Commons Sitting of 21 October 1985

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRAYERS
  DEATH OF A MEMBER
  Mr. Speaker: I regret to have to inform the House of the death of Harry Lowes Cowans, esquire, Member for Tyne Bridge, and I desire, on behalf of the House, to express our sense of the loss that we have sustained and our sympathy with the relatives of the hon. Member.
Oral Answers to Questions
  WALES

    Labour Statistics
    Mrs. Clwydasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the unemployment figures for the Cynon Valley.
    The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Nicholas Edwards): The number of unemployed in the hon. Lady's constituency was 4,483 in September 1985. Reductions in unemployment in the Cynon Valley, as elsewhere in Wales, must be tackled by policies for promoting sustained growth without inflation and attracting new industry and enterprise. As the hon. Lady may be aware, my office has written to the chief executive of the Cynon Valley borough council giving details of the substantial activities by my Department and Government agencies in support of these aims.
    Mrs. Clwyd: Does the Secretary of State agree that the recent evidence of massive incompetence at the highest levels in the Welsh Office and the Welsh Development Agency in relation to the Parrot Corporation will have massive implications for the attraction of jobs to Wales and the Cynon Valley, and will he please make a statement?
    Mr. Edwards: I have no evidence of massive incompetence of the kind described, but I know that very considerable effort was made by the agency and by the chairman of the company to put together a refinancing package, which I approved. I have every confidence that this will give the company the prospects of a very good future, which I hope will provide jobs and lead to a successful operation.
    Mr. Coleman: In view of the television programme one evening last week concerning the Parrot Corporation, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it is incumbent on him to make a statement to the House so that the misunderstandings, perhaps, which arose from that programme can be cleared up?
    Mr. Edwards: There is a parliamentary question on the Order Paper for answer later today, and I am very happy to answer questions.
    Mr. Barry Jones: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will make a statement about the Parrot Corporation, as we wish to hear him. With regard to the valley communities, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that all the valleys of south-east Wales are now very much at risk both socially and economically? May I tell him that on a recent visit to the Cynon Valley I was shown by an able and determined council some of the mountainous problems faced there, especially in housing? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that by investing in more housing repair activities in the Cynon Valley he could most quickly create many new jobs? Will he give the money to the council for that type of campaign?
    Mr. Edwards: I am glad to say that the local authority is just undertaking its first enveloping scheme, which we have been encouraging it to undertake in the valley. That is part of a very large package of measures which I listed

    3
    in my letter to the Cynon Valley borough council. The chief executive acknowledges in his reply that he is aware of many of the encouraging points that I made in my letter and, indeed, associates his authority with the efforts that are being made.
    Mr. Roy Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Wales what are the latest figures for unemployment in (a) Newport, (b) Gwent and (c) Wales; what were the equivalent figures in May 1979; and what is the percentage increase in each case.
    Mr. Nicholas Edwards: On 12 September 1985 the numbers of unemployed claimants were 13,587, 30,637 and 187,563 respectively. The estimated equivalent figure for Wales in May 1979 is 77,200. On that basis, the increase to date for Wales is 143 per cent. Comparable figures for May 1979 for the Newport travel-to-work area and Gwent are not available because of the move to claimant-based figures and changes to travel-to-work-area boundaries.
    Mr. Hughes: Bearing in mind those deplorable figures, does the Secretary of State appreciate the fresh consternation that has been caused in Wales over the Parrot Corporation affair, which is hardly likely to encourage new investment? When will the right hon. Gentleman face up to his departmental responsibilities and make a full public statement?
    Mr. Edwards: It is a matter for encouragement that, faced by difficulties as a result of police investigations, it has been possible for the public and private sectors to put together a substantial package of refinancing. Through that package, they will go forward together to secure the future of a company that has been attracted to south Wales if every effort is not made by the hon. Member for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes) and his hon. Friends to denigrate and cast doubt on it.
    Mr. Geraint Howells: Assuming that the figures given by the Secretary of State are correct — I am not disputing them — another 20,000 people will be made redundant in south Wales during the next 12 months. What advice has the right hon. Gentleman given the Prime Minister to the effect that she must change her policies if unemployment is to be reduced in the next five years?
    Mr. Edwards: Without understating the seriousness of the problem, when the hon. Gentleman talks about redundancies he should talk also about the substantial series of announcements made during the recess about new investment in the steel industry, and in companies that were previously threatened, such as Borg-Warner, in some of the new technology companies, in the massive redevelopment of south Cardiff, in the new package for Courtaulds in Deeside, and in many more projects. New jobs are being created and New industries and activities are being brought into existence.
    Mr. Abse: The Secretary of State explained to my hon. Friends the Members for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) and for Newport, East (Mr. Hughes), both of whom asked about the Parrot Corporation, that he has been picking up the pieces in an endeavour to help my constituency, but why did he not answer the question that they both asked him? Why does he not make a statement, as the matter is not sub judice and the right hon. Gentleman replies to me by saying that there are police inquiries? Why does he permit the Welsh Development Agency to make as many
    4
    statements as it wishes to the press and television, while he remains silent? Why does he not acknowledge the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, come to the House and tell us what his guilt is?
    Mr. Edwards: Here I am, on the first day back, answering freely questions put to me in the House of Commons, which is appropriate. I have answered, first, questions about refinancing. I am glad that the hon. Gentleman inferred that one of my priorities, perhaps the first, was to secure the future of the company and the jobs at stake. My other priority was to ensure that the police undertook the appropriate action in this case and that their investigation was not hampered. I have decided that there should also be an internal investigation to be carried out by an independent person into the handling of the original investment by the WDA, and its subsequent monitoring of that investment. I shall report further to the House on the details of this inquiry as soon as possible. I cannot report to the House on matters that are still the subject of a police inquiry, nor on matters which, because of that inquiry, I have not been able to investigate fully.
    Mr. Sayeed: Does my right hon. Friend believe that the Labour party's proposal for a national investment bank will do anything to ease long-term unemployment in Wales?
    Mr. Edwards: No, I do not, but my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was right to talk about investment, whether undertaken by public or private bodies, and to say that no system of supervision can be proof against deliberate fraud. Therefore, we must ensure that where there is fraud it is uncovered in a timely fashion and that evidence is acted on expeditiously.
    If the possibility existed, I am sure that we were right to ensure that the police carried out investigations and that we did not interfere with those investigations. I am equally sure that it was absolutely right for the agency, the Welsh Office and the substantial private sector investors involved in this case to put together a package, as that proved possible, to secure the future of the company.
    Dr. Marek: By how much will the unemployment figures increase if the new cuts at the Welsh plant breeding station take place and if the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food cuts at Cardiff and Bangor take place?
    Mr. Edwards: I am not prepared to give estimates of future unemployment, but I am certain that the Welsh plant breeding station will continue to play a very important role in agricultural research programmes. It has a vital role to play in the research programmes on the western grasslands and uplands generally, not just those in Wales
    Mr. Raffan: Will my right hon. Friend remind the Opposition that last year Wales obtained nearly one-quarter of the jobs created by inward investment into the United Kingdom — four times as many jobs as the Opposition achieved during their last year in office?
    Mr. Edwards: I am very glad to be able to tell my hon. Friend that the Winvest record is 150 new and expansion projects, which will create 1,100 new jobs and safeguard about 5,600 existing jobs. The Government have a very good record in this respect.
    Mr. Barry Jones: Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us more about the inquiry that he is initiating and who

    5
    might head it? At the appropriate time, does he think that the issue should go before the Public Accounts Committee?
    Mr. Edwards: I am quite certain that the issue will go before the Public Accounts Committee and that the Committee will wish to look at it. That has never been in question. As soon as details of the inquiry have been decided, including the name of the person who is to conduct it, I shall inform the House. We are still discussing with the Treasury the precise details of the inquiry. I am therefore not in a position to give the hon. Gentleman that information this afternoon.

    NHS Staff (Pay)
    Sir Anthony Meyerasked the Secretary of State for Wales what discussions he has had during the summer Adjournment with the chairmen of Welsh health authorities regarding the funding of pay increases for National Health Service staff in Wales.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Mark Robinson): My right hon. Friend met chairmen to discuss this and other matters on 26 July, the day on which the House adjourned.
    Sir Anthony Meyer: May I take this opportunity to congratulate my hon. Friend on his very well-merited appointment?
    Is he aware that if local health authorities are obliged to fund nationally-agreed pay increases out of budgets which were not prepared in expectation of those increases. their ability to maintain their level of services may be impaired, including the provision of matching finance for projects for which large sums of money have been raised by local effort?
    Mr. Robinson: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales discussed this when he met the chairmen of health authorities on 26 July. It was agreed that health authorities could manage for the year 1985–86 within the resources available to them. Of course we recognise the difficulties when health authorities have to accept pay rises that are higher than those for which they budgeted. My right hon. Friend will continue to keep the matter under review, especially during the current public expenditure round. It would be wrong of me to look forward to 1986–87 while those discussions are taking place.
    Mr. Wigley: I too, welcome the Under-Secretary of State to his new and onerous responsibilities. I hope that he will have an enjoyable, though brief, spell in the Welsh Office.
    Will the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the meetings that had to be cancelled because of the change in ministerial responsibility, which had been arranged by his hon. Friend the Member for Conwy (Mr. Roberts), will be reconvened as rapidly as possible, in particular the meeting with the Gwynedd health authority to discuss the financial position in Gwynedd arising from the impact of wage increases not being fully funded? Will he ensure that no decisions are taken in Gwynedd until that meeting has taken place and an opportunity has arisen for him to appreciate the full impact of the situation in Gwynedd?
    Mr. Robinson: I thank the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend for their kind remarks in prefacing their questions. In response to the point raised by the hon. Gentleman, I am conscious that my hon. Friend the
    6
    Member for Conwy (Mr. Roberts) was due to have a series of meetings with the health authorities. We plan to go ahead with those meetings. As for any changes that may be made to the services in Gwynedd, this is a matter for that health authority to decide. I am prepared at that meeting to discuss with it any issues that may arise.
    Mr. Best: May I also congratulate my hon. Friend and wish him success in his new job? He will receive much personal support from his right hon. and hon. Friends.
    Is my hon. Friend aware that the National Health Service staff pay problem has put particular strain on the new hospital at Ysbyty, Gwynedd? Although that hospital provides facilities in excess of those provided previously. does he accept that when facilities are provided the public do not understand why they cannot be used to their full potential?
    Mr. Robinson: We are aware of the difficulties caused by the pay settlement. However, the issue must be seen against the background of increases in resources for the health authorities. The real growth in resources for Gwynedd between 1978–79 and 1984–85 was about 30 percent.
    Mr. Allan Rogers: May I also congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his appointment?
    Does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that pay increases for nurses in south Wales can be achieved only if major cuts are made in the Health Service and in facilities for patients? Is it not hypocritical of the Government to suggest that they are making extra money available when they are not even funding the full pay review award originally granted to nurses?
    Mr. Robinson: Following the meeting with the chairmen of the health authorities it was made clear that the increases could be absorbed in the current year without making the changes to which the hon. Gentleman refers

    Council House Sales
    Mr. Knoxasked the Secretary of State for Wales how many council houses have been sold to sitting tenants in Wales since May 1979.
    Mr. Mark Robinson: About 43,568 council dwellings were sold to sitting tenants in Wales between May 1979 and 30 June 1985. In addition, 2,538 dwellings were sold by the Cwmbran development corporation and Mid-Wales Development.
    Mr. Knox: How many complaints about delays in dealing with applications to buy have been made by tenants in the past 12 months?
    Mr. Robinson: Only eight complaints about delay have been received in the past 12 months. Instances of delay are far fewer now than in the initial period following the introduction of the right-to-buy scheme. We look into each individual case that is brought to our attention. We believe that the system is working satisfactorily and we are pleased with the way in which local authorities are operating it.
    Mr. Anderson: Is the Minister aware of the report by the chief housing officer for Wales in which he says that we need to spend £3,000 million in the next 15 years if existing council stock is not to slip into slumdom? Would that not be a better priority for the Government than their obsession with the sale of council houses?
    Mr. Robinson: I have seen the chief housing officer's report and newspaper reports on the subject. Between

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    1979 and 1984 the Government spent £34 million annually on repairs to public sector housing compared with £17 million during the period in which the last Labour Government were in power. In the private sector we spent £46 million compared with £12 million spent when the Labour party was in office.
    Mr. Best: Does my hon. Friend accept that receipts from council house sales should be used to fund further building and urgent repairs?
    Mr. Robinson: As my hon. Friend knows, the receipts can be applied to many purposes. The Government are restricting the amount that can be used in the current year to 15 per cent. Local authorities are, however, able to make use of other receipts in terms of their borrowing requirement. That is also important.
    Mr. Roy Hughes: I add my congratulations to the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Robinson), but remind him that after the next general election he is likely to be looking for greener pastures.
    May I take this opportunity to remind the hon. Gentleman of the terrible housing crisis that is developing in Wales? This is happening at a time when thousands of our building and construction workers are standing in the dole queues and when building materials are stacked in builders yards. Selling council houses is no substitute for building houses.
    Mr. Robinson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks about my appointment. I remind him that there is another marginal seat in Newport, and we are looking forward to an exciting battle there.
    On his point about housing stock, I must tell him that the sale of council houses in no way diminishes housing stock.

    Secondary Schoolchildren
    Mr. Gristasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will give the numbers of 15-year-olds attending state secondary schools in Wales in 1981 to 1985. and the estimate for 1989, respectively.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Wyn Roberts): With permission, I shall publish the figures for each year from 1981 to 1985 in the Official Report.
    In January 1981 there were 44,659 pupils aged 15 in maintained secondary schools in Wales, and at January 1985, 42,836. The estimate for 1989 is about 36,000.
    Mr. Grist: Does my hon. Friend agree that as those figures are no secret and have been known for a long time, quite a number of local authorities—including my local authority of South Glamorgan—have seriously failed to consider the merging of schools to enable the provision of a more varied range of subjects and more funding to be spent on teaching and less on mortar and bricks?
    Mr. Roberts: My hon. Friend is quite right. It is, of course, the responsibility of each local education authority to secure the best educational provision for children in the most cost-effective way. In 1981 we advised local education authorities to take account in their planning of the declining trend in pupil numbers, when we recommended that two out of every five surplus school places should be taken out of use by 1986.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: Is the Minister aware of the very poor level of funding available for the education of 15-year-olds in Wales, especially in a sparse county like Powys, where in many of the high schools the heads of spending departments such as physics, chemistry and French have no more than £1 per pupil per year to spend on materials? Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that is disgraceful?
    Mr. Roberts: I cannot agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman. In Wales in general, spending per head has increased from £767 in 1978–79 to;£877 in 1983–84—and that is at 1983–84 prices. There has been a similar increase in Powys from £879 to £953 per pupil. The hon. and learned Gentleman is incorrect in what he claims.
    Mr. Roy Hughes: Has the Minister studied the report, published a few days ago, of the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, which concludes that the overall picture is of an alarming deterioration in our schools and that no amount of statistical juggling can disguise that? Certainly our teachers and local education authorities concur with that. When will the hon. Gentleman's Department ensure that our educational services in Wales are properly funded?
    Mr. Roberts: Indeed, I have a copy of the very slim document to which the hon. Gentleman referred. My description of it, quite frankly, is that it flies in the face of facts. Furthermore, it acknowledges that in its conclusions. I have no further comment on a document that states that.
    Sir John Stradling Thomas: I agree with my hon. Friend and disagree with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile), but do not local education authorities have a problem of resource management? Talk of cuts is political nonsense. The figures speak for themselves. They are figures put out, not by the Welsh Office, but by the LEAs. Will my hon. Friend give the assurance for which I very much hope, that he will continue to discuss with the LEAs the very' difficult problem of resource management against the background of falling rolls, which is at the heart of the problem faced by LEAs in Wales?
    Mr. Roberts: My hon. Friend, whom I am glad to hear, particularly as he is so conversant with this subject, had started on these very discussions with local authorities and had met the Gwent and Clwyd local authorities. I fully intend to carry on the good work that he began and to meet the remaining local education authorities.
    Following are the figures
    The number of pupils at maintained secondary schools in Wales in January of each year who were aged 15 at 31 August in the previous year was as follows:

    Number

    1981

    44,659

    1982

    43,649

    1983

    42,977

    1984

    42,500

    1985

    42,836

    From mid-year home population projections it is estimated that the corresponding figure for 1989 will be about 36,000.

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Ron Daviesasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will state the number of school leavers

    9
    registered as job seekers in Rhymney Valley, Mid-Glamorgan and Wales at the latest date for which figures are available.
    Mr. Wyn Roberts: On 12 September 1985 the number of school leavers under 18 years of age in Rhymney Valley, Mid-Glamorgan and Wales who had not entered employment since completing full-time education were 624, 2,712 and 11,327 respectively. Many will find employment or return to full-time education. For the remainder, there is a guarantee of the offer by Christmas of a place on the youth training scheme.
    Mr. Davies: Does the Minister accept that, according to the October figures, 1,500 young people are registered as job seekers in Rhymney Valley and that in Mid-Glamorgan as a whole there are about 7,000? Is he aware that for those 1,500 in Rhymney Valley there is one vacancy at the careers office and that for the 7,000 in Mid-Glamorgan only 17 vacancies are registered with the careers service? In the light of those figures, will the Minister dissociate himself entirely from the view of the vice-chairman of the Conservative party, Mr. Jeffrey Archer, that the problem with young people is that they will not do a day's work and that they should get off their backsides and find a job?
    Mr. Roberts: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that we are very concerned about the high number of unemployed school leavers that appear at this time of year on the register and account for a considerable part of the increase. Indeed, they are responsible for about 5,530 of those registered in Wales. However, I am glad to say that that number is 701 fewer than last September's figure. There are consolations for these young people, because I am glad to say that vacancies are up, being 1,500 higher this September than in September 1984. While we still regard the figures as being too high, there is hope for every youngster who has left school and is now without a job.
    Mr. Rowlands: Will the Minister now answer the question posed by my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) and say whether he dissociates himself entirely from the insulting remarks of the vice-chairman of the Tory party, Mr. Jeffrey Archer, which caused a great deal of anger and bitterness among the young people in our community?
    Mr. Roberts: I did not hear the vice-chairman's remarks. I have only seen them reported and, as often as not, I am sure, reported totally out of context. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I have my own views, which I have declared, about young people who are unemployed in any part of Wales. While we are deeply concerned about their predicament, their prospects are somewhat better now than they were a year ago.

    Wages Councils
    Mr. Colemanasked the Secretary of State for Wales whether he has received any representations on the effect upon Welsh workers of the Government's proposed abolition of wages councils; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Nicholas Edwards: My Department has received eight letters direct and a further 19 have been passed on by hon. Members. I have also received a petition with 96 signatures. In the light of the views expressed during the
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    consultation exercise about wages councils, the Government announced on 17 July that they were to be retained but reformed. Legislation will shortly be brought before the House.
    Mr. Coleman: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for being good enough to write to me on this matter. Does he think that the people of Wales will swallow his explanation and accept that new jobs will be created if we remove the minimal protection that is enjoyed by low-paid workers? Does this mean that the Welsh unemployed can look forward to jobs that are low paid without regulated protection?
    Mr. Edwards: No. There is clear evidence from this and many other countries that high initial rates of pay as employees enter industry without skills result in more unemployed youngsters. Labour Members have expressed concern in previous supplementary questions about unemployed youngsters. They should take serious note of the fact that these youngsters are more likely to get jobs if they start at lower rates. They will then have better prospects for the future. To discount the overwhelming evidence of that fact is not to do any service for those of whom Labour Members speak.
    Mr. Grist: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in Germany young workers start at rates between 20 per cent. and 25 per cent. of an adult wage and ultimately secure far higher paid jobs than British workers?
    Mr. Edwards: That is true. There is no doubt that high basic rates for youngsters in relation to rates for adults are a key factor in deciding whether firms take on young people. There is no doubt also that the rates that have been paid to youngsters have been a factor in discouraging their employment. We should do everything that we can to bring them into work where they can be trained and where they can earn much higher rates in future.
    Mr. Ray Powell: Does the Secretary of State realise that the wages councils protect about 500,000 employees and that one out of five of those who are protected are young people? Does he understand that they have suffered enough under this Government and that they do not want to return to sweatshops? I ask the right hon. Gentleman and the Government to reconsider their decision to recommend the abolition of the wages councils.
    Mr. Edwards: If the hon. Gentleman had listened he would have heard me say that we shall not abolish the wages councils. If he wishes to talk about the protection of young people, I must put it to him that those who do not have jobs are not being protected by the wages councils. Indeed, their prospects of employment are being threatened by many of the actions of the councils. That is what we are seeking to change.

    NHS Expenditure
    Mr. D. E. Thomasasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will list the expenditure on the National Health Service in Wales for each fiscal year since 1978 in 1985 prices.
    Mr. Mark Robinson: As the answer contains a number of figures I shall, with permission, circulate it in the Official Report. But, taking account of general inflation, as measured by the GDP market price deflator,

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    expenditure on the National Health Service in Wales at 1984–85 prices rose from £710·8 million in 1978–79 to £862·0 million in 1984–85.
    Mr. Thomas: How does the Minister equate the propaganda from his Department and the Department of Health and Social Security about maintaining the level of expenditure in the NHS with the real experience of those of us who during the recess have visited hospitals, spoken to Health Service workers and had the privilege of attending massive public meetings in our constituencies and elsewhere at which objections have been raised to proposals for hospital closures and changes in the ambulance service? Why are health authorities in Wales going through these consultation exercises on closure proposals if there is not a real financial crisis in the NHS?
    Mr. Robinson: The consultations to which the hon. Gentleman refers are part of the management process of health authorities in organising their priorities. He should know that five major hospital schemes have been completed since 1979, which is evidence of the Government's commitment and that of my right hon. Friend to the NHS in Wales.
    Mr. Gwilym Jones: Will my hon. Friend accept that there is a warm welcome for the expansion of the NHS, especially the significant increase in bone marrow transplant operations at the University hospital of Wales in my constituency?
    Mr. Robinson: The answer to my hon. Friend's question is yes. My right hon. Friend made an announcement on 17 October confirming the plan to set up a bone marrow transplant unit at the University hospital of Wales. This is an enormously important activity and we shall be monitoring the initiative closely.
    Mr. Barry Jones: I congratulate the Under-Secretary of State on his appointment, and I thank his predecessor for his courtesy. Will the Under-Secretary of State heed the SOS from Mid-Glamorgan, Gwynedd and South Glamorgan? Are not patient services at risk? Should not more cash be made available to the health authorities in Wales?
    Mr. Robinson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words. He has referred to the shortage of resources for health authorities in Wales. I said earlier that Gwynedd's resources had increased by 30 per cent. Mid-Glamorgan's resources have increased by 19 per cent. The first phase of the Deloitte report has been completed and the Mid-Glamorgan health authority will have to consider it. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I will monitor the position closely.
    Following are the figures

    The expenditure on the NHS in Wales at 1984–85 prices is as follows:

    Year

    Expenditure (£m)

    1978–79

    710·8

    1979–80

    712·0

    1980–81

    770·8

    1981–82

    798·0

    1982–83

    819·9

    1983–84

    833·0

    1984–85

    862·0

    Actual expenditure has been adjusted to take account of general inflation as measured by the GDP market price deflator.

