group of amendments?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) is straying a little.
      11.30 pm
      Mr. Best: I am ruled by you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) will not seek to delay me.
      I mention the article because it might be one reason why health authorities should have to consider the matter every 12 months. I do not necessarily agree with the article's conclusions. Evidence from other sources suggests that such arguments contain an element of scaremongering and I do not wish to be associated with them.
      These important matters have not been fully articulated or fully answered by the Minister. In a parliamentary Question on Monday 4 March I asked the Secretary of State for Social Services
      "what study he has made of the findings of Edwards, Pantos and Kraut on the effect of fluoride on hydrogen bonding in cyclochrome-C peroxidase inhibited with fluoride; what are the implications of this research for his assessment of the safety of fluoridating water at 1 part per million; and if he will make a statement."
      I received the following answer:
      "I shall let my hon. Friend have replies as soon as possible."
      On a matter of such importance, the House should have the benefit of the considered view of those on whom the Government can call for expert advice. I hope that, whatever the veracity of the arguments in New Scientist, they will be answered by the Minister. I hope that he has taken further advice, because it is important to know the Government's attitude when we decide such matters.
      I do not wish to delay the House. I address my remarks only to amendment No. 6. I expect that my hon. Friends will want to discuss amendment No. 17. I notice that the Whip is looking at his watch so, in conclusion, I shall say that the amendment could be accepted by the Government in good faith. It is moved in good faith because it is a genuine attempt to ensure that the opinion of local people is taken into account by the health authorities because they are required to examine the matter every 12 months.
      Sir Hector Monro: I support the amendment because it will give the House time to reflect on this major issue every 12 months. So far, we have not had a proper chance to consider the issue in relation to the Scottish health boards and the regional water authorities run by the regional councils.

      883
      We have been told that the Government will move amendments in another place to clarify the position of the area health boards in relation to the water authorities. The Strathclyde region has an enormous water authority, with a substantial number of area health boards. We must not forget that the reason for this Bill arose in Strathclyde, where a lady brought an action in the courts.
      The involvement of the regional authority, the very large number of district councils — which I understood my right hon. Friend to say would also be included in future consultations—and the area health board is a fair recipe for conflict of views on fluoridation of the various water supplies even though they may be under one overall authority. I believe that the advantage of my hon. Friend's amendment is that every year the House of Commons will be able to reassess the position, with the advice of constituents and of many organisations within Scotland, which will give the benefit of their wisdom to the House, the Ministers in the Scottish Office and the Department of Health and Social Security, as to whether an affirmative resolution should be approved.
      Everything that my hon. Friend has said tonight is very apposite and very important to Scotland, because it means that we shall have this opportunity to clarify a situation which may be particularly conflicting on account of the multiplicity of local authorities, whether regional or district, and the area health boards, particularly in the area of Strathclyde, but also throughout the rest of Scotland.
      Like my hon. Friend, I did not want to delay the House, but I did think that we must make an important point that we have not had an opportunity to make before. I therefore wish to support him very strongly and I believe that, on account of the situation in Scotland, which has never been clarified, the amendment really ought to be accepted.
      Sir Dudley Smith: Like my hon. Friends, I have no wish to delay the House on this matter, but I think that in moving this amendment my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys MÔn (Mr. Best) has hit upon something of considerable importance. I intervened to make the point that evidence is now coming forward — whether it is correct I do not know — and I was challenged by an hon. Member who said that it was pitiful, or something like that. He may say that, but it comes from New Scientist, a reputable publication, not some tabloid newspaper. When I read it, it certainly seems to me as a layman quite impressive and I should like to have the determination of those who are skilled in these sciences as to exactly what the position is.
      We have heard something of considerable importance from this article, that there is a woman chemist in the DHSS who apparently is an expert on enzymes of this type and who would be able to give effective evidence to my right hon. and hon. Friends at the DHSS. This surely would be of considerable importance. [Laughter.] The Liberals may laugh, but of course they care very little for the rights of individuals when it comes to the point.
      The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Alan Clark): Closet Socialists.
      Sir Dudley Smith: Yes. They are closet Socialists. Absolutely.
      Mr. Michael Brown: In fact, the lady referred to in the article is not a chemist in the DHSS. She is none other than our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should not pursue that. It really is away from the amendment. He should stick to the amendment.
      Sir Dudley Smith: I am not bright enough to have noticed that that was what was meant. I was misled by my hon. Friend, and I will get back into order.
      It would be a sign of good will if my hon. Friend the Minister were to say that there would be an annual renewal—automatically, or in a short while—for the next five or 10 years on the basis that new evidence comes forward from time to time. Members of the public and hon. Members have their suspicions. Indeed, so do Ministers, but for obvious reasons they cannot respond. If evidence of great importance were to emerge, the matter could be reconsidered. All legislation is not sacrosanct for all time. It may well be that in years to come proof will emerge that fluoridation is harmless or—I shall rue the day—that it is extremely dangerous and must be stopped immediately.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Is my hon. Friend talking about the authorities in England and Wales or is he talking also about those in Scotland, where the position is completely different? In that Scotland has a preferable situation, he should not under-estimate the strength of his case.
      Sir Dudley Smith: As my hon. and learned Friend knows, I am not competent to speak about Scotland. He can do that extremely well. I am addressing myself to England and Wales, representing, as I do, an English constituency.
      My constituents, and certainly others who live in the west midlands, would feel far happier if the Department wer able to make this concession. It is another argument, but they are worried that the water authorities are not directly elected, but appointed. Their bureaucracies have grown up and often the individuals do not reflect the will or the hopes and aspirations of the people. I hope that the Government will do something about the water authorities but at the moment they are there and it is extremely important that we should guard the rights and liberties of our citizens.
      Mr. Gerald Bermingham: Does not the problem get worse? If we are to have a discussion on scientific matters which will influence the House in the years to come, such a discussion should take place in the open and water authorities meet behind closed doors, which is a grave matter.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must not pursue that. It is quite a way from the amendment.
      Sir Dudley Smith: I shall not pursue it, except to say that I have a great deal of sympathy for the point made.
      The Government, in, I hope, deciding that the application will be renewable every year, will give the layman an opportunity to have detailed and important scientific evidence explained to him. The article mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn says:
      "Fluoride switches off the enzyme by attacking its weakest links — the delicately-balanced network of hydrogen bonds surrounding the enzyme's active site."
      That is double Dutch to me. I make no bones about it because I am not a scientist.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: It is gobbledegook.
      Sir Dudley Smith: The hon. Gentleman cannot run away from it just like that. Just because he does not understand it does not mean that it is nonsense. I am prepared to accept that this is important technical evidence. I do not understand it but it might be vital. Given that kind of circumstance, we have a right to have the matter either disproved or upheld. Who better to do it than Government scientists, on the best possible evidence available to them, and with the best possible assistance from other scientists?
      We are not talking about silly, muddled, objectors to fluoridation, who have got hold of some sort of prejudice and do not like the idea of mass medication of water. We have got away from that, and now reputable scientists are raising issues that are beyond our ken. They need to be interpreted. Unless they are, we are failing to do our duty in providing an adequate check on officials and bureaucrats who would railroad the measure through.
      11.45 pm
      Mr. Fairbairn: If there were no scientists who claimed that there was any harm in the addition of these substances to the water supply, that would be one thing. But in that there is a complete division among the most sophisticated and learned scientists, including two people who have the Nobel prize for their expertise—
      Mr. Lawrence: Eight.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Eight? Is it not appalling that the Government are willing to put at risk the health of the people on the basis that they will merely disregard half of the opinions of the scientific world?
      Sir Dudley Smith: With respect, I do not think that the Government are intending to put the health of the nation at risk, as my hon. and learned Friend suggests. I am sure that they are honourable and decent people who want to do the best that they can. On this issue, unlike many others, they are misguided, but that is why we are here tonight, trying to suggest that one way that they can assist in the controversy is to allow an annual review, which will enable Parliament to reconsider the whole issue.
      My hon. and learned Friend raises an important point. It is relevant to the sedentary intervention by the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller), who is a doctor. To hear some of the critics of those who oppose fluoridation, one would think that the scientific evidence was not respectable, that it came from loonies, cranks and others, and did not emanate from those who have done serious research. My hon. and learned Friend suggests that some of them are Nobel prizewinners, and I accept what he says. I have always understood that a majority of scientific opinion was in favour of fluoridation, but that there was a respectable minority, a very serious minority, who raised question marks about it. In those circumstances, Parliament would do well to stop for a moment to consider, pause and realise that it should not now enshrine this Bill in legislation without giving some sort of let out, or possibility in future to discuss the matter in the light of emerging scientific evidence.
      Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: The amendment deals with whether there should be an annual review. I accept what the hon. Gentleman says, that new evidence may come forward. However, is he saying that the scientists at the Department of Health of Social
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      Security and the Minister in the Department would be so obscurantist, insensitive and blindly determined to drive the measure through that they would not withdraw, at a moment's notice, the power to fluoridate water if they believed that it was dangerous, rather than wait 12 months to do so? That seems to be the implication of what he is saying. Surely they would withdraw that power if they believed that fluoridation was injurious to health.
      Sir Dudley Smith: That is a fair point. I am not suggesting that. We all know that if something really important suddenly happened somewhere, the duty of any Government of any political colour would be to the people, and they would withdraw the measure immediately, with emergency legislation. My sense about that is that if there was a sudden alarm and real evidence straight away that it was a highly dangerous substance, and something had to be done about it within 24 hours, that would be done.
      On the other hand, I do not believe that this matter will be resolved quickly or easily. Evidence will continue to be produced on both sides, particularly on the side about which we have heard tonight. Eminent scientists have raised very serious technical doubts not only about the efficacy of fluoride but about positive dangers which, if we are not very careful, could lead to malformation. I do not wish to cause alarm. I just want to know what the exact truth is.
      As time passes, more and more studies will be made of these aspects. That is why it would be prudent for the House and for my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary to accept my hon. Friend's very modest amendment. Ii would give us time to debate the matter in a sensible, logical way at a decent time of the day without any suggestion that we are trying to string matters out. I believe that the Minister would receive a great deal of cooperation from other hon. Members over other aspects relating to the passage of the Bill.
      Mr. A. J. Beith: I am attracted by the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best). It contains the valuable feature that it would cause the health authorities to look at this matter on a regular basis and not to assume that the decision they have made can be set in stone for a long period of time.
      Although many hon. Members are hostile to the Bill because they have a general objection to the use of the public water supply as a means of medication and although many hon. Members also object to the Bill because, in England and Wales at least, the authorities that will make the decision to put fluoride in the water will not be democratically elected, nevertheless many people, on wider grounds, would abandon those principles and say that if fluoridation is beneficial and not harmful they will accept the consequent limitations upon individual freedom for the good of children whose teeth may benefit. However, their views could change dramatically if the balance of medical evidence appeared to them to shift very seriously.
      One striking feature of the medical debate is that new arguments and new directions of inquiry emerge week by week and month by month. Whenever a debate on the subject takes place in the House, that evidence is brought out into the open. Scientific journals are encouraged to publish articles on the subject and the whole debate is reopened. When these proceedings are over, debate in this

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      House may be at an end for some time. It will be transferred to the health and water authorities, which are not required to hold their proceedings in public and which are not so well known to the public, anyway. Furthermore, if they were not obliged to bring the matter before their members at regular intervals, the authorities would not regularly review current scientific thinking.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Does the hon. Gentleman think that the public water supply is a suitable medium into which substances should be put in order that diseases of one kind or another — caries, AIDS, schizophrenia or anything else—may be eradicated?
      Mr. Beith: No. The hon. and learned Gentleman has not been listening very carefully. It is precisely because I reject that view that I reject the Bill. In the hon. Gentleman's party, as in mine, though perhaps more clearly in mine, there is to be a free vote on the matter. It is not a party matter. Were it a party matter, the Bill would not have got as far as this, but if the payroll vote were not being dragged through the Lobby with increasing reluctance night after night, the weight of opinion among those hon. Members on the Conservative Benches who have taken an active interest in the matter would have ensured that the Bill was killed off some weeks ago. It is only the application of the party principles of government that have enabled the Bill to survive so far.
      I have been tempted to digress. The burden of my argument is that, whereas some of us object to the Bill on wider general principles, many take an attitude to the addition of fluoride to the public water supply which is contingent upon their assessment of the medical evidence. There are many who, unlike me, take the view that, if it is beneficial to a significant number of people, it may be tolerable. I am not advocating that view. I am describing it.
      The health authorities owe those people a duty to review the evidence. If they are putting fluoride into the water supply, they should be required reasonably regularly to review the matter. Annually seems a reasonable basis for doing so.
      Mr. David Crouch: The House will be aware that I served on a regional health authority for 14 years. Regional and district health authorities, or whatever they are called today, are not freely elected. They are nominated by the Secretary of State. What is the point in referring a matter to such a body once a year? We should refer it to Parliament or a Select Committee. I am rather a purist. I have listened tonight to my hon. and learned Friends and others argue the case. I happen not to like state medication. This is a wrecking amendment, but I should like to see the whole thing destroyed and the Bill put aside. To say that fluoride is good and that health authorities should consider the matter every year is nonsense. It is Parliament that should consider it every year.
      Mr. Beith: I welcome the hon. Gentleman's unequivocal statement, based on his well-known experience in the Health Service, that the procedure under which our health authorities are nominated by central Government is unacceptable. It is one that led my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft) to propose an earlier amendment on that subject. It calls
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      into question all our attempts to have the operation of the procedures under the Bill as reasonable and as fair as possible.
      That is called into question by the basis on which health and water authorities are appointed. We constantly have to take what I might call a fallback position. If we start from the assumption that it were better that none of this were done through the public water supply, but the Bill has a Second Reading and seems as though it has some possibility of obtaining a Third Reading, we then have to consider what other ways might be employed to ensure that the matter is decided democratically and fairly and on the basis that information is to hand and that the matter is reconsidered at appropriately regular intervals.
      I am at one with the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) in his criticisms of the mechanisms that have been chosen by the Government for that purpose.
      Mr. Bermingham: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that if the matter is left to health or water authorities, there is no guarantee that either body will be supplied with the full and detailed scientific information necessary to enable them to make a considered and rational judgment? Does he further agree that even if the information is given to those authorities, and although they may act in their almost cowboy-like fashion occasionally, the public cannot evaluate the judgments or query the decisions?
      Mr. Beith: All those criticisms can be levelled. Wherever the decision that is reached—in this place or anywhere else—the criticism can always be levelled that insufficient scientific information is available, or that some people took account of one part of the information and some others. We cannot reach a purist view on that point.
      The amendment seeks to ensure that the matter is brought regularly before the health authority. For the life of me, I do not understand why the Government should show the slightest hesitation in accepting that principle. It seems relatively simple even for the most dirigiste of the occupants of the Government Front Bench to accept. If they want to apply this collectivist, Socialist approach to the public water supply, let us have the matter reconsidered at suitably regular intervals.
      Mr. Gwilym Jones: The hon. Gentleman makes comments which continually refer effectively to amendment No. 6. As I understand it, amendment No. 17 is also before the House. It reads:
      "This Act shall lapse twelve months after coming into force unless before that date its continuance is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament."
      I should have thought that that amendment is in line with some of the points that the hon. Gentleman is trying to make.
      Mr. Beith: I see great merit — on the basis of arguments that have been advanced by me and other hon. Members who intervened during my speech — in the matters coming back to the House regularly and in requiring an affirmative resolution. If this point were pressed to a Division, I think that I would be inclined to support it. Since the Government plan to entrust these matters to the health authorities, I believe that it is eminently sensible that a regular interval should be imposed within which the Government must reconsider. The strongest argument for doing so is the fluid nature of the medical and scientific arguments that surround this

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      issue. Many people have felt that if the scientific argument had gone one way rather than another that would have influenced their decision.
      12 midnight
      Mr. Marlow: The hon. Gentleman, like myself, is a human being. [Interruption.] I would not say that of all Liberals. As the hon. Gentleman knows, to change one's mind from time to time is part of the human condition. One changes one's mind for various reasons, and the hon. Gentleman has adduced some of those reasons. Letters have been written to many hon. Members about this measure, and hon. Members have said that they are against fluoridation of the water supply. It is possible that hon. Members on the Treasury Bench have said that they are against fluoridation. It appears from the proceedings this evening that they are likely to vote in favour of fluoridation. For some reason—it is not for me to say what the reason might be; they might or might not have good reasons—
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: They have not changed their minds; they have only changed their vote.
      Mr. Marlow: I am sure that they would not change their vote if they had not changed their minds. Let us be charitable about it — Ministers on the Treasury Bench have changed their minds. Having changed their minds once, they may well change their minds again. If hon. Members on the Treasury Bench can change their minds — given their status and intellectual clarity — surely others could change their minds as well.
      Mr. Beith: The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. I have rested my case in favour of the amendment on the assumption that the medical evidence will continue to engage a great deal of argument from people on both sides of the case. That may lead some people at some stage to change their position on purely medical grounds.
      There is no reason why someone should not change his mind on an issue of major principle. The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security — the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten)—has changed his mind once on that issue, and may do so again. The hon. Gentleman is not so inflexible and hidebound that changing his mind once will prevent him from doing so a second time. It is wrong of me to exclude the possibility that some people will change their minds on the fundamental principle involved.
      In many ways, that is an argument in favour of amendment No. 17, which would bring the matter regularly back to the House. That would be especially for the benefit of the hon. Gentleman, who might by then be in another job, or perhaps in no job at all. If he has no job, we might see him back in the Lobby voting against the Bill. If we found him on the Back Benches, the hon. Gentleman might change his mind again.
      Mr. Best: I have in front of me a list of names of right hon. and hon. Members on the Treasury Bench who, in the past, have expressed opposition to fluoride. In fairness to them, it is open to them — I hope that the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) accepts this point—to change their minds. This place is based upon the conception that people will be able to change their minds in the light of persuasive debate. Many of the Government Members whom I have approached have told me that they have changed their minds since expressing
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      unequivocal opposition to fluoridation of the water supplies. One hon. Member whom I approached tonight immediately wrote a letter to that effect to make it clear that he was now in favour of fluoridation, although he had expressed his opposition to it in the past.
      Mr. Beith: Clearly, if minds can be changed as quickly and as readily as that, changes the other way are just as possible. I am slightly more worried about those right hon. and hon. Members who have not changed their minds but who feel that it is incumbent upon them to walk through the Lobbies in favour of a Bill of which they disapprove. I acquit the Under-Secretary of that. I think he must have convinced himself of the argument. Time will tell. In a year's time he may be in a different position and have a different view. We must allow for that. We must allow for the ebb and flow of scientific argument. We must ensure that these matters are brought again and again before the authorities. It is an important decision of far-reaching implications. It is not something which can be taken once and for all time.
      I fear that the health authorities and water authorities will find it too easy to have an uncomfortable debate about fluoride out of the way and repose in the hope that they do not need to consider the matter again for many years. I do not think they are entitled to the excuse of that freedom. If they are to be given this job, they should be required to review the matter annually. That is why I support the amendment.
      Mr. Nicholas Winterton: I am pleased to participate for the first time formally in the proceedings on the Bill. I declare myself as a very strong opponent of the fluoridation of the public water supply. I must commend the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith). It is not often that I follow the hon. Gentleman and can say that I agree with every word that he uttered and every sentiment that he expressed. I believe that he was reflecting the widespread opinion that is held in the country about fluoridation. On an issue which is surely one of personal choice relating to what one takes into one's body through water or through food, the opinion of the House should be reflected genuinely in a free vote.
      The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed directed most of his speech to amendment No. 6, which was moved very ably by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best). I commend him on the way that he opened the debate because he held out to the Government a lifeline. The House will be forced to drag the Government through many further hours of debate unless they are prepared to make some reasonable concession to those of us, representative of all parties, who speak on behalf of a great many people outside.
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: Would my hon. Friend consider it a reasonable concession if the House is not to have a free vote on whether fluoride should be put in the water, for local government, which is freely elected by the public, to make the decision rather than health authorities which are appointed by the Secretary of State, who has also appointed the payroll vote which will vote the Bill through?
      Mr. Winterton: I could respond at some length to that intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Mr. Hawkins), a very good neighbour to me in the county of Cheshire.
      Mr. Hawkins: Derbyshire.
      Mr. Winterton: Derbyshire is making a bid for parts of Cheshire which will be resisted.
      Mr. Bill Walker: My hon. Friend is probably unaware that the water authorities in Scotland are regional, elected authorities. Nevertheless many of us myself included, feel that they ought not to be given the powers in the Bill.
      Mr. Winterton: I take the point so clearly made by my hon. Friend. One thing that I have learned in the time I have been in the House—almost 14 years—is not to intervene in matters relating to Scotland unless one knows one's facts. I do not pretend to be an expert on Scottish affairs. I certainly do not pretend to be an expert on the law of Scotland. I leave that to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn), who has propounded excellent arguments in the debates that we have already had on the Bill. I support both amendments that are being debated, including the one put forward eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Mon, who I understand is a solicitor—
      Mr. Best: No, a barrister.
      Mr. Winterton: I stand corrected. I can never catch up with the Celts either. My hon. Friend expounded his views clearly. The last time that we debated this matter, my hon. Friend's speech was excellent. At no time did he repeat himself. This evening, he was so reasonable that he caught me by surprise, because I am a little more jaundiced about Government and the assurances that may or may not be given from the Front Bench during the passage of a Bill merely to pacify those who oppose the legislation.
      Mr. Fairbairn: If my hon. Friend accepts, as I believe he does, that it is wrong in principle that any member of the public should be compelled to swallow a substance which might do some good to someone else but which is likely to be poisonous to himself, why should that be a matter of democracy? Why should it be debated in Parliament once a year? Why should the local health authority decide it? Surely every citizen and voter is entitled to say, "That shall not come in my water."
      Mr. Winterton: To get this matter out of the way once and for all, and to assist my hon. and learned Friend, may I say, reading from a document entitled, "Fluoride: the facts and the fancy", that I entirely agree with the first stated objective of the National Pure Water Association, which is:
      "Fluoridation is not an issue that should be decided by the votes of members of Local Authorities or of members of Parliament. It is the essence of a free society that people can make their own choice on intimate matters affecting their minds and bodies, such as religious belief, medical treatment, and what they should eat or drink."
      I should have been out of order had I developed that point, but I hope that I have clarified the position for my hon. and learned Friend.
      As has been said by several hon. Members, not least by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, there are occasions when, during the passage of a Bill, the House must find a safety feature that will give some confidence to those of us who are deeply worried about mass medication and about the use of the public water supply for medical purposes. At present, we are debating a fall-back position. With the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, I want the Bill to be defeated. I repeat his view, which is shared by many Conservative Members, that if
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      it was not for the payroll vote coming into the House to be what I would call the puppets and stooges of a misconceived Government measure that is not sufficiently understood outside this place, it would be defeated. Where are the press? They are certainly not here to listen to the debate, which is a pity, because the health of many people is at stake.
      Mr. Best: I did not wish to interrupt my hon. Friend in full flow, especially after the expression of concern for his water from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn). I share his concern for his water. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) accepts that I moved the amendment very much on the basis that he just stated—that it was a fall-back position. With him and my hon. and learned Friend, I want this to be a matter for individual choice for every citizen who would be affected. However, the Bill has received its Second Reading. It has been introduced because the fluoridation of water supplies was rendered unlawful by the decision in the Strathclyde case. I have offered the Government an olive branch. If the Minister now said that the Government would accept the amendment on the basis that hon. Members would be brief in their speeches to ensure the smooth passage of the Bill, would my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield be prepared to cut short his speech?
      12.15 am
      Mr. Winterton: While I might refuse to accept that proposition, I am sure that it would curtail the debate because many hon. Members would feel that such a fail-safe situation would ensure that the rapid changes in medicine and science as they affect the fluoridation of water would be discussed after 12 months by every health authority.
      Let us remember, however, that members of health authorities are appointed, not elected. I would rather the whole matter be left to personal choice. People could then use fluoride toothpaste, fluoride tablets or not use fluoride at all. Much cheaper and safer alternatives could be available for the benefit of children, and they are the only group for whom fluoride can be useful.
      I accept that the amendment is a fall-back provision, and if I knew that every member of my local health authority would, once a year, take account of all new medical evidence relating to fluoride and the public water supply, I would be much happier.
      We are debating a matter of high principle. Throughout our discussions of this issue my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross has stressed the importance of that high principle, and I support every word that he has said. Both Houses should spend some time each year considering the matter. After all, we are the duly elected representatives of the people. The experts and laymen among us can assess the medical and scientific evidence because, as has been pointed out, in this day and age medical and other advances proceed apace.
      There should be a free vote on this issue. I hold in my hand a document which the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten), signed in 1979. That shows that he was then wholeheartedly opposed to the fluoridation of the public water supply. The Scottish Whip, my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Lang), with whom I had the pleasure

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      of attending school many years ago, was an honorary officer of the Pure Water Association in Scotland, and—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will return to the amendment.
      Mr. Winterton: I hope that I am talking to both amendments, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It appears from new evidence that a number of Members have changed their view merely because of their position and not because of medical evidence that has been presented to them. We are debating amendments of great importance. One amendment seeks merely to make an addition, and the other is designed to modify clause 1—
      Mr. Best rose—
      Mr. Winterton: I give way to my hon. Friend.
      Mr. Best: In the interests of the debate and of amity in this place, I ask my hon. Friend to withdraw what he has said about my right hon. Friend and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench. If I am not mistaken, he has been grossly unfair to Ministers and PPSs. Unless he has been able to ascertain their views and to discover whether they have changed their minds because of their position, or genuinely because of being persuaded to the contrary, I ask him to withdraw. If he has not taken the steps that I have described, he has been grossly unfair.
      Mr. Winterton: I should like to oblige my hon. Friend, but I am prevented from doing so by the document which I hold in my hand, which was sent to the chairman of the national anti-fluoridation campaign in Thames Ditton, Surrey. It reads:
      "I hereby confirm that I am opposed to the fluoridation of public water supplies — name, John Patten — constituency, Oxford—signature, John Patten."
      That is dated 12 July—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. the hon. Gentleman knows that the question whether Ministers have changed their minds has nothing to do with the amendment.
      Mr. Winterton: With respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I refer you to amendment No. 17, which states:
      "This Act shall lapse twelve months after coming into force unless before that date its continuance is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament."
      We are fortunate to be debating these issues tonight as we are fortunate to have the attendance of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, who represents Oxford, West and Abingdon. I am sure that he will take advantge of the debate to tell the House why has has changed his mind. Perhaps he will tell us that his reason for doing so was not the appointment which led to him holding his present position.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: That has nothing to do with the amendment. The hon. Gentleman must return to the amendment.
      Mr. Winterton: I am happy to give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown).
      Mr. Michael Brown: Perhaps my hon. Friend will consider what I have to say in the light—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman should address the Chair.
      Mr. Brown: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr.
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      Winterton) will consider why it should be that my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg), who once held the position of Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, and my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Dr. Vaughan). who once held the position of Minister for Health, changed their minds—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is raising matters that are not relevant to the amendment. He must adhere to the amendment.
      Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As I understand it, these amendments provide for a review after a year. The reasons that are being advanced for having that review include the possibility of new evidence and of hon. Members changing their mind. The fact that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security has obviously changed his mind and the fact that others have changed their minds is surely germane to the argument that my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) is advancing.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am always grateful for advice from hon. Members on what is in order, but that is a matter within my discretion. The hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) has been straying from the amendment, and he must return to it.
      Mr. Winterton: I accept entirely, Mr. Deputy Speaker—
      Mr. Best: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not a convention of the House that before we name hon. Members, whether they be Ministers or Back Benchers, we approach them to tell them of our intention. It may be that those of my hon. Friends who have mentioned Ministers have taken that course, but if not, have they failed to observe a convention of the House?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: That may be a convention, but it is not a matter for the Chair.
      Mr. Winterton: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for bringing me back to order and enabling me to comment briefly before protecting me from my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys MÔn. In general, I do not believe that one has to tell a colleague that one intends to mention his name, especially if he is in the House, as was one of my hon. Friends whom I mentioned this evening. The other hon. Friend whom I mentioned was named for a similar purpose by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross when we debated the Bill a week ago.
      Sir Dudley Smith rose—
      Mr. Winterton: I have highlighted the way in which hon. Members and Ministers can change their minds because it is germane to amendment No. 17. If there were a debate in both Houses of Parliament at least once a year, if, in the words of the amendment,
      "This Act shall lapse twelve months after corning into force unless before that date its continuance is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament",
      it would then be the responsibility of the Ministers to tell the House what had happened in the previous 12 months and perhaps why they themselves had changed their views. Do not their electors have a right to know why they have changed their minds? I will take an even wager, if I may

      895
      use such a phrase here, that many of the Ministers who have changed their views have not advised their electors accordingly.
      Sir Dudley Smith rose—
      Mr. Winterton: I am happy to give way to my hon. Friend, who represents the town in which I had the great pleasure to be born.
      Sir Dudley Smith: My hon. Friend may not be quite so happy when he hears what I have to say. He is talking, quite rightly, about the fact that people change their minds and about why that is germane to the argument. I received in my post this morning a list headed "These MPs started right". It is a list of hon. Members who opposed fluoridation but failed to vote against the Bill on Second Reading. My hon. Friend was among them.
      Mr. Winterton: I am delighted that my hon. Friend has drawn that matter to my attention. If he could remind me of the date of the Second Reading, I would be happy privately to tell him—he could release the letter to the press if he wished—where I was on that occasion.
      Mr. Golding: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Winterton: I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman, whom I had the pleasure of contesting against in my first parliamentary election in 1969 in Newcastle-under-Lyme, but first I say that my record on fluoridation stretches back over many years. I moved resolutions in Warwickshire county council opposing the mass fluoridation of water supplies.
      Mr. Golding: May I refresh the hon. Gentleman's memory? He did not lose one election to me; he lost two.
      I appeal to hon. Gentlemen not to stir up a hornet's nest by quoting Division records in the Chamber. If Division records are quoted in the Chamber, many of us will tremble whenever we enter it.
      As the only Labour Member who had to swing to the left on joining Mr. Callaghan's Government, I warn the hon. Gentleman not to challenge collective responsibility. If he does so, he will cause grave disquiet to each and every Minister, because not one of them can believe in what their leader is doing at present.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) pursues that point he will certainly be moving away from the amendment. He should return to the amendment before the House.
      Mr. Winterton: I did indeed fight two elections against the hon. Gentleman. They were well contested by both candidates and on the first he produced the lowest majority for Labour in the history of his constituency.
      Having established that, may I say that this is a matter of great principle. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) says that I should not question collective responsibility, but this is a free vote. There cannot be collective responsibility. That is why those of us who oppose the Bill because of what it does and the principle of what it tries to do have contested it so strongly. Amendment No. 17 says—
      Mr. Fairbairn: It has not been moved yet.
      12.30 am
      Mr. Winterton: It is being taken with amendment No. 6, so I have every right to talk to it.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I am amazed by my hon. Friend, even if he fought such a grand opponent twice, because what he is proposing and supporting is a fudge. I did not think that it was his nature to fudge. He is suggesting that this is not a principle but that it can be tested. All of these wretched Ministers and their parliamentary private secretaries will come back in one year's time, be just as dishonest and give the vote that keeps their jobs and leaves their conscience in the gutter, as all of them are doing now. Do not fudge.
      Mr. Winterton: I am extremely tempted by some of these interventions. I do not want to incur your wrath, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by going beyond the amendments, but is it right that, when we are discussing an amendment that enables hon. Members to debate such an important issue, a Government Whip—my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones)—should write a letter to a Miss Mellor saying:
      "This is just to let you know that I have added my name to the early-day motion opposing artificial fluoridation of the public water supply."?
      Is my hon. Friend the Member for Watford here? [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] Where is he? [HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."]
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order.
      Mr. Winterton: I hope that the debates that follow the Goverment's acceptance of amendment No. 17—
      Mr. Golding: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There has just been a most vicious scurrilous attack on a Whip who was prevented from hearing it by an intervention from behind. Is it not wrong that, when an hon. Member is being attacked in such a scurrilous manner, he cannot hear it?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order.
      Mr. Winterton: I merely said that my hon. Friend the Member for Watford had written a letter saying that he had signed an early-day motion opposing fluoridation of the public water supply, dated 7 November 1979.
      Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Would it be in order for you to draw the attention of my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) to the fact that he has been subjected to a devastating and unfair attack by my hon. Friend—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is not a point of order.
      Mr. Golding: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is not a point of order.
      Mr. Winterton: I have had more exercise in the Chamber tonight than I have taken all day because of the number of times that I have had to sit down for points of order and other interventions.
      Mr. Golding: I am informed that the hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) was stopped from hearing that point of order by the chairman of the Scottish Pure Water Association.
      Mr. Winterton: During the two elections that I fought against the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme he

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      brought forward much entertaining information, and I am grateful to him for drawing the attention of the House to this point.
      Mr. Best: I caution my hon. Friend not to go any further in the attack that he is making. I took the precaution of speaking to my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones), who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) knows, cannot answer the attack that he has made. My hon. Friend the Member for Watford told me clearly, and I accept and respect the way that he put it, that—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have been in the Chair for only five minutes, and I have heard nothing yet that relates to the amendments under discussion. Perhaps we can get back to them.
      Mr. Winterton: Normally, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford is engaged in concocting press releases concerning my activities abroad.
      Mr. Best: My hon. Friend the Member for Watford has genuinely changed his mind, and I respect his view on that. It is unfair of my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield to attack my hon. Friend the Member for Watford, because he knows only too well that my hon. Friend the Member for Watford is not in a position to answer him.
      Mr. Winterton: When I was abroad and my hon. Friend the Member for Watford attacked me, I was not able to reply either. I hope that that deals adequately with the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn, whose advocacy of amendment No. 6 I support purely because it is a fail-safe — it is a fall-back position. I support amendment No. 17 for the same reasons. Does not my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn believe that the House is owed an explanation for the extraordinary way that so many hon. Members suddenly changed their minds? Amendment 17, through a genuinely free debate, would give hon. Members, whatever position they hold, a chance to give their reasons for changing their mind.
      Mr. Crouch: I am glad that my hon. Friend has come to amendments Nos. 6 and 17. Why are we debating so long on this subject? Has my hon. Friend never heard about the Consolidated Fund Bill, which must come before the House once a year, or the Budget, which must come before the House once a year? As representatives of the people, we decide once a year, every year, on matters that concerns their pockets—taxes. Is it so strange that we should ask them, under amendment No. 17, to consider an effect on their health?
      Mr. Winterton: My hon. Friend, who until recently served with me on the Select Committee on Social Services, a Committee that is directly involved in preventive medicine, has drawn to the attention of the House a very valid point. Indeed, every year we debate the Consolidated Fund Bill, every year we have a Budget and every year we have other set piece debates, and I believe that, on a matter as important as an individual's health, the House also should have the opportunity of debating the issue. That is why I have strongly directed the majority of my remarks to the belief that the Government should accept not only amendment No. 6 but also amendment No. 17.
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      If my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten) would seek to intervene and indicate to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môns and other hon. Members that he is prepared to accept the amendments, I am convinced that a great deal of the heat could be taken out of the debate.
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) has been attacked for attacking a Whip who is not allowed to defend himself. Will you agree, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that there is neither a rule of the House nor a rule of the party that Whips may not defend themselves? In fact, the chairman of the Conservative party at the time of the last general election set the tradition of a speaking Whip.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise a point of order, he should do so rather than make an intervention. I rule on points of order, not the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton). It is also a rule of the House that speeches must be relevant to the subject under discussion. I hope that the speeches will be relevant to the subject under discussion.
      Mr. Hawkins: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was seeking your guidance. Is it a rule of the House that a Whip may not defend himself?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have already stated that it is not a rule of the House.
      Mr. Winterton: Mr. Deputy Speaker, it is perfectly clear that I accept any ruling that you have given. At no time have I sought to interpret a point of order, and I hope that I never will, unless I have the honour to occupy the Speaker's chair.
      I have endeavoured to indicate clearly to the House my support for both the amendments under consideration. I look forward to the participation of other of my right hon. and hon. Friends in the debate.
      In local government, in which I have been involved, the subject was debated by elected members, but it has now been taken away from elected members and comes under the responsibility of health authorities. Health authorities are comprised not of elected members but of members who are appointed by Government. I support the concept of a debate, but the debate in the health authorities should be supported by a debate in this House which is comprised of elected representatives of the people in the country. Hon. Members are therefore perhaps more closely in touch with what their constituents feel about a subject that affects them closely. I fully support the amendments because they provide some safeguard for those who are deeply concerned about the use of the public water supply for mass medication.
      Mr. Bermingham: The two amendments under discussion give rise to some hope for the future. No matter how I think of myself, I do not consider myself to be a scientist. I am always prepared to accept the advice that science offers. Indeed, in recent years, scientific views have changed from time to time. As scientific views change—and that is called progress—Parliament ought to be in a position to review statutes.
      Whether one is in favour of fluoride or against it, one has to keep an open mind. One has to be prepared to accept change and further advice. Legislation must allow for various matters to be brought into account from time to

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      time. To do otherwise would be to have a closed and blinkered view which I believe would not be the wish of any hon. Member.
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      Earlier I was ruled out of order when I intervened. I do not want to pick a quarrel with the Chair, but I was trying to say that just as science has a rolling, progressive and developing view, water and health authorities should have a rolling and progressive view. They should be prepared to take into account developing trends in scientific knowledge.
      Someone might make the massive discovery that fluoride is the best thing since sliced bread or that it is the most dangerous thing since alcohol, tobacco, or any of the other products of which I am guilty of indulging in. If the Bill is passed, I should at least like to believe that future discoveries would not be constrained.
      An important constitutional issue is involved. I shall try not to try your patience, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have listened to your comments about some of us going too far and I shall try to keep within the narrow confines of the amendments, but it is fair to say that in the last few years a number of measures have been too constrained. A minor example is the Representation of the People Bill. It took 30 years for us to bring that legislation back before the House. This could be dangerous. Some criminal law statutes are equally difficult to bring back for consideration.
      We are dealing with a matter which affects the health and welfare of our citizens. A failsafe mechanism is essential to enable us to review legislation in the light of updated scientific evidence. It could be argued that one year is too short a time. I do not know. I am not a scientist. I am prepared to listen to advice on such matters.
      Amendment No. 6 states that the area health authority shall annually review the matter. If I thought that the evidence presented to the area health authorities would be generally available I should be more content. However, experience shows that some health authorities are not as open to the public as they should be.
      My views about the water authorities are well known. We learn nothing about them nowadays that they do not want us to know. Amendment No. 6 at least starts us down the road to openness. It enables the health authorities to call for the evidence and, with a bit of luck, the rest of us might find out what it is. Health is too important a subject to be for ever dealt with behind closed doors.
      Mr. Best: The Secretary of State has accepted the spirit of an amendment which suggested that the public should be given access to health authority meetings and he gave an undertaking that an amendment to that effect would be moved in another place.
      Mr. Bermingham: At least it appears that the Government are waking up to the concept of freedom of information and to opening up some of the unnecessary secret channels in our society. I welcome the fact that health authorities may be opening up, and I hope that this openness will spread to other aspects of Government behaviour. Perhaps if we had a little more openness we should not require quite so many leaks in order to find out what is going on and many of us could give up opening the letters which give those anonymous tip-offs about this, that or the other.
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      But, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I pursue that much further you will tell me to get back to the point of the debate. Rather than give you an opportunity to do that, I will return to amendment No. 6.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Watching the hon. Member's mind flicking around away from the relevance of the debate, I wonder whether he would concentrate on this matter. If we were to accept amendment No. 17—which has not yet been moved but comes within this grouping, Mr. Deputy Speaker—that
      "This Act shall lapse twelve months after coming into force unless before that date its continuance is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament",
      what reason should the hon. Member, or any hon. Member present in the Chamber, have to imagine that the payroll vote, seduced, suborned, disloyal to its principles, will not trammel through whatever the evidence is?
      Mr. Nicholas Soames: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have certainly not been seduced.
      Mr. Bermingham: I do not know whether I am meant to reply to the point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, before I reply to the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn), because I certainly did not have the opportunity—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman will deal with the amendment.
      Mr. Bermingham: I hear what you say, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross had restrained himself a little, he would have found that I would eventually deal with the point which he sought to raise.
      Returning to amendment No. 6, the development of the concept of openness in health authorities is one which I welcome. If I understand the arguments that have been advanced on both sides of the House tonight, there appears to be a scientific argument—I will pitch it no higher than that at the moment—which means that there is an argument for and an argument against. As I have said, I am no scientist and I am not in a position to evaluate those arguments, but one listens from time to time to experts and one takes on board what they have to say. If that scientific argument is continuing, it seems to me to be only right and proper that local health authorites should be under a duty, if this Bill becomes law, to take on board those arguments annually and to evaluate them.
      There are, of course, a number of health authorities in the United Kingdom and it may well be that different authorities will reach different views on the weight of the evidence. That is entirely within their right. If one health authority decides that the weight of the evidence is against fluoride and another decides that it is for fluoride, they will advise the water authority, under clauses 1 and 2, of their position and the water authority will then have to take the necessary steps.
      It seems to me to be right and proper that the different views of various scientific bodies should be evaluated from time to time. It may well be that with the passage of time one particular view becomes overwhelmingly accepted as a result of the evidence adduced and the arguments would then cease. Which view that will be I am not in a position to judge. But we cannot have that continuing dialogue because, as all who have served on local authorities over the years are well aware, once a

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      decision has been taken where there is no necessity to review it that tends to become part of the tenets, written on stone, of the local authority. It is written in the book, not subject to challenge. Indeed, it becomes difficult to challenge it as time goes by.
      It is always worrying that matters pertinent to health should become part of holy writ, written on the tablets, never to be challenged or reviewed. The amendment provides a method whereby the continued review system can be brought into play.
      Amendment No. 17 is even more pertinent and important. I concede that local health authorities are no longer democratically elected bodies, which is a matter of much regret to many of us. At least the House of Commons is still a democratically elected body. Even though the health authorities have their annual reviews, that may not allay the fears of those who are worried about the Bill. It is right that this matter, which is clearly of considerable dispute between the various scientific authorities, should periodically come before the House for review.
      I do not want to take up the point of the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross because the meaning of free votes has been well hammered home tonight. I hope that those responsible for the conduct of the business in this place will appreciate that when a free vote is listed it should be a genuinely free vote, otherwise it makes a mockery of this place. If the payroll vote is whipped in, it becomes necessary for the Opposition to begin whippin in their votes.
      Mr. Golding: The Government must still accept collective responsibility for a Government Bill. It is nonsense for people to argue against Ministers voting for a Government Bill. We should be appealing to all the others in the House who are anti-fluoride to be here to vote against people who are bound to vote against them in order to keep their jobs in the Administration, and that is not something for which I would blame them.
      Mr. Bermingham: Then there is no purpose in ever having a free vote because the concept of a free vote is that each individual Member has a right—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is all very interesting, but it is not relevant to the amendment. I hope that we shall not have a discussion about the principle of free or other votes in the House.
      Mr. Bermingham: I seek never to trespass, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I know the penalties of arguing with your rulings, but I would merely suggest to the Chair, if I may put it that way at this stage, that amendment No. 17 gives rise to the suggestion that the matter should come before the House annually for the positive resolution of both Houses of Parliament. I have always understood that the basis of our constitution is that an hon. Member represents a constituency and that as such he comes here to represent the interests of his constituents. Hence my comments to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) and the House about a free vote. Of course, if I were to be allowed to reply to my hon. Friend's intervention, I would have to raise the question of the free vote. If the Chair is suggesting that in replying to that intervention I shall trespass outside the terms of the debate, I shall naturally accept that ruling, but—
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      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am so suggesting, and I hope that the hon. Member will not persist with the words that hung around his "but".
      Mr. Bermingham: I did not hear what you said, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: What concerns me about amendment No. 17 is that it provides:
      "This Act shall lapse twelve months after coming into force unless before that date its continuance is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament."
      Given the normal time lags in the system, that would be difficult. Given the time lags involved in this Bill, would it not mean that the Government would have to introduce the new Bill the day after this Bill was passed?
      Mr. Bermingham: Far be it from me to dare to comment on the Government's ability to manage their own business in this place, but if one reads the amendment literally it means that the positive resolution would have to appear on the Order Paper 364 days after the date of commencement of the Bill. Indeed, that could happen. I could understand an argument from the Minister that a year was not long enough for the Government to consider the matter because of the scientific interest. If he were to say to me personally that there should be a review every two or three years, I would be prepared to listen to arguments advanced along those lines. But it is the principle behind the matter that is important to me. It has been said that we have an annual Budget. The Bill is not quite in the league of the Budget, but it is not far away from the league of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, which has to be renewed annually.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Quite right.
      Mr. Bermingham: I note that the hon. and learned Gentleman agrees with me. We are beginning to develop the concept of the annual review of matters that are pertinent to people's everyday lives. We all hope that there will come a time when the Prevention of Terrorism Act does not need to be renewed. At the risk of being called to order, I say that some of us argue that that is a criminal, not a political matter, but I shall leave that.
      The concept of the whole matter is the annual review. I cannot see how amendment No. 17 can be opposed. If the Bill is to be the will of the House, presupposing that on a "free vote" at the end of all our debates the Bill goes to another place and after that comes back to us—and I wait with almost amused interest to hear what, if any, objections the Minister can have to amendment No. 17—
      Mr. Fairbairn: What an extraordinary concept it is that the amendment should not be opposed. I find it most offensive. First, as we see tonight, it will be another year after which the measure will just be forced through. It is nothing to do with a resolution of Parliament. It is a bogus resolution of Parliament. Secondly, this is a matter in which water is to be adulterated contrary to the wishes of the people. It is not a matter of democracy. It is not a matter of 12-month votes. It is not a matter of payroll votes. It should not happen. It is a matter of principle.
      Mr. Bermingham: I listen with care to the hon. and learned Gentleman and I accept that there are those who hold the very fierce view that the Bill should never reach

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      the statute book. One accepts that that premise is held in good faith by hon. Members on both sides of the House. One also accepts that there are hon. Members on both sides of the House who honestly believe that the Bill should reach the statute book. Those hon. Members in the middle who are still trying to evaluate the evidence say that amendment No. 17 is a valuable amendment. It allows the position to be continually reviewed. That does not seem to me to be unreasonable.
      As I said at the beginning of my speech, it matters not for the purpose of the argument whether one is for or against fluoride. However, all hon. Members should be in favour of the continuous scientific evaluation of the arguments. In order to enable those arguments materially to affect the Bill, an amendment similar to Amendment No. 17 has to be written into it. It could be argued that the drafting of the amendment is not perfect. I believe that the amendment is very accurate and well drafted and that it is the kind of drafting that should appear in the Bill. It provides both Houses with the opportunity annually to review the position.
      If the Minister is not prepared to accept the amendment, it means that he is not prepared to accept the concept of scientific progress — that arguments turn and change from year to year. As evidence develops, so views change. Therefore, I urge the House to accept amendment No. 6, which provides local authorities and health authorities with the opportunity to hold an annual review. I urge the House also to accept amendment No. 17. It would allow the position to be reviewed annually. Because there have been no scientific developments, there may be only a short debate. However, in two or three years a major scientific breakthrough may be made that will need to be fully debated. However, that debate cannot take place unless amendment No. 17 is agreed to. Therefore, I urge the House to accept amendment No. 17.
      Sir Ian Percival: I should like to say a few words in support of amendment No. 17. By contrast with some of the rollicking things to which I have been listening, what I have to say may seem somewhat prosaic, but I hope that it will not be so insufferably long-winded as some of the stuff to which I have been listening. Although it supported the argument that I propose to advance, it seemed to be in danger of killing it by a surfeit of words.
      I support amendment No. 17 purely and simply as a fall-back. Why do we need a fall-back? I just do not understand how so many friends and colleagues of mine whom I have liked and admired for so many years can support, let alone be so determined to drive through this House, a Bill that authorises compulsory medication. It is no use trying to disguise that fact. In opening this debate my hon. Friend the Minister of State said that this is compulsory medication and that he accepted it. Let us think about the implications. If there is any freedom that we should preserve, is it not your freedom, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and mine to say, "I don't want that medicine. I don't want it put down my throat"? That in itself is sufficient of an argument to kill the Bill. I do not understand, as I have already said, how so many of my friends and colleagues, whom I like and admire, can take the opposite view.
      Mr. Jessel rose—
      Sir Ian Percival: No, no, no. I want to make my speech and sit down. I could just understand it if my hon. Friends were saying, "This is so important that we will compel it. The House will compel it." At least that would be compulsion by the senior elected body in this country. But the Government are not doing that. They could not. What are they doing? This I do not understand either. They are saying, "We will not do it, but we will allow two other bodies, over whom no one has any control, to do it." I regret the fact that some of my hon. Friends and colleagues have suggested that either is an elected body. They are not, and it is nonsense for us to say that they are. They are not answerable to any electorate.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Except in Scotland.
      Sir Ian Percival: All right, Scotland is on its own. It can fight its own battles. I am fighting the English battles—the battles of my constituents and battles in which I believe.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Believe in the United Kingdom.
      Sir Ian Percival: Will my hon. and learned Friend leave me alone to make my speech? The matter is too serious for the kind of rollicking enjoyment that we are having in the House.
      I do not understand how my right hon. and hon. Friends can say, "Not only will we go along with the principle of compulsory medication, but we will put it in the hands of bodies over which there is no control." I have not yet heard any explanation as to how they can reconcile that with our Conservative principles.
      I could just understand those matters if the case for fluoride were overwhelming, but it is not. The hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller) wags his head. He can make his speech in due course. It is no good anyone sitting, as he is, wagging his head. I have taken the trouble to study a great deal of the evidence. I have spent most of my life studying evidence and trying to evaluate it. I accept at once that I am capable of being wrong, but I reckon that I can see when the evidence is all one way. It is not all one way in this case.
      I wish that the hon. Member for East Kilbride would stop wagging his head. If he has any evidence to the contrary perhaps he will make a speech. I do not fear fluoride for myself, but I accept that if someone else fears it I have no right to say that they are wrong to fear it. I hope that I may have my hon. Friend the Minister's attention on this. May I have the Minister's attention? None of us have any right to say that those who fear taking fluoride are silly, and that they should not fear it. We have no right to force it down their throats.
      There are two other matters that I do not like. I do not like—this may be a bit stuffy—the lighthearted way in which this matter has been treated on some occasions by the Government and on others by those who are putting the same argument as I am. It is a serious argument and the sooner everyone sits down and takes the matter seriously the better.
      I do not like this new concept of a free vote. I make no secret of that. I have communicated it to my hon. Friends and colleagues. I hope that it will be made clear to the country that this is not a free vote in the sense of it being the will of Parliament. If the Bill goes through, I hope that no one will say that it was the will of Parliament on a free vote, because that is not so. I do not believe that my

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      colleagues on the Treasury Bench wish that impression to be spread abroad. I hope that they will make it clear that it is not that kind of free vote. If this measure goes through it will be the Government's responsibility.
      I do not understand how the Government can take the view that it is right to allow compulsory medication or how, if they take that view, they can pass the authority for that to someone else instead of taking the responsibility themselves. That is especially hard to understand because the evidence is far from one-sided. It justifies the fears of some people.
      1.15 am
      For those reasons, I wish with all my heart that the Bill will fail. I hope that my colleagues will change their minds and withdraw the Bill, saying that they have listened to the serious arguments—there is no loss of face in that. I hope that they will agree at, on reflection—never mind the rollicking — it would not be right to force the legislation through. That would be greatly to their credit. If they will not, I beg them at least to allow this fall-back provision to be introducted. For those reasons, I support amendment No. 17.
      Mr. Michael McGuire: We have all enjoyed the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Southport (Sir I. Percival), who speaks with great authority on these matters. He did not name any hon. Member in particular who gave the impression that we have treated lightly a matter of high principle. This is our third late-night sitting on the Bill, and levity has crept into the debate without any serious intention to devalue this high principle. We should take the right hon. and learned Gentleman's rebuke on board. We shall do more justice to views on the Bill if we treat it is seriously as the right hon. and learned Gentleman wants.
      Amendment No. 17, which is a fall-back provision, is seen by the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) as giving credence to a thoroughly bad Bill which devalues the concept of freedom as all hon. Members understand it. I know that the hon. and learned Gentleman wants to deal with the Bill as a matter of high princople. He believes that we should not touch this legislation with a barge pole and should not table amendments that make bad principle slightly better. He says, "There are sound reasons why we can introduce this measure, obnoxious as many of us consider it to be. It is dangerous if we dress the legislation up with all kinds of bad amendments which allow the continuation of the bad principle, but for only 12 months."
      We have to deal with the world as it is and recognise that the Bill was given a Second Reading. I shall not labour the point that the free vote is not enshrined in the amendment. It is essential to understand that the free vote as such has never existed. We have had a vote that has not reflected the will of the House. If it had done so, the Bill would not have received a Second Reading. The Bill has had its Second Reading and four sittings in Committee. We are now trying to do our best to lessen its impact. To that extent we have to address our minds to the principle of freedom which we all uphold. The Bill has gone through Second Reading and Committee stage. We are now seeing what we can do to lessen its impact.
      Sir Dudley Smith: As the hon. Gentleman says, the Bill has gone through Second Reading and Committee and there have been long sittings on it. As time has gone on,
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      so the arguments against the measure have become more and more conclusive. That powerful speech by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Sir I. Percival), a former Solicitor-General, blew the Bill right out of the water. He was arguing that it was a fall-back position but that from his long experience as an advocate he had come to the conclusion that there was a great deal of evidence against the proposal.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We have passed Second Reading, as the hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McGuire) said. I hope that he will turn his attention to the amendment that is before the House.
      Mr. McGuire: I will, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I listened with great interest to the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for Southport, who never once strayed out of order. The Chair could relax, knowing that he would not have to intervene. The contribution of the right hon. and learned Gentleman on Second Reading was equally powerful.
      In regard to the fall-back position, my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens, South (Mr. Bermingham) developed his proposition skilfully. We are all entitled to our own point of view. The medical evidence is not all on one side. Even learned men who make their living out of evaluating evidence say that people can be left in confusion. Certainly there is evidence that fluoridation is good and will achieve a certain object, even though some people will not benefit from it, but there is also a lot of evidence that it is bad.
      The purpose of amendment No. 17 is to provide for a fall-back position so that as the medical evidence becomes more positive and proves, as I believe, that fluoridation is not good, the Minister who is responsible can say, "Mea culpa. We have made a mistake. There is enough evidence to suggest that the amendment we made to the Bid was wonderful. The evidence against fluoridation is so overwhelming that the Act will not continue."
      Mr. Fairbairn: This is a most serious matter of principle. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Sir I. Percival) was right. It is not a matter which should be discussed flippantly, as the Minister did frequently. If we were to put in the Bill a concept such as is embodied in amendment No. 17, and if the Government, in the face of all the scientific evidence which demonstrates that this is dangerous to health, were to say, "We do not care; our officials have driven us through the ox wagon," what reason have we to imagine that in one, two or 10 years' time any Government would not do so again?
      Mr. McGuire: The hon. and learned Gentleman has outlined that point several times. I wish to deal with it practically. My views are well known—I have said that I would not touch the Bill with a barge pole. However, what has made it more difficult for the anti-fluoridation lobby, of which I am a member, is that the evidence points conclusively to the pro-fluoridation argument—in other words, that it is a good thing.
      Mr. John Home Robertson: Yes, quite right.
      Mr. McGuire: As I said earlier, we are entitled to our opinions. What we must do is to argue and fight our case. That is why we have a debating chamber. That is why we do not have a rostrum, such as exists in some countries,

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      where a man harangues the audience for 10 or 15 minutes, while the others are filling in their pools coupons or writing letters—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Can we get back to amendments Nos. 6 and 17?
      Mr. McGuire: I thought that I had not strayed one inch. What I was saying—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The procedures in other legislative assemblies have nothing to do with the amendments that we are discussing.
      Mr. McGuire: Only in this sense, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We must defend our arguments here. My hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) says that the arguments are overwhelmingly one way. I want to say why I do not believe that that is so. I wish to draw the attention of the House to the New Scientist of 28 February 1985.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: We have heard this. It has been mentioned by several hon. Members.
      Mr. McGuire: It may have been mentioned by others, but it has not been mentioned by me. I have the floor now. The argument about the fall-back position is relevant, because as more evidence becomes available which is contrary to the view held by my hon. Friends their firmness in upholding the fluoridation argument would be weakened. I do not believe that they are saying, "Nothing will shift our opinion. This is the most marvellous invention since one-way streets." What I am saying is that evidence is coming forward to aid people like me, and I am delighted to receive it.
      As the article says:
      "The anti-fluoride MPs and their supporters seem to be a defeated political lobby. Suddenly they have been given proof positive of what fluoride does to the hydrogen bonding of one vital component of a living cell."
      Such evidence was not previously available to us. The more such evidence is available to us, the more the Government's mind is bound to be concentrated. Perhaps we shall eventually persuade them that it is not good to have embarked on the scheme and that, having embarked on it, they must now stop it.
      Dr. Miller: Will my hon. Friend explain what he means by the hydrogen bonding of the living cell?
      Mr. McGuire: So as not to delay my hon. Friend, I shall refer him to the article—
      Dr. Miller: I have read it.
      Mr. McGuire: In that case, my hon. Friend understands it.
      Dr. Miller: I want my hon. Friend to tell the House about it.
      Mr. McGuire: The evidence states that this mechanism destroys certain cells in the body.
      Dr. Miller: No; it destroys enzymes.
      Mr. McGuire: As I understand it, they are a vital part of the make-up of any human being. If something that we did not know about previously attacks the enzymes, we must say that it is not a good thing.
      908
      1.30 am
      From the English point of view—I do not want to arouse the ire of the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross—unelected bodies will determine this issue. It is almost an obscenity of the Bill that this House, on a supposedly free vote, will not be taking the final decision. The Government are prepared to hand the decision to unelected bodies whose members are not subject to recall.
      It is time for the Government to have another change of mind. I say that because the Parliamentary Under-Secretary changed his mind on this issue. We discussed that at length in Committee and, in reminding him of that change of mind, I am not making a party point. Indeed, in Committee I quoted in his defence the words of Emerson:
      "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds".
      Having changed their mind on this issue, the Government intend nevertheless to leave the final decision to an unelected body over which we have no control and which is not subject to the democratic procedures to which we in Parliament are subject.
      While I agree that we should not try to dress up a bad principle with frills, at least the amendment would give some hope for the future. As new evidence comes forward—I have quoted some from the New Scientist—a fall-back provision will be necessary. Amendment No. 17 would provide such a provision.
      Mr. Jessel: I oppose amendments Nos. 6 and 17. The period of one year is so basic to our everyday thinking that we hardly every pause to consider what it really is. As an interval of time, 12 months has no relevance to any problem connected with fluoridation or dental health.
      An analogy has been drawn with the annual budget and the annual Consolidated Fund Bill. A year as a time interval has been traditionally used for the assessment of tax. A winter and a summer—a cycle of seasons—was used to assess the income of farmers and peasants, and that got carried forward into our modern industrial economy; but, as I say, it has nothing to do with fluoridation and dental health.
      To assess the effects of fluoridation in terms of a reduction in dental decay among children requires a period such as five, six or seven years. Over that type of interval one can see the massive reduction in pain, suffering and the avoidance of waste through dental decay that fluoridation is intended to bring about but which had hardly been mentioned tonight. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Sir I. Percival) said that 12 months would be suitable to assess what he called mass medication. I wish that some of my colleagues would be consistent and oppose the addition of chlorine to our water if they are opposed to mass medication and ask that that addition be examined every 12 months. That is mass medication, and to be consistent my colleagues should ask for chlorine to be removed from our water or keep quiet about mass medication.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I am delighted that my hon. Friend has allowed me to intervene. He does not understand the argument even now. I do not suppose that he will understand it, even in his time scale of seven years. If we add something to our water to make it possible for everyone to drink it without risk, that is not medication. The addition is making it drinkable, or potable. On the other hand, if we add something to our water which may help someone else who does not brush his teeth not to have

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      toothache, that is not mass medication, that is force-feeding some so that someone else might benefit. If my hon. Friend cannot see the difference between having water that is drinkable for everyone and adding something that may make the water beneficial to someone, he should sit down within the next seven years.
      Mr. Jessel: I listened to my hon. and learned Friend's argument, but he was engaging in hair splitting. Both additions amount to compulsory mass medication. There are mass additions because everyone has them in his or her water and they are compulsory because they are added to the water supply which everyone has to use. Chlorine and fluoride are both medications because they prevent disease and pain. In that sense they are identical. There is no difference in principle and to pretend that there is to introduce a hair-splitting distinction which is not worthy of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn).
      Mr. Neil Hamilton rose—
      Mr. Jessel: No, I shall not give way. The other night my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross called me and a few of my colleagues cannibals. I remind him that cannibals need strong teeth, which is exactly what the Bill is intended to produce.
      Mr. Bill Walker: My hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel) is obviously unaware that in some parts of Scotland, certainly in the part in which I live, we do not add chlorine to our water. We have pure water which passes through filter beds. We object strongly to anyone doing anything to our water.
      It is all very well for us to talk about mass medication and what we want to do to help the public. It is important for us to remember that in a democracy we should have the maximum amount of freedom. We should impinge on freedom only when it is essential to do so. It may be essential in some circumstances to add something to the water to make it fit for drinking. If my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham does not understand that fine difference, I suggest that he spend some time in Africa. If he takes up my suggestion, he will learn quickly what the difference means.
      I oppose the amendments because I think that they are wrong in the context of the water supply in my constituency and not because I think that it is wrong to have a fall-back position. I do not want a fall-back position in my constituency or a review procedure after 12 months. Much as I think that the amendments have something to commend them, I consider them to be tantalising and tempting. They would take us away from the important matter, which is whether medication should be given to the public through our water supplies.
      I have no facts to support what I am about to say, but I have been advised today by some of my constituents, who care deeply about this issue, who are beekeepers. They tell me that if chlorinated water is added to bee syrup—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I must remind the hon. Gentleman that we are debating whether health authorities should be required to review applications at the end of 12 months. The amendment has nothing to do with bees.
      Mr. Walker: Amendment No. 17 seeks a review after 12 months have passed following the Bill's enactment. I do not want to have to go to my beekeepers in 12 months'
      910
      time and say that the House of Commons is going to review the matter and that we are sorry that all the bees are dead. That is relevant to the amendment.
      Mr. Golding: Would it not be more important to be able to say "halt" to the Government in 12 months' time if the bees had grown steadily worse but were not yet dead? It would be no use saying "halt" when the bees were dead. The hon. Gentleman wishes to be able to save the bees in the nick of time.
      Mr. Walker: I am sure that the House will appreciate the merit of that intervention.
      I am not a scientist and cannot evaluate the evidence presented to me. That is why I am opposed to giving even a 12-month period. I remember the case of high alumina cement. In that case there was no 12-month review period. There was no review period at all.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We have had bees and now we are having cement. We must address ourselves to the amendments.
      Mr. Walker: I feel that you are being a little unjust to me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. [Interruption.] I do not challenge your judgment in any way, but I hope that we shall never in the future look at medical or scientific evidence and be satisfied that there may be a review in 12 months' time when evidence is already being presented that shows that we are indulging in a dangerous practice. I mentioned high alumina cement because that was what happened at that time. Before the first structures collapsed there was ample evidence that the substance was faulty. The principal of Dundee university was responsible for writing the papers that showed that the material was faulty and should not be used.
      Mr. Golding: Is it not possible that it was the fluoride in the water used to mix the cement that produced the problem?
      Mr. Walker: I am not a scientist and cannot comment. However, having been an aviator, I understand that fresh evidence constantly comes forward that makes one revise attitudes that one has held for years. If one does not revise one's attitudes, one can find oneself in serious trouble.
      It is unnecessary to encourage mass medication, and it is wrong to force it upon my constituency, which probably has the purest water—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We have had the Second Reading. We have dealt with that. We are now dealing with specific amendments. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will either address himself to them or resume his seat.
      Mr. Walker: I was about to say that if the people living in my constituency are forced to receive this medication for 12 months before there is a review—
      Mr. Fairbairn: My hon. Friend should understand that in his constituency and mine, where the water comes from the same source, there is no question of mass medication. The people who will have to drink the filthy stuff are not being medicated. They are being poisoned—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman has heard me several times ask hon. Members to address themselves to the amendment. I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will either do so or not seek to intervene.
      Mr. Walker: I am trying desperately to make you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the House understand that I speak tonight on a free vote on behalf of my constituents—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The question whether any hon. Gentleman has received any advice, guidance or direction about how to vote is not a matter for the Chair. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will either address himself to the amendment or resume his seat.
      Mr. Walker: It has not been my intention to delay the House. I have spoken for seven minutes, during which I have said why I am not prepared to support either of these amendments. I have sat through many longer speeches that have gone much further from the subject under discussion. I hope that I have explained why I am unable to support the amendments.
      Mr. Marlow: I do not know how much of the debate my hon. Friend has heard. He has been here all evening, but I am not sure whether he was here on previous occasions.
      Mr. Walker: I was abroad.
      1.45 am
      Mr. Marlow: That is quite reasonable and I am not criticising my hon. Friend. I would not dream of it or dare to.
      Mr. Home Robertson: I would.
      Mr. Marlow: Well, the hon. Gentleman is a little uncouth. I shall not be drawn in that direction. My hon. Friend must be aware that every day, week, month and year there is new evidence on this subject. Without these amendments, we shall allow health authorities to pollute our water supply without end. As new evidence is constantly emerging, it is only prudent to pass the amendments.
      Mr. Walker: My hon. Friend as put his case well and cogently. I said that I found it tempting to go for the fall back. I have examined the evidence and circumstances in my constituency and I am unable to support a fall back.
      Mr. Michael Brown: The amendments are important as they give those who are convinced that the evidence favours fluoridation the chance to vote in favour of their principles today and to be able to say honourably in 12 months that, although they were convinced that fluoridation was right on 5 March 1985, they recognize—
      Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker: The time might come when the Government might feel that they might wish to put it to you that the Question should be put. Before that crosses the Government's mind, can I put it to you that we have had a long debate but have not heard from my hon. Friend the Minister?
      Amendment No. 6 concerns an annual review, and we know that my hon. Friend the Minister has had a change of mind. It would be inappropriate for the Government to put it to you that the Question be put in advance of my hon. Friend answering the debate and giving his point of view, as that is germane to how many hon. Members might react.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I cannot rule on hypotheses. That is not a point of order.
      Mr. Brown: Those hon. Members who follow the view of my hon. Friend the Minister that fluoride is, with all the evidence that is available today, something that should he put in the water supply should support the amendment. They do not know, any more than I do, what evidence will be adduced in the next two months, the next 12 months or the next 10 years, which might suggest that fluoride in the public water supply is dangerous.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Let us suppose that it is discovered tomorrow by scientists that fluoride causes cancer or destroys kidneys, or whatever. Obviously, the Government would say, "Stop." However, if in a year's time, there is still the shady evidence, of which there is a massive amount now, will it happen on 5 March 1986 that the Act will fall and the payroll vote is not wheeled in? If so, what would be the Government's position? It is an absurd amendment. Why do not the Government just accept the fact that there is major scientific evidence that shows that fluoridation is harmful and is contrary to principle? To put it on as a sort of annual event like the Budget is ridiculous.
      Mr. Brown: I do not agree with my hon. and learned Friend on that point. These are a modest two amendments that enable those of my hon. Friends who today believe that fluoride is a good thing, to change their minds in 12 months' time in the light of new evidence. For that reason, many of us have supported my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) in their amendments. Because of those amendments, my hon. Friends, led by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, can hold their heads high. As there is doubt, which has been drawn to the attention of the House, it is right to give the House the opportunity to think again every 12 months.
      The position for many hon. Members, myself included, has changed since we last debated this matter a week ago. Then, I could not imagine that I would read a distinguished article in the New Scientist of 28 February entitled "How fluoride might damage your health". I am sure that there are hon. Members who, a week ago, were prepared to give my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary the benefit of the doubt, but as a result of this article, have changed their minds. We would be ill servants of our constituencies if, having debated a matter of great controversy such as this with open minds, we had not been influenced by this article.
      Many hon. Members must be taking advantage of what has been described as a free vote not to be here. It may be that last week, hon. Members who had no interest one way or the other in the debate on fluoride were prepared to be guided by the advice being given to the House by my right hon. and learned Friend and my hon. Friend in the Department of Health and Social Security.
      Mr. Marlow: My hon. Friend has just said that there is to be a free vote. I shall not upset you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by talking about the payroll vote. However, there are hon. Friends here tonight to sustain the Government who do not necessarily believe in the Bill but who are here because pressure and persuasion has been put upon them. They are not of the payroll vote, so this is not even a free vote to the extent that my hon. Friend thinks that it is.
      Mr. Brown: It would be wrong of me to comment at great length on my hon. Friend's point, and I might incur

      913
      your wrath, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I did so. There is no doubt that there are a number of my hon. Friends here tonight who were not here last week, for understandable reasons. They took the view that they did not know enough about the issue, and were satisfied with the assurances that they had received from my right hon. and learned Friend and my hon. Friend at the Department of Health and Social Security, and were prepared to abstain and not attend the debate. They felt that Ministers, with all the back-up that they get from their Department, are people in whom they should trust, and of whom they should take notice. But on Wednesday 28 February those hon. Members, some of whom may well be present tonight, read the article which begins:
      "New evidence now supports earlier suspicions".
      If that can occur in only six or seven days during the passage of the Bill, I am convinced that in the course of the next 12 months there will be even more new evidence. I hope that the Department of Health and Social Security will spend some time in getting its research chemists and staff to consider this evidence. The Department may want to take the opportunity provided by the New Scientist article to use the year of grace that would be given to it by acceptance of the amendment. The Department might consider the article and then go back to the test tube, the drawing board or the laboratory and think again.
      Mr. Golding: I obtained the article from the Library before supper, and trying to understand it ruined my supper. Could the hon. Gentleman explain what it says?
      Mr. Brown: It is incumbent upon all hon. Members in considering whether circumstances might change in 12 months' time to have regard to the article.
      The new evidence is:
      "The anti-fluoride lobby has always lacked solid evidence of the mechanism by which fluoride could be harmful."
      Judging by what American chemists have discovered in the course of the last few months, they will discover a great deal more in the course of the next 12 months. That is why I think that we should keep the debate to some extent open-ended and allow ourselves a let-out, whether we are in favour of or against fluoride.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he does not set too much store by that argument which seems to be the cornerstone of his speech. It may be that he will have egg on his face if he maintains that that is the most important aspect of the matter. I merely warn the hon. Gentleman of that possibility.
      Mr. Brown: I accept the comment of the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller). My hon. Friend the Minister said last week that he would not take notice of any old report, article or information that came before him. I think that he has a duty to consider any new evidence, article or information from whatever source it comes.
      Mr. Golding: I had egg on my face when I read the article, but I ask the hon. Gentleman again to tell us precisely what the article says.
      Mr. Brown: The import of the article is that it has been discovered recently that fluoride damages the enzymes which are crucial to the human body function. Fluoride switches off the enzymes. I am not a scientist. The House is being asked to debate a matter. We are lay people, but I do not think that it devalues our arguments in any way if we adduce certain scientific evidence. I think that it is perfectly reasonable for us to do this.
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: The study to which my hon. Friend refers describes for the first time
      " … the crystal structure of a fluoride-inhibited peroxidase enzyme … the fluoride ion attaches itself to the iron atom at the heart of the enzyme and then disrupts the active site by attracting groups that can form strong hydrogen bonds to itself".
      2 am
      Mr. Brown: The yeast enzyme is affected by the ingestion of fluoride over a considerable time. I shall explain what the yeast enzyme does—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I should like the hon. Gentleman to address his comments to the amendment rather than to the article on medical matters which are beyond my comprehension, and—I think—beyond that of the hon. Gentleman.
      Mr. Golding: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it not possible that within the 12 months the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) will have read and understood the arguments and be in a position to argue on behalf of the Government?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the House accepts amendment No. 17, we shall be able to return to the argument 12 months from now.
      Mr. Brown: In an intervention last week I drew the attention of the House to an article in New Scientist in 1983. I have read that publication regularly for about three years. I collect all the articles on fluoride in that distinguished magazine. It is clear that New Scientist has taken an editorial view that fluoride should be examined carefully. I do not pretend to understand the scientific analysis in this or any other article, but it is important in the next 12 months to consider new evidence.
      Mr. Fairbairn: The refusal even to consider the scientific arguments demonstrates that the Government are saying, through their officials, that they do not care what the evidence is and that they propose to ignore it.
      Mr. Brown: I agree. I am prepared to leave the article and refer to the publication of the report on fluoridation by the Royal College of Physicians.
      Mr. Lawrence: My hon. Friend should not be so willing to discard the importance of the article in the face of the baseless challenge from the Opposition that there is no evidence for challenging the veracity of that article. My understanding of the importance of the article is that since fluoride affects the hydrogen bonding—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It would be in order to discuss the relevance of the article to the amendment, but it is not in order to seek to widen that to a discussion about the basis of the Bill.
      Mr. Fairbairn rose—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Hon. Members should not rise when the Chair is addressing the House. We cannot discuss matters which have been decided on Second Reading.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am sorry that I expressed my argument so ineptly that I misunderstood. The significance of the article, and therefore the significance of the point of being able to consider the scientific evidence more frequently than the Bill allows, is that fluoride interferes with hydrogen bonding in the yeast enzyme. It is first-time

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      evidence that fluoride can interfere with a living organism in a living cell in the body. It is a significant breakthrough. Since it is a recent breakthrough, amendment No. 17 is important and valuable for the safety of our people.
      Mr. Brown: I shall not dwell—it would be out of order to do so—on the technical reasons which have been adduced in this article entitled "How fluoride might damage your health". But I think that it is reasonable, as you have yourself indicated, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to point out to the House that this Chamber is much more heavily attended for these proceedings than it was a week ago, which could well be due to the fact that those hon. Members who last week were prepared simply to give my right hon. and hon. Friends at the DHSS the benefit of the doubt have had cause for second thoughts.
      The point I am making in support of these two amendments is that, if hon. Members had new evidence made available to them through a magazine which they may or may not understand but which clearly indicates to them that there is some reason for doubting whether they should cast in stone a statute which does not give them the opportunity of thinking again, it is obviously right and proper that amendments of this kind should be passed so that, if there are further articles of this kind, further reports, experiments, laboratory tests and test-tube tests during the course of the next 12 months following up the work that has been done by those who wrote this article, they can be taken into account.
      Mr. Marlow: My hon. Friend has pointed out how important this debate is and how much interest there is in it in the Chamber. He will see that there are probably three times as many hon. Members in the Chamber as we had during the last Opposition Supply Day, which is an absolute measure of the validity and importance of his remarks.
      I am on my feet, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to right a wrong which I feel that my hon. Friend was about to perpetrate. He would not wish to do that. He said that last week our hon. Friend on the Front Bench, who happened at that time to be our hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten), when confronted with arguments and facts, was prone to dismiss them with a wave of the hand. In fact, my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon was not on the Front Bench at the time. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Brown) well knows, he is one of the most courteous Members of the House and would never have behaved in such a way.
      Mr. Brown: I was mixing up my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary with the Secretary of State. I withdraw entirely the criticism I appeared to make of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary. I hope that my hon. Friend the Secretary of State will take on board what I said and I apologise for wrongly addressing my remarks to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary.
      It must be recognised that year by year, month by month, new evidence is becoming available. The New Scientist magazine is not written just for the benefit of scientists. It is not in the Library of the House of Commons as well thumbed as it is today because only scientists read it. It is a magazine which Members of Parliament read and
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      reread and take very seriously. When I went to the Library early this afternoon, it was a very dog-eared magazine that I picked up, and it had been there only since last Thursday. That is clear evidence that hon. Members are deeply concerned about the fact that there is an element of doubt. If there is an element of doubt today, there is bound to be an even greater element of doubt in 12 months' time.
      That is why, presumably, my hon. Friends have tabled these two amendments, so that there may be an opportunity for all of us to reconsider the matter in the light of whatever new evidence may become available. It is conceivable that in 12 months' time, as a result of DHSS work on the evidence which has been adduced in the New Scientist article, I may be convinced by my right hon. and hon. Friends at the DHSS to change my mind. I do not think that there is anything wrong in minds being changed. One of the criticisms that is often made in the House is that hon. Members have closed minds. Opposition Members often call upon the Government to change their mind during Prime Minister's Question Time and other set-piece debates. When Governments change their minds in response to an expressed will of the House, few people then challenge the Government for that. Often we congratulate the Government on having had the good sense to change their mind. If an hon. Member changes his mind, there is nothing wrong in that.
      The hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) changed his mind. On 3 December 1981 he signed an early-day motion stating that the House is opposed to the artificial fluoridation of the public water supply. Yet, by 24 November 1982, he was signing an amendment attacking that motion.
      Mr. Beith: I think that the hon. Gentleman is referring to the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson).
      Mr. Brown: I apologise. On 3 December the hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) signed an early-day motion, presumably in good faith, and yet, 11 months later, something happened to change his mind.
      Mr. Home Robertson: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for giving me notice that he intended to raise this earth-shattering matter. I have been consistently in favour of the fluoridation of the water supply because of the overwhelming evidence that that is beneficial to all concerned. There must have been a typographical error because I have been consistent in my approach to the matter.
      Mr. Brown: I must accept what the hon. Gentleman has said. He is an honourable Member and we must believe what hon. Members say on matters of this kind.
      Mr. Fairbairn: The hon. Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson) is a Scottish Member of Parliament. All I can say is that if the hon. Gentleman has been consistent in that matter it is the only matter he has ever been consistent in.
      Mr. Brown: I shall not be drawn by that intervention.
      The anti-fluoridation organisers of the pure water campaign have the hon. Member for East Lothian down as having signed an early-day motion on 3 December 1981 and as changing his mind in 1982. It may well be a typographical error and of course I believe the hon. Gentleman. It is a fairly major error. The hon. Gentleman is a genuine enough hon. Member to say openly and