    Courtaulds Plant, Greenfield
    Mr. Raffanasked the Secretary of State for Wales if he will make a statement on the progress of discussions between his Department and Delyn borough council on Government measures to alleviate the effects of the closure of the Courtaulds plant at Greenfield.
    Mr. Nicholas Edwards: Full agreement has been reached between the Delyn borough council, the Welsh Development Agency and the Welsh Office about the detailed implementation of the package of assistance which I announced in June this year. With the very welcome recent announcement by Courtaulds of its contribution to the total effort in the area I look forward to rapid progress on the agreed programme.
    I am pleased to announce that a further £200,000 urban programme capital allocation is to be made available to Delwyn borough council for the further development of the Greenfield site for a major European company, subject to that company locating at the site. For reasons of confidentiality, I cannot say more at this stage.
    Mr. Raffan: I thank my right hon. Friend, and through him the Prime Minister, for the pressure that they brought to bear on Courtaulds to produce its comprehensive regeneration package for Greenfield. I thank my right hon. Friend also for today's announcement, which will be welcomed in my constituency, and for the Government's contribution to the regeneration of the Greenfield site. This will create a healthy private and public sector partnership. Can my right hon. Friend give a commitment with respect to the necessary continued urban aid and capital allocation support in the longer term so that we can speedily build on the foundations that have been so successfully laid?
    Mr. Edwards: I thank my hon. Friend for his comments on the intervention by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and myself. I am grateful to the chairman of Courtaulds for having listened to what we said and for responding in a way that has earned the congratulations and thanks of the local authorities involved. I think that my hon. Friend can be assured by what we have done so far and our announcement this afternoon that in reaching our decisions we shall continue to take full account of the changing situation in the area.

  CHURCH COMMISSIONERS

    Parsonages and Bishops' Palaces
    Mr. Greenwayasked the hon. Member for Wokingham, as representing the Church Commissioners, how much was spent on the dilapidations of (a) parsonages and (b) bishops' palaces during the past year; and if he will make a statement.
    The Second Church Estates Commissioner, representing Church Commissioners (Sir William van Straubenzee): The 1984 figures for parsonages are £7·7 million and for diocesan bishops' houses £338,000.
    Mr. Greenway: Will my hon. Friend assure me that the considerable sums spent on parsonages and bishops' palaces, which in 1984 included £70,000 on the palace of the Bishop of Durham, will ensure that there are adequate study facilities for all parsons and bishops, to enable more of them to comment on moral rather than political issues, including the narrow decision last week by the Law Lords to abolish the age of consent?
    Sir William van Straubenzee: All parsonages and bishops' houses have provision for studies. I do not think that it would be in accordance with the general attitude of the clergy if the Church of England tried to ordain or lay down the thinking that should take place in their studies. Total expenditure on Auckland castle is much greater than my hon. Friend has indicated, because of the historic nature of that ancient place.

    Stipendiary Ministry (Pay, Pensions and Housing)
    Mr. Peter Bruinvelsasked the hon. Member for Wokingham, as representing the Church Commissioners, if there are any plans to increase the amount of the commissioners' income applied towards the support of the pay, pensions and housing of the stipendiary ministry of the Church of England.
    Sir William van Straubenzee: Yes. We were able to increase the income we applied towards the pay, pensions and housing of stipendiary ministers of the Church of England by 8·5 per cent. in 1984 and a further increase of 8·6 per cent. will have occurred in 1985. Similar increases are planned in future years. In all, over 80 per cent. of our income is used for these purposes.
    Mr. Bruinvels: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. First, I welcome the fact that the Church Commissioners are paying more than the rate of inflation to support the ministry and the pay of incumbents. Does he agree that some anxiety should be shown, because about 1,000 members of the clergy have given notice that they will leave the Church of England if women are ordained and admitted to the priesthood? Will he confirm that special consideration will be given to keeping those members and the rest of the clergy happy, because we do not wish to lose more members of the clergy?
    Sir William van Straubenzee: The Church Commissioners' duty is to make moneys available for the remuneration of the full-time clergy. As my hon. Friend is aware, more than half the overall burden, including pensions, is now also carried by the laity. I do not believe that considerations of what will happen in the future enter into that calculation. My hon. Friend is now uniquely well placed to make his views known because of the welcome news that since we last met he has been elected to the General Synod.
    Mr. Cormack: When my hon. Friend and his colleagues next discuss these matters, will they give further thought to the compulsory retirement age of 70, bearing in mind the fact that many men who are just over 70 are well able to look after a small rural parish, and that mother Church is often better served by a resident father than by a peripatetic priest of whatever sex?
    Sir William van Straubenzee: I am obliged to my hon. Friend. I listened carefully to what he said. The difficulty is, as he will know from close experiece, that there are few instances where one man looks after one fairly small rural parish. That is not the experience that most of us share. The work is demanding physically and mentally.

    St. Alban's Church, Teddington
    Mr. Jesselasked the hon. Member for Wokingham, as representing the Church Commissioners, what is the current position in relation to the redundant church of St. Alban's, Teddington.
    Sir William van Straubenzee: At the invitation of the commissioners, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment has decided to hold a non-statutory public local inquiry into the proposed demolition of this building. The inquiry will be held on 22–23 January next year.
    Mr. Jessel: Can my hon. Friend give the latest official estimate of the cost of putting St. Alban's into a safe, sound and decent condition and of obtaining a fund to keep it that way? Is he aware that there are signs that the Greater London council might put up £300,000 towards it? Would that be anything like enough?
    Sir William van Straubenzee: My hon. Friend will understand that I must be careful to say nothing that will prejudice the inquiry. I have seen published figures which show that the cost, as at January 1985 prices. including VAT and fees, of putting the building into repair is between £800,000 and £1 million. My hon. Friend can well judge from that what any projected contributions would achieve.

  WALES

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Barry Jonesasked the Secretary of State for Wales how many people in Wales are jobless; how many were jobless in May 1979; and by how much the jobless have increased since 1979 expressed as a percentage and as a total.
    Dr. Marekasked the Secretary of State for Wales what are the latest unemployment figures for Wales; and how this compares with the same period in 1979.
    Mr. Nicholas Edwards: On 12 September 1985 there were 187,563 unemployed claimants in Wales. The estimated equivalent figures for May 1979 and September 1979 are 77,220 and 79,600. The percentage increases are 143 per cent. and 135·6 per cent. respectively.
    Mr. Jones: On the subject of the Parrot Corporation, will the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that, through the usual channels, he will discuss the judicial figure whom we expect to head the inquiry which the right hon. Gentleman announced earlier today during Question Time? Regarding the disgraceful and frightening unemployment figures, can he tell the House why he has been prepared to join the infamous star chamber committee? Is he not the Prime Minister's chief hatchet man?
    Mr. Edwards: On the first point, we are dealing with an internal inquiry. I do not believe that the form of consultation suggested by the hon. Gentleman would be appropriate. Matters that could involve the judiciary are already subject to normal police investigation. On the subject of public expenditure, I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would recognise that we are interested in the choice and allocation of priorities and that he would welcome the fact that the Minister who has a wide area of responsibility should be taking part in those decisions.
    Dr. Marek: Does the Secretary of State realise that these figures are the worst ever for the Principality, and that it is wearing the patience of Welsh people thin in that the Government appear to be doing nothing at all to try to ease the burden of unemployment levels? When will the Secretary of State pursue policies that will genuinely bring down the level of unemployment? Why is he pursuing policies that will increase unemployment, through closures at MAFF at Cardiff and Bangor and the Welsh plant breeding station at Aberystwyth?
    Mr. Edwards: For four years now we have seen growth of over 3 per cent. per annum. Within Wales, and particularly in areas such as those represented by the hon. Gentleman, we have seen substantial public sector effort. Public sector investment in the Clwyd area since this Government came into office amounts to some £350 million. The hon. Gentleman ought to know that Wrexham is now proving to be one of the most attractive areas for investment in Britain.
    The hon. Gentleman should welcome, for example, the decision of Hilton Mining to take over the former Firestone factory, which promises up to 350 jobs, the further investment to be undertaken by Sharp and others in the area, and the fact that considerable proportion of those recently made redundant by Courtaulds have already found jobs. The hon. Member should welcome those indications that our policy is working.

  THE ARTS

    Regional Arts Associations
    Mr. Meadowcroftasked the Minister for the Arts what recent representations he has had on the allocation of resources to regional arts associations.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir George Young): Unfortunately, my hon. Friend the Minister for the Arts was taken ill today and I am standing in for him at short notice. He sends his apologies to the House.
    My hon. Friend met the chairmen and directors of all the regional arts associations on 18 October. He has also received a deputation from Merseyside arts bodies, and has corresponded with representatives of other regions. The allocation of resources is a matter for the Arts Council.
    Mr. Meadowcroft: I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will convey to his hon. Friend our regret that he is unwell. We particularly wish to assist him in his new task. Is the Minister aware that in West Yorkshire, as in other metropolitan areas, there is worry about what will happen when the metropolitan county councils are abolished? When will the Minister respond to the Arts Council's bid for £35 million to replace the metropolitan county money, and what further guidance is to be given via the rate support grant formula to assist district councils in developing their arts funding?
    Sir George Young: I am grateful to the hon. Member for his kind words about my hon. Friend. I spoke to my hon. Friend a few minutes ago and I found him very much like Florestan at the beginning of the second act of Fidelio. I am sure that he will recover. On the second point, my hon. Friend hopes to make an announcement about the allocations for next year, in December. On the matter of
    16
    post-abolition funding, as the hon. Member knows, we have already committed £34 million of additional central funding for the arts after abolition. The Arts Council subsequently made a bid for more resources, which we will have to consider in the context of the public expenditure discussions. As I think the hon. Member will know, that will have to await the broader considerations that are being discussed at the moment.
    Mr. Nelson: Since my hon. Friend is in such close and frequent contact with the newly appointed Minister for the Arts, may I ask him to transmit the message that many of us hope that he will be rather more a champion at the Chancellor's door than a supplicant and defendant in the star chamber?
    Sir George Young: Of course I shall pass on those sentiments. No one wishes my hon. Friend a speedy recovery more than I do.
    Mr. Buchan: We are all pleased to learn that at least the Minister for the Arts is in a better condition than I fear most of the arts are. We pass on our good wishes, and no doubt we shall meet him in a few weeks' time. Will the Under-Secretary of State remind him that the arts crisis, the cataclysmic collapse in arts funding. is the worst ever? Will he also remind him that this is due to the abolition of the metropolitan counties and the GLC? Thirdly, will he remind his hon. Friend of the promise given to me on 2 August last year by the previous Minister that the present level of public support for the arts would be maintained? When are we to get that assurance from the present Minister?
    Sir George Young: I reject the assumption behind the hon. Gentleman's question. In our manifesto in 1983 we said that we would keep up the level of support for the arts, and our record shows that we have done better than that. From 1978–79 to date the central Government arts budget has more than doubled in cash terms, that is, a real terms increase of nearly 18 per cent. This year's budget is almost 6 per cent. up in cash terms on last year's budget. In the context of the very difficult decisions that the Government have had to take on public expenditure, the arts have done quite well.

    Private Sponsorship
    Mr. Murphyasked the Minister for the Arts what response he has received to the publications issued by the Office of Arts and Libraries to stimulate private sponsorship of the arts.
    Sir George Young: I am delighted to say that the business sponsorship incentive scheme continues to be highly successful. It has brought £5·5 million of new money into the arts since it began a year ago, £4 million from businesses, to which £1·5 million has been added under the scheme. The House will be glad to know that, in view of the success of the scheme, my hon. Friend is transferring an extra £250,000 to it to meet the demand. He is today announcing 57 more awards in respect of over £800,000 new sponsorship; the new list includes 54 brand new sponsors from all parts of the country.
    Mr. Murphy: Will my hon. Friend convey to the new Minister the good wishes of Conservative Members and our regret that he is indisposed? Will my hon. Friend also convey our congratulations on the stimulation of the arts,

    17
    which has been an admirable feature of the Government's record since they came to power and is further evidenced by this afternoon's announcement? Will my hon. Friend guarantee that such matters will be given the correct amount of publicity, because that will help to stimulate the arts further?
    Sir George Young: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his kind words. The scheme has done more than anything previously to raise public awareness of business sponsorship schemes. The arts organisations are enthusiastically selling the scheme to sponsors, but I shall raise with my hon. Friend the Minister the subject of publicity, to see whether more might be done.
    Mr. Tony Banks: I should like to be associated with the good wishes being sent to the new Minister, and I recommend that in future he should not eat in restaurants recommended by Lord Gowrie.
    How much business sponsorship does the Under-Secretary think will be necessary to keep open the South Bank, particularly the Royal Festival Hall. if the money that the Arts Council is asking for is not forthcoming from the Government?
    Sir George Young: I am confident that under the new regime that we have announced the South Bank will be run responsibly and efficiently and that some of the scares raised by the GLC will be shown to be unrealistic.

    National Heritage Fund
    Mr. Adleyasked the Minister for the Arts if he will estimate the number of hours spent by officials of the Office of Arts and Libraries on matters relating to the National Heritage Fund in the last 12 months.
    Sir George Young: The National Heritage Memorial Fund is an autonomous body administered by its own staff. Government responsibility for it is shared between the Department of the Environment and Office of Arts and Libraries. The responsibilities of the Office of Arts and Libraries in relation to the fund take up a small amount of the time of my hon. Friend's staff, which cannot readily be quantified.
    Mr. Adley: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Bearing in mind that he has various hats, can he confirm that funds are and will be available for appropriate railway structures, including the Ribble head viaduct and, under another hat, will be ensure that the future of the Settle-Carlisle line is kept in mind by the bodies with which he has contact?
    Sir George Young: There is nothing to prevent the NHMF from funding railway-related projects, and I was pleased to see that in 1983–84 a grant from the fund saved the Haymarket train shed in Edinburgh, which is now in Bo'ness.
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    As my hon. Friend knows, British Rail proposed the closure of the Settle-Carlisle line and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has a quasi-statutory role, which makes it difficult for Ministers to say anything at the moment. However, I assure my hon. Friend that the heritage and tourist aspects of the line will be taken into account when my hon. Friend makes his decision.

    Private Sponsorship
    Mr. Freudasked the Minister for the Arts if he will report on take-up of the pound-for-pound matching scheme for arts sponsorship; and if he will make a statement.
    Sir George Young: Since 1 April 1985, £1·5 million has come in new sponsorship. Of this, £700,000 has come from 112 first-time sponsors taking part in the pound-for-pound matching scheme.
    Mr. Freud: Does the Minister agree that the statistics that he has just given, together with those that he gave earlier to the hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Mr. Murphy), show what a tremendous value-for-money exercise it is to match private sponsors with public money? Does he accept that it is counter-productive not to invest more money in the scheme, because the amount of work that it takes to hook a potential sponsor and the damage done by losing him if there is insufficient money will do little to futher the scheme?
    Sir George Young: I agree with that, which is why I have just announced a further £250,000 for the scheme. One of the beneficiaries of the scheme has been Jill Freud and company, which won an award of £4,000 for a production of "Under Milk Wood", touring south and east England and Wales at the moment.
    Mr. Freud: Bournemouth this week.
    Sir George Young: On the current list of winners is the Ettrick Shepherds Festival, sponsored by Mrs. David Steel, so it would appear that the Liberal party has done quite well from this Government initiative.
    Mr. Crouch: Is my hon. Friend aware of the considerable achievements of regional opera in this country, not least the resounding success of Kent Opera in no less a place than my constituency's Canterbury Festival this year, and will he continue to see that regional opera is given generous support?
    Sir George Young: The regional allocations of funds is primarily a matter for the Arts Council, but I shall make sure that the council is aware of the enthusiastic support that my hon. Friend has mentioned for the arts in Kent, and particularly in Canterbury.

Palestine Liberation Organisation
3.31 pm
Mr. A. J. Beith(by private notice) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whether he will make a statement about the cancellation of the meeting between himself and representatives of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Tim Renton): Following my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's announcement in Aqaba on 20 September, it was agreed that my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary would receive a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation led by the Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister and including two Palestinian delegates whose names had been put forward on the understanding that they personally supported a peaceful settlement of the Arab-Israel dispute on the basis of the relevant United Nations resolutions and were opposed to terrorism and violence. Our ambassador at Amman negotiated with the Jordanian Prime Minister the text of the statement which it was agreed would be issued by the delegation after their talks in London.
Unfortunately, after their arrival in London, one of the Palestinian members of the delegation said that he could not accept a specific reference in the agreed statement to Israel's right to exist. We concluded that in these circumstances the meetings with the joint delegation could not take place.
We are deeply disappointed by this setback but remain convinced that the international community must be ready to encourage those who are working for a peaceful settlement in the middle east.
Mr. Beith: Since many people doubted whether it was realistic to expect the PLO representatives formally to denounce violence and to accept Israel's rights at such an early stage in the peace process, should not the Government have insisted on publicising any agreement that they made at the time that they made it rather than relying on unpublicised and later deals made through the Jordanians? Do such statements not, in any case, look meaningless while a substantial section of the PLO is clearly trying to overturn the peace process with such acts of violence as the Cyprus murders and the murder of Mr. Klinghoffer? Do the Government believe that those Palestinian leaders who genuinely want peace had much freedom to renounce violence after the Israeli bombing of Tunis? Will the Government now devote their efforts to persuading the Soviet and American leaderships to devote their attention to the middle east crisis which clearly represents a threat to both of them as well as to the rest of the world?
Mr. Renton: We have received an unequivocal assurance from Amman that all the members of the delegation were prepared to sign the text of the statement. We concluded that it was better to continue our negotiations through one channel only to Amman rather than through a multitude of channels. I take the hon. Member's point about the terrorist incidents and about the extremist elements in the PLO, but we took the view that moderates, be they Palestinian, Israeli or Jordanian, should be encouraged, in the hope of moving forward the peace process. That remains our position.
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Obviously, we must now take stock as to how this process can be carried further forward. The main influence lies not with us but with the United States, Jordan and Israel. Nevertheless, anything that we can do in due course to help the process forward we shall do.
Mr. Julian Amery: Is my hon. Friend aware that I was severely critical of the Government when they put forward the Venice declaration, which, in my view, was flawed because it gave unconditional recognition to the PLO as a necessary negotiating partner? May I congratulate them on this occasion, in that they made the degree of recognition that a meeting with the Foreign Secretary would have involved strictly conditional on the renunciation of violence and the acceptance of the appropriate United Nations declarations? Am I not right in thinking that in no way were the PLO representatives prepared to subscribe to those declarations? Indeed, have we not been put absolutely in the clear by King Hussein? Am I not right in thinking that it is the PLO which has lost credibility as well as the military power and political unity that it once had, and that in this matter Her Majesty's Government have behaved themselves absolutely correctly?
Mr. Renton: I thank my right hon. Friend for his remarks. I should like to correct him on one point. Bishop Khoury and Mr. Milhem came here not as representatives of the PLO but as members of a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation. That is an important distinction to continue to make. The only people who can take comfort from the failure of the talks last Monday are extremists on both sides. It is against that background that I support my right hon. Friend's remarks. I hope that moderates will think further as to how the process can be carried forward.
Mr. Robert C. Brown: Whatever possessed the Foreign Secretary to believe that members of the PLO would ever renounce violence and grant Israel the right to live freely within firm frontiers? If he ever believed that, he must believe that pigs will fly?
Mr. Renton: I think that. on reflection, the hon. Gentleman might regret some of those remarks. The fact is that we were supporting an initiative that King Hussein had started in February, which was an attempt to break the log jam in the current middle east process. We believed strongly that that was a risk for peace that was worth taking. I assure the hon. Gentleman again that the specific words that I have used — we were assured by the Jordanians — had been accepted by the Palestinian delegates before they came here. Against that background, I have no regrets that we entered into that process, accepting always that there is a risk in trying to obtain peace, not least in the middle east.
Mr. Michael Latham: I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary's decision to refuse to meet the PLO representatives, who have clearly shown that they could not deliver a deal even if they wanted to. Will my hon. Friend ensure that when the Prime Minister meets Mr. Peres in New York this week she will advocate that there should be immediate direct negotiations between King Hussein and the Israelis?
Mr. Renton: I note what my hon. Friend says. I respect and understand his close interest in this matter. We of course look forward to the visit of Mr. Peres. the Israeli

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Prime Minister, here in January. However, with regard to direct talks between the Israelis and Jordan, we cannot be oblivious of the position of King Hussein. We have to think of the practicalities for that king, who is in many ways the leader of the moderates in the Arab world, of entering into such direct talks.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: If the renunciation of violence is to be the overriding criterion determining whether those meetings take place, what advice will the Minister give to his own Back Benchers, Conservative Members of Parliament who regularly visit the middle east. and who meet PLO people, as I did with them four years ago? If it is good enough for them to meet representatives of the PLO in all-party delegations, why is it not good enough for the Government?
Mr. Renton: I thought that I had explained to the hon. Member who asked the question the precise reasons why we could not meet the joint Jordanian-Palestian delegation —a decision that has been welcomed by hon. Members. On the further point raised by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) I should make it clear that renunciation of violence and terrorism was not the only point in the statement that had been agreed. In it also was the balance of recognition between Israel's right to exist within secure and recognised borders and the Palestinians' right to self-determination. Those were the twin pillars of the statement and both were very important.
Rev Ian Paisley: I support the Government in their action, but I ask whether the Minister is aware that the people of Northern Ireland find it extremely strange that the Government take that action when the Government are currently compelling elected representatives of the people of Northern Ireland to sit down with the terrorists in the councils of Northern Ireland?
Mr. Renton: I see absolutely no analogy whatever between the position of the IRA, for example, and that of the PLO. I understand that Sinn Fein, which is the political arm of the IRA, holds some 10 per cent. of votes in Northern Ireland elections. I should point out that the Palestinians in the occupied territories have no right to vote in Israel at present and have no seats in the Knesset.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Will the Minister forgive us for being a little puzzled about his statement? Are we to understand that an agreement was made some months ago in Amman to the effect that there would be a specific communiqué after the London talks regardless of what had happened at those talks? Is it normal Foreign Office practice to agree a statement to be made after talks some months before the talks take place, and will the Minister clarify exactly who agreed to what? With whom was the agreement reached that there should be that particular form of words?
Mr. Renton: I should dearly like some day to make a statement with which the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) could find himself in full accord and harmony. I hope that that will one day be my pleasure. I will give him the answer. I made it quite clear in my statement, and a study of the facts will certainly make it clear, that what the Prime Minister agreed in her announcement in Aqaba on 20 September was the willingness of the Foreign Secretary to meet the joint delegation and the broad principles of what that delegation
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would say. Subsequently there was much discussion between ourselves and the Jordanian Government, including the Jordanian Prime Minister, as to precisely what the agreed text should be. I think that the date on which the agreed text was agreed——
Mr. Dalyell: By whom?
Mr. Renton: The agreed text was agreed between ourselves and the Jordanian Government on the understanding, as I have already told the House, that all members of the delegation were willing to go along with it.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: When?
Mr. Renton: Speaking from memory, it was agreed on 10 October.
Mr. Andrew MacKay: Notwithstanding the negative carping of some Opposition Members and notwithstanding the initial setback, having taken stock of the present position will my hon. Friend assure the House that the Government will do everything in their power to move towards another peace initiative in the middle east which will be acceptable both to the Israeli people and to moderate Arab and Palestinian opinion?
Mr. Renton: Yes. I thank my hon. Friend for those words. When I met King Hussein in London last Wednesday it was precisely to discuss the next steps forward. That was one of the main purposes of our meeting. It is clearly right that we should all take stock at the present time, but we would certainly be willing to give further help that we usefully can to the middle east peace process.
Mr. Donald Anderson: What began as a courageous initiative by the Prime Minister—a risk for peace—has ended in total diplomatic shambles. Is the Minister seriously claiming that no blame whatever attaches to the Government in this? Is it not true that Mr. Mohammed Milhem was never directly or personally asked about the document and, if so, was there not an unrealistic assumption on the part of the Government that the Jordanians could speak on his behalf — in effect, very poor preparation on the part of the Government—with the effect that the Government have managed to annoy both pro and anti-Arafat elements in the PLO and damage the Mubarak-Hussein peace process possibly beyond repair? How much of that was due to intense American pressure to cancel the meetings?
Mr. Renton: I disagree with much of what the hon. Gentleman said. I do not accept that the Foreign Office has any blame in this regard. I remind the hon. Gentleman that both the Jordanian delegation and the Jordanian king made it plain that not only was our version of the facts correct, but that, in the words of the Jordanian king, we had acted very honourably.
I know that Mr. Milhem, to pick out one of the hon. Gentleman's points, has subsequently said that he never saw the text of the statement. We cannot know whether he did, because we were relying on one source of negotiation — the Jordanian Government. The Prime Minister agreed to this meeting on their initiative. Any one who knows the complexities of the middle east will know that for us to accept negotiations through many diverse channels would have confounded the matter, or at least made it very confused indeed.