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      honestly that that is a mistake. Many of my hon. Friends have changed their mind. My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) has already referred to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security. I am delighted to see my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Employment here.
      We all acknowledge and understand the principle of collective Government responsibility. We should not make too much of this. I recall that last week a member of the Government rightly aid at the 1922 Committee that the Government are entitled to expect any Minister of the Crown to support Government legislation, even on a free vote on Government-sponsored legislation. We must acknowledge that there is a type of free vote that goes with a private Member's Bill—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman heard me rule on that matter some time ago. He should return to discussing the amendment that is before the House.
      Mr. Brown: I am trying to say, as simply and concisely as I can, that although some of my hon. Friends sitting on the Treasury Bench have given public commitments to their electors—I have photocopies of letters here, some of which have already been referred to—they should not need to feel that they have been in any way inconsistent. We all acknowledge that they have special responsibilities.
      Mr. Golding: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us more about the inquest in the 1922 Committee, perhaps in terms of it taking 12 months before a verdict is reached?
      2.15 am
      Mr. Brown: No, I think that that would be out of order, unfortunately. I am supposed not to divulge what goes on in the Conservative Back-Bench 1922 Committee. I do not want to incur the wrath of my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) if it is written in Hansard exactly what goes on in the 1922 Committee. I am sure that it is all right for us all to read in the Daily Telegraph what goes on, but it is stretching the point to read it in the columns of Hansard.
      The point that I am trying to make is that, while new evidence is being adduced that might change people's minds, there might come a day—I hope that it will not be for a very long time—when each and every one of my hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench does not have the burdens of office that so restrict them, for understandable reasons. My hon. Friends the Members for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg) and for Reading, East (Sir G. Vaughan) occupied positions of Under-Secretary of State and Minister of State. Since they have ceased to occupy those offices, now held by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon and by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), they have become signatories to the early-day motion opposed to fluoridation. Something has happened since they left the Department of Health and Social Security to make them change their minds.
      There was my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate, and there was my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East. They were sitting there in the DHSS with all the officials and everybody else telling them in the early 1980s, when they held those offices, that they should acknowledge that fluoride was the best thing out to prevent
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      dental caries. They were told that they must recognise that there was no danger to health. Yet when they left office, and left all their advisers behind them, and it was expected that as they sat on the Back Benches they would have ringing in their ears all the scientific evidence that their officials gave them, they signed the early-day motion,. of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton. They changed their minds although they, more than any other hon. Member, must have known the scientific details. They must have been through all the reports to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health referred a week ago. They would have been in the DHSS reading report after report and getting thoroughly fed up with the very word "fluoridation", yet when they left all that on one side and became free men as Back Benchers, they had no hesitation in signing that early-day motion.
      I hope not in the next 12 months, but one or two of my hon. Friends might find themselves in different circumstances. They might find themselves no longer restricted by the understandable and constitutional burden of collective responsibility—
      Mr. McGuire: Or the attractions of office.
      Mr. Brown: I look at my hon. Friends tonight, and I do not think that they are particularly attracted by their office at the moment. I am a fair and reasonable man, as I think my hon. Friends will agree. The point that I am trying to make is that one day perhaps, for example if my hon. friend the Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household, who in the past has consistently opposed fluoridation, ever has the good fortune to be relieved of the cares of office—I hope to goodness that it will not be for a very long time because he is one of the best Vice-Chamberlains we have ever had in the House—
      Dr. M. S. Miller: The hon. Gentleman is talking as if things that have happened since the days that he is talking about have produced only adverse reports about fluoride. However, does he not accept that it is the other way round? More and more studies have been done showing that fluoride is not dangerous.
      Mr. Brown: What the hon. Gentleman has just said might have been true of the 1970s, but I do not believe that it is true of the period since 1983. He made a fair point when he referred to the position a decade ago but circumstances have changed quite dramatically since then.
      To return to my theme about changing one's mind, there is nothing wrong about that. When my hon. Friends become Ministers their minds have to change overnight. My hon. Friends the Members for Reading, West (Mr. Durant) and for Fareham (Mr. Lloyd), who became Government Whips not so very long ago, had to change their minds overnight in favour of fluoridation, although on several occasions in the past they had formed part of the anti-fluoridation campaign. On the basis that when they become Ministers they can change their minds overnight in favour of fluoridation, it is reasonable to assume that they again can change their minds overnight if they cease to be Ministers.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Instead of giving these perfervid examples of duplicity, why does my hon. Friend not tell the House that the fact is that those on the payroll vote who pretend that they are for fluoride are not for fluoride; they are not for principle; they are not for anything? They are just for office.
      Mr. Brown: No, I cannot agree with that, and my hon. and learned Friend does not make that intervention with clean hands. There are hon. Members who have never had, who will never aspire to have, who will never receive, and who would never accept an invitation to sit on the Front Bench, because there are other hon. Members who are far better qualified to do so.
      One can illustrate the point that there are hon. Members, particularly those who sometimes occupy this Bench, who are prepared to change their minds when they become Ministers by showing how it works the other way. My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) signed the early-day motion against the compulsory fluoridation of the water supply not once, not twice but three times, three years in succession. He believed that fluoridation was bad. Suddenly, good fortune overtook him. He had the great privilege of becoming the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office. Therefore, he had to change his mind overnight about fluoridation. He did not read New Scientist or the publications of Her Majesty's Stationery Office to help him to change his mind. He changed his mind overnight for the entirely honourable reason that there was a very important job to be done.
      My hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr. Atkins), who on one occasion signed the early-day motion against fluoridation, found himself one day the Parliamentary Private Secretary to a Minister in the other place. He changed his mind overnight. He did not go to the Library and read New Scientist or make up his mind on the basis of HMSO or Department of Health and Social Security publications. The list is endless. If I were to read the complete list, I suspect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you would ask me to resume my seat because of tedious repetition. However, the commitments made in letters at general elections are probably the most important. I do not think that we should get too het-up about early-day motions.
      Mr. Golding: Not only is the hon. Gentleman cutting himself off from office for ever more but he will have to examine every single letter that he signs at the time of a general election if he persists with this argument.
      Mr. Brown: I have always worked on the assumption that every single letter written by me under my signature must be capable of appearing in inch-high letters in Private Eye and every other journal that one can possibly think of. I learnt that lesson within weeks of coming into the House when I wrote—
      Mr. Golding: After the election?
      Mr. Brown: Unfortunately, after the general election. I remember writing to the hon. Member—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Perhaps the hon. Member can save that for his memoirs and return to amendments Nos. 6 and 17.
      Mr. Brown: I shall not pursue that line of argument, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I remember sending a letter to an Opposition Member which I suddenly found myself reading in "Londoner's Diary". I learnt then that every letter must be capable of appearing across the pages of any journal. I am sure that seasoned and experienced Ministers work on that basis.
      I am sure that my hon. Friend the Paymaster General, the chairman of the Conservative party, must have realized
      920
      that some day, somewhere, his letter dated 18 October 1978 to Mrs. Bridger of 8, Cross street, Liston Suffolk, when he was fighting a by-election, would be drawn to the attention of the rest of his constituents or the House of Commons. He said:
      "Thank you very much for your letter. I find the points that you raised particularly interesting and am especially keen on the matter of returnable bottles"—
      Heaven knows what that is all about—
      "but you are right in assuming I am opposed to the compulsory fluoridation of water and will vote against it whenever it comes up.
      I do not know whether my hon. Friend is in the Chamber. I know that he will be in the Division Lobby in an hour or two.
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: He is in the Tea Room.
      Mr. Brown: He is in the Tea Room. Well, whenever the vote comes, and it will come tonight, we shall all watch the way that the chairman of the Conservative party will cast his vote.
      My well-respected right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment must have known that attention would be drawn to the commitment that he honourably gave on 25 April during the 1979 general election to Mr. Turner of Washford, Watchet, in Somerset:
      "Thank you for sending me the paper about fluoridation. I hope that you will excuse me if I do not complete the form at this rather hectic time. You know my views, that I am utterly opposed to the fluoridation of water"—
      my right hon. Friend showed himself to be capable of great and high office when he had the good sense to add the rider—
      "unless it carries the overwhelming support of people in the area."
      He may have ascertained their views in some kind of local referendum and will be able to vote accordingly later this evening.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lonsdale (Mr. Lennox-Boyd) is a distinguished member of the Whips Office. He revealed his ability to fulfil higher office when he sensibly wrote to Mr. J. Hayward on 29 November 1979 after the general election campaign:
      "Thank you for your letter of 17th November about the fluoridation of water supplies. On the whole I am not in favour of compulsory fluoridation though I understand that the practice is strongly endorsed by the Royal College of Physicians. As you know, however, it is the responsibility of the area health authority to initiate a fluoridation scheme and for the water authority to take action. I note, incidentally, that the North-West Water Authority have decided not to take any action at the moment on the decision of the area health authority."
      There was a sensible and considered response.
      My hon. Friend the Minister with responsibility for sport wrote on 20 June to Mrs. Beaumont, of 67 Malden road, Cheam.
      Mr. Golding: Is he here?
      Mr. Brown: I am not sure whether he is, but if he is he will recall his remarks to Mrs. Beaumont:
      "Thank you for your letter. I share your views on fluoridation. There are many MPs on all sides who are disquieted and I am most grateful to you for your support in this matter."
      There we have a clear case of many of my hon. Friends who understandably and rightly sit on the Treasury Bench, constitutionally and correctly voting for the Bill, even though, if they were not Ministers, they might have been in another Division Lobby. I do not attack any of them for finding themselves in that position, because it could happen to any hon. Member who becomes a Minister.
      Mr. Golding: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us, for the benefit of those who are on the run tonight, that he will be reading those letters this week to the 1922 Committee?
      2.30 am
      Mr. Brown: I even more terrified about speaking to the 1922 Committee than about speaking in the House. It may surprise you to hear, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I have sought to catch the eye of the chairman of the 1922 Committee only twice in my political career in the House, which spans six years. I have spoken for about 20 seconds on each occasion, so terrified am I of the atmosphere. Therefore, I shall hesitate to draw this matter to the Committee's attention. Last Thursday, which was one of the two occasions on which I have spoken to the 1922 Committee, I spoke about fluoridation.
      Whether one is the Secretary of State for Employment, the Minister for Sport, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, the Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty's Household or a Government Whip representing Watford, Reading, West Huntingdon, or Fareham, I say, "There are many of you in the Administration who rightly at some stage have supported the anti-fluoride campaign and sometimes have been unable to support the anti-fluoride campaign."
      Mr. Home Robertson: In some instances people face both ways at the same time. I have particularly in mind the hon. Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Lang), who is the Government Whip and whose name appeared on the letterhead of a letter by the Scottish Pure Water Society sent only a month ago to all Scottish Members of Parliament urging them to vote against the Government. When I last saw the hon. Gentleman, he was urging Government supporters to vote for the Government.
      Mr. Brown: We have all found ourselves in those circumstances. Even free men on the Back Benches have on one day been marched by the Government Whips into one Lobby only to be marched in exactly the opposite direction on another occasion. The Government are entitled to get their business through when it is a whipped vote. We have all committed some assaults when we have been on a whipped vote. I am a free man tonight. I am not on a whipped vote. Therefore, I can exercise that freedom. My right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench do not have the luxury that I have, but they might one day—I hope that it is not for a long time—have the luxury of being able to change their minds again. If the amendments are passed, we shall afford all the right hon. and hon. Members to whom I referred the opportunity to exercise the freedom that they once enjoyed.
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: I wonder whether my hon. Friend is doing a disservice to our right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench. I am sure that my hon. Friend appreciates that one becomes a Minister only if one is a responsible individual and puts oneself in a position to consider all the arguments that a debate throws up. We cannot assume in advance that our right hon. and hon. Friends will all vote the same way simply because they are sitting on the Treasury Bench. I prefer to believe that my right hon. and hon. Friends, being broad-minded intelligent individuals and anxious to consider all the arguments for and against the proposition, will make up
      922
      their minds on the basis of the weight they attach to the arguments. It is unfair of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) to impugn the integrity of our right hon. and hon. Friends in that way.
      Mr. Brown: If I have done what my hon. Friend accuses me of, I withdraw any such suggestion. I hope that I shall be forgiven if any of my hon. and right hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench have taken my speech in the way that my hon. Friend hinted they might do. As I said earlier, I am not looking for anything from anybody, so it does not matter one way or the other.
      Sir John Page: My hon. Friend has been making amusing play with his colleagues. Would he care to comment on the fact that this Bill is to regulate the fluoridation of water? If the Bill were to regulate lion tamers, it would not necessarily mean that those who supported the Bill were likely to become lion tamers or would wish actually to support lion taming. I would have thought that the Bill—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. I see no reference to lion tamers in the Bill.
      Mr. Brown: I think the point that my hon. Friend was seeking to make was that there are occasions whey all of us, whether we are free men or whether we are constrained by the constitutional practice of collective responsibility, go into the Division Lobby in favour of something with greater or lesser enthusiasm. When some of my hon. and right hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench go into the Lobby in support of the Government later, they may bear in mind with a certain lack of enthusiasm their letters to their constituents.
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: I accept some of the points my hon. Friend has made about people changing their minds and about ministerial responsibility on major party political issues. Will my hon. Friend comment on whether he thinks it is reasonable for the Government to keep trying to press through a Bill when most of the samples of opinion in the party suggest that two thirds of the party, including Ministers and parliamentary private secretaries, are against it? Does he not think that it is just a virility symbol for the Government to try to push the Bill through against the will of the House?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) will not pursue that point. We are getting very wide of the amendment, which deals with the time period and whether the words "for one year" should be substituted for the words in the Bill.
      Mr. Brown: That is the crucial point of the amendment. We all know that there is a Cabinet reshuffle coming in September. Who knows what that Cabinet resuffle will bring? Who knows who will be free men by 6 March 1986? The whole point of the amendment is to enable those of my hon. and right hon. Friends who may be free men in 12 months' time to change their minds once again, so used are they to the practice of changing their minds.
      The importance of the let-out, or long stop, is to protect those of my hon. and right hon. Friends who may find themselves in different circumstances in 12 months' time. It is also to protect people like myself who may find during the next 12 months that my hon. and right hon. Friends have been able to adduce evidence which, although it has

      923
      not convinced me so far, may yet convince me that my decision tonight has been wrong. If they can come up with a Department of Health and Social Security response that the yeast enzyme does not harm the health of an individual if it is attacked by the fluoride bonding, that may convince me. As a layman and a person not involved in the medical profession, I might be persuaded.
      I am sure that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State would be the first to agree that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) does not have a closed mind on the subject. He has a very open mind on it. He knows everything there is to know about the subject. He would be the first to be convinced by any new serious evidence that my hon. Friend might adduce in response to the article to which I have referred.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Is my hon. Friend seriously suggesting that scientists of the distinction of Steven Edwards, Thomas Poulos and Joseph Kraut of the department of chemistry at the university of California, who prepared the crystal fluoride form of cyclochrome C peroxidase and demonstrated the effects of fluoride, should be so base and dishonourable as to change their opinions in the way that he has suggested?
      Mr. Brown: My hon. and learned Friend must acknowledge that overwhelming evidence that is lurking somewhere underground and that has not yet come to the fore might upset what we consider to be the compelling evidence of the article in New Scientist of 28 February.
      Mr. Golding: Is the hon. Gentleman accusing the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) of being a wobbler on this issue? I can understand the hon. Gentleman attacking those who sit on the Government Front Bench, disposing of their careers one by one, but he cannot turn at this hour on the hon. and learned Member for Burton, who as far as I can see has displayed the most admirable prejudice throughout the proceedings, and accuse him of being a wobbler. Surely he must withdraw.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will resist the temptation. The amendment deals with whether the application should last for one year.
      Mr. Lawrence: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) to accuse me of displaying prejudice when I have displayed nothing at all this evening?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. and learned Gentleman knows very well that that is a point of argument, not a point of order for me.
      Mr. Brown: I shall not go down the route of temptation that was presented to me by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding). As the Chair has rightly said, the purpose of the amendments is to enable the House to reconsider the matter in 12 months' time. The reason why we need the long stop of reconsidering the matter in 12 months' time, although the House might not have changed its complexion as a result of a general election, is that minds can change and new evidence can be adduced. Some of my hon. Friends who may wish to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, may wish to oppose the amendments and suggest
      924
      that the period should be longer than one year. A case could be made for giving the House the opportunity to reconsider the matter after another general election.
      This House has a certain view about fluoride. From the number of letters that parliamentary candidates were writing during May and June of 1979 to prospective constituents, it was clear that fluoride was an important matter in the minds of many of our constituents.
      Perhaps in deciding whether to accept the amendments we should consider whether they will permit the House to change its mind after a general election, when the entire complexion of the House may have changed. In those circumstances, many of us may be asked for our views on fluoride during a general election campaign, as has already happened to some of my hon. Friends who now find themselves on the Treasury Bench. Because of the excellent answers they gave, they became Ministers—
      Mr. Marlow: As a point of information, could my hon. Friend tell the House what legislation that is passed by one Government has to be reaffirmed by the next Government? Obviously Governments change and it is open to the next Government to repeal an Act of Parliament. What my hon. Friend is suggesting is a constitutional novelty.
      Mr. Brown: I had better be careful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, or I will incur your wrath. Of course, I acknowledge the difficulty of the suggestion that I have put forward. All that I am saying is that, since minds can change within the present composition of the House, minds can certainly change as a result of a change—
      Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Is my hon. Friend aware that the prevention of terrorism legislation must be renewed every year by the House?
      Mr. Brown: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. We must, of course, discuss amendments that are before the House and not amendments that we might have tabled. The ideal situation would be for Parliament to be able to return to this issue at regular intervals in the light of new evidence that may come forward.
      Mr. Fairbairn: My hon. Friend may not be aware that the first measure to be passed every year is the defence of the realm legislation, otherwise the nation has no armed forces. Among the things that the armed forces must do is swallow bromide, lest one sex gets off with the other sex in the armed forces.
      2.45 am
      Mr. Brown: I had better not be led down that road. I have spent most of my time in this Chamber since about 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon concentrating on staying within the rules of order, whatever the subject under debate. I shall continue to resist the temptation to stray out of order.
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: My hon. Friend might too lightly have dismissed the intervention of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn), which encapsulated an important constitutional principle, namely, that the defence of the realm legislation has had to be passed on an annual basis since the Glorious Revolution of 1688. It has been subject to that requirement because it affects the liberty of the citizen in the same way as the prevention of terrorism legislation must be—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is getting well away from the subject of fluoridation and the amendment.
      Mr. Brown: I dismissed the intervention of my hon. and learned Friend only because I would have been out of order in pursuing it.
      Mr. Richard Holt: Will my hon. Friend agree that not minds but voting patterns have changed?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I hope that the hon. Member will also resist the temptation to concern himself with that intervention.
      Mr. Brown: Having been a supporter and admirer of the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, I hope that he will be influenced by what has been said in this debate. Perhaps he will say, "Let us change our minds again. I have been convinced by what hon. Members have said on this issue." All is not lost because he has yet to respond to the cogent case that has been made for the amendment.
      After all, with the exception of my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham, all hon. Members have said with a united voice which has crossed the political divide that the amendment reapresents a resonable compromise. The Second Reading is over. By whatever means — duress or otherwise — hon. Members voted for the measure at that stage. Let us reach a compromise that does not detract from the basic policy which the Government have arrived at and does not set in concrete for ever and a day legislation that should be considered from time to time. If scientific evidence emerges that is critical of the legislation, there should be a let-out. For that reason, I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security will be able to accept the amendment.
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. John Patten)rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Is it in order for my hon. Friend the Minister to respond to a debate on an amendment which has not yet been moved?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. and learned Gentleman knows very well that I have called the Minister.
      Mr. Lawrence: Further to my point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like your guidance. The Chairman of Ways and Means has selected amendment No. 17. He did so in his wisdom, and it was wise of him to do so.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: The amendment has been moved.
      Mr. Golding: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Your ruling is correct, but underlining the point of order is the fact that so far the Member in whose name amendment No. 17 appears has not yet been called to speak. It is difficult to justify—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman is not seeking to criticise the Chair. The Minister has risen and I have called him.
      Mr. Crouch: On a further point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I seek your help by asking you to advise me and the House whether, by calling my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, it is your intention to curtail the debate, in
      926
      which a number of Members are still hoping to speak. This is not a light matter and constituents are pressing us on this issue. I have been questioned for not having been a party to debates at earlier stages in the passage of the Bill. I have sat in the Chamber since the beginning of the debate on the two amendments and have sought to catch your eye. I hope that you can assure me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you are not curtailing the debate.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member of the House and he knows that I cannot anticipate what may happen at some time in the future. The amendment has been moved—
      Several Hon. Members: No.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Minister has risen and I have called him.
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Before you rule that the amendment has been moved, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I ask you to check with the Official Report or to say who moved the amendment. I suggest that the amendment has not yet been moved.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are discussing amendment No. 6, which has been moved, and with it we are discussing amendment No. 17. Amendment No 6 has been moved, so the debate is in order.
      Mr. Lawrence: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have called the Minister, who caught my eye. I assume that he is seeking to reply to the debate.
      Mr. Lawrence: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I hestitate to take the matter further, but it is within my clear recollection that my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn, who moved amendment No. 6, said specifically that he was not moving amendment No. 17 and that he was hoping—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. and learned Member knows the procedures in this place. In this instance amendment No. 6 has been moved and with it we are discussing amendment No. 17. There is no question of amendment No. 17 being moved. The discussion is taking place on amendment No. 6, which has been moved.
      Mr. Beith: Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The point of order has got off on the wrong foot if there is any suggestion of criticism of the Chair. The Minister rose to speak and it is the normal practice of the Chair to call the Minister whenever he rises to speak. The point at issue is that the Minister chose to rise before he had had the opportunity to hear the arguments of the hon. and learned Member who tabled amendment No. 17. Would it not have been for the convenience of the House if the Minister had listened to one more speech, and heard the arguments? Many hon. Members do not see how the Minister can answer arguments that he has not heard.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the first part of his remarks, which merely reinforces my belief that I was wise to call the Minister. I call Mr. John Patten.
      Mr. Lawrence: On a different point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have been waiting for an opportunity

      927
      to speak, so that I could invite the Chair to say whether there will be two votes on the two amendments. Could you clarify that point before the Minister replies?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I cannot do so at this stage. We are discussing amendment No. 6, the amendment that has been moved and discussed. I call Mr. Patten.
      Mr. Golding: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I understood you to say that we were discussing amendments Nos. 6 and 17 together. When we reach amendment No. 17 on the Paper, there will be no opportunity for discussion unless you rule that we have been discussing amendment No. 6, that you have divided amendment No. 6 from amendment No. 17, that when we reach amendment No. 17 there will be an opportunity for discussion of that amendment, that the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) will have an opportunity to speak to his amendment and that we will know whether there is to be a separate vote. The proceedings as they stand are entirely unsatisfactory.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: When we reach amendment No. 17—it is a long way down the Amendment Paper—I will of course be prepared to listen to any representations that may be made for a Division on that amendment. I call Mr. Patten.
      Mr. John Patten: The debate that we have had on the two amendments — the substance of both amendments has been discussed — has been a very good one. The amendments are very important. An outsider looking at them for the first time might well wonder, however, why those particular amendments should have been laid before the House for discussion. Amendment No. 6, moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) in a short, succinct and powerful speech, is about the activities of health authorities, and amendment No. 17, which has been discussed extensively during the past three or four hours, is about the possibility of a reference back to Parliament once every 12 months.
      An outsider might ask why the amendments are necessary. Health authorities may at any time — monthly, if they have a monthly cycle of meetins — discuss the issue of fluoridation. If issues of safety, principle or practice arose, the authorities could determine on a monthly basis what they proposed to do. Within their own standing orders, over which they have sovereign rights, they may debate fluoridation. Equally, there are many ways in which the House can return to the issue of fluoridation at any stage, should issues of safety, efficacy, practicality, freedom or individual choice be thought to be pressing enough. I recognise the strength of feeling of my right hon. and hon. Friends on these points.
      An outsider might be surprised to see the amendments tabled for discussion tonight. I shall seek to explain why the amendments were tabled and why I welcome the chance to reply on behalf of the Government by saying that, as we have seen, my right hon. and hon. Friends who are pressing the amendments are concerned about the critical issue of safety, which concerns the Government just as much as it concerns them.
      I will illustrate the principles by turning to the issue of safety — the specific issue raised in the much-quoted article in the New Scientist of 28 February. The author of the article is as yet anonymous.
      928
      Much has been made of the article entitled "How fluoride might damage your health". Various pieces have been selected for quotation. I am not accusing my right hon. and hon. Friends of being selective in their choice of quotations. The anonymous resumé sums up a paper by Edwards, Poulos and Kraut, which describes investigation of a hypothesis about the mode of action of an enzyme using X-ray crystallography on a complex of the enzyme with fluoride. My scientific advisers tell me that, to synthesise the complex, the crystallised enzyme is soaked in a solution of fluoride at a concentration and in conditions very unlike those of a living cell. The authors of the original paper, which the New Scientist article comments on, demonstrated that, in the circumstances that I have described, fluoride formed hydrogen bonds with other parts of the enzyme. The House has discussed that.
      Mr. Marlow rose—
      3 am
      Mr. Patten: The anonymous article of 28 February in the New Scientist speculated—I am not using the word pejoratively, as it is quite proper to speculate in scholarly circles — whether fluoride can interfere with the hydrogen bonding in DNA in a similar fashion. The authors of the original paper made no such suggestion. The findings of Edwards, Poulos and Kraut do not alter the assessment of the safety and efficacy of the fluoridation of water in one part per million.
      The hon. Member for Makerfield (Mr. McGuire) knows that we discussed these matters in Committee. It has been known for decades that fluoride at high, non-physiological concentrations can inhibit or enhance the action of many enzymes. That is why fluoride is often used as a tool in the analysis of the function of enzymes. There is no evidence of enzyme inhibition damage in humans as a result of consumption of water fluoridated at one part per million.
      As the anonymous author says—
      Mr. Marlow rose—
      Mr. Patten: The author says:
      "a healthy individual can easily cope with tiny doses of fluoride from food and drink and this can strengthen the teeth and the bones".
      Mr. Marlow: Will my hon. friend give way on his point about anonymity?
      Mr. Patten: The article speculates on a broad range of scientific arguments out of which comes no scientific evidence that casts doubt on the safety or efficacy of the addition of fluoride to water. I shall now give way to my hon. Friend.
      Mr. Marlow: I was surprised at my hon. Friend not giving way, as he is normally courteous. I am grateful to him. He said that the article was anonymous. It is not; it is the editorial of the New Scientist and therefore has the full backing of the editorial staff and the reputation of the magazine. Moreover, the article is not concerned purely with the piece of work that my hon. Friend is talking about. There is a great deal of other research behind it. My hon. Friend would be well advised not to dismiss the article so lightly. Will my hon. Friend give the House the benefit of the research that has no doubt been put in by our right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health since last week? He said that he had evidence that some 100 countries fluoridated the water. Many hon. Members were

      929
      surprised at that statement. He has had a week to do the research. Which countries fluoridate water? If my hon. Friend cannot tell us now, he can tell us in a year's time.
      Mr. Deputy SpeakerOrder. I hope that the Minister will stick to the amendment.
      Mr. Marlow: I was making the point that, if my hon. Friend cannot tell us now, he can tell us in a year's time. That would make the amendment important because the House would have another opportunity to look at the facts.
      Mr. Patten: The evidence put forward, not by the editorial, whether drafted singly or corporately by people in New Scientist, has been examined by our scientific advisers. Much more importantly, they have examined the article on which the speculations—I use that word in a non-pejorative sense—have been based.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) asked about what my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health said about the number of countries that add fluoride to their water. My right hon. and learned Friend said that there were 40 such countries. Careful and assiduous research by those whom we are lucky enough to have to advise us has produced a list that shows that my right hon. and learned Friend was, uncharacteristically, wrong. The number is not 40 but 41, and I shall write to my hon. Friend to list these countries, which range from Argentina, the Netherlands and Antilles to Venezuela.
      I understand the strength of feeling about these two amendments. They have been put down because hon. Members are worried about safety. Both my right hon. and learned Friend and I have given assurances about safety on Second Reading, in Committee, and during the interesting and important discussions on the Floor of the House recently. If ever safety considerations are involved, it will not be a matter of asking the health authority to discuss the issues and saying that, as it had had its annual meeting, it will have to wait for a year to do so, nor that, as we have just had a debate in Parliament, we shall wait another year. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services will use his powers under the National Health Service Act 1977 to direct health authorities to stop the process of fluoridation immediately on the grounds that it presents some danger to health.
      For those reasons, I ask the House to reject the amendments.
      Mr. John Cope (Treasurer of Her Majesty's Household)rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
      Question put, That the Question be now put:—
      The House proceeded to a Division—
      Mr. Lawrence(seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will you give the House some guidance about the status of amendment No. 17?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I shall gladly do that. If the House wishes to have a Division on amendment No. 17, the Chair is prepared to consider that. It is academic at the moment, because we have much business ahead of us, on amendments that have been selected, before we come to amendment No. 17.
      Mr. Lawrence(seated and covered): Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am grateful for that ruling. Will the hon. Member who tabled amendment No.
      930
      17 be given an opportunity to debate it at some stage, and in particular to direct the Minister's mind to an answer to it?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that I have made the position clear. The Chair is prepared to consider the possibility of a Division on amendment No. 17, but it does not arise until after all the other amendments have been dealt with.
      Mr. Lawrence(seated and covered): You have misunderstood me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was asking not about a Division, but about whether we could have a debate on amendment No. 17, which has not yet been answered.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that two amendments have been discussed at some length, and amendment No. 17 has been referred to on a number of occasions during the debate. In other words, it has already been discussed.
      Mr. Crouch(seated and covered): Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. May I ask about amendment No. 17? The Minister has said not a word about what is in amendment No. 17 and—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is not a matter for me to decide how the Minister addresses the House. The debate has been in order, and I am now about to put the Question.
      The Question is, That the Question be now put.
      Mr. Crouch(seated and covered): Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You said that it was an academic matter whether the Question—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I will take points of order at this stage only about the conduct of the Division. If the hon. Gentleman has further points of order, I will take them after the division.
      The House having divided: Ayes 120, Noes 49.

      Division No. 140]

      [3.07 am

      AYES

      Ancram, Michael

      Fletcher, Alexander

      Arnold, Tom

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

      Good lad, Alastair

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Gow, Ian

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Gregory, Conal

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Gummer, John Selwyn

      Bottomley, Peter

      Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

      Boyson, Dr Rhodes

      Hayes, J.

      Bright, Graham

      Henderson, Barry

      Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

      Howard, Michael

      Burt, Alistair

      Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Butler, Hon Adam

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

      Chalker, Mrs Lynda

      Jessel, Toby

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

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

      Colvin, Michael

      King, Rt Hon Tom

      Coombs, Simon

      Knowles, Michael

      Cope, John

      Lamont, Norman

      Couchman, James

      Lang, Ian

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

      Lilley, Peter

      Dunn, Robert

      Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

      Durant, Tony

      Lord, Michael

      Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

      Lyell, Nicholas

      Eggar, Tim

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      MacGregor, John

      931

      MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      Marland, Paul

      Scott, Nicholas

      Mather, Carol

      Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Mayhew, Sir Patrick

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Meadowcroft, Michael

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Mellor, David

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Miller, Hal (B'grove)

      Squire, Robin

      Mitchell, David (NW Hants)

      Stanley, John

      Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

      Steen, Anthony

      Moynihan, Hon C.

      Stern, Michael

      Needham, Richard

      Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

      Nelson, Anthony

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      Newton, Tony

      Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Tracey, Richard

      Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

      Trippier, David

      Page, Richard (Herts SW)

      Viggers, Peter

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Waddington, David

      Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Walden, George

      Pawsey, James

      Ward, John

      Pollock, Alexander

      Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

      Raffan, Keith

      Watson, John

      Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

      Watts, John

      Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)

      Whitfield, John

      Renton, Tim

      Whitney, Raymond

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Rumbold, Mrs Angela

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Ryder, Richard

      Mr. John Major and

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Mr. Michael Neubert.

      NOES

      Beith, A. J.

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Best, Keith

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Boothroyd, Miss Betty

      Loyden, Edward

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      McGuire, Michael

      Budgen, Nick

      Maclean, David John

      Carttiss, Michael

      Marlow, Antony

      Chope, Christopher

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Crouch, David

      Parris, Matthew

      Dixon, Donald

      Patchett, Terry

      Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

      Pike, Peter

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

      Portillo, Michael

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Skinner, Dennis

      Forth, Eric

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

      George, Bruce

      Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

      Grist, Ian

      Stott, Roger

      Ground, Patrick

      Terlezki, Stefan

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Wareing, Robert

      Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      Haynes, Frank

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Holt, Richard

      Tellers for the Noes:

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

      Mr. John Golding and

      Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

      Mr. Michael Brown.

      Howells, Geraint

      Question accordingly agreed to.
      Question put accordingly, That the amendment be made:—
      The House divided: Ayes 43, Noes 122.

      Division No. 141]

      [3.21 am

      AYES

      Beith, A. J.

      Chope, Christopher

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

      Best, Keith

      Crouch, David

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      Dixon, Donald

      Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

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

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Budgen, Nick

      Forth, Eric

      Campbell-Savours, Dale

      Grist, Ian

      Carttiss, Michael

      Ground, Patrick

      932

      Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

      Patchett, Terry

      Haynes, Frank

      Portillo, Michael

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Skinner, Dennis

      Holt, Richard

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

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

      Stern, Michael

      Howells, Geraint

      Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Stott, Roger

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Terlezki, Stefan

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      McGuire, Michael

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Maclean, David John

      Marlow, Antony

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Mr. John Golding and

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Mr. Neil Hamilton.

      Parris, Matthew

      NOES

      Ancram, Michael

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Arnold, Tom

      Mather, Carol

      Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

      Mayhew, Sir Patrick

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Meadowcroft, Michael

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Mellor, David

      Boothroyd, Miss Betty

      Miller, Hal (B'grove)

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

      Bottomley, Peter

      Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

      Boyson, Dr Rhodes

      Moynihan, Hon C.

      Bright, Graham

      Needham, Richard

      Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

      Nelson, Anthony

      Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

      Newton, Tony

      Burt, Alistair

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Butler, Hon Adam

      Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Page, Richard (Herts SW)

      Chalker, Mrs Lynda

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

      Colvin, Michael

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Pawsey, James

      Coombs, Simon

      Pike, Peter

      Cope, John

      Pollock, Alexander

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Raffan, Keith

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

      Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

      Dunn, Robert

      Renton, Tim

      Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Durant, Tony

      Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

      Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Eggar, Tim

      Rumbold, Mrs Angela

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      Ryder, Richard

      Fletcher, Alexander

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Scott, Nicholas

      George, Bruce

      Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Gow, Ian

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Gregory, Conal

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Gummer, John Selwyn

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

      Squire, Robin

      Hayes, J.

      Stanley, John

      Henderson, Barry

      Steen, Anthony

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

      Howard, Michael

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Tracey, Richard

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

      Trippier, David

      Jessel, Toby

      Viggers, Peter

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Waddington, David

      Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      King, Rt Hon Tom

      Walden, George

      Knowles, Michael

      Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

      Lamont, Norman

      Watson, John

      Lang, Ian

      Watts, John

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Whitfield, John

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Whitney, Raymond

      Lilley, Peter

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Lyell, Nicholas

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Tellers for the Noes:

      MacGregor, John

      Mr. John Major and

      MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

      Mr. Michael Neubert.

      Marland, Paul

      Question accordingly negatived.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I beg to move, That further consideration of the Bill be now adjourned.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: May I remind the House that this is a comparatively narrow motion? We cannot go into the merits of the Bill. We are merely deciding whether we should continue with the debate or whether we should draw stumps.
      3.30 am
      Mr. Crouch: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I feel happier being on my feet when I address the Chair rather than sitting down.
      May I explain the point of order that I was seeking to make to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, during the Division? We have had an extremely valuable and interesting debate on amendment No. 6, during which, with the Chair's permission, we were also able to discuss the content of amendment No. 17. When the Minister replied, he made an adequate reply to amendment No. 6, but we did not hear what he thought about the debate on amendment No. 17, which was very important because it related not to what health authorities might think but to what Parliament might think and do in relation to the whole matter. It is for that reason that I raised the matter. Many of us had made contributions solely on amendment No. 17. I know that we get an opportunity to vote on amendment No. 17 later. Will we have an opportunity to hear the Government's view on it?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has largely answered his own point. As he said, amendments Nos. 6 and 17 were debated together, and reference was made during the debate to amendment No. 17. I am not, of course, responsible for ministerial replies, and I am relieved that I am not. If the House wishes to have a Division on amendment No. 17, which has been discussed, the Chair will consider that, but it does not arise now because we shall take that Division in the order in which it appears in the Order Paper, which is after we have disposed of the other three amendments that have been selected. I call Mr. Fairbairn to speak to his motion.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I am indebted to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to move the motion. This is the third occasion upon which the House has discussed the Report stage of a Bill that is of fundamental constitutional importance. Our discussions took place on one occasion during what is vulgarly called prime time. I have always liked the adjective "prime". I think that "Prime Minister" is a grand phrase and that "prime time" is a vulgar phrase. We were given prime time and a free vote, and a confused Whip made it absolutely clear to Back Benchers that on a free vote they were to vote for the Government.
      I greatly respect the view of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Sir I. Percival) that this is a matter of the most serious principle. It is not a laughing matter. It is not a matter upon which the chairman of the Party, who stands beyond the Bar of the House, can change his mind at the click of a whisker because it suits him, having written to a constituent a letter which my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) read out. It is a serious and important constitutional issue.
      934
      Certain hon. Members believe that we are not at our best after midnight and that we ought to be tucked up, lovey-dovey, at ten o'clock at night. That seemed to me to be the basis of the article by the deputy leader of the Labour party in The Sunday Times on 3 March: that we ought to be grateful to two of my hon. Friends on the Back Benches and to an hon. Gentleman on the Opposition Back Benches for being so audacious as to suggest that this was not the time when men think and when great deeds are done, or ought to be done. But they are, more frequently than not, done. Yet here we are with our payroll vote. The Cabinet are sitting around, making fools of themselves and voting against their consciences in order to keep their beloved offices, cars and salaries. Hurrah! I am delighted.
      When I was a child, Mr. Deputy Speaker, there was an arithmetical scale which said that 22 yards equals one chain. There is now a new arithmetical scale which says that 10 votes against the fluoride Bill equals one office, plus one car. It is ridiculous, but here we are. It is suggested that the Government, exhausted though they are, will stay up all night to try to push through a measure of constitutional significance. This is a matter of freedom and constitutional understanding which the House of Commons should consider. Will any Government of any party seriously say to us that in the early hours of the morning they will attempt to exhaust the spirit of those who honestly believe that it is wrong to tamper, for whatever reason, with the water supply for some spurious purpose that has nothing to do with those who drink the water? Is it seriously to be supposed that this matter wall be discussed into the early hours of the morning in the belief that the Government will railroad through this legislation on a free vote?
      Let us look at that wonderful word "free". Will we be free to drink water that does not have medication in it? Will we be free to drink anything which is harmful to us? Yes. The Government are going to extend the concept of freedom. There they sit, plot and plan—leather shoes, suede shoes and all the other shoes—our freedom at 3.40 am like the free democratic East German party Are they plotting freedom to debate? Oh no, not freedom to debate. Freedom to vote? Oh no, not freedom to vote. I will not look at them. I will look away from them. I will look at you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      I can point to those who believe in their conscience. They have destroyed freedom, except for the freedom of keeping office for a short time longer. Are we seriously to say that the House, with many important points yet to come on this major issue, should not continue to debate?
      You will be aware, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I tabled an amendment to give licence to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health, but not licence to wear such frightfully vulgar shoes. I was reminded by my right hon. and learned Friend that last week I withdrew my charge against him that he was snide and arrogant. I do so again tonight. I forgot to put in the adjectives that I thought more appropriate, and that I shall do shortly, depending upon his attitude.
      Let us be clear, we are debating important matters. We shall debate them for many hours, endlessly if necessary, because we believe that it is wrong that water, the one substance that the citizen must imbibe should be made a channel for medicine.

      935
      The amendment which I tabled to give liberality to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was not selected. It enabled him to put innumerable substances with a fluoride radical into the water.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Member must not debate an amendment that has not been selected. We are on a narrow point—whether we should continue to debate the amendments that have been selected or whether we should draw stumps.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I do not wish to depart from the narrow point that we are debating, which is whether we should continue the debate. May I remind you, Mr. Deputy Speaker of a letter in The Times, which I understand is a journal of some contemporary confusion. The most loyal of its readers seem to doubt whether they should continue to be so because of the activities of some of its correspondents. That does not, I am happy to say, apply to me. You will remember, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that the point of the letter was that it was wrong that debates on a constitutional principle such as this one should proceed at an hour of night when the public who wish to attend Parliament are unlikely to stay up. The deputy leader of the Labour party in his article in The Sunday Times asked whether the public wanted us all to stay up. Apparently the Government want us all to stay up.
      I am confused — one moment the Government say that the debate must be short, another moment they say that the debate must be extended and the next moment they say, "We shall never get the payroll votes here again so we had better keep hon. Members here, dead, dying and dotty as they are. There are only 120 of them left."
      3.45 am
      We are discussing the most important principle that has been brought before the House during the short time I have had the privilege of being a Member. No other substance but water is essential to life. We are discussing whether the Government should add poison to the water. One may say, "It is poison in a dilution that is acceptable." All poisons in sufficient dilution are acceptable.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: Including whisky.
      Mr. Fairbairn: All poisons in sufficient dilution are acceptable. I did not say that all pleasures in dilution are acceptable. Water can ruin the substance to which it is added as easily as a substance added to water can ruin it. That is the principle we are discussing. It is unconscionable that the House is discussing at this hour of night whether the very substance of life should be poisoned and made a medium for medical or political indoctrination.
      I believe that these discussions should not continue at this time. Suppose that Mr. Scargill's Government—if matters had changed during the past 12 months we might have had Mr. Scargill's Government—had discovered a substance that could be added to the water which could cause Labour Members not to resist deselection, to become mad pickets or to take views that were schizophrenic. It could, because many Labour Members are schizophrenic, stop them being schizophrenic. That would be an abominable process. If a substance that cured the common cold were discovered, I do not believe that it should be added to the water.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Member is now straying into the merits or demerits of the Bill. We must discuss whether to continue the debate on the Bill.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I am obliged to you, Sir.
      Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that schizophrenia is an extremely dangerous mental illness? It appears that many who are in a position to govern this country are stricken with that disease in so far as they are two people—a person who, before this debate, opposed fluoride and a person who, during the debate, supported the adding of fluoride as a form of medication.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) will not agree or disagree with that remark.
      Mr. Fairbairn: No, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I would not do anything so dangerous or, indeed, so schizoid. Having spent my morning in court acting for a paranoid schizophrenic with 11 psychiatrists who could not agree whether he was one or not, I would certainly not waste a moment in imagining that any diagnosis to which the House might come about either themselves or my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) would be accurate or inaccurate. That is not a path down which I would go.
      Mr. Gwilym Jones: In addition to the points my hon. and learned Friend is trying to make about the wisdom of hon. and right hon. Members staying here until this time of night, debating a major constitutional issue, if we carry on at the speed we have been going at since 10 o'clock, we will be here for a very long time. It has taken until now to debate the first group of amendments. There are three further groups of amendments to be considered. There is also the time we are now spending in debating the motion to report progress. Then there is the possibility of a Third Reading as a conclusion to our debate.
      Therefore, it is clearly staring us in the face that we will carry on for so long that we will lose tomorrow's business, including the Second Reading of the Interception of Communications Bill, which again must be a very important measure to all hon. and right hon. Members. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree that this is no way for the business of this important House to be conducted, with important Ministers charged with the responsibility of looking after great offices of state being kept here until this time? Does he not agree that there should be a more sensible way of trying to consider the matter?
      Mr. Fairbairn: I am obliged to my hon. Friend. Those members of the Government who matter are on the Front Bench, because I can recognise by the absence of hair those who are most significant in the matter. We are discussing a matter which I believe to be of major constitutional importance. It is not a matter of which any of my hon. Friends was given notice before being elected at the last election. It was not a matter referred to in the Queen's Speech as coming before Parliament. It has been demonstrated to the Government and to the Government's managers that those of us who believe that it is a matter of the highest principle are not likely to be kicked over the traces by bribery or any other means. It has been demonstrated to the Government that the falsehood of

      937
      whipping or the fantasy of giving a false impression that we are coming for a shipbuilding order at 3.30 pm when we are not, will not deceive us.
      I would have thought that the proper thing for the Government to do was to take the Bill away. If they want to brutalise through the House against the conscience of those who are their supporters and against the decision of the electorate a matter which is totalitarian in principle and wrong in concept, let them do it, but it will be done in the heat and light of the publicity that they are disturbing the very principles of freedom and liberty. That is why at this time of night we will not allow the matter to be smashed through by the steamroller of a payroll vote, if it is still here. We will not have it done when there is nobody in the Press Gallery to report what we say. We will not have it done in a way which will prevent the other place from destroying the Bill, as I believe they will.
      What we are trying to say to the Government and to the Government's managers is that this is a totalitarian measure which hon. Members on all sides of the House believe is wrong. There is scientific evidence to demonstrate that it is evil. The case for it has not been proved. We do not accept that it should be railroaded through.
      Mr. Best: Far be it from me to suggest that my hon. and learned Friend suffers from that disability, but will he accept it from me that many of us in this Chamber are not at our best at this time of the morning and, therefore, the standard of debate is likely to suffer? On a matter of such importance, one has heard allegations made against Ministers and Whips which I personally deprecate and believe are grossly unfair. That is the sort of trend that one finds in the small hours of the morning when, inevitably, the standard of debate must be lower. That is something which neither the Bill nor any measure merits in this Chamber.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I am sorry for my hon. Friend the Member for this unpronounceable place that he represents following the reorganisation of boundaries. Some of us who have been here for a long time used to understand the intelligent language of Great Britain, knew the names of towns and counties, and were able to understand what people's constituencies were. But now we have "osteopathic", or whatever is the name of the constituency which my hon. Friend represents.
      I am sorry, but I do not share his view. I do not know whether this is a parliamentary term, but I think that my hon. Friend is being a creep. During the evening, he has been half sucking up to the Government and half defiling them. I am perfectly willing to defile the Government—
      Mr. Best: I must reject that criticism. My hon. and learned Friend should know, as I hope the whole House knows, that the short and succinct way in which I moved the first amendment — those are the words which the Minister was kind enough to use when he replied to the debate—was to try to be helpful and not to prolong the debate, in the sure belief that the Minister might have come to the Dispatch Box and accepted two perfectly reasonable amendments. I cannot comment now on the fact that he did not.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must not go into the merits of amendments that have already been debated.
      Mr. Golding: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) crawls, is it right for his hon. and learned Friend to call him a creep?
      Dr. M. S. Miller: He is a creepy-crawly.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I would not wish to go into the question of crawling and creeping now, except to say this; what my hon. Friend said to me now in mitigation of his creeping was even more crawling than what he said before. But I do not wish to be dishonest. There are those on the Government Front Bench, with their backs turned to me, who will remember that in the Government of 1974 to 1979, this was the sort of hour when I was at my best, and when we used to make that wretched, awful, frightful Labour Government extremely embarrassed. I remember Mrs. Shirley Williams appearing at the Dispatch Box as the dawn came through the windows. When I was on my feet, she said to me, "The trouble with the hon. Member is that he is half asleep." I said, "Yes, but I am also half awake." And we won that vote.
      Mr. Gwilym Jones: To help my hon. and learned Friend about the matter of "creeping", I notice that in the Hansard report of our debate last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best), after making a speech which was the model of brevity for one hour and 50 minutes to start our debate, made his next utterance in column 231, when he said, "Creep! Sycophant!" Those words were directed towards the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson)—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must get back to the motion before the House.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Now that I have got in the word "creep", which is a good Anglo-Saxon word that has not been disapproved, far be it from anyone who does not understand language to use a word such as "sycophant", which is Greek.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: The hon. and learned Gentleman said that he is at his best at this time of the morning. May I say to him that that is the first sign of shizophrenia.
      Mr. Fairbairn: All that I can say is, thank God I did not have a bad position to complicate the difficulties that the psychiatrists had with my client this morning. If that was the sort of judgment they had to add to their difficulties, I cannot imagine what would have happened. If the hon. Member cannot even pronounce "schizophrenia", I am not surprised that he is a sycophant.
      4 am
      This is a matter of the greatest seriousness, which we will not permit to be railroaded through. We are free men in a free Parliament dealing with an important issue on what is laughingly described as a free vote. Mr. Robert Mugabe or Mr. Scargill might describe it as a free vote. After all, Mr. Scargill said today, in effect, "We are free men. We did the best we could. I am proud of us all."
      I dare say that tomorrow the Government managers will say, "Free men voted for fluoridation. Free men stayed up till 4 or 7 o'clock in the morning. We marched them up to the top of the hill and we marched them down again." Why will they have done it? Just so that a child's tooth can be filled.
      Mr. Marlow: During and since the last Division the Chamber has been stalked by the figures of Cabinet

      939
      Ministers almost dead with fatigue. These men will be directing our affairs in the days to come. My hon. and learned Friend will agree that it is ridiculous that they should be required, at this time of night, to support this measure of all measures, for which they are not responsible, with which they do not agree, which does not appear in the party's programme and which may have been provided by the Civil Service as a fait accompli to the Government.
      These men are expected to run the affairs of the nation and be awake at this ridiculous time of night to support a measure which the political arm of the Government does not support and which the Civil Service arm of the Government may have provided for them. That is why we should pack up this filthy business now and return to it at a time when we can give to it the serious consideration that it deserves.
      Mr. Fairbairn: If I were to give the Government advice, they might regard it as I frequently regard advice that I get from some people. At this stage in their term of office — if the Government want to know what I consider is going wrong—Ministers are tired, they have run short of ideas and officials are running ahead of them, putting ideas in their hands, ideas which they grasp like batons in a hurdle race and happily stagger on and hand them on to the next chap. That happens to all Governments, but it is happening now partly as a result of exhaustion.
      Ministers have huge responsibilities. After one has been discharging such responsibilities for a considerable time, one ceases to be able to cope. That is why I cannot understand why a libertarian Government devoted to the principles of freedom should be trying to push through Parliament at 4 o'clock in the morning a totalitarian measure that would be unlikely to be accepted at any other time.
      Consider what the Government are trying to do at this hour. They are keeping Cabinet Ministers and all their acolytes on the PPS strip awake so that they can vote for a totalitarian measure. I guarantee that if we proceeded now to a Division, not one among the payroll vote would know on entering the Lobby what the vote was in respect of. Yet the vote would be on one of the most totalitarian and unprincipled measures ever to come before the House.
      It is said by the Government that we must all take fluoride. If someone is on hunger strike or in the H-block, the only thing with which he can be force fed is water. Those in the H-block are force fed with water — pure water.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are discussing the comparatively narrow point of whether the debate should continue, and not force feeding.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I do not want to stray from the principle, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was saying that even in the most extreme of circumstances we cannot force anyone to drink other than pure water. The Government are pushing through a totalitarian measure at 4 o'clock in the morning. Their aim is to force people to drink water and at the same time to take medicine. Health Ministers think that smoking causes cancer; why do the Government not put something in the water to make us all stop smoking or to make us sick if we do so? They think that drink causes
      940
      problems; why do they not put something in it to make us sick if we have a drink? If they think that we are all constipated—and the Government are—why do they not put something in the water to make us all move?
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: I am sure that we all take my hon. and learned Friend's point about Ministers becoming extremely tired and yet having to be in the Chamber at this hour notwithstanding the effect that it will have on their performance later tonight or tomorrow. I accept that this is a Bill of some constitutional importance and, therefore, it is of importance that the majority of Members have the opportunity to discuss it at a reasonable hour. Ministers and others who are present at this hour are to be congratulated on being in a position to hear the arguments at such an extraordinary time but, for good or bad reasons, others are not present. My hon. and learned Friend may say that that is up to them, but we should assist those who are not here to be able to take part in the debate. That would be done if the motion were to be accepted by the Government and we were to continue the debate at a more reasonable hour. That would be more in keeping with the constitutional importance of this measure.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I agree entirely.
      Mr. Norman Hogg: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that if we were to keep going for a little longer we would reach a reasonable hour?
      Mr. Fairbairn: I must say—it is a terrible thing for me to have to admit—that I am rather fond of the hon. Gentleman, who is the Opposition's deputy Chief Whip. As I have been brought up as a lawyer to believe that a reasonable man is someone to be found on the top deck of a Clapham omnibus, I am willing to put him back where he belongs, which is seat three, top deck, Clapham omnibus. He is a very reasonable man. If he leaves the House at this reasonable hour, he will have a hell of a job catching a Clapham omnibus.
      I do not wish the Government to come to the conclusion that my stubbornness should immediately promote theirs. I would not wish it to be lost on the House that I believe that this is a matter of such climacteric principle that it is wrong that we should be here in the absence of the majority of hon. Members passing legislation which on not one Division has been supported through the conscience of those who voted.
      Mrs. Edwina Currie: Nonsense.
      Mr. Fairbairn: It has been passed, Madam — taunt me not—on the payroll vote. I am not saying for one moment to my hon. Friend, spreadeagled or otherwise, that she does not have a conscience. For that matter, I do not care about her conscience or any other part of her.
      If one substracts from that vote even the grand conscience of the hon. Lady, one will see that those who voted against all of the amendments were outnumbered only because the payroll vote was driven in.
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: Can my hon. and learned Friend say whether a majority of hon. Members have voted in any Division on the Bill?
      Mr. Fairbairn rose—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must get back to the motion.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I do not know whether a majority have voted, but I do not think that the House understands sufficiently the climacteric principle that the Bill enshrines. It is that if the Government take the view that something should be added to the water, they can pretend that there is a free vote and keep the members of their Geheimer Staatspolizei up until all hours of the night to push it through.
      Mr. Gwilym JonesMy hon. and learned Friend is not being fair to the Government. We have already considered the collective responsibility of Ministers to uphold Government policy, which the Bill is. Moreover, people are entitled to have a change of heart after considering and debating the matter. The hon. Member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Mr. Hogg) suggested that, if we stay here somewhat longer, we shall be here at a reasonable time. He might be theoretically correct but we shall not be more reasonable. Indeed we could become increasingly unreasonable in our deliberations. My hon. and learned Friend mentioned the quality of our debate. When our debate goes on into the early hours of the morning—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman's intervention is developing into a speech.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I should be the last to say whether it is possible for my hon. Friend to become more or less unreasonable. He mentioned the possibility of a change of heart. Where are the hearts in front of me? Where are those who, we have been told, wrote to their constituents from their hearts saying, "I am against fluoridation" but whose hearts compel them to keep their jobs? Where is the Parliamentary Private Secretary who has resigned? Where is the change of heart? Where is the chap who has ducked out and said, "At 4 am, surely Mr. Chief Whip, you do not expect me to blackguard my heart"? Not at all. They are all there, those who do not believe in it. I could name them. Their hearts are not on their sleeves but in their little automated driver-ridden cars.
      Mr. Marlow: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for allowing me to interrupt his second peroration. I should like to bring him back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton), who said that he doubted whether half of all hon. Members had voted on Second Reading or on the amendments.
      Since last week, the seriousness and gravity of the matter may have gravitated to other right hon. and hon. Members who, because of the nature of the business of Parliament have been involved in other activities, quite rightly and properly. They were unaware of the fundamental importance of the issue that we are discussing. It would be right and proper that we should adjourn further consideration of the Bill, with the knowledge that, with the news of the debate tonight, other right hon. and hon. Members will be able to make themselves present at future consideration of the Bill, and to make their own contributions and vote. This is a fundamental issue, and it is becoming increasingly apparent both to the country and our colleagues that this is so. They should have the right to vote on it. If we continue tonight, that right will be curtailed.
      4.15 am
      Mr. Fairbairn: I shall deal with that matter in a moment. Before those with hearts retreat from the Chamber, I remind them of a great film that many of us
      942
      may have seen, called "Kind Hearts and Coronets". How many right hon. and hon. Members on the Treasury Bench prefer their coronets to their heart?
      This is a matter of such fundamental importance that the House should not be discussing it at this time. It should be given up by the Government. What on earth does it matter if some wretched child in Bedfordshire or Gloucestershire or somewhere else has a hole in its teeth? It can get it mended. If it does not get it mended, it can suffer it. It is not as though we are curing cardiac disease, or something important. This is something that possibly helps a few children.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: We could put in something for heart disease.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I know that the hon. Gentleman has a particularly totalitarian attitude that may not be appropriate. Putting something in the water to prevent heart disease is the next step. We are talking about a minor irritation.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are supposed to be talking not about the merits or demerits of the Bill but about whether we should continue the debate.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was carried away with the concept that we could add something to the water to cure dandruff, although it is clear to me that the Deputy Chief Whip and the Leader of the House might not necessarily benefit.
      This is not something that was in our manifesto or in the Queen's Speech. It is a totalitarian measure, allegedly to reverse a law, believed to have been the law of England, put in doubt by a judge in Scotland—a Court of Session judge who did not say it anyway—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman again, but he must address his remarks to the motion.
      Mr. Nicholas Winterton: The fact that we should now adjourn the debate and resume it on another day is obvious from the reply that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary gave to the debate on the previous amendment. He gave an inadequate reply, which shows that he could not have been paying attention during the debate. He paid no attention to amendment No. 17, which is fundamentally important to the House. If we cannot get an adequate reply from Ministers, is it not clear that they are tired, and that we should adjourn, and resume the business on another day, when Ministers can give hon. Members an adequate reply to a long and important debate?
      Mr. Fairbairn: There is some substance in what Member for Macclesfield says. Ifmy hon. Friend thought that it was exhaustion or mental inadequacy that had caused the Minister to give the futile and piffling reply that he did, it would add strength to my argument. The reason why he gave the piffling reply that he did was that he did not have a proper answer to the debate. As to the reason why he did not discuss amendment No. 17, which has not even been moved yet and for which I would not have voted anyway because I do not consider that we should trim on this principle, is—
      Mr. Golding: Is not the hon. and learned Gentleman ignoring the fact that the Ministers are working shifts? Has not the hon. and learned Gentleman noticed that the

      943
      Minister has actually changed? Does not the hon. and learned Gentleman think that it would be better to continue to observe how many Ministers can be brought out in rota?
      Mr. Fairbairn: I am not sure whether I accept what the hon. Gentleman is saying. While the Minister of State had his feet on the Dispatch Box, I noticed that he was wearing what I would call shifts; whether he was also working them, I do not know. In Scottish it is called nimming, but I do not suppose that he would understand so proud a word. Since he seems not to understand words in the English language, he is unlikely to understand that.
      Mr. Best: They are "creep"ers.
      Mr. Fairbairn: With great respect, I know that my hon. Friend calls them creepers. I got away with "creep", Mr. Deputy Speaker. I would not for a moment call the Minister of State a creeper—and certainly not a brothel creeper or a brothel sycophant, because they are even worse.
      Mr. Best: My hon. and learned Friend misinterprets what I said. I was referring to the Minister's shoes, not his character.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are not discussing the merits or demerits of Ministers. We are discussing a comparatively narrow motion.
      Mr. Fairbairn: If I were to go down that path—and nothing would tempt me to follow the Minister in those shoes anywhere for fear of contracting some incurable disease which nothing added to the water could cure—I would say that the creepers all have their backs to me at the moment. Each one was saying that he was creeping away from a great principle at 4.20 in the morning, he was willing to stay here at 4.20 in the morning, he did not care about the principle; he had said that it was wrong, he had written that it was wrong and he had voted that it was wrong, but he was going to remain a creeper; he would stay in office, he would if necessary stay up all night and tomorrow; he would do anything that he was told to do contrary to his judgment and his conscience in order to keep his job; that—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman is now creeping away from the motion before the House.
      Mr. Gwilym Jones: I take my hon. and learned Friend to task for the way that he has been treating my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten). I would take my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) to task even more so for his comments upon the Minister's speech in reply to the last debate, because the Minister did seek to reply to amendment No. 17 as well as to amendment No. 6. What was wrong with that debate, as is likely to be wrong with the debates for the rest of the night, is that as the hours went on there was superficial concentration, particularly on amendment No. 6. I tried to bring the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) to the point by pointing out to him that we were discussing another amendment. Amendment No. 17 is quite a bit different and, with the hours for which we are debating, and the length of the sitting, there will be dissatisfaction among right hon. and hon. Members that we cannot have a separate debate on amendment No. 17
      944
      in addition, to the debate that we have already had on amendment No. 6. I observe the length of time that we spent on amendments 6 and 17 grouped together, and that in the next group there are five amendments, Nos. 98, 52, 29, 11 and 76.
      In addition, there is amendment No. 4 and the group comprising amendments Nos. 46, 10 and 78. We shall complete discussion on those amendments, if we carry on at the same rate, by 3.15 this afternoon. That is no way to consider a matter of such constitutional significance.
      Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I raised this matter inadvertently in a slightly different context before. Last week at about 11.45 pm, after the debate had been running for about one hour 40 minutes, I tried to raise a point of order at about the same time that the Whip tried to move, That the Question be now put. We had a conversation—sometimes with the hat on and sometimes without it—about whether I was in order. The Chair decided to put the Question and implied that my hon. Friend had got to his feet before I had made by point of order.
      Like me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you read the Official Report from cover to cover and you will know that the sequence of events was a little different—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am not sure what the hon. Gentleman's point of order is, but we cannot debate what happened on previous occasions.
      Mr. Marlow: The Official Report will make it clear that I sought to raise my point of order—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. It is out of order for the hon. Gentleman to discuss matters that were raised in the House some time ago.
      Mr. Marlow: The point of order that I was seeking to make is important. Under Standing Order No. 31 the Chair will not entertain the Question being put if a minority interest has not been involved in the debate. At that stage the Liberal party had not been able to put its view forward—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This is hypothetical and we must get on with the debate.
      Mr. Fairbairn: My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) has raised what appeared to him to be a point of order. We must all be jealous of private imagination.
      Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones) mentioned a matter of greater importance—whether we should continue the debate now. He gave a large number of figures that appear on the Order Paper and he read out Mr. Speaker's selection. I have never been numerate, and I am barely literate, but if ever there was reason for teachers having an increase in their wages, if they have to add up such figures they have a good case.
      We have still to consider many amendments and the Third Reading, so we shall be here for a long time. It should be obvious to the Government that Back Benchers — who have a free vote — are not dyslectic, insane or mad. They think that it is so wrong in principle that it contravenes the right of humans to drink the only substance available to them for the sustenance of life—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman is again straying from the motion before the House.
      4.30 am
      Mr. Fairbairn: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not wish to stray from the point. What I am trying to say — and there are heads in front of me that presumably are both listening and rejecting — is that the principle is such an important one that the Government should say that they will close the debate, throw out this stupid Bill; that they will not have the Cabinet Ministers and the payroll vote kept here all night so that they can put before the House so totalitarian a measure, in the absence of the public, of most of the Members of the House and of the authority or wish of their party.
      Mr. Best: With respect, I think that my hon. and learned Friend has missed the fundamental point, which is that before this debate started last night there were 111 amendments tabled by hon. Members, all demonstrating their extreme concern. they were all sensible amendments designed to improve the Bill. Several issues of very great importance have been raised during the present debate and it may well be that hon. Members will seek to table further amendments arising from those issues that Mr. Speaker in his wisdom might in due course allow to go forward for further debate. If this matter is to be pushed through at 4.30 in the morning, that gives no opportunity whatsoever to put down any further amendments arising out of the matters of great importance raised by my hon. Friend the Minister and other hon. Members.
      Mr. Nicholas Winterton rose—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We cannot have an intervention within an intervention.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I am obliged, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I want to answer the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) has made. I think it is very important that we should have an opportunity to table amendments. Indeed, I tabled amendments that added to the schedule every substance that I could discover in Sach's list of dangerous chemicals and Martindale's pharmacopoeia—
      Dr. M. S. Miller: Pharmacopoeia—with a hard "c".
      Mr. Fairbairn: I can pronounce it. I do not think that the hon. Gentleman should correct me on Greek pronounciation, because I even know what the word means, which I doubt whether he does.
      I think it is important that we should be able to understand that there are many fluoride radicals, organic and inorganic, of benzirines and other forms which could be added to the water with great benefit even to the members of the Government. They might even be pacified; they might even understand that those behind them and those in front of them desperately mind about the principle. We might find that N fluorine 2Y222 trifluoracetimine in one part per million might make them see reason. What about adding that to the water, then? They might go home tomorrow, or whenever it is that they are going to go home, and actually smile. That would be a marvellous thing to add to the water, would it not? It would not do them any harm. There are people who say one's lung rots if one eats it, but that does not matter to them, as long as they smile tomorrow.
      The Government will no doubt suggest that those of us who believe in the strength of this principle are filibustering. The Government will have understood from the Sunday papers — if they read them — that there is
      946
      only one substance—and it is not water—which the free Members of a free House have to use. It is called time. If time is to be the embarrassment of the Government, if it is to take us from now until a year from now to convince them that those of us who believe in this principle believe in it for the strongest of reasons; believe that this measure is totalitarian and wrong, that it is an unnecessary measure that the Government should never have introduced and are unlikely to carry in another place even if they carry it in this House, that is how we shall proceed.
      Mr. Lawrence: My hon. and learned Friend said that someone had been accused of filibustering. I have here the definition of "filibuster" in Webster's dictionary. It speaks of the source being:
      "Dutch vrijbuiter freebooter, of which the earliest examples are obvious alterations; the present use begins with the adoption of French flibustier; this was succeeded by the present form … freebooter… 1587… One of a class of piratical adventurers who pillaged the Spanish colonies in the West Indies in the 17th c.
      . Secondly, it
      "Applied to the lawless adventurers from the United States who between 1850 and 1860 followed Lopez in his expedition to Cuba, and Walker in his expedition to Nicaragua 1854."
      Would my hon. and learned Friend equate himself in any way with either a piratical adventurer who pillaged the Spanish colonies in the West Indies in the 17th century, or someone who was a lawless adventurer from the United States who between 1850 and 1860—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is enough for an intervention.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I can assure my hon. and learned Friend that I would rather be Walker in Nicaragua than Kinnock in Nicaragua. Anyway, that is not what "filibuster" means.
      Mr. Lawrence: It is in the dictionary.
      Mr. Fairbairn: It may be in the dictionary. No wonder the law of England is in such disrepute. Even its seniors cannot understand the English language, nor, so far as I can make out, can they consult relevant dictionaries.
      "Filibuster" has a simple meaning. It comes from the Greek for "I love" and "buster" meaning Buster Edwards, one of the great train robbers. [Laughter.] There is nothing for hon. Members to laugh about. He happens to be my florist at Waterloo. I was extremely distressed to be instructed this very day to defend the son of one of his greatest friends whose father I have defended on many occasions.
      Before my hon. and learned Friend gives me advice I wish that he would learn to look up dictionaries with responsibility. He will know, as I do, that the definition of an advocate's clerk is somebody who helps an advocate to get what is coming to him. So I shall not praise him for his advice. Nevertheless, I must go back to where I was before we came to the dictionary meaning of "filibuster".
      I was talking about principle and people as literate as my hon. and learned Friend will know that "pr" comes after "ph" in the dictionary. We are dealing with a matter of the greatest principle. We mind about it and we are not willing to see ourselves talked out, knocked out, driven out or driven over by the Government in the middle of the night.
      We are not madmen. We are not paranoid schizophrenics who see salt shouting at us, full stops

      947
      threatening us, and so on. I studied medicine, so I understand something of the fluoridation of water. Some of us regard that as the greatest breach of a constitutional principle that could ever happen in a free country. I want the Government to understand that. If necessary I shall add fluoride to their morning coffee, afternoon coffee and next week's coffee until they understand that that is what we are talking about.
      All of us mind about children having holes in their teeth. Hurrah. We also mind about people dying of cancer and all sorts of other things. But we are not willing to adulterate the source and support of life—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am finding it difficult to relate this to the motion before the House.
      Mr. Gwilym Jones: May I take my hon. and learned Friend back to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best), who said that there are 111 amendments down on the Order Paper for consideration in our debates, including some six new schedules, matters that will take a long time to go through? About an hour and a half ago, I voted against the closure of the previous debate. Possibly I was selfish in voting against the closure, because I had been trying to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I know that my hon. and learned Friends the Members for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) and for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) had also been trying to do so. With the closure of the previous debate, even with Back Benchers still wishing to contribute towards it, even with complaints from them that there had been an inadequate reply from the Front Bench to that debate, we are still not getting adequate consideration of the amendments. We have a total of 111 to go through, and we already have two undertakings from the Government that they will bring forward their own amendments in another place. But if we had a more sensible form of debate my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health could bring the amendments back to the House so that we could properly examine them.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I think that my hon. Friend is right. The Government should have discovered by this time that they cannot shuffle between late-night discos, which we have now had twice, and decent thé dansants, which we have in the afternoons, because neither works any better. The reason is that there are those in the House who are not willing to shift on principle, not for any reason—not for reason of bribery, office or persuasion, not to let the Government go to bed, not because we are worried, as worry we should, about the state of the teeth of the deputy Chief Whip, not because we think that we should all throw our hands into the Save the Children Fund in order to get a decent pair of shoes for the Minister of State—nothing like that. We are all here because we mind about principle. We are all here, and we shall all stay here, until that principle is acknowledged.
      Mr. Golding: Does the hon. and learned Member know that he is putting me in some difficulty? I want to speak against the motion, and I shall not be able to until he has given some reasons for it.
      Mr. Fairbairn: As usual, the hon. Gentleman has given a helpful indication of his bias. I have always regarded him as a very biased man. Indeed, who but a
      948
      postman with all the responsibilities that a postman has, could have demonstrated such a remarkable commitment to the delivery of letters to people who were Left or Right, or voted this way or that way—a less biased member of the House we could not have. Therefore, for him to admit to a bias during the debate demonstrates his integrity, even if not his reason.
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: I wonder whether I might provide my hon. and learned Friend with an argument that he might advance, on which the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) may later be able to give us some observations. This is a Government Bill. Not only have the Government failed to get the majority of hon. Members voting in favour of their Bill but they have failed to get the majority of Conservative Members voting in favour of it. Does my hon. and learned Friend think that it is proper and appropriate, however much it may be in the standing orders of the House, for the Government to railroad the legislation through in this way?
      Mr. Fairbairn: It is not in the least proper. The trouble about the Government is that they probably have not read the Old Testament. It may be that the Bishop of Durham has put them off anything like scripture. Even the reverend Archbishop of York said that there is not a chap up there to whom one can pray. He appears to be able to destroy York Minster quite suitably, but apparently one is not allowed to pray to him. Such was the latest benediction.
      The judgment of Solomon was an interesting concept. Nobody divided the baby to please anybody. King Solomon threatened to divide the baby because two women claimed that the baby did not belong to the other. That is the position in which the Government find themselves. On the one hand they are saying, "Oh, no, it's your baby. It's a free baby. It's the Back Benchers' baby. It's the baby of all of you. It's freedom's baby." on the other hand they are saying, "We'll smother the little brat, whatever you do."
      4.45 am
      On the one hand the Government are saying, "Ah, yes, it's our baby; it's a beautiful baby, it's a wonderful baby. You mustn't divide that baby. We need that baby. Give that baby to anybody else, but for goodness' sake keep it alive." On the other hand they are saying, "Don't you dare touch that little thing. You get out of the way. We're going to get our big, strong-armed nannies in here to keep you out of the way. We'll suckle it. It's our baby." This Bill is about milk, teeth and water, so it is not a bad idea to bring babies into the argument. It is the lovely teeth of babies that we are discussing, yet this wretched child, this fluoride baby, is being suckled compulsorily at the pap of the deputy Chief Whip—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are not discussing babies' teeth. We are discussing whether the debate should continue.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I was trying to give, Mr. Deputy Speaker, a simple illustration which I hoped that the parents of this ghastly, illegitimate child might understand. I was saying that the reason why it should not be discussed at this time of night is that this baby is a bastard. It was not admitted at the time of the wedding, which was when this Government were elected. It was not admitted at the time of the Gracious Speech, which was the time of its conception. Yet suddenly the Government

      949
      produce this loathsome, hideous, Fascist child, say that it is a love child and beseech all of us to adopt it. They say that we are free either to adopt it or to reject it, or to smother it or do anything we like to it. But actually "You're not, darlings. We're going to make sure that this nasty little creature grows up to be Joseph Goebbels." This is all about schizophrenia. We should not be talking about schizophrenia at this time in the morning. The Minister for Health cannot even spell the word, far less understand it.
      I am disturbed to be informed that I have been speaking for an hour and a half. I have never addressed a jury, even on a capital murder charge, for more than 50 minutes. Apart from those occasions when I thought that I was doing immeasurable good by talking out the ridiculous totalitarian measures of the 1974 to 1979 Government, I have never addressed the House for that amount of time. However, I am happy to have done so on this occasion because I mind deeply and passionately about the wrongness of the principle that underlies the Bill. It is also totalitarian and unnecessary. The Government should take it away, like any other little baby which has half its head off, put it face down on the pillow and say, "I'm terribly sorry, darling. It was stillborn."
      The Minister for Health (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): I acknowledge that this is not the most convenient hour of night to be discussing these matters and that it is probably slightly less convenient than it was when my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) rose to draw attention to the problem. Having listened to his passionate and very prolonged address, I appreciate why he is here at this time of night and why he has spoken at such length. He withdrew the adjectives "snide" and "flippant" that he had used about me before. I am sure that I will give him every opportunity and occasion to put them back.
      I acknowledge that my hon. and learned Friend is filibustering because he believes passionately that to proceed with the Bill at all is wrong. He and my other hon. Friends are fighting their corner for a cause in which they believe. I am sorry; it is one of the occasions on which we are divided.
      My hon. and learned Friend and I have different views on footwear. I cannot persuade him of the virtue of hush puppies, which I am sure will come back into fashion. They have fallen out of favour in the House at the moment.
      I realise that it is an issue of principle that has kept so many of my hon. Friends here. We gave been having a debate of high quality and I think that it could continue. I have not yet spoken in the debate, nor have the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) and my hon. and learned Friend for Perth and Kinross. The earlier debates reached a high standard. We could probably match that, with effort, when we reach further important amendments.
      The House should congratulate itself. It has reached line 15 of page 1. There are many important amendments to come. We have made reasonable progress. The matter has been fully and carefully considered. The time has now arrived to make a little further progress. Who knows, after the next amendment it may be an extremely convenient hour to continue the debate because the media will soon be reawakening. Early morning radio will soon be coming on the air and our proceedings could well be broadcast live within a few hours. I suggest that we could make a little more progress before then.
      Mr. Cope rose in his place, and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
      Question put, That the Question be now put.:—
      The House divided:Ayes 106, Noes 39.

      Division No. 142]

      [4.55 am

      AYES

      Ancram, Michael

      Mellor, David

      Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

      Miller, Hal (B'grove)

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Mitchell, David (NW Hants)

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

      Bottomley, Peter

      Moynihan, Hon C.

      Boyson, Dr Rhodes

      Needham, Richard

      Bright, Graham

      Nelson, Anthony

      Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

      Newton, Tony

      Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Burt, Alistair

      Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

      Butler, Hon Adam

      Page, Richard (Herts SW)

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Chalker, Mrs Lynda

      Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

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

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      Pawsey, James

      Colvin, Michael

      Pollock, Alexander

      Cope, John

      Raffan, Keith

      Couchman, James

      Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Renton, Tim

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Durant, Tony

      Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

      Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Eggar, Tim

      Rumbold, Mrs Angela

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      Ryder, Richard

      Fletcher, Alexander

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Scott, Nicholas

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

      Gow, Ian

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Gummer, John Selwyn

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Hayes, J.

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Henderson, Barry

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Howard, Michael

      Squire, Robin

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Stanley, John

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

      Stern, Michael

      Jessel, Toby

      Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

      Knowles, Michael

      Tracey, Richard

      Lamont, Norman

      Trippier, David

      Lang, Ian

      Viggers, Peter

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Waddington, David

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      Lilley, Peter

      Walden, George

      Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

      Ward, John

      Lord, Michael

      Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

      Lyell, Nicholas

      Watson, John

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Watts, John

      MacGregor, John

      Whitney, Raymond

      MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Major, John

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Marland, Paul

      Mather, Carol

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Mr. Archie Hamilton and

      Mayhew, Sir Patrick

      Mr. Michael Neubert.

      NOES

      Best, Keith

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Boothroyd, Miss Betty

      Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

      Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

      Haynes, Frank

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

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Carttiss, Michael

      Holt, Richard

      Chope, Christopher

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

      Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Loyden, Edward

      Dixon, Donald

      McGuire, Michael

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

      Maclean, David John

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Marlow, Antony

      Forth, Eric

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      George, Bruce

      Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

      Grist, Ian

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Ground, Patrick

      Patchett, Terry

      951

      Pike, Peter

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      Skinner, Dennis

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

      Stott, Roger

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Terlezki, Stefan

      Mr. John Golding and

      Walker, Bill (T'side N)

      Mr. Gwilym Jones.

      Wareing, Robert

      Question accordingly agreed to.
      Question put accordingly, That further consideration of the Bill be now adjourned:—
      The House divided: Ayes 38, Noes 103.