23
On the hon. Gentleman's last point, I can assure him and the House that no pressure whatsoever was put on us by the Americans. Far from it. Mr. Shultz, the Secretary of State, welcomed the Prime Minister's decision to receive the Jordanian-Palestinian mission.
Mr. Michael Meadowcroft rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. Private notice questions are an extension of Question Time. We have had 15 minutes on this one, and, in view of the other business before us, we must move on.

Oral Questions
3.46 pm
Mr. Ray Powell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Does this point of order arise directly out of questions?
Mr. Powell:Yes, Mr. Speaker it does. I have raised a similar point of order with you before, and I raise it again so that I may have your guidance on it. It concerns the time allocated for Welsh questions. We reached only question No. 11 today. Question No. 12 was mine, and it was on a very important matter affecting the Ogmore constituency — unemployment — which is rife throughout south but particularly in Ogmore. A further question had been partially dealt with by the Secretary of State.
Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot go beyond that because that would be an extension of Question Time. I realise that we did not get far in Welsh questions. That was because I made a judgment, in which I hope that I was correct, that the Parrot Corporation issue was of considerable importance to a number of hon. Members. Therefore, I allowed a rather long run of questions on it. In fairness, I called the hon. Member for Ogmore (Mr. Powell) on question number 8, and I thought that he made rather a good contribution.
Mr. Powell: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I hope that, as the Leader of the House is here, he will undertake to consider whether we may have an extension of time for Welsh Questions beyond the current 35 minutes.
Mr. Speaker: Order. That is patently not a matter for me, although I have sympathy with the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Leo Abse: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wish to ask about the propriety of the Secretary of State's behaviour. In answering the many questions about the Parrot Corporation, he left a firm impression that an independent inquiry was to be appointed. By that it was understood by everybody, I am certain, that the inquiry would be independent of the Secretary of State, the Welsh Office and the WDA. However, as you will recall, Mr. Speaker, when my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mr. Jones) pressed the point, he was told that the inquiry was to be internal. By its very nature, that will be a whitewash.
I appreciate that that is not a matter for you, but I ask about the propriety of a right hon. Member either deliberately or inadvertently misleading the House into believing that an inquiry will be independent when, by the end of questions, it was abundantly clear that nothing of the kind was to take place. My second point is that I hope that you will not discourage the Secretary of State from making the statement that he has refused to make up to now which would clarify this issue and, I hope, the whole of the miserable Parrot issue.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that very much of that point of order has anything to do with me. It is entirely a matter for the Government as to whether statements are made.
Mr. Barry Jones: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. In Question Time, the Secretary of State for Wales described the inquiry as "independent". How can an internal inquiry be independent? Why cannot the Secretary of State ensure

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that a judicial figure heads the inquiry? We fear a whitewash. We wish to hear the Secretary of State putting things right.
Mr. Speaker: Order. It is not good practice to continue Question Time by means of points of order. None of that is a matter for me.

Business of the House
3.51 pm
The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): With permission, Mr. Speaker. I should like to make a short business statement. The Business for Wednesday 23 and Thursday 24 October will now be as follows:
WEDNESDAY 23 OCTOBER — Opposition day (20th Allotted day); until about seven o'clock there will be a debate on the crisis in southern Africa followed by a debate on the need for an independent judicial inquiry into the recent urban disturbances. Both debates will arise on Opposition motions.
Motion on the Nursing Homes and Nursing Agencies (Northern Ireland) Order.
Motion on the Parliamentary Constituencies (England) (Miscellaneous Changes) Order.
THURSDAY 24 OCTOBER—There will be a debate on a motion to take note of the outstanding reports of the Committee of Public Accounts to which the Government have replied.
Commons consideration of Lords amendments to the Water (Fluoridation) Bill.
Remaining stages of the Housing Bill (Lords), the Housing Associations' Bill (Lords), the Housing (Consequential Provisions) Bill (Lords), the Landlord and Tenant Bill (Lords) and the Weights and Measures Bill (Lords), which are all consolidation measures.
Mr. Peter Shore: I thank the Leader of the House for making that business statement. In view of the Prime Minister's extraordinary and damaging antics at the Commonwealth conference, her apparent change of stance on the question of economic sanctions against South Africa, her agreement, with Commonwealth colleagues, to impose sanctions last night and her scornful dismissal of the same agreement this morning, can we have an early statement to clarify what the Government's policy really is, certainly before Wednesday's debate on South Africa?
Secondly, while we are to have a statement later today on the inner cities, given the scale and gravity of the disorders in which four people have died, hundreds have been injured and tens of millions of pounds' worth of property destroyed, is it not disgraceful that the Government have not rearranged this week's business so that we could have a full day's debate in Government time instead of having to rely upon half a day in Opposition time?
Thirdly, now that the Secretary of State for Employment is no longer a Member of this House, will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for an early statement to be made or, better still, provide time for us to debate this unprecedented, unsatisfactory and, to this House, insulting arrangement? Can he at least ensure that the new Secretary of State does not continue to offload his responsibilities for answering questions on unemployment in the other place, as he did last Tuesday, when the Minister of State for Defence deputised for him? It is reported that he intends to do so again tomorrow.
Finally, given the strong views that are held on fluoridation, can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that no guillotine will be applied to curtail the debate next Thursday?
Mr. Biffen: The right hon. Gentleman earns, properly, the affection of all parts of the House, but he is one of the most reactionary people ever to have sat on the Opposition Benches. It is extraordinary if, within our constitutional arrangements, it is not possible for the Secretary of State for Employment to sit in the other place when that Department and its responsibilities are also represented in this place at Cabinet level. May I say to him—since I am, as ever, conciliatory in such matters — that of course his request can be considered through the usual channels.
We have all come back desperate to fashion our ploughshares into swords, but to describe the Prime Minister's stout championing of the national interest at the Commonwealth conference in that way shows a little unnatural bellicosity. I shall inquire about the possibility of an early statement by the Prime Minister about the conference.
As to a debate on the inner cities, I recognise the House's good fortune in that the Opposition day on Wednesday is to be partly devoted to that topic. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I recognise its importance. On Thursday, we have to consider eight Lords amendments to the Water (Fluoridation) Bill. They do not involve any new matters of substance and I hope that the House will be able to address itself to them fully but responsibly.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: This is a business statement, not business questions, and therefore supplementary questions must be related to what the Leader of the House has just said.
Mr. Robert Sheldon: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the Public Accounts Committee debate on Thursday will draw particular attention to six of the matters contained in its report so that the House might be aware of the topics that are of particular interest to the Committee and therefore to the House? Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the Order Paper will contain reference to vehicle excise duty and its evasion, the sale of Government shareholdings in nationalised industries, the effectiveness or otherwise of regional industrial incentives, housing benefits, the control of nationalised industries and the serious shortcomings in the dental service?
Mr. Biffen: Yes, I can confirm that that is the proposal. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the part that he has played in making this come about.
Mr. Julian Amery: Is it not intolerable that so serious a matter as southern Africa, which seems to have occupied much of the discussion at the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference, should be considered only until 7 o'clock? If the Opposition think it important, had we not better give it a whole day?
Mr. Biffen: No. We are at that time in a Parliament when the time available is at a great premium. The House is indebted to the Opposition in this respect. I am certain that the matter will come before the House when the Prime Minister returns and, more particularly, when we debate the Queen's Speech.
Dr. David Owen: Would it not have been more appropriate for the Government to make time available for a debate on southern Africa when the
28
Prime Minister was here to answer for the fact that she has now accepted the Reagan economic sanction package on South Africa? Since the Prime Minister spends most of her time trying to line up the Government behind every initiative taken by President Reagan, would it not be helpful for the House to understand why she took so many months to do that on this occasion?
Mr. Biffen: With an effortless air of superiority the right hon. Gentleman is able to make his point about the Prime Minister and the policies for which she stands. I believe that all these matters can most appropriately be debated in the context of the report that the Prime Minister will make to the House and in the debate on the Queen's Speech that will follow shortly.
Mr. Anthony Nelson: Is it not the case that the matter will have to come before the House in Government time because many of the specific sanctions imposed on top of those that which are part of the European Community package will have to be approved by the House? I think in particular of action under the Sale of Goods Act to prevent certain trading transactions. Is my right hon. Friend aware that those of us who have serious misgivings about the wisdom or effectiveness of imposing sanctions on any country will welcome the opportunity to express their views?
Mr. Biffen: I am not in possession of sufficient facts to enable me to say authoritatively that my hon. Friend is right about the need for legislation, but his general point must be correct.
Mr. Derek Foster: Is the Leader of the House aware that many Opposition Members found deeply offensive his response to the remarks by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore) about the Secretary of State for Employment being in another place? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that 800 redundancies in consumer electronics have been declared in my constituency in the last week? Is it not a disgrace that the Secretary of State for Employment cannot come to the House to answer questions on this subject?
Mr. Biffen: There is a Cabinet Minister sitting in this House who is fully able to deal with these points, and the hon. Gentleman knows that perfectly well.
Mr. John Evans: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Labour Members find it an outrage that at a time when 4 million people are unemployed, the Secretary of State for Employment does not sit in this House to answer for the Government? Will he give a categorical undertaking that if there are any statements on employment matters on Wednesday or Thursday of this week—or, indeed, at any other time—they will not be made in the other place before being given in this House?
Mr. Biffen: As I said to the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), these sort of matters can reasonably be discussed through the ususal channels. I want to say again that, once upon a time, those on the democratic end of the spectrum in public life believed in the doctrine of the man for the job. If there is someone who—[Interruption.] Oh yes—[Interruption.] If we believe—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Biffen: I believe that it is perfectly possible for these matters to be properly concluded when a Cabinet Minister representing the interests of that Department sits in this House.
Mr. David Alton: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his statement on what the Prime Minister has been discussing at the Heads of Government Commonwealth conference. However, does he believe that the withering condescension with which the Prime Minister described the package of proposals for sanctions on the radio this morning will have done anything but comfort those in the Botha regime in South Africa?
Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the effectiveness of the package, which many of us doubt, will be discussed again in the months ahead so that we can be sure that everything possible is being done to give support to those fighting for the right of the the majority in South Africa to have a say in the running of their country?
Mr. Biffen: I can say without any equivocation that the decisions reached at the conference will be debated in the House.
Mr. Douglas Hogg: Does my right hon. Friend accept that his hon. Friends believe that the appointment of two Cabinet Ministers responsible for unemployment emphasises in a positive and dramatic way the emphasis that the Government place on that problem?
Mr. Biffen: Absolutely.
Dr. Jeremy Bray: Will the changes in business allow time for the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry to come to the House to make a statement on the progress of negotiations on steel production quotas in the Steel Council of the European Community? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that at the beginning of the recess the Government announced major proposals, including the closure of the Gartcosh works, with its consequences for Ravenscraig and flat products generaly in this country? Are not those decisions being taken without the necessary information being given to the House? Will he ensure that an early statement on that matter is made?
Mr. Biffen: I realise the importance of the subject generally, and specifically in relation to the hon. Gentleman's constituency. I shall certainly draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend.

Inner City Disorders
4.3 pm
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the recent disorders. During the past six weeks there have been three serious nots — in the Lozells road area of Birmingham, in Brixton, and Tottenham. Four people have died, one a police constable who was savagely killed. There have also been disorders in Liverpool, Leicester and Peckham in south London. Many police officers and others were injured. There were appalling attacks on the police with petrol bombs and other missiles, and especially in Birmingham and Brixton there was extensive looting of and attacks on shops and cars.
All responsible members of our society will condemn the disgraceful criminal behaviour which has occurred and all responsible members of our society will applaud the courage and dedication of the police in doing their job of maintaining and restoring order on the streets and the housing estates of our major cities. Public order is essential for the maintenance of a civilised way of life and for the safety of individual citizens—on that there can be no compromise. So far 700 people have been charged with offences arising from the disorders.
The riot in Brixton was triggered by the tragic shooting of Mrs. Groce, and the riot in Tottenham followed the death of Mrs. Jarrett after a search had been made at her home. These police operations are being investigated by senior officers from other police forces under the supervision of the independent Police Complaints Authority. These arrangements will ensure that they are fully investigated and that any necessary action is taken. In the case of the Lozells road riot, the chief constable of the west midlands is preparing a report which will be published. Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary is being associated closely with the preparation of that report.
So far as police operations are concerned, although the other disorders were serious enough, the riot at Tottenham stands out for the problems which it presented to the police. In that riot, a police officer was killed, firearms were used and the police had to face a ferocious barrage of petrol bombs and other missiles. The design of housing estates like that at Tottenham poses particular difficulties in such circumstances. The Metropolitan police commissioner is urgently reviewing the tactics of the force on such occasions. There must be no no-go areas in any of our cities.
The riot at Tottenham was the first occasion in Great Britain when the chief officer of police gave authority for plastic baton rounds to be used if necessary, though in fact they were not used. Plastic baton rounds and CS gas were made available to the police in Great Britain for public order use following the riots in 1981. They may be used only in the last resort, where conventional methods of policing have been tried and failed, or must from the nature of the circumstances be unlikely to succeed if tried, and where the chief officer judges such action necessary because of the risk of loss of life, serious injury or widespread destruction of property. That threshold was reached at Tottenham. The commissioner had my full support in making it clear that such weapons would be deployed if similar circumstances arose in the future.

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Other matters need to be looked at. The defensive equipment introduced in recent years—helmets, shields and protective overalls — proved its worth. Without it there would have been more serious casualties. The Metropolitan police are acquiring more shields and other defensive equipment. We have to consider whether any further equipment is required, and that is being done. There may be lessons to be learnt in relation to police training and deployment. The commissioner is pursuing these matters and I am in close touch with him. I shall ensure that any lessons learnt are disseminated nationally.
This Government have done more to meet the needs of the police than any in recent history. Since 1979 the Metropolitan police have increased in strength by nearly 4,500 officers; and other forces in England and Wales are stronger by a similar number. Including civilians, strength has increased by some 12,000. Even after a welcome intake of recruits, the Metropolitan police still have scope to increase strength by about 300 within its present establishment of 27,165. I support the commissioner in his efforts to make good this shortfall as quickly as possible. The force's reorganisation should, in addition, release 200 officers for operational duties; and I have authorised an increase of nearly 50 in the civil staff ceiling next year for further civilianisation.
Following my predecessor's announcement in July on drugs, I have told the commissioner that I am prepared in principle to agree to an increase of 50 officers in the establishment next year specifically to strengthen his efforts against drug trafficking. Taken together, these steps mean that there will be a substantial strengthening of the Metropolitan police in the months ahead. Beyond that I have set urgent work in hand to assess where there are specific needs for further increases in the Metropolitan police establishment, and I shall consider applications from provincial police authorities on the same basis—namely, that the police should have what they need in the fight against crime.
In recent years, much effort has been put into establishing good liaison and consultation between the police and the community in inner city areas, particularly, for example, in Brixton and Handsworth. These disorders must be—I know that they are—deeply depressing for those community leaders and police officers who have put so much effort into establishing a better understanding. But it would be wrong to assume that these efforts were misplaced. On the contrary, they must be continued and redoubled if the police are to protect and serve the community efficently.
More broadly, the Government will continue their strong commitment to urban regeneration. The urban programme has more than tripled, from £93 million in 1978–79 to £338 million in 1985–86, and there has been substantial expenditure in all the riot areas. The Department of Employment and the Manpower Services Commission are spending more than £100 million in the partnership areas, and my Department plans to spend some £90 million in 1985–86 through section 11 grants.
We must ensure that the very substantial sums that now go, and will continue to go, to inner city areas are spent to the best advantage and directed to the real needs of the people who live there. The city action teams have been set up to improve the co-ordination and targeting of
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Government programmes in the partnership areas. We shall do everything to ensure that our objectives in the inner city areas are achieved.
These disorders are shocking events. It is of paramount interest of us all, young and old, people of all ethnic backgrounds, that public order should be maintained. I acknowledge—we all acknowledge—the social problems which exist in these areas, but it is no solution to loot and burn shops which serve the area or to attack the police. Mob violence must be dealt with firmly and effectively and criminal acts punished according to the criminal law. The police should have the support of all of us in striving to maintain order and uphold the law. It is their first priority. It is the Government's also.
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his appointment to his high office and I regret, as I am sure he does, that his first duty in that new office is to come to the House on such a wretched occasion.
Five people have died in sad and savage circumstances, and the first duty of the House today is to send sympathy to those who are mourning Mr. Kammalia Moliedina, Mr. Amir Moliedina, Mrs. Cynthia Jarrett, Police Constable Keith Blakelock and Mr. David Hodge. We send our concern and best wishes for a speedy and full recovery to Mrs. Cherry Groce, a tragic victim of these dreadful events, and to all others—police, firemen, ambulancemen and ordinary innocent citizens—who have suffered injury in disturbances which have included arson, looting and the dreadful crime of rape.
Many have undergone serious financial loss, and I must first ask the Home Secretary what action can be taken to speed up the payment of compensation under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 and to expand that Act's scope to take account of loss of income after the riots.
The House will be debating these matters on Wednesday, and I must repeat the anger that is felt on this side at the failure of the Government to provide time, which has meant that the House will have only half a day on each occasion to debate this profound issue and the crisis in southern Africa.
Grave questions arise from these disorders and it is essential that the country receives answers on matters which have caused profound national concern. These relate to the nature of policing during riots, and such questions come from the populations of the affected areas and from the police themselves. What the Home Secretary said today will not allay any of these anxieties. They relate to the relationship between the police and the community, in the inner cities and elsewhere. They include disquiet over the spreading use of firearms by the police, the background to the riots, mass unemployment, especially among teenagers, bad housing, environmental decay and dereliction and racial discrimination.
The Home Secretary boasted today about funds provided under the urban programme, but such sums are only a fraction of the money that has been taken away from these areas in abolished housing subsidy, reduced rate support grant and rate support grant penalties. It is an absurdity that the Home Secretary boasted at Handsworth of the money going to Handsworth when in this financial year alone more money is being taken away from the city of Birmingham in rate support grant penalty than all those sums given over a period of years.

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Only two days after the Brixton disorders, in April 1981, Lord Whitelaw, as Home Secretary, announced to the House an inquiry under Lord Scarman to start right away. After the latest riots, however, the Government stubbornly refuse an inquiry. The Police Complaints Authority inquiries do not begin to be a substitute because, as Lord Scarman in his report insisted,
"It is necessary before attempting an answer to the policing problem to understand the social problem."
It is all very well for the Home Secretary to boast of the increase in police resources under the Conservatives, but he said nothing about the terrifying crime wave from which the county is suffering and which the clear-up rate shows the police are increasingly unable to combat.
The social problem referred to by Lord Scarman has broadened and deepened. in the four years since his report, and the need for action is that much greater. Lord Scarman warned in his report that
"to ignore the complex political, social and economic factors … is …to put the nation in peril."
Our fear is that, unless the Governments response is much more far-seeing than has so far been demonstrated, Lord Scarman will have been right in his grim warning that
"disorder will become a disease endemic in our society."
Those are the dimensions of the challenge which we face and which the nation expects us to meet.
Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) for his opening remarks. I share his desire, on the question of compensation, that the 1886 Act should be implemented in such a way as to bring as effective and prompt relief as possible. I am in touch with the receiver of the Metropolitan police, who is responsible in London, and my hon. Friend and I had a meeting with the West Midlands county council, which is responsible in Birmingham.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the use of police arms and I agree that if there are lessons to be learnt from the two incidents that are now being investigated we should not be afraid to learn them. The latest available figures show a reduction in the issue and use of arms by the police. In 1983, firearms were issued to police officers in England and Wales in 3,180 operations, while in 1984 the figure fell to 2,667.
The right hon. Gentleman said that I should have gone beyond quoting the figures in the urban programme, by which I stand, and he referred in particular to the question of penalty under the block grant. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment is in his place.
I remind the right hon. Gentleman that the basic arrangements for block grant distribution redistribute resources substantially in favour of areas, such as the inner cities where needs are high. The inner city authorities—not all of them, but too many of them—are opting to throw some of this potential benefit away by spending at levels which they know will reduce their grant entitlement and impose extra burdens —[Interruption.]—on their local police and businesses.
Regarding an inquiry, about which the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have tabled a motion for Wednesday, it is clear that when things go wrong, we must inquire into what went wrong and what can be done to put matters right. That is happening through the criminal investigations by the police, through the investigation, under independent supervision, of complaints against the police, through the review of tactics in London, through
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the review of manpower, about which I have spoken, and through the review of spending, which I also mentioned, to make sure that it is effective. These are all inquiries or reviews which are going on among those responsible so that they can get on with doing their job effectively.
I do not accept the case for a long judicial inquiry overshadowing the efforts that are now being made to learn the lessons which must be learnt. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, such an inquiry would prejudice the possibility of criminal proceedings in some instances. Apart from that, it would impede the effective follow-up action at which we are aiming.
Several Hon. Members rose——
Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that there is to be a debate on this issue. I ask hon. Members to address their questions to it directly rather than make the speeches that they may make on Wednesday.
Mr. Mark Carlisle: Is my right hon. Friend aware that I believe he has, as the new Home Secretary, the wholehearted support of all of my right hon. and hon. Friends in his wholesale and unreserved condemnation of the appalling acts of violence, arson and criminal damage that have taken place, which cannot be justified even on the grounds mentioned by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman)? Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that the Government will, by the provision of men and equipment, ensure that the police have, and continue to have, all the equipment that they need to deal with any similar incidents in future?
Mr. Hurd: As my right hon. and learned Friend has observed, it is a matter of men and equipment. The only test is that of need and that is the only test that we shall apply.
Mr. David Steel: In view of the Home Secretary's statement that all responsible members of our society will condemn the disgraceful behaviour that has occurred, will he agree that it was especially sad that not everyone in elected positions in local and national politics did so at the time? We must start by uniting in condemning such behaviour. Will he agree also that our prime responsibility as politicians at local or national level is to cure the bitterness and deprivation on which, unfortunately, criminality feeds in our inner cities? In that connection, I shall ask the right hon. Gentleman a couple of questions that arose from my visit to Handsworth last week.
Does he accept that there is much criticism that in the past the action that has been taken through self-help schemes and the urban aid programme has been directed to outside contractors, who use outside employees and take away the profits that could be earned by local people? Does he agree that we should be looking for schemes that are designed to continue employment and business in the inner city areas? Will he undertake to talk to his colleagues in the Departments that are concerned to ensure that that is done in future?
Secondly, is it the right hon. Gentleman's interpretation of the 1886 Act that the insurance cover there provided does not include consequential loss of business and loss of vehicles? People are waiting for answers to these questions.
Mr. Hurd: The extent of the insurance cover provided under the 1886 Act needs looking into. I had a preliminary

35
discussion with the West Midlands county council and the council touched on that issue and a number of others. I should like to consider the matter. Having done so, I shall write to the right hon. Gentleman.
The right hon. Gentleman's point about local labour is important. It was made to me as well while I was in Handsworth. As we examine the effectiveness of the spending of the moneys that we are putting into inner city areas, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment is especially anxious that the spending should be directed towards people and not only physical conditions. The point about local labour falls very much into that category.
Unfortunately, it is true that not all the relevant locally elected representatives have condemned violence. I did not go into that in my statement and we may have to inquire rather more carefully into the issue during the Supply day debate.
Sir Dudley Smith: When considering these serious matters, will my right hon. Friend not forget the areas in which there are large ethnic minority communities where the citizens are well behaved and extremely responsible? Will he consult his colleagues to ensure that the necessary financial aid that these areas receive is not cut merely because those who live in them do not cause trouble?
Mr. Hurd: I quite agree. My hon. Friend is on to an important point. The last thing that would be needed would be some sort of blanket assumption that all those who are members of the ethnic minority communities have a part in these troubles.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: The Home Secretary has been firm from the beginning that there is no need for an inquiry, suggesting that he and his advisers have sufficient information. If that is so, what is the reason for the vast increase in crime since 1979 and the regular rioting in the streets, which was not a feature of life in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s?
Mr. Hurd: I rejected the idea of an over-arching judicial inquiry partly on the ground that there have been a host of inquiries by those who have responsibilities in these matters to ensure that they can carry out their responsibilities more effectively. That process is continuing, and rightly so, as part of the general pattern of our response to the problem that the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned, which is that of an increasing rate of reported crime. Many different authorities are in this business. We must build a coalition of partners against crime. I do not see that that will be helped by the Opposition's proposal for an over-arching judicial inquiry.
Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: I agree with my right hon. Friend about the efficacy of the shields and other defensive equipment that is provided to the police, but may I suggest that it might be dangerous to promote a defensive mentality on the part of police commanders, and that the sight of policemen cowering behind their shields under a rain of missiles from hooligans in the street was an offensive and humiliating spectacle? Will he bear in mind that the proper function of the police is to enforce the law and arrest wrongdoers at the time, and that that should be more vigorously pursued?
Mr. Hurd: It is difficult to generalise in advance about the operational decisions that a police commander will have to make. We must leave operational decisions to those who are in charge of operations. However, I agree with my hon. Friend that the spectacle that we witnessed at Tottenham on the Sunday night was intolerable. I believe that the commissioner said so in his statement.
Mr. Jeff Rooker: Does the Home Secretary appreciate that my constituents, employed or unemployed, black. Asian or white, have everything to gain from the maintenance of law and order and everything to lose by the rioting that took place recently? That was also the position in 1981. What is in his statement to assure my constituents that the Government are seized of the need to ascertain what has happened so that we can take the necessary steps across all areas of policy to ensure that it does not happen again?
Is the Home Secretary aware that in June there were still about a dozen claims outstanding under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 in respect of the events that took place at Toxteth in 1981? Can my constituents expect a more speedy response in the implementation of that Act than the Toxteth people have experienced?
Can the Home Secretary identify any misuse of spending by the Birmingham city council, which it seems is implied in his statement? What is the council spending money on improperly and what has it taken away from the inner city? If the right hon. Gentleman does not understand what I am saying, will he obtain the relevant figures from the Department of the Environment before Wednesday to ascertain the level of net expenditure in the inner cities, taking into account the cuts in rate support grant over the past two or three years?
Mr. Hurd: I am not making any accusation against Birmingham city council. I am merely saying that all responsible authorities, including Government Departments and local authorities, need to look again at the way in which substantial sums have been spent, to ensure that the moneys help those who are affected. I found in Birmingham that there was a ready acceptance of the need to look again at the way in which money is spent.
The hon. Gentleman is quite right in saying that there has been delay in dealing with compensation claims under the 1886 Act following the Toxteth riots in 1981. I am anxious that on this occasion the proceedings should be more promptly carried through. Of course, the relevant authority — in the hon. Gentleman's case the West Midlands county council—has to check claims to ensure that there is not abuse. The projections that the West Midlands county council gave me last week show that a substantial sum will be paid out in this financial year.
Mr. Jonathan Sayeed: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is no doubt in my mind or in the minds of my right hon. and hon. Friends that we have seen our police force behave with considerable restraint and courage? I doubt whether any police force anywhere else in the world would have been able to behave in such a manner. Does he agree that the cause of inner city calm is not helped by certain Left-wing councillors? Neither is it helped by the one or two rotten apples, or inadequately trained policemen, who sometimes harass blacks in parts of Britain in the inner cities. May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to a television programme entitled "Do They Mean Us?", which showed a West Indian being

37
harassed by police unnecessarily? I ask that my right hon. Friend looks at that particular film clip and considers having it shown at the police college to show others what should not happen.
Mr. Hurd: I agree with my hon. Friend. The selection and training of police officers is enormously important. Since the Scarman report both aspects have been transformed. The change in the complaints procedure which Parliament made last year is enormously important. We have brought forward to the first stage the independent supervision of investigation. I hope that as that major reform sinks into people's consciousness they will have more confidence in the procedure for investigating complaints. Those are two ways in which we are meeting my hon. Friend's point. I should like to look at the film to which my hon. Friend referred.
Mr. Allan Roberts: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, whereas the people in Toxteth complain about insensitive policemen and a heavy police presence, my constituents in Bootle complain that they do not see sufficient policemen. Surely the Merseyside chief constable has got it wrong if one area complains of too many police and another is under-policed. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that heavy drug pushers have moved from parts of Liverpool to Bootle knowing that, because of the heavy police presence in Toxteth, there are insufficient police to do the job and that they can get away with their activities? Will the right hon. Gentleman review the policing policy with the chief constables in the metropolitan counties and the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis? Will he for once accept that insensitive policing in areas where there have been riots, disturbances, violence and looting—we all condemn this —has something to do with the problem? Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that the Government are to some extent responsible for this because of their policies for urban Britain? If the Government can do nothing about the problem, why do Conservative candidates always fight elections on the issue of law and order?
Mr. Hurd: My experience is that, after events of this type, some people say that too few police were involved and others say of the same incident that too many were present. I do not think that one could generalise or step into the shoes of the chief constables or the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis who have to decide how to deploy the forces that are available to them. We authorise the forces. Merseyside, like London, has had a substantial increase in numbers. I do not think that a Home Secretary or the House can tell chief officers how to deploy their resources town by town.
Mr. Michael Mates: If alienation between young blacks, young Asians and the police is part of the trouble, cannot a good deal of the blame be attributed to those local authorities which will not allow police into schools to explain to young people their rights and responsibilities in society? Will my right hon. Friend do all that he can to convince those local authorities of the error of their ways?
Mr. Hurd: The vendetta that some Labour London boroughs—aided in the past few weeks by some local branches of the NUT— pursue against the police has been carried to the lengths of preventing schoolchildren under their charge from knowing what a policeman looks
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like, what he does and why he is on the same side as they are. So long as the main Opposition party tolerates such activities it cannot be taken seriously in these matters.
Mr. John Fraser: I am sure that the Home Secretary will recognise that, for Socialists in a democratic society, rioting, burning, looting and murder play no part in our political life, not least because they intensify, as has happened in Brixton, the vortex of unemployment and despair. Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that in the inner city riots are becoming the standard response to deprivation and to the consequences of the Government's economic and social policies? We want an open inquiry following on Scarman because there is an inevitable and inescapable link between areas of rioting, catastrophic unemployment, cuts in housing investment, especially on problem housing estates, and the Government's conduct on law and order. Those links—even if they do not justify what has happened— are inescapable. Because we do not want the Government to hide behind secret reports, such as the repressed report on housing expenditure, we ask for a reforming of a Scarman-type inquiry to try to understand the volcanic forces that are increasing the fragility of our social harmony. Will the Home Secretary have the courage of his predecessor, Lord Whitelaw, and set up a public judicial inquiry?
Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman and to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) for their stance in public on these matters. Undoubtedly that stance has been helpful on the ground. However, I do not accept the generalisations of the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser). I do not accept that the standard response in Lambeth to deprivation is a riot. That does not square with any accurate description of what happened the other day in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. The looting, attacks on people and the terrible crimes committed cannot in any way be justified or explained by talking about deprivation. I do not, therefore, accept the hon. Gentleman's generalised explanation. There are many areas of deprivation where there have not been riots. There are many areas with large concentrations of ethnic minorities where there have not been riots. That type of generalised explanation simply will not do.
Mr. Richard Page: I thank my right hon. Friend for his welcome statement. Is he satisfied that the massive support which we have already given in the past five years to the police force is being used most effectively? Is more money really the answer?
Mr. Hurd: When we assess the need for additional resources for the police we must at the same time assess whether they are making efficient and effective use of the resources that they already have. During the past year or so a great deal of progress has been made in that direction by all police forces in England and Wales. I am anxious that that progress should be maintained.
Mr. Dave Nellist: While no Socialist or Marxist would condone the rioting or deaths in recent weeks, is it not a fact that massive youth unemployment, deteriorating housing conditions, falling living standards and the racist attitudes of many police officers are the political petrol that the Government have

39
poured on Brixton, Toxteth, Tottenham and many other areas in recent years? That is the real reason why the youth of Britain are exploding in anger.
Mr. Hurd: I reject that analysis. It is interesting that, when I was in Birmingham the day after the riots, that type of verbose analysis was rejected by almost everyone in Birmingham. People said, "You will hear a lot of that blather, but don't take any notice of it."
Sir Peter Emery: Will my right hon. Friend condemn absolutely any person who suggests that the standard reaction to anything is a riot? That suggestion is not only wrong, but condones and encourages that action. This must be stopped. Will my right hon. Friend make it clear that any attack on the police, whether physical or verbal, must be condemned? The police need all the support that we can give them. Will my right hon. Friend recognise that the vast majority of the people expect the precepts of Anglo-Saxon behaviour and of law and order to be maintained? These standards must be maintained. despite what other ethnic minorities want. [Interruption.] That needs to be said, and it is not racist to say so.
Mr. Hurd: I agree with the first two points. On the third point, I think that the position is clear. People who have legally settled here and made their homes here are entitled to the full protection of the law, including the law against any form of discrimination on grounds of colour. In return, it is right and reasonable to expect not only that they and those whom they influence obey the law but that they co-operate with the institutions that are designed to protect them, including the police.
Mr. Robert Maclennan: In the face of these grave criminal challenges to effective policing in our desolate urban areas, will the Home Secretary take steps to extend and improve the quality of initial and in-service police training? Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect that, following the 1981 riots, it was recommended that the initial training period should be doubled? The Government have not acted on that proposal. Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise the importance of this aspect, especially if there is to be any question in the future of using plastic bullets or CS gas? What steps can the right hon. Gentleman take in consultation with the chief constables and the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis to improve the ethnic balance of the police?
Mr. Hurd: The period of initial training has been substantially increased, and it is not too much to say that its content has been transformed since the Scarman report. partly because of Lord Scarman's recommendations. If the hon. Gentleman goes, as perhaps he already has done, to Hendon or any of the other main training centres, he will see that training in action, and he will see members of the ethnic minorities talking to young police officers. A major effort is being made in the direction that he mentioned. There has been some progress in increasing the numbers of black and Asian police officers, but it is tiny compared to the need. Police forces understand the need and will do that they can to recruit without lowering the standards on which they rightly insist.
Mr. Michael Colvin: Is my right hon. Friend aware that many Conservative Members
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consider the remarks made by Opposition Members about riots being the stock reply now to inner city deprivation as insulting to many inner city areas that face what could be described as deprivation and that contain many ethnic minority groups but whose law and order record is excellent? Does he also acknowledge that the antidote to fire is water? Will he, therefore, confirm that one of the items of equipment that his Department will be considering introducing to police forces is water cannon, which can have the effect — no matter how difficult deployment may be on some occasions — of not just damping down tempers but damping down fires?
Mr. Hurd: I agree with my hon. Friend's first point. As to his second point, yes. we are considering water cannon. There is a debate within the police forces about them. On the whole, I believe that the debate is rather turning against water cannon, partly because they are difficult to manoeuvre and partly because I do not believe that many people supposed that water cannon would have been much use in the conditions prevailing at Tottenham on that Sunday night. We must conclude the debate and reach a decision.
Mr. Ernie Roberts: Will the Minister not rely on water cannon, plastic bullets, tear gas, flat-nosed bullets and flails to solve the problems to which he has referred. and instead remove the obstacles that he has placed in the way of the local police in Hackney, Tottenham and such places meeting the borough council police committees to achieve the kind of co-operation that he wants? The fact that he has objected to police having any meetings with publicly elected representatives helps cause the problems that he says he is worried about.
Mr. Hurd: That is obfuscation. The London borough police committees do not have, and have not been given by Parliament, a role in this matter. I object strongly to the implication that they are entitled to obstruct police efforts to reach a friendly understanding and a better level of agreement with the people who live in those areas. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman, with whom I have discussed these matters in earlier years, should continue to take such a hostile line.
Mr. Alex Fletcher: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is strong evidence that the best way to direct the public funds that he mentioned to help inner city deprivation is through a Government-sponsored development agency, not least because such an organisation can attract a great deal of private sector funds? I am not raising a theoretical matter. There is ample evidence to show that Glasgow is miles better, thanks to Government policies, than cities such as Liverpool and Birmingham which, despite the funds that they have had, have not made the same good use of them.
Mr. Hurd: I am interested in my hon. Friend's point, born of his experience, but it would be rash of me to be tempted down that road this afternoon.
Mr. Eric Deakins: Is the Home Secretary aware of the growing anger and anxiety felt among our Asian communities about another type of inner city disturbance, which was not mentioned in his statement but which should have been—the growing amount of racial harassment and the number of attacks on Asian

41
families in the streets and in their homes, especially in north-east London and perhaps in some of the areas that he has mentioned? Is he aware that there was a spate of such attacks in my constituency this summer? It is a miracle that no one has been killed through having petrol poured through the letter box and set alight at one o'clock in the morning. If we go on in that way, we shall shortly have mass murder on our hands. Will he give the House an assurance that strong action will be taken to protect Asian families in the street and in their homes from the evil racists in our midsts?
Mr. Hurd: Yes, Sir. I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. He is justified in using such language to draw the attention of the House to that matter. It is one of the subjects that has grown strongly in importance during the time that I was in Northern Ireland. It has been drawn vividly to my attention since I returned. I have discussed the matter with my advisory committee on race relations and with the police. He will be aware that the Association of Chief Police Officers is issuing some strong and effective guidelines. We must ensure that those guidelines are reflected in action on the spot. With the help of people such as the hon. Gentleman. I believe that we can do that.
Mr. Peter Bruinvels: I represent part of the city of Leicester which has one of the largest ethnic communities in the country. The people of Leicester do not want more money put into the urban aid programme. They want many more police, the certainty that once detected accused people will be prosecuted successfully, stiffer sentences and more people imprisoned. That will bring about the peace that the people of Leicester want and expect.
Mr. Hurd: I note what my hon. Friend said about the police force in Leicestershire. He would not expect me to comment on sentences imposed by the courts. It is the job of this House to provide the courts with what we believe to be adequate and effective maximum sentences. We still have some ground to make up in that respect.
Mr. Tom Cox: Is the Home Secretary aware that those of us who represent inner cities very much share his feelings? We deeply deplore recent events. I beg him to listen to the comments that black and Asian residents often make to us when they criticise police methods of searching property, when front doors are kicked in and property is destroyed. That is what causes such bitterness within black and Asian communities. They do not object to the police searching. Unfortunately, it is the method of searching that the police so often use that causes such bitterness. I beg him to consider that.
Mr. Hurd: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right to say that we in the Home Office should spend a great deal of time listening to authentic points of view on those matters. I am aware of the worry about police methods that he has mentioned. It is difficult to pin down, as he is aware. I hope that his constituents and others will take sensible advantage of the new complaints procedures that Parliament has approved. They will provide a way of sorting out what is nonsense from what is true and I hope that they will gradually gain public confidence.
Mr. Douglas Hogg: When my right hon. Friend talks to senior police officers, will he make just two points? The first is that the House expects the police, when they are carrying out their search and arrest policy, to
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exercise every possible restraint and to show due regard for the rights of the community in which they are moving. Secondly, will he also make the point that, not withstanding the fact of the riots, the House and the community as a whole expect a policy of vigorous policing to be continued and, where necessary, a vigorous search and arrest policy to be used to apprehend drug pushers and those other people responsible for serious criminal offences?
Mr. Hurd: I agree with the general thought behind my hon. Friend's remarks and the phrasing of them.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Does the Home Secretary accept that his statement points to much greater suppressive action by the police and a serious lack of understanding of the problems that lie behind the riots? Will he tell the House whether, further to his statement, the issuing of water cannon and plastic bullets is now standard practice for the police force and Home Office policy? Secondly, have any police officers been suspended following the events surrounding the death of Mrs. Cynthia Jarrett in Tottenham, and what inquiries have been made about that? Thirdly, is he prepared now to visit Tottenham seriously to examine that area's social problems, the background surrounding Mrs. Jarrett's death and other matters that led to the tragic events two weeks ago?
Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend the Minister of State has visited Tottenham and discussed these matters insofar as they lie within the responsibility of the Home Office. That responsibility does not go as wide as the hon. Member's question. There is an investigation into how the tragic death of Mrs. Jarrett occurred and, as I have already said several times, that investigation is under the immediate and independent supervision of the Police Complaints Authority.
Mr. Jonathan Aitken: I welcome the firm tone of today's statement and its commitment to increased police training and resources, but will my right hon. Friend take care to include in those improvements the special constabulary, which can be such a useful bridge builder between the police and the communities they serve?
Mr. Hurd: Yes, I agree. Recent figures that I have seen are reasonably encouraging, but I agree that the special constabulary has an important role to play.
Mr. Reg Freeson: Will the Secretary of State accept that while none of us wishes to give any kind of sympathy to a practice in some quarters of police bashing, at the same time just strengthening the police force and altering tactics will not resolve the problems that have to be dealt with? It would be asking the police to do things they cannot possibly do to solve the problems of these areas. The Secretary of State will not accept a further inquiry. Will he then please re-read the many reports which have been published since the '70s and possibly earlier? There have been inner city studies, the Scarman report, the Select Committee reports and many others, and they have not been acted upon by Government. Will he please re-read them and get action to bring about proper integration of Government policy? Will he get more resources into these areas and see what can be done to

43
reorganise methods of local government to tackle inner city renewal on the scale that is required if we are to avoid any further developments down this path of riot?
Mr. Hurd: The day after the Handsworth riot I re-read the Scarman report, which I read at the time it was published, and I commissioned a study about how far it had been implemented. The policing side is the particular responsibility of my Department. In many cases, the police forces and the Home Office have carried through the spirit and in many cases the letter of what Lord Scarman recommended.
The vaguer, non-policing sections of this report, which are also important, are the responsibility of my other colleagues, but there again I would argue, as I have today, that the rapid expansion of the urban programme and the efforts which have been made in the employment field are within our responses to the spirit of Lord Scarman's report. Certainly, let us take down these reports, look at them again and consider them in the light of modern circumstances and update our policies. That is the line which my colleagues and I are taking.
Mr. Alan Howarth: Will my right hon. Friend continue to emphasise that, while it is imperative that we do not fail to provide the Government resources necessary for the sustaining of peaceful and decent conditions in our cities, it is also our duty to ensure the best value for money from the substantial additional resources the Government have already committed for this purpose?
Mr. Hurd: I quite agree with my hon. Friend. We have to make sure that throughout the public sector the taxpayer is getting value for money and that applies to the police. They are a priority in our minds. They were a priority before and that continues to be so. We have to assess on an up-to-date basis after the riots the nature of police needs and that has to be looked at alongside the effectiveness in use of the resources they already have.
Mr. Robin Corbett: Does the Home Secretary recall that when he was in Handsworth he rejected an inquiry into the events there for the reason —I think I quote him properly—that the ground had been well ploughed by Lord Scarman? Can he please tell the House whether a majority or a minority of the recommendations of Lord Scarman have been implemented by the Government?
Mr. Hurd: I devoted a lot of my answers to the last question but one on that point, but I am perfectly willing to elaborate on it on Wednesday. When I looked into the specific questions raised by the hon. Member I was quite surprised by the extent of implementation.
Mr. Bowen Wells: Will my right hon. Friend accept congratulations, first, on his assumption of office and, secondly, on his obvious determination to enforce the rule of law which must be a precondition for progress in this matter? After investigation, will my right hon. Friend be bringing forward the overall proposals of the Government for dealing with this situation? If he is, will he bear in mind there is serious educational under-achievement in the sector of West Indians living in those areas and that, of course, is the tinder from which violent protest is generated?
Mr. Hurd: I see the connection my hon. Friend is making and I endorse it, but I would get into difficulty if I started to trespass in the province of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science.
Mr. Max Madden: Is the Home Secretary aware that his comments about recruitment to the police from the ethnic minorities will appear rather complacent? Does he accept that there is a lack of confidence between substantial numbers of people in the ethnic minorities and the police? Will he accept that the recruitment of more people from the ethnic communities to the police would considerably help confidence, and will he take determined action to increase recruitment from the ethnic minorities?
Mr. Hurd: Yes, indeed. I am glad to correct the impression which I gave the hon. Member. I am not in the least complacent about this: I am simply using the figures to show that there has been an increase, but it is not nearly strong enough. I hope we will have the support of the hon. Member and people like him in Bradford in bringing about this increase, which is in the interests of everybody.
Mr. David Sumberg: Is it not wholly hypocritical of the Opposition to pose as the defenders of law and order when they continue to give support to Labour-controlled police committees throughout the country who bash and criticise the police at every conceivable opportunity?
Mr. Hurd: I entirely agree. Opposition right hon. and hon. Members will have to sort this out if they are to be listened to with any kind of respect or understanding on these matters. There are far too many police authorities and committees in London who have no responsibility whatever for policing under the law, and those bodies are doing their best to complicate and frustrate the work of the police.
Mr. Harry Cohen: I, of course, deplore the riots, the deaths and the injuries, but is not the Home Secretary's earlier description of the riots as being due to greed and criminality a cover-up for the principal causes, poor police community relations and what Lord Scarman called the tinder box of urban deprivation? Is not the real answer to the first to have proper police accountability to the local community, community policing, and to the second for the Government to reverse their disastrous policies of cuts, housing decline and unemployment?
Mr. Hurd: No. I disagree with every syllable that the hon. Member has uttered.
Mr. Eric Forth (Mid-Worcestershire): Whatever may be our response to recent events, can my right hon. Friend assure the House that we will not be seen in any way to reward riot, arson and murder with additional attention or resources lavished on just that sort of area, because that would surely lead to greater trouble in future?
Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend has brought out a good point and it is one which is in the minds of my colleagues and myself.
Mr. Michael Meadowcroft: Does the Home Secretary agree that the widespread police view that they should distance themselves from a legitimate role in the development of public policy is one of the reasons why they are sometimes seen as an alien group? Would he recommend chief constables to involve themselves in

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ideas about housing and particularly planning that are designed to develop a secure and stable community? That is the only way in which we can develop self policing and enable local communities to develop their own secure relationships rather than having to rely on an outside force coming in to pick up the mistakes that have gone before.
Mr. Hurd: The first job of the police is to uphold the law and maintain the Queen's peace. Those are their twin priorities. It may well be that chief officers or chief superintendents in carrying out those responsibilities find themselves, quite sensibly, drawn into other activities of the kind the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. That must be a matter for local judgment. Such activities underpin but are not a replacement for the two jobs I have mentioned.
Mr. Jerry Hayes: I am sure my right hon. Friend will be the first to agree that the vast majority of ordinary, decent citizens, black and white, will support entirely what he has said about giving resources to the police. Will he not agree as well that it would certainly help to clear the air and help to reassure communities of all ethnic origins if investigations into police complaints were dealt with thoroughly and speedily.
Mr. Hurd: I quite agree with my hon. Friend and direct his attention to the new PCA, the Police Complaints Authority, under the former Ombudsman, Sir Cecil Clothier. Mr. Roland Moyle, who is known to Opposition Members, is the deputy chairman. The brisk way in which they are setting about their new job is encouraging.
Mr. John Butterfill: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on announcing the setting up of the special units to co-ordinate various Government agencies and assistance in urban renewal. He declined to be drawn on the subject by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Fletcher), but will he confirm that the agencies will have within their remit not only the co-ordination of assistance, but the targeting
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of that assistance and whether any further statutory powers will be necessary to ensure that Government aid is more effective?
Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend and The Times today are galloping well ahead of events. I have set up no new units; it is not within my competence to do so. I have said that I am sure that we must bend our minds to whether the resources that we are devoting to the inner cities are well targeted. That certainly includes the question of the machinery.
Mr. Harry Greenway: Can my right hon. Friend tell us approximately when the newly announced offence of disorderly conduct will become law? Does he agree that it will have a valuable effect in controlling the sort of wickedness that we have seen?
Does my right hon. Friend also agree that if the Labour party were genuine and serious in wishing to do something to help law and order Labour Members would press their crazy colleagues at the GLC to withdraw the viciously anti-police video that they have been pushing in schools and everywhere else?
Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend is right on that last point. It is a clear illustration of one of the themes that I have been making.
On my hon. Friend's first point, I cannot prejudge the decisions of the House or of another place. The proposal for an offence of disorderly conduct will be included in the public order Bill about which, I dare say, we shall hear more fairly soon. However, it is not connected with riot control or the serious disorders that we have been discussing today. We see the offence, as discussed in the White Paper on public order, as essentially a necessary weapon against hooliganism and minor kinds of violence which, although minor, seriously offend, distress and alarm our fellow citizens, particularly, perhaps, old people living alone.