      Division No. 143]

      [5.05 am

      AYES

      Best, Keith

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Boothroyd, Miss Betty

      Loyden, Edward

      Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

      McGuire, Michael

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

      Maclean, David John

      Carttiss, Michael

      Marlow, Antony

      Chope, Christopher

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

      Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Dixon, Donald

      Patchett, Terry

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

      Pike, Peter

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Rogers, Allan

      Forth, Eric

      Skinner, Dennis

      George, Bruce

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

      Grist, Ian

      Stott, Roger

      Ground, Patrick

      Terlezki, Stefan

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Walker, Bill (T'side N)

      Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

      Wareing, Robert

      Haynes, Frank

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Holt, Richard

      Mr. John Golding and

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

      Mr. Gwilym Jones.

      NOES

      Ancram, Michael

      Lang, Ian

      Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Lilley, Peter

      Bottomley, Peter

      Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

      Boyson, Dr Rhodes

      Lyell, Nicholas

      Bright, Graham

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

      MacGregor, John

      Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

      MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

      Burt, Alistair

      Major, John

      Butler, Hon Adam

      Marland, Paul

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Mather, Carol

      Chalker, Mrs Lynda

      Maude, Hon Francis

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

      Mayhew, Sir Patrick

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      Mellor, David

      Colvin, Michael

      Miller, Hal (B'grove)

      Cope, John

      Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

      Couchman, James

      Moynihan, Hon C.

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Needham, Richard

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Nelson, Anthony

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

      Neubert, Michael

      Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

      Newton, Tony

      Eggar, Tim

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

      Fletcher, Alexander

      Page, Richard (Herts SW)

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Gow, Ian

      Pawsey, James

      Gummer, John Selwyn

      Pollock, Alexander

      Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

      Raffan, Keith

      Hayes, J.

      Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

      Henderson, Barry

      Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

      Howard, Michael

      Renton, Tim

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

      Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

      Jessel, Toby

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Rumbold, Mrs Angela

      Knowles, Michael

      Ryder, Richard

      Lamont, Norman

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      952

      Scott, Nicholas

      Waddington, David

      Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

      Walden, George

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Ward, John

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Watson, John

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Watts, John

      Squire, Robin

      Whitney, Raymond

      Stanley, John

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Stern, Michael

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

      Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Tracey, Richard

      Mr. Timothy Sainsbury and

      Trippier, David

      Mr. Tony Durant.

      Viggers, Peter

      Question accordingly negatived.
      Mr. Lawrence: I beg to move amendment No. 98, in page 2, line 1, leave out from 'one' to end of line 4 and insert
      'a compound of fluorine which has been tested and found to be safe to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: It will be convenient to consider at the same time the following amendments: No. 52, in page 2, line 10, after 'one' insert 'half of a'.
      No. 11, in clause 2, page 2, line 43, at end insert—
      'save that no reference to another compound of fluorine shall be added except where such compound has been tested to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State as to its having no adverse effects on any person to receive it'.
      No. 76, in clause 2, page 2, line 43, at end insert—
      '(c) adding a reference to a combination of compounds of fluorine and other non fluorine compounds.'.
      Mr. Lawrence: I have been sitting patiently throughout the night, not having managed to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I am grateful for this opportunity to participate in this important stage of the Bill. Having been called now to speak will restore my confidence, which was shattered last week when I was about to speak at a dinner in my constituency and the toastmaster said, "My lords, ladies and gentlemen, pray for the silence of your Member of Parliament."
      Mr. Best: The House will have noticed that amendment No. 98 also stands in my name. My hon. and learned Friend will appreciate that I am not moving it because I feel unable, at gone 5 o'clock in the morning, to devote the necessary attention to what are complicated issues. However, I am sure that he will do an excellent job in moving it.
      Mr. Lawrence: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the excellent work that he has done so far. With his experience and knowledge of Anglesey, an area which has been force-fluoridated for a number of years—much to the concern of the local people, which is one reason why my hon. Friend is so passionate an opponent of fluoridation—he has many important examples to give the House.
      It is a pity that he cannot introduce the debate. If he is flagging, it may not be possible for my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench, let alone the rest of the payroll, to concentrate closely on these issues at this hour.
      5.15 am
      I should be grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker, if at the outset you make it clear whether you will allow separate Divisions upon the amendments. They are nearly all different. Amendment No. 98 would leave out from 'one' to end of line 4 and insert
      'a compound of fluorine which has been tested and found to be safe to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State'.

      953
      It is the comprehensive proposition on safety in this group of amendments. I know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you would wish there to be a separate Division on the subject of safety, which is central to our deliberations.
      There follow variations of what would be safe. Amendment No. 52 stands in the name of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding). I shall leave it to the hon. Gentleman to explain precisely what his amendment implies but I suggest that it implies broadly that 1 mg per litre may be thought by the House to be unsafe and that a ¼ mg per litre would be safer. If life-threatening diseases are triggered by the addition of fluoride to the water, perhaps the logic of the amendment is that they will have the chance to live four times longer, if it is accepted, before suffering the affliction of the evil effects of fluoride.
      Amendment No. 29 is the amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow), which seeks a reduction to ½ mg per litre. The House has the opportunity of deciding whether it wants 1 mg per litre as the level of safety, ½ mg per litre or ¼ mg per litre. That is an issue upon which there might be divided views. It might be possible to hold the view that one is satisfied on the balance of probabilities on the evidence — it can never be higher than that because of the weight of evidence that the poison called fluoride causes damage to health — that one should not be satisfied with 1 mg but might be satisfied with ½ mg and should certainly be satisfied with ¼ mg.
      Mr. Best: My hon. and learned Friend might find it helpful if I intervene to suggest to him that amendment No. 98, which would leave out from 'one' to end of line 4 and insert
      'a compound of fluorine which has been tested and found to be safe to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State',
      is the omnibus amendment on safety. It encompasses safety for those who handle fluoride as well as the recipients of it. It embraces the problems of trade unions and statutory water undertakers, the question of protective clothing and whether there should be no need to give notice of termination of contract if suddenly a statutory water undertaker puts fluoride in the water supply.
      Amendment No. 11 is much more restrictive, as it concerns the recipients of fluoride and requires the Secretary of State to ensure that they do not suffer adverse effects.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Amendment No. 76, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North is, as one would expect of him, unrelated to the matters that we are discussing now.
      We are discussing safety — the most serious and important of the issues involved with fluoridation as, beyond peradventure, it concerns the health of the nation. I am fed up with hearing from all kinds of sources—no doubt we shall hear it from hon. Members who are not here, have never been here, were not in Committee and have not read one page of Hansard or, indeed, anything about fluoridation—that there is no evidence of harm to health from fluoridation at one part per million.
      There is a massive amount of evidence, which has accumulated quite rapidly during the past few years. When if first took an interest in this subject in 1976, there had been a great deal of evidence in the 1950s and 1960s, but for some reason, it appeared to dry up. There was a revival
      954
      in 1975, since when there has been a steady flow of studies all over the world, most of which suggest that there is likely harm from putting fluoride in water at one part per million.
      The hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller) is leaving the Chamber. He gets up from time to time to criticise, but I do not suppose that he has read one of the studies. He does not stay in the Chamber long enough to hear anyone quote them or give evidence. It is important that the evidence is adduced and presented. Right thinking people ought to consider it. It is not enough to say that this is an infringement of the liberty of the individual. We must go further, because there are some people, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Jessel), who are otherwise freedom loving but say that the small infringement of freedom involved in mass medication is so insubstantial as not to be weighed in the scale against the benefits. We have to argue the case, but it cannot be argued in five minutes. That is partly because the arguments are complicated and partly because there is just a mass of stuff to be considered. It is tedious, and I understand that it is boring and therefore people go away rather than concentrate their minds on the issues.
      I come to one small but significant matter. There is a lot of evidence that fluoride of one part per million is mutagenic. That is, it causes abnormalities in cells. The Government, on the advice of the Royal College of Physicians, and no doubt other worthy bodies, repeatedly say that there is no evidence of that. Recently there have been two Japanese reports on the studies of research groups on this subject. When this point was raised during the passage of the Bill, it was said—I think by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten), but I may be forgiven for getting it wrong at this time of night—that that matter had been studied, or was being studied by the forces for good. These wonderful scientists, dentists and doctors, who always manage to reassure the Government of the complete safety and integrity of something that is a dangerous poison, were examining the matter.
      In the last Session, it was said that as a result of the Strathclyde decision, legislation would have to be introduced. However, when we looked avidly at the Queen's Speech for any mention of a Bill on fluoridation, we did not see it. The astute media cross-examined staff in the Department of Health and Social Services as to the reason why a Bill that had been well trailered was not in the Queen's Speech. Those of us of a cynical mind never believed the story that emerged, which was that consideration of the latest report was holding things up.
      Those of us with a very cynical mind thought that there was no mention of such a Bill in the Queen's Speech because, if there had been, those of us opposed to such a Bill would get our supporters organised. Many people would write to Ministers, and that would be terribly embarrassing added to the letters about the restricted drugs list. The rumour was that these reports were being taken seriously by the Government, and were being properly considered, presumably by the Medical Research Council.
      I shall read a letter that was written to a lady in Scotland by the information officer of the Medical Research Council, dated 21 February 1985:
      "The articles which have recently appeared in the press are a little misleading. The Medical Research Council is not assessing the Japanese report, but is undertaking, at the request of the Department of Health, a research project aimed at

      955
      identifying whether sodium fluoride has the ability to induce gene mutation in mouse lymphoma cells. This project is being carried out at the Council's cell mutation laboratory in Brighton. A final report to the Department will be made later this year. No results have been published yet."
      This is an interesting letter. First, it tells us that we have been misled. I do not for a moment think that we have been misled by anything that Ministers have said to us, but we and the press were misled into thinking that the Medical Research Council, which is the research council par excellence, do look at scientific developments that might endanger health.
      We were misled into thinking that somebody was studying the Japanese reports, but that was quite wrong. The two Japanese reports in 1984 came from Nippon dental university. They purported to show that if one injected fluoride under the skin of hamsters and into embryo cells, into a human cell or into a cultured human cell, the fluoride caused genetic damage. Whether or not scientists are wrong in starting their testing procedures on hamsters, rats or mice, which is the traditional way of doing this for various scientific reasons that the scientists in the House will well understand, the fact that the same effect was being created in a human cell is deeply worrying.
      5.30 am
      Those are recent reports. They were not available in 1976 when the Royal College of Physicians reported that it was safe, nor were they available in 1983 when we were assured by the Government that it was safe, in 1982, in 1981 or ever. These are recent reports from a serious body, the dental university in Tokyo, where these matters are properly and deeply studied.
      What do we hear from the Medical Research Council? The Medical Research Council is not assessing the Japanese reports. Why is the Medical Research Council not assessing the Japanese reports? Why is somebody else not assessing the Japanese reports? I hope that the Minister will make some reference to that, because it seems to me that those reports are worthy of assessment. If there is anything in them — if fluoride under the skin of a hamster, in the cell of a human being, in an embryo cell or in a culture grows into a tumour, what better evidence could we have that there must be a doubt about whether this stuff is as safe as everybody says? That is the first matter on the letter.
      The second matter is that the Medical Research Council is engaged on a research project aimed at identifying whether sodium fluoride has the ability to induce gene mutations in mouse lymphoma cells. I do not know how mouse lymphoma cells differ from hamster cells, human cell cultures or any other cells into which sodium fluoride has been injected. It is reassuring to hear that some inquiries and examination are taking place into whether this stuff when injected into living cells causes cancer. But if the Minister had only told the House that he was waiting upon a research project which would advise him in a year or two whether there was any danger of genetic abnormality resulting from the injection of fluoride of one part per million or its equivalent into the cells of a mouse, I doubt very much whether the heart and spirit of the stout souls in the payroll vote would have swept quite so quickly into the Lobby.
      956
      In other words, whichever way one looks at this letter, on the one hand the Government are paying no, or little, attention to a report from a reputable source; and on the other hand they are showing such concern about that and other reports that they have set up a research project of their own which is being carried out at Brighton.
      If the letter were widely enough known—this is not the hour at which to have it widely enough known, but I shall take steps to ensure that it is more widely circulated—I think some hon. Members, perhaps just one or two, might put a question mark over the assurances of safety until such time as the matter is cleared up by the research project reporting a clean bill of health.
      Mr. Best: My hon. and learned Friend quoted from the Royal College of Physicians' report. Many people rely on that report; that is understandable. When was that report published and was the evidence to which he has referred known at the time of the publication of the report? That is an important aspect.
      Mr. Lawrence: It certainly was not. My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best), who is normally bright at any hour, lost his concentration for a moment. I said earlier that the reports were published in 1984 and that the Royal College of Physicians report was made in 1976. In that time a great deal happened.
      Mr. Best: Is my hon. and learned Friend interested to know the reply that I received to three parliamentary questions? I asked the Secretary of State for Social Services

      "(1) if any studies have been brought to his attention which indicate that fluoride is a cause of genetic damage;

      (2) if any studies have been brought to his attention which indicate that fluoride is carcinogenic;

      (3) if any studies have been brought to his attention which indicate that fluoride causes damage to plant and animal life."

      The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social
      Securit told me:—
      "Our independent scientific advisers have considered the relevant work on the genetic effects of fluoride as used in water fluoridation schemes to achieve a concentration of one part per million in the drinking water of whole communities. They have also considered all the available evidence on the biological effects of fluoride in short term tests, animal carcinogenicity tests and the epidemiological evidence"
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must be brief. This is an intervention.
      Mr. Best: I hoped that I could quote the answer by the Under-Secretary, who went on—
      "recently reviewed in the report of the working party on fluoridation of water and cancer, copies of which are available in the Vote Office. They have concluded that there is no evidence leading to an expectation of a mutagenic hazard to man through the industion of heritable abnormalities in the germ cells and that there is no reliable evidence of any hazard to man in respect of cancer from the fluoridation of drinking water to a concentration of one part per million."—[Official Report, 26 February 1985; Vol. 74, c. 138.]
      That answer was given two days before the report appeared in New Scientist. I make no comment about the veracity of the comments in that report, but all that we have had is a brief answer from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am, of course, interested in those matters. The Department of Health and Social Security works slowly and its right hand does not always know what its left hand is doing. We have heard about examples of that. I tabled questions. To some I have received answers.

      957
      I have received answers to questions that I did not ask and I have not yet received answers to some important questions. The DHSS seems not to be working in a co-ordinated way.
      It is interesting that until recently we were told that there was no evidence. "No evidence" is what the Royal College of Physicians says. Now we hear "no reliable evidence". That is because the statement "there is no evidence" is a lie; there always was evidence. No doubt the great and the good who want to force this harmful measure upon us brushed all that evidence to one side and said that it was not very good and it was not reliable, but to tell the British people, as the great and the good did in their "Fluoride: teeth and health", upon which successive Governments have relied for encouragement to fluoridate the water, that there was no evidence was to tell them something that was simply untrue.
      If there is a court case and the prosecution calls evidence and the defence calls no evidence, it can be said that there is no evidence for the defence. But if there is a court case and the prosecution calls evidence and the defence calls some evidence which is discredited, it cannot be said that there is no evidence; it can merely be said that the evidence is discredited; or, if it is not discredited but just unreliable, it can be said that the evidence is unreliable. The one thing that cannot be said in English is that there is no evidence, there are no studies, because the implication is, and the impression given to people is, that all the scientists in the world have not come up with any study at all which shows that fluoridation is harmful.
      Mr. McGuire: The hon. and learned Gentleman is telling us that the argument that there is no evidence to support the case of people like myself and the hon. and learned Gentleman—that is, the anti-fluoridation case—has now been proved to be bogus. I would like him to turn his very able mind to the other side of the coin, the fact that evidence, statistics and facts were given supporting the case for fluoridation which we know were misleading. This is true in particular of the case we have had evidence on in the letter from Dr. Yellowlees, from a Scottish address, where the principal advocate of fluoridation did not himself know the very limited number of people who were getting naturally fluoridated water. That is another aspect to which I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman will turn his attention, because it is equally valid. We should try to demonstrate that that argument for fluoridating was based on false statistics and that misleading statistics were made to sound very authentic.
      Mr. Lawrence: I hope in the course of my argument to develop that very point, because it is not just that denials of any harm exist but that some of the bases upon which assertions have been made are fallacious.
      For the purpose of crossing an "i" and dotting a "t", I want to refer the House to one of the pages of "Fluoride: teeth and health" where we are assured of the safety of fluoride. It is page 9 of the summary, and the sentence reads:
      "Studies in the U.S.A. and Britain have found no relationship between cancer mortality or cancer incidence and fluoride levels in water supplies."
      Does that not give the impression that there is no evidence, although there have been studies, of any relationship between cancer mortality or cancer incidence and fluoride levels in water supplies? That is utterly false, because all the authors meant to say was "There are studies and they
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      show a relationship but we discount them". That is a very different matter and it is very misleading. Successive Governments have been misled by that. That can be the only justification for successive Governments saying that there is no evidence and that fluoride is safe.
      5.45 am
      The importance of the New Scientist article of 28 February 1985 is self-evident. As reported in The Times, it says:
      "Evidence that fluoride can interfere with hydrogen bonding in a yeast enzyme provides proof that it can affect a vital component of a living cell."
      That is the significance of it. That study was published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry in 1984, volume 2259, page 12,984. I can scarcely believe that any book has 12,984 pages but if what I am reading is correct that is so. I suppose that a book on the evils of fluoridation might run into that many pages. It was written by Stephen Edwards, Thomas Poulos and Joseph Kraut of the department of chemistry at the University of California in Santiago.
      That is only a supplement to a research group's report in 1981 under the control of Dr. John Emsley, a reader in chemistry at Kings college, London. He made a radio broadcast about that study which is very interesting to listen to. Here was a man who knew nothing about fluoride an was not investigating it. He was investigating for other purposes the subject of hydrogen bonding forming between amides in biological systems. He said:
      "My work and the work of my research group has shown that fluoride combines itself to other molecules by what are called hydrogen bonds, and in particular very strong hydrogen bonds. The implications are that some of the molecules that we have investigated are important chemicals in the living cells in the human body. That means that fluoride is not quite so innocuous as people previously thought. It was always assumed, and in fact I think when they atarted putting fluoride in water 30 years ago, that fluoride was about the safest salt— by that I mean the most unreactive salt that was known—and therefore could not interfere in any metabolic processes in the living cell. Well, I think that our work has shown that really this must now be doubted. Fluoride will interact with salacylic acid, for instance, which is an important compound in the body and it will interact with this in the presence of water, and therefore fluoride in water is not as inert as chemically we used to think it was. In fact it can now do all sorts of reactions that otherwise were not suspected. There are so many unknown questions now hanging over flouride, especially as the result of what we have discovered, that it can interact with things that we thought it could not interact with before. We found a way in which it can do this. It can attach itself to other molecules by its strong hydrogen bonds and when it does that who knows what it is going to do to these other molecules?"
      He added:
      "When I used to hear it said that fluoride would cause cancer and birth defects about 10 years ago I dismissed it completely because there was no way in which I could see something as innocent as fluoride appeared to be at the time doing something like this. Now, if you were to tell me that, then I would have doubts about it, I must admit. We cannot just give it a clean bill of health as we used to."
      Mr. Best: My hon. and learned Friend may be interested to know that my office contacted Dr. Emsley today, who said that he did not feel strongly one way or the other about the Bill. He should also be aware that yesterday I spoke with a biochemist who tells me that the danger pointed to in the article occurs only in high concentrated levels of fluoride, not such as is proposed by the Government should go into the water supplies. Again,

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      I make no comment about the veracity of those statement. But it is right that I should point that out to my hon. and learned Friend so that he can deal with the matter.
      Mr. Lawrence: I shall deal with that in a moment because I want to refer to concentration and dose. Before I do, I should like to complete the point that I am making.
      Since 1976 and the report of the Royal College of Physicians, which is relied upon, there has been a large number of surveys and research projects throughout the world. I refer to just some. In Poland, at the Pomeranian medical academy, there have been studies on human cells, which concluded that fluoride causes genetic damage. In 1981, at the institute of botany at Baku in Russia, rat studies showed that fluoride causes genetic damage. In 1982 at the university of Missouri in Kansas City, research showed that, injected into mice, fluoride causes genetic damage. In 1983 at the Kunming institute of biology in the People's Republic of China, fluoride injected into deer cells showed that fluoride causes genetic damage. I have reported the two studies in the Japanese dental university in 1984. In addition, research teams from Texas university, Missouri university, the institute of botany at Baku and the cental laboratory of mutagen testing at Freiburg in West Germany have published over 10 papers showing that fluoride causes genetic damage in insects and various plants.
      That leads me to a point that I have made before, but I shall make it again, because the audience is different, and the point must continue to be made. It is not just the very odd scientist or dental expert who says that there is danger in this stuff. There is professor Butenandt, a chemist from Munich university, a Nobel prizewinner, professor Murphy, a consultant physiologist, a Nobel prizewinner, and professor Semenov, a chemist from Leningrad university, a Nobel prizewinner—all of them are living Nobel prizewinners, and all have warned against putting fluoride in water. There are several other Nobel prizewinners, but, when we have consulted the various books, it has not been evident whether they are any longer with us. Therefore, I shall not cite their names. The sum total of known Nobel prizewinners over a period of years who have shown themselves to be opposed to fluoridation as a result of studies that they have either carried out themselves or referred to in their particular scientific capacities is at least 11.
      There is professor Louis Steyn, the professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Victoria university, professor Albert Shatz, the co-discoverer of streptomycin, who stopped Chile from fluoridating, professor Burgstable of the university of Kansas, Dr. James Ebert, vice-president of the United States National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Philip Sutton, formerly the senior lecturer in dental science at Melbourne university and of course Dr. Dean Burk, who for 35 years was the chief psychochemist at the national cancer institute of America. I must point out that that man has been greatly reviled. He has been the subject of attack because his report has been the most frightening of all the reports that have been produced on cancer. It was frightening because it was the most thorough of all the reports. He has been attacked personally as being a charlatan peddling quack medicines.
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      The learned and eminent professor in Britain who thus attacked him had to eat humble pie and retract on pain of a slander action.
      That indicates just how the pro-fluoride lobby reacts when somebody of standing says that this stuff is not safe and that we ought not to accept it. They attacked the wrong man. They chose somebody who must know more about cancer and the effects of fluoride than almost anybody else on earth.
      Recently there has been the evidence of Paul McCormick, who is a research fellow at Nuffield college, Oxford, Dr. R. A. Holeman, a senior lecturer in bacteriology at Cardiff hospital, Mr. G. J.Roberts, a lecturer in children's dentistry at the Royal dental hospital London, Dr. C. W. M. Wilson, consultant physician in geriatric medicine at the Royal hospital, Lanarkshire and the department of physiology and pharmacy at Strathclyde. I have already referred the House to Dr. John Emsley reader in chemistry at King's college, London, and Dr. Paul Wix head of food science at the polytechnic of the south bank in London. These important research scientists say that fluoride should not be added to water and that there is something wrong with this substance. Are they all nuts? Are they all mad? Are they all so stupid that they cannot see a safe poison when they see it? Or are we to say, as the Government and the pro-fluoridation lobby say, that it is perfectly safe and that nobody of any repute speaks against it?
      Mr. Fairbairn; I apologise for interrupting my hon. and learned Friend because he is making an important contribution to the diagnostic and academic understanding of these matters, but the point that he is making is not sufficiently understood. Let us suppose that each of these scientists can be presumed to be a bad scientist. By passing the Bill will the House of Commons be saying that each of these men is irresponsible and wrong in his research, that he is misleading the public and doing gross damage—
      The Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. Will the hon. and learned Gentleman address the Chair.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. At six o'clock in the morning, which is half-way between twelve o'clock and twelve o'clock you will appreciate that I know not which way to turn. I give you my most humble apologies. The Government are not saying that one or two of them may be wrong. It is in fact a finding of guilt against each of them that they are bad scientists. That is the point to which I wish my hon. and learned Friend to address his mind.
      Mr. Lawrence: There is no need for me to address my mind to it. As one would expect from a question posed by my hon. and learned Friend, the answer is self-evident. Unless these people are complete idiots who are not worthy of the posts that they hold, or of the money invested in their research, or of their professorships or their Nobel prizes, there may be just some substance in the warnings that they utter. I give way to my hon. Friend.
      Mr. Best: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend for giving way. I think it is important—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Will the hon. Gentleman please address the Chair.
      Mr. Best: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Once I have fallen into error, I hope I shall not do so again. Is it

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      not a fact that there may be an answer to the points that my hon. and learned Friend is making? I have not had the opportunity to read all the studies to which he referred. They may show that fluoride can cause severe damage to health. Indeed, the Minister said in one of our earlier debates that fluoride can kill one. And of course it can, in high concentrations.
      6 am
      Will my hon. and learned Friend address his mind to whether those reports related to concentrations similar to that which it is proposed should be put in the water supply as a result of the Bill, or whether they were higher?
      Mr. Lawrence: Some of them were low and some were high. The point that my hon. Friend makes is one that we often hear. We heard it from my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister in an earlier debate on the instructions of his advisers in the Box. It is an utterly bogus point.
      Those scientists use high concentrations to obtain speedy results. If they conclude that with lower concentrations over a longer period the result would be the same, that is a scientific conclusion which answers the point, and which raises serious doubts about the safety of the medicine. It is well known that if something will cause a tumour at 10 times the lower level, a concentration of one tenth of that over a much longer period will be likely to have the same result.
      To assume otherwise is to assume that all those people are idiots. They are not giving out the evidence on the basis, "We are showing that 100 times what will be put in the water will cause cancer." They would then conclude that the fluoride was safe because it only causes harm at 100 times the level that will be put in the water. They conclude that it is unsafe because if it is unsafe at 10 or 100 times the amount that will be put into the water, the cumulative effects will be as harmful.
      Mr. Jessel rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: I give way to my hon. Friend who is here only because I promised to give him a lift home, and I regret that kind offer.
      Mr. Jessel: I was not going to refer to what my hon. and learned Friend has just said. I was only going to take a lift home from him if he was going home. Until 3.30 we did not know.
      In view of what my hon. and learned Friend alleges about the risks from fluoride, does he now advise all my constituents and those of my neighbour, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Mr. Ground), who have a common water supply with Twickenham, to stop drinking the water as it contains one part of fluoride per million? Should they also stop drinking tea, which contains fluoride, and obtain their beer from another part of the country?
      Mr. Lawrence: I shall come to a longer and more thorough answer to my hon. Friend's point a little further into the day. The short answer is that naturally fluoridated water does not appear to have the same toxic effects as artificially fluoridated water for a number of reasons. That is not just a conclusion that I, a lawyer and politician come to, it is one to which eminent scientists come. I shall refer to them in a moment.
      We could draw the conclusion, therefore, that if fluoride is not causing harm it should be left where it is.
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      There are countries that are taking natural fluoride out of their water, because it is even harmful in its natural form at high levels of one part per million.
      Mr. Fairbairn: My hon. and learned Friend is not doing justice to his argument, because if he and my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) understood the matter they would know that in Great Britain where fluoride occurs naturally in the water a large amount of calcium also occurs. Calcium takes out fluoride. If any credit is to be given to either element, it is calcium that benefits teeth, and not fluoride. In India, where there is a high incidence of fluoride in the water but no equivalent calcium residue as in Britain, there is major destruction of teeth and bones because of fluoridation.
      Mr. Lawrence: In support of what my hon. and learned Friend has said, I should like to cite the figures for Hartlepool and York. Those figures are always cited by the pro-fluoridationists. Hartlepool water contains natural fluoride levels of 1·5 parts per million. York water contains natural fluoride levels of 0·22 parts per million. If the fluoride level of York water were raised to that of Hartlepool, the high standards of teeth care and safety that obtain in Hartlepool would be transferred to York.
      York water contains calcium concentrations of 50 parts per million and magnesium concentrations of 43 parts per million. Hartlepool water contains calcium levels of 372 parts per million, which is more than double the amount of calcium in the naturally fluoridated York water, and magnesium levels of 254 parts per million, which is six times as much as in York water.
      Whenever I cite those figures, the Department of Health and Social Security says that there is nothing in them, that calcium does not have good effects on teeth or counterbalance the effect of fluoride and that the magnesium concentration means neither one thing nor the other. I shall deal later with those fallacious responses.
      Mr. Michael Brown: Will my hon. and learned Friend give way?
      Mr. Lawrence: I give way to my hon. Friend, although I shall not get far if I am interrupted, even by helpful colleagues.
      Mr. Brown: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that fluoride has an affinity for calcium, combining with it to form the insoluble calcium fluoride? In that form calcium is deionised and rendered absolutely useless for all the many needs of the tissues, bones and teeth. Fluoride locks up any beneficial effect that calcium might have.
      Mr. Lawrence: My hon. Friend seems to have been reading my speeches or the same studies and reports that I have read by the same scientists who are nuts, cranks and lunatics, even though they are considered to be important and responsible people in their own field.
      I round off my arguments about scientists generally by answering the response that I expect we shall hear again from my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister, if he graces us with a reply. We have not always been graced with a reply. I do not blame him for that, because when the business managers say, "Get the boys to bed" my right hon. and learned Friend must jump. I do not know whether the public will hear the details of the response. Sometimes it is difficult for Ministers to reply.
      In Committee I asked about the effects of fluoride on water pipes. The Department was going to look into that

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      question. The Department intended also examining the assertion in a booklet issued by the Royal College of Physicians that most of the fluoride used would be derived from sources that would otherwise have been discharged to the sea as waste. I am afraid that, if I have received a response, I have not yet seen it. That explains why some of these important conclusions do not always percolate through to the people who make the decisions.
      Mr. Fairbairn: As my hon. and learned Friend has said, not only does fluoride lock up calcium, but calcium locks up fluoride. Therefore, the effect of fluoride in the areas which we are discussing is entirely masked. In regard to the effect of all the matters that he is putting forward, has anybody considered that vegetables accumulate fluoride and that human beings accumulate fluoride? Therefore, the point about 1 part in a million is irrelevant because there are accumulators of fluoride. People on a specific diet get a large ingestion of fluoride which has nothing to do with the control which the Bill attempts to put upon the water supply. If we all drank nothing but water, it would, but we do not.
      Mr. Lawrence: Every time I give way a future passage of my speech, which I shall be reaching later in the day, is anticipated by whichever of my honourable, learned and well-acquainted-with-the-subject Friends is intervening. By the time I get there I expect my audience will have forgotten the points that have been made, so they will bear repetition, although I will not repeat them for repetition's sake.
      To come back to the point that I was trying to make before I allowed myself to be misled by various hon. Friends, the response of my right hon. and learned Friend is that all these studies were considered by Lord Jauncey. To begin with, some of the more recent studies were not considered by him because he reported at the end of 1983 and some of the reports came out in 1984 and some even in 1985. Therefore, even Lord Jauncey is now water under the bridge. There may be further information to add to that. The real answer to Lord Jauncey is that this was one man's view of a body of evidence which he considered.
      Against Lord Jauncey can be set the views of three men, because three other courts of law in the United States of America—who is there amongst us who can say that the legal system in the United States of America does not throw up as good judges as our legal system throws up in the British Isles—considered the same kind of evidence. In most cases the very same experts were speaking on both sides both for and against fluoride in the water. This is what three of them have said.
      In 1978 in the Philadelphia case Judge Flaherty, who was no slouch because he is now in the State Supreme Court following his judgment in the fluoridation case, said:
      "This court is compellingly convinced of the evidence in favour of the plaintiffs."
      Those who were complaining about the addition of fluoride to the water brought an action against the water authority and the water authority lost. Those who brought the action persuaded the judge of the strength of the anti-fluoride case.
      As though that was not enough, in 1982 in the Houston case in Texas the judge said that artificial fluoridation of the public water supplies
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      "may cause or may contribute to the cause of cancer, genetic damage, intolerant reactions and chronic toxicity, including dental mottling in man … and may aggravate malnutrition and existing illnesses in man."
      This is another judge, a learned gentleman, who has had a lifetime of experience in analysing witnesses and evidence; he came to the conclusion that I have just read out, which shows that none of the mass of evidence that he saw and heard caused him to believe that fluoride was safe.
      6.15 am
      My third example is Judge Niemann in the Illinois case in February 1982, who concluded:
      "The artificial addition of fluoride to the public water supply may have adverse health effects"
      and,
      "exposes the public to a risk uncertain in its scope of unhealthy side effects."
      In those three cases, the findings of fact were more or less identical: thumbs down to the safety of fluoride. One must put that against the judgment of the judge in the High Court of Session in Scotland, who said, "Thumbs up to fluoride." Three down and one up. Surely there is a doubt. Surely we cannot put our hands on our hearts and say, "It is all safe". All those judges could have said of the witnesses, "They are all nuts; they are all crazy; they are all posturing. They are not worth the money that has been invested in them or their positions in universities." The judges could have said that, but they did not. They saw those witnesses, and they did not, because there is at least a reasonable basis for the arguments that they advanced on the unsafeness of fluoride.
      Mr. Best: Is it not important to bear in mind the fact that Judge Flaherty found in favour of the plaintiffs, on whose shoulders rested the burden of proof? It was for them to prove on the balance of probabilities—my hon. and learned Friend will correct me if this is not the burden of proof in the United States. If that is so, it was for the plaintiffs to prove their case, and they did so.
      Mr. Lawrence: My hon. Friend is, as usual, right. I do not believe that it is about the balance of probabilities. The evidence produced by those scientists is much more persuasive than that. It is comforting to know that wiser legal people than myself agree with that.
      Mr. Fairbairn rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: I give way to my very wise hon. and learned Friend.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will address his mind to this point. It is all very well in an ordinary civil dispute for a judge to come to a conclusion as to which side he believes. That may be so in an adultery case if a woman claims that she is a virgin and half the obstetricians say that she is, and half say that she is not. The judge must decide whose evidence he accepts. I had a case in which half of Harley street said that a woman was a new tyre which had never been on the road, and another lot said that her tread had vanished and that she was contrary to the construction and use regulations—[Laughter.]
      The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) must not laugh. This is an important matter. Whatever else we want judges to do, we do not want them to make scientific judgments. Whether Lord Jauncey was right or wrong, and whether these American gentlemen are right or wrong, they are not the people to make scientific

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      judgments. On one side, huge scientific evidence shows that fluoride is dangerous to health; on the other side, some say that it is beneficial to children's teeth. Who is the Minister to sit in judgment on a scientific matter of such complexity?
      Mr. Lawrence: Again, I am driven to accept the force of my hon. and learned Friend's logic and sense, and I use it to advance my argument a step or two further.
      A number of other developments in scientifc research into and analysis of the subject of fluoride followed the report of the Royal College of Physicians. One report was concerned with the effects of fluoride on flora, fauna and aquatic life. Reference to that was made in Committee and it was cited earlier in this stage of the Bill, so I will not weary the House with it, except to quote this short passage from the report about frogs:
      "The embryonic development of their eggs is delayed when they are submitted to a concentration of 1 part per million of fluorides. Similar effects are observed in tadpoles. Lava of the frog are exposed—"
      [Interruption.] I gather that some hon. Friends find that humorous. I suppose that it is, except to those who consider that the flora and fauna of the United Kingdom are important. There is the additional fact that if it poisons the water for the flora and fauna, it also poisons the food chain which is grown in a natural form.
      The report goes on:
      "The eggs of trout do not hatch when they are exposed to concentrations of 1·5 parts per million of fluorides."
      Again, some may consider that amusing. [Interruption.] The Minister always laughs when those who put forward the anti-fluoridation case say that it causes mongolism, wet feet, bad tadpoles and all manner of ills. The report adds:
      "Although there is a lack of information regarding the effects of the accumulation of fluorides along the food chain, there is enough evidence to conclude that the actual presence of fluorides above certain levels in the aquatic environment is causing important biological damage to both plant and animal systems."
      Reporting there was a committee set up by the Government of Quebec in 1978. Was that committee comprised of nuts? Known as the departmental committee on fluoridation its members were the master of science in hydrology; chairman of the Public Hearing Board on Environmental Impact Studies; the assistant director of the Minister of the Environment's Office; the master of sciences in civil engineering; a staff member of the drinking water division of the environment protection services—every one a good, hard-working scientist and bureaucrat earning his crust from the local or regional government organisation — the scientific adviser, Advisory Council on the Environment for Quebec; director of the research centre, Laval hospital, Quebec; the Engineer, environment protection services; the chief of the air pollution control division, the environment protection services; the legal adviser for the environment protection services for Quebec; the technician in water sanitation, environment protection services; a doctor of medicine; and a senior adviser to the Minister of the Environment for Quebec.
      There were 10 or more lunatics or nuts, people who were prepared to stop the children of Quebec from having the wonderful benefits of pain-free teeth because of some tadpoles, frogs and an accumulation of a ridiculous mixture in the food chain. They were not just stupid but criminal, for they sentenced children in Quebec to a
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      lifetime of pain, misery and suffering because of some stupid story which had been told to them and which they accepted.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I recall the term which was used by the Minister. It was "idiot" and not "nut". He was talking about idiots in hush-puppies, as I recall. He is making a dangerous suggestion, which is that I should use two better adjectives than the one that I had in mind. I think that he should rest partly on his tadpole Bench. I ask my hon. and learned Friend why the Minister of Health, of all Ministers, should mock research. He was no doubt featured in the Division list for the in vitro embryos. It is supposed to be terrible to touch human embryos upon whom we undertake research. The Minister is saying that we must not carry out research on anything lesser than humans and we are not allowed to undertake research on those who are humans. How is research to be undertaken?
      I have a suggestion to make which my hon. and learned Friend may consider to be useful. Let us stuff fluoride into the Minister. Let us put it into his shoes, his ears, down his throat and up whatever he gets AIDS from and observe what happens. If he is still with us tomorrow and if he is still willing to believe in Christianity—I understand that those who have fluoride put in those places cease to do so—we shall have been able to carry out an experiment. The rest of us will have to rely on tadpoles.
      Mr. Lawrence: I do not know what those who read my hon. and learned Friend's intervention will make of his contribution to a serious argument. I am indebted to him for lightening the tedium of the early hours and the dreadful monotony of my voice as I drag out reports of scientist after scientist and research group after research group. I am delighted that my hon. and learned Friend is still with us.
      Mr. Golding: The hon. and learned Gentleman knows that I shall not attempt to cross-examine him. I thought that the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) was merely providing him with time to study his papers. I should like to hear what the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) can tell us about trout. In Committee, the junior Minister said:
      "Turning to the important issue of fluoride and aquatic life, those assiduous people who advised me were unable to help me much on trout in fresh water".—[Official Report, Standing Committee H; 5 February 1985, c. 95.]
      That was the advice given to the Minister in Committee. Is the hon. and learned Gentleman saying that he has better information than that which is available to the junior Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security?
      Mr. Lawrence: The hon. Gentleman has not said that that was my hon. Friend's response to the Quebec survey, which I read to the Minister. He toddled along to the officials who advise him and asked what information they had on trout, confidently expecting, no doubt, that they would provide some information to enable him to say that certain suggestions were a load of rubbish and give him a long list of other research projects throughout the world to show that there is no damage to tadpoles and trout, for example. All that he could come up with at short notice was the answer that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme has read to us. It seems that he has not come up with anything more.
      The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security has been assiduous in sending me letters with

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      additional information that arose from our deliberations in Committee. However, I know that I have not received anything to tell me that the Quebec environment committee's report on the effect on flora and fauna—and fishes, if they are different from fauna—is wrong or has been superseded.
      Let us suppose that trout fishermen sitting in the Box have noticed no harm as they fish in the fluoridated waters of Hartlepool, Anglesey or anywhere else. What does that prove? What does it prove if research is undertaken by them and they find that it does not tally with that carried out by the Quebec committee? It proves not a clean bill of health but that people of integrity and knowledge have conducted experiments and reached different conclusions. Who is to say which is right and which is wrong?
      6.30 am
      Mr. Fairbairn: Two matters embarrass me. First, I call my secretary Trout, and I would not want an experiment to be done on her. Secondly, I have done my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister another insult. I had forgotten, but have remembered that, far from being on the wrong side of the test tube, he is on the right side. He does not want us to bother with any of this nonsense about trying things out on tadpoles, trout, my secretary and others but on real live human beings in test tubes. I have a list of dangerous chemicals all of which he can try out. We have a minister for Health who wants to experiment on real live human embryos in test tubes. I look forward to him answering his mail—and may I not get it—when it is revealed that he wants to study the effects of various concentrations of fluoride and to see whether it is cumulative in in vitro embryos. He obviously has a collection of in vitro embryos—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Is this an intervention or a speech in the guise of an intervention? In either case, it seems to have little relevance to the subject under discussion or to the speech in which it is being made.
      Mr. Lawrence: I was beginning to get interested in my library of information. Once that happens I am lost to the House, and I should not like that to happen.
      Mr. Best: My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister said that fluoride occurs in concentrations of one part per million in the sea. Perhaps my hon. and learned Friend could address his mind to that. What my hon. and learned Friend is saying is cause for concern and the Bill should enable a statutory water provider to reduce the level of fluoride—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: That might be a matter which the House should consider, but it is nothing to do with the amendments under discussion.
      Mr. Lawrence: I can reply only be reading from the Royal College of Physicians' book entitled, "Fluoride: Teeth and Health" which says:
      "The level in the sea, 10·8 to 1·4 mg per litre, would be little affected both because of the enormous dilution that would occur"—
      the dilution in the sea is enormous.
      Mr. Kenneth Clarke: The point that my hon. and learned Friend is reading is merely that, if more fluoride is put in tap water, the concentration in the sea will not be raised significantly as it is already at the level to which it
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      is proposed that authorities be empowered to raise it. My hon. and learned Friend said that I was not able to answer questions about fish. I am anxious to know his sources about fish. I have to admit that those who advice me can answer questions on bees and cattle and people, but they are a little stuck with fish.
      We are not sure that there is any study concerning fish, apart from the one in Quebec. That study was not followed because fluoride is added to water there as a result of studies that have discredited that which my hon. and learned Friend quoted. Can he give any authority for the alarming picture that he is portraying of the threat to the nation's trout? Perhaps he has at last opened a new avenue which we can explore and we can commission yet another epidemiological study to assuage his fears on this new and rather unexpected trap.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for giving me some information that I did not have before, which is that his Department has not even looked at the Quebec study. It is no answer to say that the Quebec study has been discredited. I should like to see some of that discrediting. I have not yet seen any in any publication. However, as a result of that study, the Quebec Government declared a moritorium on compulsory water fluoridation, which started in August 1977 and was still in force until quite recently. For a number of years, people took that study seriously. I look forward to receiving the documents and references that my right hon. and learned Friend will give me, which show that an equivalent study has come up with diametrically opposed conclusions.
      Such a move would do no harm to my argument, which is that if there are two groups of scientists that support diffferent ideas there is at least a doubt. It does not reassure me to hear that some bureaucrats and scientists in Quebe have reversed the policy, because here the policy is being reversed. It was illeal to fluoridate water. They may have pretended till the cows come home that it would be lawful, but they all knew in their heart of hearts that it was not, and as a result the Bill is making fluoride lawful. As a result, there will be not 10 per cent. of fluoridation, but 20, 30 or 40 per cent., or perhaps even 50 per cent. that is compulsory mass medication, whichever way one looks at it, for at least half the population.
      Mr. Fairbairn: My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister has made a great error in his concession. He says that the Bill allows for one part of fluoridation in a million in the water supply. He takes the view that that is the maximum safe level. He then tells us that in the sea water surrounding our coasts, there is already one part in a million. Salts do not evaporate, and water does, so every time the rivers flow out, they will be taking the fluoride into the surrounding seawater. Therefore, it will have an ever increasing volume of fluoride in it. Who lives in the sea? Apart from Neptune and the mermaids, it is the fish. Who eats the fish? They are eaten by human beings on land. Accumulated fluoride in fish will be fed to people who will already be having accumulated fluoride in their water and vegetables. There is already the maximum amount in the sea, and my right hon. and learned Friend wants to add to it.
      Mr. Lawrence: As my hon. and learned Friend was no doubt making a strong contribution to the debate, I was looking at a reference book that has a number of pages on the influence of fluoridation on man's environment. It

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      quotes a number of sources, such as the International Society of Research on Nutrition and Vital Substances in 1967, and a number of reports from a number of scientists concerning lettuce and parsley. In 1977, it was found that the accumulation of fluorine in plants is affected by factors other than fluorine in the soil—for example, with plant nourishment—and that there are plants that are fluorine accumulators, such as spinach, lettuce and parsley. There is something about Valencia orange trees and the effect that fluoride has on those. I shall copy these pages and send them to my right hon. and learned Friend so that those who advised him so wisely on this matter can go through all these researches, all of which seem to throw some light on the question.
      Mr. Gwilym Jones: May I put it to my hon. and learned Friend that the Minister for Health is demonstrating that the Bill is a typically totalitarian Socialist measure by the fact that for the last four minutes he has been sitting on the Opposition Front Bench.
      Mr. Lawrence: I think that that is a little unfair of my hon. Friend. The Minister is probably only exercising his brothel creepers — the trouble with them is that they need air every so often to allow the feet to breathe.
      To refer again to the quotation from the Royal College of Physicians on the subject of the dilution of fluoride in the sea water, an interesting point is the side admission made therein—it may be that it wishes that it had not made it — that most of the fluoride used in the fluoridation of water would be derived from sources that would otherwise have been discharged to the sea as waste. That appears to mean that, if this stuff was not used in the public water supply, it would have no other use, but as a waste product that could not be put into the air or into the soil, because it would be water soluble, and must be towed out to sea and dumped as waste like many other deadly poisons.
      This raises another interesting aspect. Those in the so-called anti-fluoride lobby — they would not call themselves a lobby because they are not working to inflict anything on anybody—have nothing to gain. There is no financial end that they can achieve by arguing that fluoride ought not to be put anywhere. There is no money to be made out of having water which is fluoride-free. But somebody must make money out of selling to water authorities this product which otherwise would have to be put in boats, expensively towed out to sea and dumped as waste because it has no other value.
      I have received a letter from the Minister saying that no manufacturer of aluminium in the country provides fluoride for fluoridation processes. In the example that I gave of aluminium producers producing fluoride which could be used for fluoridated water, I added phosphate producers. The letter that I received from the Minister said nothing about phosphate producers. I can only assume that, on the need-to-know basis, it was embarrassing for the Department to tell me that, while aluminium producers do not produce fluoride for water supplies, phosphate producers may do. Fisons may produce fluoride as an outcrop of its manufacturing process.
      Some of those who want to put fluoride in the water supplies may be able to make some money out of it or to save expenditure which would otherwise be incurred in dumping the stuff in the sea as waste. I have no evidence that any company is making £1 million out of fluoridating
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      water. If one weighs up the two sides, the anti-fluoridationists have nothing to gain, and some pro-fluoridationists may have something to gain. That is what is interesting about the reference on which I just stumbled as I tried ineptly to answer a question.
      6.45 am
      Mr. Best: May I return my hon. and learned Friend to the sea? The intervention by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) surely was wrong. He said that the fish would have stronger teeth as a result of fluoride in seawater. He said that the Minister proposed to have a maximum of one part per million in the water supply. That is wrong. Clause 1(5) states that the one part per million should apply
      "so far as is reasonably practicable".
      That does not mean an absolute maximum of one part per million.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful to my hon. Friend.
      Another study has come to hand since the Royal College of Physicians reported and since Lord Jauncey made his report. That report was sent to me during the Committee stage of the Bill—
      Mr. Fairbairn: I presume that English lawyers move with a logic which deals with one thing at a time. I shall assist my hon. and learned Friend about the matter which he was leaving, but about which I do not think he was right. The process of smelting aluminium produces vast amounts of waste fluoride which has to be dumped in the sea or somewhere else—or has to be sold. The most dishonest aspect is that the Bill states that there will be no effect on public expenditure—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. An intervention must relate either to the speech to which we have been listening or to the amendments under consideration.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I do not think that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) was accurate. The aluminium industry produces vast amounts of fluoride which it sells—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That has nothing to do with the amendments.
      Mr. Lawrence: In fairness I must tell the House about a letter that I received from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary. He said:
      "The compounds used in the United Kingdom fluoridation schemes — namely, hexafluorosilicic acid and disodium hexafluorosilicate—are manufactured, as I explained at the Committee stage of the Bill from natural mineral sources. They are both produced by the phosphate fertiliser manufacturing industry. Hexafluorosilicic acid is manufactured in this country and disodium hexafluorosilicate is imported from the USA. The raw materials for the manufacturing process are mineral rocks containing both phosphate and fluoride. Finally, there are two further points which it might be helpful if I made on this issue. First, neither of the compounds of fluoride used in the UK derived, as is often alleged, from the aluminium smelting industry. Secondly, I should like to stress that the manufacturers of the compounds of fluoride have not sought in any way to influence Government policy over fluoridation."
      They were quick off the mark, but I do not know how reliable the information is. We shall have to ensure that it is not just a question of someone saying to someone else, "I have never tried to influence you".
      The potentiality is there, is it not, for any manufacturing company—and I am not saying that this has been done, I have no evidence that it is being done

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      —wanting to sell off fluoride to subsidise or give some support for some scientific investigation which may have nothing to do with fluoridation but which a grateful scientist, now being able to be funded in a discipline for which he despaired of getting funds, might find helpful. I am not saying that anything like that has happened here, but the potentiality is there.
      My hon. and learned Friend and I—and all my hon. Friends who practise in the courts—know that that sort of thing has been known to happen. We know that it has happened in the United States. I hope it does not happen here and never has happened here, and maybe my hon. Friend is right in saying to me in the letter that no manufacturer has sought to influence Government policy in any way over fluoridation. Maybe they do not influence policy; maybe they influence some scientists. I do not know. I come back to my point that the only people who have anything to gain are some of the pro-fluoridationists; the anti-fluoridationists have nothing to gain.
      I come now to a report that I received during the Committee stage from—my hon. and learned Friend is quite right — Mr. C. W. M. Wilson, M.A., M.D., B.Sc., D.Ph, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh and Fellow of the Royal Society. He is a consultant physician at the department of geriatric medicine at Law hospital, Lanarkshire, and the department of physiology and pharmacy at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland — no doubt another crank, another nut, another idiot.
      Mr. Frank Dobson: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman confirm that this gentleman was not refused an honorary degree at Oxford?
      Mr. Lawrence: That was a blindingly helpful contribution to the argument, for which I am grateful to the Opposition Front Bench spokesman on this subject. It tells us something about the seriousness with which this subject is taken by Opposition Front Bench spokemen, does it not, Mr. Deputy Speaker?
      I will read the letter sent to me, with the report, of which I will send a copy to my right hon. and learned Friend so that his worthy advisers can pore over it to find faults. They always pore over these reports to find faults to discredit them. I have not yet heard of an example of their poring over any report and not managing to find faults. It is wonderful that all these reports are faulty and defective. They lack scientific reason or there are errors of fact. The letter reads:
      "We carried out some animal experiments in Strathclyde University. This controlled investigation demonstrated that sensitivity to fluoride ions could be induced in guinea pigs and that the resulting allergic effects could be equally effectively produced by fluoridated tap water. This fluoride sensitivity could be potentiated by simultaneous challenge by food protein. Attention is drawn to the possibility of enhancement of food-induced allergic symptoms by preparing and cooking food in fluoridated water.
      "The major scientific conclusion which can be drawn from these results is that evidence is now available which shows that fluoride can exert pathophysiological disordered function effects by virtue of its immune sensitising action rather than through its toxic action. A relatively high proportion of the population is food and water contaminant sensitive and in consequence is potentially vulnerable to allergic challenge. These allergic individuals are not protected by limiting fluoride ion concentrations in mains water to one part in 1 million."
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      That is another of the harms that apparently result from fluoridated water. That is a recent study, produced in a learned and respectable publication. We should pay attention to that, unless Dr. Wilson is another of those not just idiots but people who have a wish to inflict pain and suffering on children who, but for this kind of report, would be blessed with the benefit of fluoride in their teeth which would take away all pain when they go to dentists because their teeth would be perfect. Anybody who does this is the worst kind of inflicter of pain on children. I ask my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister to pay a little attention to such reports that appear in ever-increasing numbers from the various universities and places of learning throughout the world.
      Mr. Marlow rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: I give way to my hon. Friend, who must have woken up when my alarm went off.
      Mr. Marlow: Goodness gracious, no. I have been following my hon. and learned Friend with great interest. I may not have been in the Chamber all the time, but I have certainly been with him in spirit. I know from the look on the face of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister that he has been following my hon. and learned Friend—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will address himself to the point that he has raised or resume his seat.
      Mr. Marlow: I was just coming to that point. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) introduced me in such a way that I had to be polite in response.
      My hon. and learned Friend was talking about the great harm that can be done to children by this somewhat harmful chemical that my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister is insisting on throwing into our water supply. The terrible and dreadful harm that could be done could be reduced if the concentration of this chemical to be inflicted on our society were to be at a lower level than the Government are suggesting. All the points that my hon. and learned Friend has been making with such flair, dignity, veracity and distinction at this time of the night, would be reduced if my hon. and learned Friend could only persuade the House that the concentration of the chemical should be reduced.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I did him scant justice with the remark with which I greeted his intervention. I apologise. He has tabled a subsequent amendment which will add considerably to our discussion on that point.
      Why is harm caused from fluoride at one part per million in the water supply?
      Mr. Fairbairn rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: Will my hon. and learned Friend close his eyes, relax and perhaps refresh himself so that I can get on with my argument for a few minutes before I give way to his learned and most useful interventions.
      The reason why one part per million in the water supply is unsafe is because nobody knows what anybody is getting. One part per million in the water, or 1 mg per litre, does not mean that Tom, Dick and Harry will ingest only one part per million of fluoride in his water consumption every day. One moment's thought should make us realise

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      that that optimum dose of one part per million is utterly meaningless. Firstly, every person is different. One person can take one part per million, another cannot.
      I have read out Dr. Wilson's letter to me about allergies, but I have not wearied the House with the long line of scientific evidence that this evil substance causes allergies in people. This is just the most up-to-date and recent report. People can be allergic, and have allergic reactions at one part per million in their total ingestion when their next-door neighbour and friend may not. That is the first point about the meaninglessness of the one part per million optimum dose.
      The second point—
      7 am
      Mr. Holt rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: I shall give way to my hon. Friend in a moment. It depends on how much water a person drinks. There is no such thing as drinking only half a pint of water. Some people drink two pints, some people do not drink any at all. Workers in industry may drink 20 times the average amount of water, and a child may drink half the amount. In fact, small children drink very little tap water. They are the ones who are supposed to be benefited by having fluoride put in the water, but there are not many children who drink a lot of tap water. Young children mostly drink milk, fruit juice, Lucozade or pop—some sugar-saturated preparation — and very little water is drunk.
      Mr. Marlow rose—
      Mr. Neil Hamilton rose—
      Mr. Holt rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: I shall come to all my hon. Friends in a moment. Perhaps I can clear them all up together, because I know that they are all bursting at the seams, but my argument does not make much sense unless I complete it stage by stage.
      The third reason why the figure of one part per million is meaningless is that the fluoride that we ingest comes not only through drinking water. As we have already heard, it comes through the food that we eat. It depends on whether the food has been grown or processed in fluoridated water. It comes in the air that we breathe because there is fluoride in the air. If we drink tea, it has a high level of fluoride in it. Beer has fluoride in it to a reasonably high level. There are all sorts of ways in which the ordinary human being ingests fluoride, and it has nothing to do with the fluoride in the water being at an optimum dose of one part per million.
      Mr. Holt: While my hon. and learned Friend was developing the argument about dosage, I was interested in the response from the Minister when he said that the dosage suggested will not do any harm to normal people. That suggests that it may be harmful to those who are not normal. I wonder at what age one becomes not normal. according to the terms used by the Minister. The introduction of the one part per million is detrimental to the health of aged people, according to the Minister's words.
      Mr. Lawrence: I have not yet come on to the accumulation of fluoride. I am just talking about a daily ingestion. Later on, if there is time as the day wears on, I hope to deal with accumulation in the system of that
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      poison. Age has nothing to do with it. A child may be born with a kidney disease, with certain allergic conditions, with diabetes, with a thyroid abnormality, even with arthritis. Some children die of cot deaths in the first 12 months of life, and nobody has the faintest idea what causes it. Of course, one area at which people will not look is fluoridated water because they do not wish to see any harm. My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health is off again laughing. He cannot laugh because he does not know.
      Mr. Marlow: Will my hon. and learned Friend give way?
      Mr. Lawrence: Will my hon. Friend be silent for a moment?
      My right hon. and learned Friend does not know any more than the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). No doubt if I had stood here years ago and said that thalidomide caused harm, the Minister would have laughed and said that it was utterly safe.
      If I had said that debendox causes harm the Minister would have laughed. It is easy to laugh. I am not saying that there is evidence that cot deaths have been caused by fluoridated water. All I am saying is that nobody knows what causes cot deaths. I shall deal later with how fluoridated water causes distortions in normal body functions and will explain to my right hon. and learned Friend how it is possible that even cot deaths could result from the ingestion of fluoridated water.
      My hon. Friend asked whether there is any age at which abnormalities occur. There is no specific age. There are many diabetics whose health will not be improved by drinking fluoridated water. There are also many people on kidney machines and many people of all ages with allergies whose health will not be improved by drinking fluoridated water. These facts are well known because they are well documented. They have not just been plucked out of the air. Nothing that I say is a figment of my imagination. Everything that I say is derived from the reports of scientists. That is one of the reasons why I say that this substance is so awful and its ramifications so wide that we ought to be very careful indeed before we introduce it into our water, let alone force it upon people who do not want it and who do not need it.
      Mr. Marlow: My hon. and learned Friend is moving at such a speed that he is in danger of leaving the House behind, because he has touched upon some very important points. He referred to the possibility of harm being caused to children. Any suggestion of that kind would cause great distress to the House. Is my hon. and learned Friend aware of the fact that a child who is fed with milk powder mixed with tap water which has been fluoridated is subjected to an intake of fluoride about 100 times greater than would be the case if that child were fed with its mother's milk? Yet again my right hon. and learned Friend on the Front Bench is smiling, but I am sure he would be the first to recommend that babies should be fed with their mothers' milk. The fact that some babies live in areas where the water supply is already fluoridated is a matter of potentially great concern. I should be grateful if my hon. and learned Friend could deal with that point, but while I am on my feet I should be grateful if he would take note of one or two other points.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Interventions should be brief. Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman could be permitted to deal with one point at a time.
      Mr. Marlow: Could I, Mr. Deputy Speaker, finish my points in order to prevent me from having to speak again?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman wishes to raise one or two other points in addition to the point he has already raised. His first point seemed to take up a great deal of time. Perhaps he will allow the hon. and learned Gentleman to deal with that point first.
      Mr. Marlow: Can I say, Mr. Deputy Speaker—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must resume his seat.
      Mr. Lawrence: I had forgotten that the proportion was as high as 100 times greater if babies are fed with powdered milk made with fluoridated water rather than breast fed, but the proportion is substantial and I propose to give to the House some figures that are culled from respectable sources about the level of fluoride that is ingested.
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: With regard to what my hon. and learned Friend said about cot deaths, is he aware of at least the coincidence in Australia and New Zealand between heavily fluoridated areas and the number of cot deaths? Is he also aware of a number of theories that exist as to the cause of cot deaths? Many of them can be traced to an inherited fluoride-caused enzyme deficiency in the infant provoked by long-term exposure of the parents to environmental fluorides including those in the water supply. Will he advert to that in any great detail?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that anything to which any hon. Member adverts will be contained in or relevant to the amendments that are before the House. The hon. Member is stretching my patience and that of the House.
      Mr. Lawrence: With respect to my hon. Friend, if fluoride causes cot deaths it is the unsafeness which is referred to in the amendment. I shall not weary you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, by going in greater depth into the point which my hon. Friend makes so well and powerfully. The point has been made, and I can perhaps move on to other pastures in the same field.
      Mr. Marlow rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: If I may be allowed to get on, because I see the clock moving very fast and, alas, I have hardly begun my analysis of safety in fluoride.
      I shall deal with the figures. To my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister there is no more reputable source than "Fluoride: teeth and health", that wonderful vade mecum of all knowledge on the subject of fluoride in which we are told that there is no evidence of harm. Even that says at page 23:
      "Where there is little fluoride in the water, the average daily intake by adults is less than 3 mg with a maximum of less than 8 mg, while with 1 mg per litre in water the average daily intake is less than 5 mg with a maximum of about 12 mg."
      That should frighten anyone who thought that one part per million—the optimum dose—was safe, because there are the great and the good talking about a maximum of 12 mg in the daily ingestion of some people. I shall come on to why that is dangerous in a moment.
      I shall refer to two scientists, Dyson Rose and John Marier, of the National Research Council of Canada—
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      of course they are nuts, lunatics and idiots like everyone else—who in their recent publication "Environmental fluoride 1977" said
      "One of the major factors thought to be contributing to the increased human exposure to fluoride is the increase in the fluoride content of food."
      They give typical examples:
      "Gouda cheese normally contains 0·27 mg per kg of fluoride but after processing with water fluoridated with one part per million contains up to 2·16."
      That is almost 10 times as much fluoride.
      "Some ready to use baby foods are shown to contain between 4 and 12 mg of fluoride per kg, and variations of the fluoride content of lettuce range from 39 to 226 mg per kg … Such an increase can arise from three main sources, namely, the use of fluoridated water in food and beverage processing, the exposure of crops to airborne fluoride and waterborne fluoride in areas irrigated with fluoridated water and the use of fluoride-containing fertilisers."
      I had forgotten that. It is not just the food processed or grown in fluoridated water, it is the fluoride in the fertilisers in which that food is grown. Those scientists tell us that in north America the adult fluoride intake from food and beverages is 3·5 mg per litre to 55 mg per litre a day where the water is fluoridated at a level of one part per million. The scientists warn that that dose may be exceeded by people exposed to hotter environments, those who drink lots of tea and individuals who suffer from excessive thirst.
      7.15 am
      In Britain the highest total fluoride intake for children is 6 mg per litre a day where drinking water is low in fluoride and 7 mg per litre a day where water is fluoridated. Professor Hardwick of Manchester university points out those facts in the British Dental Journal of 15 April 1975.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I am glad that my hon. and learned Friend has given way to me when dealing with the evidence of Professor Hardwick. My middle name is Hardwick, which is a matter that I hope fluoride will not erode. The intake of fluoride from lettuce, spinach or even your steely glance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, is not predictable. I do not know whether my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister will be able to give the number of people who eat Edam cheese. No doubt, they have teeth like Reynard the fox—lovely teeth coming out of their ears and eyes — if they eat Edam, which has more fluoride than anything else in it. If this marvellous poison is so good for us, why does not the Minister have teeth on those hideous shoes which he shows off on the Dispatch Box? Do we have evidence that these edamised, lettucised and spinachised people with fluoridated teeth are the descendants of the rhinoceros and the buck hog, with teeth that stick around their heads, proud, glorious and ivory?
      Mr. Lawrence: My hon. and learned Friend might have to wait millions of years before he sees any of his hon. Friends turned into these dream animals in the land of "Edam and Ave".
      There are other sources of flouride ingestion, including fluoride-containing drugs, such as fluphenazine, fluoroacil and fluorothene — no doubt all on the restricted list, since they are obviously vital for life. Perhaps my right hon. and learned Friend will tell us whether any of those drugs are on the restricted list because they greatly contribute to people's health. Indeed, they may be vital to health. If those drugs are not being used, they may be

      977
      clinical eqivalents of drugs in use. My right hon. and learned Friend has the cornucopia, or pharmacopoeia, which would give us the answer.
      Other sources of fluoride ingestion are fruit sprayed with fluoride-containing insecticides — Dr. Waldbott points out that large apples sprayed in that way provide about 1 mg of fluoride—aerosols containing fluorocarbon propellants, teflon-coated pans, which can add a fair amount of fluoride ions to foods cooked in them, methoxyflurane anaesthetics, asbestos, which contains up to 579 parts per million of fluoride, certain brands of Japanese and American cigarettes, fibreglass, which contains up to 1,250 parts per million of fluoride and fluoride-polluted air from factory emissions. That excludes fluoride tablets and toothpastes and the other matters that I have referred to.
      We have been told by those who have studied the subject that the average daily intake in Canada amounts to 5·5 mg while a level of 11 mg per day has been recorded in Japan. Dr. W. A. Canell, in his "Medical and Dental Aspects of Fluoridation", tells us that a daily intake of 2·8 mg of fluoride during the first eight years of a child's life will cause an unsightly mottling of its permanent teeth, while 6 mg or more will so disorganise tooth structure as to make it more vulnerable to decay attack.
      Even the Royal College of Physicians says that the intake could be almost 12 mg per day. When it was questioned at a press conference on the release of its report, it was unable to offer any opinion on the safe daily dose of fluoride and insisted that it had only been asked to assess the risks up to and including the level of 1 mg per litre ingested in fluoridated water. That is the answer we get from the Minister. When I have asked successive Ministers over the years what a successful daily dose is, I have got no answer as to whether it should be one part, five parts, 10 parts per million, or whatever.
      The 1969–75 resolutions of the World Health Organisation specifically stated that drinking water should be fluoridated only
      "where the fluoride intake from water and other sources for athe given population was below the optimal level."
      May I remind the House that the optimal level was one part per million? In its 1970 monograph the World Health Organisation expressly stated:
      "People living in fluoridated areas should avoid foods high in fluoride content."
      In the 1953 report to the United Kingdom mission to America it stressed the danger of high fluoride products like bone meal tablets and dentifrices to which fluoride had been added. It said that they should be scrupulously avoided.
      Mr. Marlow: Obviously some of us are more at risk than others. For example, to take up the points made by my hon. and learned Friend, those amongst us who eat apples and then use a fluoridated mouthwash, propelled by a fluoridated propellant, and who have been brought up not on mother's milk but on powdered milk in an area where the water supply has been heavily fluoridated should have most cause for concern and should be most worried because we are obviously most at risk. May I ask my hon. and learned Friend whether there is anything in particular that those of us who have most to worry about should do, particularly if we are living in an area which my hon. and learned Friend might envisage as being fluoridated in the future? Is there any antidote or prophylactic that we can take? My hon. and learned Friend has said that possibly
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      there is fluoride in beer. Are there perhaps other trace elements in beer which would react against the poison which has been inserted and thereby neutralise it? Does my hon. and learned Friend suggest that those of us who are most at risk should drink a pint, two pints or even three pints of beer a day, or that we should perhaps take a wee tot of something a little stronger every night before we go to sleep? Would that have the effect of neutralising this poison that may well in future be inserted in water in the areas which are not yet subject to fluoridation?
      Mr. Lawrence: I shall come a little later in the day to the antidote to fluoride which, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbaim) has already said, is calcium. I encourage my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) to drink as much beer as he possible can. That would be good for my constituency. It would be good for the brewing economy. It would even be good for the Chancellor at a time when he is anxious to find ways of cutting income tax. I cannot leave the point without making the observation that, regrettably, nothing in the Bill will entitle anyone who lives in an artificially fluoridated water area as a result of the Bill to have automatic access to non-fluoridated water. That is very worrying.
      In response to the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Langbaurgh (Mr. Holt), may I give an example of the sort of illness that is affected by high concentrations of fluoride in the intake. This is contained in an article in the British Medical Journal of 10 September 1983 by Dr. J. C. Gerster and his colleagues at the rheumatology and rehabilitation centre of the University hospital in Lausanne, Switzerland. They describe two patients who were treated for several months with 40 to 60 mg per day of sodium fluoride in an attempt to counter thinning of the bones—osteopetrosis. They record that both patients suffered spontaneous fractures of the necks of both thigh bones, which broke under the weight of the patients' bodies. The authors suggest that that was due
      "to changes in the mechanical properties of the bone induced by the accumulation of fluoride in the bone tissue. Both patients were suffering from a mild degree of kidney failure, so they were not able to excrete fluoride normally, with the resultant build-up of fluoride in the bone."
      I note that my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister is not laughing at that example. It is equally absurd, is it not, to laugh at the fact that fluoride causes harm to others, including tadpoles, trouts' eggs and whatever else he may find funny. The dose of fluoride—40 to 60 mg per day—is of course much larger than the estimated daily dose from fluoridated water, but in the discussion paragraph, the Swiss doctors state:
      "Cases of skeletal fluorosis have been reported in patients with severe renal failure, even with a daily fluoride intake as low as 4 mg."
      The House will recall that I referred it to the fact that even the Royal College of Physicians said that the daily dose may increase to as much as three times what causes skeletal fluorosis.
      The final paragraph of the abstract of the article in the British Medical Journal, which has been produced by Dr. Yellowlees, who will be well known to the ladies and gentlemen who advise the Minister that everything about fluoride is perfectly safe, states:

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      "As bilateral femural neck fractures are very rare, these data suggest a causal link between fractures and fluoride in patients with renal failure. Thus fluoride should be given at a lower dose, if at all, to patients with even mild renal failure."
      Mr. Michael Brown: In support of the evidence that my hon. and learned Friend has adduced, may I draw his attention to what the science editor of the American Saturday Review said:
      "Bones and teeth are not simply fixed fence-posts of the body. They are in a constant state of flux, now giving of this substance to tissues and organs and now taking away. Bones, especially, are storehouses of elements critical to life. Since the bones are the emergency storehouse, should any risk be taken of attaching padlocks to the storehouse doors?"
      Mr. Lawrence: That is very graphic. It might almost have come from the mouth of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross, but it came from an even greater scientific authority than my hon. and learned Friend.
      7.30 am
      I now move on to the way in which the medical evil of fluoride works upon the body. I hope that everyone in the House knows by now that fluoride is a deadly poison, along with arsenic, lead and cyanide. The 24th edition of the United States Dispensary states:
      "Fluorides are violent poisons to all living tissues because of their precipitation of calcium. They cause fall of blood pressure, respiratory failure and general paralysis. Continuous ingestion of non-fatal doses causes general cachexia and permanent inhibition of growth. There are analogous changes in teeth. Bones become hard and fragile."
      Dr. Gerald Cox, the biochemist, who was the first person to promote public water fluoridation, has said:
      "Fluorides are among the most toxic substances."
      This is a passage from the British Pharmaceutical Codex:
      "Fluorides are cumulative and the continuous ingestion of small quantities in food leads to wasting, weakness, nausea and diarrhoea. It is easier to cause serious symptoms by administering small doses over a prolonged period than by giving a single large dose. Its presence in wines, beers, butter and so on should be prohibited."
      It is unlawful to add fluoride to certain foods, because of its toxic qualities. I refer hon. Members to the reference in the Pharmaceutical Codex to fluorides being cumulative. That is the answer to the question, asked earlier in the debate about why one part per million should be toxic. The answer is that it is cumulative and that
      "the continuous ingestion of small quantities in food"
      causes more serious symptoms than giving one large dose.
      When, therefore, the Minister says that the study is not worth much because those who conducted it did not put one part per million under the skin of a hamster but 10, 20, 30 or 40 parts, the answer is that small doses over a prolonged period produce worse results than a large single dose. In other words, if a large single dose over a period produces a tumour or some other ill effect, a worse effect may be produced by a smaller dose over a longer period.
      That is what the scientists say, not what I say as a politician or lawyer. Nothing that I have said comes out of my imagination; it comes out of the writings of the idiots, lunatics and mad scientists who are all on our side. There is not one mad scientist on the other side. Not one report on the Minister's side contains a fault. If it did, there would be a doubt. If a mad scientist says that something is safe, one must have a doubt about it.
      Mr. Best: It is fair to point out that, while fluoride is cumulative, it is also excreted from the body at a certain
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      rate. Is it not a fact, however, that even those biochemists who are in favour of fluoride express grave concern because the margin of difference between what they regard as the optimum level, of one part per million, and a concentration which leads to dental fluorosis and the other problems to which my hon. and learned Friend has referred is, in their opinion, too narrow? That is the view even of biochemists who are in favour of the artificial fluoridation of the water supply.
      Mr. Lawrence: It is even worse than that. This is not the amendment on which to discuss the difficulties faced by water authorities which are letting into the water supply precisely one part per million. On a later amendment we may discuss those difficulties, which add point to my hon. Friend's intervention.
      Mr. Michael Brown: My hon. and learned Friend is in danger of being misled by the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys M×n (Mr. Best). He has failed to take into account the fact that, according to Professor Orville-Thomas, the human body excretes only one third of the fluoride which it takes in. Two thirds of the fluoride stays in the body and accumulates.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The effect of the deadly poison that we call fluoride is cumulative in larger ingested doses than the one part per million which is the optimum dose in water. That is what the medical men tell us. We heard about this from my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) an hour or two ago. It deprives the body of calcium because fluoride combines with it and locks it up. That leads to damaged heart function. Ha-ha, that is funny! I do not hear any chuckles and no one is rolling around in laughter so my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Government Front Bench may not be concentrating on what I am saying.
      Who makes the claims which I have recited? "The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics" in its third and fourth editions entitled "Goodman and Gillman" states that fluoride has a direct toxic action on cardiac muscle. professor J. D. Ebert in Scientific American of March 1959 showed that low concentrations of fluoride blocks the region which develops the heart muscle of the unborn child. My right hon. and learned Friend and others might like to know that Professor Ebert is not a lunatic. He is not a nut or an idiot. He is noted for his brilliant work on the embryo. I have no doubt that in another guise he will be of great use in advising my right hon. and learned Friend on the future of that problem which his Department is about to face.
      I refer also to the view of Professor Dewey Stayn who is the American professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Pretoria university. He writes:
      "Fluoride ingestion undoubtedly aggravates the calcification of arterio-sclerotic blood vessels."
      It is therefore not surprising that there have been many reports of an increase in deaths from heart disease in American fluoridated towns. After nine years of fluoride in Narburgh, New York, deaths from heart disease have become 73·9 per cent. higher than the national rate. Within four years of the beginning of fluoridation at Grand Rapids, Michigan, deaths from heart disease increased by about 50 per cent., yet the city's population increased by about 8 per cent. After 20 years of fluoridation in Antigo, Wisconsin, heart deaths rose spectacularly to seven times

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      the national increase. Before fluoridation started in Antigo, heart deaths were 86·4 per 100,000 population and below the national average. I am indebted for those figures and for much of what I am about to say to Doris Grant for her work in assembling this information.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Before my hon. and learned Friend leaves the distinguished work of Professor Evert, who no doubt, in the opinion of the Minister, who is such a distinguished physiologist himself, is an idiot, I ask him to concentrate on the work that he did on the effect of fluoride on cardiac muscle. I am sure that you will recall, Mr. Speaker, that there are three types of muscle in the body. I do not know how many types there are in the Chamber. I am sorry if I have given you the shakes, Mr. Speaker. I did not want to do that. There is what is called smooth or voluntary muscle, which some of us can still operate.
      There is involuntary muscle, which is to be found in some repulsive organs which the Minister might have heard of. The third type is cardiac muscle. Fluoride has an effect on the latter, which has the immense and amazing capacity to keep tensing and flexing. Those who do not understand should try to flex their hand 24 hours a day to see how tired the heart ought to get. The professor's work on cardiac muscle and the effect of fluoride on it is the most important point that my hon. and learned Friend has made all evening.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful for that support. History will decide whether my speech has been useful. My right hon. and learned Friend's advisers might decide whether I have made good or bad points, but as I quote only the words of lunatics, nuts and idiots, they probably will not find what I have said acceptable. Some scientists say that the heart is damaged by fluorine. Bone growth is also damaged, as calcium, which is locked up by fluoride, is good for bones. We have bone fluorosis, deformed cows and the horrible results found near factories that spew out fluoride. The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) gave an interesting account of the effects of large-scale ingestion of fluoride.
      Bones and joints are affected even by low concentrations. Ligaments tend to calcify, as do joints and muscle attachments. They are symptoms characteristic of osteoarthritis, in which microcrystals are formed. That is not me but Schumacher and other researchers, in a study of 1977.
      There is also a problem with accumulation. The pro-fluoridation World Health Organisation says that 50 per cent. of ingested soluble fluoride is retained in the body. Professor Orville Thomas says that the human body excretes only one third of the fluoride that it takes in and that the remainder accumulates. Dr. B. C. Saunders of Cambridge university, author of "Advances in Fluorine Chemistry" says that fluorides are prone to cause cumulative poisoning. Dr. W. A. Canell says that the cumulative effects of fluoride are uncertain and unpredictable—and that is someone who is cautiously in favour of fluoridation.
      Of special importance is a statement from Dr. J. Forman, on behalf of the United States of America medical-dental committee on evaluation of fluoridation, whose findings are sponsored by over 1,600 physicians, dentists and scientists. He says:
      "It is now known that such vital organs as the kidneys, thyroid, heart, liver and lungs can be sites of unusually high
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      fluoride build up. No matter how small the dose, a part of it tends to accumulate in the body. Some individuals may store up to 100 times more fluoride in certain tissues than in others."
      What value can one place on the assurance of one part per million, when that is what is happening to the body? Not only is there, through the air and the water and the food, whether it is processed or natural, much more fluoride than one part per million, but once it reaches the body, it builds up cumulatively and only a half or a third is passed out. These scientists — nuts, lunatics, idiots, cranks, charlatans, peddling quack medicines — are all wrong when they say that these harms occur.
      7.45 am
      Mr. Fairbairn: Will my hon. and learned Friend give way on the point about idiots?
      Mr. Dobson: He has superior knowledge.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I am happy to claim a superior knowledge of idiocy, because I am a mere Scot. I do not have a beard like the hon. Gentleman. There is an important point to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister should address himself. How does he classify idiots? Here we have professors and scientists of the greatest distinction—PhDs, FRSEs, LRCPs, LRCPEs, MRCPGs. How can the Minister say that people of that distinction of academic qualification are idiots if they disagree with him, but are glorified by their qualifications if they agree with him? I do not understand, and I ask my hon. and learned Friend to address himself to the schizophrenia that my right hon. and learned Friend, the fluffy-shoed Minister, has been showing tonight.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I would rather that the right hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) stuck to the amendment.
      Mr. Lawrence: I shall do so, and no doubt you had confidence in that from the moment that you rose to your feet, Mr. Speaker. That was a warning to my hon. and learned Friend not to try to mislead me. I shall indeed stick.
      Earlier in our proceedings, I was told to hurry the Bill through Committee, as there would be plenty of time on Report to deal with these arguments. However, it is only today that I have been able to make some kind of a speech, and that is because I have stayed until 5 o'clock in the morning; otherwise, there would not have been a chance.
      I remember one Minister saying, in an irritated way, "This is ridiculous. We are talking about minute amounts of stuff. The sort of stuff about which we are talking cannot do any harm." I remind my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister that it is said that massive amounts of salt cause harm and kill, but small amounts do not. One can take a tablespoon of salt, put it in some water and drink it, and apart from a rather unpleasant taste in the mouth, one is all right. However, if one takes a teaspoon of fluoride and puts it in a beaker of water and drinks it, one would die in about five or six hours. Therefore, this sort of humorous disclaimer—the absurdity of talking about minute quantities as though, because a large quantity kills, a small quantity will not kill, and the suggestion that there is some equality between the various kinds of substances—is ludicrous. The second way in which fluoride has an evil effect, therefore, is cumulatively, by locking up calcium.
      The third way in which it exercises an evil effect is by inhibiting enzymes, that is, the complex substances in the

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      body that are essential to the life process and interact with vitamins, minerals and hormones. Among the enzymes that are found to be particularly susceptible to fluoride are those involved in bone and tooth development, in cellular oxidation processes, in the work of the thyroid gland and in carbohydrate and fat metabolism. The fat-splitting enzyme lipase, we are told by scientists — or nuts, cranks, idiots — is so susceptible that solutions of sodium chloride with a fluorine content as low as one part per 15 million can inhibit by as much as 50 per cent. That is 50 times lower than the solution that is being recommended for our water supplies.
      What effect will that have? Fluoride will reduce the ability of the digestive system to digest fats. A study by the researchers McGowan and Suttie in Wisconsin showed that a high fat diet enhances the toxicity of dietary fluoride. This was presented in the Journal of Nutrition, 1974.
      Fluoride is, of course, a potent poison of the enzyme catalese. That is of particular importance because the enzyme catalese protects the body against cancer and some viruses. It protects the body because it is vital to cell respiration, and the disturbance of cell respiration is known to cause cancer. Otto Warburg, the German scientist and Nobel prizewinner, has found that cancer can have 1,000 causes, but they all bring about the irreversible disturbance of cell respiration. That conclusion was the result of 30 years' work by Warburg on the respiratory mechanism of the cancerous cell.
      If that is the route by which catalese can be inhibited by fluoride so that the cells do not breathe and do not repair, with the result that cancer is caused, it is the scientific justification for the epidemiological studies of Burk and Yiamouyiannis, which show that the 10 largest cities fluoridated in the United States compared with the 10 largest cities unfluoridated are subject to a substantial increase in cancer mortality. That is how it happens, if the scientific analysis is right, and I do not know whether it is—I am not a scientist.
      Unless we postulate that all the scientists who say that some harm is caused by fluoride are lunatics, there may be something in what some of them say. Some of them are Nobel prizewinners, some are professors and some are reputable researchers. Therefore, as Burk and Yiamouyiannis point out, at least 10,000 Americans may be dying every year from cancer induced, if not caused, by drinking fluoridated water. That inhibits the enzyme catalese, which stops the repair mechanism of the cancer cells.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Let us forget catalese for the moment and concentrate on an infinitely more disturbing characteristic of the effect of fluoride compounds. We are not talking about sodium chloride or calcium chloride. The only product considered in Lord Jauncey's verdict was sodium chloride. We are discussing two much more complex substances.
      Established research of the most precise kind shows that fluoride disturbs the structure of the nucleus of the cell. It disturbs DNA—the cell structure which gives rise to its multiplication. Substances with fluoride radicals in it have been shown to disturb cells so that carcinoma is caused.
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      Research is conducted in set proportions. The question is whether the same effect can be shown in larger proportions or whether cumulatively it has the same effect.
      Mr. Lawrence: The House must again be deeply grateful to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross for his medical training and knowledge. He can add depths to the shadow that I am sketching. I could go into the matter in greater depth only if I were prepared to speak until tomorrow's business is lost. Of course, I am not prepared to do that.
      Mr. Best: Is my hon. and learned Friend aware that the amendment is very wide since it covers all safety aspects? I hope that he will devote sufficient time to another topic which he has not yet mentioned. I refer to the safety of employees who handle and carry fluoride, the safety of containers and the safety of everyone who comes into contact with fluoride. The question of protective clothing must be discussed. I hope that I shall be able to devote my speech to such matters.
      Mr. Lawrence: Alas, I must disappoint my audience since I shall not have time to discuss those matters. They are covered by other amendments in the group and I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys M×n, who is knowledgeable on such matters, will be able to address the House.
      Mr. Golding: The hon. and learned Gentleman owes it to us, in the middle part of his speech, to deal with the technical details. I had an assurance that he would go into detail. You, Mr. Speaker, have missed much fine, literary stuff. We have witnessed the broad-brush approach, the eloquence and the compelling words, but not the detail for which we have looked throughout the night. I hope that in the second half of his speech the hon. and learned Gentleman will provide us with the detail that we need to confront Ministers later.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful for the compliments and the confidence. I was trying to provide more detail. I should not like the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme to be disappointed because he has made sacrifices, not only to his home life — which he will regard as necessary to protect the country against the evils of fluoridation — but through his many trade union activities. This task was probably the most difficult to give up to support us on this subject, with his constant and determined efforts to bring some sanity into the party he represents. I hope that it will not lose him votes if I say that he is one of the most respected Opposition Members as far as we are concerned because he is so moderate and sensible. That is why we think that it is a great bonus to have him on our side, as it were, in this campaign. We may all be thought to be nuts, lunatics and idiots, but as long as there are some men of sanity and moderation among Opposition Members we cannot be completely condemned.
      8 am
      Mr. Marlow: My hon. and learned Friend was talking about sensible and moderate hon. Members, and I thought that that was a cue for me, Mr. Speaker. I started listening to his speech as somebody who has always been concerned with the civil liberties aspect of this business of stuffing some unwanted ingredient into the water supply and its potential for harm. However, I have been listening with my mouth opening ever wider while my hon. and learned

      985
      Friend has been speaking to the accumulating evidence which he is putting before the House. We are all to an extent, I understand, psychosomatic and I must say that at this stage I am not really feeling myself. Does my hon. and learned Friend agree with Professor J. Orville Thomas that
      "the human body excretes only one-third of the fluoride it takes in because the other two-thirds stays in the body and accumulates"?
      Is that really so, because if two-thirds of the fluoride that I have ingested has accumulated in my body I should like my hon. and learned Friend to let me know what I can do about it? I consider it a very worrying thing.
      Mr. Lawrence: I would be very reluctant—
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I think that we dealt with that shortly after I came back to the Chair, about three quarters of an hour ago. I think that we should move on to the other technical subjects.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am most grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for reminding me that that subject had already been covered. May I say how flattering I consider it that you have come at this really rather unpleasant hour for you, with all your responsibilities, and sat and listened to what I have said. If only some of our right hon. Friends and hon. Gentlemen who helped to make the decision which is the basis of this Bill were to listen a bit more, not just to me but to the scientists who are using me, as it were, for the expression of their views, we would not be wasting our time over this obnoxious Bill, which most of the people in the country do not want. This is not merely because they do not need fluoride—17 million people have no teeth at all and cannot possibly benefit from it, not to mention those who will have come to fluoride too late to gain any benefit. There are also those people who are concerned about the mass medication aspect. The hundreds of people who have written to me—and no doubt to many of my colleagues in the House—and who are bitterly opposed to this would be very pleased to know that you, Mr. Speaker, were not the only person listening to the scientific evidence.
      I was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North to give some scientific advice. Scientific and medical advice is for my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross. I do not offer that kind of service. Would that I could, but I cannot, and we have to face up to my deficiencies. I hope that at some appropriate moment my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross will be able to supplement what I have been saying in this particular area.
      I was talking about the Burk and Yiamouyiannis study. I first came into the whole rotten business of fluoridation because of Burk and Yiamouyiannis. I was a member of the Select Committee on Social Services and we had reports on juvenile delinquency, unemployment and preventive medicines. There was a broad area of departmental study.
      We considered preventive medicine and witnesses were called and came. They said that fluoride is the next best thing to apple pie and God and we were therefore in a position to ask them some questions. I asked some questions, as I recall, and my memory is a little hazy and I am also a little tired, and they were based on the Burk and Yiamouyiannis study.
      Mr.Fairbairn rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: Will my hon. and learned Friend allow me to continue my response before my concentration is completely thrown?
      As I recall, we asked the witnesses what they thought of the Burk and Yiamouyiannis study. To our astonishment, the answer was that they had never heard of it. It is perfectly true that that was in 1976 and the Burk and Yiamouyiannis study had only been about for a year or so. But it was interesting that the Royal College of Physicians, while preparing its report which I have frequently fluorished during the debate, "Fluoride: teeth and health", published in January or February 1976, received a copy of the Burk and Yiamouyiannis study of the 20 largest cities in the United States, 10 of them fluoridated and 10 of them unfluoridated, in about July or August. So they had had it for several months. But it was too inconvenient to study it before it came to its conclusions.
      There is only a scant reference in a footnote to the Burk and Yiamouyiannis study. Clearly it has not taken it on board and considered it seriously. It is the output of nuts and cranks and lunatics and idiots. As a result, Burk and Yiamouyiannis had to do without the benefit of the consideration of these great and worthy medics and scientists, the Royal College of Physicians, which produced the book.
      In due course the establishment turned on Burk and Yiamouyiannis and discovered that some mistakes had been made. It accused them of making mistakes that they had not made. In due course, the accusers were themselves found to have made serious errors of calculation. Over the course of years all those matters were investigated and thrashed out, but still the stigma attached to Burk and Yiamouyiannis remained.
      Why? Because they had produed the most thorough going analysis—epidemiological, not laboratory—of the functioning of the cancer mortality ratios and rates in large parts of the United States over 18 years. The critics said that the figures were wrong, that so many cancer deaths could not be caused by artificial fluoridation of the water and that the people had not been rated for age, weight and sex. It just so happened that the 10 fluoridated areas had the largest number of old people dying of cancer anyway. It just so happened that they had the largest number of blacks who had moved in from the country to the towns, and in doing so they somehow developed cancer. All the women were in the unfluoridated sector and that meant that the figures were distorted.
      Burk and Yiamouyiannis said, "Come off it. There are not that number of women and men, and anyway the racial characteristic is bad, because how does one know that a man is black? Does one knock on his door and say, 'Hello, what colour are you?" The whole business of taking the demographic assessment of who is black and who is white in a mixed community was so difficult that the analyst said, "Look, for goodness sake, forget about race. Unless a man is really black or really white one does not know what it is, particularly if one goes knocking on doors in California in the summer, when everybody is brown."
      Burk and Yiamouyiannis said, "Okay, if you insist, we shall weigh the report for age, race and sex." There came a time, when I was very new in this place, when I had an Adjournment debate on the Burk-Yiamouyiannis proposals. I could not have cared less about the stupid subject of fluoridation. What has got me is the cool, calculated attempt either to mislead people or to pretend

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      that things are other than they obviously are. It worries me that we in this place should sit here and see such a Bill go through on the assurances of people who simply will not look at the evidence, or, if they look at it, it is always to pick holes or brush it to one side. If one stands back and looks at it all, one sees that every single report by the antifluoridationist professors, lecturers, researchers and Nobel prizewinners is rubbished, and every single report produced by the professors, Nobel prizewinners and scientists on the pro-fluoridation side is impeccable. Even when they cheat over some figures, that is neither here nor there, and I shall not go into the saga of how they had to pretend that they got some of the figures that they analysed themselves, when they had got them from the National Cancer Institute of America, so the same group of figures was used for two supposedly independent surveys. We shall not go into that. Apart from anything else, I find it distasteful to talk about such shenanigans by men of integrity and science.
      I had my Adjournment debate, and I said to the then junior Minister at the Department of Health and Social Security, Roland Moyle, "I shall devote this Adjournment debate to the Burk-Yiamouyiannis proposals, because I should like the Minister to let us know precisely what the Government's reaction is" — it was a Labour Government at the time—"and I begin by saying that I shall now explain how they have been weighted for age, race and sex, so please do not say to me that the Burk-Yiamouyiannis survey is a load of rubbish because it has not been weighted for age, race and sex."
      I delivered my speech lasting a quarter of an hour, and in due course I sat down, having deployed my case, and up stood the Minister at the Dispatch Box, and, reading from the brief that he had been given by the ladies and gentlemen who advised him in the Box, he said, "The trouble with the Burk-Yiamouyiannis survey is that it is a load of rubbish because it has not been weighted for age, race and sex." It had been weighted for age, race and sex, and still the Minister said that it had not. He did not say that it was a bad weighting, that it was wrong on age, race or sex. He said that the weighting had not been done. I said, "But I have just spent a quarter of an hour telling the Minister that I has been done. Not only have I done that but the documentation is with the DHSS." It was three years before I eventually received a letter of acknowledgement from the DHSS telling me that it accepted that the Burk-Yiamouyiannis proposals had been weighted for age, race and sex.
      Therefore, it is very important that my hon. and learned Friend should tell the House, because there are certain areas in this country where there are greater racial concentrations than in other areas. If they are more susceptible to damage from this poison, it is important that the House should be told. It is a matter that the House would wish to take into consideration when it deals with the level of concentration of this poison that we should be permitted to put into our water supplies.
      8.15 am
      Mr. Best: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. May first apologise to my hon. and learned Friend for interrupting him when he was speaking. I know that you, Mr. Speaker, will be aware that a large number of hon. Members wish to speak in the debate. Furthermore, as I mentioned a few
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      moments ago, many of the amendments have not yet been covered in the speech of my hon. and learned Friend. I mentioned one of them in a brief intervention I wonder whether you, Mr. Speaker, would give some guidance to the House. We have not yet heard the Minister. If the Government were to try to closure the debate on this amendment, which I should deprecate, may I ask for your guidance, Mr. Speaker, about what your advice would be? It would greatly assist those hon. Members who wish to speak.
      Mr. Golding: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. and learned Gentleman has been up and down like a jack-rabbit all night while the hon. Gentleman has waited patiently throughout to speak authoritatively on the subject. It is a great disappointment to some hon. Members who also have not spoken that the hon. and learned Gentleman is trying to pressure his hon. Friend out of the debate in this despicable fashion.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. and learned Gentleman has been speaking for over three hours. I pay a great tribute to him for being mostly in order throughout that period. However, it has been indicated that a number of his hon. Friends and also a number of Opposition Members wish to take part in the debate. I hope, therefore, that he will not overdo it. That would be a pity.
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether you could confirm that as there is no time limit on this debate, unless the closure is moved, there should be no difficulty in allowing all hon. Members who wish to take part to do so.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not know about closures. These are purely hypothetical matters. Naturally, I wish to call as many hon. Members as possible who wish to speak. I cannot do that if speeches go on for a very long time.
      Mr. Michael Brown: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have just indicated that my hon. and learned Friend is now into the fourth hour of his speech. I wonder whether you might consider briefly suspending the sitting to enable my hon. and learned Friend to have a glass of water, bearing in mind that London water is not fluoridated and that he could probably do with a glass of water during a short suspension of the sitting.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I believe that the hon. and learned Gentleman is indicating dissent. If he wants a glass of water, I think that one of his hon. Friends will bring one.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. It was not my understanding that in proceedings of this kind hon. Members who wished to catch your eye should come to the Chair in order to do so. If my hon. and learned Friend wants a glass of water, which in London has already passed through 14 other filthily fluoridated people, he can have one. However, I thought the tradition was that when we were dealing with amendments we did not come to the Chair in order to catch your eye.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. Coming to the Chair is a procedure which naturally I deprecate. Catching the Speaker's eye is the right of hon. Members. However, in the position that I occupy I can sense when other hon. Members wish to take part in a debate.
      Mr. Best: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I do not wish to detain the House, but it may be that my right hon. and learned Friend can assist the House. I remember that he came to the Dispatch Box earlier this morning and said that after we had debated this series of amendments it might be appropriate for the Government to consider reporting further progress. If that were to be the case, it would be of great assistance to us and, I suspect, to the whole House.
      Mr. Speaker: I know nothing about that.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am most grateful for the concern for me that has been shown by hon. Members and yourself, Mr. Speaker. I dare not take any water because I am not sure how many friends I have left around this place. Although I am surrounded by a coterie of friends, even though some of them do not share my views on this subject, I am afraid that my eyesight is failing and I cannot see just how far back their serried ranks spread, and since I have a feeling that the water would come from that end I shall pass that one by, not pass the water, but pass the offer by. That reminds me, Mr. Speaker, that at some stage there is another function in which I might like to engage.
      The thought that I might be flagging and would therefore need sustenance is wide of the mark because I am now getting into second if not third gear. It would be a bad thing to stop the momentum which has been building up behind me.
      In response to you, Mr. Speaker, and your kind thoughts, and your observation that I have stuck pretty much to the terms of the amendment, I say that I have been most careful about that. If occasionally I have erred it has been only as a result of some temptation which has been lowered into my sights. I have been most careful to try to keep to the subject of safety. I realise that I shall disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn by only barely touching that part of the subject which is most dear to his heart — the lack of safety for the people who have to handle fluoride and the processes by which that is done.
      I hope that we may be able to come to those matters in a later amendment on a later day. I cannot think that there will be many people here at 3 o'clock or 4 o'clock this afternoon who will want to hear me speaking, although I may be able to manage that.
      It is not any desire to hear my own voice that motivates me—in fact, I cannot stand the sound of it—nor is it any desire to entertain my hon. Friends who I am sure can be entertained in a much better way. It is, first, a desire to try to put on the record as many of the facts as possible so that the people in this country and hon. Members who know nothing about health matters may at least have the opportunity to see that there is another side to the subject. Unless we were to postulate that every one of the 10s, 20s or 100s of scientists who have produced properly analysed and written up scientific work are all lunatics, crazy, nuts or idiots, then there may be something in the anti-fluoridation case.
      The second reason why I am continuing is that I am afraid that I am, although not very old, sufficiently long in the tooth in this place to be able to trust my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench not to move the closure of the debate the moment that I sit down.
      Mr. Kenneth Clarke rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: I shall give way to my right hon. and learned Friend in a moment. If I could have an assurance that if I were to sit down within the next hour or two my right hon. and hon. Friends would allow my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys M÷n, and any other hon. Friend who has a positive contribution to make about some of the aspects of these amendments, the opportunity to make it, I should gladly finish by, say 9.45 am.
      Mr. Clarke: I am grateful to my hon. and learned Friend. I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) was putting him under pressure to come to a conclusion. I should not wish to join that. To enable my hon. and learned Friend to pace the remaining points of his speech to which he is now moving, I must tell him that I have a Standing Committee to go to at 10.30 am. That need not force him to rush through his concluding remarks, but it means that if he is still on his feet at that time he will probably have to have a reply from my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for Health and Social Security. He will have to rely on the scarcely legible notes that I have been keeping copiously for the past two or three hours. It would be a wrench to leave the debate and go to the Standing Committee because I am led to believe that a filibuster is planned there, and I should much prefer to take part in this pertinent and closely argued debate on the Floor of the House.
      Mr. Golding: Will the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) give way?
      Mr. Lawrence: Yes.
      Mr. Golding: It matters not if the Minister is missing or if the Under-Secretary of State responds. I could read the speech of the Under-Secretary of State. He has only one speech to make in reply to the hon. and learned Member for Burton. It would be simple for any hon. Member to read that speech at any time. We know the speech that will come from the Dispatch Box, whether it is read by the Minister or the Under-Secretary of State.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. It would be for the benefit of the whole House if the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) were allowed to continue his speech without too many interruptions.
      Mr. Lawrence: I hope that you will forgive me, Mr. Speaker, for saying that I am grateful to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding). I can add to his statement by saying that there is no point in my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister being here, not only because we know what he will say, but because he may not have listened to a word I have said. He may occasionally out of friendship have listened to me. He listened but his ears were closed. It has become the pattern of this discussion that the ears of Ministers are all too often closed. If that were not the case, some concession would be made to the views of a long list of scientists, medical researchers, professors, Nobel prizewinners, lawyers and judges who have said that it is wrong to put fluoride in the water at a level of one part per million. One can assume that there is a solid wall of those who think that fluoride is perfectly safe. That can only mean that Ministers are not listening. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister will not be insulted by my saying that it does not matter whether he, his hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State or another hon. Friend is present or whether the Government wind up a wooden man and put him in the

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      Dispatch Box to spout what my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister has been reported in Hansard as saying.
      There is no point in my standing here unless I proceed with the argument. I therefore move to the race, age and sex analysis of Burk and Yiamouyiannis. They examined fluoridated Birmingham, because Birmingham is the jewel in the crown of the fluoridated areas of Britain. We hear that the poor dentists of Birmingham have had so little to do since 1974, when the water was fluoridated, that they had to look elsewhere for patients and that that is proof positive that fluoridation is a great success in reducing dental caries. Because the analysts have no evidence—not that they have looked for any—that more people in Birmingham than anywhere else have died since fluoridation, Birmingham is, therefore, said to be the safest place in the world.
      If one wants to find out why I am motivated to make speeches of such length on a subject that bores me silly when I have much better things to do, one needs go no further than examine the information that has come from Birmingham. It is claimed that the caries rate in Birmingham has fallen tremendously. It has; but the caries rate has fallen tremendously in a number of other parts of Britain where there is no fluoride in the water. The conclusion of scientists and dentists saying, "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" is a load of rubbish. We all learnt when we did logic or during our sixth form classes that that was a fallacy. It is proven here to be a fallacy.
      8.30 am
      That is what is wrong with so much of the so-called pseudo-science of the pro-fluoridationists. They will say what happened from the moment the place was fluoridated to now, but they can seldom say what happened in the run-up to fluoridation. One of the reasons why they are so hateful of the Burk and Yiamouyiannis research is that it actually stretched back to before the fluoridated areas were assessed.
      That is not all. The fluoridationists are not above a little jiggery pokery with the figures. It is true that anaesthetics for dental treatment in Birmingham have been wiped out and that some of the figures indicate a substantial reduction in dental caries. What was the position in regard to the decay of children's teeth in the first 12 years after 1964? It is in the first 12 years of life that fluoride is supposed to help children's teeth.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Nine years.
      Mr. Lawrence: Well, nine to 12. It is not so much use after that. Its main effect is in the first 12 years. After that, if it is continued, it is said to be beneficial. The figures show that for temporary teeth, that is, the teeth that the children lose, there was a threefold increase in fillings over the first 12 years when the fluoride was supposed to be working on the children's teeth. With permanent teeth there was no decrease in fillings. As one statistician from the Royal Society interpreted the figures, there was no good effect from fluoride—there may even have been a bad effect—on children's teeth in the years when there should have been an effect. That was a scientific assessment of the figures. I do not know whether that is right or wrong; I am not fitted to make that kind of
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      judgment. All I pass on to the House is what statisticians and medical people have said — that the figures do not bear out the boast.
      I took part in a debate on fluoridation at a dental school — a debate which we won, incidentally, against a lot of students in their last year who had been told by their professors that fluoridation was good. A professor said candidly to me, "We are a little worried about the figures that are cropping up in other parts of the country like the Isle of Wight where there are massive reductions in caries in children's teeth which has nothing to do with the fluoridation of water because the water there is not fluoridated." That reduction had taken place perhaps because of the consumption of fewer sweets, the greater use of toothbrushes and even the use of fluoridated toothpaste. What one knows is that it had nothing to do with fluoridated water, since there was not any.
      It is a little ingenious in this day and age to attribute every reduction in dental caries in children's teeth to fluoride in the water when we all know as young parents what pressure there is upon us from dentists, from doctors, from the media and from what we read to make sure that our children eat sensible food, brush their teeth regularly and go to the dentist before too much trouble manifests itself. One can have anecdotal experience both ways, but many people whom I know report much better teeth in their children than they enjoyed when they were children, although they live in non-fluoridated areas.
      Mr. Fairbairn: As my hon. and learned Friend will know, many dentists say that they favour fluoridation. If their recommendation was accurate, it would depress their incomes. I have never heard of a dentist anxious to depress his income. It is claimed by all scientists, and would not be disputed by the supine Minister were he listening—I have given him a new adjective — that fluoride causes brittleness in teeth which increases with age, thus causing teeth to break and to fall out as one reaches the massive age of 30. I do not know whether my hon. and learned Friend has figures to cover those matters, but, as I understand it, that is the undisputed effect of one part per million of fluoride in water, even if it could be controlled by Hush-Puppy Ministers to that level. Even if it could be controlled, the undisputed evidence of all scientists is that, whatever it may do for the teeth of children aged under nine, it makes the teeth of older people more brittle and likely to crack, break off and fall out. Will my hon. and learned Friend confirm that that is the reason why dentists are so happy to support fluoridation?
      Mr. Lawrence: I can certainly confirm from my reading that the effects of fluoride may be as my hon. and learned Friend describes. I have no personal knowledge of that, but it is the view of scientists, academics, professors and the important people who busy themselves with such matters. As to whether it is one reason why dentists are so much in favour of fluoride, I take leave to doubt my hon. and learned Friend. First, many dentists support the anti-fluoridation case. Secondly, most of the dentists who support the pro-fluoridation case do so only because they take their lead from the British Dental Association, which takes its lead from the Royal College of Physicians, whose report is very out of date, as those who attended the opening part of the debate will have heard me say.
      Thirdly, the most highly fluoridated country in the world is the United States, although the amount of

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      artificial fluoridation of the water supply is shrinking, because, during the past four or five years, hundreds of towns have come off fluoride. America, which is still the most fluoridated country in the world, still shows the greatest increase in tooth decay and in dentists. There is an argument for saying that the more fluoride is put into the water, the more dentists there are.
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: Before my hon. Friend leaves the Burk and Yiamouyiannis report, I am anxious that he should deal with the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Mr. Marlow) before the solicitude of my hon. Friends, who interrupted proceedings about half an hour ago. He will recall that my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North drew attention to the analysis of the Burk and Yiamouyiannis report by age, sex and race. He was particularly interested in the racial aspects. Is there any evidence to show that the effects of fluoridating the water supply affect one race to a greater extent than another? Could that be an aspect of discrimination against races in Britain? Perhaps my hon. and learned Friend would inform the House of the results of the analysis by race that was carried out. Was it done on the basis of parts per million of pigmentation, for example, and—
      Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) is continually interrupted—one might say fed — with further thoughts, he is likely to lose the thread of the excellent speech that he is making. It also means that hon. Members who wish to speak later may be denied an opportunity to do so. I hope, therefore, that the hon. and learned Member will be allowed to get on with his speech without interruption.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful for that compliment, Mr. Speaker, and I assure you that I will not be deflected.
      I should be grateful for an indication from the Minister that the debate will not be closured the moment I sit down. If I knew that hon. Members who wish to contribute will be permitted to do so without the closure being moved, I would be happy to curtail my speech. When I last put that question to the Minister, no answer was forthcoming.
      I assure you, Mr. Speaker, that I have no wish to go down the road I was invited to travel by my hon. Friend the Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton). I know only one race — the human race — and I am not interested in any variations of pigmentation of people's skin.
      Mr. Michael Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I thought that you might like to be made aware of the fact that my hon. and learned Friend has made the longest speech in the House this century.
      Mr. Speaker: I doubt whether that is true. I seem to remember the right hon. Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine) making a very long speech. However, I hope that we are not in the business of breaking records. This place is about logical, sound debate and winning the argument. The hon. and learned Member for Burton is doing well and I suggest that he be allowed to get on with his speech without interruption.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful for your remarks, Mr. Speaker. The record to which my hon. Friend referred is not one that I should like to carry with me for the rest of my days. It would not have been so long had I not given way so many times to hon. Members on both sides who thought that they were helping me, whereas they only
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      helped me to establish a record of which I am not particularly proud, a record that I hope will speedily be broken in our debates on this measure, perhaps by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, of whom we have great hopes.
      Sir Bernard Braine: I have listened with interest to references to previous records. When I spoke from the Back Benches and made the longest speech since 1828, I did so in defence of the safety of a community of some 30,000 souls. My hon. and learned Friend may be proud of his achievement today, but the result, if he has his way, will be to deny dental health to the children of this country and, by definition, to the whole of the nation of the future. That is a big distinction. He may be proud of it. I am not.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am speaking in defence of the safety of 55 million people. If my right hon. Friend had not only recently entered the Chamber — I think that he has not been in his place for more than five minutes of the many hours that we have been debating these matters — and had he listened to the debate, he might have felt some modesty and might not have intervened in such an outrageous, outlandish and over-the-top manner, which is quite uncharacteristic of my right hon. Friend, whom love and admire.
      8.45 am
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: As my right hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine) has not heard all the evidence which my hon. and learned Friend has put before us and has not had the chance to be convinced by it, perhpas my hon. and learned Friend could provide him with a summary of the four hours of his speech.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): It is only five minutes since Mr. Speaker said that he was anxious to hear the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) and that interventions were taking him away from the amendment.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall not welcome further interventions. I understand that my hon. Friends may think that I am more tired than I feel. I can assure them that I am now going into third gear and that there are two more gears in my body before I reach top, or aerobic drive. I have no need of sustenance but I am most grateful to those who thought that I might have.
      When we discussed these matters previously in the Chamber, my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health referred, to my great surprise, to the 11-year study in support of the proposition that no harm was discovered in areas of fluoridation, especially Birmingham. I was surprised that he did so because the report has been dead and buried for a long time. It has been surpassed by masses of other evidence of harm and some evidence of benefit. It can now be said to be water under the bridge, and that is one reason why it is dead and buried.
      The main reason for that happening is that it contained a message which was unwelcome to the pro-fluoridationists. The message was not that fluoridation reduced dental caries in teeth by 50 per cent. or by a massive percentage. The message was — I have an extract from the report in my hand — that the only beneficial effect of fluoridation was to delay the onset of dental caries in children's teeth between the ages of eight and 11 years—it may have been children between the

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      ages of 11 and 14 years—by two years. In other words, fluoride did no good except to delay the arrival of the caries, and that as soon as the age limit had been exceeded the individual reverted to the same rate of decay. That happened only two years later than would have been his misfortune had there been no fluoride in the water.
      Mr. Marlow rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not give way. I think that I would be irritating those about me, and certainly Mr. Deputy Speaker, if I were to do so. I do not intend to take interventions at this moment. I shall indicate to my hon. Friend when I wish to take interventions, but at the moment I do not.
      It was a great surprise to me to hear my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health resurrect the 11-year report. It is the one study that no one can dispute for its thoroughness, care and scientific approach. It shows only that dental caries in children's teeth between the ages that I have mentioned is delayed.
      Mr. Fairbairn: May be delayed.
      Mr. Lawrence: If we take the report at its highest, dental caries is delayed by two years. The difference is 2·1 years or 2·4, which is minimal. Let us take the risk of dying from cancer or from many other diseases, because we shall be able to save half of one decayed or missing tooth in our childhood! Of course, the figures may be wrong.
      The 11-year study might be a load of rubbish, but it is interesting that the Minister has been advised to resurrect it. It is obviously not considered to be a load of rubbish. Even if it is rubbish, it shows how dangerous scientists are. In 1969 they say one thing and, a few years later, they say another, and bury the original report because it is inconvenient. I remember going to a seminar where nobody had heard of the 11-year study. Scientific fashion is cyclical. That is what we should worry about before we legislate for the permanent addition of fluoride to the drinking water of people who do not want it, do not need it and cannot possibly benefit from it and to whom it might well be dangerous.
      Another of the nuts, the cranks, the crazy people—
      Mr. Fairbairn: The idiots.
      Mr. Lawrence: —the idiots, happens to be the retired chief dental officer in Auckland, New Zealand, Mr. John Colquhoun, who went on a world tour to find evidence of the benefit of fluoridation to teeth. He always favoured fluoridation but is now reviled and condemned as a charlatan, a crank, a nut and an idiot. I think that my right hon. and learned Friend called him an idiot the other day. He certainly said that his report was idiotic. Why? The man was perfectly acceptable to the establishment until he went on his tour and reported:
      "I found on my study tour that new better designed research was under way, which I reported to the health department on my return and which I, along with other believers in fluoridation, hoped would finally prove the superiority of fluoridation over other methods of prevention. But the results of this research, though often presented in guarded and ambiguous ways, have not supported the case for fluoridation at all. They show that dental decay rates have dropped dramatically in most developed countries whether they practise fluoridation or not, and in fluoridated countries it dropped in unfluoridated places as well.
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      Also, in the European countries which discontinued fluoridation some years ago, there are no reports of an increase in dental decay as a result."
      One of the greatest pieces of nonsense that I have heard today was my right hon. and learned Friend trying to argue that fluoridation was spreading throughout the world. Perhaps he will be good enough to tell us the names of some of the countries, with about 50 people in them, which are fluoridating water. No European country except Eire and the United Kingdom fluoridates water. It is interesting that West Germany, Holland and Sweden have stopped fluoridating.
      I do not want to take up the time of the House reminding hon. Members of what I said in our previous debate some time last week — it seems a million years ago. Why have countries of any size stopped fluoridating? The bureaucrats in the DHSS say it is because those countries are worried about freedom and political pressures. When asked whether it is anything to do with safety they say, "No, no, no, no, no." If there is any hint of safety playing a part in the decision, we are told that those countries have been advised by cranks, charlatans, knaves and—
      Mr. Fairbairn: Idiots.
      Mr. Lawrence: Precisely.
      Mr. Fairbairn: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I know that it is early in the morning, but is it in order for hon. Members of the feminine nature to use their chests as advertisement boards for the Trent and Mersey carnal society?
      Mr. Lawrence: I will not have any evil said of my Member of Parliament, the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie). Whether she finds my hon. and learned Friend attractive is a matter of taste. The only fault or flaw in her character and personality is her support for the mass medication of the public water supply.
      In response to the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme who complained that all that I was doing was sketching in and that I did not go into any detail, I shall repair the omission by giving more detail. I shall read more fully the important summary of John Colquhoun the chief dental adviser for Auckland, New Zealand, now discredited as a result of his lack of success at proving that fluoridation worldwide was a good thing. It says:
      "Evidence that there is now no dental benefit related to water fluoridation. The Health Department's own statistics show that water fluoridation is not related to any significant differences in child dental health. Statistics from Auckland Health District indicate

      (a) children's filling rates are related to the income levels of the suburbs where they live and not to fluoridation.

      (b) fluoridation merely accelerates temporarily a decline in dental decay which was occurring anyway.

      Statistics from the Greater Auckland region, that is three health districts containing over a quarter of New Zealand's population, show:

      (1) where any unfluoridated area is compared with a fluoridated area of similar income level, the percentage of children who are free of dental decay is consistently higher in the unfluoridated area.

      (2) As well as the above, decayed, missing and filled teeth scores show, when socio-economic differences are allowed, child dental health is better in the unfluoridated area.

      What my hon. and learned Friend was saying to the House is right. If anything, teeth are better in the unfluoridated areas than in the fluoridated areas, and probably for a good reason. If there is fluoride in the water, there is that less pressure on the parents to enforce a regime

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      of teeth brushing and teeth care on their children. The water will look after it, just as the state will look after the education of our children and the care of the old, and we do not have to bother about it.
      The trouble with not bothering about dental care is that if fluoride does not improve the teeth, and is harmful, as so many scientists in the world seem to think, then my right hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point has got the boot on the wrong foot. I am saving the health of the nation, and he is the one, by virtue of his support for fluoridation, who is helping to weaken it.
      This is only a summary of John Colquhoun's report. I resist the temptation to read the full text. It says:
      "4) The Health Department's collected statistics, as well as controlled surveys, show that the above is true for the rest of New Zealand also.
      5) Early fluoridation research in the 1940s and 1950s was very defective. New and better research, which I noted on my world study tour for the Department of Health in 1980; which has since been published, shows that in most developed countries, dental decay has declined whether fluoridation was practised or not. In the countries in Europe which discontinued fluoridation some years ago, there have been no reports of an increase in dental decay as a result."
      If fluoride in the water is so good for children's teeth, why has there been no increase in dental decay in any of the countries in which fluoride was added to the water but has now ceased to be added? One is driven to the conclusion that the whole campaign is bogus, that fluoride does not improve children's teeth and that, if one removes it, children's teeth do not deteriorate.
      "New Zealand has an excellent dental service, and all children can receive regular surface applications of fluoride to their teeth. There is a continuing scientific debate about fluoridation with many scientists strongly disputing that fluoridation is perfectly safe and effective, as the health department claims."
      9 am
      Here is the chief dental officer, pro-fluoridation, being sent, at the state's expense no doubt, to bring back world evidence of the benefits of fluoridation, who says that many scientists strongly dispute that fluoridation is perfectly safe and effective, as the New Zealand authorities claim.
      "If fluoridation in the food chain is a benefit in unfluoridated areas, as the health department claims, it must be above optimal in fluoridated areas."
      That point has been laboured at some length in the course of my remarks.
      "Evidence of chronic fluoride intoxication related to water fluoridation: First, Auckland school dental nurses and I observed and reported high levels of dental fluorosis—chronic fluoride intoxication—among children in the fluoridated areas, some of it disfiguring, but not in unfluoridated areas. Read carefully, the health department report, which claimed to discredit these findings, supports them. From around the world, there are reports of an increase in dental fluorosis. International scientific literature supports our claim that what the health department calls diffuse white opacities is dental fluorosis; so do the results of the recent survey initiated by the health department. Recent scientific evidence has increased the credibility of earlier claims of harm from low fluoride intakes."
      I shall not burden the House further with the remainder of the summary of the report. There are two possibilities only. One is that this man is a nut, a lunatic, a crank and an idiot. The other is that he is a perfectly sane, balanced, reasonable, observing dental officer. If he is the former, it is strange that for a considerable number of years he should have been employed by the Auckland health department and his lunacy, his absurdity, his crankiness and his idiocy should have gone undetected until the moment when he went roaming the world to try to uncover such evidence as he wanted to find—that was his brief,
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      and that is what he believed in—that fluoridation was safe. That seems to be a somewhat far-fetched consideration—at any rate, it is uncanny.
      The earliest moment at which he was detected as being insane — the kind of person who wanted to hurt and harm the poor young people in the various countries of the world who would benefit from painless teeth if only there was fluoride in the water— the very first moment at which this blinding light of revelation descended upon the authorities was the moment at which he came back with the report which stated that fluoride was unsafe, unnecessary, unpleasant and should be stopped.
      I wish to deal next with the extent of the Burk and Yiamouyiannis report which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes. It was ascertained beyond any peradeventure that the report had been weighted for age, race and sex, and findings were made by three courts of law. In fact, I think that two of the court decisions came after recognition of age, race and sex, but the timing does not matter now. Three courts of law in America have accepted the Burk-Yiamouyiannis findings. Conclusions were reached about Birmingham.
      If anything motivated me to this campaign in general, and to this speech in particular, it was the deception about Birmingham. I say that in the presence of my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South in whose constituency I have the pleasure to live. She has been taken in. It is sad that those who are taken in never stay to listen to the reasoned arguments. I understand. It takes time and I apologise, but the case cannot be presented in a short time.
      Mr. Marlow: Will my hon. and learned Friend give way?
      Mr. Lawrence: I should be grateful if my hon. Friend did not seek to intervene. He has done sterling service throughout the night—which is more than I can say for my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South, who has been getting her beauty sleep.
      Mr. McGuire: The hon. and learned Gentleman has referred to a matter of vital importance. He had an abundance of evidence in Committee and he hardly touched some of it. Will he not skip the detail, but educate those whom he accuses of not staying to hear the argument? If he discussed the matter in depth, I am sure that he would convert fluoridaters to our view.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Makerfield for his confidence in me. I have modest views about my powers in this matter and I do not wish to labour my views at length. I hope those who have stayed with me through the night will understand that my main motivating force is to put the anti-fluoridation case clearly on the record for everyone to see and to stop us rushing headlong into the mass medication of our population.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Will my hon. and learned Friend give way?
      Mr. Lawrence: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) has been of sterling value throughout the night. I pay a tribute. Not only is my hon. and learned Friend a man of distinction and authority in politics and the law, but he is extremely knowledgeable about medicine—and, I believe, trained. He has been of great value to hon. Members on all sides of the argument. His interventions have been mostly—although not always—constructive. They have always

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      been amusing and frequently they have added to our fund of knowledge about the details with which mere politicians and lawyers cannot come to grips.
      Yiamouyiannis and Burk examined Birmingham and what did they see?
      Mr. Marlow: The Bull ring.
      Mr. Lawrence: This is not a matter for humour because they discovered something very sad. The reaction of the authorities to what they found was even more sad.
      In fluoridated Birmingham they noticed that there was an 8·.2-fold increase in the cancer death rate against a 1·5-fold increase in non-fluoridated Manchester's cancer death rate. That was the case although, before fluoridation was begun in Birmingham, Manchester's cancer death rate was the higher of the two cities.
      Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It may be that Labour Members need their breakfast but is it necessary for them to pass it around among themselves? Were they to do so, would it not be in order for them to offer you some and perhaps Conservative Members as well?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have no doubt that hon. Members have taken in what has been said. I had not noticed anything untoward.
      Mr. Golding: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There has been constant reference in the proceedings to the fact that the Minister takes cough drops. We, too, need our cough drops.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for that assistance.
      Let me repeat the figures again, because they are important. There was an 8·2-fold increase in cancer deaths in Birmingham — [Interruption.] — as against only a 1·5-fold increase — [Interruption.] — in non-fluoridated Manchester's cancer death rate, although before the fluoridation was begun in Birmingham, Manchester's death rate—[Interruption.]
      Mr. Fairbairn: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I cannot hear what my hon. and learned Friend is saying. Not only is the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) using her chest to advertise, she is also rabbitting on in such a way as to prevent me hearing.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I could hear the hon. and learned Member quite clearly.
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I could not hear my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) and my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) is rabbitting on. It is difficult to hear from my position.
      Mr. Lawrence: I do not want to repeat—
      Mr. Kenneth Clarke: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There may be those in the Chamber who would rather hear my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) than my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence).
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. That may be because some people prefer to listen to rubbish rather than sense.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think that the House would be well advised to get back to the amendment.
      Mr. Marlow: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) obviously has something to say, because she has been saying it at great length behind my left ear for the past 20 minutes or so, would it be in order for my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) to give way so that she can give the House the benefit of her comments?
      Mr. Lawrence: If my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) will allow me to do so by remaining quiet for a moment, I can relay what she is saying. While I was describing to the House that, according to the Burk and Yiamouyiannis study, there had been an 8·2-fold increase in Birmingham at the same time as there had been a 1·5-fold—[Interruption.]—increase over the same period in Manchester, although the cancer death rate had been higher there before fluoridation begin, my hon. Friend was saying that that was nothing—[Interruption.]—to do with fluoride but was to do with a polluted atmosphere—
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) is still rabbitting on. It is very difficult to hear. Will you ask her to shut up and listen? She might then learn something.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: It is for the Chair to decide when another hon. Member is out of order.
      Mr. Lawrence: My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South says that that is nothing to do with fluoride, that it is to do with pollution of the atmosphere, and cigarettes. She will correct me if I am wrong.
      Mrs. Currie: And half a dozen other things as well.
      Mr. Lawrence: If my hon. Friend catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to hear what those are. Meanwhile, all that I can do is analyse the three explanations that she has given. If she had taken the time to listen to what I have just said, she would have noticed that Manchester had the higher of the cancer death rates before Birmingham was fluoridated.
      Mrs. Currie: Perhaps they all moved to Birmingham.
      Mr. Lawrence: Now we have the addition, "Perhaps they all moved to Birmingham." This is important.
      9.15 am
      Mr. Michael Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am trying to listen to a speech. I seem to be listening to a conversation between my hon. and learned Friend who has the Floor, and the hon. Lady, who does not have the Floor. I am trying to listen to a speech, and I do not want to listen to a conversation.
      Mr. Lawrence: I think that this interchange between my hon. Friend and me is very useful. It shows how pro-fluoridationists think, or do not think, and it shows how they behave to anti-fluoridationists who are trying to put a case with evidence.
      My hon. Friend's first response was that the reason was pollution. Her second response was that it was cigarette smoking. Her third response, when I said that before fluoridation Manchester had the higher cancer death rate

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      of Birmingham and Manchester, was that they must have all moved to Birmingham. There is a lesson in that. First, my hon. Friend does not want to hear what the facts are. Secondly, when the facts are explained to her, she simply turns a deaf ear and does not listen. She is a very bright lady. What did not allow to sink in is the fact that Manchester had a higher cancer death rate before Birmingham was fluoridated, which shows that, whatever it was that gave Manchester a higher cancer death rate before, it may have been pollution or it may have been cigarette smoking, but those elements were equally present in Manchester and Birmingham before Birmingham was fluoridated.
      The increase in Birmingham is substantial—8·2-fold, and even if the figure is 100 per cent. wrong, it is still many times the increase in cancer death that there was in Manchester. My hon. Friend has some explaining to do—how in the face of such figures, she can both not listen to the figures being explained—
      Mrs. Currie: But I am.
      Mr. Lawrence: —or if she listens, not bother to take them in, or if she does bother to take them in, try to laugh them away by saying that the people in Manchester all moved to Birmingham—[Interruption.]—and took with them their cancer death rate, and that that is the reason why the rate has risen.[Interruption] I think that the House will draw its own conclusion because the essence of the debate—
      Mr. Fairbairn: It is a very difficult matter for those of us who are trying to listen to my hon. and learned Friend. The hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) appears to be totally incapable of shutting her mouth. I do not mind whether that is a capability that she does or does not have, but it is very disturbing to the debate when she constantly attempts to correct my hon. and learned Friend during his speech.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: If the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) really wants to intervene, she should stand and catch my eye.
      Mr. Lawrence: My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) does not want to intervene—
      Mr. Marlow: Then she should shut up.
      Mr. Lawrence: One can assume only that my hon. Friend has nothing constructive to say about the matter. It is self-evident to any objective person in the House, is it not, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that if there are two cities, both heavily urbanised, both heavily populated, in the midlands area of England, both of which had a roughly comparable—but Manchester had the greater—cancer death rate before fluoridation, and then there is fluoridation, and the cancer death rate in Birmingham goes up alarmingly while Manchester's barely rises at all—
      Mrs. Currie: It has nothing to do with it.
      Mr. Lawrence: —it may conceivably be that the explanation is the same as the explanation in the 20 largest cities in the United States of America—
      Mrs. Currie: And it may not.
      Mr. Lawrence: —and the same as the explanation would be seen to be, if my hon. Friend had been here, as we discussed the countless research inquiries that have
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      brought out the results that fluoride is detrimental to health and may cause cancer. It may even be possible that cancer has been caused by the fluoridation of Birmingham.
      The objections that have been thrown al the Yiamouyiannis and Burk analysis have got nothing to do with more pollution in Birmingham, or with more cigarette smoking in Birmingham, or with those in Manchester who are prone to cancer coming to Birmingham. The attack on Yiamouyiannis and Burk is, as it always has been and always will be, that they have not weighted the figures for age, race and sex.
      Mrs. Currie: That makes no difference.
      Mr. Lawrence: It will be shown that they—
      Mrs. Currie: Absolute nonsense.
      Mr. Lawrence: —are opposed by mindless, ceaseless chattering—
      Mrs. Currie: My hon. and learned Friend must watch whom he calls mindless.
      Mr. Lawrence: —of people who are deaf to the arguments—
      Mrs. Currie: Nonsense.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Lady must stop providing a running commentary on the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman. If she wants to address the House, she must stand up and catch my eye.
      Mr. Lawrence: That is how it will always be. One simply cannot penetrate to those who will not hear.
      In response to the criticism of the non-weighting by age, race and sex Yiamouyiannis and Burk have been through all the figures again. I have charts and pages of detail which, if I wished to prolong the debate, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I would read out so that they were on the record. Instead I shall read out only two conclusions. The first relates to the conclusion which Dr. Burk has reached with regard to Birmingham:
      "Upon fluoridation of the Birmingham public water supply in October 1964 its population of approximately 1 million showed one of the most abrupt documentable increases in the observed cancer death rate of any large city in the world, far greater than reported for any non-fluoridated English city such as Liverpool. Leeds, Bristol, Manchester, Coventry, Bradford, Sheffield, Greater London, et cetera, or any of 20 previously studied large American cities, whether fluoridated or not."
      In a summary of responses to the criticisms in the Knox report of 10 February 1985, Yiamouyiannis and Burk said:
      "You can have it either way. You can have it weighted for age, race and sex, with standardised mortality ratios, or you can have it not weighted for age, race and sex, or you can have it not weighted for age, race and sex without standardised mortality ratios. However you want to arrange it, you come back in the end to a very substantial increase in cancer deaths in Birmingham following fluoridation which is not observed in Manchester or any non-fluoridated city in the country."
      I want to read the details, with or without standardizing adjustments for the factors of age, sex and race:
      "There is a large increase in the cancer death rate trends in the ten largest fluoridated American central cities compared to an equivalent matched ten cities that were not fluoridated. The increase amounted to 31·5 excess cancer deaths per 100,000 population over the period of 1950 to 1970 in the unadjusted data, and after standardisating adjustment by conventional methods the adjusted excess still amounted to the large value of 21·8 cancer deaths per 100,000 population over the period of 1950 to 1970. In short, standardising adjustments for age, sex and race reduced the observed cancer death rate trend by only 30·8, not 100 per cent., leaving 69·2 per cent. thereof ascribable to artificial fluoridation, clearly harmful to human health in terms of increased cancer mortality alone."

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      That is what they said only last month about the American figures.
      Those who made that report have been upheld in their veracity, in their integrity and in the depth of their scientific research by three courts of law in the United States of America which found their case to be sufficiently proved. It is a matter of very great regret that, faced with figures of that kind, all that the pro-fluoridation lobby, as represented by my hon. and very dear Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South can do is to mutter, not to listen, to pour scorn and, when invited to give a response, to fail to do so. That, I am afraid, sums up, does it not, the whole picture of this fluoridation debate?
      To begin with, the pro-fluoridation lobby says that no one in their right mind can be against fluoridation. It then says that in so far as there is anyone against fluoridation they are lunatics, nuts, cranks and — [HON MEMBERS: "Idiots."]—In so far as the product of their research is laboratory tested, showing that tumours are caused by ingestion of fluoride into animal and human cells; in so far as there is epidemiological evidence, if we take whole cities and study them, that there is harm; in so far as there is medical or scientific evidence that, for example, fluoride locks up calcium and thereby causes heart and bone afflictions; in so far as there is evidence that fluoride is massively cumulative in the system and does not pass out at anything like the extent necessary for safety; in so far as it accumulates in the ligaments, bones and muscles, causing some of the worst ageing illnesses in our society; in so far as it inhibits the enzymes, in particular, the repair enzymes, there is an explanation as to how it happens. In so far as there is now evidence about hydrogen bonding which works in live yeast cells, that is positive evidence that fluoride is dangerous, as it has never been known to be before in live cells. All that evidence is rubbish. It is all adduced by charlatans, knaves, idiots, cranks—[HON MEMBERS: "Idiots."] I have said idiots.
      It does not matter how many Nobel prize winners, professors, lecturers, mathematicians, statisticians and dentists affirm the evil of fluoridation—it is safe. There is no doubt about that, and we cannot understand how every country in Europe except Eire and the United Kingdom has stopped fluoridating or has never fluoridated.
      I have been scrupulously careful to confine my remarks during the few minutes that I have been addressing the House to safety and benefit. The larger audience that has gathered here after breakfast came in no doubt expecting to see a man on his knees dripping with perspiration, hardly able to open his mouth, still less dressed ready for battle in the courts. It will be bitterly disappointed because at last we have managed to get on the record a fair amount — not all by any means — of the somewhat limited exposition of the case — I apologise for limiting it—against the ridiculous assertions of complete safety and benefit, which are not made out in the scientific evidence.
      I have not talked about freedom, dealt with in the other amendments in this group, the safety of people who handle equipment—
      Mr. Michael Colvin rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: I shall give way to my hon. Friend because he shares a room with me.
      Mr. Colvin: The fact that I share a room with my hon. and learned Friend establishes a special bond between us. He has referred to the case that he must defend this morning. I offer this advice to him in the best and most helpful way. I warn him that the traffic is bad. He is appearing at the Old Bailey in about half an hour all dressed up in his gear. If he is deciding to embark upon a new argument, it might best be kept until next time.
      9.30 am
      Mr. Lawrence: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his commiserations. I was hoping that my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South would give me a close shave before I left the building and set foot in public. That matter would have been negotiated. I think that my hon. Friend is a little angry with me — that can only be because she has not listened to any of my arguments. If she had done so, she would have been pleased with me because she would at last have been drawn from her one-sided preoccupation with and unjustified support for evidence not borne out by the facts.
      Mr. Fairbairn rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: I give way to my hon. and learned Friend. I take the opportunity to compliment and thank him for his stalwart performance during the debate.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I would not be competent to take my hon. and learned Friend's place at the Old Bailey, because, of all the people from member states of the Common Market, the only person who cannot be called to appear in English courts is a Scotsman.
      I want to advise my hon. and learned Friend, because he is clearly upset by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie). My hon. Friend has offered to stuff me full of water when I am spreadeagled on the Floor of the House. I should have thought that if my hon. Friend lay down, rather than sat down, she might even do that for him.
      Mr. Lawrence: I knew that I could count on my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross to raise the level of my peroration, which otherwise would have been indescribably dull. I was referring to freedom, and freedom is dull. The freedom of the individual to choose for himself whether this poison will be thrust down his throat—whether or not he needs it or wants it or whether it is good or bad for him — is the type of freedom in respect of which the House has already sold the pass. I hope that we shall consider the harm done by fluoride to the infrastructure. This debate is occurring within days of the time when my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has to consider whether to spend our money on tax cuts or the infrastructure. The harm done to pipes not only in people's houses but in water production plants and the streets where the pipes are old and much corrosion occurs should be considered before my right hon. Friend the Chancellor delivers his speech on 19 March.
      My hon. Friends who have been with me stalwartly during the night and those who have been and gone, been and gone and come back again will not credit the fact that I have touched on only a small part of the case against mass medication.
      Mr. Golding: May I say first in the presence of the right hon. Member for Castle Point (Sir. B. Braine) that I was present to hear his carefully constructed and well-delivered intervention.
      It has been a pleasure to listen to the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence). He has made a considerable achievement after a night spent up attending the debate. My grumble is that the hon. and learned Gentleman has not yet dealt with the amendments. Amendment No. 98 states:
      "insert 'a compound of fluorine which has been tested and found to be safe to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State'."
      We have never seen the Secretary of State during this debate. Let us assume that the Secretary of State gives the job to the Minister of State. How can the hon. and learned Member for Burton advocate that the matter of safety should be given to the Secretary of State or the Minister of State when the hon. and learned Gentleman has spent four hours proving to us that Ministers would not know safety if they fell over it?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) has made his point. He should let the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) continue his peroration.
      Mr. Lawrence: I am full of sadness that in the few minutes in which I have taken the time of the House to deploy a small fraction of the case against fluoride I have dealt with only one of the five amendments to which I was asked to speak. Perhaps I can now move on to—
      Mr. Colvin: The Old Bailey.
      Mr. Lawrence: —the Old Bailey.
      Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I am afraid I never had the pleasure—
      Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sorry to raise a point of order at this stage, but, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) said, he spoke to one amendment. The amendment to which he has been speaking deals with the testing of chemicals which would be put in the water supply—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think I have the hon. Gentleman's point. The hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) moved the amendment. It was for him to make his speech. I have now called the Minister.
      Mr. Marlow: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. No speeches have been made about the other amendments. How is it possible for my right hon. and learned Friend to answer the debate, otherwise the debate has not taken place yet?
      Mr. Clarke: As I was about to say, I never had the pleasure of being able to congratulate my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) on his maiden speech. I now have the pleasure of being able to congratulate him on the first speech he has made of the present length. I hope he will understand if I do not follow the convention with maiden speeches. Although I have sat through his entire speech with pleasure, I hope I am not present when he makes his next speech. Obviously it would not be right for me to inquire into his professional affairs, but I trust a long, hard-fought trial lies ahead of him and not a quick plea of guilty, otherwise I am afraid it is possible that this debate will still be going when he gets back.
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      I join in the praise to the two masters of the art who have been intervening late in the debate, having helped my hon. and learned Friend throughout. Certainly it was a long speech. I am sure that at least one Opposition Member did not have a beard when the speech started. The speech was exceedingly cogent and well argued. My right hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine) came in as he saw his record, established in defence of his constituents some years ago, for the longest speech in the House since, I think, the 1820s, go sailing by.
      I regret that my hon. and learned Friend's skills were used as part of an attack upon a Bill which is a valuable preventive health measure which offers great benefits for dental health. I shall address myself to my hon. and learned Friend's arguments. Again I am genuinely sorry that my hon. and learned Friend devoted most of his argument to a repetition of that part of the scientific and medical evidence, as he described it, upon which he so particularly relies. I shall try to avoid repeating the attempts I made before to draw his attention to the vast quantity of scientific and medical evidence that has been produced by more distinguished people than those he cited, many of them in later studies, and many of them financed by the Government who were genuinely seeking to answer the fears stirred by the studies to which he referred.
      If my hon. and learned Friend will forgive me, I should like to illustrate the kind of errors which I think he made He referred extensively to Burk and Yiamouyiannis, well known experts in this subject to that hard coterie of people who stick through the night talking about fluoride in water, which is not a hobby that I expected to take up until recently. Burk and Yiamouyiannis are very familiar names to the aficionados of the subject. They were, I am afraid, heavily rejected by Lord Jauncey in the recent Scottish case after he had heard all the evidence against them.
      We commissioned and published a study for the purpose of the Bill, chaired by Professor Alderson in the first place and then by Professor Knox. We brought together all the leading epidemiologists in the country to study the evidence on the fluoridation of water and cancer. A substantial part of the report is devoted to a detailed refutation of Yiamouyiannis and Burk. My hon. and learned Friend, like all the other opponents of the Bill, has never referred to a solitary word of that detailed refutation.
      My hon. and learned Friend said that, unlike our judges, three judges in the United States upheld Burk and Yiamouyiannis. I hesitate to say this as he is about to go to the Old Bailey to pursue his distinguished forensic career, but his use of the American authorities was a little lax. I hope that he will be more careful in his citing of precedent when he appears in court this morning. There have been 15 court cases on fluoridation in the United States during the past five years. In 12 of those, fluoridation has been upheld on various grounds. Two appeals are pending, and in a further case in Allegheney, Pennsylvania, an unfavourable first judgment was reversed by a higher court on jurisdictional grounds.
      No court of last resort has ever ruled against fluoridation, in the United States, and fluoridation has never been halted in the United States as a result of court judgments. The matter has been taken to the United States Supreme Court at least eight times, and those who agree with my hon. and learned Friend have lost on every occasion. I hope that he will understand why I say that he was a little selective in his evidence when he found three

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      judges—no doubt elected judges in some hick state in the mid-west—who found against fluoridation, and cited them as an authority for rejecting the mass of medical and scientific evidence in this country.
      Mr. Lawrence: My right hon. and learned Friend has done less than justice to the point. As a lawyer, he should know that the grounds for appeal were on jurisdiction and the burden of proof; they were nothing to do with the facts. In those three cases, the judges found in favour of the facts on the basis of the evidence and the witnesses who were called on behalf of those who oppose fluoridation. Those cases were presented not simply because they were successful, which shows that there is an analytical doubt, but because the same witnesses gave evidence in those cases as gave evidence before Lord Jauncey.
      There is a fair basis for comparison, but even were it not so, is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that when three courts of law hear the same witnesses and they come out in favour of the facts which those witnesses state, there must be a doubt about those who say that those witnesses are charlatans, cranks, crazy and idiots, and therefore cannot be relied upon? All that we say is that there is a doubt. Will my right hon. and learned Friend accept that, in view of the weight of evidence that has been deployed this morning and earlier, there is an overwhelming case for doubt?
      Mr. Clarke: Fluoridation has never been halted by a court in the United States. Burk and Yiamouyiannis have been reviewed repeatedly there, we reviewed their evidence in the Knox report, and they have been reviewed in the British courts. My hon. and learned Friend knows where to find detailed arguments refuting the methodology used by Burk and Yiamouyiannis, which is not acceptable.
      I shall not go into the arguments about the Japanese studies to which my hon. and learned Friend referred. I attempted to deal with those on Second Reading at column 80 of Hansard, when my hon. and learned Friend made precisely the same points. He knows that our advisory committee on mutagenicity is considering the Japanese studies as well as everything else.
      My hon. and learned Friend and some of my hon. Friends went into the arguments about the substantial difference between fluoride occurring naturally and fluoride in tap water, trying to attack our argument that all we are doing is increasing the level of fluoride in some areas, or enabling authorities to do so, to bring it to the level that prevails naturally in other areas. He argued that calcium effectively neutralises fluoride. There is no evidence to support that. No epidemiological study shows a difference in effects between areas which have fluoride naturally in their water and those where it is included artificially. High fluoride levels occur naturally both where the water is hard and where it is soft, which means that it has low calcium and magnesium levels. There is no objective evidence to support the assertion about fluoride and calcium.
      9.45 am
      A study in Quebec was cited with particular care by my hon. and learned Friend, but I regret to say that I have not been able to find the details of that. I can find only four other Canadian studies, all of which came to the flat opposite conclusion to that which he cited. The Quebec
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      study does not appear to carry much weight in Quebec. There was a stage in 1977 when a moratorium was declared on a measure that had been passed by the Quebec Parliament which had made fluoridation mandatory.
      My hon. and learned Friend was right to say that that moratorium against mandatory fluoridation has prevailed ever since. However, municipalities there remain free to put fluoride in the water in Quebec. About 750,000 people in Quebec receive fluoride, and it has even been subsidised by the provincial Government. I suggest, therefore, that my hon. and learned Friend puts too much weight on that Quebec study.
      The most amazing things were said about a link between fluoride and cot deaths. It was claimed that nobody had ever investigated the matter. The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council carried out a study in 1979. It examined death rates in respect of cot deaths and found no association with fluoridation. Indeed, the city of Sydney has had fluoridated water since 1968 and has the lowest cot death rate in the whole of Australia.
      The question of allergic reaction to fluoridation was raised at enormous length by my hon. and learned Friend. The American Association for the Study of Allergy stated in 1971:
      "There is no evidence of allergy or intolerance to fluoride as used in the fluoridation of community water supplies."
      In this country, Professor Lessoff said in 1982 that that was also the unanimous view of the British Society for Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
      The question of fluoridation in relation to bottle-fed babies was raised. I shall not bore the House with all the details about that. There is no substantial or significant increase in the fluoride levels ingested by babies who are breast fed in areas where fluoride is added to the water. Infant mortality in fluoridated areas and in areas with high natural levels of fluoride is not higher than in low fluoride areas.
      In Committee, my hon. and learned Friend referred to fluoride in relation to women on the pill. Indeed, that was the only argument that he did not repeat again in the course of his four-hour speech. In Committee he quoted an authority, which was a paper published in 1966 by Dr. Wynn and Dr. Doar. So anxious are we to follow up every word uttered by my hon. and learned Friend that we traced Dr. Wynn, who is now Professor of Human Metabolism at St. Mary's hospital, London. He was asked whether his present opinion was that the fluoridation of water could harm women on the pill. His reply—which I hope I am permitted to quote—was, "Absolute bloody nonsense." That is the present view of that authority whom my hon. and learned Friend cited in that important matter.
      My opponents chanted a word that I recall using; occasionally I spoke of people trying to raise further idiotic studies over obscure effects on plants, fish, animals and people in various parts of the world. That led to my opponents in the last few hours chanting that all such people were cranks, charlatans, idiots and so on.
      I have tried to compress my answers to my hon. and learned Friend. He will, no doubt, consider them dismissive. I appreciate that he spoke with considerable passion and skill on a matter about which he feels strongly. I hope that I have explained why he is wrong to keep asserting that we will not listen, that we dismiss all the scientists whom he cites, that we do not answer his arguments and that we place trust in the — by now

      1009
      almost certainly bloodless—bureaucrats in the Box who have been sitting all night listening to the debate, or in people outside.
      Every assertion—some of them sensible, some of them cranky and idiotic, some put forward by charlatans — has been carefully examined in the light of British medical evidence and answered by the Government. It is not necessary, therefore, to accept any of the amendments in the group that the House is discussing. I accept that my hon. and learned Friend was not able to get round to all of them and to do justice to them all in his speech.
      Amendment No. 98 tries to remove from parliamentary scrutiny the choice of which fluorines we put in the water. I should have thought that my hon. and learned Friend would have preferred to keep to the two specified in the Bill and not to give my right hon. Friend unfettered discretion to add more, which his amendment would do.
      There is no point in reducing fluoridation from 1 mg per litre to ¼ mg per litre as amendment No. 52 suggests. There are no dangers that it is necessary to guard against and a reduction to that level would have no effect on dental caries.
      Amendment No. 29 is a similar attempt to reduce the level of fluoride and my rejection of it relies on the same argument. The arnendment is in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow).
      Amendment No. 11 seeks to say that tests must be carried out with any new fluorine compound to ensure that it has no adverse effects on anyone before the Secretary of State can lay an order before the House under clause 2 to add the new compound to those already authorised. There are 50 separate inorganic chemicals and numerous products based on nine groups of organic chemicals that may be used in the treatment of water for human consumption. I dread to think of the parliamentary time that would be taken if any of my hon. Friends found a great issue of principle on any of the 50 inorganic chemicals and demanded that they should be removed from the list. All the chemicals and products are approved by the appropriate committee in the Department of the Environment and I think that there is no need for amendment No. 11.
      I am sorry that I lack the ability to give the full weight to my arguments that my hon. and learned Friend did to his. I am not able to sustain over such a long time the case against his arguments. However, I believe that if he turned away from his campaigning literature, on which he draws so extensively, and studied the vast bulk of medical and other literature with which we have tried to provide him, he might at least find that there are two sides to the argument. I hope that the House will agree that our side of the argument is the one that should prevail.
      Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      Mr. Cope rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
      Question put, That the Question be now put:—
      The House proceeded to a Division—
      Sir Geoffrey Finsberg(seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was sitting at the end of the Bench below the Gangway and I distinctly saw my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) rise on a point of
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      order and heard him get out the words "point of order" before my hon. Friend the Deputy Chief Whip moved the motion on the Question. On a previous occasion Hansard records the fact that a point of order was raised and that only after that was the Question put. I put it to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North clearly raised a point of order before my hon. Friend the Deputy Chief Whip moved the motion.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I had a similar point of order to deal with at the beginning of the debate. I do not know whether the hon. Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg) was present on that occasion. The answer is that the closure always takes precedence.
      Mr. Marlow(seated and covered): Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Had both interventions been coincident, no one would seek to ask for an interpretation or a further expression of judgment. However, it was recorded in the Official Report, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg) has said, that I raised the point of order before my hon. Friend the Deputy Chief Whip got to his feet. I have not been in the House for very long—some five years—but it is my understanding that it has always been the habit in the past that when a point of order has been raised the Chair has taken it before proceeding with the Question.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The Question is, That the Question be now put.
      The House having divided: Ayes 162, Noes 83.

      Division No. 144]

      [9.52 am

      AYES

      Alexander, Richard

      Fletcher, Alexander

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Ancram, Michael

      Fox, Marcus

      Arnold, Tom

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

      Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

      Batiste, Spencer

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Gow, Ian

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

      Gower, Sir Raymond

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Greenway, Harry

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Gummer, John Selwyn

      Bottomley, Peter

      Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

      Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

      Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

      Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

      Harris, David

      Bright, Graham

      Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)

      Browne, John

      Hayes, J.

      Bryan, Sir Paul

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

      Henderson, Barry

      Burt, Alistair

      Hordern, Peter

      Butler, Hon Adam

      Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Chalker, Mrs Lynda

      Jackson, Robert

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

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

      Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

      Jessel, Toby

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

      Cockeram, Eric

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Colvin, Michael

      Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

      Coombs, Simon

      Kershaw, Sir Anthony

      Cope, John

      King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

      Couchman, James

      King, Rt Hon Tom

      Cranborne, Viscount

      Knowles, Michael

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Knox, David

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

      Lamont, Norman

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Lang, Ian

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      du Cann, Rt Hon Sir Edward

      Lilley, Peter

      Dunn, Robert

      Lord, Michael

      Durant, Tony

      Lyell, Nicholas

      Eyre, Sir Reginald

      McCrindle, Robert

      Favell, Anthony

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      MacGregor, John

      1011

      MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

      Shersby, Michael

      MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Major, John

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Marland, Paul

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Mates, Michael

      Squire, Robin

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Stanley, John

      Mayhew, Sir Patrick

      Stern, Michael

      Meadowcroft, Michael

      Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

      Mellor, David

      Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

      Miller, Hal (B'grove)

      Stewart, Ian (N Hertf'dshire)

      Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      Mitchell, David (NW Hants)

      Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

      Moore, John

      Thome, Neil (Ilford S)

      Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Moynihan, Hon C.

      Thurnham, Peter

      Needham, Richard

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Nelson, Anthony

      Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

      Neubert, Michael

      Tracey, Richard

      Newton, Tony

      Trippier, David

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Viggers, Peter

      Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

      Waddington, David

      Page, Richard (Herts SW)

      Wakeham, Rt Hon John

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

      Walden, George

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

      Penhaligon, David

      Wall, Sir Patrick

      Pollock, Alexander

      Waller, Gary

      Porter, Barry

      Walters, Dennis

      Powley, John

      Ward, John

      Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

      Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

      Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

      Watson, John

      Renton, Tim

      Watts, John

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)

      Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

      Whitney, Raymond

      Rifkind, Malcolm

      Wolfson, Mark

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Wood, Timothy

      Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

      Yeo, Tim

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Ryder, Richard

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Scott, Nicholas

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

      Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd and

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Mr. Peter Lloyd.

      NOES

      Ashdown, Paddy

      Garrett, W. E.

      Ashton, Joe

      George, Bruce

      Beith, A. J.

      Grist, Ian

      Bellingham, Henry

      Hamilton, James (M'well N)

      Best, Keith

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Biggs-Davison, Sir John

      Hardy, Peter

      Blackburn, John

      Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

      Blair, Anthony

      Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

      Boyes, Roland

      Haynes, Frank

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      Hayward, Robert

      Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

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

      Bruinvels, Peter

      Hughes, Simon (Southward)

      Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

      Hunter, Andrew

      Canavan, Dennis

      Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

      Cash, William

      Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

      Chope, Christopher

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Clarke, Thomas

      Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Lamond, James

      Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Loyden, Edward

      Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

      McGuire, Michael

      Crouch, David

      McKay, Allen (Penistone)

      Dalyell, Tarn

      Maclean, David John

      Dixon, Donald

      McTaggart, Robert

      Dobson, Frank

      Marlow, Antony

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Maxton, John

      Eastham, Ken

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

      Norris, Steven

      Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

      Ottaway, Richard

      Fisher, Mark

      Radice, Giles

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Richardson, Ms Jo

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

      Forth, Eric

      Skinner, Dennis

      Gardiner, George (Reigate)

      Speller, Tony

      1012

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Wilson, Gordon

      Steel, Rt Hon David

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      Straw, Jack

      Terlezki, Stefan

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Wainwright, R.

      Mr. Gwilym Jones and

      White, James

      Mr. John Golding.

      Wigley, Dafydd

      Question accordingly agreed to.
      Question put accordingly, That the amendment be made:—
      The House proceeded to a Division—
      Mr. Fairbairn(seated and covered): On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Will there be separate Votes on the amendments in this group, as they are matters of substance and are different?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I have looked at the amendments and I am prepared to allow a vote on either No. 52 or No. 29. Presumably it will be on amendment No. 29, which will have to be moved formally later.
      The House having divided: Ayes 72, Noes 169.

      Division No. 145]

      [10.03 pm

      AYES

      Alton, David

      Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

      Ashdown, Paddy

      Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

      Beith, A. J.

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Bellingham, Henry

      Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

      Biggs-Davison, Sir John

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Blackburn, John

      Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      Knowles, Michael

      Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Bruinvels, Peter

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

      Loyden, Edward

      Campbell-Savours, Dale

      McGuire, Michael

      Cash, William

      McKelvey, William

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Maclean, David John

      Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

      McTaggart, Robert

      Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

      Cormack, Patrick

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Crouch, David

      Norris, Steven

      Dixon, Donald

      Ottaway, Richard

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Penhaligon, David

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

      Rost, Peter

      Fallon, Michael

      Skinner, Dennis

      Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Stern, Michael

      Forth, Eric

      Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

      Gardiner, George (Reigate)

      Terlezki, Stefan

      Golding, John

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Greenway, Harry

      Walker, Bill (T'side N)

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

      Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)

      Grist, Ian

      Wigley, Dafydd

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Williams, Rt Hon A.

      Hardy, Peter

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      Haynes, Frank

      Hayward, Robert

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Mr. Keith Best and

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

      Mr. Tony Marlow

      NOES

      Alexander, Richard

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael

      Bottomley, Peter

      Ancram, Michael

      Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

      Arnold, Tom

      Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

      Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Barron, Kevin

      Bright, Graham

      Batiste, Spencer

      Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Browne, John

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Bryan, Sir Paul

      1013

      Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

      Meadowcroft, Michael

      Burt, Alistair

      Mellor, David

      Butler, Hon Adam

      Miller, Hal (B'grove)

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

      Chalker, Mrs Lynda

      Moore, John

      Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

      Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      Moynihan, Hon C.

      Clarke, Thomas

      Needham, Richard

      Cockeram, Eric

      Nelson, Anthony

      Colvin, Michael

      Newton, Tony

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

      Onslow, Cranley

      Coombs, Simon

      Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

      Cope, John

      Page, Richard (Herts SW)

      Couchman, James

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Cranborne, Viscount

      Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Dalyell, Tam

      Pollock, Alexander

      Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

      Porter, Barry

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

      Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down)

      Dobson, Frank

      Powley, John

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

      Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

      du Cann, Rt Hon Sir Edward

      Renton, Tim

      Dunn, Robert

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Durant, Tony

      Richardson, Ms Jo

      Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

      Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

      Eyre, Sir Reginald

      Rifkind, Malcolm

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Fletcher, Alexander

      Robertson, George

      Forrester, John

      Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

      Foulkes, George

      Ryder, Richard

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Sackville, Hon Thomas

      Fox, Marcus

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Freeman, Roger

      Scott, Nicholas

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

      Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

      Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Gow, Ian

      Shersby, Michael

      Gower, Sir Raymond

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Gummer, John Selwyn

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

      Soley, Clive

      Hamilton, James (M'well N)

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Harris, David

      Squire, Robin

      Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)

      Stanley, John

      Hayes, J.

      Steel, Rt Hon David

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

      Henderson, Barry

      Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Stewart, Ian (N Hertf'dshire)

      Home Robertson, John

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      Hordern, Peter

      Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

      Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Thome, Neil (Ilford S)

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Thurnham, Peter

      Jackson, Robert

      Tracey, Richard

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

      Trippier, David

      Jessel, Toby

      Viggers, Peter

      Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

      Waddington, David

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Wainwright, R.

      Kershaw, Sir Anthony

      Wakeham, Rt Hon John

      King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      King, Rt Hon Tom

      Walden, George

      Knox, David

      Wallace, James

      Lamont, Norman

      Walters, Dennis

      Lang, Ian

      Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Watson, John

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Watts, John

      Lilley, Peter

      Whitney, Raymond

      Lyell, Nicholas

      Wilson, Gordon

      McCrindle, Robert

      Wolfson, Mark

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Wood, Timothy

      MacGregor, John

      Yeo, Tim

      MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Major, John

      Marland, Paul

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Mr. Michael Neubert and

      Maxton, John

      Mr. Tony Lloyd.

      Mayhew, Sir Patrick

      Question accordingly negatived.
      10.15 am
      Amendment proposed: No. 29, in page 2, line 10, after 'one' insert 'half of a'.—[Mr. Lawrence.]
      Question put, That the amendment be made:—
      The House divided: Ayes 73, Noes 164.

      Division No. 146]

      [10.16 am

      AYES

      Alton, David

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Ashby, David

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

      Ashdown, Paddy

      Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

      Ashton, Joe

      Hunter, Andrew

      Beith, A. J.

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Bellingham, Henry

      Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

      Biggs-Davison, Sir John

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Blackburn, John

      Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      Lamond, James

      Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Bruinvels, Peter

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

      Loyden, Edward

      Campbell-Savours, Dale

      McGuire, Michael

      Cash, William

      McKelvey, William

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Maclean, David John

      Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

      McTaggart, Robert

      Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

      Marlow, Antony

      Crouch, David

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

      Dickens, Geoffrey

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Dixon, Donald

      Morris, M. (N'hampton, S)

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Norris, Steven

      Fairbaim, Nicholas

      Skinner, Dennis

      Farr, Sir John

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

      Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Steel, Rt Hon David

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Stern, Michael

      Forth, Eric

      Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

      Gardiner, George (Reigate)

      Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

      Golding, John

      Terlezki, Stefan

      Greenway, Harry

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

      Wigley, Dafydd

      Grist, Ian

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Hardy, Peter

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      Hargreaves, Kenneth

      Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

      Mr. Bill Walker and

      Haynes, Frank

      Mr. Keith Best.