Board and Lodging Payments
5.3 pm
The Secretary of State for Social Services (Mr. Norman Fowler): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement about supplementary benefit board and lodging payments.
In April the Government took action to control rapidly increasing expenditure and to help curb abuse. Between December 1982 and December 1984 spending rose from £166 million a year to £380 million a year. At the same time, the number of boarders under 26 had more than trebled from 23,000 to around 85,000.
Regulations were introduced which provided for the maximum weekly amounts for board and lodging to be determined by Ministers, rather than by local offices. In addition, the regulations limited the period during which certain unemployed people under 26 could be paid as boarders. There was a wide range of exemptions to protect the most vulnerable who needed to be boarders, such as families with children. The regulations were scrutinised by the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments and debated and passed by both Houses of Parliament.
On 31 July, after Parliament had risen, the High Court decided an application for judicial review on the regulations. Mr. Justice Mann rejected the argument that we had failed properly to consult the Social Security Advisory Committee, and he also rejected the argument that the time limit of four weeks applied in this case was unreasonable. The judge did, however, find that the powers in the Supplementary Benefits Act 1976 were insufficient to make regulations enabling Ministers to determine board and lodging areas and limits. In other words, the judge's view was that the regulations would have been in order if they had themselves contained the board and lodging areas and limits. Mr. Justice Mann declined to make a formal order, on our undertaking not to apply the time limits pending the making of new regulations or the outcome of any appeal. Immediate action was taken to put this undertaking into effect and I should like to pay tribute to the efforts of our local office staff in carrying out this work.
We have lodged an appeal against the judgment and arrangements have been made for an early hearing in the Court of Appeal. This will take place at the end of November. However, as Mr. Justice Mann specifically recognised, there is a need for a sensible interim operation. It is in the general interest that there should be stability during which the outcome of the appeal can be given proper consideration and the review, which we are committed to carrying out, completed.
I have accordingly laid draft regulations today. They include temporary provisions—which will expire at the end of April 1986—to meet the judge's points. There are two important differences from the regulations passed by the House in April. First, time limits will not apply to existing boarders on benefit. They will apply only to new claimants.
The second important difference is that I am also taking powers, in addition to the exemptions in the previous regulations, to exempt from the time limits claimants who would otherwise suffer exceptional hardship.
The House will appreciate, in view of what I have said, the need to clarify the position. The regulations achieve
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this without in any way prejudicing the outcome of the appeal. The House will have the opportunity to discuss the new regulations when they are debated next week.
We hope in this way to restrain spending, tackle abuse, but at the same time protect the interests of genuine claimants.
Mr. Michael Meacher: Is the Secretary of State aware that in the past three months he has twice been found by the courts to have acted illegally in cutting board and lodging payments? On the issue of obedience to the law, about which the Government talk so much, the right hon. Gentleman has been found to have laid illegal regulations which have led to the deaths of at least three young people and have caused public outrage because of the untold hardship and distress inflicted unnecessarily and wrongly, as it turns out, on thousands of others.
Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that. following the two legal decisions, only one of which he referred to today, the board and lodging regulations are in a shambles? After the second case on 18 September. Mr. John Laws, the Treasury counsel, conceded that the previous High Court hearing had effectively quashed the cash limits as well as the time limits in the regulations. How can the Secretary of State claim today that he is regularising the position when his new draft regulations affect only the time limits and do not touch the illegality of cash limits, especially given that it was on that latter point that the social security appeal tribunal found against the Department on 18 September?
More significantly, is the Secretary of State aware that my initial legal advice is that there may be grounds for holding that the new draft regulations are also illegal, because, contrary to the Minister's statement, they still do not address a main reason why Mr. Justice Mann ruled in the High Court on 4 August that the original regulations were illegal? Mr. Justice Mann said:
"Those questions"
he was referring the grounds on which regulations 2(1)(a) applies—
"are questions in regard to individual cases and are not questions as to the entitlement to benefit of a class of claimant which are answerable in terms of rules of general application."
In other words, the judge concluded that the regulations were illegal, not simply because, as the Minister said, they did not contain the board and lodging areas and limits, but because they were applied to classes of individuals, and the Secretary of State had no power to do that. Is the Secretary of State aware that, on that basis, we shall be taking legal advice before next week's debate about whether the new draft regulations may also be ruled to be illegal and invalid?
As the new regulations are clearly still shot through with legal flaws as well as—more importantly—being morally and socially indefensible, will the right hon. Gentleman accept that the only honourable course for the Government is to withdraw the regulations in full and to replace them by the alternative remedies recommended by the Government's own Social Security Advisory Committee? How many times must the Government be told that the reason why total board and lodging payments have grown so sharply in years is no fault of individual claimants, but is almost entirely due to the huge increase in unemployment, especially youth unemployment, and the almost complete collapse of the housebuilding programme, especially flats for single people to rent?

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Will the Minister accept that the new, revised regulations are still not in any way addressed to the root causes of the problem, but simply twist the knife in those who have already been victimised? Will he therefore take the only proper and honourable course available to him and suspend these cruel and unreasonable regulations straightaway?
Mr. Fowler: I will not, and I am sorry that the long lay-off has not made the hon. Gentleman's judgment any better than it was before. The Cotton case resulted from the regulations which were passed by both Houses of Parliament and were scrutinised by the Joint Committee. Three issues were raised—consultation with the Social Security Advisory Committee, the unreasonable time limit and the fact that my own powers are not of a general nature so that I could lay down time limits and board and lodging areas. It was only in the last case that Mr. Justice Mann found for Mr. Cotton. That position is covered by the new regulations which specify the areas and the limits.
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says about what he terms his initial legal advice. We will obviously want to study what that initial legal advice amounts to. However, there is absolutely no question of our wanting or seeking to withdraw these regulations for the very good reason that the position before we acted was quite insupportable. Payments had increased out of all proportion. When the hon. Gentleman says that the number of boarders, for example, under 26 had trebled, that is far more than can be explained by housing problems or unemployment. We had a situation where the maximum amounts payable were determined by local offices, charges were being pushed up, and there was fraud and abuse. In other words, there was a case for action, and the Government have taken it. We shall seek to protect the interests of claimants, but the hon. Gentleman's basic case is insupportable.
Sir Hugh Rossi: As the regulations also cover payments for people in residential homes, does my right hon. Friend agree that part of the problem relating to abuse arises from overcharging, very often for extremely substandard services and accommodation for elderly people? Does he agree also that the answer is not a standard payment, which can disadvantage genuine charities which are struggling to provide a good service but are unable to do so within the standards laid down, but rather a form of investigation or inquiry into the different homes and laying down perhaps what each home should be able to charge for the service that it provides?
Mr. Fowler: Yes. I have a great deal of sympathy with that point, and that is the position to which I should like to move, but my hon. Friend, whose knowledge of these matters is substantial, will understand that it is not possible to move to that in one step. Nevertheless, there is a great deal in what he says and it is part of the review that we are conducting. I am sure my hon. Friend will also agree that one of the permanent parts of these regulations is the new increased financial limits. They will apply to residential homes and to nursing homes, and they will, I think, be welcomed by the voluntary bodies.
Mr. Simon Hughes: Will the Secretary of State take the opportunity that the court case now gives him to reconsider the whole question of time limits, particularly as before the reshuffle one Department told people to get on their bikes, and his
50
Department then told them that they could not stay where they had arrived, thus showing some inconsistency in Government policy?
In the new draft regulations the right hon. Gentleman took on board one of the points made by my colleague the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) about extending the regulations to youngsters on bail. Will he tell us whether exceptional hardship cases will cover young people who find either a job or a home, but cannot take up either until after the time limit, so that they can be counted as being in exceptional hardship for the continuing period, which may well exceed the time limit which the regulations would otherwise lay down?
Mr. Fowler: I considered the last point that the hon. Gentleman makes, but the purpose of having an exceptional hardship clause is to give even more discretion to the exemption classes which already exist, and that is the spirit in which they have been introduced. However, I shall give further consideration to that.
As the hon. Gentleman will know, the time limits are currently suspended. Under the new regulations, the time limits will remain suspended for existing boarders. The difference is that new boarders — those who become boarders after the regulations come into force, if passed by Parliament on 4 November—will be subject to time limits unless they are exempt. Financial limits have never been suspended, and of course they continue to apply.
Mr. Roger Sims: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the reason why he brought in the regulations is that there was ample evidence of abuse? If the regulations are technically defective, surely the answer is not to withdraw them, as the Opposition suggest, but to bring them into line with legal requirements, which is exactly what he is proposing.
Mr. Fowler: Yes, I think that that is the position. There is, as we all know, evidence of abuse——
Mr. Meacher: By landlords.
Mr. Fowler: The hon. Gentleman speaks of abuse by landlords, and that, of course, is correct. We all know of the advertisements that have been placed. However, l have to tell the hon. Gentleman that there is clear evidence of abuse by claimants as well. I shall give one example. [Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman will listen, he may learn something. A special fraud investigation earlier this year in Euston showed that about half of those claiming to be resident at particular hotels were no longer there—about 600 cases out of 1,200. As a result, we have asked for other checks to be carried out in all regions. So the hon. Gentleman's immediate and superficial response, that claimants are not abusing the system, is shown, I fear, to be totally wrong.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Will the Secretary of State give very careful consideration to the way in which he is attempting to railroad these regulations through the House this week and next? He prayed in aid the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments to suggest that he got them right last time round. He is now placing on that Committee an extremely heavy burden in carrying out its duty to scrutinise the regulations properly. As the Committee meets tomorrow, it will be very difficult for it to consider all the points put to it as a result of the right hon. Gentleman laying the regulations today, and if the Committee waits until next Tuesday it will be difficult to

51
produce an accurate report to enable the House to have an informed debate. Will the Secretary of State therefore consider delaying the introduction of the regulations until the House returns in the new Session?
Mr. Fowler: There is no question of my seeking to railroad this through. The Court of Appeal will be looking at the position since April. There is nothing in any action that I am proposing that will affect that, or any rights that might result from that, but it is clearly in everyone's interest to have as much certainty in the matter as possible, and the new regulations are designed to take us through the period of appeal. That avoids the prospect of confusion. It allows the Government, Parliament and the public to consider the next step, and it also avoids what could be the absurd position of going back to the situation prior to April 1985, which would mean a reduction in some of the limits — for example, in the nursing and residential homes referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi).
Mr. T. H. H. Skeet: Whilst appreciating that the matter is to be settled by appeal in November, and also appreciating the extent of the abuse, may I ask my right hon. Friend to bear in mind the totally unsatisfactory background to this problem, which is that mobility will never give a young man of 26 or under the opportunity to be in a place long enough to secure a job? This is a very real problem which my constituents face.
Mr. Fowler: That is certainly not the intention of the regulations. We have to strike a balance between allowing young people the opportunity to find a job—something which we aim to do, and will obviously encourage them to do—and avoiding a situation where, as has been shown, some have turned to a permanent way of life in which, if they find a job, they will not be able to sustain the standard of living which they have been enjoying.
Mr. Harry Cohen: Was not the Prime Minister most unwise, and characteristically inflexible, to say within days of the court decision that the regulations would be reintroduced? Are they not a source of great fear for the young homeless, and are they not detested by all the organisations that seek to help them? Are they not a recipe for more homelessness, vagrancy and crime among young people?
Mr. Fowler: For the second time this afternoon, the hon. Gentleman is exaggerating the position. It is absurd to believe that there is no problem or that things could be kept as they were, because that is clearly not the case. I think that that is recognised, perhaps even on both sides of the House. The hon. Gentleman claims that hardship has been caused. The early results of our monitoring do not show evidence of general hardship being caused by the policy. The survey in southern England showed that a quarter of claimants were covered by exemptions and that over one third, approximately, continued to live in the same accommodation. Therefore, it is not anything like the picture that the hon. Gentleman is painting.
Mr. Richard Holt: My right hon. Friend knows that many of us will support the general thrust of the new regulations, but when examining the detail, not only the time limits but the geographical definition of areas should be looked at. I am sure my right hon. Friend will
52
agree that one can hardly regard the north-east coast of England as a seaside resort in its historical context, so the four-week limit will have to be changed. Will my right hon. Friend also examine cases of people being disadvantaged when they have to leave the homes where they have been raised because of the brutality and ignorance of their parents? They will be forced to move away from all their friends, relations, churches, clubs and everything else as a result of what is liable to happen under the regulations.
Mr. Fowler: The final point raised by my hon. Friend might be dealt with under the existing exemption policy, but if it is not, that is the point of adding to the exemptions a provision whereby such exceptional hardship can be dealt with.
Mr. Charles Kennedy: Will the Secretary of State explain how he can argue, as he did this afternoon, that he is trying to represent and "protect"—to use his word—the interests of claimants when the only reason why he is here making a statement is that it is the courts that are representing the interests of claimants against his intentions?
Mr. Fowler: That is not the position. Mr. Justice Mann envisaged the possibility of amending regulations, and he framed his judgment accordingly. It is in no one's interest that there should be uncertainty over the next months. The new regulations that I am proposing will expire after six months. That is the period in which the Court of Appeal will decide, and the parties can decide on further action. The regulations will not affect those living in board and lodging accommodation at the time they come into force.
Dr. Brian Mawhinney: Bearing in mind the extra work that the regulations have generated, will my right hon. Friend pay special tribute to the officers in Department of Health and Social Security offices around the country who, at least in my constituency, have handled the extra work with professionalism and good grace? Will my right hon. Friend explain who will have the right of judgment in cases of exceptional hardship?
Mr. Fowler: I shall have the residual discretion on exceptional hardship. I should like to underline what my hon. Friend said about the staff. The staff in the DHSS have worked magnificently to deal with the situation.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: How much will this reversal in the courts cost the Government? Where will the money come from within the right hon. Gentleman's budget? What is happening in DHSS offices? Is it true that in many offices staff are working day and night to clear the backlog of cases that have come forward?
Mr. Fowler: I have no evidence of the final point raised by the hon. Gentleman. With regard to what he said at the beginning of his question, I should tell him that the matter is the subject of an appeal. We are appealing to the Court of Appeal, so before the hon. Gentleman tries to count the cost the ultimate decision must be made.
Mr. Jonathan Aitken: Will my right hon. Friend ignore the shrill and exaggerated barrack room legalisms that we have heard from the Opposition Front Bench and accept congratulations on what is a sensible, interim, tidying-up measure? From now on, will my right hon. Friend concentrate on a point that is worrying many in the communities most affected—the much suspected

53
incidence of fraud and abuse? My right hon. Friend has said that he has positive proof of such fraud. Will he say a little more about that and what he will do about it in south coast seaside towns, such as my constituency, which have been affected by it?
Mr. Fowler: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As I said, we have conducted a special fraud investigation in Euston, which showed, by any measure, a totally unsatisfactory position. The result is that I have asked for other checks to be carried out in all the regions. We would be failing totally in our responsibility if we did any less than that. In addition, there is evidence of different charges being made, with DHSS claimants being charged a higher rate than ordinary residents. That all adds up to the fact that it is not enough to say that the existing situation can be preserved, because the position before we took action was totally unsatisfactory.
Mr. John Butterfill: I should like to be associated with the representations made to my right hon. Friend by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) on residential rest homes. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on what he is doing for cases of exceptional hardship. However, representing as I do a seaside town, I should like to say that we still have a considerable problem which is not entirely solved by my right hon. Friend's statement today.
I was in my local DHSS office in Poole only on Friday, and the staff were not, as was suggested by Opposition Members, inundated with a backlog, but they do have a considerable problem. There are still thousands of claimants in my constituency, many of whom have no intention of seeking work. That is evidenced by what my local DHSS office tells me. It also told me on Friday that there is no doubt that charges by boarding houses in my constituency were put up substantially, to the maximum level. In fact, that became the minimum level. Therefore, we have an acute problem, and I urge my right hon. Friend to deal with it as quickly as possible.
Mr. Fowler: I hear what my hon. Friend says, that a balance must be held, but the evidence that the Department
54
and I are receiving is that some of the major problems, particularly in some of the seaside resorts, have become considerably easier over the past month. However, I shall look further at the point raised by my hon. Friend.
Mr. Meacher: May I ask three questions arising from earlier questions? How will the Secretary of State seriously exercise the discretionary exemption himself? Did I hear him say that he would reserve that power to himself? How will that operate in any widespread way? Secondly, does the right hon. Gentleman really believe that two, four or even eight weeks is enough time for a young person to get a job, when no fewer than a quarter of young people leaving school are unemployed? Thirdly, will the right hon. Gentleman tell us how many young people have been forced out of their bed and breakfast accommodation, or board and lodgings, since 29 April as a result of the regulations'?
Mr. Fowler: On the last point, we have only the early results of our own monitoring at present, but I shall try to make the evidence that we have available to the House before the order is debated next week. For example, as I have said, our monitoring in southern England showed that one quarter of claimants were covered by exemptions, and that more than one third continued to live in the same accommodation. It has also shown that no general hardship is being caused by the policy.
The time limits, again, are a matter of judgment. We have debated this time and again and my hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security has gone over this on countless occasions. I believe that reasonable time is allowed for people to look for jobs in a particular area.
On the question of discretion, the exemption policy already covers a wide range of situations, and probably about one quarter of all cases are covered by the existing exemption policy. In addition, I shall now have discretion to exempt cases of exceptional hardship. Clearly. such exemption will be exercised through the DHSS, and particularly through the headquarters division of the DHSS.

Steel Industry
5.30 pm
Mr. Tom Clarke: 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,
"British Steel's intention to close the Gartcosh plant and the implications for the future of the steel industry."
At this moment, a number of my colleagues — including my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) and my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) and for Motherwell, South (Dr. Bray)—are meeting the TUC steel committee to discuss the decision, announced by British Steel during the parliamentary recess, to close the Gartcosh plant in my constituency by 31 March next year. That decision came as a great blow to my constituents and caused great concern to many people in Scotland. British Steel says that just over 700 jobs will be lost, but we know that, because of the knock-on effects, we are thinking in terms of more than 1,000 jobs in a very hard-pressed area, which is looking for new jobs rather than wishing to experience the loss of any of the jobs that we now have.
In addition, there is extremely grave concern about the Ravenscraig complex of which Gartcosh is very much a part. Gartcosh is the cold finishing mill for Ravenscraig and clearly its biggest customer. If Gartcosh is removed and there is not the reasonable investment in Ravenscraig that Scottish people rightly demand, there will be great worry across the whole political spectrum in Scotland about the future of this very important plant, the closure of which would be devastating for the industrial future of west central Scotland.
On 2 July the Prime Minister told us that the House would be made aware of British Steel's plans for these matters, but, although the announcement was made in the recess and is now being implemented, the House has had
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no discussion whatever on this major decision by British Steel. It seems to me right that there should be discussion and debate on this and that we should consider the implications, not just for my constituency, important and profound though they are, but for the whole of the British steel industry — in Wales and England as well as in Scotland. I believe that the steel industry and its future is essential to our manufacturing base and I know that this is of the utmost importance in the priorities that the House has set.
In Scotland we are gravely concerned about the unemployment situation that we face. In my constituency, because of the decline of major industries in an area that was once prominent in the mining, steel and iron industries, there have been so many closures that one village after another has faced devastation, and what was once known as the "iron burgh" of Coatbridge has hardly a steel job left. In those circumstances, a debate on the future of the British steel industry is of the utmost importance.
I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for listening and I know that the House will give due regard to the case that I have made.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter that he thinks should have urgent consideration, namely,
"British Steel's intention to close the Gartcosh plant and the implications for the future of the steel industry."
I have listened with great care to what the hon. Member has said. He knows that my sole duty in considering an application under Standing Order No. 10 is to decide whether it should be given priority over the business already set down for this evening or tomorrow. I regret that I cannot find that the matter raised by the hon. Member meets all the criteria laid down in the Standing Order and, therefore, I cannot submit his application to the House.

Design and Innovation
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lennox-Boyd.]
5.35 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. John Butcher): I am delighted that at long last the House has an opportunity to debate the very important industrial issue of the role of design and innovation in the economic wellbeing of our nation.
I am delighted to report that in Washington DC in August this year I was honoured to receive, on behalf of the Government, a unique award from the Congress of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design. In his generous tribute, the congress chairman, Mr. Deane Richardson, said that the award recognised the British Government's
"long term and increasingly active support of design"
and their
"unparalleled commitment to the contribution design can make, not only to industry, but to people the world over".
Putting this award in its context surely sets the scene for today's debate.
The performance of our manufacturing industry is of critical importance to the United Kingdom's future economic strength and, of course, to standards of living. Manufactures account for 68 per cent. of our total exports of goods and services. Manufacturing is exposed much more directly than many service industries to international competition and its competitiveness is therefore critical to the future of the entire economy. Together with capital investment, the exploitation of innovation provides the driving force for maintaining and increasing our share of today's fiercely competitive world markets.
The importance that the Government attach to manufacturing is shown by the wide range of schemes of assistance provided by the Department of Trade and Industry. Direct financial assistance to industry amounted to around £1,500 million in 1984–85 with over 90 per cent. going to manufacturing. My Department's support for the innovation programme supplements the general assistance available for research and development under the Science and Technology Act by a number of specific schemes aimed at encouraging greater awareness of the new technologies, at providing help with consultancy services and training and, where necessary, at giving assistance with research and development investment.
This Government's support for innovation in industry has increased from almost £94 million in 1980–81 to some £240 million in the current year. In 1978–79, the previous Administration were spending less than £40 million on innovation in industry. This was complemented by a variety of sectoral schemes to encourage short-term capital investment in industries such as drop forging and red meat slaughterhouses. The Government have turned their back on short-term sectoral measures and are encouraging innovatory application of a wide range of enabling technologies that cut across the needs of all innovative industries. Our aim is to ensure a lasting contribution to competitiveness. Support for robotics, microelectronics, biotechnology and optical fibres, for example, has continued to grow and has demonstrated its effectiveness in industry.
We are redirecting our innovation support to deal with the major inhibitions to exploitation and use of technology
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in industry. Companies are now much more profitable than they were during the recession, when they were investing in short and medium-term product developments in order to stay in business. We now want United Kingdom companies to get ahead of the game and so are encouraging, through publicity and consultancy schemes, an awareness of the new technological products. We want to encourage innovatory, collaborative research and development projects to enhance confidence in market prospects for new products. We want to help companies to extend their technical base through collaboration with universities and polytechnics. For example. our teaching company scheme budget will expand from £3 million now to £5·2 million in two years' time. In cash terms, the Department will be increasing its support of these non-project activities by 50 per cent. by 1987–88. In addition, we are stressing the vital importance of adequate supplies of trained manpower through studies such as the information technology skills shortages committee — which I chaired — which has been instrumental in helping the higher education sector respond more rapidly to the changing needs of industry.
Through these schemes, we are encouraging the development and use of key enabling technologies — information technology, fibre optics and robotics, for example—which draw on several scientific disciplines and which have applications across the mature as well as the new industries. The aim is to help companies over the first hurdle in the acquisition and application of new technology, after which companies can be expected to use their own resources.
Sir Terence Beckett said recently that a company that operates in a competitive environment must innovate to keep up with its rivals. In the modern world, a company's intellectual capital—its designs, patents, know-how and knowledge—are more important than its fixed assets in determining its earning power and even its capacity to survive.
Innovation in British companies, therefore, should not he regarded as a one-off event separate from the rest of business. Innovation should be treated as an essential feature of company operation. The problem is deep-seated, and we must work to bring about the necessary change of attitude. There are now encouraging signs that bankers and financial advisers are paying more attention to intellectual capital in their analysis of investment opportunities.
In the main, today's successful trading nations are categorised by their close attention to the rapidly changing demands of the market place and by the quality and design of their products. In fulfilment of this principle, my Department has been running its quality and design campaigns, both of which are aimed at changing management attitudes.
The British Government are very aware that in design, and in the skill of our designers, industry has the ideal mechanism to reforge and reinvigorate our economy. This mechanism needs constant attention. Having held the Government's design portfolio for three and a half years, I have learnt that there must be a long-term commitment to design from Government if our economic recovery is to be sustained on meeting new and growing sectors of market demand.
We have that commitment. We have a policy that includes a new recognition of the importance and desirable status of engineers, designers and technologists. The

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Government are committed to maximising the role of all design disciplines in improving our country's economic health and in supporting a higher quality of life.
What is more, we now have the three major building blocks that we need to ensure success. First, we have a design education and training system which is one of the best in the world and recognised as such by our big competitors overseas, many of whom employ British designers in key positions. Secondly, we have the successful industrial firms with established worldwide reputations for excellent design, firms, which can act as standard bearers for the rest of industry. To take the automotive and aerospace industries, for example, we have Jaguar whose XJ12 is, if hon. Members will forgive a little personal prejudice, the finest production sports-saloon car in the world. There is also Hawker Siddeley whose Harrier jump jet is internationally renowned, and the March 84C racing car designed by March Engineering using the world-famous Cosworth engine. The car won the 1985 Duke of Edinburgh prize for design excellence. There were 14 finishers at last year's Indianapolis 500, all of which were March 84Cs.
Thirdly, we have the professional organisations such as the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers, representing 7,000 industrial designers and the representative bodies of engineering designers including the Institution of Engineering Designers. There is also the Design Council, which is the Government's principal agent in design, and which, as the House knows, plays such an important role in promoting the benefits of good design. It is essential that these building blocks are put together in a coherent way if they are to form the foundations upon which success can be built.
My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister chose to discuss this subject at a seminar on product design and market success at 10 Downing street in January 1982 with a group of 60 industrialists, designers, educationists and Ministers. The holding of that seminar was to prove a crucial turning point in this country's attitude to design.
When I studied the outcome of the seminar, the first point that struck me was the extent to which design influences nearly all aspects of manufacture. It affects the ease and economy of manufacture, ease of maintenance, reliability, choice and use of materials, appearance. presentation, ergonomics, fitness for purpose and corporate identity. The second point was that designers and their supporters are full of innovative ideas. We had some 40 suggestions at the seminar and nearly all turned out to be suitable for Government action. It was my responsibility to see that we got on with the job.
We set out within a few months of the seminar to encourage the enlightened use of design consultancy. With the Design Council acting as our agents, we set up the design advisory service-funded consultancy scheme — now part of the Department of Trade and Industry's business and technical advisory service — which provides small and medium-sized firms with financial assistance to use top-flight designers. So far, I am delighted to report, the scheme has received more than 3,200 requests for assistance and nearly 2,000 projects have been completed. Projects completed during the first year are already demonstrating increased market share, increased profits, increased sales, increased production and, of course, increased jobs.
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The scheme was not introduced to give birth to a Harrier jump jet or a Rolls-Royce engine. Its purpose is to encourage management in small and medium-sized firms to recognise the practical. balance sheet benefits of design input, and to realise that good design improves market share, is a good investment and should be a crucial part of their business.
I am delighted with the results so far. Apart from the benefits to a firm's bottom line, consultants are reporting that they have formed long-term relationships with new clients and that they are being used to help companies strengthen their in-house design capabilities. Many managers are reporting a higher level of design activity in their companies. To help publicise all these benefits an exhibition of case studies is touring the country.
Having got the funded consultancy scheme off the ground in 1982 we turned our attention to parallel methods of raising senior management's awareness of design. In early 1983 we mounted a brief but intense advertising campaign, its purpose being mainly to get people talking about good design. We put advertisements in national newspapers and specialist magazines over a period of three weeks. We followed that with a series of seminars all over the country throughout 1983 under the title "Design for Profit". They were aimed at senior managers, particularly chief executives and finance directors. They were attended by nearly 1,500 managers and they led to a doubling of applications for help under the funded consultancy scheme.
In February 1984, we held a design seminar for financial institutions to encourage them to take a firm's product design and development policy into account when making investment decisions. We have recently supported a series of four seminars on design management organised by the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers.
There has been a considerable increase in design coverage by press, radio and television since the campaign began. Many managers are reporting a higher level of design activity in their companies and many designers are reporting a greater demand for their services. This is all very welcome.
Alongside the awareness activities we have also begun to support a wide range of activities in education and training. In the context of education, one of our most important tasks is to encourage the sort of cultural change that is needed to ensure that future generations have an inherent understanding of design and an appreciation of the value of well-designed objects. We also need to develop a national culture that honours manufacturing industry as much as it honours pure research or the established professions such as law and medicine. Let me mention just some of our design education initiatives where we have deliberately chosen to work at every level from infant education to postgraduate and post-experience training.
We have asked the Design Council to study existing practice in all design-related education in primary schools and to prepare a report recommending action that should be taken to ensure that best practice is disseminated right through the primary education system. We are concerned in this initiative with design as part of general education, thus helping the cultural change we wish to bring about. We have also noticed that such education can have a dramatic effect on the performance of students assessed as below standard against conventional academic criteria. Ability in reading, writing, drawing and mathematics

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improves considerably when taught in the context of a design-related subject. For example, a project on the pyramids can and should involve all these skills, as well as the historical dimension.
We are giving support over a six-year period to a curriculum development project which is aimed mainly at helping to fill gaps in the vocational design education curriculum at secondary and tertiary level. Other organisations are playing their part. For example, the Business and Technician Education Council, through vigorous leadership from its board for design, is endeavouring to promote quality in design education by concentrating on the range of skills that a designer should have. In particular, BTEC is promoting the need for students to have as part of their design courses relevant work experience so that their education is set in the context of the real commercial world; "hands on" experience of various forms and uses of new technology and the requirement to develop basic skills in business to relate design to costs and competing in the market place.
At the far end of the scale, we are supporting both the work of the design management unit at the London Business School and the implementation of a report by the Council for National Academic Awards on design management education in polytechnics and colleges. Both of these activities fit in with our aim of increasing the awareness among managers of the benefits of good design by ensuring that they then have the skills to absorb the design input into their corporate strategy.
A pilot scheme, entitled "Young Designers into Industry", has just begun. Under the scheme 12 new textile graduates will spend six months to a year in selected companies on a carefully planned and monitored programme of industrial experience. If the pilot is a success, we hope to extend the scheme gradually to other industry sectors involving up to 200 young designers.
Last year I was satisfied that we had got things moving on a number of fronts. A wide variety of useful initiatives had been taken. The time had come to ensure that the initiatives were all pulling towards commonly agreed aims and objectives. I therefore prepared and published a policy document entitled "Design for Design: A framework for Action". I believe that this is unique and that no other Government have put design into their industrial strategy in this way before.
Hon. Members who have seen a copy of that document may also have noted that it bears the stamp of a designer. It is the first Whitehall policy document whose layout was designed by an outside designer. No doubt its clarity speaks for that particular input. In it, I set out the Government's principal objectives in their design policy. They were, first, to continue to increase awarenesss in industry and commerce of the benefits of good design; secondly, to encourage greater consciousness of good design by customers; and, thirdly, to reinforce the importance of design education and training at all levels.
We sought a mechanism that would structure all future design initiatives so that they met these objectives. As a result, a strategy group was established, based in the Design Council, which reported at the end of 1984. Detailed recommendations for action were prepared and were put to Government for decision. At a meeting with the Design Council several months ago, I was able to welcome the report and provide the council with an additional grant of £500.000 to enable it to get further activities started.
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We have achieved quite a lot since the Prime Minister's seminar in January 1982. I think it is clear that we could not have done so without wholehearted support from designers and from their representative bodies such as the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers, from other bodies such as the Royal Society of Arts and colleges such as the Royal College of Art. And, above all, we have had the firm and staunch support of an experienced design promotion body, the Design Council.
We can be proud of this achievement. We can be proud of our designers. We car be proud of our successful manufacturers, whose design and quality-led attack on international markets is winning back for us some of our lost market share. They are the companies where jobs are secure because they are based not on artificial subsidies but on real profits derived from success. We want more companies to follow this example, and that is what we are working towards.
By the end of this financial year the Government will have trebled the spend on design initiatives since 1982 and helped over 3,000 firms to improve their design capability and therefore their profitability.
This Government have a unique commitment to the sponsorship of design as a major force for industrial innovation, and so over the last four years the Government have increased expenditure on design promotion from £4 million in 1982 to nearly £12 million in 1985–86. I can think of no more cost-effective item of public expenditure on the industrial front.
I welcome — if that is what is happening this afternoon — the politicisation of the design debate, though not in party political terms but as a method of raising the general awareness of the importance of good design as a key factor in improving the competiveness of all sectors of industry and commerce.
Britain's industrial problems are largely due to a mismatch in our economy — that is, an economy which has until recently committed too many of its national human and capital resources to the production of goods for which demand is low or stagnant and not enough of such resources to the production of goods for which demand is high and growing. Our talented designers are the key link between market demands and a company's production facilities. As such, they are a key element — in my view, the key element — in leading our national industrial fight back.
5.59 pm
Mr. Geoffrey Robinson: The whole House will agree that today's debate is important. It is the first time in about 20 years that we have debated industrial innovation and design in a linked context. it is unfortunate that today's debate has been so severely contracted by the important preceding private notice question and statements. Nevertheless, in the time that is still available to us certain important points need to be made direct to the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry who seems to be living in a completely different world from that which is known to me as it concerns manufacturing industry in the west midlands, through the continuing loss of market share and the continuing inadequacy of product and process innovation in British industry.
It does the Minister no good to indulge in orgies of self-congratulation and complacency, because he knows that innovation in design, particularly in manufacturing, has

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never been worse. A recent report on overseas trade by the Select Committee on Trade and Industry makes it dramatically clear that the crisis facing British industry, particularly in those areas to which the Minister referred as being growth areas, is acute and becoming worse. Under unchanged Government policies it can only become even worse, to the point of being terminal.
The Minister rightly directed most of his remarks to industrial innovation. Before dealing with that I shall refer to the Design Centre and the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers, to which the Minister also referred. We welcome the award to the Government and we do not wish to spoil the flourish and obvious personal delight that the Minister took in going to Washington to receive the award.
I shall put to the Minister some questions which have been put to me by various bodies, notably by the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers about its centre for design studies.
Throughout the debate we shall come up against the Government's credibility gap — the gap between what they say and what they do. Unlike President Truman, who advised observers of the political scene in America not to read his speeches but to look at his budgets and spending, this Government plead with us to believe their speeches despite the directly contradictory evidence of their Budgets and spending cuts.
Within the greatly increased design budget. will the Minister support the SIAD initiatives in establishing a centre for design studies? I am sure the Minister is aware of the purposes for which that centre is being established. It aims to bring design more closely in touch with manufacturing industry, to bring the institutions teaching design in closer touch with the manufacturing sector and to bring design studies more closely within the secondary education system. They are laudable aims. Does the Minister intend to commit himself to provide money to support his words?
Can the Minister explain why design, which has been declared a priority in education, has not been allocated a penny piece? I accept that this is not the Minister's direct responsibility, but there is an overlap in which he has a direct interest. Priority for this Government simply means to be spared the chop.
The Government's cuts are having a severely deleterious effect in other areas. One has only to look at the bleak, forbidding appearance of the Tottenham Court road police station and contrast it with the private sector modernisations in the Tottenham Court road shopping area—Habitat, Heal's and Laskys—to realise how far the Government are from setting an example in design.
The economic benefits of good design are becoming increasingly accepted and understood, thanks to the excellent work, despite the hostility displayed by the Secretary of State for Education and Science, of the science policy research unit at Sussex university. Social benefits could be exploited by a Government committed to relating in a meaningful, human way to the people whom they represent and with whom, through various offices, they are daily in direct and widespread contact.
In computer parlance, the Government should go for a "friendly approach", but that language and such concepts are foreign to the Government's ideology. The quality of
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the social environment—the interface in hospital waiting rooms, police stations and jobcentres—could be much improved. The scope is enormous.
Such an achievement requires the Government to practise what they preach. Like any other service, good design needs customers and purchasers. The Government could and should be major purchasers of good design. They could influence and promote good design by an enlightened and benign public sector building programme. The Government cannot adopt such a policy because they are hung up on the perverted logic that Government spending destroys jobs and inhibits initiative. Meanwhile, fully trained architects and designers join the brain drain or the dole queue. About 500,000 construction workers are eager to be back at work.
Design, important and central though it is, and integral as it must be to the manufacturing and process industries, cannot be a substitute for product and process innovation. Britain has a proud history of industrial innovation. We are pioneers of the industrial revolution. Britain is the land that gave birth to the jet engine and radar, to penicillin and cephalosporium. It has made a long and proud contribution to the world's industrial and medical progress.
More recently, publicly funded research through the Medical Research Council discovered the fundamental genetic code of human life, the double helix. Crick and Watson are two outstanding Nobel prize winners. Their work has been continued by Cesar Milstein, who is also a Nobel prize winner and is also working at the MRC laboratory at Cambridge. On his fundamental research into monochromal antibodies will be built not only life saving drugs to cure cancer, and to prevent rejection in transplants, but the industries of the 21st century and the forthcoming biotechnological revolution which will equal, if not surpass, the microelectronic revolution of today in its implications for food production, energy creation and the prolongation of life itself.
The continuation of that proud heritage of outstanding intellectual achievement, derived from unique scientific research and development, is put at risk by the Government's policy. The perversity is hard to believe. The Government, recognising the achievements and even, as today, schizophrenically proclaiming them, are cutting back systematically and destructively year in and year out on Britain's scientific research effort. I say that the Government are perverse because their simpliste argument is that. because we are good at research and not so good at exploiting it, if we cut back on research we shall achieve better development and application. That argument is all wrong. It is a total non sequitur.
Certainly, our basic research has been good. Certainly, we have not exploited it as we should. There is no reason for us to be complacent about our achievements in basic research, but the Government's cuts in research budgets in all the research councils, the cuts in the universities' capacity to promote research and the cuts imposed on the University Grants Committee have not been made good in real terms through product innovation, as the Minister knows.
I shall deal later with the five months moratorium and the disastrous effect that it had when the Minister of State succeeded his predecessor and promptly undid the little good work that had been done previously. To emphasise the importance of the commercial exploitation of research, and indeed, as I would, to go further and accord to it as great an intellectual and cultural distinction as that

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traditionally recorded to basic scientific research. does not, and cannot be allowed to, lead to the destruction of the latter. However, that is where the Government's policies are leading us. If the Minister does not believe me or the clear statements made by the Labour party and the TUC, he should listen to the most distinguished scientists charged with the research and development effort throughout the country, who for the last three years have been pleading with the Government for a change of policy.
The president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science threw away a prepared speech and delivered an impassioned plea to the Government to reverse their policies. In its heavy document "Future Business", the TUC pointed out only too clearly that the future was being prejudiced by short-term cuts.
Sir John Kingman, chairman of the Science and Engineering Research Council, and Sir David Phillips, chairman of the Advisory Board for the Research Councils, have pointed out that the Government are hacking away at the scientific base to a point where Britain will no longer rank among the best in the world. They have said that, not only because it is right that Britain should be at the forefront of fundamental scientific research in its own right, not only because we are good at doing that, not only because British fundamental research and science have been the envy of the world, but because they understand that we should not hinder or stand in the way of the application of that research and development but that, on the contrary, without it we should have even less chance of proceeding and developing as an industrial nation.
Those were the very words used by Sir Hans Kornberg, president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, when he threw away his prepared speech at Strathclyde university a month or two ago, and said:
"I am convinced that in the long term we cannot hope to prosper as exploiters of imported ideas, any more than we can hope to prosper as the assemblers of imported parts."
That is the message that the Government must take on board. Our future must lie in exploiting the fruits of basic theoretical research. We cannot do that by cutting research. It is not a question of robbing Peter to pay Paul; it is robbing Peter to starve Paul.
Where have Government policies led us? Has there been any switch from theoretical fundamental research into applied research and development in manufacturing industry? Of course there has not. What has happened to research? The Minister talks about record profits and industry now being able to embark on a process of industrial and product innovation, product improvement and the things vital to the recapture of industrial markets in a highly competitive world economy, but what has happened? Overall, the figures since the Conservative party took office show that research and development have fallen in manufacturing industry by no less than 6 per cent. In the sector with the highest growth rate worldwide, information technology, since the Government took power a relatively neutral position in our balance of trade has been turned into a deficit of £2·3 billion. With unchanged policies, that deficit is projected to reach £10 billion. Employment in that sector has fallen by 12 per cent. since 1980 and British production has increased by only 44 per cent., while imports have increased by 110 per cent. That is the real world, and the one which the Minister appears to be ignoring. If there is time, when he replies to the debate, I hope that he will address himself to that world.
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Every impartial observer knows that the position is grave. What is true of information technology is true of the whole spectrum of British manufacturing industry. Lack of industrial innovation is pervasive and increasing. The United Kingdom is losing out because of lack of product and process development in one market after another.
Let us again consider information technology and look at the NEDO report published at the end of last year, entitled "Crisis facing UK Information Technology". It states that it is
"concerned that the industry is close to a threshold below which an independent, broad-based UK IT industry would no longer be viable."
Perhaps the Minister will square that with his earlier remarks. The report continues
"We believe that new policies are urgently needed, on the part of industry and of government, to attempt to reverse the decline before it is too late."
The decline is there, and it is pervasive. It is happening in information technology and microelectronics, and the only reaction from the Government was a five-month moratorium imposed at the end of last year and surreptitiously introduced while my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith) was at the Dispatch Box, the outcome of which was to cut the already grossly inadequate support for industry by £10 million. Those are the facts and the figures which we have put across from the Dispatch Box time and time again.
If the Minister does not believe me, he should read what the former Secretary of State, predictably elevated to chairman of his party, said—that there would be less in real terms. Of course there is less in real terms—that is the whole burden of this Government's policy. It is to provide less and expect industry to do more. That would work if other countries felt the same way, but we know that they do not. Other countries are investing far more in their support for innovation and the design and development of new products and processes in their industries. It would work if there was any evidence that industry was, in fact, making that investment, but all the evidence is to the contrary. Research and development investment is down 6 per cent., and investment itself is down 25 per cent. From where will the rebirth and the regeneration come?
If the Minister does not accept what I say, let him read what Richard Bullock has said. I believe that he was a deputy secretary in the Minister's Department. He is a formidable mandarin and no supporter of my party. He is now secretary of the Electronic Components Industry Federation. He said about Government support for innovation:
"We are pleased the electronics grants have been released from the moratorium but in comparison with our European competitors the money looks pretty feeble."
Of course it does, because it is.
Last year—the most recent figures available—the Government invested £38 million in electronics — a growing sector and the centre of what is happening in information technology. That compares with West Germany's support of £61 million and French support of £188 million. That is the true face of Government support for industrial innovation—accept the minimum that the Treasury will concede and then cut it further to show the Prime Minister what good boys they are. We expect the Department of Trade and Industry to support innovation in industry, not to kow-tow cravenly to the Treasury's obsessive preoccupation with cutting Government expenditure.