      Hayward, Robert

      NOES

      Alexander, Richard

      Coombs, Simon

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael

      Cope, John

      Ancram, Michael

      Couchman, James

      Archer, Rt Hon Peter

      Cranborne, Viscount

      Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Barron, Kevin

      Dalyell, Tam

      Batiste, Spencer

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

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Dobson, Frank

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Bottomley, Peter

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

      Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

      Dunn, Robert

      Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

      Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Eggar, Tim

      Bright, Graham

      Eyre, Sir Reginald

      Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      Bryan, Sir Paul

      Fletcher, Alexander

      Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

      Forrester, John

      Burt, Alistair

      Foulkes, George

      Butler, Hon Adam

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Fox, Marcus

      Chalker, Mrs Lynda

      Freeman, Roger

      Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

      Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      George, Bruce

      Clarke, Thomas

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Cockeram, Eric

      Gow, Ian

      Colvin, Michael

      Gower, Sir Raymond

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Gummer, John Selwyn

      1015

      Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

      Renton, Tim

      Hamilton, James (M'well N)

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Harris, David

      Richardson, Ms Jo

      Hayes, J.

      Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Rifkind, Malcolm

      Henderson, Barry

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Robertson, George

      Home Robertson, John

      Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

      Hordern, Peter

      Ryder, Richard

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Sackville, Hon Thomas

      Jackson, Robert

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

      Scott, Nicholas

      Jessel, Toby

      Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

      Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

      Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Shersby, Michael

      Kershaw, Sir Anthony

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Knox, David

      Soley, Clive

      Lamont, Norman

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Squire, Robin

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Stanley, John

      Lilley, Peter

      Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

      Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

      Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

      Lyell, Nicholas

      Stewart, Ian (N Hertf'dshire)

      McCrindle, Robert

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Taylor, John (Solihull)

      MacGregor, John

      Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

      MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

      Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

      MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

      Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

      Mackenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

      Thurnham, Peter

      Major, John

      Tracey, Richard

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Trippier, David

      Maxton, John

      Viggers, Peter

      Mayhew, Sir Patrick

      Waddington, David

      Meadowcroft, Michael

      Wainwright, R.

      Mellor, David

      Wakeham, Rt Hon John

      Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      Moore, John

      Walden, George

      Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

      Wallace, James

      Moynihan, Hon C.

      Waller, Gary

      Needham, Richard

      Walters, Dennis

      Nelson, Anthony

      Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

      Neubert, Michael

      Watson, John

      Newton, Tony

      Watts, John

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Wheeler, John

      Onslow, Cranley

      Whitney, Raymond

      Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

      Wilson, Gordon

      Page, Richard (Herts SW)

      Wolfson, Mark

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Wood, Timothy

      Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

      Yeo, Tim

      Penhaligon, David

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Pollock, Alexander

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down)

      Powley, John

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

      Mr. Ian Lang and

      Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

      Mr. Tony Durant.

      Question accordingly negatived.
      Mr. Marlow: I beg to move,
      That a further consideration of the Bill be now adjourned.
      As you will be aware, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the debate has gone on long, hard and fast throughout the night. Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends have been involved in the debate and would wish to be involved in the next subject. However, it is late, and it has beem a long night. Many of my right hon. and hon. Friends are now past their best.
      Hon. Members: No.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must not argue the case.
      Mr. Marlow: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I did not hear what you said.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Member must not pursue an argument.
      Mr. Marlow: I should not wish to do that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I ask you to consider, That further consideration of the Bill be now adjourned. We should now report progress so that we can come back fresh another day, and so that the Ministers can go about their proper business. As we know, many Ministers do not really support the Bill. They are required to do so by the exigencies of their position.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am not prepared to accept the motion. I call Mr. Lawrence.
      10.30 am
      Mr. Lawrence: I beg to move amendment No. 4, in page 2, line 39, at end insert—
      '(9) No statutory water undertaker shall accede to an application by a health authority pursuant to subsection (1) unless the said water undertaker is satisfied that it can continuously and effectively discharge its obligations under subsection (5) as to the concentration of fluoride in the water supplied without employing directly or indirectly, additional manpower.'.
      First, may I say that I resent the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow). I am by no means past by best. I was just getting going in the last debate when I found it necessary to take a short break, and at that point the Division was called. That is life. My hon. Friend says that we are past our best. I remind him of the words of the poet Browning:
      "Grow old along with me!
      The best is yet to be,
      The last of life, for which the first was made".
      I move the amendment in the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop), who cannot be here. My speech will be even shorter than was my last brief contribution. I can also tell my hon. Friends and my supporters in this important and justified cause that I think it almost impossible that my hon. Friend will resist the amendment. We may therefore proceed much faster. I say that for two reasons. First, the amendment does no more than add to the Bill what my hon. Friend has left out through sheer inadvertence. That inadvertence is apparent on the face of the Bill. The explanatory and financial memorandum states:
      "The Bill has no effect on public sector manpower."
      It is usual to enshrine in a Bill what is set out in the explanatory and financial memorandum. As those words appear on the front page of the Bill, it was clearly intended that they should be given effect in the Bill itself.
      I give due allowance to my right hon. and learned Friend and to my hon. Friend. It may be that the omission was caused for the same reason as appears at the top of the front page of the Bill where we read:
      "This Bill is being re-issued because Mr. Secretary Fowler's name was omitted as the Member presenting the Bill."
      A mistake was made in the preparation of the Bill. Mr. Secretary Fowler's name was left out of the list. Perhaps there was a typographical error or a slip in the office. Perhaps the ladies and gentlemen who advise the Minister were so preoccupied with the guts and heart of the Bill—the indescribable harm that might be caused to those who have to ingest fluoride that they do not want and which cannot possibly benefit them—that they omitted to be careful about the original drafting. No doubt that is why the name was omitted and no doubt that is why the financial provision, the effects of the Bill on public sector manpower, was left out.
      Those words are intended to be included in the Bill to make up the deficiency—I bear no ill will and am only

      1017
      too pleased to help—that the overworked staff at the DHSS and the overworked person of the Minister missed when the Bill was produced. I can confidently say that this is the amendment that the Government would have wanted included. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor specifically said in the autumn statement that water authority borrowing was part of the public sector borrowing requirement. Since that is indisputable, this measure must find a place somewhere in the text of a public Bill.
      I am of innocent mind and prefer to think that — I hope that the House will forgive me for using this expression—sod's law rather than any other type of law works. This means that certain deplorable incidents are not noticed. For example, in November 1979, in one incident in Annapolis, a waterworks employee accidentially caused a discharge of 1,000 excess gallons of fluoride into the drinking water, increasing the concentration of fluoride to 15 times its normal level. As a result, eight patients at a private kidney clinic suffered nausea, vomiting, weakness and burning sensations in the chest. After about an hour or so of treatment, they were all taken off the machines, but, in spite of the treatment, one patient died.
      Doctors did not know the cause of the terrible affliction until the mistake at the waterworks was reported. The information was not officially released. As one official said, "We do not want to jeopardise the fluoridation programme." A report in 1979 in the Evening Capital, the Annapolis newspaper, showed that the state authorities had admitted the accidental— it was not deliberate—spillage of 1,000 gallons of fluoride into the city's drinking water. They said that the spillage might not have been detected had not illnesses been reported at the kidney clinics. Thank goodness there were suffering kidney patients in the area, or the position could have been worse. Doctor George Waldbott an American expert on fluoride poisons, was invited to Annapolis. He found tht a vast amount of harm resulted from the accident. he found that 90 per cent. of the 108 residents whom he interviewed had suffered fluoride poisoning to some degree.
      One does not want to make too much of it. Such mistakes can happen at any time or in any place—it is one of the facts of life. If one starts playing about with a poison and someone makes a mistake, things go wrong.
      Several Hon. Members rose—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The amendment deals with a narrow point about the employment of extra manpower. I am listening carefully. Frankly, I think that until now the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) has not spoken to the amendment.
      Mr. Lawrence: I apologise. I am sorry that you had to pull me up, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was going to say that extra care is needed to supervise all these instrumentations, so that such accidents do not occur. That means an increase in manpower and the public sector borrowing requirement.
      I suppose that the Minister was in a dilemma. I have no doubt that the matter was discussed in the Department and that the Department had to settle for an unnecessary and unfortunate compromise. Down the road at No. 11 was the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not think he is an enthusiastic supporter of the Bill, any more than half the Cabinet or half the Government are. We know that the Bill would never get on to the statute book if there were a genuine free vote. One can imagine the Chancellor of the
      1018
      Exchequer telephoning the Minster for Health and saying, "Okay, Ken, you can have your Bill, but not a penny out of public expenditure because we are making cuts; we are not in the business of making increases." Then Ken was under pressure from all those well-meaning, do-gooding doctors, dentists and bureaucratics in his Civil Service and he did not know which way to turn.
      I cannot be sure about it, but it may be that an uneasy compromise was arrived at—"We will not put in the Bill anything about public sector manpower expenditure. In fact, we will put in the explanatory memorandum on the front of the Bill that it has no effect on public sector manpower. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will look only at the outside, see that and not notice that within the Bill there is no such provision." That is why it is necessary to make the amendment.
      It may be that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State is not happy about the amendment. If he is not, we shall know that it was all a ruse. If he is happy with it and accepts it, we shall know that it was not a ruse but a genuine mistake which he will want to correct so that there will be no increase in public expenditure. That will all be to the good and we can go on to next business.
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: I believe that my hon. and learned Friend is being unduly optimistic. In his characteristic way of wishing to help the Government and Ministers in the predicament in which they find themselves, he is understating the potential increase in public sector manpower. He referred to the Annapolis case. That would never have come to light had it taken place in a centre where kidney dialysis machines were not available. If, as a result of the fluoridation of the water supply, there is an increase in the number of kidney failures or other kidney complaints, that will lead to an even greater demand for kidney machines. The Government have been embarrassed quite enough in recent weeks about the failure of the National Health Service to provide facilities of that kind. I believe that the National Health Service manpower figures will also need to be increased. Has my hon. and learned Friend considered that?
      Mr. Lawrence: I do not want to be taken down the path of considering ever-increasing public expenditure. Although I am known by many people as a Left-winger, my views on public expenditure and the financing of the economy are very much to the Right. I would be extremely sympathetic to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he wished to curb public expenditure on this unnecessary measure and very unsympathetic to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister if he wanted to spend more.
      I shall draw attention to another case because the Minister will say, "We have heard about Annapolis before. That is the only example that the antis can produce, they have no other examples of breakdown." There are other examples. I should like to cite one which comes from the superintendent of Wilmington water system, Wilmington, Massachusetts. On 28 February 1962 he wrote to his fellow townsmen as follows:
      "As Superintendent of Wilmington's water system, it has been my responsibility to add sodium fluoride to our water since 1955. Having had close contact with this toxic material and feeling a deep concern for the people of Wilmington, I am compelled to report to you on this situation before you vote next Saturday on whether or not to continue fluoridating our water supply.

      1019
      Since the installation of the fluoridator at the pumping station, there has been a series of breakdowns of that equipment due to corrosion of the metal parts. I have been asked how much longer it will be before the same thing happens to pipes, meters, hot water tanks and household plumbing, even though the concentration in the fluoridator is much stronger than in the system. It is my duty to report that I have already observed an increase in corrosion throughout the town since we started adding fluoride to our water. I must also notify the townspeople that it has been impossible to maintain the recommended one part per million. This is the concentration which we add to the water at the pumping station; but tests of fluoride in the lines have fluctuated from 0·4 to 1·4 parts per million, dangerously close to 1·.5 parts per million which according to the US Public Health Service makes the water unsafe for drinking purposes."
      10.45 am
      Wilmington abandoned fluoridation by a substantial vote on 3 March 1962. That shows that such accidents can happen in the best organised systems, and they are always expensive. There must always be additional manpower. No doubt my hon. Friend the Minister will say that that was a long time ago and that we have better systems now, with more people employed to supervise those systems.
      Mr. Marlow: I think that I am right in believing that my hon. and learned Friend was a member of the Committee on the Bill. Therefore, he will have been presented with the pristine version of the Bill. He will have noted that on the front page, under the heading "Financial effects", it states:
      "The Bill involves no additional public expenditure."
      Under the heading, "Effects of the Bill on the public sector manpower", it states:
      "The Bill has no effect on public sector manpower."
      I presume that that means no direct or indirect effect on public service manpower. We know that some water authorities are in the public sector and some are not. Is the Bill more likely to have an impact on the private sector than on the public sector? In Committee, did the Government introduce amendments which, when accepted by the Committee, would lead to a change in the commitment made by the Government on the front of the original Bill that there would be no implications for public sector manpower and finance? If that is not the case, does my hon. and learned Friend find fault with the original commitment of the Government, believing that it is something up with which they cannot keep?
      Mr. Lawrence: All those questions could be answered more authoritatively by my hon. Friend the Minister, who I know has been paying close attention to them. I would only be taking the time of the House unnecessarily if I embarked on a fruitless path to deal with this matter.
      Sir Dudley Smith: I followed closely what my hon. Friend said. From what he told the House, it is crystal clear that manpower must be increased because of the Bill's emphasis on fluoridation. It could be argued that we should double our supervision of fluoridation. It will be essential to have extra manpower in the public interest. My hon. and learned Friend told us about two incidents in America. In those circumstances, does he believe that it is impossible for the Government to accept his amendment or to state, as the front of the Bill does, that extra public expenditure will not be incurred?
      Mr. Lawrence: I cannot give my hon. Friend any such assurances. I saw my hon. Friend the Minister listening closely to the question. Of course, cost is involved.
      1020
      I do not wish to be accused simply of talking about Annapolis and Wilmington. There was a fairly thoroughgoing review in Seattle of the cost of fluoridating as a result of plumbing corrosion after the city's water supply was fluoridated. We must bear in mind the fact that fluorosal acylic acid is highly corrosive and toxic, as a byproduct of phosphate fertiliser manufacture, and there was a dramatic increase in Seattle in corrosion and plumbing failures. They had to be paid for, and of course they involved manpower expenditure. The problems were at first attributed by city officials to the effects of dissolved oxygen and augmented fluoridation. A study was set up by a firm called Kennedy engineers, and in 1970 it was conservatively estimated that, by 1976, plumbing and corrosion costs in Seattle would be more than $7 million a year, or about $30 per dwelling. That led to the conclusion that fluoride corroded pipes, and a report on the subject stated:
      "Especially important for domestic plumbing are the total immersion or standing water tests, which indicate that fluoridation increases the rate of corrosion for copper and galvanised steel pipe by a greater margin than the addition of an equivalent concentration of chlorine to cold water"—
      which was river water nearby—
      "and to a lesser extent than additional chlorination for Cedar water."
      In the overall summary and conclusions of the extensive studies on the effects of chlorination and fluoridation on internal corrosion, the report said:
      "Chlorination and fluoridation both significantly increase the rate of corrosion for copper, galvanised steel and black steel piping."
      In their conclusions, Kennedy engineers pointed out that as well as the serious health hazards of those contaminants, there was the danger of toxic fluoride accumulation in the pipes, and the report stated:
      "Obviously, if a substantial portion of the scale breaks loose"—
      referring to sediment in the pipes—
      "and is accidentally ingested, it could be quite toxic. Moreover, such levels indicate that fluoride distribution in the water is far from uniform and even."
      The Kennedy report showed water fluoride concentrations ranging from 0·62 to 1·55 parts per million in the Cedar river distribution system.
      A number of problems arise. For example, the report went on:
      "The problem is when fluoride is released into a reservoir. The higher regions retain the fluoride and the lower regions do not"—
      perhaps it should have been the other way round—
      "and further down the supply they get, there is more … or less … fluoride and it is not equally distributed."
      That is the well known problem of distribution. It must be supervised and that involves manpower.
      Sir Geoffrey Finsberg rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: That involves manpower, and as I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Highgate (Sir G. Finsberg) wishes to intervene, I gladly give way to him because he knows more about the manpower considerations involved in these matters than any other hon. Member.
      Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: My hon. and learned Friend is saying that these issues are becoming more complex. The Minister may try to dismiss some of his argument by saying that the problems he has raised are 20 years old and that more modern equipment exists. It follows that because the equipment is more modern, it is more complex and

      1021
      requires even more highly skilled manpower to operate it. The cost of the salaries—because past a certain level such operatives have salaries rather than wages — will mean not only that costs will be substantially increased but that the technical knowledge needed will be that much greater.
      Mr. Lawrence: Precisely, and my hon. Friend, having been a Minister at the Department of the Environment, knows much more about these matters than those of us who have not been privileged to serve in a spending Department—or indeed in any Department—or who may never serve in one in view of our opposition to the Bill.
      Lest the Minister, when replying, says that I am providing scant information, it might help if I cite a few other examples. The Journal of the American Water Works Association for 1951 said:
      "Sodium silicofluoride solutions have been found to destroy steel pipes very rapidly."
      The newsletter of the Plumbers of Australia in 1956, under the heading
      "Fluorides in Industry Effects on Water Pipes",
      wrote:
      "In a large steel tank, protectively painted, corrosion had taken place … removed the baked enamel … penetrated the steel … In a cement tank, the cement had deteriorated, causing the sand to sink to the bottom."
      The report added:
      "Fluorides are doing a real cleaning job on the inside of the underground water mains of the town of North Andover's public water supply! Their corrosive action will soon require their replacement. Fluoridation is softening the heavy rust formation that has collected on the inside of the town's watermains over the years to a semi-soft consistency. As it frees itself it carries along with the water. The water brings this semi-soft sludge to our filters."
      If we are to stop that happening, there will have to be a little man at each end, as it were, with another man in the middle. Perhaps it will be necessary to have a large man supervising them. We know that the cost of supervision is considerable. I have said nothing, of course, about the cost of replacing the infrastructure, which is becoming rotten as a result of the corrosive effect of this highly toxic and corrosive chemical. These are financial considerations that we cannot afford to brush to one side. They cannot be ignored and they will not be ignored because they have been drawn to the attention and interest of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That has been stated clearly and it was unfortunate that when we read the Bill we could find no reference to them.
      Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I must be careful, as my hon. and learned Friend is talking about little men. I hope that he will recall the danger of the strange commission outside the House that might take him to task. Presumably he means little persons.
      Mr. Lawrence: Unless we have done something about people's pay, the cost of employing little women will be rather less than that of employing men. I hope that we have done what we no doubt undertook to do in the Conservative party manifesto, although that is not proof of anything. I hope that we have gone out of our way to ensure that women earn as much as men in the Department. That will mean that there will be no cost differentials. The cost of little people or big people, men or women, has to be reflected in the Bill in some way.
      Mr. Fairbairn: My hon. and learned Friend has raised a number of questions in our minds. He has, for instance,
      1022
      described certain matter so engagingly as soft sludge. In a constituency such as mine, the distance that water travels from its source will sometimes be vast, so that the pieces of fluoren phthalamic acid, or anything associated with it, will gather in greater quantities the greater the distance that it travels, so the dosage will increase with the distance.
      I have never come across a more extraordinary concept than the one which the Bill promotes. We are told that there will be no increase in manpower and no increase in expenditure. It is not my experience that those who have this filthy stuff—fluoride—are anxious to give it away free, to deliver it free, to put it in free, to measure it free or to feed it in free. I tabled an amendment, which was not selected by Mr. Speaker, which stated that no local authority or water authority—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We are not discussing amendments which have not been selected. We are discussing a particular amendment and the hon. and learned Gentleman must relate his intervention to it. It has been a long intervention already and I hope that he will bring it to a conclusion.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I appreciate that, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am trying to assist my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence). The Bill states, in effect, that an expensive compound is to be added to water and that the addition will not cost anything. How can that be so? If it is so, the Government have solved all our economic problems. They should apply the same idea to every other Bill and to every concept. I want my hon. and learned Friend to concentrate his mind on how it can be that non-existent people will put free fluoride in non-existent lorries which are driven by no one, at a strength which nobody tests, but which everyone knows is correct, with no salaries being paid so that none of us suffers. It is a marvellous concept. If it is right, we shall all be able to go to the Smoking Room and have free drinks served by nobody in a glass which does not exist.
      11 am
      Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: Before my hon. Friend leaves that point—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I cannot have an intervention on an intervention.
      Mr. Lawrence: I should welcome an intervention, because I am looking for a letter from the Minister on this important matter.
      Mr. Stanbrook: I am obliged to my hon. and learned Friend for giving way. I thought that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) had completed his intervention and that I was therefore in order to put a fresh point to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence). My hon. Friend the Member for Burton has considered the possibility of an accidental excessive fluoridation of public water supplies and dangers that might result from transporting the water. Subsection (5) is precise and provides for the fluoridation of water as a statutory obligation.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This intervention is developing into a speech.
      Mr. Stanbrook: My hon. and learned Friend has not dealt with the amount of fluoridation provided for in subsection (5) when talking about other reasons for excessive fluoridation. Different scientists and different

      1023
      analysts of water supplies reach different conclusions on the same samples, so it is possible for there to be variations which would be in breach of the statutory obligations.
      Mr. Lawrence: My hon. Friend has made an interesting intervention. I am not sure whether I can answer it. It is perhaps best left to my hon. Friend the Minister, who knows more about these details than I do.
      I agree with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) about costs. Dr. M. Harris of the University of Aston in Birmingham has said:
      "when artificial fluoridation is commenced, lime water will also have to be added, especially to soft waters to stop iron leaking out of pipes".
      Lime water must be bought and its introduction to the system must be supervised. If hon. Members think that absurd, they should consider the fact that, in November 1974, the Seattle water department proposed adding between 200 tonnes and 500 tonnes of lime to cure the rising tide of corrosion complaints. The decision had to be revoked because no one knew what effect lime would have on people. That is a typical result of this unpleasant business.
      I am grateful to my hon. Friend for enabling me to find a letter, which I should now like to mention, in the wealth of literature in my file. The letter was written to me by my hon. Friend the Minister on 19 February 1985 concering the sources of hexafluorsilicic acid and disodium hexafluorosilicate. He assured me that they were manufactured from natural mineral sources, that both were produced for the phosphate fertiliser manufacturing industry, that hexafluorsilicic acid was manufactured in Britain and that disodium hexafluorosilicate was imported from the United States. At what cost is this stuff imported in ships from the United States? I do not have the costings of various ship sizes with me, but no doubt before this matter is exhausted I can get hold of them. However, it is clear that this service is not free. Nobody runs around saying, "Please can we give you our ships and our fuel and our"—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am finding it a little difficult to relate the hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks to additional manpower.
      Mr. Lawrence: That reminds me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I shall have to be elsewhere in a moment, so I shall try to be brief. The point is that to staff the boat coming from wherever in the United States this stuff is loaded on to it, and to pay for the people who have to process the stuff and load it on to trucks, escort the stuff to the ports, where it has to be loaded on to the ships and ferry it across the north Atlantic, no doubt with a crew of some sort—this is not done automatically—where at this end it has to be unloaded and put in trucks, cannot cost nothing. There will be a cost in manpower and in much else.
      Mr. Fairbairn rose—
      Mr. Lawrence: I give way to my hon. and learned Friend, but he will have noticed that I am under pressure.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I did notice that my hon. and learned Friend was under pressure. The phrase that he read out from the Minister's letter was as absurd as anything. It said
      1024
      that these organic salts come from pure organic sources. How the Devil can one get an organic salt if one does not get it that way?
      Mr. Lawrence: I do not know the answer to that. I stay strictly within the terms of the amendment. I moved it because it is clear that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary's intention, or certainly that of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is that there should be no public expenditure, and therefore that must appear in the Bill. If it does not, there is a possibility that there will be public expenditure, the explanatory memorandum will be misleading, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will have been misled. There will have to be a paraphernalia to poison the water supply. Once the water authorities get their manpower directed to the repair of water works and the protection of the citizens who have to drink the stuff, it is clear that there will have to be considerable expenditure. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will forgive me if I sit down, because there is another place to which I must be off.
      Sir John Page: As nearly all of us who are Radio 4 listeners have missed "Prayer for the Day" this morning and may miss the epilogue tonight I thought it might be appropriate to begin my speech with a hymn. It goes
      "Through the night of doubt and sorrow
      Onward talked the one man band,
      Preaching anti-fluoridation
      Searching for the promised land."
      It seems a long time since Second Reading, and I have tried to make this speech on four different amendments. Luckily, this happens to be the one with which it is most perfectly attuned. On Second Reading, I declared an interest as the director of a water company, and during the earlier stages of the Bill, here and upstairs, I made some points that are of concern to water undertakings in general. I emphasise the absolute neutrality of the water undertakings which are the primary targets of the amendment. They are neutral on the question of fluoridation. I hope that I can help my hon. Friends on some technical matters. I am also completely neutral. I am so neutral that I would make a Swedish pacifist seem an extremist.
      I have listened to almost every word on the subject and I have listened to many words delivered by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence). I missed only the first day of the Report stage of the Bill when I could not be present because I was in Cairo investigating water and waste water supplies there. Many of us are suffering deeply from the occupational hazard of listening to debates in this Chamber. My experience is that the longer one listens to the speeches by our colleagues the more we are turned against the views that they represent.
      Sir Dudley Smith: Did my hon. Friend listen to the powerful and convincing speech in the early hours by the former Solicitor-General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Southport (Sir I. Percival)?
      Sir John Page: I did listen to that speech. My right hon. and learned Friend was cheered when he demanded a serious approach to the Bill. I am not sure that we fulfilled his desire.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Sir John Page: No, not for quite a long time. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) has had a few helpings of the rice pudding and I shall stick to my own plate for a while.
      Most of the speeches have been by hon. and learned Members. Sir Winston Churchill said that lawyers made the best Members of Parliament—once they forgot that they were lawyers. Sometimes in the night I felt that I was being addressed as a jury.
      I have told my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) that I shall mention him rather rudely in my speech today. In a previous debate my hon. Friend said that he did not intend to indulge in scaremongering, but he went on with the scares. Speaking about the ability of water undertakings to carry out fluoridation my hon. Friend said:
      "That subsection is regarded by many of my hon. Friends as carte blanche for saying, 'Take a stab in the dark; take it or leave it; do not bother to get it right, but just have round about the 1 mg per litre level and everybody will be satisfied.' There is no provision in the Bill for the level of fluoride to be monitored by anybody, let alone by the Secretary of State, who is answerable to the House…
      Secondly, if it were a discharge of the functions and duties of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State under the new laws merely to appoint the statutory water undertakings to effect the monitoring, that would be regarded by many, and certainly by myself, as a matter of great concern …
      We must not say to water authorities or health authorities through the medium of the Bill that they can have a stab at getting it right and that they need not bother to get it absolutely right."—[Official Report, 26 February 1985, Vol. 74, c. 199.]
      11.15 am
      I feel that my hon. and learned Friend has been positively offensive to water undertakings because I believe that they produce wholesome water for our people, for which we should be grateful. It was uncharacteristically mean of him to attack the water undertakings and give the idea that a chap will come along with a bucket of fluoride, fling it in, and then go off to the pub and say, "That's all right", and nobody will care.
      The water that we drink has had to be carefully treated and monitored. It is important for hon. Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Sir D. Smith), to be comforted — I think that my hon. Friend will be — by what I have to say. Under the Water Act 1945 and the Water Act 1973 statutory water undertakers have a duty to supply wholesome water. Also, in recent years the World Health Organisation's "European Standards for Drinking Water" in 1970 and the report of the Department of Health and Social Security on public health and medical subjects entitled "The Bacteriological Examination of Water Supplies" have been accepted by successive Governments as giving guidance on criteria for wholesomeness.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. The hon. Gentleman is now getting a little wide of the amendment. I am sure that he can relate his remarks to the point about additional manpower.
      Sir John Page: I was adjusting this part of my speech to subsections (1) and (5). The amendment refers to the water undertaker continuously and effectively discharging its obligation. I feel that that is a nascent part of the argument.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman. We are discussing amendment No. 4 on the Order Paper, and I am sure that he will be able to address his remarks to it.
      Sir John Page: I shall most earnestly try to do so,. I was trying to show how water undertakings can continuously and effectively discharge their obligations under subsection (5). I am rather anxious to do so because so far not a single word has been said technically on that vital point, although on many occasions in previous debates and this debate, and in the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington, the technical ability of water undertakings to carry out fluoridation has been questioned. I am addressing those remarks to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because I believe that it is important, as the matter has been brought up so many times, that I am allowed five minutes to put on the record the vital technical details that all my hon. Friends are demanding.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: The difficulty is that the hon. Gentleman appears to be addressing his remarks to subsection (5), whereas the amendment inserts a new subsection (9). It seems to me that the hon. Gentleman is making a speech that would be more appropriate to Third Reading than to the amendment. I am sure that he can address his remarks to the amendment that we are discussing, which concerns additional manpower.
      Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Surely the duties required entail additional manpower, so there is a close link, which possibly my hon. Friend is about to reach.
      Sir John Page: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was trying to show the method by which fluoridation take place. However, if it is difficult for me to continue on that basis, I shall try to skip through the matter a little more, although I am disappointed—
      Mr. Andrew Bowden: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If I am fortunate enough to catch your eye later in the day on this amendment, I should like this matter to be clarified. As I understand your ruling, we cannot discuss the effective discharge of the water undertaker's obligation under subsection (5). But that, with great respect, is relevent to the amendment as a whole. In this debate we must surely be able to consider that point.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is certainly correct. The point I made to the hon. Gentleman is that his remarks must be related to the amendment that we are discussing. The amendment relates to additional manpower.
      Sir John Page: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall do my best.
      The fact is that 50 chemicals are approved for the purposes of water treatment. They are used in water pumping stations and plants. Although many are checked automatically, clerical work and chemical work has to be carried out in order to ensure that the checking is properly undertaken. it is interesting to note that most of the 50 chemicals in their concentrated form have serious implications for health and the environment. The results of the tests that employees will have to undertake will be reported to the local health authorities. It is important for my hon. Friends and the public in general to know that these reports will be made available to the consultative

      1027
      committees and local authorities, and it is unlikely that they would not be made available to the public if a proper request were to be made.
      The water that we drink has already, without the addition of fluoride, gone through a complicated chemical and bacteriological process. A great deal of supervision is carried out both on the spot and in the laboratories to ensure that no undue concentration of poisons such as chlorine, is added to the water,
      I think it would be helpful if hon. Members were to hear about the technique that is used to introduce fluoride into public water supplies. As will be seen from the short catalogue from which I shall quote, supervision has to take place either at the time or about every 24 hours. It is important to realise that the risk of mistakes being made is minimal because of the technique that is employed. When a dosing system is designed in the drawing office of a water undertaking, a number of safeguards are built into the system in order to minimise, and virtually eliminate, the possibility of a serious overdose being introduced into the water. The safeguards include the provision and supervision of the following techniques. There is a day-tank which normally holds only sufficient chemicals for a 24 or 48 hours dosing. That is important. It must be supervised so that, even if there is a mistake no more than one or two days' fluoride can get into the water supply. The transfer between the bulk stock tanks and the day tank is by time or level interlock so that repeated transfer can only occur once in a time period. That time clock is supervised, initially electronically, with the electronic work checked by engineers. The dosing into the supply water is performed by a separate pump which is usually sized to work somewhere near its maximum speed so that there is no chance of a mistaken acceleration pushing in more fluoride. Dosing pipelines are fitted with anti-syphon valves carefully designed by water engineers to ensure that they work appropriately. There is continuous monitoring and recording of fluoride residual concentration by instruments and the water undertaker's laboratory.
      There are normally daily checks, and daily samples are taken for laboratory analysis. It can sometimes be arranged for the water to be pumped into the service reservoir.
      Sir Dudley Smith: I am following my hon. Friend's comments with great interest. Some of the phraseology that he is using is akin to an answer given, quaintly, by my hon. Friend the Minister responsible for sport, of all people, on 4 March 1985 to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Mon (Mr. Best). On the last point that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Sir J. Page) made—I bow to his great expertise in these matters and that of the water authorities who provided the information—he talks about sampling and analysis, but the written answer clearly states:
      "a few large manned works which store the water before supply reply on frequent manual sampling and analysis for fluoride."—[Official Report, 4 March 1985; Vol. 75, c. 349.]
      My hon. Friend was rather implying—I am sure that he was not attempting to mislead the House — that everyone goes in for manual sampling. According to that written answer only a few large manned works do that.
      Sir John Page: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. There is a variation in the size of undertakings and the techniques used. I was taking care to keep in order and to show that there was supervision.
      To finish I shall quote the words of a senior chemist in a water undertaking. He said:
      "I would state that technically if we are asked to carry out a fluoridation process then we can control the residual to within the desired limits and produce a system to virtually eliminate any risk of overdosing."
      I am grateful to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to make those points because I hope that they will be a comfort to many hon. Members and people outside. There is no secrecy about fluoridation or any of the other many chemical processes that our drinking water has been through before it comes into our glass or, should I say, it is in vitro. Finally, I think that the most useful and sensible way in which inquiries could be made in future on any matters connected with water undertakings would be through the new consultative committees, which are beginning to work usefully and successfully.
      11.30 am
      Mr. John Patten: It is a pleasure for me to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Sir J. Page). It is a pleasure also to be discussing these important issues here during the parliamentary equivalent of daylight saving time. The nation is at work, we are in office hours, the shops are open, and Parliament is at work. It is good that we should be scrutinising important points in detail this morning. Alas, however, a couple of ghosts are absent from our discussions.
      The first ghost — in such circumstances there is no more terrifying apparition than he — is my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop). My hon. Friend cannot be with us this morning. It was he who tabled Amendment No. 4. Nothing strikes chiller and quicker dread in the hearts of my civil servants than the sight of my hon. Friend's name to an amendment on a procedural matter. We all know my hon. Friend's record on procedural matters. The moment his name appeared to the amendment, pandemonium broke out at the Elephant and Castle, which is normally a well-conducted and quiescent Ministry. Civil servants ran this way and that in their attempt to ascertain whether we had made a mistake. We have peculiar punishments at the Elephant and Castle for those who make mistakes.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Patten: No. Before I make room for a more tangible apparition, I must refer to the second ghost—my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence). With his characteristic courtesy, my hon. and learned Friend approached me from behind and, placing his hand on my shoulder and squeezing it for a while, said that he had to go to the Old Bailey and hoped that I would forgive him if he was not here to hear my remarks. Of course I forgive my hon. and learned Friend. I take into account the pressing reasons that have taken him away.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I am obliged to my hon. Friend, and not only for giving way. I am also obliged to him for the fact that I have not had to squeeze him from behind. That would have given me no pleasure and might have given my hon. Friend a most appalling communicable disease.
      My hon. Friend referred to the fact that civil servants—who did not in fact frop out of sight when his name

      1029
      was mentioned — become timid when any procedural matter appears on the amendment paper under the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop). However, this is not a procedural matter. The civil servants may rise again. they may jump up and down and play with their yoyos. The matter is not procedural. It is very simple. There is a conundrum, and if my hon. Friend can solve it he will please all the Scots. How can one buy something and distribute it, and employ people to do so, at no cost?
      Mr. Patten: I am pleased to be led into that point so clearly by my hon. and learned Friend. In referring to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton in general terms as raising a procedural point, I was referring in particular to his views on what should or should not have been included in the financial and explanatory memorandum. My hon. Friend has an eagle eye for such points, and over many years he has protected and assaulted Governments on such points with great success.
      I contend that the Bill is correctly described, according to the recognised conventions of this place, in the way in which it refers to manpower. Bills normally have a specific mention of manpower in the explanatory memorandum only when that follows directly from the enactment of the Bill—for example, if it sets up some brand spanking new public body. We are not necessarily keen to do that. In comparison with that possibility, the Bill is no more than enabling legisation. It does not lead to the setting up of any new schemes or the beginning of new expenditures. It is designed to clarify the legal powers of statutory water undertakers to fluoridate the water supply at the request of health authorities. the Bill does no more and no less than that.
      Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether I can move at this late hour, That further consideration of the Bill be now adjourned. I have tried to listen to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Order. I am not prepared to accept that motion at the moment.
      Mr. Marlow: Further to the point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The House has been sitting for a long time and hon. Members, like myself, are not able to concentrate on my hon. Friend's important points. When do you consider that such a motion might be properly put? Not only myself, but Ministers and people with important jobs in the interests of the country have been up for a long time. They are interested, as is the rest of the House, in this measure and would wish to come refreshed to the debate to give it proper consideration. I am sure you will appreciate that it is not possible for us to give such consideration at the moment. I am stumbling over my words because—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I understand the hon. Member's point. He is an experienced parliamentarian and knows that the Chair will not comment on hypothetical situations.
      Mr. Golding: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Speaking for all Labour Members, I should certainly want to hear the Under-Secretary of State and other Back Benchers who have not participated so far. It would be dreadful to consider this motion in the middle of the debate. The hon. Member for Northampton, North
      1030
      (Mr. Marlow) must learn the usual channels and negotiate for natural breaks, rather than intervene in the middle of a Minister's speech. That is not right.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Member for his assistance.
      Mr. Patten: I must make it absolutely clear to my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) that I do not take any offence at what he said. I seek only to draw to the attention of the House the critically important issues that have been raised in this interesting debate. Our hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) and our hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Sir J. Page) have spoken with authority. I dare say that if other hon. Members are fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, they will speak on this important issue as well.
      We are only just into the 13th hour of this debate. We have made progress, but I think that it would be entirely wrong, when the nation is at work, for Parliament to decide to pack up and go home. I am a little surprised at my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North, who does not seem to be showing the characteristic zip, vim and vigour for which he is noted.
      Mr. Best: I am encouraged by the comments of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. May I take it that my hon. Friend unequivocally speaks on behalf of the Government in saying that they are thoroughly satisfied with the way in which matters are going? It will be helpful to have my hon. Friend's comments ringing in my ears if anything untoward happens later.
      Mr. Patten: Doubtless all sorts of things are likely to ring in the ears of my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best). The debate is extremely useful and full. It would be patently absurd to stop now, when we are only into the 13th hour of the debate. I believe that if time is needed—13, 18 or 24 hours—to consider these issues, we must find that time.
      Mr. Gwilym Jones rose—
      Mr. Patten: I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West, in whose constituency I was pleased to speak in his support last Friday, is attempting to intervene. I dare say that he is about to speak in my support. I am pleased to give way to him.
      Mr. Gwilym Jones: My hon. Friend's contribution on St. David's day in the capital city of Wales was greatly appreciated, even though he did not notice that the name of the constituency was Cardiff, North.
      I listened carefully to the explanation that my hon. Friend gave in response to the previous intervention of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) about the implication in the explanatory and financial memorandum that the Bill will not cause any extra public expenditure or any extra manpower requirement.
      I take the point that my hon. Friend made, that in itself this is enabling legislation, and so in itself it will not lead to the employment of people or to expenditure, but the measure could result in more people being employed and in money being spent. Can my hon. Friend tell the House his estimate of the savings in manpower and in expenditure if the present illegal operations cease? Alternatively, what does he project as the likely expansion of the present illegal activities if they become legal?
      Mr. Patten: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those matters, because they bring us hard back to the argument which I was trying to develop before the interesting intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North.
      The Bill does not oblige any statutory water undertaker, nor any private company, anywhere in the country to implement any new fluoridation schemes. There is no evidence of that on the face of the Bill. I challenge my hon. Friend to read the Bill from end to end to see if he can find any instruction to any water undertaker—
      Mr. Marlow rose—
      Mr. Patten: I am a little disinclined to give way again so soon to my hon. Friend when I am trying to reply in full to a most interesting and important intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, North (Mr. Jones). I am still sustained by the lafa bread and Welsh cake that I was given for tea last Friday by my hon. Friend's engaging constituents.
      The Bill does not oblige any statutory water undertaker to implement any new fluoridation schemes; nor indeed to continue existing schemes which are subject to contractual arrangements regarding the date of termination of renewal. Bills will normally make a specific mention of manpower in the explanatory memorandum only when such a requirement will follow directly from the enactment if the Bill. Therefore, it is my contention that the Bill is neutral as to the number of fluoridation schemes that there should be, and consequently, as to the manpower required to service them. The Bill is directly described strictu sensu as having no public sector manpower implications—
      Mr. Fairbairn rose—
      Mr. Patten: I do not think my hon. and learned Friend agrees with me.
      Mr. Fairbairn: The Minister is absolutely right. We have heard some great falsehoods in the course of considering the Bill, but this must be the greatest yet. We are considering a Bill involving terrible pain and effort in its parturition, but the Government do not intend that it should be enacated. Therefore, because no statutory authority will act upon it, there will be no manpower implications and no cost implications. What the Minister is saying is that the whole of Parliament is being put through the pain of giving birth to a stillborn child which he does not believe will ever breathe or have any implications.
      That is a most dishonest concept. The Minister knows that his purpose in trying to get this wretched, horrid and totalitarian measure through is so that statutory authorities which are, as he puts it, enabled to do so should act. If they do so, the Bill will have manpower and expenditure implications. It is totally dishonest to say, "I am enabling you to crucify Christ, but I am not necessarily saying that he will ever be crucified."
      Mr. Patten: I do not intend to follow my hon. and learned Friend down the road to which he pointed in the latter part of his question, but, on the first part of his question, my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister made it clear in his speech on Second Reading, as I tried to do in replying to that debate, that the Bill is designed to do no more than preserve the status quo. It is not
      1032
      designed to reduce or enhance the number of schemes that are available to the general public for the fluoridation of the water supply.
      11.45 am
      I can do little more than repeat those views parrot-like to all interventions, because those are the views which I happen to hold, and that is what I happen to believe. I must give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn.
      Mr. Best: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has been his usual courteous self in the debate. It appears that he is saying that the Bill has no manpower or cost implications. It must follow, must it not, that no fluoridation schemes can be contemplated by the Government, because to have any scheme must involve an element of cost and manpower? Therefore, the only way in which the Bill can be construed by the Government is that they do not expect there to be any fluoridation schemes. If that is the case, I take on board the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn), and agree that we may have gone through a lot of misery for nothing. But I am heartened if it means that the Government do not intend to introduce new fluoridation schemes.
      Mr. Patten: The Government are neutral about whether the number of fluoridation schemes increases or decreases as a result of the passing of the Bill, should it eventually pass through the House, as I hope it will. My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn has raised important points about cash and expenditure, and I wish to proceed now to deal with those points.
      Mr. Marlow: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Patten: No. I shall proceed to the points dealing with cash and expenditure. Once bitten, twice shy this morning, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      The House may be interested to know that the manpower required to supervise the schemes is very small. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West, in an excellent and interesting speech, made clear the ways in which fluoride can be added to the water and the care and concern which water authorities give to such largely mechanical tasks. However, in a few authorities — for example, the Newcastle and Gateshead water company — where fluoride is added manually, the labour requirement is four to five man-years to provide fluoridated water through nine plants to no fewer than three quarters of a million people. I am not saying, to continue my debate with my hon. Friend the Member to Ynys Môn, that just because the sums involved are small — penny-packet numbers — we cannot properly debate whether that represents, on the face of the Bill, an increase in cash.
      Water authorities are not subject to manpower ceilings—
      Mr. Marlow: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Patten: —and the addition of fluoride must be paid for by the health authorities from cash-limited funds. No amendments to the Bill, and no undertakings that may have been given in Committee, will lead to the incurring of additional public sector manpower.
      Mr. Marlow rose—
      Mr. Patten: I sense behind me such a passionate urge to ask me a question that the softness of my heart compels me to relent.
      Mr. Marlow: My hon. Friend said that there was no requirement for a water authority to fluoridate the water supply. He will appreciate that there is a great deal of uneasiness among some water authorities, which feel that they may be faced with a requirement from the experts on the district health authority to fluoridate the water supply in their areas, and they may find it possible in some cases to fluoridate their own supply without inflicting the fluoride on the water supply of adjacent district health authorities.
      The authorities feel that they do not have the knowledge to deal with that and that they should be provided with expert medical knowledge. At present, if they feel that they do not agree with the medical experts, they are not competent to argue the case. In other words, many water authorities will feel that, despite what my hon. Friend has said and what is in the Bill, they will be required to fluoridate the water supply because morally they will be unable to present a case against doing so. That is another way in which the measure could have an impact on employment and, therefore, on the costs of water authorities.
      Mr. Patten: I do not follow the link between manpower, employment and costs. I see that my hon. Friend is concerned, as we all are, about the safety issue, and I appreciate the point that he makes about the fears that he believes water authorities may have. I cannot comment on hypothetical situations. I assure him that all the medical and scientific advice that we have is at the disposal of health authorities, as it is at the disposal of the water companies about which my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West spoke eloquently.
      Mr. Andrew Bowden: I apologise to my hon. Friend and the House for not having been in my place throughout the night, particularly as I was a founder chairman of the all-party parliamentary group opposed to fluoridation. My doctor has forbidden me to attend all-night sittings.
      I think that my hon. Friend has been trying to mislead the House. He has tried to pretend that the Department and his colleagues in it are neutral about further water fluoridation schemes. I refer him to the speech of our right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health on Second Reading, when he said:
      "It is not a terrible affront to the freedom of an Englishman, a Scotsman, an Irishman or a Welshman to say, 'You will have in your water some harmless substance of which you are not aware, which benefits the teeth of your family and of others'".—[Official Report, 14 January 1985; Vol. 71, c. 82.]
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I can find no way of relating that long intervention to the amendment.
      Mr. Patten: I shall be grateful if my hon. Friend will supply me with the name of his accommodating doctor. Many occupants of the Government Front Bench would find it useful to obtain exeats from time to time.
      When my hon. Friend gets the opportunity to read the Official Report of what I said moments ago about the Government's attitude to the question whether there would or would not be any more schemes, he will see that I was not misleading the House in terms of trying to hide the fact that the Government believe that fluoridation is good. However, I said that the Government were neutral as to
      1034
      whether the introduction of this enabling Bill would lead to an increase or decrease in the number of schemes. We have no way of knowing what is in the minds of health and water authorities in that respect.
      Against the background that statutory water undertakers can remain free to take on additional manpower, if required, to safeguard the operation of fluoridation schemes, and against the background that the cost involved in the payment of the small number of people would be met by health authorities from their existing cash-limited funds, leading to no net increase in public expenditure, because those funds are already available to them, I hope that hon. Members will agree, should a Division be pressed—and it will be interesting to see who presses it, as many hon. Members with an interest in the subject are, alas, no longer in the Chamber — that the House should not accept the amendment.
      Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Minister referred to attendance in the Chamber. Would it be in order for a Division to take place just for hon. Members who are at present in the Chamber? My hon. Friend might then see just where the majority lies.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): That is an intriguing suggestion, but it would get us into an awful muddle.
      Dr. John G. Blackburn: I echo the sentiments of my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) about the courtesy extended to the House by the Minister. We have been delighted to hear his comments. He has, to a large extent, cleared many of the doubts that lay within Members' minds about this enabling legislation.
      Mr. Best: It is a delight to listen to my hon. Friend, because I know how much he holds these matters dear lo his heart, as we all do. He may be speaking on behalf of many colleagues in this place, but he is not speaking entirely on my behalf. I was not especially happy with what the Minister had to say at the conclusion of his remarks. It seems obvious from what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State has said that, because there will be no increase in health authorities' budgets, it will be necessary for moneys to be found from within their own funds. The money that is spent on fluoridation must necessarily be taken from expenditure on other items, such as primary health care. For those of us who are not convinced of the efficacy of fluoridation, is that not in itself a worrying concept?
      Dr. Blackburn: Yes. My hon. Friend is right to draw this matter to the attention of the House. However, I invite him to exercise the great Christian gift of patience which he possesses. I shall address myself eventually to the issue to which my hon. Friend directed himself in his intervention.
      My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State was correct when he explained that this is an enabling Bill. There is no legal or statutory obligation on any health authority to introduce fluoridation. However, he has created an opportunity and provided a key for area health authorities to take such a course as would fall within the last part of the amendment. Acceptance of the amendment would have an adverse effect directly and indirectly on additional manpower. It is manifest that if we are to embark on this treatment of water, there is an on-cost and manpower involvement.

      1035
      I am sure that all hon. Members paid special attention to the wonderful illustration that was presented to us by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), who referred to the experience at Wilmington. I believe that that was the most important part of the evidence in support of the amendment. It was directed especially to the manpower factor that was introduced by the superintendent of the water authority. In effect, he said to his immediate authority, "We are experiencing considerable difficulties because of the corrosive effect of fluoride within the water supply and there is an on-cost." The other example related indirectly to manpower. It was a remarkable experience, which I do not believe the House has grasped.
      Mr. John Patten: There are one or two ghosts that I wish to lay this morning.
      We have heard much talk about the corrosive effect of fluoride on pipes. It is rather like listening to the CBI's pleas for increased expenditure on infrastructure, including the renewal of sewers. After 30 years' experience there is no evidence in Britain of fluoridation of water causing any significant corrosion of water pipes. In Birmingham and in adjacent areas, of which Dudley is one, there has long been fluoridation. There is no evidence that pipes have been corroded by fluoride. Equally, there is no evidence that additional expenditure has flowed from that. I ask my hon. Friend to accept that on 30 years' experience.
      12 noon
      Dr. Blackburn: I most certainly accept the comment of my hon. Friend the Minister without question. But equally I base my remarks on documentary evidence presented to the House by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton during his short speech in the early hours of the morning.
      Mr. Golding: I cannot understand why the hon. Gentleman is drawing attention to that part of the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) which revealed that there could be corrosion and other damage and using that as a reason for employing no more staff. If someone is trying to demonstrate that fluoride will cause damage or other difficulties, surely the last thing he should say is that no more people should be employed. It just does not add up.
      Dr. Blackburn: I am saying in clear tones that evidence has been presented to the House which I am prepared to accept. I am talking about the documentary evidence given to us by my hon. and learned Friend. As responsible legislators, we should take note of such points, and bear in mind what my hon. Friend the Minister told us about experience in Birmingham over 30 years. We have a solemn responsibility to consider carefully the line that we should take, particularly in respect of additional manpower. In the amendment there is the important word "indirectly", upon which I wish to dwell later. I believe that there are both direct and indirect financial consequences of fluoridation.
      I have no qualifications in this respect — I am a layman—but let us consider the fact that 50 chemicals are used in the preparation of the country's water supply. When large quantities of a poisonous substance—that is
      1036
      what it is—are put into the water supply, there must also be a balancing effect. The evidence given in the debate about the inclusion of lime in the water supply of Seattle to achieve that balance is something of which we should take note.
      I believe that my hon. Friend the Minister has been scrupulously honest in saying that the consequences of the Bill could eventually have a bearing in terms of cost on local health authorities; and he is perfectly correct in saying that there are no direct manpower consequences.
      In Dudley, West, the constituency that I have the privilege to represent, there is one of the largest kidney patient units in the country. Many of its patients are so well versed in the use of dialysis equipment that they can carry out their own treatment at home. That is good, as it represents a financial saving — and no doubt that is a delight to the Minister's ears — but we have a responsibility to those people regarding safety. I believe that before allowing fluoride to be put in the water, we have a responsibility to ensure that it is safe. That must mean more manpower. Indeed, I believe that that in itself would be a safety factor.
      We have been told about people suffering from renal complaints, and the fact that, when the water supply was contaminated with 1,000 gallons of fluoride, there were several tragic deaths. I do not wish to scare my constituents. I am addressing my remarks to the Minister. However, it should be on record that the House has a right to look to the Minister, within the orbit of the enabling legislation, and to say that it requires a high standard of safety, especially for kidney patients.
      Mr. John Patten: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way a second time. I promise not to intervene again in his interesting speech.
      Nothing separates us in our concern for safety. The Annapolis incident in 1979 was tragic, as I am sure my hon. Friend is aware. One person died in that tragedy, and several others suffered nausea and sickness and had other debilitating problems for a while. But is my hon. Friend aware that the real reason for that was that those who were treating the patients on kidney dialysis machines, contrary to standing instructions, were not treating the water in the way in which all water in every kidney dialysis plant in this country is treated to screen out the fluoride, aluminium and other noxious and dangerous products? It is important for that to be on record to reassure kidney dialysis patients about the safety of the treatment that they are receiving.
      Dr. Blackburn: It is self-evident from the Minister's comments that we are kindred spirits. The spirit that binds us together is a united desire for a safe course of treatment for those who depend on kidney dialysis. I am sure that my hon. Friend's comments will be well received throughout the country, especially by those patients who require renal dialysis. I welcome and support his comments. His was one of the most valuable contributions to the debate. It will be welcomed throughout the country.
      Mr. Patten: I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words.
      Dr. Blackburn: I am delighted that we are bound together on the question of safety.
      I contend that, within the terms of the amendment, it may well be—I put it no higher than that—that there will be an increase in the number of people engaged in the care of the water supply, especially for that section of our community to which we must give particular attention.

      1037
      I wish to dwell briefly on the important concluding words of the amendment, which are:
      "without employing directly or indirectly, additional manpower."
      It is difficult for anyone to present an argument, knowing that a key is being given to a local authority to go down a pathway the eventual consequences of which will be an increase in manpower. For that reason, I believe that the debate on this amendment has brought to the attention of the House and the country some important features—in particular, the safety measures which, with one voice, we want to see in the legislation, and especially the fact that supervision of a high order is necessary when treatment of the public water supply is involved.
      In that spirit, I thank the House for receiving my comments and reiterate that I am especially pleased to have received the Minister's comments on this important issue.
      Mr. Stanbrook: As this is the first time I have spoken on the Bill, except for a brief intervention, I hope that I shall be allowed to say why I am generally opposed to the Bill. That will not take more than a few seconds. This is unnecessary legislation. I am surprised that the Government, whose business is so blocked—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must stick to the amendment, even in his preamble.
      Mr. Stanbrook: I had always understood that it was part of the spirit of this place that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in carrying out your duties as occupant of the Chair, allowed a little discretion to enable Members to stray somewhat from the point and from the rules of order. I have now occupied more time—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is a most experienced Member of the House, and I am sure that he has no intention of straying from the amendment.
      Mr. Stanbrook: I had hoped to stay in order rather than to stray from the amendment, Mr. Deputy Speaker. With respect, I believe that I was in order. However, as you insist on my going straight to the point of the amendment, I shall do so.
      The amendment is designed to prevent extra manpower resulting from the Bill. That factor seems to have escaped the attention of many previous speakers. Excessive manpower is a vital consideration. Combating it lies at the heart of the Government's policy and philosophy. We have reduced Civil Service manning levels, with great pain and suffering for the people concerned. The Government take great pride in the fact that the number of people employed by the state has decreased during their period in office.
      In pursuit of that objective, local government expenditure has been capped, resulting in a reduction in manpower. The Government have even intervened to prevent local authorities with capital balances — my borough of Bromley, for example, has a considerable sum available for housing improvement grants—from using all that money as they originally intended. One would not have thought that such capital balances were anything to do with taxation or public expenditure as such. That Government policy is presumably also designed to keep down manpower.
      The theory behind the Government's policy, which is espoused by the supporters of the amendment, is that in
      1038
      the present state of the economy less manpower equals greater efficiency. In reducing bureaucracy, we devote ourselves to striving for a good objective. We hope that that will not only lead to more efficient government, but will promote the welfare of ordinary citizens. That is the idea behind the amendment.
      The question often is: how can we employ more at less cost? The amendment poses that question in the form, "How can we do more without employing more to do it?" The burden of the Bill is that local authorities, water authorities and health authorities will be entitled to do more under the law. The amendment is intended merely to insist upon a good Conservative principle—that if that is to be done, it is not to be done at the cost of increasing the total manpower employed by the state. That is an essential principle, and it has not been observed by the Government. I am not convinced by my hon. Friend the Minister's response to earlier speeches on the subject.
      The Government are creating an obstacle for themselves with the Bill. They are now forcing through the House, with great effort, a Bill which is actively pursued by only a minority of Members—although perhaps the most influential minority, the payroll vote. The Bill is not supported or justified by a commitment in the election manifesto. Moreover, it is contrary to the Government's own principle of reducing public manpower.
      The amendment seeks to ensure that if water authorities and health authorities act in the way in which the Bill entitles them to act they shall do so without employing, directly or indirectly, additional manpower. This is a reassertion of good Conservative principles, and I am surprised that the Government's defence has come only from their Front Bench, whereas the arguments against it have come from the Back Benches. There cannot be a decent democratic reason for the Bill to go forward, in view of the immense opposition that it has aroused.
      12.15 pm
      Sir Dudley Smith: My hon. Friend is right. Most of the argument against the Bill has come from the Back Benches, and my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Sir J. Page), who has an intimate knowledge of water authorities, made an interesting speech. I do not know whether my hon. Friend heard that speech, but I drew from it the conclusion that this business was so complex, and the various provisions that had to be undertaken so difficult, that, inevitably, it would lead to extra manpower. Therefore, it explodes the arguments put forward by the Front Bench.
      Mr. Stanbrook: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I heard the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Sir J. Page) and I was impressed by the new light which was shed on the problem from someone with experience of being a member of a water authority.
      It is clear that the Bill—especially subsections (1) and (5) which are referred to in the amendment— is indefensible. Subsection (5), as the amendment enjoins, should not be implemented unless it can be done without employing additional manpower, which is why my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West no doubt had reservations about it, as it imposes a precise statutory obligation upon a water undertaker. The purpose of subsection (5) is to ensure

      1039
      "that the concentration of fluoride in the water supplied to consumers … is, so far as is reasonably practicable, maintained at one milligram per litre."
      It does not say at "about" 1 mg per litre. It does not say that it may be "a little above" or "a little less". It says only:
      "so far as is reasonably practicable".
      This exercise will be carried out by scientists and technical people who are presumably well able by calibrating and other methods to quantify the ingredients of any amount of water fairly precisely. What a legal imposition it will be to say that water fluoridation shall not exceed and shall be
      "so far as is reasonably practicable, maintained at one milligram per litre."
      I am drawn to observe that in practice, that, though my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) emphasised the dangers of accident and the corrosion of water pipes and so on, he left out of account the professional and personal difficulties that will be inherent in measuring so precisely a particular quantity of fluoride in water. I believe that as a result the reading will vary from place to place and from time to time even within the same area and within the same water supply.
      When the driver of a motor vehicle is charged because the proportion of alcohol in his blood is higher than that permitted by law, a blood sample is taken. If that sample is divided into two or more parts and analysed by perfectly reputable public analysts and scientists, the reading almost invariably differs from one to another. When that can happen in connection with a law which is not quite as precise as that insisted upon in this subsection, how will a water authority be able to maintain one mg of fluoride per litre in any water supply? The Bill will impose an impossible burden on water authorities unless scientific manpower is increased and the scientific apparatus and other practical details are improved.
      The amendment seeks to ensure that there shall not be an increase in the number of people employed by a health authority in connection with the fluoridation of the water supply. How can that be done, not only with regard to the increase in public expenditure, but from the point of view of employing additional people? How on earth can an authority achieve such standards without being in breach of its statutory obligation?
      "Statutory obligation" sounds impressive at this stage, but when it comes to be enforced it will be a different matter. We shall be compelled to rely upon individuals, some village Hampden perhaps, to test whether the public authority has carried out its statutory obligations. The situation will be fraught with difficulties.
      If only the Government had thought about this matter more fully, they would have realised that the Bill is totally unnecessary. I hope that they will withdraw it, because I believe that oponents of the Bill are justified in maintaining their opposition to it indefinitely.
      Mr. Gwilym Jones: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker for calling me to speak. We have been debating the Bill for 14 hours and I have been trying to catch Mr. Speaker's eye for 13 hours.
      I view amendment No. 4 in more than one way. The important wording is in the first part. The amendment says:
      "No statutory water undertaker shall accede to an application by a health authority pursuant to subsection (1) unless the said
      1040
      water undertaker is satisfied that it can continuously and effectively discharge its obligation under subsection (5) as to the concentration of fluoride in the water supplied".
      The important phrases are, "accede to an application" and "discharge its obligation". There is a glaring omission from the Bill, in that there is no definition of how those key objectives will be achieved. Nor does it define how the statutory water undertaker will discharge its obligations. I have gone through the Bill extensively and, as far as I can see, it does not specify any types of machinery to be used for discharging that obligation in acceding to an application. The Bill does not mention any necessary tests relating to such machinery. Nor is there any mention of any necessary supervision which must follow for any tests on the machinery.
      I recall that in our debate last week, my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health referred to fail-safe machinery presently in use that would fulfil the purpose of this enabling legislation.
      I was somewhat disturbed, as I imagine other right hon. and hon. Members were, by what the Minister for Health said when defining the abilities of what he had previously described as fail-safe machinery. He said:
      "For practical reasons, it is not possible to prevent the concentration varying for most of the time between 0·8 and 1·2 mg per litre. The upper limit imposed by the guidelines of the advisory committee is 1·5 mg per litre. That range is entirely acceptable on health grounds and leaves a wide margin of safety."—[Official Report, 26 February 1985; Vol 74, c. 225]
      That appears to leave a wide margin of safety, but equally, if not more so, it leaves a very wide margin of error. I do not readily equate a margin of error of plus or minus 20 per cent. with the concept of fail-safe machinery.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: I am very interested in what the hon. Gentleman says, but is he aware that in the pharmaceutical industry and the application of that to medicine safe doses can be up to 20 or 30 times the recommended dose? A margin of 20 per cent. is nothing, it makes no difference whatsoever. One could double or treble the dose of fluoride—indeed, in many parts of the country, there are 20 or 30 mg per litre—and it would do no harm.
      Mr. Jones rose—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will resist the temptation to go wide of the amendment, which deals with additional manpower.
      Mr. Jones: Certainly, Mr. Deputy Speaker; I do not wish to go wide of the amendment. I accept the hon. Gentleman's professional expertise, but it does not seem to square with what my right hon. and learned Friend told us last week. He said that there is a 20 per cent. tolerance and that the upper limit is only 1·5 mg—0·3 mg above the upper end of the range within which he said the amount can vary, which is 1·2 mg. So there is a 20 per cent. margin of error, plus or minus. It would take only a further 25 per cent. margin of error to achieve the upper limit.
      The Annapolis incident has been mentioned today, as it was last week, and it should not be underemphasised in our considerations. It is so important that when replying earlier my right hon. and learned Friend was at great pains to demonstrate his understanding of the situation. When considering the concept of fail-safe machinery, and in the absence of proper specifications in the Bill, even though they are implied under amendment No. 4, every hon. Member should read and thoroughly re-read c. 221 of the

      1041
      Official Report of 26 February. But I am sure that the hon. Members now present are sufficiently well aware of it for me not to have to go through it.
      The Minister referred earlier today to the adding of fluoride in Newcastle. Does that come within the concept of fail-safe machinery? He said that fluoride was being added manually. He did not elaborate upon that. But he worries me greatly. Am Ito take it that fluoride is being shovelled into the reservoir, by highly qualified, very technical people, who know exactly how many shovelfuls equate to one millionth of a reservoir?
      Mr. Eric Forth: I also recall the Minister's statement and was equally intrigued by it. I hope that my hon. Friend will explore it more deeply—regrettably the Minister is not present now to elaborate on it— because I believe that he also said that it would require no additional resources.
      We are being offered a concept of a very skilled and delicate operation being performed without additional resources. I share my hon. Friend's concern about how to square that concept. Does he share my recollection?
      12.30 pm
      Mr. Jones: I think that my hon. Friend pre-empts me in getting to the dichotomy in the amendment which is a basic flaw in the Bill. The Minister has drawn to our attention the situation in Newcastle, where fluoride is added manually. I can picture it being shovelled in. I understand from what my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health said last week that shovelling fluoride manually into reservoirs is supposed to be within a plus or minus 20 per cent. margin of error. Even then, a plus 20 per cent. margin is only 25 per cent. below the upper limit to which the Minister referred.
      That is why I fail to see how the twin objectives in the explanatory and financial memorandum to the original Bill can be achieved. The first two paragraphs say:
      "The Bill involves no additional public expenditure.
      The Bill has no effect on public sector manpower."
      Mr. Fairbairn: My hon. Friend has invented the concept of shovelling. One cannot shovel without a shovel. Who will buy the shovel? The shovel will cost money—far less than what is on it, or who uses it, or who measures what is on it. Everything will all be soaked up; it will be minute. It will be the most wonderful microcosm—a great substance in vast litres of water—gallons and miles of it. But who will pay for the shovel? If we get that right, we need not worry about the rest.
      Mr. Jones: My hon. and learned Friend, I recall, has already tried to bring that point to the attention of the House. He has suggested that perhaps the necessary equipment will come free and the chemical will come free. I can see what he is getting at.
      Mr. Best: I think that I can help my hon. Friend. I asked my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment a parliamentary question:
      "what is the method by which fluoride is added to water supplies; what safeguards are involved; what variations in the method exist in different parts of the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement."
      This is very germane. My hon. Friend may be interested in the reply;
      "About 95 per cent. of fluoridation plants use hexafluorosilicic acid supplied as a 20 per cent. solution in water; the remainder use disodium hexafluorosilicate supplied as a powder.
      1042
      All the plants using the acid have a 'day' tank which holds about one day's requirement of acid, and can be filled only once in any 24-hour period. At small waterworks the acid is diluted with water in an automatic failsafe chemical diluter. The acid or the diluted acid is then injected into the water by a dosage pump in proportion to the water flow through the works. The dosage pump is designed to work close to its maximum output. The majority of plants have an automatic continuously recording fluoride monitor which signals an alarm or stops fluoridation should the fluoride concentration in the water entering supply start to exceed a preset value of between 1.2 mg/1 and 1.5 mg/1.
      A few large manned works which store the water before supply rely on frequent manual sampling and analysis for fluoride.
      There are thus three safeguards to ensure that consumers do not receive over-fluoridated water: the use of a 'day' tank; a controlled dosing pump operating near its maximum capacity; and monitoring arrangements, whether automatic or not." — [Official Report, 4 March 1985; Vol. 74, c. 349.]
      I do not know whether that assuages my hon. Friend's fears.
      Mr. Jones: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best). The answer contained substantial references to fail-safe machinery. Possibly the latter part referred to the concept, which the Minister mentioned earlier, particularly in relation to Newcastle, of the manual addition of fluoride.
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John MacKay): Perhaps in Newcastle the chemical is added by a dosing machine, so the idea of using shovels, which has been passing through the Chamber recently, is quite unfounded.
      Mr. Robert C. Brown: Will the Minister be more precise? Does he mean Newcastle upon Tyne, or Newcastle-under-Lyme?
      Mr. MacKay: As a mere Scottish Minister, that is a difficult question. However, I think I am talking about Newcastle upon Tyne. The chemical is added by a dosing machine. My hon. Friend read out the reply from my tight hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health that the fluoride in the water supply is measured manually rather than automatically. The addition is by automatic dosing machine.
      Mr. Jones rose—
      Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Although my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland is well liked and respected, and welcome to the debate, he was talking about the situation in Newcastle, which, although it is north of Watford, understand is in England.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. What is the hon. Gentleman's point of order?
      Mr. Marlow: Is it right and proper, within the rules of the House and the constitution of the country, for a Scottish Minister to give his opinion on matters occurring in England? If, during Scottish Question Time, or during a debate relating to Scotland, an English Minister spoke from the Treasury Bench, there would be absolute pandemonium.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This is a point of argument, not a point of order.
      Mr. Jones: I certainly would not want to follow the point of order of my hon. Friend the Member for

      1043
      Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow). Speaking for the capital city of Wales, I see little difference between England, the north of England and Scotland.
      I am grateful for my hon. Friend the Minister's further explanation, suggesting that there is now machinery in Newcastle, although that is perhaps slightly contrary to the explanation that we were given earlier. However, I believe that, while machinery is used, the dosage addition is still done manually.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I would not expect a Scottish Minister to realise that there is also a Newcastle in Scotland. How will the Minister ensure that subsection (5) is observed, whether by machine or otherwise, when the longer the pipe, the greater the concentration of fluoride? If it coagulates and drops off, we shall have a toxic dose. More importantly, how will subsection (5) be operated without any increase in manpower?
      Mr. Jones: That is not a question for me, but for the Minister. However, perhaps we are clarifying matters. The shovelling might not be so widespread as I feared. Following my hon. and learned Friend's point about costs, I was wondering whether further economies could be made without shovelling the stuff. If it was the powder to which my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn referred, perhaps the powder was in sacks which were thrown into the reservoir, and it was by a critical tecnical process that the disintegration of the paper sack achieved the dilution of one millionth part in water to plus or minus 20 per cent.
      The last part of amendment No. 4 contains the crucial phrase:
      "without employing directly or indirectly, additional manpower."
      That provision refers back to the two last paragraphs in the explanatory and financial memorandum.
      Hon. Members may recall that I intervened during the speech of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten), to pursue the real costs involved. I sought to question him about the costs incurred in illegal operations. I asked him to give me a projection of the costs that would arise if this enabling Bill were enacted and those operations became legal and expanded.
      My hon. Friend the Minister neglected the fact that a negative cost is involved. At present, the illegal operations involve costs in manpower, materials and supervision. The Bill will make those operations legal. If the Bill is not
      1044
      enacted, it follows that those operations will remain illegal. Surely no Government would countenance their continuance and they would cease, with dramatic savings in manpower and expenditure.
      Mr. Best: Knowing how acute my hon. Friend usually is, I am surprised that he and other hon. Members who have spoken in the debate have completely failed to grasp the significance of the amendment, which was so ably moved—
      Mr. Fairbairn: Nonsense.
      Mr. Best: I hear my hon. and learned Friend say, "Nonsense," but surely the purpose of the amendment is to safeguard existing employees. The provision that no further employees should be appointed implies that there are dangers for existing employees who handle fluoride. My hon. Friend probably knows that employees must be provided with protective clothing. Surely the amendment is designed to safeguard further people being taken on and put in danger. I should have thought that that intention was manifest.
      Mr. Jones: Not only is it manifest, but for once in the excellent contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn throughout this Tuesday—I believe that we are still technically in Tuesday — on Tuesday of last week and in the week before, he is plainly and unnecessarily stating the obvious.
      I have grave doubts whether the twin objections of the dichotomy in the amendment can be achieved. I do not see how a statutory water undertaker can accede to an application and discharge its obligation without extra manpower and public expenditure. In the greater public interest we must ensure that, albeit as a last resort, if this rotten Bill is enacted it contains the amendment. We must do our best to see that extra manpower and expenditure are not involved.
      Mr. Best: My hon. Friend is still missing the point. Is he aware that in a parliamentary answer that I received on 5 March my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment told me:
      "Water authorities' employees must be provided with protective clothing when they are involved in filling or emptying containers or bags of fluorine compounds. This consists of appropriate overalls, boots and gloves, together with respiratory protection and eye protection." — [Official Report, 5 March 1985.]
      The purpose of the amendment is to prevent any future employees from having to undergo such protection when handling a dangerous substance.
      Mr. Jones: I appreciate the further extension that my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn is making. I wish only that he could make it more succinctly. The Amendment Paper contains 111 amendments. I wish that we had the necessary time, at the right time of day, to go through more of the amendments than have been called. At present we must confine ourselves to amendment No. 4, about which I have grave doubts.
      Mr. Fairbairn: My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech, but is it not obvious to everybody—the House, the public and the press—that it will cost money and involve manpower? Why do the Government pretend otherwise?