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The Labour party believes that it is not yet too late to deal with the fundamental problems. There is no need yet to become fatally pessimistic about British industry's capacity to innovate and regain markets in key technologies. The key technologies are well known to all hon. Members — microelectronics, computer-aided design and manufacture, second generation robotics that have vision, biotechnology and fibre optics. What is needed is a policy along the broad lines of the Lords' report, which comes hard on the heels of numerous other reports—to all of which the Government have turned a deaf ear before they have read them.
We need a sound basis of continuing and greater Government support. We need the creative, positive use of Government purchasing power to back British products and British innovation. We need the provision of medium-term risk capital, working capital and capital for investment in plant, machinery and marketing over a medium-term period, at modest rates of interest. We need also—over a period of time because it will be difficult to get it—a determined effort to switch the emphasis of Government-funded research and development away from defence to civilian projects.
As all Opposition Members will be aware, the Minister's speech was an abject exercise in self-congratulatory illusions—illusions that the Government are supporting British design, when the public sector, its architecture, premises and facilities offer some of the lowest standards of design. When confronted with an opportunity to extend the economic case for good design to the social enhancement of people's relationship with Government Departments, with inevitable bureaucracy the Government have resolutely refused to put their money behind their words of support.
Even worse than the Government's refusal to take a lead and set an example in the area of design has been their three-pronged attack on Britain's ability to carry out industrial innovation. They have cut our research establishments, cut the research carried out at universities, and cut the output of key graduates in the key technologies that we need for the future. There are fewer people now graduating in engineering, electronics and computer technology than when the Government took office. Above all, they have reduced their support for innovation.
Those policies must be reversed. We must have a positive planning mechanism for deciding key innovative technologies for the future. We must have the will to finance them, jointly with the private sector, in a medium-term programme. We must have a sustained programme of support for fundamental research in the universities and research councils. All of that can be done only by a Government who believe in working with industry, who believe that British industry can innovate and compete, who believe that British industry can regain lost markets and who believe that it is the job of the Government to work with industry to enable that to be done.
The present Government have lost faith in British industry. Nothing that we heard from the Minister today can lead us to any other conclusion, ignoring the rhetoric and considering only the facts. Before the doom-laden prophesy of the Lords' report is borne out, the Labour party will be returned to power to carry forward industrial product and process innovation as a basis for rebuilding our manufacturing sector.
6.21 pm
Mr. Kenneth Warren: We thought that this would be a quiet debate at the end of the Session, but it is clear from the peroration of the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson) that it is likely to be livened up somewhat. However, it is not inappropriate to hit at the question of innovation and design because the subject has been neglected for long by the House. I suppose that, as a subject, it stretches all the way from Habitat, the company, to Hiroshima, because there are good and bad things about design.
While I have no desire to upstage the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West following his remarks about the report from the House of Lords, he should recall that the House of Commons Select Committee on Trade and Industry, of which I have the honour to be Chairman, reported on the subject matter of the debate a year ago and drew the attention of hon. Members to the fact that we are in a parlous situation in terms of our manufacturing industry.
The Lords pointed out that if our oil ran out at the end of this century, we should be faced with a balance of payments problem, which would have to be solved, of about £10 billion a year. This represents about 1 million jobs. We shall have to solve that problem, but it will not be solved in the way in which some of the economics twitterers sitting on the safe perches in Fleet street believe it can be solved, simply by switching to service industries.
Following the excellent start that the Minister gave the debate, I hope that my hon. Friend will appreciate that those of us who are deeply interested in the success of manufacturing in Britain are concerned about the wellbeing of the skills that are in industry and about the way in which, we hope, we can revive those skills to improve the employment and the wealth of the nation. While we have time to recognise the problems and do something about them, we do not have time to believe that such problems do not exist.
At the conclusion of this debate we shall probably all agree that action is essential, and I hope that the Minister will assure the House that the comments of hon. Members will give rise to action, because there is much in the fertile seeds of innovation that lie in the palm of the Government to develop, the Government being the bigget single customer in Britain and having the duty, whether they are or are not interventionist, to be an entrepreneur. In other words, the Government have a duty to respond to the opportunities that can be presented and to lead by example.
I declare an interest as an engineer with several patents to my name or to which I have contributed and as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. I have noticed in the work of the Royal Society of Arts during the five years or so during which I have been a Fellow that each year the society turns its attention to the way in which for many decades innovation has been neglected in Britain. I am pleased, therefore, that the Government are today rising to the chance as well as to the challenge of making innovation and design a catch phrase in their programme.
It is certain, in historical terms, that whether the opportunities of design and innovation come from the cultural and historical style of the Renaissance or from the needs of war, encouragement is essential and patronage by people and Governments has been proved in the past to be essential to make that flower flourish. One cannot make

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people innovative. They can only be encouraged to do so. It is fascinating to note, for example, that more than a century ago a Select Committee of this House looked into the whole problem of arts and manufactures and the way in which to encourage innovation. Sir Lyon Playfair said at about that time:
"The engines of Watt and Stevenson have already expanded the wealth and resources, and even the territories, of England more than all the battles fought by her soldiers or all the treaties negotiated by her diplomats."
The Prime Minister did a marvellous job yesterday in the Bahamas, and I hope that the Foreign Office is on her side. The fact remains that in the present situation, which is not new, the contributions from the back benches of industry have advanced the abilities and wealth of the nation much more than they have been given credit for doing.
Innovation takes time. From invention to innovation — the encouragement of invention so as to achieve innovation — can take a great time. Simple and commonplace devices can take much longer to reach the market place than one might imagine. For example, the ballpoint pen took 58 years from invention to reaching the market place, and where would the House of Commons be today without that device? Detergents took 42 years to reach the market place. Magnetic tape recording — beloved by many of us, though I must be careful about the way in which I put this, considering the interests of our secretaries—took 39 years. The jet engine, to which the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West referred, took only 13 years, but with the incentive of war. The zipper, without which we could not do anything, took 32 years to reach the market place.
There is a long time constant between the reality of saying what we want to do and the actuality of a good product at a recognisable price in the market place. It is true, however, at the other end of the scale that commodities such as oxygen in steelmaking took only three years, and synthetic penicillin, thank goodness, took only two years to get from the invention stage to the market place.
I endorse the praise of the Minister for the Royal Society of Arts, the Design Council, the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers and BTEC. A clear theme emerges. We know how to innovate, how to design and how to get the tasks completed by producing products in the market place. The trouble is that time and again—this was stated in 1835 when, as I said, a Select Committee of the House looked into the very subject that we are debating today—we seem to have to invent the wheel. I am almost inclined to feel that a wheel is circular because it is a compromise of design, with hon. Members sitting round it trying to work out the optimum shape.
Six aspects are clear as to how to get good design going. The first is to achieve well designed artifacts. That means the ability to exchange knowledge about markets, designers, engineers and profit in such a way as to balance the whole. That is a feature of good companies strong in innovation and design, and it is nothing new.
The second aspect is good market research — an understanding of what people want — because the problem with innovation and design is to make sure that there is not just scientific push put market pull. The video cassette recorder is a good example of that. Wherever it was invented, Mr. Morita of Sony realised that the public
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wanted it before they knew they wanted it, and he pulled them towards the cassette recorder. Hence Japan's domination of that market.
The third aspect is product support; the fourth is represented by the good old word "flair"; the fifth is design authority to make sure that somebody at the top of a company knows that there is a requirement for design authority and sees that it is exercised; and the sixth, probably the most important, is the need in companies to make sure that there is commitment and concern throughout top management to good practices. These requirements apply to manufacturers and to service industries such as tourism where the customer measures his own investment by the quality of the product. It all adds up to an attitude of mind.
There is another problem and it was identified by the Select Committee a year ago. The Select Committee in another place has also drawn Parliament's attention to it. Over the past 30 years the West Germans and the Japanese have increased their market share to the level that Britain enjoyed 30 years ago. Over the same period Britain's market share has just about halved. These are figures that cannot be ignored. They reflect the realities of competitiveness in the market place.
Over the past 30 years import penetration in manufactured goods has increased. In the 1950s, only about 5 per cent. of our manufactures were imported, but imports are now 30 per cent. What are the reasons for that?
Everyone argues that we must be competitive, and I suggest that there are two features to which we must pay attention, the first being price competitiveness. We are all familiar with the well-rehearsed arguments that are advanced on both sides of the House about inflation rates, the cost control of wages and the value of fluctuating exchange rates. I suggest that we do not pay enough attention to non-price factors.
It is unfortunate that there is not enough information on non-price factors and that that which is available is not particularly recent. The most recent information that I have found relates to 1965 and 1971. I ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to consider turning the resources of Government to the task of ascertaining what is going on in this area. About 20 years ago the following question was posed: "Why buy foreign machine tools in Britain?" Since then the machine tool industry, especially in the midlands, has suffered dramatically from not understanding the problem. Delivery, specification and the superiority of product support accounted for 84 per cent. of customer choice. Opportunities for reciprocal trade accounted for 11 per cent. and the price factor accounted for only 5 per cent. We must not believe that to contain ourselves within a low wage economy will make us export competitive. I believe that everyone should give a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, but there should be a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.
Customer choice of non-price factors may explain why we see so many over-priced German cars on our roads. The Americans found that they were successful exporters when they had a high-wage economy. It is extraordinary that the non-price factors account for nearly two thirds of customer choice. It seems that price is not the most significant factor. If a company offers a good quality product and supports it well, it will attract customers. If price is so important, surely the United States, Switzerland and Sweden should have as much unemployment as we have.

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My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State made an excellent speech but I must challenge what he said about designers going abroad. He claimed that it was a good thing, but I find it a dangerous trend. Designers have gone abroad — the Royal Society of Arts conducted an investigation into this—because they are underpaid in Britain. Those with higher degrees or degrees find that they are earning only 5 per cent. more than those who have not bothered to qualify. That leads many to ask, "Why qualify?" About 60 per cent. of those who have qualified in fashion design are unemployed. I am sure that my hon. Friend does not wish skilled people to be faced with such a shortage of employment opportunities.
There are real problems for the future and this can be measured by the way in which patents are being registered. In 1984, six out of the top 10 companies in the United States registering patents were foreign owned and there was not one British company among them. The Americans are worried because they had only four out of the top 10. I am worried because Britain was not represented at all.
We have real opportunities to innovate and to use the skills of our designers. I commend to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the work of the science policy research unit at Sussex university, which is examining how design and innovation can be encouraged. We have the ability to grow faster than we have so far. I am not happy with the present position. We must look to the Government to re-think their investment programme in terms of education and investment in basic science and technology. I commend that approach to the House.
6.36 pm
Mr. Ian Wrigglesworth: I am pleased to be able to take up some of the remarks of the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Warren), who has reminded the House of some of the harsh realities that face the country. He chairs the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, which has often done the same.
On behalf of the Social Democratic party and the Liberal party I welcome the debate, which is directed to a subject that is sadly neglected by the House and, unfortunately, by many sectors of British industry. If the debate helps to draw attention to the importance of design in industry, it will have performed a useful function.
I welcome the support which the Government have given to design and which the Minister outlined. The role that he and the Prime Minister have played in supporting design and seeking to highlight the importance of it in industry is commendable and to be welcomed. I welcome their endeavours to draw more attention to the importance of innovation. I shall be critical of some aspects of Government policy, but I hope that the Minister will take my remarks so far as encouragement to do more and to do better and not as negative criticism. As I have said, I believe that the Government have taken on board the importance of design and innovation in their policy.
Why are industrial innovation and design so important? Visual enjoyment is important in all our lives. We must not lose sight of the fact that good design, whether it he in industry or any other part of our lives, helps to improve the quality of life. Good design is about more than creating new businesses or new jobs, although that will be the main focus of the debate. We should seek to encourage good design generally. I am sure that the main thrust of the
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debate will be on the contribution that design can make to the creation of jobs, new businesses and the improvement of the economy.
In the good old days, whenever they were, great importance was attached to design in industry, especially in the Victorian period. I read a book over the weekend in which there was an account of the Royal mining engineering industrial exhibition of 1887 in Newcastle. I read another report of the great exhibition which took place in 1908. The Anglo-French exhibition gave an area of London — it is one with which many of us are familiar because it includes the site of the BBC television centre—the name of White City. It was an enormous exhibition which included fine arts, visual arts, design, engineering and all other facets of British and French industry. It was much larger than the great exhibition of 1951. That reflects the spirit of those times and the importance which was attached to innovation and design. The new products and innovations that were such a hallmark of that period were brought into being and brought to the attention of the public generally by the professional institutions that are to be found in Newcastle, the area of Teesside which I represent, Darlington, other parts of the northern region and many other areas throughout the country.
I hope that the message to go out from this debate will be that, through innovation and good and new design, we can create jobs and new businesses. New businesses, products and technologies are important, but we sometimes spend so much time talking about new technologies that we forget that old products with new designs have enormous markets overseas and at home. Sometimes we forget that the new design of old products is important to the success of our industry.
Last Christmas I was sent a remarkable Christmas card from the Middlesbrough college of art and design. A small flat object snapped out into a box when it was taken out of the envelope. One side of the small tag on the red string hanging from the box said, "Here is a Christmas box for you." The other side said, "Have a drink on us." When the red string was pulled from the box there was a tea bag on the end of it. That was an ingenious attractive design with a potential for business success, but, as a Christmas card, it was not a new product. The Scandinavians, Italians, French and other overseas competitors have become leaders in the sale of domestic products because of the inventiveness of their designers.
There are many examples of similarly successful businesses in Britain. Sir Terence Conran's Habitat and similar businesses have good design as their hallmark. The marvellous Laura Ashley business—it is sad that Laura Ashley has died — is based upon good and striking design. Such design has created a successful business in rural Wales. Tremendous Government support was not needed to get it off the ground—innovation and design did so. There is a message for the regions: Through such design and innovation businesses can be developed—not in new but in old products—to satisfy customers in a manner that we would all welcome.
Design is an important aspect of our industrial life. Anyone who is tempted to underestimate its importance should remember its role. We should remember the superbly designed Concorde and the crowds of people who went to airports just to see it. That is what our businesses

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must take on board if they are to compete with the Benettons of this world which place so much emphasis on design and succeed as a result.
The Government have taken this point on board. They have started to provide additional support to the Design Council. I understand that this year they will give an additional £1·5 million to the council, bringing its central funding up to £4·8 million. The precariousness of this funding is illustrated by the fact that it has only just now recovered to its 1980 level after substantial cuts in previous years and the fact that it is renewed on a year-by-year basis. I hope that the Department of Trade and Industry will give the Design Council longer-term security in the schemes and promotions in which it is involved. Uncertainty about future budgets inhibits the council's work.
I welcome the backing given to the £350,000 campaign to promote the use of industrial product design by United Kingdom managers. This is a welcome development, but there is no guarantee about how long it will continue. It would be helpful if the Under-Secretary of State were to look at the longer term when giving such grants to the Design Council and similar bodies.
Industrial design and innovation are important aspects of a strategy to promote competitiveness which should include other non-price factors such as quality, reliability, delivery, marketing and after-sales service. Such a total product approach involving services and goods is essential if the decline in Britain's manufacturing competitiveness is to be reversed.
Horrendous figures face us on this front. In recent years, our manufacturing competitiveness has declined dramatically. The Design Council's report "Design and the Economy" shows a reduction over the past 30 years from 25 per cent. to 9 per cent. in the United Kingdom's export share of world trade in manufactured goods. This contrasts with an increase in imports from about 6 per cent. to about 30 per cent. of total sales. The import figures for some of the worst product areas show an increase in imports of 84 per cent. for music centres, 80 per cent. for scissors and 43 per cent. for electric cookers. Home production of many products has been almost decimated. We face an enormous task if we are to overcome the effects of the blow that has hit British industry during the past decade.
Cuts in training and education have played a major part in this decline. The United States, with approximately 60 scientists and engineers employed in research and development per 10,000 of the labour force, has roughly twice as many people employed in this work as the United Kingdom. Japan leads the field in expenditure on research and development, having almost doubled research and development expenditure in a recent eight-year period. Other countries cited in the Design Council's report have made significant increases. The United Kingdom alone decreased expenditure by more than 20 per cent. Distribution in other countries of research and development expenditure differs significantly from the United Kingdom where three sectors alone — chemicals, electrical engineering and aerospace—account for 71 per cent. of total research and development activity. Figures on research and development and on the number of engineers and others who are crucial to innovation and design show Britain's devastating position.
I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will encourage those of us who want a comprehensive training and education system—rather than the ad hoc-ery of the past
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few years—the restoration of some grants to research councils and a proper dovetailed system of training and education so that those on YTS are given credit for the work that they have done, enabling them to qualify in other spheres. This is part of the building-block approach to education which can help Britain to involve similar numbers of people in training and education as are involved in Germany, Japan and the United States. Without that basis of innovation and industrial design policy and the education to back them up, we shall not achieve any of the goals that the Government have set themselves and that the rest of the country would like to be achieved.
6.49 pm
Mr. Tim Rathbone: I should like to return to the subject of design and mention first the considerable achievements that we have made in this country in recent years. Her Majesty's Government are doing more than any other Government in the world to promote design as an instrument of competition. Following my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's celebrated design evening at Downing street, an immense flood of activity has poured forth.
My hon. Friend the Minister, despite the mealy-mouthed condemnation of the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson), should receive credit for what has been achieved. There is not a soul in the design world who would not wholeheartedly acknowledge his tireless work. That was marked internationally when in August he received, on behalf of Britain, an award in recognition of services to design. There is no credibility gap there, as suggested by the hon. Gentleman: there is world acknowledgement.
Next summer, the annual design conference, which includes architecture —not so far mentioned—will be held in Aspen, Colorado, and four and a half days will be devoted entirely to design in the United Kingdom. There is no credibility gap there either.
A great deal is going on abroad, but a great deal is going on at home. For example, over 2,000 companies have benefited from the Department of Trade and Industry's funded consultancy scheme. That is design in action. The British Institute of Management is increasing its activity on this subject. NEDO has established a working party to review the state of design in Britain and how it can become a more integral and effective part of manufacturing. It will report next summer. That is also design in action.
We also have design in education, as my hon. Friend the Minister said. While the National Advisory Body is reviewing the distribution of courses, it is clear that the general thrust is to make design courses relevant to work. In March this year, a two-day conference of principals of colleges in the United States met in Philadelphia to discuss the new style of design education evolving in the United Kingdom. There is no credibility gap there. The results of a job survey held among all students who completed BTEC higher national diplomas in design last year were especially encouraging. Within three months four fifths of the students had full-time jobs and 95 per cent. of those jobs were in the subject studied. A further 13 per cent. of young designers had started their own firms or were freelancing. That may be a new trend in our society.
Hon. Members will also be aware of the highly successful series of "Design by Experience" seminars held around the country last year. Organised by BTEC, their

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aim was to bring companies and colleges closer together. That initiative was supported by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Trade and Industry, my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Education and Science, who was listening to the debate earlier, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye (Mr. Warren.)
At a different level, the London Business School runs an oversubscribed course of design management in its Master of Business Administration programme, and a few other business schools are beginning to do the same. That all illustrates design in action. There is no credibility gap there. However, despite all that push and action, there remains a huge gap between the enthusiasm of the protagonists and the reluctant behaviour of large swatches of manufacturing.
We are approaching the start of 1986, which is designated as industry year as an initative of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. That is a rather quaint old name, which disguises enormous vitality and energy. Its aim is to increase understanding of industry's role and its service to this country. We must ask why industry is still reluctant to embrace good design. Why can that be? Britain has the designers. There is no other place on earth where one can find such a concentration of internationally experienced designers. They may sometimes be found within the House, but certainly they may be found within one or two miles of it. It is a pity that a major nationalised industry such as British Airways felt it necessary to go abroad for its recent major livery redesign when Great Britain can offer the best in the world. Our designers' skill is often better understood in other countries, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings and Rye said.
In the past year alone, the top six offices earned some £50 million in foreign revenue. That helps the balance of payments, but it also means that we are helping our competitors. It has been said that there is no important automotive firm in Europe and no important fashion house without British designers in senior positions.
If we have those resources, skills and effort, why do not more British firms accept the role of design in their affairs? Could it be that too many companies are run by financial men, who care more for cutting costs than the products they make? That perhaps goes for the Treasury as well. Is it because the City has such a short time-frame that it does not encourage companies to invest in new products, but rather looks for short-term profit, or is it because business men think of design as art—nice, but not necessary, the type of trim that is added to make something look nice? Is it the old belief that the public do not like good design? My goodness, if Sony, Suzuki and Toyota produced ugly goods that would prove it, but they do not. Is it that even our engineers believe that design is peripheral, as if people, users, and customers do not matter?
The problem is a management one. In that regard, it is notable that the London Business School funded the world's first design management programme. Manchester
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is now following. The essential task is to bring understanding into business that design matters—design not as decoration or taste, but in the fuller sense of thinking matters through and creating the goods that people want and will pay for.
Mr. Robert Banks: I am following with care what my hon. Friend is saying. I agree with what he says. Does he agree that it is symbolic that British industry rarely has a designer on the board of directors?
Mr. Rathbone: That is a good illustration of the point that I was making. I hope that industry will follow the example of motor companies in the United States, which do not just have designers on the board but have designers as chairmen.
While much excellent work is being done, a note of warning should perhaps be sounded. Design by itself will not do the trick, nor will the notion that design is about taste. I do not mean that design should be ugly, but rather that its purpose, like the purpose of industry, is to satisfy customers. Products make profits only when effectively marketed through proper packaging, brand identification and communication. Brand reputation depends to a large degree on corporate reputation and identity. I wonder whether the consultancy scheme is sufficiently directed to such ends. I speak as someone involved with a company that undertakes such consultancy programmes and one who hopes that the scheme will be promoted in that way.
If there is one other practical step that my hon. Friend the Minister could now accomplish it would be to encourage the Design Council to regard design as part of a process for satisfying customers. The relationship between that process called marketing and design is too little understood.
To conclude, I should like to return to my first point. My hon. Friend the Minister is doing a famous job by encouraging better design, ably assisted by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. This evening, my hon. Friend has outlined how he is planning further encouragement of design and manufacturing. More strength to his elbow.
6.59 pm
Mr. Robert Banks: This is a historic debate, as the hon. Member for Coventry, North-West (Mr. Robinson) said. It was rather surprising that there was not one single Back Bencher on the Labour Benches during the whole of the hon. Gentleman's speech. He was rather like a parade sergeant on an empty parade ground barking orders with no one to hear. It is right that we should be debating this subject because it is of immense importance for the creation of new jobs and for the regeneration of our industry. It is perhaps strange that in the long history of this parliamentary body that industry, during the time it was supreme in the world, during the Victorian period and in the early part of this century——
It being Seven o'clock, and there being private business set down by THE CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS under Standing Order No. 7 (Time for taking private business), the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Felixstowe Dock and Railway Bill
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That the promoters of the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Bill shall have leave to suspend proceedings thereon in order to proceed with the Bill, if they think fit, in the next Session of Parliament, provided that the Agents for the Bill give notice to the Clerks in the Private Bill Office not later than the day before the close of the present Session of their intention to suspend further proceedings and that all fees due on the Bill up to that date be paid;
That on the fifth day on which the House sits in the next Session the Bill shall be presented to the House;
That there shall be deposited with the Bill a declaration signed by the Agents for the Bill, stating that the Bill is the same, in every respect, as the Bill at the last stage of its proceedings in this House in the present Session;
That the Bill shall be laid upon the Table of the House by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office on the next meeting of the House after the day on which the Bill has been presented and, when so laid, shall be read the first and second time and committed (and shall be recorded in the Journal of this House as having been so read and committed);
That all Petitions relating to the Bill presented in the present Session which stand referred to the Committee on the Bill shall stand referred to the Committee on the Bill in the next Session;
That no Petitioners shall be heard before the Committee on the Bill, unless their Petition has been presented within the time limited within the present Session or deposited pursuant to paragraph (b) of Standing Order 126 relating to Private Business;
That in relation to the Bill, Standing Order 127 relating to Private Business shall have effect as if the words "under Standing Order 126 (Reference to committee of petitions agaist bill)" were omitted;
That no further fees shall be charged in respect of any proceedings on the Bill in respect of which Fees have already been incurred during the present Session;
That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
7 pm
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): I should inform the House that Mr. Speaker has not selected the amendments. I call Mr. Tim Yeo.
Mr. Tim Yeo: I do not believe that it is necessary to have a debate.
7.1 pm
Mr. Ken Weetch: I have not participated in a debate of this kind, objecting that a motion be carried over, since I have been a Member of the House, and it is certainly not my intention to be obstructive. The number of times I have spoken on private Bills is very small. Nevertheless, I am speaking on this one because I have a critical constituency interest in the matter and there is still an enormous amount of dissatisfaction from environmental groups and others in my part of East Anglia about the substance of this Bill.
I do not intend to waste the time of the House, but certain issues arise and I am objecting to the carry-over motion, if I can put it like that, because of the material that still remains in this Bill and for the arguments that are still being used to put this Bill through the House. I am given to understand that it is a matter of usage that these matters are carried over, usually on the nod. I do not see why that should always be so, nor why it should be automatic, particularly if new material has arisen on the issue under discussion.
I shall not speak at any great length, but new factors have arisen since the Bill was debated on Second Reading, and it is because of that new material that I wish to make a short speech of objection to the whole principle of the carry-over motion.
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The Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company should be made to argue the case again. The three-hour debate we had before was wholly insufficient to give critical scrutiny to the arguments made in the House. We have another chance, which I welcome, of debating the controversial material contained in the propositions for the Bill. Undoubtedly, some people will find the whole issue tiresome and think it would be far more convenient for us all to push the thing through and carry it over because that is the axiomatic precedent. I do not agree, because last time we had limited time at our disposal and many things were not discussed adequately.
I do not want to go over the material I went over last time because I have fresh things to say and fresh arguments to put before the House on the terms of my objection to this motion. I wish to do so for general reasons, but also because my constituency is directly affected and the dissatisfaction still remains. One new piece of material has arisen from the discussions on the guarantees relating to navigation and the Orwell estuary. When I spoke on Second Reading, my objections to the Bill centred on three areas. The first was the effect on the port of Ipswich, especially but not solely as it was affected by navigational matters. Secondly—and I have new material on this point too—I objected on environmental grounds because environmental opinion in the area is overwhelmingly against the Bill. It was then and it is now.
My third point relates to arguments centred upon developing balanced ports capacity, and the possible repercussions that a laissez-faire approach to port development will have on the industry as a whole. I am still not convinced on any of these grounds, but I recognise that assurances have been given and accepted about the possible navigational interference with ships, particularly grain vessels, using the Orwell estuary. I am pleased to say that and, without making too much of it, I understand that the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company through the Harwich harbour authority is willing to give the Ipswich port authority financial and priority guarantees about the passage of vessels. This carne about in discussions since the Bill was last before the House.
I am pleased to see the Minister in his place and should like to ask him for a piece of information which he could perhaps give me when he speaks in the debate. I am given to understand, quite literally in the last 24 hours, that it will not be possible to give legislative authority to the guarantees under or within the framework of any Harwich harbour legislation because such guarantees, particularly with financial backing, would be ultra vires. I would appreciate the Minister's information on that. I was pleased to see these guarantees, or promises of them at least. As I understand it, they will have to be as part and parcel of private legislation sought by the Ipswich port authority when it seeks additional powers some time in the next Session.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Will my hon. Friend give way? This concession is obviously important, but does it not illustrate the problem? The Bill made virtually no progress other than getting its Second Reading in the last Session, and it will be easy for the promoters to drop it and introduce in the next Session a new Bill which could, of course, have a much wider scope than this one and could take into account the point made by my hon. Friend. If they persist in going for the carry-over over motion, the Bill will have to remain in its narrow