  Water Fluoridation Bill
  12.45 pm
  Mr. Jones: I shall not disagree with my hon. and learned Friend, because what he said is exactly what I tried to get out of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State — a projection of the future increased costs if the present illegal operations were made legal, or the savings that could be achieved to the public exchequer if those illegal operations were stopped. The amendment cannot achieve a twin objective, but I tell my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary that I intend to press the amendment to a Division, and I hope that it will be accepted, for the sake of the greatest public good.
  Mr. Edward Leigh: The amendment has important implications for manpower, so I shall go into some detail on the implications that it may have for manpower in the various water authorities. To that end, I have obtained from the Vote Office the annual reports of all the water authorities, so that the House may consider them.
  I shall deal first with the Anglian water authority. It is of particular interest to me because it covers my constituency. At 31 March 1983, that water authority employed 3,057 full-time permanent staff and 62 part-time permanent staff. One should consider the effects of the amendment on those numbers. One might imagine that the addition of fluoride to the water supply would not have an immense effect on them, but it might have a small effect. The Anglian water authority employs 70 temporary staff, making a total of 3,189.
  The employment cost is of some interest, because it is a considerable burden on public spending. It amounts to £30,825,000—a very large sum. Overhead costs also have to be taken into account, as well as social security costs of £2,352,000, and even pensions costs of £2,810,000, making total employment costs of £35,987,000, less the sum attributed to capital schemes and rechargeable work.
  I receive a number of letters from my constituents complaining about the recent large increase in the water rates imposed on them by the Anglian water authority, and I am worried about the effect of the Bill on the costs. It should be a matter of concern to all of us that the overall financial position of the Anglian water authority does not decline too much.
  Mr. Fairbairn: Will my hon. Friend explain, first, how the social security costs apply in the case of the Anglian water authority? I should have thought that one
  1046
  did not pay people not to throw fluoride in the water. Secondly, can my hon. Friend tell us about the implications for Scotland, or any Scottish water authority, of the cost of this absurd totalitarian operation?
  Mr. Leigh: My hon. and learned Friend makes a fair point about the Scottish water authorities. As I said at the beginning of what I hope will be my very short remarks, I have all the reports of all the water authorities. I hope to arrive at the figures for Scotland shortly.
  My hon. and learned Friend speaks with great knowledge of Scotland, which is an area I certainly want to include in my remarks about the manpower and financial implications of the Bill. The point that he makes about social security is interesting, although I am not sure what impact fluoridation would have on the social security costs of the Anglian water authority. I suspect that it would be minor.
  I shall now deal briefly with the Severn-Trent water authority. [Interruption.] No, I do not want to detain the House any longer than necessary, but I am interested in the Severn-Trent authority because it covers my constituency—
  Mr. Christopher Hawkins: And High Peak.
  Mr. Leigh: Yes, it includes High Peak. It is a wide-ranging water authority, running right across the country, as one might expect, from the Trent to the Severn.
  The authority's turnover is extremely large— some £341,778,000. I am trying to find out the manpower implications of fluoride on an authority with a turnover of that figure. I have no doubt that they will be considerable. It cannot be said—it is brought home by the amendment—that if a water authority imposes the fluoridation of its water, it will not have some impact on the number of its employees. I have before me an analysis of total numbers of employees and employee costs in the Severn-Trent water authority, which is set out in note 19 on page 12 of the document. The figures are of great interest.
  The number of full-time permanent staff employed by the Severn-Trent authority is given as 4,935; of part-time permanent staff, 72, and of temporary staff, 106. That gives a total of 5,113 employees. Those figures relate to 1982, but it is possible that as a result of the pressure being put on water authorities to put fluoride in the water, the numbers may increase, although by the year 1983–84 the number had gone down, being listed for that year as, full-time permanent staff, 4,833; part-time permanent, 77 and temporary, 77. The numbers now employed by the authority total 4,987.
  I do not think it will be possible for an authority to put fluoride in the water without employing more staff. It affects all those who pay water rates to the Severn-Trent authority, which is wide-ranging and covers the constituencies of a number of my hon. Friends. My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Mr. Hawkins) is in his seat and may wish to comment on water rates and the manpower implications of the amendment.
  Mr. Fairbairn: I am not sure whether I am fully awake. I hope that I am not. I am not sure where High Peak is. The water authority of which my hon. Friend is either boasting or complaining, has 4,833 employees already, in other words, it is an authority which says to itself, "Hurrah, let us employ people to do nothing". If it has to put in fluoride it will employ 10,487.
  Mr. Leigh: My hon. and learned Friend makes an interesting point.
  I think that my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak would be interested in the employment costs for the financial year. Large sums of public money are already being spent on staff, and I do not think it would be possible for fluoridation not to have some impact on employment costs.
  Mr. Robert C. Brown: Perhaps I should declare an interest. I am secretary of the GMBATU group of Members of Parliament. That union organises the workers in the water industry. The hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) who just made an intervention is obsessed, among other things, with a reduction in manpower in the public services. He ought to be aware that the story of the water authorities is one of reductions in staff over recent years because of modernisation of methods. Every water authority has reduced its manual work force.
  In a situation where water authorities will be forced to increase their manpower temporarily to cover safety requirements it is irresponsible of Conservative Members to argue that in no circumstances should any water authority have the right to increase its manpower. That is utterly irresponsible. The hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross is frequently irresponsible, but I am sure that the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) would want to be responsible in his contribution.
  Mr. Leigh: The hon. Gentleman makes some reasonable points. I would be the first to pay tribute to the way in which water authorities in recent years, no doubt with Government guidance and prompting, have succeeded in reducing staff. I hope that my hon. Friends will forgive me for saying this but I am worried about the amendment for that very reason. It is undoubtedly important to employ staff to maintain safety standards if fluoride is to be put in the water. In my short remarks today I wish to look at the manpower implications of putting fluoride in the water. I was dealing with employment costs.
  Mr. Christopher Hawkins: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way. I feel that I should first tell my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) that High Peak is south of Manchester and includes Buxton, Glossop, Whaley Bridge, New Mills, Chapel-en-le-Frith and 32 villages. With regard to the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh), I believe that there will have to be an increase in manpower. In the north we shall welcome that, as we could do with a reduction in unemployment. Since we are taxing water it would be rather nice to see something beneficial coming out of water, at least in terms of jobs even if it is water that we do not particularly want to drink.
  I should like to remind my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle that on either the first or the second time that the Government tried to introduce this Bill—I do not think that it was the third time—I think the Minister for Health said that the Government would accept monitoring. That would also involve extra staff. There were proposals to monitor fluoride levels. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle knows that the studies that have been carried
  1048
  out in the United States show a massive variation in fluoride levels from house to house and area to area in towns even when it has been tried scientifically to make it one part per million. In some areas it has been above two and three parts per million, which is well above the recommended safe level.
  Mr. Leigh: My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak in his usual thoughtful way makes an interesting point. I know that he speaks with great experience as an industrialist. No doubt as an industrialist he has been worried about the imposition of higher water rates. He has devoted his life to trying to improve job prospects and is now devoting himself to improving the water supply and the prospects for his constituents. I know that he will be concerned about the implications for the Severn-Trent authority water rates.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross made an interesting point earlier about social security costs. I do not know what the impact of the amendment will be on the social security costs of the Severn-Trent authority, but staffing costs alone already amount to the staggering sum of £3,711,000. That is a large enough imposition on the public purse, but when I add that the total social security costs stand at £6,923,000, the House will understand the concern about the impact that fluoridation may have.
  1 pm
  The authority's total employment costs are £99,308,000, manual workers accounting for £43,409,000 and staff for £55,899,000. That is less the sum attributable to capital schemes. Will such schemes be needed to put fluoride in the water? The accounts also relate to rechargeable works, and I am not sure what effect fluoridation will have on those. But because the sum that I mentioned earlier is less the sum attributable to them the total amount chargeable to profit and loss account in the Severn-Trent authority is £48,078,000 for staff alone. I should not have thought, though, that fluoridation would have much effect on the staff. Presumably it is mainly a manual operation. The costs of manual workers will be £35,334,000, chargeable to profit and loss account. The total is £83,412,000.
  I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak, who is still in his place, will forgive me if I now deal with Yorkshire. The many hon. Members who represent Yorkshire constituencies will be interested in the implications of the Bill and the amendment on manpower, safety and health, a subject that takes up a considerable part of the report from the Yorkshire water authority. The report gives the number of employees, both permanent and temporary, on 31 March 1982, 1983 and 1984, converting full-time employees into full-time equivalent numbers.
  It is, admittedly, unfortunate that such reports, which are a matter of considerable public interest, do not deal more fully with the impact of fluoridation on staffing. However, it is interesting to note that on 31 March 1982 the Yorkshire water authority employed 3,030½ permanent staff. That is an extraordinary figure.
  Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have reached such a stage in this long debate that I cannot follow what my hon. Friend is saying. It is my fault, because I am exhausted, although I wish to speak. I beg to move, That the Question be now put.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Not just at the moment.
  Mr. Leigh: I regret the discourtesy of my hon. Friend in interrupting me when I was trying to inform the House of some very important facts.
  Mr. Fairbairn: If my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle had been up all night he might understand the rather flaccid condition of our hon. Friend. But some of us have been doing this sort of thing for so long that we do not worry about it.
  My hon. Friend has given us some figures about the Yorkshire authority's staffing. I must admit that my grandmother was a Yorkshirewoman, so I am not all bad. But my hon. Friend says that there are 3,000 employees in this water authority and 4,333 in the last one that he mentioned. How does the water authority, which I imagine is smaller, employ 1,000 more than the others? Can my hon. Friend justify that? If he cannot, will he say what the Government will do if the amendment is made? My guess is that those smaller water authorities that employ far more people than they need will take the view that this is a marvellous opportunity for jobs for the boys, and poor old Yorkshire will have only two others shovelling the fluoride into the water.
  Mr. Leigh: My hon. and learned Friend is wrong. The Severn-Trent water authority is large, and covers much of the country from the lower Severn, from as far south-west as Gloucester — including Tewkesbury, Worcester, Shrewsbury, Stoke-on-Trent, Coventry and Derby—and, in its most north-eastern corner, it covers Gainsborough in Lincolnshire.
  Mr. Fairbairn: My hon. Friend cannot have it both ways. Either the Yorkshire water authority is so minute that it does not justify 3,000 employees, or the other marvellous place that he mentioned does not justify 4,333 employees? Which does he mean? He must justify one or the other. Either one is overstaffed and the other overstaffed, or both are overstaffed. What are the implications of the amendment?
  Mr. Leigh: Yes. I think that the implications of the amendment are worrying. However, I do not take my hon. and learned Friend's point about overstaffing. I beg to differ with him on that. The Severn-Trent water authority is a fine authority which has succeeded in reducing the number of employees. All water authorities have that record, and I should like to pay tribute to the fine public service that they provide. My hon. and learned Friend's intervention on this point did not have its customary—
  Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Finesse.
  Mr. Leigh: Yes, finesse. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend does not mind my saying that.
  It is extraordinary that there seems to be half an employee employed by Yorkshire water authority. Perhaps that has something specifically to do with Yorkshire. It is interesting that the number of temporary staff is only 98. That is fewer than the number employed by the Severn-Trent authority. The number of temporary staff may have to increase if the amendment is agreed to. That makes a total of 3,128½—the half member of staff has not gone from the total—employed at present by Yorkshire water authority. I correct myself: that figure applied at 31 March 1982.
  1050
  I turn to 31 March 1984. I am pleased to tell the House that the half member of staff seems to have been excised from the accounts. In response to the hon. Gentleman's point, the number of permanent staff has declined to 2,910. That is a great achievement by Yorkshire water authority which ratepayers there will welcome. However, the authority will be worried about the impact of the Bill upon the numbers of staff that it will have to employ That is listed under "Staff—others", which shows the figure of 3,085, with only 22 temporary staff.
  The total permanent staff at present employed by the authority is 5,995. As last year's report makes clear, the staff figures for 31 March 1983 were considered artificially low at the time, because, prior to the reorganisation of April 1983, the authority had been cautious in recruiting. This left vacancies which later had to be filled. There were also new staff posts to be filled, and to set against the reduction of almost 300 which followed the reorganisation—including 60 new posts for the programme of renewing and refurbishing unlined cast iron mains. The House will wish to know that interesting statistic.
  Much has been said in the debate about the damage that fluoride in mains may cause, although this has been denied. I am anxious about the possible impact of the Bill on the fine record and capital works of the Yorkshire water authority.
  The report went on:
  "The number of other employees continued to fall as the authority introduced more productivity payment schemes."
  That is an interesting point and I am sure that my hon. Friend will be anxious to try to ensure that there is more productivity in water authorities. If fluoride is put into water that may help productivity, but somehow I doubt it.
  The report stated:
  "As envisaged in the report on reorganisation, a new structure created the opportunity to develop better management information systems".
  Management information is most important and the water authorities have been criticised on occasions for not putting their views across and informing the public. However, lately they have had a good record of informing the public of their policies. Of course, there is still great public concern about fluoride.
  The report continues:
  "and by using that information to plan for increased efficiency. By the end of the year a number of cost saving initiatives were being considered which will reduce manning levels during the next performance aims period which ends in 1987."
  Clearly, the Yorkshire authority hopes and intends to reduce staff, but in view of the amendment we cannot be certain that it will succeed in its excellent aim. The report mentions training and explains that the authority is playing a leading role in taking part in the Government's youth training scheme. However, I do not wish to go into that matter but to stick strictly to the manpower consequences. Therefore, I shall deal briefly with the manpower implications of the amendment on the Welsh water authority, which will be of interest to all hon. Members.
  I am now dealing with the Welsh authority's employee numbers and costs. The full-time permanent staff employed by that authority in 1983–84 stood at 2,442. That is an interesting point and I am sorry that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross is not present because earlier we had a slight disagreement about the numbers employed and I believe that he made the point that too many were employed by the Severn-Trent

  1051
  authority. However, I am delighted to tell the House that Wales, which, although I have not visited it recently, is, obviously, a very large area with considerable responsibilities for the provision of water, has succeeded in employing a total of only 2,442 staff. That is a fine achievement on the part of the Welsh water authority.
  However, I return to the point. Will the Bill have an impact on the numbers employed by the Welsh water authority, which has made great progress since 1982? In 1982–83, the number of staff employed by that authority stood at 2,558. That figure relates to full-time permanent staff and its manual staff stood at 2,625. I repeat that this is an interesting point but I should not think that whether an authority puts fluoride in water would have much impact on staff numbers although it may have one on the number of manual workers. That is of great interest in relation to the amendment because I believe that we are concerned about manual workers. Those figures give a total of 5,183 full-time and temporary staff employed.
  I am sure that other hon. Members will want to deal with that point because the amendment would have an impact on the numbers of temporary staff. The annual report reveals that the Welsh water authority has a fine record, and I believe that the whole House will wish to pay tribute to it. I am glad to see my hon. Friends from Welsh constituencies in their places because they have consistently put forward the case for low water rates. I know that they are concerned about the impact that fluoride may have and they may later wish to intervene in my speech to raise particular points relating to Wales.
  1.15 pm
  I am dealing with the Welsh water authority. I was discussing the number of temporary staff, and I note that in 1983–84 the Welsh water authority employed 176. It is unfortunate that when the number of temporary staff is listed in the accounts, they do not mention how many of those temporaries are involved in fluoridation. Hon. Members are worried about those who are concerned with putting fluoride in water, but there were 176 temporary employees in 1983–84, but that number has decreased. I am sure that Welsh Members will be glad to know that the number of temporary staff employed by the Welsh water authority is now only 163. My mathematics are not good, but that shows a significant reduction.
  Mr. Peter Bruinvels: It is 13.
  Mr. Leigh: My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels) says that it is 13. I do not know whether he has managed to work out the percentages in his head—that may be more difficult. However, it shows that he has an impressive grasp of mathematics.
  Mr. Gwilym Jones: I am pleased to see my hon. Friend taking such an interest in the Welsh water authority as I am sure he followed with great interest the Welsh day debate that we had in the Chamber last Thursday.
  Does my hon. Friend accept that my constituents in Cardiff, North and, indeed, all constituents in the 38 Welsh constituencies, do not want the costs of the Welsh water authority to increase, whether for manpower on fluoride or anything else? Our constituents would prefer to see the costs of the Welsh water authority fall by eliminating the present fluoridation schemes in Wales. Costs could be saved if those activities did not continue.
  Mr. Leigh: My hon. Friend is well known for standing up for the water ratepayers in his constituency and in Wales generally. The knowledgeable and thoughtful points that he makes will wing their way back to the main newspapers in Wales. I know that he is concerned—as I am—that if we pursue the policy of fluoridation, the excellent record of the Welsh water authority and other water authorities in decreasing staff may decline.
  I have been quoting figures, but the public do not really understand figures too well. It is interesting to note that the total cost of the wages and salaries of the Welsh water authority in 1983 was £26,057,000, which is a considerable sum. I am sorry that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross is not here as I know that he is very interested in social security costs. The social security costs of the Welsh water authority were £2,014,000 and pensions costs were £2,450,000. I am not sure what the impact of fluoridation will be on pension costs, but if a water authority must take on more staff—perhaps detailed specialists—that could have an impact on pension costs. Therefore, employment costs totalled £30,521,000. That figure is less the sum attributable to capital schemes and chargeable works which is £4,078,000, with a chargeable profit and loss account of £26,443,000.
  Mr. Greg Knight: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and am most interested in what he is saying. Is he aware that some years ago, home rule fanatics in Wales threatened terrorist activity against the water supply? Is there not a danger that if the measure is passed, there may be an increase in such terrorist activity against the Welsh water supply which would increase running costs?
  Mr. Leigh: My hon. Friend makes an interesting point, but I do not wish to comment, as my knowledge of Welsh politics is not up to it.
  I shall refer briefly to the Wessex water authority. I am not sure whether any of the hon. Members in the House at present represent Wessex seats. However, this matter will be of interest to hon. Members generally whether the amendment is accepted or not. Wessex water authority is a large authority and covers a considerable area from Bristol to Bournemouth, Poole and Dorchester, and includes Taunton, Bridgwater, Yeovil and Salisbury.
  It is interesting to note that 1,202 full-time permanent staff were employed by the Wessex water authority on 31 March, although I am not sure how many were involved in the process of putting fluoride in water. That very large water authority employs a very small number of staff. I do not know whether that is due to the fact that the area is mainly a Conservative part of the country. No doubt the representatives of the water authority are concerned with cutting staff and Conservatives will be especially concerned that the number of staff does not increase. There will be concern about the impact of the Bill on the number of staff.
  Only 10 part-time permanent staff are employed by the water authority and the number of temporary staff is 83. Again, the number of temporaries employed is lower than in other water authorities. I cannot give the number of temporary staff engaged in fluoridation of water.
  Mr. Forth: In his riveting presentation to the House my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) put the thought into my head and,

  1053
  I suspect, those of other right hon. and hon. Members that it might be a good idea if water authorities were asked in future, especially in the context of this legislation, to include in their annual reports details of the number of employees and, therefore, the cost of fluoridation of water. My hon. Friend has expressed the view several times—I agree with him on this matter—that we are unable to extract from the annual reports and accounts the exact cost and resource element of fluoridation. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the House might make a recommendation, if not a statutory obligation, to water authorities to include such information in future reports?
  Mr. Leigh: Yes. I agree with my hon. Friend, who made a very fair point. I have gone through the reports in great detail and I have been concerned that, although clearly some staff are involved in the fluoridation process, the accounts do not list them. Those members of the public who are concerned about their water rates and about fluoride being put into water will want to know the exact cost and the number of staff involved. That is an important point.
  I want to turn to a very important authority. The Thames water authority covers a considerable area of the south-east and will be of interest to the House. It covers Swindon, Banbury, Marlborough, and extends from the west to Reigate and Crawley. I do not see my hon. Friend the Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) in the Chamber, but I know that he was here earlier and that he is interested in this matter.
  A considerable proportion of this document is concerned with the manpower of the Thames water authority. It says that this is the significant event of the year affecting industrial relations, with the abolition of the National Water Council. The sponsors of the amendment should address themselves to this important point and I hope that the Government will take cognisance of it.
  Mr. Michael Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I beg to move, That further consideration of the Bill be now adjourned.
  We are now at an appropriate stage of the proceedings when the House should have the opportunity to consider whether, bearing in mind the relevance of the hour, we wish to continue further debate on this Bill or to debate the business set down for Wednesday 6 March. Purely on the basis that it may be a convenient opportunity now for the House to take that decision, I beg to move.
  Mr. Marlow: It would be irresponsible of the House to prevent Wednesday's business from being considered. Many hon. and right hon. Gentlemen are exhausted. We are discussing an important issue. The Minister has made many important points. Many hon. Members who will be speaking to later amendments wish to consider the matter and to do further research. The best thing that we can do today is to adjourn the debate and hear Wednesday's business. We can return to the debate at a later stage. I beg to move, That further consideration of the Bill be now adjourned.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is the question before the House. It is now debatable.
  Mr. Martin J. O'Neill: The Opposition are not in favour of the closure at this time, although it is true that we have been discussing the issue for a considerable period. More hon. Members are coming
  1054
  into the Chamber now and are taking a new-found interest in the matter. It is wholly appropriate for those individuals to have the opportunity to speak if they so wish. We all have priorities in our work and in many instances people are now able to devote more time to it. Pressing matters which might have been debated today will probably involve many hon. Members in the preparation of speeches which they would not have been capable of making without copies of the Bridge report. The tardy way in which that has been made available has enabled individual Members to divide their time clearly. Hon. Members are now coming into the Chamber and we can expect the debate to go on for some time.
  I do not wish to use the word hypocritical, but it is difficult to find any other word that would adequately describe the attitude of Conservative Members who, having held up the proceedings of the House for a considerable time, now wish to terminate it because it suits their purpose. If it were not for the fact that Conservative Members in large measure form a section of the awkward squad, I would have suggested that they may have been got at by the Whips. I am led to believe that that is not the case and so far as this matter is concerned, their integrity is unsullied.
  Mr. Christopher Hawkins: I wonder whether the hon. Member should assume that any Conservative Member wants to draw stumps or even imagines that there is the remotest chance of stumps being drawn at this stage, because we know that there are others who do not want to draw stumps. The hon. Gentleman might like to bear in mind the fact that voting takes 15 minutes. The time does not have to be filled with speaking.
  Mr. O'Neill: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. I am not quite sure what he intended by it, but Opposition Members would be happy for the debate to continue for as long as necessary. My colleagues and I will be joining those who oppose the closure as and when an opportunity to vote on the matter arises. Until then, we await information of a more substantial nature from Conservative Members.
  Mr. John Patten: Perhaps it might be appropriate for me to draw to the attention of the House that thus far we have had a very interesting debate. Those who have been in the Chamber throughout the debate, as so many right hon. and hon. Friends have been, will not need that drawn to their attention. The debate has been very level-headed and good tempered and I pay tribute to my colleagues and to right hon. and hon. Members of the Opposition for the way in which the debate has been conducted.
  We have made considerable progress in the debate. It is manifestly clear that everyone to whom I have listened is well aware of the issues. They have discussed the issues crisply and clearly and the debate is making good progress. We are now in the fourteenth hour of the debate. It is going well and good progress is being made. We in Parliament are working while the shops and offices of the nation are working. It is appropriate for us to be discussing these issues and to give ourselves the chance during what remains of today's Sitting to examine the issues at greater length.
  We are not far from the end of our consideration of the amendments. It would be a disservice to the House if the Government recommended that we should report progress

  1055
  at this stage, draw stumps, and discuss the matter on another occasion. It would be much more appropriate to go on and complete the discussion.
  1.30 pm
  Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. All I ask is for the House to be given the right to vote on the issue now.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is not a point of order. The Question is before the House.
  Mr. Greg Knight: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Clackmannan (Mr. O'Neill) said that he thought that Conservative Members had been got at by the Whips. That is an outrageous suggestion, which impugns our honour. I invite the hon. Gentleman to withdraw that remark.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that that is not a matter for me.
  Mr. O'Neill: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was careful not to say that; I said that the thought had passed through my mind, but I had dismissed it from my mind. I am afraid that the length of the debate may be such that some hon. Gentlemen are not paying their usual attention.
  Mr. Knight: I accept that explanation.
  Question put, That further consideration of the Bill be now adjourned:—
  The House divided: Ayes 48, Noes 196.

  Division No. 147]

  [1.31 pm

  AYES

  Alton, David

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

  Ashby, David

  Hunter, Andrew

  Beith, A. J.

  Irving, Charles

  Bellingham, Henry

  Jones, Robert (W Herts)

  Blackburn, John

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Budgen, Nick

  Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

  Carttiss, Michael

  McCartney, Hugh

  Cash, William

  McGuire, Michael

  Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

  McNamara, Kevin

  Cohen, Harry

  Morris, M. (N'hampton, S)

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Norris, Steven

  Conway, Derek

  Park, George

  Corbett, Robin

  Parris, Matthew

  Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

  Parry, Robert

  Dalyell, Tam

  Patchett, Terry

  Dixon, Donald

  Penhaligon, David

  Evans, John (St. Helens N)

  Rost, Peter

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

  Grist, Ian

  Terlezki, Stefan

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Williams, Rt Hon A.

  Hancock, Mr. Michael

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Hayward, Robert

  Mr. Tony Marlow and

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Mr. Michael Brown.

  NOES

  Alexander, Richard

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Ancram, Michael

  Bottomley, Peter

  Ashton, Joe

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)

  Boyes, Roland

  Barron, Kevin

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Bright, Graham

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

  Blair, Anthony

  Bruinvels, Peter

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Buchan, Norman

  1056

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Butler, Hon Adam

  McCrindle, Robert

  Butterfill, John

  McDonald, Dr Oonagh

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Canavan, Dennis

  MacGregor, John

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  McKay, Allen (Penistone)

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

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

  McKelvey, William

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Mackenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Maclennan, Robert

  Clarke, Thomas

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  McTaggart, Robert

  Cockeram, Eric

  Major, John

  Colvin, Michael

  Malins, Humfrey

  Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

  Marland, Paul

  Cope, John

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Corrie, John

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Couchman, James

  Mayhew, Sir Patrick

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Meadowcroft, Michael

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

  Mellor, David

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

  Miller, Hal (B'grove)

  Dubs, Alfred

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Dunn, Robert

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

  Durant, Tony

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

  Moore, John

  Eggar, Tim

  Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

  Eyre, Sir Reginald

  Moynihan, Hon C.

  Fallon, Michael

  Murphy, Christopher

  Farr, Sir John

  Needham, Richard

  Fatchett, Derek

  Nellist, David

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Nelson, Anthony

  Fisher, Mark

  Neubert, Michael

  Fletcher, Alexander

  Newton, Tony

  Foulkes, George

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

  Freud, Clement

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Galley, Roy

  Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

  George, Bruce

  Pavitt, Laurie

  Golding, John

  Pollock, Alexander

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Powley, John

  Gorst, John

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Randall, Stuart

  Grant, Sir Anthony

  Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

  Greenway, Harry

  Renton, Tim

  Hamilton, James (M'well N)

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Richardson, Ms Jo

  Hannam, John

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Harris, David

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

  Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

  Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Henderson, Barry

  Ryder, Richard

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Hordern, Peter

  Scott, Nicholas

  Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Shersby, Michael

  Jessel, Toby

  Skinner, Dennis

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Soley, Clive

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Spencer, Derek

  Kennedy, Charles

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Kershaw, Sir Anthony

  Squire, Robin

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Stanley, John

  King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

  Stern, Michael

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

  Knox, David

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Lambie, David

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Lamond, James

  Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

  Lang, Ian

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Thurnham, Peter

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Tracey, Richard

  Lilley, Peter

  Trippier, David

  Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

  Viggers, Peter

  Lord, Michael

  Waddington, David

  1057

  Wainwright, R.

  Wells, Bowen (Hertford)

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Wheeler, John

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Whitfield, John

  Walden, George

  Whitney, Raymond

  Walker, Bill (T'side N)

  Wilson, Gordon

  Wallace, James

  Wolfson, Mark

  Waller, Gary

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Ward, John

  Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Watson, John

  Mr. Archie Hamilton and

  Watts, John

  Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones.

  Question accordingly negatived.
  Mr. John Cope rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
  Question put, That the Question be now put:—
  The House divided: Ayes 140, Noes 87.

  Division No. 148]

  1.42 pm

  AYES

  Alexander, Richard

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Ancram, Michael

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)

  Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Lord, Michael

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  McCrindle, Robert

  Bottomley, Peter

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  MacGregor, John

  Bright, Graham

  MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

  Maclennan, Robert

  Butler, Hon Adam

  McQuarrie, Albert

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Marland, Paul

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

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

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Mayhew, Sir Patrick

  Cope, John

  Meadowcroft, Michael

  Corrie, John

  Mellor, David

  Couchman, James

  Miller, Hal (B'grove)

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

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

  Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

  Mitchell, David (NW Hants)

  Dunn, Robert

  Moore, John

  Durant, Tony

  Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

  Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

  Moynihan, Hon C.

  Eggar, Tim

  Needham, Richard

  Eyre, Sir Reginald

  Nelson, Anthony

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Neubert, Michael

  Fletcher, Alexander

  Newton, Tony

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Freud, Clement

  Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

  Gorst, John

  Penhaligon, David

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Pollock, Alexander

  Grant, Sir Anthony

  Powley, John

  Greenway, Harry

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

  Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Renton, Tim

  Harris, David

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

  Henderson, Barry

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Hordern, Peter

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Ryder, Richard

  Irving, Charles

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Scott, Nicholas

  Jessel, Toby

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Shersby, Michael

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Kennedy, Charles

  Spencer, Derek

  Kershaw, Sir Anthony

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

  Squire, Robin

  King, Rt Hon Tom

  Stanley, John

  Knox, David

  Stern, Michael

  Lamont, Norman

  Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

  1058

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Ward, John

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

  Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

  Watson, John

  Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

  Watts, John

  Thurnham, Peter

  Wells, Bowen (Hertford)

  Tracey, Richard

  Wheeler, John

  Trippier, David

  Whitfield, John

  Viggers, Peter

  Whitney, Raymond

  Waddington, David

  Wolfson, Mark

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Walden, George

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Wallace, James

  Mr. John Major and

  Waller, Gary

  Mr. Ian Lang.

  NOES

  Alton, David

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Ashby, David

  Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

  Beith, A. J.

  Hawksley, Warren

  Blackburn, John

  Hayward, Robert

  Boyes, Roland

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

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

  Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

  Hunter, Andrew

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

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

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

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Bruinvels, Peter

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Buchan, Norman

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Budgen, Nick

  Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

  Caborn, Richard

  Lamond, James

  Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Carttiss, Michael

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Cash, William

  McKelvey, William

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Mackenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  McNamara, Kevin

  Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

  McTaggart, Robert

  Cohen, Harry

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  Morris, M. (N'hampton, S)

  Conway, Derek

  Norris, Steven

  Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

  Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

  Corbett, Robin

  Park, George

  Cunliffe, Lawrence

  Parry, Robert

  Dalyell, Tam

  Patchett, Terry

  Dixon, Donald

  Randall, Stuart

  Dubs, Alfred

  Richardson, Ms Jo

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Evans, John (St. Helens N)

  Skinner, Dennis

  Farr, Sir John

  Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)

  Fatchett, Derek

  Spearing, Nigel

  Fisher, Mark

  Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Stott, Roger

  Forrester, John

  Terlezki, Stefan

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Forth, Eric

  Wainwright, R.

  Galley, Roy

  Wilson, Gordon

  George, Bruce

  Winnick, David

  Golding, John

  Woodall, Alec

  Grist, Ian

  Hamilton, James (M'well N)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Mr. Tony Marlow and

  Hamilton, W. W. (Central Fife)

  Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn.

  Hancock, Mr. Michael

  Question agreed to.
  Question put accordingly, That the amendment be made:—
  The House divided: Ayes 60, Noes 156.

  Division No. 149]

  [1.53 pm

  AYES

  Alton, David

  Campbell-Savours, Dale

  Ashby, David

  Carttiss, Michael

  Beith, A. J.

  Cash, William

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

  Bruinvels, Peter

  Conway, Derek

  Budgen, Nick

  Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

  Butterfill, John

  Dalyell, Tam

  Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

  Dixon, Donald

  1059

  Fairbairn, Nicholas

  McGuire, Michael

  Fallon, Michael

  McKelvey, William

  Farr, Sir John

  McNamara, Kevin

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  McTaggart, Robert

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Marlow, Antony

  Forth, Eric

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Galley, Roy

  Morris, M. (N'hampton, S)

  Greenway, Harry

  Norris, Steven

  Grist, Ian

  Parris, Matthew

  Hancock, Mr. Michael

  Penhaligon, David

  Hargreaves, Kenneth

  Randall, Stuart

  Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

  Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)

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

  Stern, Michael

  Irving, Charles

  Stevens, Martin (Fulham)

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

  Kennedy, Charles

  Terlezki, Stefan

  Kilroy-Silk, Robert

  Thornton, Malcolm

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Woodall, Alec

  Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Lamond, James

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Mr. Michael Brown and

  McCartney, Hugh

  Mr. Neil Hamilton.

  NOES

  Alexander, Richard

  Harris, David

  Alison, Rt Hon Michael

  Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)

  Ancram, Michael

  Hayhoe, Barney

  Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)

  Henderson, Barry

  Beckett, Mrs Margaret

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Bevan, David Gilroy

  Hunt, David (Wirral)

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

  Boothroyd, Miss Betty

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Boscawen, Hon Robert

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Bottomley, Peter

  Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

  Boyes, Roland

  Kershaw, Sir Anthony

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

  Bright, Graham

  King, Rt Hon Tom

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

  Knox, David

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

  Lambie, David

  Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

  Lamont, Norman

  Butler, Hon Adam

  Lang, Ian

  Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Chalker, Mrs Lynda

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Lilley, Peter

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

  Colvin, Michael

  Lyell, Nicholas

  Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

  McCrindle, Robert

  Cope, John

  McDonald, Dr Oonagh

  Corbett, Robin

  Macfarlane, Neil

  Couchman, James

  MacGregor, John

  Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

  MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

  Currie, Mrs Edwina

  Mackenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

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

  Major, John

  Dobson, Frank

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Mayhew, Sir Patrick

  Dunn, Robert

  Meadowcroft, Michael

  Durant, Tony

  Mellor, David

  Edwards, Bob (W'h'mpt'n SE)

  Miller, Hal (B'grove)

  Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

  Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

  Eggar, Tim

  Mills, Iain (Meriden)

  Evans, John (St. Helens N)

  Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

  Eyre, Sir Reginald

  Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

  Fenner, Mrs Peggy

  Moore, John

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

  Fisher, Mark

  Moynihan, Hon C.

  Fletcher, Alexander

  Needham, Richard

  Forrester, John

  Nelson, Anthony

  Foulkes, George

  Neubert, Michael

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Newton, Tony

  Freud, Clement

  Nicholls, Patrick

  Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Golding, John

  Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

  Goodlad, Alastair

  Patten, Christopher (Bath)

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

  Hamilton, James (M'well N)

  Pollock, Alexander

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Powley, John

  1060

  Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

  Taylor, John (Solihull)

  Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

  Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

  Renton, Tim

  Thurnham, Peter

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Tracey, Richard

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Trippier, David

  Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

  Viggers, Peter

  Roe, Mrs Marion

  Waddington, David

  Rogers, Allan

  Wainwright, R.

  Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Rumbold, Mrs Angela

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Ryder, Richard

  Walden, George

  Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

  Wallace, James

  Scott, Nicholas

  Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

  Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

  Watson, John

  Sheerman, Barry

  Watts, John

  Shersby, Michael

  Weetch, Ken

  Skinner, Dennis

  Wheeler, John

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Whitfield, John

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Whitney, Raymond

  Spencer, Derek

  Wilson, Gordon

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Wolfson, Mark

  Squire, Robin

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Stanley, John

  Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Stewart, Ian (N Hertf'dshire)

  Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones and

  Stradling Thomas, J.

  Mr. Archie Hamilton.

  Question accordingly negatived.

  Water Fluoridation Bill
    Clause 2

      POWER TO VARY PERMITTED FLUORIDATION AGENTS
      Mr. Golding: I beg to move amendment No. 46, in page 3, line 2, leave out from 'instrument' to end of line 3 and insert
      'subject to affirmative resolution of both Houses of Parliament after a full report has been given to Parliament three months previously on the tests carried out on the new substance'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
      No. 10, in page 3, line 2, leave out from 'to' to end of line 3 and insert
      'approval by resolution of the House of Commons.'
      No. 78, in page 3, line 3, leave out 'either House' and insert 'both Houses'.
      Mr. Golding: I was shocked to see that amendment No. 46 had been selected. One has only to know the background to its tabling to understand why. Last Tuesday I tried to speak in debates on fluoridation. I rushed back from Southend and arrived at 10.50 pm. The closure was moved and I could not speak. I left the House and ran out of petrol. I bought petrol and ran into a fog. At 2 am I got home.
      When I got home, worse even than my wife waiting for me, I had toothache. I could not sleep. Instead I indulged in my favourite pastime—writing amendments to Bills. So it was a shock to find the amendment on the Amendment Paper. I thought, "That is complex, sophisticated and subtle." It was a shock to find it standing solely in my name. I wonder why no other hon. Member has thought fit to add his name to mine. Perhaps it is because it is too sophisticated, complex and difficult for others.
      Mr. Forth: I can put the hon. Gentleman's mind at rest. Such is the respect in which he is held by right hon. and hon. Members throughout the House that we were confident that such would be his skill, ability and persuasiveness in dealing with the amendment that it would be totally superfluous for other right hon. and hon.

      1061
      Members to add their names to the amendment. We could all repose in the knowledge that he would fully discharge his responsibilities to the House in bringing forward the amendment. He can be assured of the support of many hon. Members on both sides in so doing.
      Mr. Golding: The hon. Gentleman—[Interruption.] I would never make that hon. Gentleman my PPS. His judgment is totally at fault. When I examined the amendment last night, I found that I did not understand it. One of my difficulties this afternoon—one that I often face—is that I have to persuade not only Conservative Members but myself. It is a complicated subject. I am hoping that the Chief Whip for the Liberals, the only person here who I know understands the procedures to which I am referring, will from time to time help me out.
      "Erskine May" is clear on the subject of parliamentary control of statutory instruments. It states:
      "The conditions of the making of statutory instruments and the degree of parliamentary control over them will depend in each case upon the particular statute which authorizes them, though there is at present no consistent pattern or direct connection between the subject matter of any particular instrument and the procedure to which it may be subjected".
      Those are the words of Erskine May. In my words, it is the usual parliamentary model.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I know that the hon. Gentleman is not a lawyer, but it would be helpful if he would tell us which passage in "Erskine May" he was quoting.
      Mr. Dobson: Get your trousers pressed.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman was saying from a sedentary position. If I get anything pressed it will be his head.
      Would the hon. Gentleman be good enough to give the page and paragraph reference for the passage he quoted in the latest edition of "Erskine May", if the hon. Gentleman has the latest edition. Some of us have been in the House so long that we may have older editions. I shall be obliged if he can give us the reference, and do everthing he can to press and suppress the hon. Gentleman.
      Mr. Golding: I always write quotations from memory. I am not certain that I have the right page number—in one edition it is page 577. "Erskine May" explains that:
      "Under one type of procedure the resultant instrument has no effect, or no continuing effect, until Parliament has expressly approved it."
      That is what I want. I want express approval.
      On page 577 "Erskine May" says:
      "Under another type it can be annulled if, within a time-limit, either House records its disapproval; the address to Her Majesty praying that an instrument be annulled is colloquially termed a `prayer'."
      "Erskine May" sets out the affirmative and negative procedures and says that they are "exempted business".
      Why, Mr. Deputy Speaker, do I insist on the affirmative procedure as I do in the amendment? One difference between the two procedures is in the laying. On page 578 "Erskine May" says:
      "What constitutes laying must be a matter for the decision of each House. In 1948, however, the Laying of Documents before Parliament (Interpretation) Act was passed 'for the removal of doubt'. It declared that statutory references to the laying of instruments or other documents before either House are (unless the contrary intention appears) to be construed as references to the taking, during the existence of a Parliament, of such action as, under the Standing or Sessional Orders or other directions of that House, or under the practice of that House, constitutes laying, notwithstanding that the action can be taken at a time when the House is not sitting."
      1062
      The important point is that a negative order can be laid when the House is not sitting.
      When the Government have lost their business today through the miserable incompetence of the Government Whips, the failure of the Leader of the House and the outstanding brilliance of the Opposition Chief Whip, one consequence will follow. It will be a minor result, but hon. Members will be able to go home. A more important point is that negative orders will still be able to be laid.
      Mr. Marlow: The Government have lost their business, despite attempts by Conservative Members to give them an opportunity to take the rest of today's business on another day and therefore keep today's business, largely because the hon. Gentleman was stuck outside the Lobby trooping and dragooning Labour Members into the Lobby to support the Government and so lose the business.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Hon. Members should come to the terms of the amendment.
      Mr. Golding: We are precisely on—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We must come to the terms of the amendment and not discuss the Chief Whips or the previous business.
      Mr. Golding: It was an aside, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      We are addressing the terms of the amendment when we discuss the differences between the conditions under which one can lay negative and affirmative orders. When the House has gone to rest, affirmative orders cannot be laid, but negative orders can be.
      Standing Order No. 141 says:
      "Where, under any Act of Parliament, a statutory instrument is required to be laid before Parliament, or before this House, the delivery of a copy of such instrument to the Votes and Proceedings Office on any day during the existence of a Parliament shall be deemed to be for all purposes the laying of it before the House:
      Provided that nothing in this order shall apply to any statutory instrument being an order which is subject to special parlimentary procedure or to any other instrument which is required to be laid before Parliament, or before this House, for any period before it comes into operation."
      Dr. M. S. Miller: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I pay tribute to his erudition and ability to wade through parliamentary procedure.
      Irrespective of whether we are dealing with the negative or affirmative procedure, when the time comes for my hon. Friend to tell us about the amendment, will he also tell us what the new substance is? I should like to know—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must address the House, not just his hon. Friend.
      2.15 pm
      Dr. Miller: Will my hon. Friend also tell us whether it is the case that tests should be carried out on substances before they are put in water? Would it not be better for him to ask that the water into which the fluoride has been placed is tested? My hon. Friend's point about the affirmative and negative procedure is valid, but the rest of the amendment is a mess. Perhaps he will tell us exactly what he is getting at.
      Mr. Golding: I shall come to the mess later. I hope that my hon. Friend will have time to listen to all the compounds that I shall list. I may have to write to him.
      Mr. John Patten: Will the hon. Gentleman lay a copy of it in the Library?
      Mr. Golding: Under Standing Order No. 141—I see hon. Members taking the Standing Orders out of their pockets—
      Mr. Kevin McNamara: The Minister put a serious point to my hon. Friend. Will he, or will he not, lay a copy of his letter in the Library?
      Mr. Golding: The odds are that if I write him a letter it will fall out of my pocket in the Central Lobby, in the Members' Lobby or in the Library. I therefore cannot say whether it will be laid in the Library, the Central Lobby or the Members' Lobby.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I do not understand what being laid in the Central Lobby, or wherever, means. I do not know whether it is negative or affirmative, but I am anxious to discover the hon. Gentleman's views. If one is spread-eagled on the Floor of the House, not in the Lobby or the Corridor, not laid, but spread-eagled, is that negative or affirmative?
      Mr. Golding rose—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman replies, he will be out of order. He had better get back to the amendment.
      Mr. Golding: I agree with you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I would be out of order if I were to tell the hon. and learned Gentleman to consult his manservant Blott to find out the answer.
      If, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will take out of your pocket the Standing Orders which you always carry with you and look at Standing Order No. 141, you will see that it says:
      "the delivery of a copy of such instrument"—
      a statutory instrument, but not a draft instrument—
      "to the Votes and Proceedings Office on any day during the existence of a Parliament shall be deemed to be … laying".
      As a matter of practice, instruments are not normally laid on Saturdays, Sundays, bank holidays, Good Friday or Christmas day. It does not say that they cannot be laid.
      What matters is the sneaky way in which certain Governments — Conservative Governments, never Labour Governments—lay instruments when nobody is watching. They can do that under the negative procedure. It is interesting that the one day that is left out is Christmas eve. I believe that it has been left out on purpose—so that Governments can lay statutory instruments without anybody finding out about them.
      Mr. Fairbairn: The hon. Gentleman is being rather personal. He knows perfectly well, he has known for years, that my birthday happens to be on Christmas Eve. Equally, he knows perfectly well that I was an Easter present from my father to my mother and a Christmas present from my mother to my father.
      Mr. Golding: There is a difference in the way that the papers are presented in the House of Lords. It is also different in respect of affirmative orders.
      The negative order procedure is always hit and miss, depending on whether hon. Members know that there is something to pray against. "Erskine May" tells us:
      "The laying of statutory instruments on the table of the House of Commons means in practice that the paper, having been delivered to the Votes and Proceedings Office"—
      1064
      I wonder whether any hon. Member knows where the Votes and Proceedings Office is? Perhaps I could be told later—
      "is placed in the Library of the House of Commons. The document is usually (though not always) laid in duplicate in accordance with a direction of the Speaker."
      I heard hon. Members speaking earlier about their lack of experience as Ministers. I had a short, traumatic experience as a Minister—traumatic for the electorate, and traumatic for the rest of the Government. I learnt that if one wanted to make certain that no one ever knew what one was doing in government, the best course was to answer a parliamentary question telling the hon. Member that something had been placed in the Library of the House of Commons. One could be almost certain that no hon. Member would ever take the trouble to look if the parliamentary answer was timed right. Answering the question on 23 December and placing the document in the House of Commons Library on 24 December would ensure a straight run. It is all a matter of hit and miss. That is one of the disadvantages of the negative procedure.
      Hon. Members are told about negative instruments, but not in a form that allows them to know what is happening. Since 1954 Governments have always put 50 copies of instruments and drafts subject to the negative resolution in the Vote Office when they are laid. "Erskine May" says:
      "The arrangements for notifying Members of what has been laid are as follows. In the House of Lords notice appears in the Minutes of Proceedings, and the papers themselves are available for inspection in the Printed Paper Office. When papers are laid in the House of Commons, notice appears in the daily Votes and Proceedings. Separate lists of statutory instruments etc., are published fortnightly in the House of Lords and weekly in the House of Commons, showing all the instruments and draft instruments against which negative motions can be moved within the statutory period, the date from which that period began to run and the number of days unexpired."
      I sat on the old Select Committee on Statutory Instruments. We used to get the list of statutory instruments, their titles and numbers. One could look at them and find it impossible to tell from the title what they were about. Even after looking at an order one often could not tell what it was about. If an instrument was on a negative procedure list, one would automatically assume that it was not of any great importance. That was a bad assumption to make. I was elected to the House in 1969 and servd on the Statutory Instruments Committee from 1969–70. My assumptions were wrong.
      It is impossible for hon. Members to keep up with all the delegated legislation: it is harder to keep up under the negative procedure than under the positive procedure.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Having merely served on a subsequent Statutory Instruments Committee and not having had the privilege of serving with the hon. Member, I regret that I cannot remember what he means by having a negative instrument and using it in a negative procedure. Could he enlighten me about that?
      Mr. Golding: I have quoted the page reference in "Erskine May", which will tell the hon. and learned Member the precise difference between the negative and the positive procedures.
      The problem with the negative procedure for those who know what it is—I presume that I have lost the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross at this point and I shall have lost a few more hon. Members soon—is that if one has not come to grips with it within 40 days, it passes into law. It is most unsatisfactory that it becomes

      1065
      law after the 40 day period unless one is right on top of the job. Perhaps the hon. and learned Member can make something of the phrase, "right on top of the job".
      The procedure for affirmative orders is different and better. The standing order I have quoted does not apply to instruments relating to affirmative orders. They can be laid only on sitting days. They cannot be sneaked in.
      Mr. Marlow: The hon. Gentleman's point is fundamental and vital to the future of fluoride and its use in this country. Is he aware that the resolution can be made by either House of Parliament—not just this House with its democratic responsibilities, but by the other House? This order which could be laid in some nook or cranny of our Library need not be laid here at all but could be laid in one of the darkest recesses of their Lordships' Library. Their Lordships will not have these matters brought to their attention by their constituents because they do not have constituents. Is that not a matter of great concern? Would the hon. Gentleman like to tell the House that it is totally unacceptable?
      Mr. Golding: It is not totally unacceptable to me. I have great faith in the House of Lords at present. Outside the local authorities and the town halls it is the only place where there are any Labour victories. I support the House of Lords. I shall come in a moment to Lord Shackleton's letter in The Times yesterday, which explains how much work is being done in the House of Lords. I feel shocked that the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) takes this puritanical attitude against the House of Lords.
      Mr. Marlow: I am sorry if I gave the hon. Gentleman that impression. By having the order laid in only one House, which could be the House of Lords, this House, with our democratic responsibilities, would not be involved in future control of this issue. As the hon. Gentleman knows it is fundamental to the health and liberty of the individual citizen.
      Mr. Golding: I do not understand that. Under the negative procedure, either House can annul the order. I should have thought that as an opponent of fluoridation, the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) would want every order under the Bill to be annulled. Perhaps I should have spelled it out to him with my kiddies' kit. My objective in moving the amendment is to make it easier for both Houses to annul orders that Ministers are proposing to extend fluoridation.
      2.30 pm
      Mr. Dobson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. When Dr. Kissinger used to whizz around the middle east, it was sometimes said that if it was Tuesday it must be Baghdad. Today if it is fluoride it is still Tuesday. Has the Leader of the House sought your permission to come to the House to explain what has happened to today's business and what he intends to do about the Interception of Communications Bill?
      Mr. Beith: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Does not our inability to proceed with the Interception of Communications Bill—and the Leader of the House is not here to explain the position—reveal how much better it would have been if you, or another occupant of the Chair, had had the power to ensure that the proceedings on that Bill were adjourned with due notice so that hon. Members would have the opportunity
      1066
      to read the Bridge report? Instead, to cover their embarrassment the Government have connived at the removal of their own business from the Order Paper.
      Mr. Forth: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. An independent, or at least independently minded, group of Conservative Members gave the House the opportunity to make its own decision about the conduct of today's business at approximately 1.25 pm. Will you guide us, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and tell us whether my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House needs to tell us why we made our decision?
      Mr. Fairbairn: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. If you were in a position to do a bit of phone-tapping, you would know.
      Several Hon. Members rose—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Do all hon. Members wish to raise similar points of order? If so, let me explain that it is not for me to ask Ministers to come to the House. We have an unlimited extension of proceedings, which is nothing new and certainly is not out of order.
      Mr. McNamara: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As the Leader of the House has now entered the Chamber, will you tell us whether, when he passed your Chair, he asked permission to make a statement to the House about the loss of today's business and whether an opportunity will be given to clear the Lobbies and say our prayers together as a community?
      Can you also tell us whether the Leader of the House has instructed his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to rewrite the infamous Bill that we were to consider today, to ensure proper democratic control of the Government's nefarious goings on?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: That is not a matter for the Chair, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. Ministers have heard what has been said and it is for them to take whatever action they consider necessary.
      The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): If it will help progress with the business now before the House, let me explain that, as Wednesday's business has been lost, the matter must now be considered through the usual channels. I hope to make a statement indicating that it will be further considered.
      Mr. Dobson: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I understand that some of my right hon. and hon. Friends were promised copies of the Bridge report, and told that they would be available before the debate on telephone tapping. Will the Leader of the House find out whether those copies have been made available?
      Mr. Biffen indicated assent.
      Mr. Don Dixon: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I find myself in a peculiar position. I have been led to believe that today is still Tuesday, but Wednesday happens to be my birthday.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am sure that the House wishes the hon. Gentleman many happy returns, but it is not a matter for me.
      Mr. Dixon: As Wednesday 6 March is not in the parliamentary year, will the Leader of the House tell me what I should do with my birthday presents? In

      1067
      parliamentary terms my birthday has disappeared, because today's business has been talked out and we are still discussing yesterday's business.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I repeat that that is not a matter for the Chair.
      Mr. Marlow: Further to that point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I think that I heard my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House say that tomorrow's business had been lost. If you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and other hon. Members look at the Division lists when the Official Report is published, I think that you and they will realise that it was a conscious decision of the Government and the Opposition to do away with tomorrow's business.
      Several Hon. Members rose—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: I remind the House that we still have to continue the proceedings on a very important Bill. The hon. Gentleman knows that the matter that he has raised is not one for the Chair.
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. You will have noticed that when my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) put his point of order, the Leader of the House assented from a sedentary position. My point of order is simple. Is that assent recorded in Hansard? If not, will the Leader of the House come to the Dispatch Box and make a statement that is?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: The Chair does not notice anything that is said from a sedentary position. I did not notice what happened.
      Mr. Robert C. Brown: Further to the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon), Mr. Deputy Speaker. I understand that just after midnight, the Committee proceedings of the Transport Bill were interrupted by hon. Members singing "Happy Birthday" to celebrate the birthday of my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow. As, technically, Wednesday 6 March has never occurred, surely it was out of order for hon. Members to sing "Happy Birthday" in celebration of a birthday that had not yet taken place and will not take place.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker:
      Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that he is completely out of order in raising matters relating to Committee proceedings on the Floor of the House.
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: Further to an earlier point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. As Opposition Members are so scandalised by the Government's behaviour in conniving at losing Wednesday's business, may I suggest that the best way of making their protest is to continue today's business until 2.30 pm tomorrow, so that we can lose the following day's business as well.
      Mr. Barry Sheerman: Further to an earlier point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The Leader of the House did not make a proper statement. He merely assented from a sedentary position. This is serious. We have lost a day's business on a very important matter. It is worth pointing out that Conservative Members who were responsible for that have never done it on
      1068
      unemployment, education or the abolition of the metropolitan counties, but on water fluoridisation they waste a parliamentary day.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Again, that is not a point of order for the Chair.
      Mr. Golding: I am a gambler. When gambling, I always bet each way. That is why I have brought with me a copy of "Tapping the Telephone". Perhaps, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you would like to ask hon. Members whether they want my speech on telephone tapping or a continuation of the speech about statutory instruments.
      Mr. George Foulkes: A bit of both.
      Mr. Golding: It is almost certain to sound like a bit of both, anyway.
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: I bow to the hon. Gentleman's great knowledge of procedure. Will he say whether the point made by my hon. Friend is correct as regards the orders being able to be laid in either House. It is not clear whether the order could be laid in both Houses but be voted on by a resolution of either House. Will the hon. Gentleman clarify that procedural point?
      Mr. Golding: According to "Erskine May", which I carry around in my head but put on paper for convenience,
      "an Order or an instrument may be required to be laid in draft before one or both Houses".
      It would be helpful if the hon. Member for Northampton, North would carry "Erskine May" with him, because he continually challenges on points of procedure which could be settled easily if he were simply to open the pages of that book. That would save the time of the House. If he would look at the rules, he would read the words:
      "before one or both Houses, and not to be made and to have effect unless one or both Houses"—
      the relevant words are "one or both"; Conservative Members have been trying to get me in a muddle, but they will not succeed—
      "present addresses to the Crown praying for the Order to be made or have agreed to resolutions approving the draft instrument."
      That is what is important. The Government must come to both the Commons and the Lords and say, "Here are the proposals, and until there is a positive vote we cannot have this legislation". That means, Mr. Speaker, that they must actually tell you that the order exists and what it is about. For that reason, if for no other, it is better to deal with orders by affirmative resolutions.
      There are drawbacks to the proposal. Standing Order No. 79 makes it clear in relation to a statutory instrument of the affirmative type that in the new Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments &c. a Minister may himself put forward an affirmative order for approval, but it is not so with the negative type. It may be that it is better taken on the Floor.
      It is unnecessary for me to spell out in detail all the reasons why the affirmative resolution procedure is preferable to the negative procedure. I believe that most hon. Members accept that, and that only Governments do not. Governments come to the House and tell us, "We do not have the parliamentary time." That is the standard argument against the use of affirmative resolutions. However, the Government are proving today that they

      1069
      have plenty of time and in a few hours' time they will declare a national Parliament half-day. We are all to be sent home and the evening is not to be spent in debate.
      If the Government were to manage their business better, they could find time to debate these instruments.
      Mr. Forth: As I believe that many hon. Members on both sides of the House have substantial contributions to make to this important debate, the hon. Gentleman is in danger of doing the House a disservice by putting into the minds of the business managers the very thought that our business today might be truncated in any way. Does he agree that that is most risky, and will he reconsider what he has just said and try to persuade the business managers on the Conservative Benches that they should have much more open minds about this issue and be prepared to let this business run to its necessary, obvious and serious conclusion, rather than attempt to truncate it in any way?
      Mr. Golding: It will be for others to advise me. Of course, Adjournment debates could take place and we could see to what time they might go.
      However, I must deal with the point of the other place, because the Bill is left to the discretion of either House and my amendment seeks to make it obligatory on both Houses.
      Mr. Beith: Before the hon. Gentleman leaves his consideration of the matter in relation to the House of Commons, I hope that he will remind hon. Members that even if they were extremely efficacious in the pursuit of their job of following up the negative instruments, there is no guarantee whatever that they would be able to secure a vote on the Floor of the House or an effective vote in Committee against the negative instrument.
      2.45 pm
      Mr. Golding: I have to agree that the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. One difficulty of the affirmative procedure is that it is virtually impossible to do anything with it by either debate or vote on the Floor of the House.
      Mr. Marlow: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can help me. The circumstances are somewhat unusual, in that it is not tomorrow, but yesterday. The debate has some time to go. Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House, as some organisation may be needed whether it is necessary to deal with the 10 o'clock motion tonight? Will it be necessary for hon. Members to attend to ensure that we can continue the debate after 10 pm, or, because our business is open-ended, will we proceed beyond 10 o'clock in any case?
      Mr. Golding: The hon. Gentleman does not seem to know what day it is. It is Tuesday, and we have long since passed 10 o'clock. I had to teach the hon. Member about those matters when we debated the British Telecommunications Bill. I thought that he would have learnt that in these circumstances, it is Tuesday and we have passed 10 o'clock, so there can be no 10 o'clock motion tonight. However, I hope that my remarks are hypothetical.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I have become increasingly confused.
      Mr. Dobson: For the past 20 years.
      Mr. Fairbairn: It has been many years since I managed to shrug off confusion, but the hon. Member has not helped. I have been gazing at that hideous clock for
      1070
      the past 24 hours, and I thought that when it said it was 10 o'clock, it must mean it. How many 10 o'clocks will there be before I can get rid of Tuesday?
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that it would be right for me to answer the hon. and learned Gentleman. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, in that we are in Tuesday's sitting and will remain in that sitting for the rest of today.
      Mr. Golding: You are more expert than me on the rules, Mr. Speaker. However, after last night, I am probably more expert than you on the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn). The reason why the clock appears to be confused is that it has been looking at the hideous hon. and learned Gentleman for the past 20 hours.
      I refer to the other place, of which I am envious because of the television drama that emanates from there. I said that the Government are defeated only in the other place. I wrote that yesterday.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Today.
      Mr. Golding: I wrote it yesterday—Monday. Is it not possible to make a statement in the House without being hounded by people who are completely ignorant of my domestic arrangements? I wrote that sentence yesterday.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Rubbish!
      Mr. Golding: Let us look at the position today. The Government are in disarray. We expected to see the Secretary of State for the Environment, but, instead, we see a broken reed of a Leader of the House—a pathetic figure.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. To keep the hon. Gentleman on the road, we should be interested to know whether he wrote it yesterday on the negative or affirmative procedure. We should be dealing with that and his amendment.
      Mr. Golding: Oh No, Mr. Speaker — [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I am going rather faster than usual.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I know that the hon. Gentleman is going faster than usual and I am very confused. May I be advised whether he has arrived at yesterday or tomorrow, or is it still today?
      Mr. Golding: Today.
      The amendment says "subject"—I did not deal with the word "subject"—"to affirmative resolution". I have dealt with the phrase "affirmative resolution".
      When you were not watching, Mr. Speaker, and when Conservative Members were making a noise, I went on to talk about both Houses of Parliament. I explained that a resolution of both Houses is better than a resolution of either House because the matter will then have to go to the House of Lords. We can win the argument in the House of Lords, but we never seem to win in the House of Commons, until today. We have won in the House of Commons today, but usually we win only in the House of Lords.
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that in normal circumstances the Opposition do not win arguments in this House. However, it will not have escaped his notice that Her Majesty's Government have not secured a majority of Conservative Members voting in their Lobby on a single Division on the Bill. Therefore,

      1071
      if more of the hon. Gentleman's hon. Friends were present to vote against the Government, the Government would have been defeated in this House.
      Mr. Golding: We cannot stand disloyalty to the party. My hon. Friends stayed in bed on my advice because I telephoned them and said that I had seen the most frightful sight — a young Conservative Member reading out private letters from Cabinet Ministers to their constituents. Admittedly those letters had been reneged on, but the fact that they had been written shook me. You will not believe this, Mr. Speaker, but I heard an account—
      Mr. Speaker: Order. Does it have anything to do with the amendment? The hon. Gentleman must stick to the amendment. I am the last person who wishes to be reminded of what has happened today.
      Mr. Golding: The point is that the Conservative party in the House of Commons has been in such disarray over the past 24 hours that I want to make certain that the legislation can be sent to the other place.
      Mr. Donald Coleman: My hon. Friend, like me, is a former Whip. We like to know where we are going and the House usually likes to know where it is going. However, we are still in Tuesday. My hon. Friend is talking about legislation and the other place. What day is the House of Lords in now? Will my hon. Friend enlighten the House?
      Mr. Golding: You know, Mr. Speaker, that there is a date-line across the middle of Central Lobby. If my hon. Friend does not show school parties the date-line across Central Lobby, what does he show them? Does not he say, "This is the line. On that side it is Tuesday in the House of Commons and on that side it is Wednesday in the House of Lords"? What do younger hon. Members do?
      I ask whether the House of Lords will make time. When returning from a good meal my attention was drawn to a letter in The Times about how hard their Lordships worked. One of their Lordships showed that letter to me. Conservative Members will have read it over breakfast, but my copy of The Times comes from the Library. The letter was written by Lord Shackleton and was headed
      "Longer labours in the Lords"
      and stated
      "In the Lobby Reporter's article of February 25 on 'MPs forced into more post-midnight sittings' it was suggested that, in contrast to the House of Commons, 'the House of Lords uses its expertise to avoid long hours'."
      That laugh will be on the Lords tonight because we shall be at home when they are working. The letter continues:
      "Alas, the suggestion that the Lords are able, by skilful management of business, to avoid late sittings is no longer true."
      Then he details the hours:
      "1956–57, average length of sitting, 3 hours 55 minutes. Average daily attendance 112."—
      Mr. Speaker: Order. What has this got to do with the hon. Gentleman's amendment? It is not relevant. The hon. Gentleman is very experienced. I must ask him to return to his amendment or, if he is quoting from a letter, to make it relevant to his amendment.
      Mr. Golding: I am trying to speak in shorthand. Normally I spell matters out. One thing is absolutely clear: the House of Lords, even though it may work longer, has the time to deal with delegated legislation. That becomes absolutely clear—
      Mr. Beith: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that as well as the point made by Lord Shackleton anxiety has been expressed in the House of Lords, not least by my noble Friend Lord Hooson, and acknowledged from the Government Benches in that Chamber that the House of Lords needs to make a particular effort to deal with those negative instruments which have not been subject to proper debate or vote in the House of Commons? It has been openly admitted in the House of Lords that discussion must take place through the usual channels in that House to ensure that more work is done by the Lords on those statutory instruments which have not been adequately debated in the House of Commons.
      Mr. Fairbairn: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I cannot hear a word that the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) is saying—not that I normally want to do so, but it might be useful if I could.
      Mr. Golding: On a very serious point, the question asked by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) was, cannot the Lords do more business in connection with the negative orders? The answer is yes. It obviously makes sense for the Lords to be dealing with affirmative orders as well.
      Mr. Beith: Perhaps I can take the hon. Gentleman's argument further and assist the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) at the same time. Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that at present the practice in the Lords is not to vote on the statutory instruments? If the House of Commons continues to show such disregard for their debate and consideration, the practice in the Lords of not voting on them surely cannot continue.
      Mr. Golding: I agree. I do not propose to talk about the reform of the House of Lords, but I believe in a working second Chamber and one that does what, inevitably, we neglect. Time can be found in the Commons, but I shall not talk about that.
      I turn to what hon. Members have talked about as the deficiencies in my amendment. The first question concerns what I mean by a full report. Even the word "full" causes difficulty. I wrote the word "full" and then I decided to look up its meaning. I looked at the Oxford Dictionary.
      Mr. Patrick Nicholls: What does it say?
      Mr. Golding: The hon. Gentleman asks me what the Oxford Dictionary says about the word "full". It starts on page 588 and goes on to page 592. I was glad to get to the word "fullage". There are all kinds of things that I do not understand in those pages — Aryan roots, quotations from the year 1000, Anglo-Saxon, locutions, Sherlock Holmes, pigs and bacon. I got quite interested in it, but I thought that the Speaker would never permit it to be read.
      Mr. Forth: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Golding: Mr. Speaker, when you were taking consultations, a Conservative Member was daft enough to ask me to tell the House what the dictionary said about the word "full".
      Mr. Forth: In an attempt to assist the hon. Gentleman to help the House and my hon. Friends, I suggest that he should accept as a synonym for "full" in this context the word "comprehensive", which may define more succinctly

      1073
      and readily — without recourse to the dictionary—the meaning that he seeks. Indeed, if the hon. Gentleman would do that it would enable us to move on briskly.
      Mr. Golding: The answer is no. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) has said, the advantage of being on the Labour Benches is that one can always find an intellectual adviser. Once the word "comprehensive" was mentioned, I was immediately given the message—"it's ambiguous".
      3 pm
      Mr. Fairbairn: I do not understand such words as "comprehensive"; indeed, I find them nauseating. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will advise me, as an Englishman, and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth) as a Scotsman, whether "full" means the same as "fou".
      Mr. Golding: I do not know; that was also ambiguous. The hon. and learned Gentleman asked me whether I could advise him "as an Englishman". Does he mean himself "as an Englishman", or me "as an Englishman"?
      As I knew, Mr. Speaker, that you would become impatient if I read the definition from the authoritative, longer edition of the OED, I consulted the shorter edition, where it appears on only a couple of pages. But again it is difficult to decide what "full" means. One definition reads:
      "(of heart etc.) overcharged with emotion".
      No doubt if the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross were writing the definition, it would be "full" in that sense — "overcharged with emotion"! But if my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) were doing that the definition would be "Having within its limits all it will hold; having no space, empty".
      Mr. Mark Fisher (Stoke-on-Trent, Central): I suspect that my hon. Friend really means, in this context, the definition
      "Having a rounded outline; large, swelling, plump, protuberant".
      but he is too good a friend to specify those terms, in view of the problems that we have both had with our outlines!
      Mr. Golding: What my hon. Friend is trying to say, in the language of the Potteries, is this: he is fat, I am thin. But he is a bit embarrassed about it.
      However, I must admit that, after having written the word "full" in the amendment and then studying the dictionary, I am not satisfied that it is right.
      Mr. Speaker: May I remind the hon. Gentleman that the amendment which we are discussing is his own? He drafted it and presumably knows exactly what he means. We do not need to go into the various definitions of the word "full". The hon. Gentleman has merely to tell the House exactly what he means.
      Mr. Golding: I must confess that after writing the amendment, when I came to read it I could not understand it.
      Mr. Speaker: In that case, the obvious course is for the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment so that we can get on.
      Mr. Golding: After appealing for help from other hon. Gentlemen, I find that the amendment has become—
      Mr. McNamara: On a point or order, Mr. Speaker. Surely my hon. Friend cannot withdraw the amendment unless he has the leave of the House?
      Mr. Speaker: Perhaps I had better rephrase my remark, and say "seek leave to withdraw the amendment". All I am saying is that if the hon. Gentleman feels that his amendment is defective surely it is wasting the time of the House to proceed with it. There is a substantial amount of other business on the Order Paper for today; we have a lot of work to do.
      Mr. Robert C. Brown: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. To be fair to my hon. Friend, he has been questioned by a Conservative Member about the meaning of the word "full". I believe that the House is entitled to a full description of what my hon. Friend means by the word "full". And I am sure that, in the fullness of time, he will give us that explanation.
      Mr. Soames: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I am desperately trying to make up my mind about the Bill. I cannot decide from what the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) is saying whether he is in favour of or against the Bill. I wish that you could urge the hon. Gentleman to parade the arguments so that we may make up our minds.
      Mr. Speaker: All I am saying to the House is that the debate has been very interesting. I heard the Minister say that the debate had been full and interesting. However, we are now dealing with a very narrow amendment. I am merely asking the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) to deal with his amendment. I pulled him up because I heard him say that he thought it was defective. If that is so, there is an obvious course for him. But if, in retrospect, he feels that it is sound, perhaps he would put it to the House in the confident expectation that the House will make its judgment upon it.
      Mr. Golding: While I was listening to the point of order my hon. Friends have told me that it is the best amendment that they have seen. I always have that experience.
      Mr. Andrew Bowden: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) withdrew amendment No. 46, would we then continue by debating amendments Nos. 10 and 78?
      Mr. Speaker: No. However, there is a Third Reading debate. All that is in the Bill may then be discussed, as is normal on a Third Reading debate. [Interruption.] Order If I sense the mood of the House, that is what the majority of hon. Members wish to do.
      Mr. Golding: I should be interested to see a hand vote on that. My fault is that I am too modest. In my experience, those who move amendments might put them to the vote, but even though Ministers might accept them, they often say that the drafting is defective but that they will put that right in another place. That has been common in my experience. The only difference is that it is not the mover of an amendment who acknowledges a slight blemish, but the Minister who points it out.
      I have read the Standing Orders and Erskine May very carefully. I consulted a previous Speaker on this. Nowhere in the Standing Orders is it laid down that an hon. Member speaking in the House of Commons must know what he or she is talking about. If there were such a rule, there would be silence. [Laughter.] Perhaps the rules have changed, Mr. Speaker.

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      I demand that a full report be given to Parliament "three months previously". Why three months? I do not know. That figure was pulled out of the air. It is probably the length of the closed season in fishing. It is something of that sort.
      Mr. John Gorst: I think that the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) has skipped a point in his argument. He gave us a full explanation of what he meant by the word "full", but he has not said what he means by the word "report".
      Mr. Golding: The hon. Member for Hendon, North (Mr. Gorst) has given me considerable help throughout my career. He has made a further contribution today. It is true that I have not said what I mean by the word "report". But I must leave that for now, because I must refer to
      "the tests carried out on the new substance".
      The new substance relates to the Bill. The Bill gives the Minister power to give water authorities the authority to add to the water two compounds—H2SiF6 and Na2SiF6.
      It has always been my experience that many hon. Gentlemen deliver vicious attacks and ask the most penetrating questions, then declare that they have to go to dinner before hearing the answers. I have been told that the substances are not new. However, they would be new to the Bill. That is the fact that has been overlooked.
      The amendment is designed to prevent the Secretary of State from adding a fluoride to the list of those that can be added to water unless tests had been undertaken and a report of the results submitted to Parliament three months beforehand.
      Mr. Greg Knight: I have been following the hon. Gentleman's speech with great interest. However, I am a little concerned about the amendment. As I read it there may be power to carry out tests, but there is no requirement to do so. If the amendment were carried could not its effects be negated if no tests were carried out?
      Mr. Golding: The answer is simple. Paragraph (b) will have to be deleted in another place. I hope that the noble Lords are listening to me now.
      The Bill allows the two named substances to be added to water, but clause 2(1) also says:
      "The Secretary of State may by order amend section 1(4) of this Act by—
      (a) adding a reference to another compound of fluorine".
      My amendment says that that fluorine would have to be tested and proved OK before its name could be added to the Act.
      Let us consider the compounds of fluorine — the fluoroacetates, for example. My book says that
      "The name is loosely applied to derivatives of monofluoroacetic acid, CH2FCOOH. The acid itself, its methyl ester, and all derivatives broken down in the body to the acid, are highly toxic substances, behaving as convulsant poisons with a delayed action. They are almost odourless, are difficult to detect chemically, and are very stable."
      The absurdity of the Bill is that it would allow the Secretary of State to add that substance—there is no argument about the fact that it is a poison—to water. That is why the Bill is defective. It is nonsense for Parliament to give the Government the power to add
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      poisons to water without them being tested first.
      Wherever we look in the Bill it is nonsense in terms of safety. We are not arguing about whether the fluorines mentioned are poisonous. Some hon. Members think that they are, others that they are not. However, we are dealing with compounds of fluorine that we all believe to be very dangerous.
      3.15 pm
      In reply to the hon. Member for Hendon, North I say that that is the sort of report that I would present to Parliament. It is full of chemical formulae, impressive diagrams and big words, but with the words "dangerous", "poisonous", "lethal" underlined to enable simple-minded Ministers to understand that we would not want to put those substances into the Bill and, more importantly, we would not want to put those substances into water. We want a report with a solid technical background which my hon. Friends can study and explain to me. We also want the simple, brutal, down-to-earth approach that might ultimately get through the thick skulls of those now sitting on the Treasury Bench.
      Sir Dudley Smith: Is it not more important that the hon. Gentleman's amendments signify the need for close scrutiny by Parliament of such matters? Is it not a fact that, as a result of the intense discussions which have taken place over the last 16 hours or so, this is the first time that Parliament has applied itself in detail to the vexed question of fluoridation? Is it not therefore important that such amendments are carried?
      Mr. Golding: The reason for that is simple. This is the first time since 26 February 1985 that I have been called to speak. Conservative Members have been talking on all subjects other than fluoridation in the absence of the hon. Gentleman.
      I shall turn to fluoride compounds—
      Mr. Gorst: Surely the hon. Gentleman could tell us the frequency with which he intends that they should be produced?
      Mr. Golding rose—
      Hon. Members: "Answer".
      Mr. Golding: It does not work like that.
      I must not miss telling the House about the fluorophosphoric acids. They are formed by the controlled hydrolysis of POF 3 and PF 5.
      Mr. Campbell-Savours: PF 6.
      Mr. Golding: PF 5. A moment ago I thought it would be a good thing to have a technical wizard at my side, but now I am being battered and bruised by my hon. Friend's barracking. He believes that I cannot read, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher) but, as I said, it is POF 3 and PF 5. The report says that that acid and also the esters of H 2PO 3F, the fluorophosphonates, may be prepared by the action of the silver salt on an ester.
      The report says exactly what we are saying—that those substances are extremely poisonous and volatile and act by inhibiting the enzyme cholinesterase. [Interruption.] Afterwards my English adviser will assist me.
      The report says:
      "They have an immediate action on the brain and lungs and cause a typical constriction of the pupil of the eye"—
      rather as do the speeches that we heard through the night. The document says:

      1077
      "Derivatives have been used as insecticides and suggested as chemical warfare agents (the 'nerve gasses')."
      like the speeches that we heard through the night. The document says that derivatives have been used as insecticides and also as chemical warfare agents—nerve gasses. Those are the substances that the Secretary of State may by order add to the Bill—and to the water.
      Mr. Fisher: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Golding: I am glad that the doctor has returned from his big meal. I wonder whether he can answer my question. If these substances are put in water at 1 mg per litre, will they be safe? Perhaps I was ill advised to ask the doctor whether those poisons were safe. I shall ask him again. If the Minister adds those poisons at l mg per litre, will they be safe?
      Dr. M. S. Miller: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I thought that he was joking and asking a rhetorical question. The answer depends on what my hon. Friend means by "safe". If he wonders whether anyone can guarantee that no side-effects will develop if fluoride, in one part per million, is added to water, it can be guaranteed. I cannot guarantee that if I gave an hon. Gentleman an injection of penicillin that that would not cause problems, too.
      If I recommended two or even one aspirin tablets, I could not guarantee that it would not cause the slightest ill effect.
      All the evidence shows that no ill-effects or any consequences will arise from using fluoride at one part per million. [AN HON. MEMBER: "What about thalidomide?"] The trouble with thalidomide is that it was not tested enough. We are talking about substances that have been used for 40 years and no cases of illness have developed from the use of such substances. There are always pseudo specialists and experts who make a lot of money by taking an opposite view. They must have won the Nobel prize for playing Ludo.
      I would not object to taking fluoride in one part per million or two, three, four or five parts per million. I would only start worrying if it reached 50 or 60 parts per million.
      Mr. Golding: I hope that I can intervene in my hon. Friend's speech. We are not talking about what he thinks that we are talking about. No wonder we get trouble when we visit our doctors. I was talking about methyl ester which is a fluoride compound.
      Mr. Best rose—
      Mr. Golding: Hang on. I was saying that it is described as being a highly toxic convulsive poison with a delayed action. The trouble is that my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller), who is a good doctor and a first-rate general practitioner, looks at the Bill, sees two fluorides which are less toxic than others—H2SiF6 and Na2SiF6—and thinks that that is what the Bill is about. It is not. It is about Ministers being able to add even more poisonous fluorides. My hon. Friend poured derision on my amendment earlier before he went for his big dinner and pudding.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: I did not have a big dinner and I had no pudding. I had a very light lunch.
      Mr. Golding: He was away a long time having a light lunch.
      Mr. Best: The hon. Gentleman who has just sought to intervene referred to experts. Is he aware that the definition of an expert is "ex"—past it—and "spurt"—to drip under pressure?
      Mr. Golding: I do not mix in such vulgar company and make such remarks.
      It is typical of the medical profession. The hon. Gentleman is sitting not with an Act but with some amendments in his hand. He does not understand what is happening.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: The hon. Gentleman has made a Freudian slip. It will become an Act.
      Mr. Golding: The Bill will not become an Act if it goes to the other place in this condition.
      Clause 2(1) states:
      "The Secretary of State may by order amend section 1(4) of this Act by—

      (a) adding a reference to another compound of fluorine; or

      (b) removing any reference to a compound of fluorine."

      I am in danger of repeating myself to the hon. Gentleman.
      Somebody has passed me a note saying that the longer I speak the smaller our vote will be. That is the most compelling note that could ever be given to me.
      I end on this point. When I was a Whip for the Independent Broadcasting Authority Bill, I remember one hon. Member being in revolt against the Government Whips. I do not name him, but I look straight at him now. I was in the Committee Corridor anxious and desperate for one hon. Member to arrive — Phillip Whitehead. We were one hon. Member short. Phillip arrived, dashing out of the lift with 12 books piled high in his hands. He said, "John, I've got some marvellous arguments here". My argument at the end of my speech, following the note from the hon. Member for Northampton, North, is the same as I used on that earlier occasion—"Phillip, bother the arguments; let's win the vote." So, having been appealed to on the ground of winning the vote, I end my contribution and commend my amendment to the House.
      Mr. John Patten: Pursuant to my policy of first winning the argument before attempting to win the vote, I should like to follow what the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) has said.
      I think that underlying everything that the hon. Gentleman has said is the concern for safety, which has been felt during the whole of this Tuesday's discussion of the Bill. The hon. Gentleman has shown concern about getting the correct reporting procedures back to Parliament, securing enough time for Parliament to consider the Bill and changing the procedure from the negative to the affirmative method of consideration. That was after he had taken us through his intellectual journeyings as he worked out exactly what the amendment, which he had drafted, meant.
      If I understand correctly what the hon. Gentleman believes the effect of his amendment to be, a full report would have to be presented to Parliament on tests carried out on any substance that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State chose to add to the list of substances in the Bill as drafted and amended by the Committee.
      3.30 pm
      It would be three months—the hon. Gentleman told us why he picked three months — before the statutory instrument was laid before Parliament through the affirmative resolution procedure. He has done that on the

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      basis of his experience. When he was a Minister the hon. Gentleman thought that the negative resolution procedure was a way of drawing wool over the eyes of the House on important issues.
      If I have understood the intent of the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme and the effect of his amendment—I believe that he is nodding assent from a sedentary position—
      Mr. Golding: This is always the problem. Hansard is desperate to get my inaccuracies right and I am nodding at the shorthand writer's note rather than at the Minister.
      Mr. Patten: I find myself in difficulty, Mr. Speaker. I shall have to speak to what I think the hon. Gentleman thinks he was thinking rather than anything that he can confirm he was thinking when he drafted amendment No. 46, which is so interesting. I hope that I shall be able to persuade the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme to withdraw the amendment. I know that my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health, who I welcome back to the Chamber, shares that wish.
      I am happy to put on the record the fact that this is Tuesday, but my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health is under some difficulty, because this morning he attended Standing Committee D upstairs and is under the impression that it is Wednesday. He has had to come back from Wednesday to Tuesday to join our proceedings.
      I hope that I can persuade the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme to withdraw his amendment. It is not necessary to change the statutory instrument procedure used in the Bill. I give this undertaking to the House with all the force that I can muster in the seventeenth hour of the debate: we would not seek to amend the list by the addition of any chemical that could possibly give rise to safety problems. All chemicals used to treat water supplies—not just fluoride but between 50 and 100 substances—are vetted by a committee of the Department of the Environment. The House may not be aware that such a committee exists. Its title is the committee on chemicals and materials of construction for use in public water supplies and swimming pools. It does excellent work in vetting all chemicals and mineral substances that are added to water.
      If, for any reason, hon. Members such as the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme think that the Government have not considered adequately the safety of a new chemical, they can ask that the advice made available to the Department of the Environment, and through that Department to the Department of Health and Social Security, on any new chemical be made available to any hon. Member who asks for it. I undertake to make that evidence available to any hon. Member. If, even after that, any hon. Member still thinks that he has not been given adequate time to consider the statutory instrument, he can seek to reject it.
      Mr. Beith: The hon. Gentleman may not recognise the predicament of hon. Members if they seek to reject the instrument in those circumstances. They may table a prayer as an attempt to do so, but they cannot force the Government to allow them time for a prayer to be taken on the Floor of the House, or even to allow debate in a Committee.
      1080
      Will the Minister accept amendment No. 10 instead, which is grouped with this, to ensure that there is bound to be a one and a half hour debate when the circumstances arise?
      Mr. Patten: I shall move on to amendment No. 10 later, so perhaps the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith) could wait till then.
      It would be odd for a Secretary of State for Social Services and a Minister for Health to seek to add to water supplies any substance that they thought could damage the population. It is extraordinary to suggest that my right hon. Friend or my right hon. and learned Friend should seek to do that.
      With our proven safety record stretching back some 30 years it would be an abuse of parliamentary time to require changes to the compounds of fluorine listed in clause 1(4) to be subject to the affirmative resolution of the House.
      Amendment No. 10, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best), has just been subject to some pre-emptive discussion by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed. The amendment would require an order under clause 2(1) to vary the compounds of fluoride to be used in fluoridation schemes to be subject to the affirmative resolution of the House. The hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme did not state clearly whether he agreed with my description of his amendment. However, I hope that my hon. Friend will agree that my understanding of his amendment is correct.
      Mr. Best: I hope that my hon. Friend will explain why the Government cannot accept it. It seems eminently sensible that the House should be the place to make the final decision on the addition of any extra compound to the water supply.
      Mr. Patten: I appreciate my hon. Friend's concern that amendments to the authorised compounds should not be made lightly. I do not want to introduce otiose words, but I reiterate that it would be a very odd Secretary of State for Social Services and Minister for Health who would seek to add anything to the water supplies that they thought would do any damage.
      I appreciate my hon. Friend's concern that those decisions should not be made lightly. However, the powers provided under clause 2(1) will be exercised only on the basis of expert advice from the Department of the Environment committee on chemicals and materials of construction for use in public water supplies and swimming pools. This advice could be made available to any hon. Member who wished to study it. It would always be possible to seek to annul the statutory instrument. There is no need for safeguards beyond those already provided in the Bill.
      Mr. Alan Williams: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Patten: I shall give way in a moment. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services could have sought to take powers to himself from time to time to add or take away from the water supply such substances connected with fluoridisation as he chose, without coming back to the House. Instead, we have taken the detailed and sensible step of setting out on the face of the Bill the substances that can be added, and giving adequate safeguards under clause 2(1).
      Mr. Williams: The hon. Gentleman still seems not to have understood the deep concern that is felt. Now we are compounding the fault of which the House first complained. As a result of the legislation we shall hand over to one non-elected body the ability to advise another non-elected body that it will carry out certain functions with no recourse to democratic procedures. We are now told that the power to vary what is added to the water will depend on the advice of yet a third non-elected body, of which the hon. Gentleman rightly guessed the House was unaware. Does the hon. Gentleman also realise that the negative resolution has little chance of being debated in the House? He should study the figures and find out what small proportion of such resolutions come before the House.
      As for the good intentions of Ministers, we do not know whether they are good intentions. Equally good-intentioned Ministers stood soldiers in the desert and allowed them to be exposed to radiation.
      Mr. Patten: During the debates on Second Reading, in Committee and during the many interesting hours of debate on the Floor of the House on Report we have discussed the Government's attitude towards water and health authorities. In the 17th hour of the debate it would not be right for me to go over that ground again.
      Mr. Williams rose—
      Mr. Patten: Before the right hon. Gentleman tries to intervene again, I am trying to answer his first question.
      We have built adequate safeguards into the Bill. We have listed those substances that can be added. Clause 2(1) contains sufficient safeguards.—[Interruption.] That is a matter of difference between my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn and me, and between the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) and me. We simply disagree. There is endless opportunity in the House to disagree about ways and means. The issue is not one that can be subjected to exact scientific analysis about what form it should take.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: The Minister knows that I am a very strong supporter of fluoride being added to water. I understand why the Government wish to proceed in this way. There are adequate safeguards for the efficacy of what is added and for ensuring that it is not dangerous.
      It was pointed out to the Committee on Safety of Medicines that some drugs slip through. Unfortunately that happens, possibly because not enough experimentation has been done. However, we are talking about well-known chemical substances. There is nothing new about them. They have been used for adding to water and for other purposes for many years. It is unlikely that they will cause any difficulty but there is always the remote possibility of some problem.
      I should be satisfied if the Minister would undertake that, whatever Minister was in office, he would not wait for a tragedy if there were any sign of difficulty with a substance, but instead institute an immediate examination.
      Mr. Patten: Of course the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We have debated ways and means of getting an adequate parliamentary check on what will happen in the future and whether it should continue—both hypothetical questions. I do not wish to go over our previous debates. I merely remind the House that we discussed the way in which, if they chose, health
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      authorities could re-examine the question of fluoridation at will. By a number of devices the House can do the same thing.
      Underlying our debates is the fact that the Secretary of State and his Ministers would not, under any Administration, seek to add to the public water supply or to any other part of the earth or the atmosphere any substance that was likely to cause harm. Moreover, if any substance was found to be likely to cause harm, Ministers would not wait for debates in the House. We do not do so when there are contra-indications about drugs. My right hon. Friend and my right hon. and learned Friend act swiftly. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, if necessary using his powers of direction under the National Health Service Act 1977 introduced by the then Labour Government, can tell water authorities and health authorities to cease the practice and take away this or that chemical.
      3.45 pm
      The same argument applies to the other amendment in this group. However, before I come to that amendment, I shall give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth), who wishes to intervene.
      Mr. Alan Howarth: Will my hon. Friend explain further why the Government should take powers to close the stable door after the horse has bolted? I fully agree with the right hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) who said how unsatisfactory it was to hand over these powers to unaccountable bodies. It is even more extraordinary, bearing in mind the patent uncertainty of this issue—to say the very least—and the wealth of evidence cited by hon. Members at great length and with great sincerity during these long debates, showing that there are large question marks about the safety of fluoride, for the Government not just to empower themselves to medicate compulsorily the water supply, but to hand over that power to other bodies.
      Mr. Patten: We are not handing over that power to any other body. All the advice that is available to the Department of the Environment is scientific advice. Scientific advice is available to my right hon. Friend. It is no good my hon. Friend shaking his head. I am explaining the situation. Scientific advice is available to my right hon. Friend and my right hon. and learned Friend, and on the basis of that scientific advice about drugs, mineral additives to water, and every other aspect of the National Health Service, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services acts swiftly, often well before problems occur, when warning signs are flagged about any of those issues.
      Over the past 30 years, successive Governments of both parties have conducted their policy on fluoridation on that basis. We are not talking about a new drug introduced a couple of years ago by a foreign drug company with a curious name that we do not understand. We are talking about a substance that has a successful and proven track record over a substantial number of years—a period substantially longer than that of many of the drugs on the market that have been tried and tested. That is what gives us the certainty that the method laid down in the Bill is correct.
      We therefore cannot accept the amendments, or the similar and related amendment standing in the name of my

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      hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow). If the amendments are not withdrawn, we shall seek to resist them.
      Mr. Forth: I rise with some hesitation at this hour, bearing in mind the length of time for which our deliberations have lasted. My excuse for seeking to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, is that I was in Standing Committee all last night, so I was able to participate only sporadically in the proceedings on the Floor of the House. However, since 8 o'clock this morning I have followed our proceedings here with great interest.
      I was particularly interested in what the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Golding) said, because he raised many fundamental points which I must say were not dealt with by the Minister entirely to my satisfaction. The amendment raises a number of different and important issues. It involves procedural, political and—in some senses — even constitutional issues. I shall deal with each of them in turn—I hope briefly.
      Against the background of the emotions aroused by the Bill, of the length of time that the House has been prepared to spend on it, and of the highly contentious elements of the argument, it seems odd to me that the Minister should come to the House at this hour and say, "You really must accept the sort of approach that we are taking." My answer would be, "He would say that, wouldn't he?"
      I regret having to say that because in any normal circumstances, I believe that we could accept the procedures suggested in the original drafting of the Bill. But when the Minister comes to the House and says, "It would be a very odd Secretary of State, or Minister of State, who would seek to add harmful substances to water", he begs two very important questions. First, while all Government Members — and I hope Opposition Members too—have total respect, admiration and regard for the present incumbents of the great offices that I have just mentioned, it is legitimate to query, now as always, whether any House of Commons should be expected to accept that sort of statement for any future incumbents of those offices.
      The Minister is prevailing on our good will and our good faith by suggesting that we can make the transition from accepting his word and that of his right hon. and learned Friend, and with those, the words of any future incumbents of their offices.
      Mr. Williams: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that in support of his argument we do not need to deal with hypothetical cases? We have only to look at the long time taken to establish the hazards relating to asbestos and to have recognised the problems, other than pneumoconiosis, relating to dust in mines, a struggle that lasted for decades. Will the hon. Gentleman equally bear in mind that where there has been universal compulsory consumption of a substance, possible compensation payments might be so enormous that they would produce serious conflicting pressures on the Minister?
      Mr. Forth: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. Along with the point that he so correctly made there goes another argument. I admit that there is always an element of arrogance in the House when it takes the argument to itself, but I shall suggest it nevertheless. We are entitled to be suspicious from time to time of scientific,
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      bureaucratic and even of ministerial opinion, for the reasons that the right hon. Gentleman has just given. There have been other cases.
      Mr. John Patten: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Worcestershire (Mr. Forth). I understand that my hon. Friend is keen to replace the negative statutory instrument procedure with the affirmative.
      Mr. Forth: Wait and see?
      Mr. Patten: In that case, may I withdraw my question and wait and see?
      Mr. Forth: Even the Minister must not presume too much on what I am about to say. I invite him to follow me down my chosen path, and then if he wishes to intervene, I shall of course allow him to do so.
      There is a time-honoured, but legitimate, question that we must address, the key and vital relationship that must always exist in such matters between the House of Commons, with its accumulated wisdom, and, to describe it in shorthand, the Administration, with all that that includes — the Executive branch of Government, Ministers, civil servants, scientific experts, and the whole body of advice and guidance available within the Government machine.
      It has been suggested that the House must always accept that no future incumbent of one of the high offices in the appropriate Department could give us wrong advice on this question. But that is something that I cannot accept, either as a constitutional principle or as a principle of the relationship between Government and the House of Commons.
      My hon. Friend went on to ask who would seek to add harmful substances to water. That question, again, is begged. The debate throughout all these hours, and perhaps more yet to come, has been about our judgment of what is harmful in water. It is a matter of regret that at this stage in the debate the Minister should come to us and say, "Surely I, or my colleagues, would not be so stupid as to add something harmful to water?" when he has spent all this time trying to tell us that fluoride is not harmful. Also, there is a large body of opinion in the House which judges that fluoride is, or may be, harmful and those hon. Members would not be prepared to take the risks that the Minister seems to be telling us he would be prepared to take.
      It is a matter of judgment of risk, but judgment of risk in the context of the health and well-being of our population.
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: I wonder whether the Minister, the House and the public notice that the good doctor, the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller), whom I greatly admire and who is in favour of the Bill, none the less said that, having seen the evidence against fluoride, he could not guarantee that it was safe. Would my hon. Friend like to comment on that?
      Mr. Forth: Indeed, I am grateful to my hon. Friend. that is one of the other sides of this many-sided coin, if there is such a thing. It concerns that element of judgment about which we in turn are now making our own judgment and it is whether we can reasonably be asked to accept that the procedures laid down in the original drafting of the Bill will be satisfactory in this case.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: The hon. Gentleman has paraphrased what I said; it was a selective quotation from

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      my remarks. I draw a comparison with the honest statement that no medicine that anyone gives to a patient can be guaranteed to produce no untoward effect. I did not say "unsafe".
      I should like to bring the hon. Gentleman's attention to the new drugs which come on to the market every year. There are many such drugs. Some are good, others not so good. When an hon. Member is prescribed a particular medicine by a doctor he does not ask whether the substance was considered by the House to see whether it was safe. Life could not go on like that. The cumbersome bureaucracy that would be needed if that were to happen would mean that no one would receive injections for pneumonia or modern drugs for heart treatment and high blood pressure and so on.
      Let me tell the hon. Gentleman that many of the drugs I am talking about cause side effects. Many are extremely dangerous. Fluoride is not, on the evidence we have—
      Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must not make a speech. He may do so later, but he is intervening now.
      Dr. Miller: I take the point, Mr. Speaker. All I am saying is that that cumbersome bureaucratic system cannot be applied to a substance which is less toxic than many of the substances which we accept readily when we are ill.
      Mr. Forth: I am grateful, but I shall not be tempted down that path which would lead back to a rediscussion of the principles behind the Bill. I am sure that you, Mr. Speaker, would not want that. Suffice it to say at this stage that the difference here is that we are talking about the compulsory force-feeding of people with this material. They have a choice ultimately whether they are given medication by a doctor. Had I participated in the Second Reading debate my argument would have been that if people want to protect their teeth they can brush them. That is a simplistic but nevertheless effective approach to the problem. I accept the hon. Member's explanation and I respect his professional expert knowledge of the matter. However in this case, perhaps uniquely, we are being asked to accept the concept of introducing into the water supply something that many people may not want to ingest. That is the key distinction. That is what makes the issue so vital and important.
      Mr. Alan Howarth: My hon. Friend has just made a key point. I am quite sure that he would agree with me that not even the Government's most extravagant political opponents would accuse them of wishing to poison the people. However, the Bill is gratuitous. It is risky and large scale in effect. Would it not be the merest intellectual and medical prudence to pause and not to take these powers until the uncertainties over fluoride are resolved?
      4 pm
      Mr. Forth: Typically, my hon. Friend has almost made my speech for me, but with a brevity and relevance that I find difficult to match. If he will allow me, however, I shall put what he said into my own words.
      I now approach a question that the Minister is eagerly anticipating. I shall put it to him in the best way that I can.
      Mr. Marlow: May I just say something to the honourable doctor sitting opposite—the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller)? When we are ill, we sometimes have to take a drug which may have a side effect. But when we are well we do not need to take the drug, so why must we put up with the side effects?
      Mr. Forth: Again, one of my hon. Friends is in danger of stealing my thunder. On occasions such as this we risk out best lines being usurped by our hon. Friends, but because they are our hon. Friends we do not mind.
      We are now temptingly approaching a matter that the Minister wanted me to deal with some time ago. I have tried to explain the background to this important issue. We now come to the key matter of procedure, which actually implies much more. We appear simply to be discussing negative and positive approaches, and many hon. Members will be forgiven if they fail to understand all the nuances, although we all tried to follow the brief but excellent speech by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme.
      Do we wish to submit ourselves yet again to what many of us have often seen as a defective or at least very weak procedure for the House to scrutinise what the Executive brings before it? Rightly or wrongly, that is how many right hon. and hon. Members see the negative procedure, which lays a heavy burden on individual Members and on the House to attempt to get the gist of a measure, to judge it and even perhaps to stop its progress.
      If, on the other hand, we adopt one of the procedures suggested in the amendments, I believe that we shall have a much greater opportunity to properly scrutinise—if I may split my infinitive—this vital matter in which so many people have shown an interest. Although we were guided carefully through the amendment by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, I feel that it is incumbent on us to look at it again and judge for ourselves whether the approach that it suggests is better than that suggested by the Minister.
      Mr. Fairbairn: My hon. Friend complained that he had split an infinitive by saying "to properly scrutinise". I cannot understand why on earth he did not say "to scrutinise properly". Then he would not have had to explain.
      Mr. Forth: I am always ready to be corrected by my hon. and learned Friend, whose knowledge and experience of such matters far exceeds mine. I am grateful to him for pointing out my grammatical offence, and I shall try not to commit it again, at least during this speech.
      Amendment No. 46 contains all the essential elements of the argument that we are considering. It offers us all of the ingredients that we would wish to have before us to carry out the procedure of scrutiny: a full report, a three-month period in which to consider it and tests on the new substance. Surely that is the culmination of all our debates about the introduction of fluoride to water supplies. I cannot understand the Minister's reluctance to accept something that must appeal to many right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House. Perhaps I can tempt my hon. Friend the Minister to say, now or later, why he is so unhappy and suspicious about a procedure which apparently gives us what we want and apparently allows us to judge, as our experience develops and unfolds, the efficacy and, more importantly, the safety of the substance that gives so many of us cause for concern.
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: Put succinctly, the Minister will reply that what he dislikes about my hon. Friend's suggestion is that it is democratic.
      Mr. Forth: Democracy has many facets and may meanings, probably as many as there are individuals who

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      try to interpret it. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his advice, but I choose to see it in a slightly different context, which is the facility for the House to judge from time to time the cumulative experience of the issue through the vehicle of the reports which the amendment suggests. That is why, again, I am unhappy about the Minister asking us to accept the kind of procedures which we have used in the past, and still use, and that are in the Bill, drafted as ever in the way in which such Bills have always been drafted. I hope that he will accept our understandable suspicion of the past weaknesses of such procedures that lead many of us to prefer the formulation that the amendment suggests.
      Mr. John Patten: My hon. Friend was right. The "wait and see" policy was the right one for me to follow, because it reassured me that my powers of intuition about the way in which my hon. Friend was likely to go in his speech were not wide of the mark. May I say in the margins of my intervention how much I admire the way in which my hon. Friend is continuing his speech in the 18th hour of the debate? It shows that our collective decision to pursue the debate when it reached an important and interesting stage was correct.
      Is my hon. Friend not aware, as he discusses the correct procedures that we should use, that one of the problems with using the affirmative resolution procedure is that it has to be laid before the House, and a period of time elapse, and has to be debated before decisions can be taken. Is he also not aware that under the negative resolution procedure if there is doubt about the efficacy or safety of a chemical, it can be removed immediately, without delay, from the list prescribed in the Bill, which we hope will be enacted, whereas delay is inbuilt in the affirmative procedure?
      Mr. Forth: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister. I acknowledge also my debt of gratitude to the Government—or what is sometimes in these circumstances vulgarly known as the payroll—for voting to extend the debate beyond 1.25 pm today as, due to that decision, I was allowed to make my speech. I am most grateful and I hope that they regard their decision as worthwhile.
      To take up the point that the Minister made for me, I accept what he says and the spirit in which he says it. Like so many other matters, it depends upon one's perspective and assumptions, and where one starts out from—if I may end the sentence with a preposition for the benefit of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn).
      We are attempting today to make a balanced judgment. I remain unconvinced about what the Minister said. I prefer the formulation suggested by the amendment, because I believe even now that on this matter of such vital concern to so many, reassurances are wanted across the spectrum of society that is represented here today. I am prepared to keep an open mind, but I still feel that the approach which the amendment suggests would be preferred by many who, rightly or wrongly, still have an inherent suspicion of the Executive's approach, power and decision.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I have a true belief that the Minister, for all his charm and bonhomie, shares the same fears as my hon. Friend has advanced, and for all his pretence,
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      while grabbing the Dispatch Box and flicking his shoes, of being a man of confidence, he is a man of doubt. My hon. Friend is expressing his doubts.
      Mr. Forth: I am most grateful to my hon. and learned Friend. With some reluctance, I must draw my remarks to a close. I know that many of my hon. Friends looked forward to my contribution and I regret having to disappoint them at such an early stage. Nevertheless, I am aware of the strictures of many people, not least yourself, Mr. Speaker, so I will mention my final thought on this issue.
      I have not addressed myself to the content of amendment No. 78, which raises another new and important concept of the involvement of both Houses. That matter was touched on by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme and I venture to suggest that I should leave it to other of my hon. Friends to develop the point. My hon. Friend the Minister may care to think about the extent to which he would accept involvement by the other place in this matter, with their Lordships using their most mature and expert judgment, which we have often seen employed on so many matters, and bringing it to bear on this issue of vital social interest.
      Therefore, we should be given the opportunity to vote on these amendments. I hope that they will not be withdrawn but left before the House. Further, I hope that, in the same way as I am prepared, even now, to keep my mind open to my hon. Friend the Minister, he will be prepared to keep his mind open to the virtues of the amendments which I have described.
      Mr. Stanbrook: The Bill does not have the support of the majority of public opinion. By any standard that we can accept, any testing of public opinion reveals that the compulsory medication of public water supplies is rejected by an overwhelming majority of the people. Nor does it have the support of hon. Members.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. All that the hon. Member is saying would be eminently suitable on Third Reading but not, I think, on this amendment.
      Mr. Stanbrook: That may well be so, Mr. Speaker, as regards my opening remarks. I will narrow them down to the purpose of the amendment.
      The question posed by the amendment was posed in a most acute form by my hon. Friend the Minister. He is saying that it is not necessary for us to pass the amendment because he and his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Security not only have the interests of the country at heart, but are supported and advised by a number of experts, with committees of doctors, chemists and scientists to assist them, and water authorities and district health authorities which can advise and make decisions. However, in all of those respects, none of those people is elected, save the Minister himself.
      His argument that he can take the decision in the interest of the country as a whole is the argument of the tyrant down the ages. In this place, 650 Members of Parliament are elected to make judgments of the kind that the amendment calls upon us and not the Minister to make. I acknowledge that it may well be that the apathy of a majority of hon. Members will mean that they are not present to vote down my hon. Friend the Minister, but he is supported by a number of other hon. Members who, because they are obliged to support the Government, will

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      be sufficient to overwhelm the opposition to the measure in this place. However, they are acting on the principle that they know best—but they do not. This place exists not because Ministers know best but because we control Ministers.
      Judgments of this kind are essentially political. They are not scientific, expert or technical, but political. Do the majority of the public want compulsory medication of water supplies?
      We should know best about that as there are 650 Members of Parliament. The amendments seek to ensure that the essential argument should be resolved in this place. All the supporting arguments are directed to the end that we are supreme under this constitution.
      4.15 pm
      The matter goes to the root of the liberty of the individual. Why should he be imposed upon in this way? Why should a political decision, based on non-elected technical argument, be imposed on people against their will? We are not satisfied that it should be imposed and believe that my hon. Friend the Minister is wrong to say, "Trust me because I sit at my desk in Whitehall aided and advised by technical experts on this subject and you can be assured that we shall take this decision only in the interests of the people."
      Mr. Fairbairn: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mr. Stanbrook: If my hon. and learned Friend will allow me, it would be better if I finished my argument.
      If government were conducted on that basis, we would not need Parliament. It might be that the country would be better governed, but for centuries we have decided that we should not be governed in that way. All experience has taught us that that sort of government does not lead to the improved condition of the people.
      The amendment strikes at the fundamental principle that is covered by the Bill. Should the House have the decision over a political judgment or not? The amendment covers that point, and I ask the House to support it.
      Question put, That the amendment be made:—
      The House divided: Ayes 84, Noes 192.

      Division No. 150]

      [4.16 pm

      AYES

      Archer, Rt Hon Peter

      Fallon, Michael

      Ashdown, Paddy

      Farr, Sir John

      Aspinwall, Jack

      Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

      Beith, A. J.

      Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

      Bellingham, Henry

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Best, Keith

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Blackburn, John

      Galley, Roy

      Bowden, A. (Brighton K'to'n)

      Golding, John

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      Greenway, Harry

      Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

      Grist, Ian

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

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Browne, John

      Hancock, Mr. Michael

      Bruinvels, Peter

      Hargreaves, Kenneth

      Budgen, Nick

      Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

      Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

      Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

      Carttiss, Michael

      Hayward, Robert

      Cartwright, John

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Cash, William

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

      Chope, Christopher

      Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)

      Clegg, Sir Walter

      Irving, Charles

      Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

      Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

      Cox, Thomas (Tooting)

      Lamond, James

      Dixon, Donald

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

      Edwards, Bob (W'h'mpt'n SE)

      Lester, Jim

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      1090

      McKelvey, William

      Stern, Michael

      Maclean, David John

      Stevens, Martin (Fulham)

      McNamara, Kevin

      Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

      Marlow, Antony

      Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

      Terlezki, Stefan

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Norris, Steven

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Ottaway, Richard

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Proctor, K. Harvey

      Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

      Randall, Stuart

      Wigley, Dafydd

      Rost, Peter

      Wilson, Gordon

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      Skinner, Dennis

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

      Speller, Tony

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Mr. Bill Walker and

      Steel, Rt Hon David

      Mr. Eric Forth.

      NOES

      Alexander, Richard

      Gummer, John Selwyn

      Ancram, Michael

      Hamilton, James (M'well N)

      Arnold, Tom

      Hanley, Jeremy

      Ashton, Joe

      Harris, David

      Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

      Henderson, Barry

      Barron, Kevin

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Batiste, Spencer

      Hind, Kenneth

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

      Bevan, David Gilroy

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

      Bottomley, Peter

      Home Robertson, John

      Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

      Hughes, Dr. Mark (Durham)

      Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Bright, Graham

      Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

      Brinton, Tim

      Jackson, Robert

      Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

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

      Jessel, Toby

      Bryan, Sir Paul

      Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

      Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

      Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

      Butler, Hon Adam

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

      Chalker, Mrs Lynda

      Kennedy, Charles

      Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

      Kershaw, Sir Anthony

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

      Colvin, Michael

      King, Rt Hon Tom

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Lambie, David

      Coombs, Simon

      Lamont, Norman

      Cope, John

      Lang, Ian

      Couchman, James

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

      Dalyell, Tam

      Lilley, Peter

      Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

      Loyden, Edward

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

      Lyell, Nicholas

      Dobson, Frank

      McCrindle, Robert

      Dorrell, Stephen

      McDonald, Dr Oonagh

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Dover, Den

      MacGregor, John

      Dunn, Robert

      MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

      Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

      MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

      Durant, Tony

      Mackenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

      Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

      Major, John

      Eggar, Tim

      Maples, John

      Ellis, Raymond

      Marland, Paul

      Evans, John (St. Helens N)

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

      Mawhinney, Dr Brian

      Fletcher, Alexander

      Maxton, John

      Forrester, John

      Mayhew, Sir Patrick

      Foulkes, George

      Meadowcroft, Michael

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Mellor, David

      Fox, Marcus

      Miller, Hal (B'grove)

      Fraser, J. (Norwood)

      Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

      Freud, Clement

      Mills, Iain (Meriden)

      Gale, Roger

      Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

      Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

      Miscampbell, Norman

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Moore, John

      Gow, Ian

      Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

      Gower, Sir Raymond

      Moynihan, Hon C.

      1091

      Needham, Richard

      Squire, Robin

      Nelson, Anthony

      Stanley, John

      Neubert, Michael

      Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

      Newton, Tony

      Stewart, Ian (N Hertf'dshire)

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      O'Neill, Martin

      Taylor, John (Solihull)

      Osborn, Sir John

      Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

      Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

      Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

      Patchett, Terry

      Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

      Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

      Tracey, Richard

      Pattie, Geoffrey

      Trippier, David

      Pavitt, Laurie

      Trotter, Neville

      Penhaligon, David

      Viggers, Peter

      Pollock, Alexander

      Wakeham, Rt Hon John

      Powley, John

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

      Walden, George

      Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

      Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Wallace, James

      Richardson, Ms Jo

      Waller, Gary

      Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

      Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

      Rifkind, Malcolm

      Watson, John

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Watts, John

      Robertson, George

      Weetch, Ken

      Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

      Wheeler, John

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Whitfield, John

      Rumbold, Mrs Angela

      Whitney, Raymond

      Ryder, Richard

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Wolfson, Mark

      Scott, Nicholas

      Wood, Timothy

      Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

      Yeo, Tim

      Sheerman, Barry

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Short, Ms Clare (Ladywood)

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Snape, Peter

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Soley, Clive

      Mr. Archie Hamilton and

      Spencer, Derek

      Mr. Peter Lloyd.

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Question accordingly negatived.
      Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
      I trust that I do not have to break off on a point of order to suggest that the ten-minute rule might be applied to speeches at this stage of the proceedings. I cannot believe that hon. Members who have taken part in the debate during the last few hours can think of any new point to make, because I cannot. At this stage we wish merely to underline the productive nature of our debate and our basic approach to the Bill.
      As a final word about the Bill, I wish to say that I am glad that for the last few hours and over several Sittings we have been discussing a Bill that directly relates to health. It is one of the features of the job of Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Security that we rarely directly address the problem of health, and certainly not through legislation. We usually find ourselves arguing about money, management and local difficulties of one kind or another. But this Bill is directly aimed at promoting good health; it is an extremely important measure for preventive health. It has been interesting, to say the least, to see the way in which the House of Commons has reacted to a measure whose sole purpose is to reduce the incidence of dental caries.
      Mr. Marlow: Will my right hon. and learned Friend give way?
      Mr. Clarke: I think that my hon. Friend may catch Mr. Speaker's eye shortly.
      I shall not repeat the scientific basis of our case. A great deal of time has been spent in exchanging the opinions of different medical and scientific authorities in this country
      1092
      and abroad. I remain satisfied that the Government have demonstrated that the introduction of fluoride into the water supply at the recommended concentration has a marked effect in reducing dental caries, especially among children. It is more successful than any other method so far devised.
      We are convinced that there is no serious doubt about the safety of adding fluoride to water at the level in question. It would be pointless to continue going over all the arguments about whether it is dangerous to tadpoles, bees, cattle and trout, and their eggs, or to women taking the contraceptive pill or people with cardiac muscle trouble or suckling babies, and so on—or about whether it rots pipes and destroys the sewerage system. I underline the fact that there is an immense amount of scientific and medical opinion in support of our case. But those who challenge that case will not consider any evidence other than their own, which they collect from campaigning bodies around the world. I assure the House that there would be no question of our embarking on a measure if we felt that there was a serious doubt about whether we were putting the health of the nation at risk. These matters must be examined in great depth.
      It has been shown during the past 30 or 40 years that when fluoride has been put in the water — it has happened in many places — only one death has been attributed to that, which was the result of an accident in Annapolis. There was a failure of equipment, which could not occur here, and a man on a dialysis machine that was being used improperly was so discomfited by the reaction that he suffered a heart attack. He is the only tragic casualty of the fluoride policy throughout the world, and no one has produced a shred of serious scientific or medical evidence that stands up to examination to suggest that anyone else has suffered an adverse effect to his health.
      In bringing forward the Bill, we had not intended to spend our time advocating the case for putting fluoride in water. Again, we certainly do not intend that the Government or Ministers or "The Payroll" — whoever the villains of the piece are meant to be—will take upon themselves the decision-making role about whether fluoride is to be used. Our intention is that the matter should be kept as a local decision. We seek to ensure that water and health authorities, at least in England, retain the power which they always thought that they had, to decide for themselves whether to add fluoride to the water. There will certainly be no campaigning from us in that respect. We believe that health authorities must come to their own conclusions after considering the evidence, and then decide whether to make application to their water authorities.
      We have made concessions during this protracted debate. But I must confess that I might have been moved to make more concessions in the first quarter of an hour or so of the debate if I had not known that at least another five hours lay ahead, even if I did that. Again my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security made two generous concessions: first, that health authorities would be statutorily obliged to consult the House before taking the decision on whether to apply to their water authorities; secondly, that they must meet in public when taking that decision, unless the more excitable opponents of fluoride

      1093
      posed a threat to public order. We shall carry out both those commitments when the Bill is debated in the other place.
      I shall not speak for too long on individual liberty because I respect the strong feelings, especially from my hon. Friends, on that question. Moreover, I realise that at times, it lay behind the fervour with which the anti-fluoride case was argued. I am sorry that I could never understand how an individual liberty issue could be raised in respect of the content of the public water supply. I still cannot envisage how a water supply could be laid on for each person. It must be a collective decision. Moreover, I believe that the collective judgment is that it should be decided on good health, scientific and safety grounds.
      I was saddened by the fact that, after many hours, many of my hon. Friends and I were unable to persuade one another on the question of individual liberty. We saw it from different perspectives. However, not every hon. Member who is renowned for especial fervour for individual liberty was in the anti-fluoride camp. I remind my hon. Friends, who doubtless will enter the debate again, that the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine), who are known in the House as ferocious defenders of individual liberty and do not hesitate to use parliamentary procedures when they think that individual liberties are threatened, were both in my position. Neither could see a remotely serious point affecting individual liberty raised by the Bill.
      Therefore, I fear it must be agreed that there was no meeting of minds. We shall all battle together to defend civil liberties when we are all agreed that they are threatened. Meanwhile, I see the Bill as a harmless preventive health measure to tidy up what would otherwise be a legal difficulty that would give rise to unnecessary litigation.
      Mr. Alan Howarth rose—
      Mr. Clarke: I shall conclude to give time to my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) and other hon. Members. I apologise for not giving way, for the first time in about 20 to 30 hours of debate.
      We have won the Divisions. I do not accept that it is surprising for Ministers to turn up to vote for a Government Bill. That does not seem to be a constitutional outrage. I am especially cheered by the fact that as the hours went by, as daylight came, our numbers in the Lobby steadily increased. That might be due partly to the skill of my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones), who, even on a free vote, can persuade more and more of my hon. Friends to come to the House. My hon. Friend and I believe that we won the arguments. I hope that that judgment is shared when the Bill reaches the House of Lords.
      Mr. Dobson: I do not know whether I shall do more damage to the Minister by saying that I agree with him, or whether he wil do more damage to me by saying that we are in agreement. Once more, I find it peculiar to be saying that I personally support the Bill. I hope that it will not put off too many Conservative Members to know that fluoridation of water was approved without a vote at the Labour party conference in 1978—the last time that the matter was debated by the Labour party.
      I support the Bill for the following reasons. The case has been overwhelmingly made that the introduction of
      1094
      minute quantities of fluoride benefit children's teeth. Equally, I am unconvinced by the argument that the introduction of such quantities of fluoride endangers health in general. In those circumstances, the only question that must be asked is whether those minute amounts of fluoride should be administered to children's teeth by way of toothbrushes and tablets or whether it should come via the public water supply.
      I support fluoride being carried by the public water supply because I am convinced that that is the only way in which the majority of working class children and the worst off children in our society will have the advantage of getting fluoride protection. Many children have parents who cannot afford special toothpaste and tablets. Many of those children come from homes where it is extremely difficult, for a variety of reasons, to establish a regime in which they are encouraged to clean their teeth regularly. In those circumstances, if there are benefits to be gained from the introduction of fluoride, fluoridation of water seems the best way to benefit the teeth of the worst off children.
      Mr. Roy Galley: Why is it that in every other instance — smoking, alcoholism, and so on — the emphasis is placed on health education, whereas with water supplies, for the first time in history, or at least, in living memory, compulsory medication will replace health education and persuasion?
      Mr. Dobson: Fluoridation is not the only example, even in British history. Certain vaccinations were once compulsory. That was to benefit not only the children who were vaccinated but everyone else. It was felt that no parent was entitled to have a sick child who might infect other children. That element of compulsion was necessary at the time to break the backs of some awful diseases.
      Mr. Marlow: Will the hon. Gentleman explain how it is possible for a child with tooth decay to pass it on to a child in another street or town?
      Mr. Dobson: That is not what I said. As the hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) notoriously misunderstands everything with which he does not agree, I shall not bother to reply to that non-question.
      I was replying to the reasonable question of the hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Galley) about compulsion. There has to be an element of compulsion in any action affecting the public water supply, because, unless one has a private water supply and can thus opt out, one has to drink the water that everyone else drinks.
      The Minister may be familiar with Nottingham, as his constituency is close to that city. The argument that has been advanced throughout the debate that fluoridation is a gross interference with individual liberty was employed by a 19th century exponent of Victorian values, a lord mayor of Nottingham, who said that to have a clean water supply at all was an interference with individual liberty. He maintained that people should be entitled to buy dirty water from those who had traditionally sold it. Such arguments are still being used.
      Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned the queen of the midlands. When Nottingham was its own water authority—in the happy days before this House cocked up local government — the Nottingham city council, and the water authority, as it was then, voted not

      1095
      to have fluoride in the water. The Severn-Trent water authority has continued to honour that democratic decision made 10 or 12 years ago. Last week, as a result of debates in the House, the city council again discussed the issue and agreed that it still did not want fluoride. I am here to represent that view in the Lobby of the House tonight.
      Mr. Dobson: That is the council's privilege. I think that it is wrong, but that is how the system works. As one who tries in other spheres to defend locally elected authorities in London and other parts of the country from rate-capping and all sorts of other obnoxious legislation which most Conservative Members happily troop into the Lobby to support, I stand by the right of the people of Nottingham to decide what should happen in Nottingham.
      I am grateful to the Minister for agreeing to accept at least the principles of the amendment that would require a health authority considering fluoridation to hold at least that part of its meeting in public. That is a limited step forward. I see no objection in principle to putting fluoride in the water so long as people know about it. However, I object to the idea of anything being introduced into the water supply without people knowing about it. I look forward to the Government moving an amendment in the House of Lords to achieve that objective.
      The Committee stage of the Bill was somewhat shorter than Report, to the best of my recollection. For the benefit of hon. Members who did not have the privilege of serving on the Committee, I should explain that I and some of my hon. Friends tabled an amendment that would have obliged water authorities to discuss fluoridation in the open part of their meetings. The problem is that there are no open parts of water authority meetings. There used to be, before the present Government, with the support of many Conservative Members, changed them from open public bodies virtually to secret societies.
      I see that the hon. Members for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) and for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) and the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn), together with the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo), who intervened in my speech earlier, all happily voted on 16 November 1982 to make secret everything that water authorities did. I find it odd that they are now demanding public decisions and—
      Mr. Fairbairn: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I did not vote on such a matter. It has nothing to do with Scotland, because we do not have matters secret in Scotland. If the hon. Gentleman can produce the evidence, he should, but typically he cannot.
      Mr. Dobson: It so happens that the only piece of evidence I have is the Division List on the Water Bill of 16 November 1982. Unless someone else was posing as "Fairbairn, Nicholas"—an extremely unlikely poser—I believe tht the hon. and learned Gentleman voted for that Bill and it did have the effects about which I am talking.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. I hope that we have cleared up that matter and can now return to Third Reading of the Water (Fluoridation) Bill on 6 March.
      Mr. Dobson: The point I was making was that a large number of hon. Members are opposed to this measure.
      Mrs. Currie: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Should you have said 6 March? Is it not still 5 March?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I stand corrected. I apologise to the House. It is 5 March in here.
      Mr. Dobson: Earlier, when you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, had the benefit of not being in the Chamber, it was said that one hon. Gentleman did not know which day it was. Unlike that hon. Gentleman, we usually think that you know which day it is and we understand your slip.
      A vast amount of effort has been put in by many Conservative Members, and the odd Conservative right hon. Member, to object to water authorities not being democratically elected bodies, and they voted to ensure that they were not.
      In the past, objections have been raised because district health authorities are not democratically elected bodies, but I have seen no movement on the Conservative Benches to turn them into democratically elected bodies. All I shall say on that point is that if Conservative Members are getting bothered about the undemocratic nature of water authorities and of health authorities, that view is shared by a substantial number of Opposition Members. We also share the doubts about them not being democratic, not only when they talk and decide about fluoride, but when they talk about hospital closures and other aspects of their activity. That is an indication of a general growing concern.
      Finally, as a supporter of adding fluoride to water, I support the Bill. I trust that it will get a Third Reading and get through the House of Lords. As I said on Second Reading, I believe that to vote for the Bill is to vote against children getting toothache. Anyone not voting for it will have to explain to parents and children all over the country why they voted for toothache.
      4.48 pm
      Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister cannot really be as happy as his speech sounded because he knows that this is a nasty little Bill which goes to the very heart of the philosophy under which I thought he and I were elected. I have always been an opponent of the compulsory element of fluoridation, and while at the Department on many occasions I had to send back drafts from civil servants who tried to put different words into my mouth, with the support of my hon. Friend the Member for Reading, East (Sir. G. Vaughan) who was the Minister. I do not believe that the position changed when my right hon. and learned Friend took over on fluoridation because I still had that responsibility — I made it clear that it was not our policy to expand compulsory fluoridation in any way. I also believe that there is still a scintilla of doubt about the safety of fluoride.
      Perhaps the only thing that might have driven me to vote for the Bill were the antics of a certain man Cavill Blount who seemed to spend most of his time thinking that he was the oracle to which all of us should kow-tow. He is one of the most discourteous selective quoters with whom anyone in the House has had the misfortune to have to correspond. Nonetheless, the persuasive attempts of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) have rescued me from that particular point of view.
      Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. He referred to the time when he worked

      1097
      with my right hon. Friend and me in the Department. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that, at the time, we were all agreed that the present state of affairs should remain. He will appreciate that it was only as a result of Scottish litigation that the Government were bound to take a decision about whether all fluoride should be taken out of water or whether we had to restore the previous status quo and return to local authorities the power to take a decision. I seek to persuade the hon. Gentleman that all we are doing now is reinstating the position that he and I, with our different views on the main issue, were happy to live with as colleagues in the Department.
      Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I appreciate that, but the Jauncey case gave us the opportunity as a Parliament to consider whether we should fill the gap that Jauncey had produced or to give Parliament, in the light of its experience, the opportunity to say that it would do away with all compulsory fluoridation.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I do not wish to seem contradictory, but my hon. Friend is talking about the McColl case. Jauncey was the judge. However, it may be called the Jauncey case. When did the last English Parliament ever say that a judgment in the Court of Session, which had nothing to do with the law of England, should be the basis for legislation?
      Sir Geoffrey Finsberg: I am not an expert on Scottish law. I bow in more ways than one to my hon. and learned Friend from north of the border. If I do not follow that line, I might yet again be invited to Fordell castle for a pleasant visit. If I go too far down that route, I might find the gates barred to me.
      My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister was perfectly right to say that he and I and his right hon. Friend had no quarrel on this matter. However, the opportunity arose for us to decide whether we could go the whole way. The Bill does not do that. It merely puts a spot of amalgam into a gap that a judge has exposed.
      I speak with some feeling as early this morning I had to submit to the ministrations of a distinguished dentist. In between having my mouth opened, I was asked what I was doing on fluoride. I thought that I might be at risk if I gave my views, so I said, "It is a difficult point". Fortunately, I survived and came back here.
      My right hon. and learned Friend said firmly that he knows of only one death that has occurred as a result of fluoridating water. He was referring to the Annapolis case. My right hon. and learned Friend has made the case for those of us who are against the Bill. I fully accept that it is important for the sake of children's teeth that they get fluoride. The way to do that is to give it in tablet form or through fluoridated skimmed milk which the Borrow Foundation is offering. We do not need to submit the rest of the population to compulsory medication about which there is a scintilla of doubt.
      The balance, of course, is not in doubt, but I am quite certain that, in his expert capacity as a leading lawyer, my right hon. Friend could make a very good case from a doubt that could be conjured up about the efficacy and safety of fluoride. Therefore, the man need not have died, because nothing that could have been done to the water supply in Annapolis could have helped anyone over the age of 18. That is where I part company with my right hon. Friend.
      1098
      I want my speech to be brief because there is no purpose in going over the subject. There has been a very clear statement that the Government would get the Bill passed, which I understand. All Governments when they put their names to a Bill have to get it passed. There was a free vote for the rest of us, which again is acceptable. It is significant that without the members of the Government, be they paid or unpaid, on quite a few Divisions there would not have been a Government majority for the Bill, although—I must be careful—there might have been on one or two Divisions where they would.
      In my view, the Bill breaches the principle of individual liberty but at the same time—I say this to the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson)—it has the power to help children, who are the only people who will benefit from the Bill. None of us here will benefit from it, but every one of us, from Mr. Speaker downwards, could be harmed if something went wrong with the fluoridated water supply.
      It is all very well to say that there are different mechanisms for the supply at Annapolis where a huge amount of fluoride went out, but no one can say with his hand on his heart that it could not happen again. Human error can cause accidents. We have heard it about the nuclear power stations. Therefore, somebody might suffer who need not if the giving of fluoride is not confined to people in the age category where it is of use.
      I hope that for the reasons which I have given—on compulsion in particular—the House will not give the Bill a Third Reading. But, equally, I believe that when the other place has the opportunity to make amendments, it may not find it easy to accept a Government Bill on a subject which to my knowledge was not in the manifesto.
      When the Bill comes back here amended, I am sure that there will be many opportunities, with Lords amendments and amendments to Lords amendments, to restate the arguments about compulsion. That opens up an interesting prospect.
      I hope that it will not be thought necessary to bring in the Patronage Secretary. The Government have a big enough majority without the Patronage Secretary sitting here. It may have been his presence which made one or two of us not prolong some of the debates.
      I think that the Bill is a mistake. It is not in line with the main Conservative philosophy, and the unstinted support given to the Bill by the speaker on the Opposition Front Bench has convinced me more than ever of my view.
      4.59 pm
      Dr. M. S. Miller: It is amazing how in this House a subject on which it seems there should be a joint effort to produce wanted effects in respect of health can produce acrimonious although sometimes humorous episodes in debate, and certainly a very heated and controversial attitude.
      I approach the matter from a simple point of view. I do not consider, as some hon. Gentlemen do, that dental caries is a trivial disease. It is a very serious disease of children's teeth and infections can develop because of it. Cardiac conditions can develop from dental caries when infection is present and heart valves may be affected. It is a serious matter for children and something should be done about it.
      For about 30 or 40 years we have known that small amounts of fluorine in water produce an enormous change in children's teeth. Fluorine appears naturally in many

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      parts of the world, but before it was introduced into water in other parts of the world tests had to be done. Tests have been done for years because, quite rightly, people are worried about possible future difficulties, if not immediate reactions, that will arise as a result of the injection of any medicament. Whenever studies are made of possible difficulties, some people jump on the bandwagon and go the other way. Some are genuine, but most are not. Most see that the way to make an easy buck is by jumping on the bandwagon. There is no human activity in which that does not happen. Until the end of time some people will object to fluoride on the basis that it is not safe.
      In the course of interruptions and interjections, I said that no one can guarantee 100 per cent. that when a medicament is given no adverse effects will occur. I gave examples of the simple administration of relatively small doses of penicillin which have caused, and can cause, adverse reaction.
      Mr. Fairbairn rose—
      Dr. Miller: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman let me finish this point?
      In Scotland, after his parents had fought for nine years, a child of 11 received more than £100,000 compensation because he was given an injection in hospital of far too big a dose of penicillin. In the judge's opinion, it was the penicillin that caused the child's deafness. Penicillin in a relatively small does could have cured the child's meningitis, but a does of 20 or 25 times the required dose was given. It did not kill the child, but it caused his deafness.
      Mr. Fairbairn: The hon. Gentleman is making the case that we have been making throughout the debate. Penicillin was injected into that child and other children because it was believed that the child required penicillin. It was not in the belief that some other child 100,000 miles away required penicillin and therefore we all had to have it. Does the hon. Gentleman understand the difference?
      Dr. Miller: I assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that I understand it very well. I shall come to the point about medication of water. I am trying to dispose of two undoubted facts: first, that dental caries is a serious condition; and, secondly, that fluoride in small quantities produces an enormous improvement in children's teeth, although it does not cure every case or prevent dental caries entirely.
      Let me discuss the compulsion aspect. Governments have a duty to take certain action, including action in health matters. This Government and previous Governments here and in other countries have seen the terrible disease of caries in children over a period. I should tell the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) that Scotland has a very bad record of dental caries, and I was a fully grown adult in Scotland before I realised that one should have one's teeth all one's life.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Who does?
      Dr. Miller: I remember asking a dentist how long teeth last in a human being, and he looked astonished. He replied that they should last all one's life. How is it that in Scotland one's mother had false teeth before she was 40,
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      and many people have false teeth long before that age? The Government see the problem and wonder what they can do about it.
      The Government would be remiss in their duty if they took no cognisance of the problem. Fluoride is at least part of the answer, even though we may discover something better in years to come.
      I am sure that the Government discussed various methods of introducing fluoride into children, but they have come up with the right one. As my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) said, we cannot rely on whole communities to medicate their children in the same way as middle class parents. Some parents do not look after their children. The poorer sections of the community may have large families and cannot look after their children. However efficacious other methods may be, they do not compare with the ingestion of fluoride from the earliest age, by which I mean before the child was born. It is rather late to have an influence once the teeth are formed. It can be done, but not nearly as well as if fluoride is introduced into the child's body even before the child is born. The only sure way of doing that is to add it to water.
      Mr. Alan Howarth: I respect the hon. Gentleman's evident sincerity, but I detected some arrogance and condescension of latterday Socialism towards the working class in his assumption that they could not be trusted to act responsibly in respect of their own health.
      In this instance, outstandingly, there can be no justification for Ministers, hon. Members, health or water authorities arrogating to themselves the right to take this decision when individuals can take the decision. Why does he despise what I might call the democracy of the toothbrush?
      Dr. Miller: I think that I covered part of that point. I say with humility that I do not need lessons from him as to my attitude to working people — [Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross requires some proof. Not many Conservative Members grew up in working-class families. I am not saying that none of them did. I spent 20 years as a general practitioner in Glasgow and I saw it happen.
      I thought that I had explained that, however good fluoride tablets and toothpaste were for children's teeth, they were not as good as ingesting fluoride. By the time a child is brushing his teeth, it is rather late.
      Moreover, who judges the amount of fluoride in toothpastes? Some of them probably contain enormous amounts of fluoride, some of which the child may swallow and which are far larger than the amount required. The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) would be very worried if there were evidence that the large quantities of fluoride in toothpaste produced problems. This is a balanced argument and I can see the hon. Gentleman's point, but the matter is not as simple as adding tablets to water. The best way of administering fluoride is to add it to the water supply.
      There are other ways of giving fluoride — for instance, in milk. If it is given early enough, putting fluoride in milk is a good way to administer it.
      Mr. Marlow: The hon. Gentleman said that the most important time to get fluoride into a human being was when a child was inside its mother. Is he not concerned that the adulterated water supply will be used with

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      powdered milk? If a child were fed bottled powdered milk instead of breast milk from its mother, it would imbibe 100 times more fluoride. Is not the hon. Gentleman as a doctor worried about a child receiving such a high level of impurity at a tender age?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We have spent many hours on the Bill and these matters have all been discussed at some stage during the Bill's progress. We are on Third Reading. I have taken a relaxed view, but hon. Members are now straying wider and wider of Third Reading. I hope that we can return to the substance of the Bill, which is what we should debate on Third Reading.
      Dr. Miller: I gather, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you would consider me to be out of order if I attempted to answer that intervention. I should like to do so, but I am precluded from doing so by your democratic decision, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      I take the point about democratic decisions on local health authorities. Although I agree with more than 90 per cent. of the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, I am sure that we abuse the word "democracy" a little.
      I do not want hon. Gentlemen to jump down my throat. The comparison that I am about to make is very limited.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I was feeling quite pleased when the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller) referred to my democratic decision; but when he went on to suggest that we abused the word "democracy", I began to wonder what he meant.
      Dr. Miller: I withdraw the unintended slur on your integrity, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have now lost the train of my argument.
      I said that we tended to bandy the word "democracy" about a lot. A doctor does not usually say to a patient with an infection "Please may I have your written permission to give you a penicillin injection?" I hope that I was not arrogant or that I forced my ministrations on unwilling patients. I used to say, "Roll up your sleeves and I shall give you an injection."
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: Did they say no?
      Dr. Miller: No one ever said no.
      Mr. Hawkins: Under this Bill they can never say no.
      Dr. Miller: I knew that hon. Gentlemen would jump down my throat. I was giving only a small example. I am sure that all Conservative Members accept that it is not possible to get round a committee and ask for everyone's opinion. One does not do that. This is the right way to proceed, and, incidentally, it is a good idea that the local health authorities are to make the decision.
      In putting fluoride into water, we are putting into practice what everyone believes in theory — that prevention is better than cure. Surely we should aim at prevention. As I said earlier in the Bill, if scientists were working on a substance which could be added to water which caused as few problems as fluoride causes, and which it was quite evident reduced the rate of coronary thrombosis by 10, 15 or 20 per cent., I should not hesitate to introduce it into the water of this country.
      5.16 pm
      Mr. Fairbairn: It is always a privilege to follow the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller), if for no other reason than that the stupidity of his arguments stimulates one to get one's own arguments right.
      It has been no pleasure for those of us sitting behind the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State and the Minister for Health and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to have disagreed with them on this Bill, any more than it has been a pleasure to disagree with the management of the Bill. Some Conservative Back Benchers—like some on the Opposition Back Benches—take the view that the measure is totalitarian and therefore unacceptable. Whether or not we believe it to be a totalitarian measure, I am sure we believe that evidence to suggest that it is justified is not available, while the evidence to suggest that it is unjustified is only too convincing. It is therefore with a sense of sadness that I come to the end of our deliberations on the Bill, 24 hours after we entered the Chamber to discuss it — at any rate, to await its discussion.
      May I deal, first, with the remarks of the Minister for Health. If I may say so without recrimination, I think that he dealt with the matter once again with flippancy and a lack of understanding of the genuine fears and principles of those who have appeared in this Chamber, in Committee, on Report and in other places. He dealt with our views with flippancy and insult. I do not say that in any sense of rage; I say it, I hope, with a sense of responsibility. I do not believe that it has yet been understood—I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten) understands it, because he is a man of sensitivity—that those of us who oppose the Bill do so out of deep principle, deep understanding and—for some of us—deep experience.
      Sir Dudley Smith: Our hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten), the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, was far less flippant, and far more relevant, than our right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health in his unfortunate intervention.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I agree. I do not wish to be personal, and I do not wish to be vindictive, but I think that a matter of such principle as the one we are debating is of the greatest importance. I know that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Mr. MacKay), a Scottish colleague of mine, understands that I, and all those of my view, do not hold that view because we are prejudiced, or fluoridised, or whatever it may be. We hold it out of conviction. The Bill is a matter of conviction; it was introduced by the Government as a matter of conviction, although they ratted on the conviction by pretending that a free vote was a free vote when it way not.
      Nothing gives me less pleasure than to say anything disrespectful to my colleagues, but I thought that the speech of the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson)—it sounds like a lesser tube station—on Third Reading was disgraceful. It was sanctimonious and insulting to the House, and I do not think that he addressed himself at all to the principles that we have been discussing. All that the hon. Member said, in that ghastly Socialist way, was "Oh, well it is good for little girls' teeth and the working classes", as if the working classes cannot

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      look after themselves. My God! I have seen hundreds of thousands of working class people all my life, and they can all look after themselves. For a Socialist spokesman to suggest that the working classes cannot look after themselves, so that some goddamn Government have to come along and do it for them, is an insult to the people that he pretends to represent.
      The working classes can look after themselves a damn sight better than bearded weirdies on the Opposition Front Bench. I hope that the hon. Gentleman has holes in his teeth. If I could see through the hon. Gentleman's beard I could see whether he has holes in his teeth. They accept the concept that the working classes, whoever they are supposed to be, whom the hon. Gentleman presumably imagines he represents, need a bureaucracy and a Government and that they need laws. Because they are not able to brush their teeth and do not know what to do about their teeth, their teeth fall out.
      There is the real, real story of Socialism. Opposition Members do not believe that there is any responsibility, any personality, any significance in the people of this country. They hate them and despise them and believe that they cannot even look after their own teeth. That is a great insult. The great people of this country are the working classes. They understand; they know what their teeth are about; they know what their views are about; they know what everything else is about. It takes some strange, bearded Socialist to tell those people that they are no good, and so the hon. Gentleman supports the Bill.
      The hon. Member for Hamilton—I mean Bothwell.
      Mr. James Hamilton: The hon. and learned Gentleman is wrong on both counts.
      Mr. Fairbairn: The hon. Gentleman is called Hamilton. He cannot lie straight in bed and I cannot remember his constituency, but whoever he is he is sitting there gibbering and agreeing that the Labour party takes the view that the working classes—as Labour Members care to despise them—should be regarded as incapable of looking after themselves. That is the message I have received over the years in the House. Labour Members, far from realistically and honourably believing in human beings, do not even trust them. They do not like them. They do not think that they can even brush their teeth and they want the water to do it for them. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may giggle. They may laugh. That is the true message of Socialism and of the Bill. The hon. Member for the tube station, whose name I cannot remember—
      Mr. Dobson: Would the hon. and learned Member recognise, if he insists on calling it a tube station, that its official name is Kings Cross St. Pancras? I represent both stations, together with Euston.
      Mr. Fairbairn: It seems a terminal case but I would not want to include Kings Cross because that is where we arrive from Scotland and that is where we get away from frightful people like the hon. Member. It was he who made that condescending and appalling: they cannot look after themselves. What shall we do about it? Why not doctor the water supply? What other things are they suffering from? Athlete's foot? Put something in for that too. Nettle rash? Put something in for that too. Overbreeding? Put something in for that too."
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is all very entertaining, but it has little to do with Third Reading. We should get back to the Bill.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was on Fifth Reading. There has been much heat in our debates. There has been much argument. There has been much agreement between parties and across parties. There has been much humour. But we should not lose sight of anything. We do not want the sort of condescending, ridiculous Socialism from the hon. Member for East Kilbride who says that in his lifetime he has seen many people with bad teeth and we should therefore doctor the water. We do not want the sort of insult to the people of the country that the hon. Member for the tube station made when he said that people cannot look after themselves, so the Government or someone else should look after them. What we want is principle. The principle is that never in this country I trust will we doctor the water for any reason at all. That will certainly never be done for a trivial reason such as that there are odd people who the Member for the tube station says are not capable of looking after their teeth, and never for even worse reasons such as to keep people in the manner that those of his mind think they should be kept.
      For reasons of principle, I object to the Bill. For reasons of principle, I object to the concept. Nothing has convinced me more than the condescending, Socialist, idiotic arguments that I have heard from the tube station opposite. [Interruption.] It is not a railway station. It is a tube station.
      Even if I did not hold the view — which I think should be held by all principled people—that no one should ever attempt to influence the health of one man by making all his fellows imbibe a substance that might help him, I would not be able to understand how the Government could bring in this Bill. The Minister for Health has with geniality — and without a haircut — flipped away the huge body of evidence from responsible sources that fluoride is poisonous and damaging.
      I am now reversing the arguments that I gave on Second Reading. I consider fluoridation wrong on principle, but I think it horrendous and appalling that the Government should dismiss all the scientific and medical evidence that suggests that there is a great risk in adding fluoride to water, especially in proportions that cannot be guaranteed.
      The hon. Member for East Kilbride raised the case of the child with meningitis in Scotland. He may now regret having raised it. Five firms of solicitors advised the child's family that they could never prove that the damage to the child's mind, hearing, sight and speech was due to penicillin, or whatever drug was alleged to have been given in overdose.
      Dr. Miller: The hon. and learned Gentleman will appreciate that meningitis itself could have caused the damage. That is one of the reasons for the advice given by

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      his own profession. That advice may still be overturned, of course, and I accept that in such a case the child should be given the benefit of the doubt.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. While I am reluctant to intervene on such a serious matter, it does not arise on the Bill. We really ought to get back to the Bill.
      Mr. Fairbairn: No one could be more reluctant to contradict you than I, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but this is extremely relevant to the Bill. Even the hon. Member says that the damage might have been caused by the meningitis and not the penicillin. What, then, will happen to the child who suffers deafness, paralysis, kidney failure or cancer? The child's family will go to those five lawyers and say, "I tell you what has happened: the fluoride in the water caused it." And the five lawyers will say, "Nonsense. It may have been the meningitis. It may have been this, or it may have been that." How can what scientists of the greatest distinction claim is likely to be the result of fluoridation ever be proved? How can one part in a million be controlled? What if it is found in lettuces or carrots, or in the water tank?
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The safety or otherwise of fluoride, and the proportions in which the Bill proposes it should be administered to water, have been the subject of long debates, as the hon. and learned Gentleman knows. We have passed that, and I must ask him to direct his remarks to the content of the Bill.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I am anxious so to do. I am merely saying, as someone who has represented many people in reparation actions in which I had responsibility for asking, "How can you prove blame", that in this Bill we are laying down provision for what may be the cause of many ailments and sufferings, and that blame cannot be proved. I worry greatly as a lawyer, a Conservative and a human being, because it is wrong to put in water a substance that may cause actions of reparation without proof, and cause disease and death without responsibility—and for what? Is it so that the hon. Member for the tube station can turn his thumb down on what he has the effrontery to call the working classes, who cannot brush their teeth?
      5.36 pm
      Mr. Dafydd Wigley: I shall be brief; to follow the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn) will be difficult indeed.
      I, too, will vote against Third Reading, although not for the same reasons as the hon. and learned Gentleman. One reason is that the Bill cannot be described as a Socialist Bill because it gives powers to non-elected authorities to take decisions that will greatly affect the public without their having to refer to the public. Decisions will be taken by non-elected health authorities and non-elected water authorities, and, however much nominal consultation there might be, it would not give people the right to say, "No. We do not want it."
      Mr. Ian Grist: Does the hon. Gentleman not realise that, even if bodies which sanctioned the use of fluoride were elected, they would still be imposing their elected majorities on people whether or not they wanted it, and that, even if they represented a majority view, there would still be people who wished to reject it but would be unable to do so?
      Mr. Wigley: Yes, I do. We debated this point early during Report, and I acknowledged that having a democratic sanction through an elected body, whether it be an elected health authority or water authority, was a second-best alternative to what I suggested — a referendum—which itself was second best to giving the people affected a direct choice. I accept the hon. Gentleman's point. None the less, I much prefer that local people — the Government said earlier in this Third Reading debate that they are anxious to have local decisions—have a direct voice in the decision rather than that there be a nominated decision by authorites. I say that for no other reason than that if many members of nominated authorities have been appointed by the Government, they will be greatly aware of the Department's attitude — more so as a result of these debates — and feel that they have a responsibility to follow the clear lead of the Department. For that reason, I am reluctant to see the Bill enacted.
      It have listened to debates for many hours, but I am still not convinced that there is no danger from adding fluoride to water. I accept that it is possible that teeth will be better as a result of the addition of fluoride. But there remains a danger to health, as medical experts from various parts of the world have testified. Misgivings remain, but they have not been emphasised in our debates. Even if the balance of opinion tips in favour of better teeth as a result of adding fluoride to water, there is still a niggling doubt. Given that doubt, we should think carefully before compulsorily doctoring water to provide mass medication in this way and forcing it upon people.
      In my area of Gwynedd, which is represented by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best), who has taken a large part in these debates, we have had 30 years' experience of fluoridation. Even after 30 years, there is still a 2 to 1 majority of people against adding fluoride to water, and that must tell us something about the misgivings that exist.
      I do not share the misgivings of the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross, who spoke a moment ago about the responsibility of the state.
      Mr. Best: The hon. Gentleman and I share the same views on this matter with regard to our respective constituencies in Gwynedd. He will know that Anglesey community health council, which, after all, is the watchdog set up by the legislature to monitor the health authority in Gwynedd, voted decisively against the fluoridation of water supplies and has done so since 1976.
      Mr. Wigley: Yes, indeed. That gives the lie to the belief that local opinion will hold sway. Clearly, unless better mechanisms than those proposed in the Bill are provided, local opinion will not be given the credence that it should receive.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman said about the area in which he lives where there is a 2 to 1 majority among people not to have fluoride in water. My opinion is that that view is due entirely to the spurious propaganda which is disseminated to people. In other words, people are scared and worried, and perhaps they, too, like the lunatic who sends things to hon. Members, will send such things.
      This is my opinion. If it were made quite clear to everyone that a small amount of fluoride in water will not, according to evidence, do any serious harm but help teeth,

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      I am sure that the majority view would be overturned. The hon. Gentleman may use words how he likes, but that is how I feel about the matter. Those hon. Members who are against fluoride want to use every method to keep stirring up this issue all the time in spite of the fact that they know, as the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) knows, that it helps.
      Mr. Wigley: I am grateful for that intervention. When there is argument and debate about whether it is dangerous to add fluoride to water, such debate will itself stir up uncertainty and lead to the doubts that were expressed by the opinion of the 2 to 1 majority who were polled in Ynys Môn. However, the converse of the argument is that if one were to say that, therefore, such matters should not be discussed, the position would be much less acceptable.
      I am a layman and I respect the opinions of the hon. Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller), who is a medical man. I can only tell him that I have listened to his opinions and to those of other medical people, and whereas there is probably a balance of medical opinion in favour of the proposal, a significant minority are against it.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: A small minority.
      Mr. Wigley: The hon. Gentleman says that they are a small minority, but a body of opinion still exists among specialists who have doubts not about the advantage to teeth, but about the possible ill effects in other directions. In Ynys Môn, fluoride has been added to water for some 30 years. The children who were born 30 years ago and have received its advantages may continue to take fluoride for another 30, 40 or 50 years. Presumably only after they have lived their full lives shall we see the full effects of a lifetime of drinking water that was affected by fluoride, but we have not had an opportunity to see it yet.
      Touching on that matter—it arises in my area—is a question that has been debated throughout the passage of the Bill. I refer to clause 1(5) relating to the control of the concentration of fluoride. There is very soft water in my area and a compensating factor is added to it on a cyclical basis. At the beginning of the cycle, the water is so hard that it is impossible but by the end of the cycle it is very soft indeed. I doubt whether the addition of fluoride will be as tightly controlled as the Bill states. I accept that that is the intention but it may not be the practice.
      I was addressing myself to what the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross said about the intervention of the nanny state. I take a different view. The state has a responsibility to do what it can to help everyone. I would argue that there are different ways of safeguarding the interests of those whose teeth may be at risk. The state has a responsibility to consider the physical and mental well-being of those who do not want that sort of treatment.
      Many people are extremely worried and will lose many nights of sleep because of this matter. They come from all class backgrounds — not just from the upper class, conscientious middle class or working class. People from all classes have made representations to us about this matter, and hon. Members from all parties have experienced that.
      I wish that the Government would realise that a grave misgiving exists. They should have considered more constructive alternatives to the Bill.
      I refer to two remarks made by the Minister for Health. First, he said that there were many amendments that in the
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      first quarter of an hour of the debate he would have been inclined to accept, but as debate continued he thought that he should not accept them. If the substance of those amendments required serious consideration, the length of the debate should not have been a factor to move the Minister away from accepting them. Indeed, it is a surprising and appalling admission to make from the Dispatch Box that it was not the substance of the arguments, but the length of speeches that changed his attitude to the amendments.
      Secondly, he said that he could not understand why the issue of freedom arose. Surely, whatever emphasis is put on the matter, an issue of freedom arises. For the Minister not to acknowledge that is to fly in the face of everything that has been said during the past hours.
      5.47 pm
      Sir Dudley Smith: Having spent most of the night and nearly all day here, I cannot possibly agree with the opening speech of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health when he said that the Government had won nearly all the arguments. They won precious few. I thought that his speech, like many of the others, was facile but superficial and we deserve better.
      This is an enabling Bill but it encourages the fluoridation process. It leans strongly on health and water authorities, despite the suggestion from the Parliamentary Under-Secretary that the Government were adopting a neutral stance. There is no doubt that the Bill is being carried forward in the face of much public opposition. We would not have had such protracted proceedings if that were not true. People do not like staying up all night. There are misgivings about the Bill and representations have been made on the matter.
      Undoubtedly, the Bill would not have had so many amendments or have been carried — if that happens—without the payroll vote. I am not saying anything against right hon. and hon. Members. Those of us who have experience of Government know that there is a collective responsibility and we must accept that or resign. It is as simple as that. The question of PPSs is a more dubious proposition because the posts are not official. PPSs are unpaid aids to Ministers and they should be entitled to a free vote, like other Back Benchers.
      I do not wish to start bandying names about, as happened during the small hours, but it is worth calling attention to the matter. Like some other hon. Members, I have received communications from the national anti-fluoridation campaign. I largely share the opinions of my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Sir G. Finsberg) about the chairman of that organisation. I do not accept that the research that has been carried out is total. However, on going carefully through the list of names submitted—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not start on that list but will address himself to what is in the Bill. I presume that the list has nothing to do with what is in the Bill.
      Sir Dudley Smith: I shall obey your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was trying to explain that the Bill will go forward in its present form because of the votes of supporters of the Administration. In the list of hon. Members who originally told their constituents that they

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      were against fluoridation, 29 members of the Government, most of them senior, and 10 PPSs are named. There may be many more. That is a matter for concern.
      Mr. Best: This Bill is about freedom, which appears not to have been extended to some hon. Members of this House. My hon. Friend may be aware that I have approached many people who, although they have expressed opposition to fluoridation in the past, seem to have changed their minds. Some PPSs—I know of one in particular—have been made to go through the Lobby when some Ministers have not.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. We cannot embark on that sort of debate now. We are debating the Third Reading of the Bill.
      Sir Dudley Smith: Perhaps I can conclude that part of my short speech by saying that I had every intention of voting against the Third Reading. However, to be fair and honest, I must say that my name appears on that list not because I am in favour of fluoridation but because I failed to vote on Second Reading, for good reasons. I was abroad on parliamentary duty with the WEU. The hon. Gentleman laughs but I was away on official parliamentary duty and I think that that is a fair explanation.
      The doubts that have been expressed about the Bill as now proposed over the question of safety checks and the paraphernalia of the way in which water authorities carry out the fluoridation process raise a number of queries among hon. Members. I wish to make two points in reply to some of the suggestions that all is calm and beautiful, and will be carried through without difficulty. Experience shows that in all sorts of human activities two problems occur from time to time, sometimes with terrible results, alas. The first is human error, and all societies and organisations are capable of that. The second is mechanical failure, and we know only too well from examples in other parts of the world that that can happen. I am not suggesting that that will happen in respect of the fluoridation process, but those two doubts arise.
      When we talked about adding fluoride to the water supply a number of hon. Members called out, "What about chlorine? You are prepared to allow chlorine to be added". Of course I am, because chlorine is added to make water safe.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. If we embark on that subject we shall be back to the Second Reading debate and the subsequent proceedings of the Bill. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members will restrict their comments to what is in the Bill. There is nothing about chlorine in the Bill.
      Sir Dudley Smith: All I shall say about fluoride is that it is added to the water supply not to make it safe but for a totally different reason. That point should be underlined.
      This is a bad Bill, which has been presented to the House unconvincingly. I share the view expressed earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Stanbrook) that the bureaucratic, ministerial "We know best" attitude brought the measure forward in the first place. It is part of the nannying society of which Conservative Members should have no part. We should keep such things at arm's length. The Bill is before the House because some parents do not take the right precautions and are too idle to make sure that their children clean their teeth and do not eat sweets. Compared with
      1110
      other countries, we have a bad record on that matter. But the Bill provides that all of us must be subjected to the fluoridation of water supplies.
      I am willing, like many people, to accept that the risk is minimal. The risk has not yet been proved by the opponents, but undoubtedly there is a risk even though it is minimal. Parliament should not take a chance with such a risk or be tinkering with it. If the public are put at risk to a millionth degree this must be a bad Bill. In the circumstances, therefore, I believe that those who vole against the Bill tonight will be doing their duty on behalf of their constituents, and those who vote for the Bill will be supporting the very worst precepts that have been put forward by any Administration. I hope that the House will reject them.
      5.56 pm
      Mr. Michael McGuire: This is the end of the first stage of the Bill's progress through Parliament. This is the Third Reading debate and I have taken note of your admonitions and rebukes to hon. Members, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that they must keep strictly to what is in the Bill, not what they should like to have seen in the Bill. I hope that I do not incur your displeasure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but it is a debating Chamber and we are bound — provided that it is within the rule that we address ourselves to the Bill—to respond to some of the things that have been said.
      First, I wish to comment on something which was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson). I know that he said it in a most charitable way. However, in his absence, I am bound to put it to him—it will be on the record—that he does a disservice to members of the Labour party and to those of my colleagues who have played a modest part, as I have, in trying to have the Bill examined, when he pretends that the choice simply boils down to the fact that if one accepts the Bill and principle of mass medication enshrined in it one is doing so for a good reason: that it will stop or prevent young children from suffering from toothache. Even if that were so, and hon. Members on both sides of the House could be persuaded that that is what the Bill is all about, we would still have our doubts.
      We have repeatedly challenged the belief that fluoride can be put in the water in the quantities prescribed and it will have the required effect. That can be done until one is blue in the face. It can be given to healthy babies in their mother's womb but if when they are born they are not brought up properly to attend to their teeth and to clean them and if their dental hygiene is not perfect and they have too sweet a diet—that is common in this country—they will have bad teeth and toothache, in spite of their parents taking them to the dentist and orthodontist. There is nothing in the Bill which will prevent bad teeth if those teeth are neglected in the way in which I have described
      Mr. Grist: May I point out that in the 14th century the aristocracy had rotten teeth, whereas the workers had perfect teeth.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This Bill has nothing to do with the aristocracy in the 14th century. Let us get back to it.
      Mr. McGuire: You are right, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but it has everything to do with bureaucracy in the 20th century in the sense that the people who will carry out this

      1111
      fluoridation which we do not want are not elected. That is one of the disadvantages of the Bill. I do not wish to be led astray by the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central (Mr. Grist). In Committee and on Report we have heard many wonderful little gems and vignettes of historical information on which I hope to draw on some future occasion.
      The arguments for fluoridation are presented by doctors, dentists and administrators who appear to be unaware of the legal, ethical and political implications of fluoridation of the water supply. They appear to think that if fluoridation reduces the incidence of dental caries, provided that it does not cause damage to physical health, there is no more to be said on the matter. Assuming that these propositions are true and conceding them at the outset — which is generous considering the real doubt about whether fluoride is dangerous to health—I would still argue that the case against fluoridation is overwhelming. From the legal point of view it is compulsory medication: it is done without the permission of the person at the receiving end. Under English law, medical treatment without consent is permitted by court order only for the mentally ill or for minors with the consent of their guardians. Just as a person forfeits his legal rights by reason of criminal activity, or is unfit by reason of his youth or insanity to exercise them, so too the individual would be placed in a similar position as a result of fluoridation of the water supply. I believe that this is an affront to human dignity, which is explicitly recognised as a major objective in the United Nations universal declaration of human rights. The foundation of the legal rights and interest of the individual guarantees the individual the right to be responsible for his own conduct and interest, chief among which is his health. As John Stuart Mill wrote:
      "Over his own body and mind the individual"ဤ
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. John Stuart Mill had nothing to do with the drafting of the Bill. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will speak to the Bill.
      Mr. McGuire: With great respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I put it to you that that very principle is being flouted. The Bill enshrines the provision that a person can take away from you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, from me or from anybody else, whether we like it or not, our right to choose by adding to water a substance that we may not want to receive and from which we shall not benefit. If that contradiction of the rights of the individual held sway, we would never be able to debate the Third Reading of any Bill. I believe that this goes to the heart of the matter.
      Fluoridation is mass medication. I do not wish to impugn the integrity of hon. Members, and particularly of my hon. Friends, in whose judgment mass medication of the population by the artificial addition of fluoride to water is a good thing, given that there may be some doubts. Those hon. Gentlemen have not yet been persuaded otherwise, and they believe that this will do a certain amount of good. Nevertheless, it is mass medication. Fluoride is added to water not to make it wholesome and pure, but to treat an assumed medical condition. That is the bedrock of my opposition.
      A Conservative Member who intervened in the speech of one of my hon. Friends in an earlier debate — I believe that it was the hon. Member for Cardiff, Central
      1112
      —pleaded that because the majority of health authorities were in favour of fluoridation we should not go down the road of legitimising mass medication. I know that this is a favourite point of the hon. and learned Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn). Mass medication breaches a principle about which we should be on our guard.
      Mr. Fairbairn: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I did not wish to interrupt his excellent speech, but I wish to put something in his mind. If one examines the British Pharmacopoeia or SDX list of dangerous medicines, one can select substances—such as I listed in an amendment which was not called — which, if they are sufficiently diluted, may have all sorts of lovely litle effects on a person, yet each one is a poison. What about adding one part per million of all those substances as well?
      Mr. McGuire: I want to press on. The hon. and learned Gentleman, in addition to being entertaining, stuck to the point that I am endeavouring to develop. The Bill proposes to carry out a process to which we object, that is, to mass medicate the population. There has been no examination of whether fluoride is efficacious and will do what its proponents claim. Its proponents claim that, if it is given to children early enough—preferably, say, when they are carried in the womb of healthy mothers—it will be beneficial. However, no consideration has been given to those who are over the age of 18. If people have a right to free choice, the views of others cannot be imposed upon them. I object to people who wish to push their views on me by coming to a' decision without consideration for my wishes. As hon. Members know, there is no alternative non-fluoridated water supply. We have one water supply only. Therefore, if the water supply is fluoridated, the result is mass medication.
      I come back to the point that we must guard against losing sight of that principle because a decision has been reached by a majority of elected members of a local health authority or the local water board. We say that that does not matter and that the members of such bodies have no right to do this. The individual at the receiving end will have no choice.
      Mr. Best rose—
      Mr. McGuire: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman in a moment, but I shall lose track of my argument if I do so now. The hon. Gentleman, I acknowledge, has done a good job on behalf of those hon. Members who share his opinions, and he has done it skilfully.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras, whom we are told grew a beard overnight when the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) was addressing the House, has returned refreshed. I confess to feeling some annoyance rather than hurt at my hon. Friend's suggestion that, in opposing the Bill, we wish to give a lot of poor children toothache. He seemed to suggest that under the Bill these poor children would not suffer toothache. That is a bad argument to advance. It implies that toothache is the greatest disability that poor children will have throughout their lives. I believe that more serious matters are involved, and that my hon. Friend's suggestion would set us on a slippery path of trying to attend to children's total upbringing by the state acting as a nanny. I hope that the Labour party will never want to go down that road, as that would infringe the principle of human choice and freedom.
      Mr. Best: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and I sincerely thank him for the kind words that he expressed about my part in the Bill. We all hold him in high regard for his work on the all-party anti-fluoridation committee. But does the hon. Gentleman not accept that, although the gentle words of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State would seem to imply that the Government do not take a view on this matter, the strident efficacy of my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health proves beyond a doubt that the Government believe that fluoride is good for people's teeth? May we not thus conclude that if the Government are so convinced about their case, they are being grossly negligent in not ensuring that every child receives fluoride in his water supply? If the Government do not take any steps to ensure that, does not that say something about the validity of their case?
      Mr. McGuire: That is a fair point. I thought that the Minister for Health entertained us in a rather mellifluous way, and I enjoyed some of his comments. I would not describe his remarks as strident. But I agree with the burden of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best). This Bill has been introduced by the Government to make clear a matter that was previously thought clear. The problem has arisen following the judgment of the Court of Session in Scotland. The Government say that they will not put fluoride in the water, although they are elected Members of Parliament, but that they will allow it to be done through the back door, by unelected bodies. The hon. Gentleman has asked why the Government do not have the courage of their convictions, but, as he knows, the Government would not have got the Bill past first base if they had that courage. The Bill would have been lost on Second Reading, on the principle of mass medication.
      We must not depart from the bedrock of that principle. We are not saying that the Bill could not be improved by giving people the choice of whether to give children fluoride through their milk. The Borrow Foundation has already been mentioned. Incidentally, that would be a much cheaper method. If parents gave their children fluoride through the milk that they drank, there could be no question of mass medication, and it would be a matter of choice. It would cost about £8 million, whereas the cost of fluoridating water would probably be about £156 million with all the attendant problems in that safety could not be guaranteed, and mass medication would be endorsed by a back-door method.
      If the Government believe in their own case, they should try to ensure that the other place amends the long title to allow the Borrow Foundation's technique to be introduced. I understand why hon. Members are worried about children, but in that way parents and their children could freely embrace fluoridated milk, with all the benefits that its proponents claim for it.
      I end my brief contribution by saying that those of us who have opposed the Bill have done so because it is a bad piece of legislation that infringes upon the principle of personal sovereignty. I shall not repeat what John Stuart Mill said, as I have already made my point. If fluoride is put in the water, we shall be forcing people to consume something that they do not necessarily want. People cannot do without water. It may be said that those who do not want fluoride should live on Malvern water. I suppose that the modern Marie Antoinette would say "Let them
      1114
      drink bottled water." The Government will probably not want to be remembered for that saying. They are already lumbered with another saying, because Ministers seem to be on holiday when such decisions are taken. Thus we could have the saying, "I was on holiday, drinking my non-fluoridated Malvern water."
      I have not been persuaded by the Minister for Health's arguments. However, I have been entertained by him, because he is a very good performer. Some of his contributions may have been lighthearted, but sometimes I also am lighthearted. But we were properly rebuked by the right hon. and learned Member for Southport (Sir I. Percival), who got to the nub of the argument in his short intervention.
      I know that I do not carry all of my hon. Friends with me in my views, but we are discussing a very serious matter. The Minister for Health may have seemed to treat the Bill rather lightheartedly. I do not think that he meant to do so. We have had a little bit of fun at a time when there is not much fun in life, especially in the present economic circumstances. But on the whole hon. Members have treated the issue very seriously. I am told that the other place has a little more time in which to discuss legislation. However, we have tried to find some time and we have succeeded in finding prime time today. I think that there were also four Committee sittings on the Bill.
      I am told that the other place is more relaxed and intellectually more stimulating and that their Lordships are not worried about whether they are pleasing constituents. After all, they are re-elected all the time. I hope that they will have time to give their minds to the Bill. I believe that they will reject it on the same principle as I reject it—I do not believe in mass medication, or that the case for it has been made out. We should not touch it with a bargepole and I shall vote against Third Reading.
      6.17 pm
      Mrs. Currie: The Bill is wise and sensible, and I congratulate my right hon. and hon. Friends on bringing it forward so promptly, following the judgment in Scotland, in order to ensure that water supplies can still be fluoridated in those areas of England that want it.
      We have listened to many hours of debate on a Bill of three clauses. It has become apparent that those both for and against the Bill's principles share the same motives. They wish to promote health care. Both opponents and proponents of the Bill have also displayed much the same style. We have seen self-righteousness and earnestness on both sides.
      It seems to me that the fluoridation of water supplies is safe. We have heard a tremendous amount of nonsense about the dangers of fluoridation. Fluoridation is efficacious in preventing tooth decay not just in children but throughout life. Thus, the Bill is necessary to enable such a highly laudable activity to take place. Fluoridation is also a cheaper activity than all the other possibilities that we have heard about, and is much safer. I worry far less about fluoridation of our water supplies that is controlled by the skilled engineers of the Severn-Trent water authority or of any other water authority — under, I hope, the supervision of staff of health authorities—than I worry about the hit and miss activities that have been proposed, such as the topical painting of teeth, and the fluoridation of toothpaste, tablets and so on. Those who are worried that fluoridation is poisonous or dangerous should be campaigning for the withdrawal of Colgate and

      1115
      all other toothpastes containing such wicked material, because of the danger that they might pose for their constituents.
      Mr. Galley: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mrs. Currie: I am sorry, but I shall not give way. I have listened to hours and hours of debate, and now wish to support the Bill exactly as it stands.
      The powers-that-be have decided to leave the question whether the Bill is moral to us as individuals to decide on a free vote. But the Bill should be set against our obligations on health care. At different stages during the debate, hon. Members on both sides of the House have accepted that obligation. We have an obligation on health care. Dental caries is not a trivial disease but causes serious trouble for both children and adults. I should think that every hon. Member suffers from it and knows about it.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Rubbish.
      Mrs. Currie: The Bill seeks to prevent that disease. The treatment of it involves general anaesthesia, which is a high risk activity, which we should discourage people from engaging in.
      We also have an obligation to save public money, which must be set against our moral obligations and our moral dubiety in the Bill. Fluoridation seems to be the cheapest and most efficient way of accepting our health care obligations. Moreover, it will also save enormous sums of money on dentistry.
      Mr. Fairbairn: Rubbish.
      Mrs. Currie: It is not rubbish. During the early stages of the Bill I was contacted by—
      Mr. Fairbairn: Will my hon. Friend give way?
      Mrs. Currie: I will not give way.
      Mr. Fairbairn: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If my hon. Friend addresses me by saying—
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that the hon. Lady is giving way.
      Mr. Fairbairn rose—
      Mr. Speaker: Order. Is the hon. Lady giving way?
      Mrs. Currie: No, Sir.
      Mr. Fairbairn: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The hon. Lady departed from her speech to address the word "rubbish" to me. If she talks to me, either she must—
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I can do nothing about that.
      Mrs. Currie: I did not say rubbish. I have not traded insults with my hon. and learned Friend during this stage of the debate, although I may have done so in the dark days of the night.
      I accept the principle of the moral dubiety of intervention, and I have no problems with it. We are intervening with mass medication and expecting our health authorities to do so, and indeed they are charged in that way. However, we are also giving health authorities the opportunity to save a great deal of public money on dentistry. I was contacted earlier today by the gentleman who took my place as the chairman of the central
      1116
      Birmingham health authority and who is therefore now responsible for the great dental hospital in Birmingham. He told me that immense savings have been made on dental care and that there are now problems finding patients. I do not wish to impute doubtful motives to anyone, but perhaps the reason why we have not had a great outcry from dentists in favour of the Bill is that it will put them out of business.
      The Bill is entirely proper, and proper as Government business. My only gripe is that the managers of the House did not see it in that way and did not deal with it appropriately. We should be dealing not with Third Reading now, but with amendments from the other place. We should be getting rid of this tiny little unimportant Bill so that we can deal with more important Bills. There is no such thing as a riskless society. The House knows the risks of not fluoridating water supplies, and the costs of not doing so, and therefore I am delighted to support the Bill.
      6.22 pm
      Mr. Williams: The hon. Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie) said how pleased she was that the Bill would enable the areas of England that want fluoridation to have it. How does she determine which areas want it? That is what the debate is about. Indeed, why should it be about areas when we are talking about people? There can be such a thing as a dictatorship of the majority, especially regarding the rights of the individual.
      The hon. Lady treats the rights of the individual cheaply. She said that we should support the Bill because administering fluoride is a form of financial efficiency. Capital costs of fluoridation will be between £120 million and £150 million, and costs are more than £20 million a year. Therefore, costs are not insubstantial. The hon. Lady has not spelt out the economies she anticipates. As my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Mr. McGuire) said, it would be far cheaper to pursue the process via milk for schoolchildren at a cost of £8 million than to use the method that the hon. Lady advocates. If she is truly worried about economy, she should change her posture immediately because not only is she abandoning an important principle regarding the freedom of the individual, but she is exchanging it for a false deal which will not make the economies that she expects.
      What do the Government think that they are up to? We have gathered from Ministers that the Government believe in fluoridation. Why on earth, then, have they chosen to create, not a uniform system, but a potential shambles? The Government say that they do not wish to impose fluoridation and want to give the right to decide to unelected bodies. That is either cowardice or irresponsibility. If they believe that it is good for our people to have fluoridation, it should not be left to the arbitrary whim of health authorities to decide against it, any more than those of us who oppose the Bill believe that it should be left to the arbitrary whim of authorities to determine to have it. That is nonsense. If it is right for one part of the country, it is right for another part. If it is wrong for one part of the country, it is probably wrong for another part. The matter should not and does not need to be determined on the basis of parts of the country. We are not dealing with a drug that cannot be obtained from any other source. It is readily and cheaply available.
      The Minister made it clear that he intends through the other place to ensure that non-elected quangos consult the elected authorities within their areas. What happens if

      1117
      quangos consult and then ignore the elected authorities? An hon. Member listed all the authorities in his area which had spoken for their electors, but at the end of the day the water authority utterly ignored that advice from the elected representatives and went ahead.
      What happens when consultation has been a sham and a farce? I invite the Minister to intervene now and to tell me what he would do if, for example, Manchester local authorities were wholly opposed to the addition of fluoride and the non-elected health authority, regardless of the opinions of the elected representatives and of the public expressed through opinion polls, decided to fluoridate. Would he feel that he had no duty to intervene to ensure that local opinion was taken into account?
      Mass medication has created some strange alliances in the House. Conservative Members and I, who rarely see eye to eye, have argued virtually the same case. That should worry the Minister. There are strange alliances both on and across the Benches. We all believe that a fundamental principle is involved. The precedent of mass medication should not be accepted lightly. If it is appropriate to create that precedent in pursuit of healthy teeth, for what is it not appropriate to quote that precedent? On Second Reading my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride (Dr. Miller) and many Conservative Members frequently mentioned the items that they would like to see covered by the precedent. But if the Government had their way, we would not be drinking water but cutting it into cubes and chewing it. Where do we draw the line? Today the Government draw the line at fluoride, but why? What is so distinctive and different about the treatment of teeth from any other medical condition that is not water originating?
      At the outset all hon. Members accepted that water must be made pure and healthy to drink. That is common ground. When we take the next step, as the Bill does, the House is saying that whatever a do-gooding health authority or Minister determines as being requisite can be proposed as an addition to the water supply. I can think of far more important health conditions that might be dealt with. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield read a horrifying list on Second Reading, which prompted me to speak in that debate, which I had intended only to listen to. It is clear that this is merely stage one in the use of an easy method of distributing medicine to people who need it and to those who do not.
      What about the person who does not want fluoride? We should remember why we are here. The Bill is the result of health authorities being afraid of being taken to court because so many people feel strongly about fluoridation and do not want it at any cost. Why should they have it? What makes the judgment of my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, who is muttering to himself, so much better than theirs? Doctors have not always been right and they have not always been able to identify the side effects.
      Dr. M. S. Miller: I was merely looking at the figures of a poll in which people were asked:
      "Do you think fluoride should be added to water if it can reduce tooth decay?"
      The responses were as follows: in Oldham, 77·8 per cent. said yes, as did 76·5 per cent. in Salford, 84 per cent. in Wigan, 81·4 per cent. in Tameside and Glossop, 80·4 per cent. in south Manchester and 78 per cent. in Lancaster.
      Mr. Williams: I am grateful for those helpful figures. Being generous to my hon. Friend, the average seems to
      1118
      be 80 per cent. in favour of fluoridation. If we extrapolate that figure to national figures, there must be about 11 million people who do not want fluoride but will be compelled by do-gooders such as him to take it. That is an unjustifiable imposition and represents an abandonment of an important principle.
      I recall, when I was in the Department of Industry, being in negotiations with one of Britain's top drug companies about establishing a vitamin C factory in Scotland. The chief executive said that he never took drugs and did not believe in them as he thought them dangerous. He said that one could never be sure what side effects or long-term effects they might have. My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride has said that fluoride has been in the water for 30 years, but how long has it taken asbestosis to emerge? It took many of my right hon. and hon. Friends decades to convince the Department of Health and Social Security and medical authorities that health complaints other than pneumoconiosis could arise from dust in mines.
      The postulation that fluoridation will benefit teeth in some areas over a period of 10 or 20 years is a wholly inadequate justification. The fundamental point is that the Government are saying that there will be no choice. What is to happen with the person who bitterly dislikes the thought of fluoridation or the person who is afraid of it? What about their rights? Why should we allow non-elected committees, appointed by a Minister who holds one view at one time and another at another, to impose their do-gooding arbitrary will on everyone? For those reasons, I shall oppose the Bill.
      6.34 pm
      Mr. Marlow: I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams). Perhaps I might tell my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie)—I think that many of my colleagues agree with me—that we should be grateful if, next time, she would leave her jackboots outside before addressing the House.
      I do not know whether you, Mr. Speaker, were here when my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health opened the debate and whether, like me, you were terrified by his brisk overconfidence. It reminded me of the white-coated, doctor/salesmen who first put Debendox on the market. He said that this subject relates directly to health. Thalidomide was also directly related to health. Mistakes have been made. It is one thing to give ill people drugs—and to give them a choice—when those drugs might have unfortunate side effects. It is quite another to force people with no disease or complaint to have adulterated water supplies which might have far-reaching effects of which we do not yet know.
      The Leader of the Opposition is concerned that our country should be a proper place in which to bring up his children. I am sure that we all agree. I am concerned for my children. The whole country is concerned for the future of children. We all ensure that our children clean their teeth—perhaps with a fluoride toothpaste. We might give them tablets with fluoride in them or take them to the dentist and get fluoride painted on their teeth. That is our choice. If we do not want to give it that way, we might install plant to dilute fluoride into our personal water supplies. I am appalled by the suggestion, and the calumny of the Opposition, that working-class families, whatever they might be, do not care for their children or are incapable of making sensible decisions about their

      1119
      children's welfare. It is as if Opposition Members are saying that parents cannot be trusted with their children. I was upset and surprised to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South echo exactly those sentiments.
      The Bill will defile our country's ecosystems. We have been here for generations and there is a balance in nature. We have eaten and drunk various things which have made us what we are. It is now suggested that some monstrous substance be stuffed into our water supplies. We all remember our chemistry classes at school and know what the halogens are. They are iodine, bromine, chlorine and fluorine, the most hideously strong agent of all. Chlorine, which is less strong than fluorine, was used in the first world war to gas thousands of our soldiers, and now we are putting fluorine, or rather fluorides, which are a rat poison, into our water supply. Moreover, we are doing it with a mind-boggling self-confidence. There is a real chance that something will go wrong and it is up to the House to do what it can to stop it.
      Mr. John Patten: Is my hon. Friend aware that, in certain parts of the country, water undertakers have to add all sorts of substances such as sulphuric acid and hydrochloric acid to improve the quality of water? Even in the dying stages of this debate, does my hon. Friend not recognise that we must not cause unnecessary public alarm?
      Mr. Marlow: My hon. Friend knows full well the difference between the filtration process and adding something extra and unrequired which has an effect on the human body.
      The experts have got together and decided. It was the experts who designed the hideous tower blocks that we have in our inner-city areas. It is the experts who quite often, like the Gadarene swine, get it wrong and plunge over the cliff top. We can only hope that, this time, they have not made a terrible mistake. I shall quote once again four lines from Hilaire Belloc:
      "Oh! let us never, never doubt
      What nobody is sure about!
      For people who are in the know
      Assure us that it must be so."
      They know what is best for us. This is the nanny state. It is pure, unadulterated, interventionist Socialism, and it is being put forward by my Conservative Government.
      Mr. Patrick Cormack: I have come here to vote against the Bill, but if my hon. Friend goes on in that way a number of opponents of the Bill will be deterred from doing so.
      Mr. Marlow: I cannot account for my hon. Friend's decision. He will hear other speeches too, and they may have an equal or an opposite effect on him.
      Why has the Bill been produced? It has been produced because of something that happened in a law court in Scotland and because the Civil Service told the Government that they must take action. My Conservative Government would not have brought forward such a measure on their own account. It is not in their manifesto. It is not, politically, a thing that my Government would wish to do. The Civil Service told the Government to get on with it, and that is why the Bill was produced.
      When my right hon. and learned Friend introduced the Third Reading, he said that he had won all the arguments.
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      The arguments that he won were those approved by the Labour party conference in 1978. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend is pleased about that. He also said that the Government had won all the votes. Of those entitled to exercise their discretion during this marathon debate, my right hon. and learned Friend has won very few, if any, of the votes.
      The Conservative party is above all about personal choice. We once had a slogan, "Set the people free". That is what we should do. We cannot be certain that the measure will not have a terrible effect on the people of this country. I am against it and I oppose it.
      6.43 pm
      Mr. Galley: My right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health stated earlier that he could not understand the liberty argument on this issue. As a blunt Yorkshireman, I find the connection as plain as a pikestaff. When tha's in Yorkshire, if somebody takes summat away from thee, tha's likely to be upset. If somebody takes tha choice away from thee tha's likely to be upset because tha liberty is affected. That is the crux of the matter.
      Mr. Nicholas Winterton: Not in Derbyshire.
      Mr. Galley: Perhaps not in Derbyshire or in Nottinghamshire. I shall refer to Derbyshire in due course.
      Apart from the liberty argument, there is also the argument about democracy. The point about democracy has been made many times, but the Treasury Bench has not addressed itself to it and has not answered the point. The situation in a nutshell is that a very small minority of the House, on the basis of the votes so far, is likely to ram through a measure that will be implemented by a non-elected undemocratic authority on the advice and request of another non-elected democratic authority, without any public say at all.
      Furthermore, a number of those who will vote for the measure in the House have said that their hearts are not in what they are doing and that they have had to square their consciences in some way. I am told that they have squared their consciences by suggesting that this is simply an enabling measure. It is an enabling measure designed to allow an undemocratic institution to ask another democratic institution to do something that is dubious in health terms. I appeal to those of my colleagues to look at their consciences before they finally cast their votes.
      Logically, once one accepts the principle of compulsory mass medication, why should one not then pursue the principle further to enforce compulsory mass vaccination? Why do we not totally ban smoking and other forms of tobacco consumption? Why do we not totally ban the consumption of alcohol? Why do we not force those who are opposed to it on principle to have blood transfusions when they are ill?
      My hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie), who has left the Chamber, argues a case on health costs. She suggests that the cost to the state of dental caries is such that we must compel everyone to take in their water a substance that may be poisonous. Surely alcohol, smoking and the lack of vaccinations must represent a higher cost to the NHS and the taxpayer than dental caries. People die from measles, but we do not compel them to be vaccinated. Deformed children are born to pregnant women who contract rubella. People have been known to die from whooping cough. We do not compel vaccinations

      1121
      in those cases. It may be said that there are doubts about the safety of whooping cough vaccine for certain people. There are doubts about fluoride, too. It is a vital principle that if there is an element of doubt — if, when the evidence has been weighed, there is any evidence that suggests that fluoride may be a poison—it should not be added to public water supplies in such a way that the people cannot say nay.
      It would be different if the person who wanted a fluoridated water supply could have one piped to him while his neighbour who did not was connected to a non-fluoridated system. We could promote fluoridated toothpaste, and the Health Education Council could launch a major campaign to persuade people to use it. That would be fine. That is the principle upon which we have worked in health matters for a long time. It is the principle of education. Considerable progress has been made as a result of education efforts, especially in relation to smoking-related diseases.
      We are moving away from the principles of liberty, democracy and good practice which have determined our health care and health prevention for a long time.
      This is a very un-Conservative measure. It is essentially a Socialist measure of the worst kind.
      Mr. Dobson: Does the hon. Gentleman think that the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) has always been a covert Socialist? It was when the right hon. Gentleman was Minister of Health in a Tory Cabinet that fluoridation was introduced.
      Mr. Galley: Much as I respect the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), he may err. I suggest that he has erred on one or two occasions in the past—especially on the two occasions when he suggested that people should vote Labour.
      The philosophical basis of the Conservative party provides no sound ground for compulsory mass medication. How far back can we go? Perhaps one should not suggest that Thomas Hobbes was a Conservative philosopher. The only thing that I would take from Hobbes is the suggestion that life is "nasty, brutish and, short". I suggest that the Bill is also "nasty, brutish and, short".
      Perhaps the first real Tory philosopher was Viscount Bolingbroke who wrote "The Patriot King", which I am sure the Minister has read. There is the picture of the patriotic monarch acting on the principles of the benefit of the population and seeking to prevent bureaucratic abuse. The monarch prevents the bureaucrats, entrepreneurs and officials from abusing the population. That is the basis of our paternalism. The paternalism of the Tory party is against abuse of power by the bureaucrats, but the Bill puts power into the hands of the bureaucrats. Our tradition, whether one takes the libertarian strand or the paternalist strand of Tory philosophy, is against the principles of the Bill. The Bill is against liberty, it is against democracy and, to some extent, it is against health. La libertè, la dèmocratie and la santè is the cry of the Tory Members.
      6.50 pm
      Mr. Best: We are almost at the end of the lengthy first part of the passage of the Bill. Although I am not the last person to speak in the Third Reading debate, I should like to thank all hon. Members from both sides of the House who have taken a stand. I believe that I express my heartfelt thanks on behalf of their constituents and many other people for having taken that stand.
      1122
      Fluoridation of water supplies is illegal. We know that because that was the result of the Strathclyde case. That is why this unfortunate and miserable Bill has been introduced by the Government.
      Mr. Bill Walker: Has my right hon. Friend any knowledge of any other occasion when a decision in a Scottish court has required a Bill to be introduced to effect legislation in England and Wales?
      Mr. Best: I cannot assist my hon. Friend. No, I cannot recall such a time, although I have great respect for the law of Scotland and I believe that in many respects the legal system there leads that in England and Wales. We are about to see that with the passage of legislation soon—legislation that has been delayed as a result of this measure, which the Government originally scheduled to be passed through the House in one day, but has taken four days. That is an expression of the strength of feeling in the House about the Bill.
      The Bill is unwanted by a large number of the members of the Government. They have far too many problems on their hands. The Bill is unwanted by our constituents. Can anybody doubt that we are speaking as we are not just because we feel deeply on a matter of principle but because we know only too well that our constituents do not want the Bill to go through the House of Commons? That is why we are taking this stand and it is right, and our duty, that we should do so.
      Some 111 amendments have been tabled to what is effectively a two-clause Bill. I pay tribute to the ingenuity of hon. Members who have tabled amendments. What has struck me about the amendments is that, more than in any other Bill that I have seen pass through the House, they were all designed to be helpful. They were all designed to try to ameliorate a Bill that is bad ab initio. All the amendments were tabled in good faith and raised matters of great concern.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Mr. Patten), who I am glad to see in his place on the Treasury Front Bench, has conducted himself throughout the Bill with the courtesy that we have come to expect of him. It has been a pleasure to have him reply to these debates, but he has not helped as much as we would have hoped. His deceptive pleasing style has hidden what might at first sight not be apparent. He seeks to let us feel that the Government do not really care about whether health authorities ask water undertakers to fluoridate water supplies. That is not the case. One has only to listen to my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health to realise that the Government are pushing what they believe—I accept that they believe it in good faith—are the benefits of fluoride.
      If that is so, what are the Government doing? Do they really believe that the fluoride is beneficial beyond peradventure? If they do, is it not an act of negligence for the Government not to ensure that all children in the country receive those benefits? Is the answer not that there is, lurking somewhere deep in the bowels of Government, some niggling suspicion, some great concern, which has not yet found a voice, which is just a squeak at the moment but which may develop into a gigantic roar at some stage, of which we are the precursors? Surely, that is the only reason why we now have a permissive Bill, rather than a Bill that takes the matter on board full square and says, "Fluoride is right and therefore everyone should have it."

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      No, the Government do not fully believe that fluoride is right. If they did, they would have introduced a different Bill.
      Those of us who are against the Bill do not say that nobody should have fluoride. We believe in individual choice. People in Sweden have been taking fluoride tablets for years, and it has been as effective as they think it is, or as effective as it may be. There is no reason why people in this country should not take fluoride in tablets if they so wish, exercising their individual choice. However, this is not a Conservative measure. It is not a measure that one expects from this Government. It has been brought forward by civil servants because they have seen the Strathclyde decision and feel that it is necessary to introduce the Bill. As a result, the Government have found themselves on the horns of this dilemma — not really believing in the Bill but having to introduce it because, on advice, they see no other alternative.
      Who are those Labour Members who opposed the Bill? They are all the nice ones. They are the ones with whom we like to go on parliamentary visits. They are all the ones with whom we care to have a drink. They are all the decent ones. That is to be expected. This shows that all those Labour Members who are against fluoridation are the ones who are not bound by rigid dogma. The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) is bound by rigid dogma, or he would not be on the Front Bench. He would be on the Back Benches, and able to express his own opinion. Those who are not so bound are able to express their views.
      Mr. Dobson: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will cast his mind back—I know that it seems a long time ago—to the Second Reading debate. I made it clear then that the views that I was expressing from the Dispatch Box were my own views. Those are the views that I have expressed throughout, and I would not have expressed them had I not held them.
      Mr. Best: That does nothing to satisfy me as to the hon. Gentleman's sense of judgment.
      I made a short speech last night. I have been trying to speak in this debate for the past 19 or 20 hours, but I shall keep to a short speech now as this is Third Reading. I have sought to move sensible amendments, like all other hon. Members, to try to improve the Bill. The benefits of fluoride are by no means certain. If they were certain, how could it be that non-fluoridated areas have equal or lower rates of incidence of dental caries compared to fluoridated areas? If fluoride is of such benefit to the teeth, why do not the citizens of all those European countries that used to fluoridate their water supplies but have now ceased to do so have their teeth dropping out all over the streets? They do not. There is no noticeable difference. That does not say much for the benefits of fluoride, supposed or otherwise. People are looking after their teeth much better than they did 10 or 15 years ago. There has been a general improvement in dental health which we all welcome, but it has little to do with the provision of fluoride in water supplies.
      The dangers of fluoride were fully discussed by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence). I could go over his speech again, but that would not be appropriate. I do not wish to add anything to what he said in his lengthy speech earlier.
      Mr. Nicholas Winterton: If I intervene now I shall not need to try to catch Mr. Speaker's eye later and the debate will, therefore, be brought to an end sooner. Does my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) agree that the weight of argument has been overwhelmingly on the side of those who oppose fluoride? He has mentioned my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence). At the end of the day the anti-fluoride campaign would have won if it had been a fair debate.
      Mr. Best: That is absolutely right. I do not fully share the fears expressed by some hon. Members about the possible damage to health from fluoride. Some of the studies that have been mentioned are by no means certain, but I have been in the courts for far too long not to accede to the concept of the benefit of the doubt. Where there is a reasonable doubt that must be resolved favourably against the proposition of doing anything like putting a substance in the water supply. That is a fundamental principle. So long as a scintilla of doubt remains—not a fanciful doubt—we should not allow the Bill to succeed tonight.
      My hon. Friends do themselves no service when they ridicule the argument by referring to genetic damage in mice, rats, frog-spawn or tadpoles. We do not base our arguments on such matters. I need do no more than quote the words used by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security in a reply to me. He said:
      "The question of dental mottling was studied in the United States of America before the introduction of public water fluoridation. It was found that at a concentration of fluoride of about two parts per million an increasing proportion of children had mottled enamel that was apparent and objectionable aesthetically."
      Heavens above. He was talking about two parts per million. The Bill does not provide for a maximum of one part per million, but says merely that we should try to get it right
      "so far as is reasonably practicable."
      The level could be as much as 1·5 milligrammes per litre. Do we have the right to impose that on the people? I suspect not.
      My hon.Friend the Under-Secretary of State quoted favourably from what Lord Jauncey said in the Strathclyde judgment when he said:
      "if the drinking water in Strathclyde is fluoridated to one part per million there is likely to be a very small increase in the prevalence of mottling of a type which will only be noticeable at very close quarters and which is very unlikely to create any aesthetic problems for the owners of the teeth." — [Official Report, 28 January 1985; Vol. 72, c. 56.]
      That is no good at all. We do not want any teeth to be mottled. We do not want people to say, "That's all right. You will not notice it if you do not come too close." That is not good enough for my constituents.
      The problem about the question of fluoride is that even those biochemists who are in favour of the artificial fluoridation of water supplies accept that the margin between what they regard as the optimum level—one part per million—and that level which leads to dental fluorosis and other problems which have been fully articulated by my hon. Friends is far too slim and far too dangerous. It is unacceptable to the House.
      The other problem is the concept of "we know best". A patronising attitude is inherent in such a Bill. Why can we not trust people to make their own decisions about individual health? What is so terrifying to those who

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      believe that fluoride is so beneficial? Why are they so frightened to articulate their case in public and to let the public decide? Why must the action be taken via the back door and through the non-elected health authorities? We should have a full debate and let the people decide. That was the gravamen of my amendments. My constituents are capable of making a judgment. They know best. After all, they elected me to the House.
      It might be said that it would be an odd Minister who would add something harmful to the water supply. Those who say that should cast a glance at the Opposition Front Bench. Can they be certain that there will be no odd Minister in the future? I suspect that they cannot. They might look at their own Front Bench sometimes and have the same misgivings. It is an odd Minister, indeed, who would introduce such a measure. It is an odd Bill. It has odd effects and it has some odd supporters.
      I have tried in good faith to amend the Bill. I have had discussions with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the Minister of State, the Patronage Secretary, the Deputy Chief Whip—and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all. Unfortunately, those discussions were to no avail. Some concessions have been made and I pay tribute to the Government for having made them. However, those concessions are not enough. They are not enough for me because they are not enough for my constituents who want the right to decide for themselves.
      The fight does not end here. It merely begins as we go together into the Division Lobby to vote against the Third Reading of the Bill tonight. The message for the other place and for the people of the country is that we care for that delicate and precious right that is so easily crushed and for which we must be ever vigilant. I talk of individual freedom.
      7.7 pm
      Mr. Crouch: My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best) has done a noble service to the House over many hours and some days. Not everyone will agree with him and the votes show that the majority do not agree with him. However, we have a duty in the House to respond to our constituents. None of my constituents has asked me for mass state medication, but quite a few over the years have pleaded with me to remember that I am a democrat. One constituent wrote to tell me that he had fought in the last war to preserve freedom in our country. That might be an overstatement. Perhaps the Front Bench in its wisdom and the Department of Health believe that this measure has some scientific and medical merit.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn has been gentle and restrained in his arguments. He made his attitude clear in his speech today. Some of my colleagues who have supported him in his opposition to the Bill have accused him of not being strong enough. I am not very strong against the Bill. I was in two minds about it. Some years ago I was much against fluoridation. I was persuaded that perhaps there was a case for it.
      I have been involved in the medical world. I served 14 years on a health authority. I was not elected. Nobody was elected. Some local authority members were elected by their local authorities and transplanted to the health authorities later by the Secretary of State and others. I was put there by the Secretary of State. I had great regard for those health authorities and for the way in which they
      1126
      faced up to problems of delegated authority and administering the National Health Service in England and Wales.
      However, not one member of a health authority whom I have ever met knows what it is to represent people. It is a Member of Parliament or a councillor—an elected person—who knows what it is to represent people and to face up to people at an election, to answer their correspondence, and sometimes to answer their cris de coeur. I have been getting such complaints and cries of restraint about the Government embarking on mass medication. Perhaps there is some merit in the Bill. There is a little merit in it. It is a little Bill that we shall now decide upon. Let us see how small it is. The short title is just a few words, to
      "Make provision with respect to the fluoridation of water supplies."
      It has taken us four days to discuss the Bill. Why? Because there are some hon. Members who are so concerned to preserve the freedom, even a modicum of freedom, which is so treasured in this country and which we have a duty to preserve. We have a duty to ask the Government, in their medical wisdom and health knowledge, "Do you think that you are right to do this? Is it right?"
      I understood that there was a free vote on the Bill. I was sent a "Whip", as all hon. Members are sent a "Whip" These proceedings were underlined once—I am giving no secrets away—and it says that there will be a free vote on the measure. A free vote is a free vote. Each and every man in the House has the same "Whip" with a free vote on it.
      There is a free vote on another Bill before the House. I spent two and a half hours on that Bill in Committee this morning. It is called the Unborn Children (Protection) Bill promoted by the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell). There was a free vote on it a week or so ago, on a Friday. The Secretary of State for Social Services and the Minister for Health exercised their free vote on that occasion, and voted against that measure. Other Members of the Government voted the other way. We all exercised our free vote on that day.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will stick to this Bill and not be diverted to another.
      Mr. Crouch: I certainly will. All that I am seeking to say is that on that occasion, when there was a free vote, Ministers exercised their right to vote freely as they felt they should. The Government said that they were neutral about the Bill—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is a very experienced parliamentarian. He knows that Third Reading debates must be restricted to the contents of the Bill before us.
      Mr. Crouch: Of course I accept your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am merely illustrating the situation that we face today with this Bill. I should have thought that it was a neutral Bill in the view of the Government because they said that there was a free vote. However, we know from the past few days that a neutral stance has not been taken by the Government. They have been marching through the Lobby to force through the measure against the wishes of the minority, which happens to be those of us who do not like mass medication.

      1127
      Therefore, all that I am saying is that I do not like the difference, when we have a free vote on one Bill, which goes one way, and in this case when it goes another. There is a different interpretation in this case. If I had been the Minister for Health faced with the Bill, I would have exercised my right freely and voted against it. The House might ask me why. I said that I was in two minds and also that for many years I had some concern about health matters. But I am not persuaded of the argument. The medical arguments in favour are worthy of study. They can be accepted. Many people, perhaps the majority in the House, on a free vote, accept them. They can even be convincing in those arguments, but I am still not persuaded. Many of us are not persuaded. Why? Because we do not want state medication. It is as simple as that. No matter how good those arguments are, I simply do not want Big Brother—what a horrible phrase, but we must use it—or Whitehall knowing best about the health of people — men, women and children. It is wrong. We must say so. As a Member of Parliament, an elected representative, I must say that I believe that it is wrong.
      When I faced the matter with two minds about it, thinking that perhaps I could accept those arguments, I had to say to myself as a democrat and an elected Member that on balance I really could not accept the measure because I could not say that I believed that the state should introduce this small measure ruling our lives in this way, to take decisions on health away from people. I do not like compulsory mass medication and I do not like state medication.
      7.16 pm
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members present feel, in the words of the witticism, that we have begun to exhaust time and encroach upon eternity because the debate has been going on for such a long time. If there is the result in the next Division that no doubt the Government confidently expect, I believe that we shall also make great encroachments upon individual liberty.
      I am most disturbed to see the conversion of Her Majesty's Government to utilitarianism and that they feel that the greatest good of the greatest number, an exploded political theory, should justify their promotion of such legislation. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary imagines himself as a latter-day Bentham who will eventually end up stuffed in a glass case in one of our more ancient universities. However, I hope that he lasts longer than Jeremy Bentham lasted in University College, London.
      I believe that we are making a fundamental mistake as Conservatives in promoting a measure based upon that principle. There is a fundamental difference between, for example, chlorinating the water supply to make the water pure and putting fluoride in it to influence the physiological processes of the human body. There is a fundamental difference between the purification of water and the form of mass medication that is thrust upon us in the Bill.
      One thing that has become painfully clear throughout the many hours that we have debated the measure in the House is that all the arguments, apart from those of Front Bench Members, have come from opponents of the Bill, with one or two exceptions, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, South (Mrs. Currie). I had not
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      originally thought of that reason for opposing the Bill, but having heard that she was to make a speech convinced me that my course of action was ever more right.
      As we look through the Division lists, we see that the Government have been sustained by the votes of the Opposition and of Cabinet Ministers dragooned after a heavy day's labour in their Departments into the Lobby in the early hours of the morning, looking tired and haggard and in need of a great deal of sympathy from those of us who have opposed the Bill. However, I am afraid that there comes a time when one's adherence to political principle should outweigh the natural sympathy that we have for the sensibilities of such individuals. Therefore, there is no reason why we should apologise for debating the Bill in the full and extensive way that we have.
      It will be remarked upon in another place in due course that the Government have been able to get the Bill through the House on a tiny minority of individuals who have not been dragooned into the Lobby on what is ostensibly a free vote. For example, in Division No. 114 at 2.9 am on 19 February the Government managed to achieve 105 votes. They needed 100 in order to carry the closure. In that debate the Government were sustained by seven Labour votes, two Liberal votes and by my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Cleethorpes (Mr. Brown) who went into the wrong Lobby by mistake. That is something for which he will have to answer in the hereafter. However, Division after Division has been conducted on that basis.
      Mr. Michael Brown: It pains me deeply that I made that grievous mistake. However, I hope that the penance I have done during the last 30 hours will be some redress.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: We cannot go over what happened in previous debates. We must restrict this debate to what is contained in the Bill.
      Mr. Hamilton: When the Bill reaches the House of Lords, I am sure that their Lordships will bear in mind that there is no majority in this House for the Bill. There has not been a majority of Members voting for the Bill. There has not even been, except in the last Division, a majority of Conservative Members of Parliament voting for the Bill. When their Lordships get to work on it, I am sure that they will find that the Bill is incapable of improvement, and I hope the result will be that they will throw it out.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Mr. Galley) took us back to 1749, the date of the first publication of "The Idea of a Patriot King" by Lord Bolingbroke. I should like to go back 100 years before that date to Viscount Falkland, who said that when it is not necessary to change it is necessary not to change. I believe that that is a more fundamental Tory principle than the utilitarian principle upon which the Bill is based. Therefore, the mute and inglorious followers of the Government who have proceeded through the Lobby night after night during the passage of the Bill through this House have, I believe, acted in a fundamentally un-Tory way. I do not believe that the gentleman in Whitehall knows best or that the unelected gentleman in the water authority knows best about individuals who have a conscientious objection to being medicated in the way that this Bill will no doubt bring about in many areas.
      All too often in recent years this House has supported the busybody state. We have made the wearing of seat belts compulsory and the wearing of crash helmets compulsory. Now the House is to make the medication of

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      the water supply compulsory. I do not believe that we as Conservatives were elected to support the busybody state. Where is the principle that underlies it? Where will it all end? There is a very strong anti-smoking lobby. I am not a smoker, and I find the habit offensive, but I would not dream of telling somebody that he should not smoke because it would damage his health; nor would I dream of saying that he should not drink because alcohol may damage his health. Are we to say that because people catch colds in the winter everybody should be compelled to wrap up warmly and that anybody out in the street wearing clothes that are insufficiently thermally insulated—
      Mr. Dobson: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Hamilton: I do not think that I should prolong my remarks any longer than is necessary. Therefore, I am reluctant to give way to the hon. Gentleman, who of course has considerable natural thermal insulation of various kinds.
      Are we to say that people should go through the winter wrapped up according to some officially laid down coefficient of thermal insulation, or else they will render themselves liable to various illnesses which will not be conducive to their survival? Are we to say that during the summer all ladies are to carry parasols, otherwise their features will be sunburnt, which is not aesthetically acceptable and does not keep their skin in perfect condition? Of course not. However, this may be the reductio ad absurdum of the proposition.
      I believe that we should apply hard tests to legislation of this kind. For that fundamental reason I do not believe that the Government should dictate what is best for individuals in the privacy of their own homes. The Government should not be able to dictate what form of medication ought to be applied. Therefore, I oppose the Bill. I invite my right hon. and hon. Friends to oppose it in the Lobby. I hope that when the Bill reaches another place it will be mangled out of all recognition so that it is no longer suitable to be placed upon the statute book and that that will be the end of it.
      7.25 pm
      Sir John Page: The attendence in the Chamber this evening is a compliment to the "stickability" of Members of Parliament. Nearly all hon. Members who went through the long watches of the night are here 21 hours later. I do not believe that those who were abed yesterday evening
      "Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here."
      Nevertheless, I believe that for all hon. Members who are here this has been a memorable experience. The great memory was the amazing tour de force by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence). Occasionally his lengthy speech made one feel that one was sleeping under an enormous Swiss duvet: that one was going to be completely smothered by his oratory. Nevertheless, it was a great performance. We also enjoyed—this is rather a "station occasion" today—the speech of the hon. and learned Member for "King's Cross for Perth" who introduced a number of excellent shafts of humour into the debate at all hours of the day and night.
      On behalf of all the water undertakers, one of the most vital— [Interruption.] I should prefer my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) not to laugh, because this is a very serious matter for the water industry. This is one of the most carefully run, vital and public spirited industries in the country. We thought that
      1130
      the purpose of the Bill was to clarify or redefine a position that already existed. I hope that I shall not lose my reputation for total neutrality on the matter of fluoridation when I say that if the Bill becomes an Act not one extra gallon of fluoridated water will come through any tap in our country because of it. The industry feels that the Government were wise and sympathetic to accept four out of the five main amendments and suggestions that were made. I am grateful to the Government for their willing acceptance of all those suggestions, apart from one. I have to admit that the suggestion that the Government did not accept was the most important.
      Mr. John Patten: That was an oversight on our part.
      Sir John Page: We hoped it would have been made mandatory upon the water industry.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must stick to what is contained in the Bill, not to what he would like the Bill to contain.
      Sir John Page: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that in line 8 we still have "may" instead of "shall". Unfortunately, that word is still there. I am grateful for the fact that lines 10 to 13 on page 1 of the Bill were accepted by my hon. Friend. This important proviso will be very helpful in governing the attitude of the public towards water undertakings and fluoridation. We know that the Government are looking again — dare I say this — at emergency water supplies. We are grateful for the fact that our ideas on tolerances were acceptable and that the technical aids will enable the industry to serve the public properly. We are grateful for the Government's acceptance of our ideas on retrospection to confirm the legality of existing arrangements.
      I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister, whose courtesy and good humour has transcended a day or so which has sometimes been bad-tempered, but which has been passionate, well-informed and sometimes humourous. The unaccustomed bouquets that I am giving him may be kept fresh by being taken home and put in vases of the wholesome water delivered through the tap of his hereditament.
      7.30 pm
      Mr. Patrick Cormack: I do not wish to detain the House long, but some of my hon. Friends have suggested that as I represent a Staffordshire seat I should enter a competition with my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence). I do not believe that that would be welcomed by anyone here. As one of his neighbours, I should like to pay a tribute to him for his extraordinary stamina in the long hours of the night.
      I was, indeed, abed at that time, but I have changed my plans for this evening so that I can vote on the Bill. I feel., therefore, that it is appropriate to say one or two words about why, as someone who is not persuaded by the extreme arguments, I will, nevertheless, vote against the Bill. I rest my case on three or four important propositions.
      First, I believe that this is a completely peripheral measure when one considers how many important issues Parliament could have been debating over the past 24 hours. I cannot help but regret infinitely that the Government have repeatedly refused to give us a day to debate the terrible devastation and famine in Africa, and yet have put this measure before us and made us debate it at such great length.

      1131
      It is not my hon. Friends who have made the debate of great length. They have been employing and deploying the best of parliamentary tactics in the best parliamentary tradition. I make no criticism of them. The measure is peripheral, unnecessary and arrogant. I say that with some degree of diffidence because I yield to no one in my respect and admiration of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary. I believe him to be a man of broad understanding, genuine compassion and a breadth of vision that is not shared by every member of the Treasury Bench. It therefore grieves me to see him having to pilot through a measure of this type which is so completely un-Tory. The only thing that a Tory should put in his water is whisky.
      It is a dangerous little Bill. I hope that we will receive at least one assurance, entirely compatible with the philosophy and tradition of our party, when my hon. Friend replies. That assurance is that there will never be any attempt to move towards the compulsory fluoridation of the water supply.
      Mr. John Patten: I can assure my hon. Friend on that point now. It was not my intention to seek to detain the House at all with a further intervention. The Bill's only intention is as was described by my right hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Health on Third Reading. The Government have no intention of making fluoridation compulsory nationally.
      Mr. Cormack: I am grateful for that assurance as far as it goes, but the Bill creates a precedent upon which, in a democracy, another party could build.
      I am persuaded by those of my hon. Friends who have referred to the measure as Socialist. It is. I cannot help but equate it with the attitude of those who after the war did many good things but always believed that they knew what was best for people, whether it was in choosing their accommodation units, as Sir Winston derided them, or in deciding how they should behave in their financial and economic affairs. They knew what was best. The Bill smacks of being in that tradition. I repudiate it for that reason.
      I am persuaded by those of my medical and dental friends who tell me that fluoride is good for teeth. I am not persuaded by the extreme arguments of those like my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) who equate fluoride with thalidomide, Debendox and such things. That is nonsense.
      People who wish to take fluoride, where it is not present in the water, can do so. The numerous ways they can take it — tablet and toothpaste — have been rehearsed ad infinitum during the debate. Those of us who oppose the measure are saying not that we repudiate the medical arguments, but rather that if we want to take fluoride we can do so without the need for legislation.
      I fully sympathise with those of my constituents who say that this measure flies utterly in the face of the free choice which the Conservative party ought always to seek to uphold. It is a thoroughly un-Tory measure.
      My final reason for opposing the Bill was touched upon by my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) when he spoke of a free vote. There is in the House of Commons a long and honourable tradition of a free vote, but it should be free. A free vote means that every hon. Member has the right to decide, without
      1132
      coercion or persuasion, upon the merits of a measure. This has not been a free vote for many members of the Conservative party in Parliament assembled. I can understand the logic of those who are on the Treasury Bench. I can understand them saying that because the measure is promoted by the Government they wish to stand together, but to extend the tentacles of oppression to the eunuchs on the PPS's Bench is entirely wrong.
      Mr. Neil Hamilton: Withdraw.
      Mr. Cormack: No, I shall not withdraw. It would be wrong of me to talk of individuals, but I know, because I have been told by a number of them, that PPSs have been told that they are jolly well expected to be part of the payroll vote on this matter. The Division lists show that to be the case. That makes nonsense of the statement that this measure is subject to a truly free vote. If the measure were subject to a truly free vote, it would have been rejected outright. I am confident of that, and I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will take note of that and of the fact that this is a peripheral, unnecessary, interfering and busybody measure. It is a measure which has far more in common with the traditions of Socialism than with the bold freedom to which we seek to aspire. Not for the first time in this Parliament, our hope lies in the Lords.
      7.38 pm
      Mr. Bill Walker: I speak as one of the Scots who have been contributing to the Bill because, as you realise, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and as we have been told from the Front Bench, its object is to restore the law to what it was thought to be before the Scottish judgment. It seems to be a brand new exercise in the way that matters are dealt with in the House.
      You will have some knowledge, Mr. Deputy Speaker, from sitting through many Scottish debates on Scottish legislation, that this must be the first time that we are debating a measure that will affect England and Wales because of a decision in the Scottish courts. As a Scot I look forward to the many other measures that will be introduced because of the wise decisions of Scottish courts. Some of those decisions will be assisted by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross (Mr. Fairbairn), from my neighbouring constituency, who has contributed so much to the debate.
      The Government have made it clear by the way in which they have handled the so-called free vote that they are determined to get the Bill through Parliament. I believe that the Bill breaches the principles of individual liberty and that is a mistake. If the Bill passes through the other place unscathed, it will be remembered by the electorate as a Tory Government Bill. I ask my Scottish friends to listen carefully to my speech because there is a good reason why the Scottish courts took the decision which led to the Bill being introduced in its present form. The Scottish people objected to the fluoridation of their water, and the case ended up in court. Scottish Conservative Members of Parliament could end up regretting the fact that the Tory Government put this measure on the statute book.
      The Scots, like everyone else, realise that fluoride, as it will be administered under the Bill, is medication forced upon them. They have no option, and it is nonsense for my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to suggest that, because this is an enabling measure, somehow the public

      1133
      will see it as other than a measure imposed by the Conservative Government. There will be no ducking that. The Secretary of State, if no one else, will be blamed for the decisions taken by the non-elected health boards.
      I was disappointed to hear the reply of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State, because I felt that he did a disservice to those of us who, throughout the long debate, have argued that it is wrong to indulge in compulsory mass medication. We did not spend the night filibustering attempting to do other than drive home to the Government our great fear of the possible result of the legislation. The Bill will be damaging because we are indulging in mass medication. It will be damaging to the Conservative party. It will be as though a nanny state is forcing medication down the throats of children.
      The messages from the Opposition, especially the hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) — [HON. MEMBERS: "Hurry up."] Is an hon. Member trying to intervene? I have had my back to some of my hon. Friends and did not see any of them stand up. I apologise for the interruption. I thought that I heard a request to make an intervention. I am happy to give way if an hon. Member wishes to intervene. I am being told to wind up. I have been here all night and have made one speech lasting about 10 minutes on a matter about which I care deeply, as do other hon. Members.
      The hon. Member for Holborn and St. Pancras and other Opposition Members do a disservice to the working class people in suggesting that they are unable to look after their children. They say that it is therefore essential for this measure as it stands to go on the statute book. The Labour party may live to regret that, and I hope that it does. Obviously, alliance Members have no interest in this subject.
      I hope that my hon. Friends who feel as deeply as I do about the principle involved in the legislation will vote against the Bill.
      7.45 pm
      Mr. Peter Bruinvels: It is a sad day for the House to reach the Third Reading of the Bill. I have not spoken during any of the previous debates. I nevertheless feel that the majority of the people do not want fluoridation by compulsion anywhere. When I participated in the debate on 14 January after being called back from Israel—I acted as a Teller in the Second Reading Division — I was convinced that the debate would continue for many days. It is clear today, with the debate lasting for nearly 24 hours, that there is unrest among Conservative Members. That should not have happened.
      It is a tragedy that my hon. Friends, including PPSs and Ministers, are voting not with their conscience but because they feel that they must support the Government's measure. I am not generalising but referring to certain of my right hon. and hon. Friends. The Bill would not receive Third Reading if my right hon. and hon. Friends had a truly free vote.
      As one who has been involved in the water industry for a long time—I was involved in energy cost analyses—it seems to me that the water authorities are not exactly enthusiastic about adding fluoride to the water. I am worried about the fact that instructions will come from local health authorities insisting on adding fluoride to the water. That is wrong.
      I am not questioning whether fluoride is good for people's teeth. My grandfather was a dentist, my father
      1134
      trained as a dentist, and the husband of the chairman of my local Conservative party is a dentist, so there are already many dentists in my life! It seems clear to me from talking to my father and my chairman's husband that fluoride might be good for teeth. Why should it be compulsory? I suppose that if my grandfather were alive he might have supported fluoridation. All of those three people were or are Conservatives, and I wonder whether they would have supported a measure which I believe is undemocratic.
      For a Tory, compulsory medication in any form is the wrong way to proceed. The debate during the past 24 hours or so was entertaining, but deadly serious. I foresee a time when one will have to pay in restaurants for water that does not have fluoride added to it. It is strange that we are moving in that direction.
      A recent copy of the magazine "Here's Health" investigated the addition of fluoride to water and said that in many cases it would make teeth brittle. I remain unconvinced, having read that article and an article in New Society, that fluoride will cause no danger. As the true democrat that I am, I ask those who believe in freedom of choice: will people stop drinking water when the legislation is passed? They may do so. They will not know whether there is fluoride in the water. Will people move to a different part of the country because a local health authority decides that fluoride must be in the water? Indeed, will it encourage alcoholism because people may go on to alcohol because the water has been doctored?
      During the recent campaign I must say in fairness that I have not received many letters against fluoride being added to the water, but I have received some. My good friend, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence), has probably received more than all of us. He deserves the congratulations of the House for the way in which he has led, with my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Mr. Best), a great campaign to try to make the Government think again on the principle rather than on whether fluoride is good for people. The questionable benefits should still make people hesitate even at this last minute. We are establishing a precedent. People's lives may be changed. It is a gross encroachment on our civil liberties. I ask for a national referendum. If there had been a national referendum earlier, it is highly unlikely that the Bill would have been brought forward today or any day.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying from the Bill. He must discuss what is in the Bill, not what he would like to be in it.
      Mr. Bruinvels: I am afraid I have become rather concerned because we are in the last few minutes of the debate. Because of the way we are being rushed, I felt that I had to say something, but I accept your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      If the Bill becomes law I can tell the House what the Leicestershire community health council intends to do, according to the Leicester Mercury of 23 February. It will mount the biggest ever campaign to ensure that everyone in my county of Leicestershire will have a chance to have a say in the fluoride debate. The Severn-Trent water authority, whose annual report I have, will consider the ballot papers that will go out with the next rate demand to test public opinion throughout the county of Leicestershire. That is to be welcomed. We will find out whether those people want fluoride in the water. It is a pity

      1135
      that we do not have the result of that test before the vote tonight. I shall be urging the Severn-Trent water authority to take account of the views.
      We are talking about water supplies, and about what the water authority is to do once the Bill becomes law. Under its chairman, John Bellak, the authority will get the views of all its customers. Hopefully the water authority will throw out the fluoridation proposal because of the views of the people of Leicestershire.
      We have heard from the Opposition what the working classes want. We are not in a nanny state. We believe in freedom of choice. We believe in people going to the dentist regularly. They can go on doing that. The state should get off our backs. I want to encourage freedom of choice. I do not think the Bill will do that. I want to preserve the freedom of the individual to enable everyone to have his say as to whether he wants fluoride in the water. For that reason, and for no other reason, I shall definitely oppose the Bill.
      7.53 pm
      Mr. Michael Brown: You will know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I have the ability to speak for an hour and three minutes or for three minutes. I shall try to keep to three minutes.
      Before I make my remarks on Third Reading, I think it would be appropriate for me to place on record an apology to a number of my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench for failing to inform them that I intended to refer to letters which they had written some years ago on the issue of fluoridation. I was engaged, as you know, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in a speech where I was not sure about what I was going to say until I said it. Therefore, I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will accept that there was no malice aforethought. That does not excuse in any way my gross discourtesy to them. I hope they will accept the apology which I have made.
      The fact that there has not been a free vote on the Bill is part of the reason why I found myself drawing the attention of the House to the evidence which I had. That would not have been necessary had there been a truly free vote. Therefore, there is a moral. First, a free vote should be a truly free vote, and, secondly, all of us will be careful about what letters we write to our constituents and what early-day motions we shall sign in future.
      The Bill is miserable, unnecessary, and deserves utmost opposition by the use of every parliamentary tactic and device at our disposal. I congratulate all those who have participated with me during the past few hours in trying to defeat a measure that is against the spirit of the Conservative Government, against the spirit of the Conservative party, against Conservative philosophy and against the interests of the health of the people. There is doubt about the efficacy of fluoride. So long as there is a doubt, no hon. Member should go into the Division Lobby in support of the Bill. I hope that their Lordships in the other place will do what they are being given a signal to do by my hon. Friends and myself. I hope that they will emasculate the Bill so that we may throw it out when it comes back here.
      Several Hon. Members rose—
      Mr. John Cope (Treasurer to Her Majesty's Household)rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
      Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
      Question put accordingly, That the Bill be now read the Third time:
      The House divided: Ayes 165, Noes 82.

      Division No. 151]

      [7.56 pm

      AYES

      Alexander, Richard

      Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael

      Home Robertson, John

      Ancram, Michael

      Hunt, David (Wirral)

      Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

      Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

      Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Vall'y)

      Jackson, Robert

      Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

      Janner, Hon Greville

      Barron, Kevin

      Jessel, Toby

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      John, Brynmor

      Beckett, Mrs Margaret

      Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

      Bevan, David Gilroy

      Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Kennedy, Charles

      Boscawen, Hon Robert

      Kershaw, Sir Anthony

      Bottomley, Peter

      Knox, David

      Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

      Lang, Ian

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

      Bright, Graham

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

      Lilley, Peter

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

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon A.

      Lyell, Nicholas

      Burt, Alistair

      McCrindle, Robert

      Butler, Hon Adam

      McDonald, Dr Oonagh

      Campbell-Savours, Dale

      MacGregor, John

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

      Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

      Maclennan, Robert

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Marland, Paul

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Cockeram, Eric

      Mawhinney, Dr Brian

      Cohen, Harry

      Maxton, John

      Concannon, Rt Hon J. D.

      Mellor, David

      Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

      Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

      Coombs, Simon

      Miller, Hal (B'grove)

      Cope, John

      Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

      Couchman, James

      Mills, Iain (Meriden)

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

      Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

      Moynihan, Hon C.

      Dewar, Donald

      Neale, Gerrard

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Needham, Richard

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

      Nelson, Anthony

      Dunn, Robert

      Neubert, Michael

      Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

      Newton, Tony

      Durant, Tony

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Dykes, Hugh

      O'Neill, Martin

      Eastham, Ken

      Osborn, Sir John

      Edwards, Rt Hon N. (P'broke)

      Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

      Eggar, Tim

      Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

      Evans, John (St. Helens N)

      Page, Richard (Herts SW)

      Eyre, Sir Reginald

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Fenner, Mrs Peggy

      Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abdgn)

      Fletcher, Alexander

      Pavitt, Laurie

      Foster, Derek

      Penhaligon, David

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Powell, Rt Hon J. E. (S Down)

      Fox, Marcus

      Raffan, Keith

      Freud, Clement

      Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

      Gale, Roger

      Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Rees, Rt Hon Peter (Dover)

      Goodhart, Sir Philip

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Goodlad, Alastair

      Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

      Gow, Ian

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Gower, Sir Raymond

      Robertson, George

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

      Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

      Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Hamilton, James (M'well N)

      Rumbold, Mrs Angela

      Harris, David

      Ryder, Richard

      Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Hayhoe, Barney

      Scott, Nicholas

      Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

      Sheerman, Barry

      1137

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Waddington, David

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Walden, George

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

      Squire, Robin

      Watson, John

      Stanley, John

      Watts, John

      Steen, Anthony

      Wheeler, John

      Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

      Whitfield, John

      Stewart, Ian (N Hertf'dshire)

      Whitney, Raymond

      Stradling Thomas, J.

      Wilson, Gordon

      Taylor, John (Solihull)

      Wolfson, Mark

      Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

      Wood, Timothy

      Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

      Thurnham, Peter

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

      Mr. John Major and

      Trippier, David

      Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd.

      Viggers, Peter

      NOES

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Alton, David

      Fairbairn, Nicholas

      Ashdown, Paddy

      Fallon, Michael

      Beith, A. J.

      Finsberg, Sir Geoffrey

      Bendall, Vivian

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Blackburn, John

      Forth, Eric

      Bowden, A. (Brighton K'to'n)

      Galley, Roy

      Boyes, Roland

      Gardiner, George (Reigate)

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      Golding, John

      Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

      Greenway, Harry

      Bruce, Malcolm

      Grist, Ian

      Bruinvels, Peter

      Ground, Patrick

      Budgen, Nick

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Butterfill, John

      Hancock, Mr. Michael

      Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

      Hargreaves, Kenneth

      Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

      Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

      Carttiss, Michael

      Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

      Cash, William

      Hayward, Robert

      Chope, Christopher

      Hickmet, Richard

      Churchill, W. S.

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Conway, Derek

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

      Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

      Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)

      Cormack, Patrick

      Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

      Crouch, David

      Irving, Charles

      Dixon, Donald

      Jones, Robert (W Herts)

      1138

      Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

      Skinner, Dennis

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

      Knight, Gregory (Derby N)

      Smyth, Rev W. M. (Belfast S)

      Knowles, Michael

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

      Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

      Lester, Jim

      Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

      Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

      Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

      Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      McGuire, Michael

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Maclean, David John

      Walker, Bill (T'side N)

      Marlow, Antony

      Warden, Gareth (Gower)

      Molyneaux, Rt Hon James

      Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Wigley, Dafydd

      Murphy, Christopher

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      Ottaway, Richard

      Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Proctor, K. Harvey

      Mr. Keith Best and

      Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

      Mr. Ivan Lawrence.

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

      Question accordingly agreed to.
      Bill accordingly read the Third time, and passed.

  INSURANCE (FEES) BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read a Second time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 69 (Second Reading Committees), and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 42 (Committal of Bills).

  INSURANCE (FEES) BILL
    WAYS AND MEANS

      INSURANCE (FEES)
      Resolved,
      That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Insurance (Fees) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment into the Consolidated Fund of certain fees paid by insurance companies or the Council of Lloyd's.—[Mr. Alex Fletcher.]

  Companies Consolidation (Consequential Provisions) Bill [Lords]
  Considered in Committee.
  8.11 pm
  The Second Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sir Paul Dean): As this is a consolidation measure, in accordance with normal custom, and with the agreement of the Committee, I will put the clauses en bloc.
  Clauses 1 to 35 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  Companies Consolidation (Consequential Provisions) Bill [Lords]
    Schedule 1

      ENACTMENTS REPEALED
      The Attorney-General (Sir Michael Havers): I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 17, leave out lines 36 and 37.
      The Second Deputy Chairman: With this it will be convenient to discuss Government amendments Nos. 2 and 3.
      The Attorney-General: I know that the House has been awaiting this business with ever-increasing impatience for the past 24 hours or so.
      The main Companies Bill—a consolidation measure which passed through the House in all its stages last week — did not consolidate Northern Ireland company legislation. The Bill, and especially the provisions to which the amendments relate, was drafted too widely by oversight in that in its unamended form it repeals certain statutory provisions which it is necessary still to preserve in Northern Ireland. The amendments were duly prepared to meet the circumstances in Northern Ireland.
      Mr. Nicholas Brown: If it had been possible to deal with this matter on a point of order or, better still, by an exchange of letters 24 hours ago, I would have readily agreed to that course. I accept what the Attorney-General has said about separate legislation for Northern Ireland, and I endorse the amendment.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Amendments made: No. 2, in page 18, leave out lines 20 and 21.
      No. 3, in page 18, leave out line 26. — [The Attorney-General.]
      Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
      Schedule 2 agreed to.
      Bill reported, with amendments; as amended, considered.
      Bill read the Third time, and passed, with amendments.

  Low Pay (Railway Industry)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]
  8.14 pm
  Mr. Robin Cook: I assure the House that it is as great a pleasure to me as it is to the House to reach this point in our proceedings. Before proceeding any further with my Adjournment debate, I wish to thank the Government Whip, the hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Mr. Hamilton), who at 1.30 this morning had the courtesy to advise me that it would be safe to have a few hours' sleep.
  This morning, or in parliamentary terms tomorrow morning, the National Union of Railwaymen submitted to the British Railways Board its pay claim for 1985. The claim highlights the problem of low pay in the rail industry. This is not a new problem for it was identified in 1980 in a report by the Low Pay Unit. That report characterised British Rail as marked by low pay and long hours. Since 1980 the situation has become worse and not better. Under the Government the pay of railwaymen has fallen even further behind that of comparable workers. When the Minister replies, I hope that he will not say that responsibility does not lie with the Government. The Government have a clear responsibility for pay within British Rail. In the first instance, the Government decide the general financial context within which British Rail reaches its pay settlements. The Government decided to lop the public service obligation grant for British Rail by £200 million, which is a cut of about 25 per cent. When the Secretary of State for Transport took office it was almost his first decision to accelerate the period over which the cut was to take place. He brought the time scale forward from 1988 to 1986. This sharp reduction in public subsidy is the main financial pressure on British Rail. It has made it much more difficult for BR to pay a living wage to its workers.
  Secondly, external financing limits are set by the Government and they have become increasingly stringent. This means that British Rail is obliged to meet more and more of its investment from internal sources. In effect, British Rail workers are being invited to pay for investment in the future of the industry out of their present wages.
  Those are two general observations on the Government's overall responsibility towards British Rail. I shall go further. The Government have a specific interest in and responsibility for the wages that are paid by British Rail. There are many illustrations to hand to show that the Government have taken a close interest in this matter. For example, there is the letter of 22 April 1983 to the British Railways Board about the 1983 rail plan. It was sent from the Department of Transport and signed by Mr. Edward Osmotherly. Paragraph 8 of the letter states:
  "The pay assumptions"—
  these are the assumptions of the rail plan—
  "also appear to reflect the concept of a 'going rate' of pay increase. But recent experience indicates that widely varied rates of increase apply in different industries according to their ability to pay and their recruitment requirements. When the Board is continuing to reduce staff numbers, what is the justification for large real pay increases for the staff who remain".
  That passage is important for three reasons. First, it is clear that the Government are taking a clear and precise interest in rail pay. Secondly, in so far as they are taking

  1141
  that interest, it appears that they are clearly suggesting that the settlement should be below the going rate, which is an extremely modest rate. Thirdly, and most remarkable of all, Mr. Osmotherly appears to be suggesting that because British Rail requires fewer workers it can afford to pay less than the going rate. I am bound to say that that argument stands on its head the standard argument of British Rail to the NUR, which is that the best way of achieving high pay increases is the achievement of greater productivity, and that the way to achieve that goal is by reducing manpower levels. The Department of Transport appears to be arguing that, because there is a case for less manpower, British Rail should and can pay less than the going rate.
  Under this head I throw in finally a reference to the evidence that we received last summer that the Prime Minister had taken a close interest in last year's rail pay settlement and had required her own specific approval and acceptance of the settlement before it could be agreed by British Rail. It is clear that the Government take a view of pay in the rail industry and intervene to fix the annual increase. That makes it legitimate for us to ask the Government whether they are satisfied with the level of pay within British Rail. Are they prepared to defend that level? Before they seek to do so and before I ask them to do so, I shall explain to my hon. Friends, for whose support I am grateful, some of the features of working for British Rail.
  One of the most obvious features is that of unsocial hours. Shiftwork is general in the rail industry and its pattern is highly irregular. Drivers find that their shift starting dates vary from week to week and they do not know from one day to the next whether their starting times will be changed. Weekend work is common in an industry in which repairs have to be carried out during off-peak times. Workers on the permanent way have an agreement with British Rail that they will work 40 weekends out of 60. That agreement must be far more demanding than any other within British industry. Leave entitlement is beggarly. Only 4 per cent. of manual workers in Britain have an annual leave entitlement of less than four weeks. That amounts to one in 25 workers. Among the 4 per cent. are all the rail workers employed by British Rail.
  Finally, the work is dangerous. Danger has always been incidental to railway movements. Every year there are about 30 fatalities within the British Rail system. In addition to what might be described as the standard danger — the expectation of accidents in the course of movements — there has recently been a growing and more distressing danger to rail staff from assaults on them by passengers and other members of the public. Over the past 10 years indictable offences within the rail system have more than doubled. In 1983 British Transport police reported 2,000 incidents of public disorder in the railway network.
  What is the reward that workers operating in these difficult circumstances receive? To measure the reward, let us examine what the Government recognise as the poverty level. It is not difficult to do so because the Government, by their nature, are obliged to publish some figures as reference marks for their own benefit.
  Currently, a family with two children qualifies for family income supplement if it has a wage of £100 or less. It also qualifies for a unified housing benefit if it has a wage of £101 or less. We can see from these examples that the Government accept the figure of about £100 per week
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  as the poverty level. It is a low pay level which is also officially recognised by the Trades Union Congress which sets it at £104 per week.
  By comparison with these figures, I can advise the House that the basic pay in the rail industry is £76·25, a level so patently inadequate that it is necessary for the British Railways Board to introduce a minimum earnings level, which currently stands at £89 per week. The very existence of this guaranteed minimum earnings level is an admission that the basic pay rate is not enough to live on.
  Over recent years both these levels have tended to worsen. The basic rate of pay has lost one tenth of its purchasing power since 1975. In 1975, the basic pay of a railman was £4 behind that of a postman. A railman is now £20 worse off than a postman every week.
  Ironically, when the railway industry first began, the main source of labour in the rail industry came from the land, as agricultural labourers left farming and went into the rail network, which was then spreading across the countryside. In the past two years, for the first time in history the basic rate of railmen has fallen below the basic rate paid to agricultural labourers.
  How then do the workers in this industry make ends meet? They do it by a perfectly simple device. They work long hours to make up short wages. The other side of the coin of working in the industry with the lowest pay is that they put in the longest hours — hours which may be shorter than those worked by Members of the House in circumstances such as we saw last night, but for rewards very much more modest than those received by any Member of the House.
  Average hours worked in the rail industry last year were 51 hours per week. Railmen make ends meet by working a six-day week. As hon. Members will have noticed, that is an average figure. It is in the nature of averages that not everybody gets the average amount of overtime. There is no guarantee that workers will get that level of overtime. Those who do not have to live on a pittance. Those who do have to work what by any definition would be unreasonable amounts of time.
  In the British Rail census of employment of 1984, we find that in any one week in 1984, 10,500 staff of BR worked over 60 hours. Of that number, 3,000 worked over 70 hours and 700 worked over 80 hours, a figure that can be found in any week of last year. This level is frequently described as excessive. I would not use that term. I would describe it as forced overtime; it is overtime that it is necessary for men to work in order to take home earnings on which they can survive.
  It is a matter of regret that to this day British Rail prefers to look for shedding of jobs rather than seeking to cut back on overtime in order to pay its men an adequate basic rate of pay that would remove the need for such overtime to sustain earnings.
  Let me give the House a couple of examples which illustrate the points that I have been making. These are not cardboard cutouts invented by me, but examples of real cases operating in the rail industry based on wage slips that have been sent to me. First, I give the House the case of a chargeman working from Norwich. Chargeman is a responsible post. He is essentially a foreman in the industry: he has people below him who work to him. The chargeman in question on his wage slip had no overtime in the week for which I received the wage slip. The gross pay that he received that week was £99·55. The net pay he received was £77. This is a man with responsibility,

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  fulfilling a junior managerial role — a man who, incidentally, joined the rail industry in 1940 and has given it over 40 years' loyal service, in return for which he is left with £77 per week. That is a case in which there was no overtime.
  I now share with the House a case in which a man on a lower basic rate was obliged to work overtime in order to earn the income at which he and his family could subsist. He is a railman at Watford. He worked 12 hours overtime plus eight hours on Sunday. In other words, he worked 20 hours over and above the basic minimum of 39 hours, that is, a 59-hour week. What did he receive for 59 hours' work? It was broadly half as much again as the average in British industry. He received a gross pay, even with 20 hours' overtime, of £146 which left him, after deductions, with £106 net. This is a young man with two young children and a family to support on that wage, with which he is left after working excessive hours, including all Sundays. I do not think that any hon. Member could reasonably say that that represents a fair reward for working half as long again as the average manual worker in British industry.
  There are few women employed in British Rail. About 5 per cent. of the work force are female. In passing, I will say that, as always, it is the women we find at the bottom of the pile; it is the women in industry who have to do the most menial jobs and who in turn receive the most miserable rates of pay, even lower than the examples that I have shared with the House.
  Let me sum up my argument. Employees of British Rail have difficult working conditions of a kind which I suspect many Members of the House would not tolerate. They work excessive hours. At the end of those long hours in difficult conditions, they are left with poverty wages. Moreover, the poverty of those wages is worsening as they are left further behind other groups in society and as the purchasing power of their wages declines. Ministers cannot escape their share of the responsibility for this situation arising; nor should they seek to evade their responsibility for remedying it.
  I end by referring to the current promotional programme of British Rail, which lays great stress on public relations. Many members of British Rail who come into contact with the public have been fed through a charm school as part of this promotional exercise, no doubt in order to be better able to explain to the members of the public why, as a result of Government cuts, the service has been reduced. Emphasis in the promotional exercise has been placed on the role of guards in particular. The basic pay for guards in British Rail is £6·30 less than that of a labourer in the Rover factories. Those labourers have no contact with the public. I suspect that the management of Rover would be aghast if it were suggested that people on that level of remuneration should be expected to support the public relations profile of their company.
  Stress is currently being placed by British Rail on customer care. I am glad that it has mounted a promotional exercise, but if the Government and the British Railways Board want that exercise and that promotional campaign to be taken seriously, they may wish to reflect that customers may find it difficult to be convinced that they will be taken great care of by British Rail when it so conspicuously fails to take care of its own employees.
  8.28 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Mitchell): It is normally the practice for the Minister replying to the debate to congratulate the hon. Member who has initiated it on being selected in the ballot. I shall not depart from that time-honoured practice and I do, indeed, congratulate the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook). However, as the hon. Gentleman knows very well—since he is sponsored by the National Union of Railwaymen—this very day, the British Railways Board will have heard, in formal session, the pay claim for the year ahead submitted by the NUR, the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen and by the Transport Salaried Staffs Association. The hon. Gentleman also knows very well that pay negotiations are always delicate and sensitive matters and that there is nothing which we in this place could or should say or do which could in any way prejudice those discussions. The rest of my remarks will respect that principle.
  It seems to me that there are two ways in which pay negotiations can be conducted. They can take place within the straitjacket of rigid pay policies, such as those deployed by the last Labour Administration — with all the inequalities, anomalies and confusions which they engender — or they can take place, as they should, between employer and employee directly. This is absolutely fundamental. The hon. Member for Livingston knows enough about business to understand that it must be for individual managements to judge the correct level of remuneration for their employees. They must make those judgments against the background of a wide range of factors; such as what can be afforded, what rates of pay are needed to retain existing staff in employment, what wages are needed to recruit new entrants where they are required, and the trade-off between expenditure and charges for goods and services. It is against the background of precisely those sorts of factors that British Rail will now have to judge the rates of pay which should be applicable in its industry. It will have to make the judgments, it will have to conduct the negotiations and it will have the responsibility, in consultation with the rail unions, for whatever settlement emerges. That is the way in which pay matters should be handled and that is the way in which they have been handled since the Government took office. It is not the role of the Government, or of anybody else outside the railway industry for that matter, to decide what pay rates the industry can or cannot afford.
  The simple fact of the matter is that BR can pay out in staff wages only what it can afford. If BR is to pay higher wages, it must increase the amount of money it can make available for its paybill. Now how could it do that? There are two ways, really. It could reduce unit costs or it could increase revenue. BR has, in fact, made considerable efforts to reduce unit costs. In that, it has always consulted the unions. In particular, it has sought the co-operation of the NUR and ASLEF in a number of measures designed to improve operating efficiency. It has even offered "specific rewards" in the form of supplementary payments to the unions in exchange for these measures. But, notwithstanding all this, the NUR and ASLEF seem to have an extraordinary blind spot and have tried to obstruct BR at nearly every turn. For example, in 1983 the NUR put a block on productivity talks which remains to this very day. There are those who would say that if pay rates in the

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  railway industry are low—and that is always a judgment of relativities — the unions should stop blocking the management's attempts to make the money needed to pay higher wages.
  What of the other means by which the railways could increase their resources, such as by increasing their revenue? BR is of course trying to do just that. But there is a limit, as in all other cases, to what the market will bear. Would the hon. Gentleman like to see BR charging its customers more? Is he suggesting that passenger fares should be increased by more than is strictly necessary, so that passengers decide that rail services are simply uncompetitive when compared with, say, coaches, or motor cars, or with any other sector of the transport market in which British Rail has to compete? If he is suggesting that, the ultimate effect, as the hon. Gentleman knows, would be to reduce the attractiveness of the railways. There would be fewer passengers, and fewer manufacturers and distributors using railway freight services to carry their goods; revenue would fall, and so charges would have to rise to cover the shortfall—and so on. It is an upward spiral. The net effect would be to damage the future of the railways and, implicitly, to reduce employment prospects. Is that what the hon. Gentleman proposes — to diminish job opportunities? I doubt it. I know that some Opposition Members would disagree with that analysis. They would claim, as does the NUR, that the way to increase revenue is to reduce fares. But all the evidence points to the opposite. The hon. Gentleman will probably be aware that BR has, in fact, considered whether a substantial across-the-board reduction in rail fares would encourage more users and increase revenue. As a result of careful analysis the board concluded that it could not attract sufficient extra custom to compensate for the reduction in revenue received from its existing passengers. The problem is that one cannot have reduced fares only for additional passengers. One must reduce the revenue from existing passengers. That would not improve the board's overall financial position. I know that arguments for fares cuts are in the main well meant. The trouble is that they simply do not hold water.
  As I have already made clear, I do not propose to say anything today that could prejudice the formal railway pay talks that have just started. However, I should say something about the board's financial position.
  Mr. Cook: I am most grateful to the Minister for that last reference. I intended to draw his attention to the fact that the options that he outlined curiously overlooked the other option, which would be for the Government not to require British Rail to have the reduced subsidy that the Government are offering to it. Will the Minister acknowledge that it will be much more difficult for British Rail to respond to the problem of low wages in industry if at the same time it loses a quarter of its public support?
  Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman knows that the objectives that were set for the British Railways Board and accepted by it were based on the board's plans. The board simply brought forward the timing of the delivery of those plans in terms of a reduction of the PSO grant. My point is that the railway industry has it within its own gift to achieve the additional resources required to pay higher wages by improving productivity and seeking to improve revenue. I have demonstrated that, most regrettably, the unions have not sought to help the board to increase its
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  income and to reduce its costs by increased productivity. If they did that, they would create the extra money which would then be available to help to increase pay in the industry.
  That is the nub of the problem. BR's task has been made no easier, indeed quite the opposite, by the effects of the miners' strike. BR would normally have carried about 90 million tonnes of coal during the past year. The effect of the miners' strike has been to reduce revenue by about £240 million. Of that, a substantial sum — more than £60 million—is a direct result of ASLEF and the NUR insisting that their members black coal traffic. Many people in the House and elsewhere would argue that the NUR and ASLEF have a considerable nerve in putting to the board a claim for substantial increases in pay now, while during the past year they have cost the railways so dear. By my calculations, the money that BR has lost because of the blacking action called for by those unions is equivalent to a general pay increase of 3·5 per cent. Instead of getting extra resources into the railways to enable extra pay to be achieved, the unions chose to cost the railways lost revenue which is equivalent to a 3·5 per cent. pay increase in the industry. If the NUR and ASLEF truly believe that their members are underpaid, they should have told them to do everything possible to improve customer confidence in the railways, and to show that the railway unions can work together with BR management to promote an efficient railway industry. I hope that as the miners' strike is finished and as coal traffic is returning to normal the rail unions will seek to join with BR management to repair the damage done to the railway's revenue and resources.
  Let us make no mistake about where the money comes from to pay for wage increases. It comes from the till, the receipts, customers' payments and efficiency. It comes from reliability and a spirit of co-operation. It does not come from political gestures made under the banner of trade union solidarity. I sincerely hope that the leaders of the NUR and ASLEF will have borne that in mind when they sat with the Railways Board this morning.
  The only sensible way to secure increases in rail earnings is through improved economic performance. Unrealistic pay settlements increase employers' costs and put jobs at risk. The responsibility of trade union leaders is clear. Moderate union pay claims help to preserve the jobs of their members and may also lead to the reduction in unemployment which we all wish to see.
  As with virtually every other industry, some people are paid more than others in the railway industry. That is understandable and reasonable. Different skills demand different earnings. The differential pay structure in British Rail means that, according to figures that I have from the board, signalmen on the top of the scale earn an average of about £246 a week—almost double the average gross earnings of the lowest paid member of BR staff. As the pool of money that BR has available for staff remuneration is limited, perhaps the hon. Gentleman thinks that the more highly paid members of BR staff would be willing to forgo some of their pay to ensure that additional money goes to those to whom he referred as low paid. I doubt whether that is what he has in mind.
  Mr. Cook: I assure the Minister that he is wrong. At no point did I argue that someone in British Rail is paid

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  too much. The technicians to whom he referred are highly trained and BR is in the same market as British Telecom and has to pay that rate.
  Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman ought not to overlook the fact that, if there are given resources available for increasing pay, they must be shared between the highly paid and the low paid and as he is not suggesting an alteration in the mix he must concentrate on how the earnings of BR can be increased. That is not achieved by losing customer confidence and driving them away through strike action and refusing to carry their goods. The unfortunate legacy of actions in the industry has resulted in it losing trade. We beg that it will come back. A potential £60 million equivalent to a 3·5 per cent. pay increase has been lost through union action.
  The hon. Gentleman has expressed an obviously genuine concern for the lower paid grades in the railway industry. He and I would like to see railwaymen getting more pay, and I can understand his point of view, but where is the money to come from? I have already demonstrated that BR cannot generate more for itself than what the market will allow. So is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the taxpayer should provide more and that we do not give BR sufficient financial support through the public service obligation grant? I reject utterly the notion of increasing the PSO grant. I say that not because the Government are mean, or because I want to do the railways down — quite the opposite. I want to see a
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  flourishing, vigorous railway industry competing successfully in the transport market, and so does the BR board. That is why it has embraced the objective of reducing the PSO grant from just about £1 billion now to £635 million in 1983 prices by 1986. The board's acceptance of that objective is a statement of faith in the future of the railways. It judges that it can reach it through greater efficiency and reliability, without having to embark on any major programme of closures. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that a more efficient and more reliable railway is worth striving for? I hope that he does.
  The simple truth is that the future of the railways, and thus the remuneration of railwaymen, is in the industry's own hands. The Government do not seek to meddle in matters of pay. Of course, the Government must take an interest. With the public purse contributing so heavily to the railways, and with manpower costs being by far the largest single item of BR expenditure, it is only right and proper that the Government should have regard to the cost of employing the work force. That is reasonable and necessary. The taxpayer — who contributes so substantially to the running of the railways — would be quite justified in accusing Ministers of fiscal negligence if they did not take such an interest, but taking a responsible interest is hardly the same as interfering—
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock on Tuesday and the debate having continued for half an hour, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at sixteen minutes to Nine o'clock.