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form and it will not be possible for the House to amend it to take into account even the concession the promoters now want to make.
Mr. Weetch: I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. What he says is certainly correct. If a new Bill were drafted incorporating all the assurances that have been given and perhaps any assurances that would arise from new discussions, which I would welcome, it may be that the new legislative shape of this measure could be put before the House to some advantage. I certainly accept what my hon. Friend has said.
I am dissatisfied with the current situation and one of the things I want to do is to challenge the whole of the economic case for the expansion of the port. The issue at the centre of the economic part of the debate is how many jobs the new extension at Felixstowe will create. In fact, the issue is narrower than that, because the relevant question is how many real new jobs will be created.
I argued in our previous debate that the Bill would not create many new jobs and would merely shift jobs from place to place and have detrimental repercussions on other ports, particularly Liverpool, Tilbury and Southampton.
A real increase in employment possibilities will depend on the traffic throughput of Felixstowe. I have new material in support of my objections to the motion. No statistical case had been made to the House in favour of the expansion of the port and the claim that net new jobs will be created. I have examined everything said in the previous debate and all the comment in newspapers and specialist journals. It is 100 per cent. assertion, and partial and slanted assertion at that.
We did not have time in the previous debate to challenge the statistical merits of the case and the assumptions on which arguments were mounted. I intend to do that today. Statistics in the ports industry are enormously complicated. They depend on the capacity of a port and the capacity of other ports, as well as on the capital intensity of improvements, the mix of traffic and any changes in that mix.
The crux of my attack on the economic case of the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company is that much will depend on Felixstowe's ability to attract real trade growth as opposed to attracting trade away from other ports in East Anglia and elsewhere.
Independent experts who have studied the subject—I quoted two in our previous debate, so I shall not quote any more—believe that no real jobs will be created and that it is likely that there will be a shift in jobs from area to area with detrimental repercussions on ports elsewhere. We need information and details and I regret that we are unable to get from the company the necessary information to make a decision in principle. We lacked that information during our previous debate and it has not been provided for this debate. I can see that I could be said to be putting forward a case that is partial in a constituency sense, but I have tried to get the information required by writing to the company. It seemed to me that, as the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, if I wanted to know the likely new throughput of traffic as a result of the expansion of the dock and the creation of three new berths, I should write to the company.
Therefore, I wrote to the company on 25 April and asked for its estimate of the new traffic that it thought
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would arise from the expansion outlined in the Bill. That would have enabled me to make a responsible estimate of whether the case would stand on its economic base. I received a letter from the managing director who said that he did not feel disposed to supply the information to me because I appeared to be an "implacable opponent" of the Bill, because of my "profound ignorance" of the British ports system and because I was the recipient of "mischievous advice" from third parties.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Does my hon. Friend agree that people who make such insulting remarks are usually trying to put up a smokescreen over the fact that they do not know the answers? Is it not true that the promoters do not have a clue about how many extra ships or containers they want to get, because they have no idea what developments will occur over the next two years? For example, the building of a fixed link across the Channel would have fundamental implications for British docks and would make the Felixstowe development highly questionable.
Mr. Weetch: That is right. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I appreciate that the company will present a detailed case if the Bill reaches its Committee stage. I am not asking for a Committee debate at this stage. I ask merely for sufficient information to enable us to decide whether the Bill should go ahead.
I asked the company for answers and for statistical projections so that I could set out the case for independent examination. I did not get those answers and the House and I are left with mere assertions that there will he substantial economic benefits that will make the enterprise worth the violation of an area of outstanding natural beauty in Suffolk and a site of special scientific interest.
As I received no answers from the company. I had to look for statistical information that was available in public places, and there is plenty of that. First, in a letter received by the planning committee of Suffolk county council before its meeting on 9 October last year, the company said that it expected that the full development proposed in the Bill would produce a net increase of 500 in the company's own direct work force. That is set out in the planning committee's report and evidence, which I have read carefully.
However, the company subsequently advised the Suffolk county council that the figure was not 500, but 1,000. In the space of a relatively few hours, the job creation part of the estimate had doubled, for no apparent reason except a drumming up of support for a doubtful case.
It was also said that 400 new jobs would be created by further investment in the Languard and Dooley terminals and the construction of the Trinity terminal. That brought the grand total of new jobs to 1,400. The Felixstowe port users' association was reported in the East Anglian Daily Times as expecting the employment of an additional 1,400 people directly. In the same newspaper on 6 November last year, Mr. Derek Kingston of the company predicted 1,100 new jobs, based on known manning levels and predicted levels of technology.
Those are four or five examples of where the estimate of the number of new jobs to be created has differed every time someone has spoken. They think of a number and multiply it by two. I hope that the House will agree that this is a pretty doubtful statistical case to put in order to obtain permission from the House for a Second Reading.
Mr. Peter Griffiths: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that those of us who know about ports and their growth realise that it may be very difficult indeed to establish exactly how many jobs would be created under certain hypothetical growth conditions. On thing, however, is quite certain: if a port is constrained so that it cannot grow there will be no growth of jobs there. The jobs will he created in other ports overseas.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: We seem to be straying a little out of order. When the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) puts forward his argument that a new Bill should be presented because of new material, that is in order, but when we go outside that argument to refer to matters that could very well have been discussed on Second Reading that is out of order.
Mr. Weetch: I tried to show that the material was simply not available on Second Reading. With the material not being available, how could we discuss the exact terminology of this Bill and what it seeks to do? I am arguing therefore that the Bill has no justification in reason at all. Every proposition in this Bill has to be reasoned out in some way or another. What I am trying to point out to the House is that the whole basis is the swamp that Felixstowe used to be 20 or 30 years ago, and we are being asked to put our names to a pretty gimcrack case in this carry-over motion.
Mr. Roger Stott: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) who has touched on a very important matter in relation to the projected number of jobs likely to be created if this Bill were to proceed unimpeded. If my hon. Friend were to cast his mind back to six weeks ago, he would agree that what can be described as new and fresh evidence was brought to light in respect of the proceedings on this Bill, and he and I will share the same concern. The Department of Transport issued a circular indicating that it had appointed specialists to advise the Secretary of State about the viability or otherwise of the various projects on the Channel fixed link. I was in Dover three weeks ago——
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Is the hon. Gentleman making an intervention? If so, he must be brief.
Mr. Stott: Verbosity is not the least of my victims, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am attempting to be brief, but, in order to assist my hon. Friend on the point that he is making, it is important to recognise that the port of Dover in terms of volume and value moves more cargo than does Felixstowe.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I cannot see that this has anything to do with the motion before the House.
Mr. Stott: I would not wish, on the first day back, to be in your bad books, Sir, but I think that it has everything to do with the point that my hon. Friend was making.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: It may have everything to do with the point that the hon. Member was making, but it has nothing to do with the motion before the House.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We are, as I understand it, debating a carry-over motion. I think that some of us observed that the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) came down to do a bit of quiet lobbying, but it seemed to me that we were going along very nicely ——
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that I am not misunderstanding the reference to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James). Neither he nor anyone else has lobbied me about anything today.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I was not suggesting that he had lobbied you, Sir, but it seemed to me that we were firmly in order in that on the Opposition side we were objecting to the carry-over motion on the basis that there was new evidence which had come forward. My hon. Friend referred to the fact that it was a statutory instrument. My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) and I have referred to the possibility of the Channel fixed link, information which was not available at the Second Reading. These were all reasons that could be put forward as to why the Bill at this stage should not proceed further and why the promoters should come forward in the new Session with a new Bill and provide the House with new information, or let the whole matter drop. It seemed to me that we were not straying out of order.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I suppose that we are in the area of opinion, but it is my opinion that the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) was getting out of order insofar as it would be open, I suppose, given the constantly changing nature of ports and other features of the economy, to argue that any change in any port or any evidence of change in the economy would have relevance to the matter that we are discussing. If that were the case and were accepted by the Chair, I do not think that we would get to the motion tonight. We cannot stray so far out of order. I felt that I was being very flexible and tolerant to the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch). He recognises that. I think that we ought to get closer to the argument being originally advanced by him.
Mr. Weetch: After that exchange, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I welcome your tolerance because I am no constitutional expert on the procedures of the House, and I constantly need advice. However, I try to avoid wasting the time of the House with arguments that I have put forward before. I looked up the precedents—and there are not many—for this type of debate and looked at some of the speeches made on previous occasions when this type of motion was debated. The speeches usually say that the objection to the carry-over motion is for reasons a, b, c and d; and one of those reasons is usually new material that has arisen in the course of time.
I put that to the House not in any sense of constitutional chicanery or because I want to make a long speech, but because I genuinely believe that new issues have arisen which critically affect the substance of this Bill. I do not want to abuse the time of the House. I am, therefore, willing to give way. But let us take it to its logical conclusion. If all we are going to debate is a few lines of constitutional patter, there will be no argument about the Bill on a valuable occasion like this so that in the end we might as well pack up our marbles and go home. I give way again.
Mr. Stott: When we debated this matter on 13 May, the Government had not issued their instructions or guidelines to the particular company charged with evaluating the various schemes that the Government have asked for on the fixed Channel link. We did not have at that time, therefore, any indication of whether the Government were going to support in principle the fixed

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Channel link. It is obvious from what they have done since then, in spite of what anybody may or may not think, that the fixed link may very well go ahead. If it does, it will have tremendous ramifications for our ports policy in the United Kingdom. What my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) is attempting to adduce this evening is that the projections given by the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company could be put in serious jeopardy if the fixed Channel link were to go ahead, because the volume of cargo currently going through the port of Dover is greater in both value and volume than that going through the port of Felixstowe. That must have consequences for what is happening in the House tonight.
Mr. Weetch: In the flurry of exchanges which we have had in the last few minutes, I neglected to answer the intervention of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths). It was a fair intervention and he made a fair point. Of course one cannot with any certainty predict how many jobs, down to the last 10, 20 or 30, will be created. This is a very hazardous business and it is fraught with uncertainty. I may say, however, that none of the uncertainties has been mentioned in the press or elsewhere by the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company. It has been putting forward these economic arguments with the certainty of a weighing machine on Victoria station that speaks one's weight. It has been saying that the statistics mean that employment in East Anglia will take a substantial lift. All that I am doing is to challenge that assertion and say that, if that is so, could we have approximate chapter and verse?
The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths), who moved the Second Reading of the Bill, referred to 2,400 jobs created indirectly because of a multiplier effect. However, he did not refer to 500, 1,000, 1,400 or 1,100. I have taken the statistics available and 'phoned round a large part of the ports industry, and nobody will believe that those figures are at all credible.
Mr. Yeo: The hon. Gentleman said that he had made inquiries of the dock company about the benefits of the scheme. Did he also make inquiries of the East Anglian branch of the Transport and General Workers Union? If so, did the union explain to him, as it has explained to others, that it is in favour of the Bill?.
Mr. Weetch: The national TGWU is opposed to the expansion because it will create even more capacity at a time when there is already excess capacity in Britain's docks. I have been to see the shop stewards from the TGWU in Ipswich three or four times. It is largely on their behalf that I am speaking. I also invited my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott), our Front Bench spokesman, to check the situation. I do not know where the hon. Member for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo) got his information about the TGWU in East Anglia. I have been seen not only by the TGWU's general secretary but by the union's eastern regional organiser. The only group of people in the TGWU who are in step are those on Felixstowe dock itself. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden), who is a member of the docks group of the TGWU, will refer to that. However, I appreciate the intervention because that point should be clarified.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Does my hon. Friend agree that the area with the lowest unemployment and therefore the least need for new jobs is Felixstowe? Almost all the other docks that have been mentioned have higher unemployment, and it would be unfortunate if the jobs were taken from docks that have a far greater need of them and transferred to Felixstowe. According to the figures that my hon. Friend mentioned, how many would be new employees and how many people would be simply transferring from one dock area to another?
Mr. Weetch: I shall come shortly to a statistical argument which is based on figures that I have, and that were taken from public places.
Since 1979, unemployment in the Ipswich and Felixstowe area has increased by 300 per cent. Whose fault is that? The statistical validity of the dock and railway company's case is doubtful. Let me come to the brass tacks. It is important to realise that the relationship is concerned not necessarily with port capacity, but with the estimate of throughput of extra traffic related to the numbers employed. That depends on a complicated set of equations. Nevertheless, we can have a go.
From 1979 until July 1984 the company had increased its direct work force by 200 in round figures. During that period the throughput tonnage, taken from the company's handbook, grew from 5·5 million tonnes to 8·5 million tonnes. The important relationship, assuming similar labour and capital intensity—in fact, the figures go my way if there is any more capital intensity in the development—is that between the cargo throughput and the number employed. Therefore, an increase of 3 million tonnes in throughput was needed to bring about 200 new jobs. We are being promised 1,400 jobs— 1,000 at the three new berths and 400 at the Languard and Dooley terminals. Given the same relationship, an extra 21 million tonnes will be needed to create an extra 1,400 direct jobs at the dock. If one adds the present output of 8·5 million tonnes, in round figures one is calculating on a total Felixstowe throughput of about 30 million tonnes. To put that in perspective, that is three times the current throughput of all the haven ports put together — Harwich, Felixstowe and Ipswich.
I can find no serious statistician who actually believes that case. Nevertheless it is being foisted on the East Anglian public with the argument that if the development does not go ahead there will be a shortage of this and that, and a jobs catastrophe. The job creation exercise of the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company is sheer moonshine. That is all it is. However, although I have put my case as strongly as I can, I stand to be corrected by statistical argument from Conservative Members, to which I would listen carefully.
The statistical case is pretty doubtful. Not only is the development of the further extension of Felixstowe outlined in the Bill at a time of excess deep sea container capacity elsewhere, but it is becoming even more questionable in the regional context of East Anglia. Another new piece of information that I wish to put before the House is that across the estuary from us, at Bathside bay, is being developed a deep sea container port described by Mr James Sherwood of British Ferries as a container port that will rival Felixstowe itself. Parliamentary powers already exist for that expansion.
The latest information on the development is contained in the magazine Containerisation International, which

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says that Sealink British Ferries has announced plans to expand its Harwich Parkeston quay terminal with the ambitious aim of transforming it into one of Europe's largest container ports by mid-1987. It will be based on considerable land reclamation. It will cater for the biggest deep sea vessels, and expand massively the deep sea container throughput. Given that the dock and railway company's case is doubtful anyway, when one considers the capacity being developed just across the water, what will happen? There will be excess capacity in East Anglia, a crippling price war and a gross waste of resources.
I should like to reply to one argument because it has been put to me so many times. Indeed, it has been brought up in the debate as a piece of new information. At the Labour party conference, I went to a presentation by Flexi Link. One of its props is European Ferries, the people promoting the Bill. At that meeting, there was a presentation of the reasons why the fixed link should not go ahead. The Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company, opposing the fixed link proposals, is already beginning to recognise how traffic will be affected. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan pointed out in his intervention, the whole passenger and freight picture in this country could be transformed. The Government said absolutely nothing about that in the earlier debate, so I hope that the Minister will put that new material into the framework of his remarks when he is good enough to comment on the debate.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: A great deal of the argument on Second Reading about extra traffic congestion being caused in East Anglia was based on the argument that ships which had come considerable distances to Europe would be off-loaded and the cargo sent on in smaller ships to other ports in Europe. Does my hon. Friend agree that if the fixed link were imposed it is likely that the majority of container cargo coming into Felixstowe would not go out again in smaller boats to Europe but would travel by road through East Anglia to the London basin and then through the fixed link at Dover? That would have far-reaching implications for congestion and the road network. We were told on Second Reading that congestion would not be a problem. but the new information shows that it may well be far more serious than was thought at that time.
Mr. Weetch: I accept the substance of my hon. Friend's intervention. The repercussions may well he as he describes. The substance of my argument is this. Without wishing to make predictions, the fixed link seems for the first time in my short political life to be a viable starter likely to attract private money and entrepreneurial initiative. The fixed link would put every port in the country, in East Anglia as much as anywhere else, in a completely new ball game. I do not agree that the situation outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) is bound to occur because the whole situation is unpredictable, but I have read two stock market financial analyses of the prospects for European Ferries, both of which stated that the fixed link could be a major factor affecting the company's profitability.
All those factors will affect the Bill. All this new information — the statistical case, the fixed link and everything else—affect the argument in principle as to whether the Bill is necessary or not.
A constituency aspect is also affected. The argument involved is an insult to the intelligence of the people of
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Ipswich, but it has been so widely put about that I must try to deal with it seriously. It is widely argued that there could never be any active commercial threat to Ipswich from Felixstowe because the ports are complementary and not competitive. The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds said that, in effect, there was no commercial rivalry because;
"Felixstowe would be handling ships of a draught which could not navigate the upper reaches of the river." — [Official Report, 13 May 1985; Vol. 79, c. 75.]
In other words, there is no need to worry because large ships cannot use Ipswich anyway. But small ships can use Felixstowe. Ipswich is the number one port in the United Kingdom short sea container trade, but if there were pressure on the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company's profit margins—if times became hard and competitive and the situation looked black—let no one imagine for a moment that that company would not directly affect Ipswich. Anyone who believes that will believe anything. Is the company really saying that it will never encroach any further on the type of trade dealt with at Ipswich? No commercial concern could ever say that. If it was in difficulties, it would do exactly that.
The point was summed up on page 17 of the January 1985 issue of the trade magazine Cargo Systems International, which states that
"if there is available capacity at Felixstowe, shipping lines will be tempted to stop there rather than carrying on another ten miles to reach Ipswich."
I shall not take that constituency point any further. but the argument has been put so often that I had to deal with it.
New material on the environmental case has also emerged since the issue was last debated. On 20 August the Orwell estuary was formally notified as a site of special scientific interest under section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and a report of this appeared as an item on the agenda of Babergh district council planning committee. That was not the case when the Second Reading debate took place. A press report subsequent to the district council planning committee meeting conveyed some incomplete information, implying that only the south shore of the estuary had been notified as as SSSI. Today's debate gives me the opportunity to put on record that both banks have been notified, including the area proposed for the Felixstowe docks extension. If there is any doubt about that in anyone's mind the Nature Conservancy Council, which was responsible for the notification, will give full information.
The arguments adduced in the last debate for sweeping the whole environmental case under the carpet have been bitterly resented in some parts of East Anglia. It was argued that as only a small part of the estuary was involved there could not be much of a case. In fact, the site was selected by the Nature Conservancy Council after the most thorough scientific survey and evaluation. It is important to remember, too, that such designations are usually made because the areas concerned contain important concentrations of bird life.
In addition to being notified as a site of special scientific interest, the Orwell-Stour estuary has been put forward to the Department of the Environment as a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar convention and as a special protection area for birds under an EEC directive of 1979.
Time and again in the last debate Conservative Members argued that the area to be taken for the port extension—Fagbury flats—was only a small part of the

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estuary and therefore of little consequence environmentally. The hon. Member for Cambridge—I am not sure whether he is here today—reminded the House that at one time he had United Nations environmental responsibilities. In a nostalgic way, he said:
"The hon. Member for Ipswich may not be aware of the fact that I know the river well. I have sailed on it since I was a child. It is one for which I feel strongly. I also feel strongly about the local environment. To go as far as he did about a scheme which covers one third of a square mile and only half a mile of 22 miles of rather grotty shoreline is carrying argument a little too far."
I see that the hon. Member for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo) is here. I hope that after the debate he will take the hon. Member for Cambridge aside and explain that the shoreline is not regarded in East Anglia as "grotty". It is enormously valuable for all sorts of environmental reasons. Perhaps the hon. Member for Cambridge has not been to the area for some time, and needs reminding of this fact.
When the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds moved the Bill on 13 May, he said:
"First, the shoreline of the River Orwell is 22 miles long. The proposed extension covers half a mile of that shoreline—2·5 per cent. of the total area."—[Official Report, 13 May 1985; Vol. 79 c. 77–91].
He went on to say that the area to be taken is only one-third of a square mile out of the total of 151 square miles.
That is an argument typical of people who talk about areas of international wildlife importance as though they are talking about percentages in a ledger. It is not surprising, because the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company works from ledgers, while others see the environmental problems. If the Bill is passed, everything that the company has said about protecting the environment will be conveniently forgotten.
The main environmental organisations in East Anglia are against the Bill to a man and a woman. They will believe that nothing that has been said in the first debate or the arguments that have come out since it has put them off their original environmental case. In fact, they have been strengthened in their determination.
In one breath, the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company is saying both that the area is not important because it is small in relation to the whole, and that it regards the area of such importance that it intends to plant 500,000 trees, and provide a bird count and so much enthusiasm that, by the sound of it, the company will be twining honeysuckle around the cranes. It is doing this to try to win some environmental respectability.
The debate has been valuable because it shows that the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company will say anything to get the Bill through the House, and that that will be conveniently forgotten. The environmental interests in East Anglia span all political persuasions. The people who have most strongly urged me to keep going have been card-carrying members of the Conservative party for nearly all their lives. I have told them that I shall gladly do that on their behalf. The Bill should not succeed and I sincerely hope that the House agrees with me.
7.53 pm
Mr. James Hill: I am sure that, by the end of my speech, less charitable Members will think that I have an enormous bias towards the port of Southampton. However, I have tried to approach this in
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a logical and worthwhile manner. The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) spoke several times about the environment, and the problems affecting it have not been given the same publicity as, for example, those affecting the bypass around Okehampton and Dartmoor. The environmental point has been let go by lack of argument. Later, I shall refer to some of the comments made by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
I am sure that my Government will be the first to support me in my logical commercial argument. Is it wise, when we are suffering from a lack of investment in industry and are trying to compete with overseas markets, to take a vast percentage of that investment money and put it into mud flats—against the environmental argument—to produce more container port capacity when there is over-capacity in the existing container ports?
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. The hon. Gentleman must address himself to the motion before the House and not the motion that the Bill be given a Second Reading. That has been debated and decided on by the House. If the hon. Gentleman were to advance the argument that there are now factors that could not have been known when the House made that decision, and that might have affected that decision, that would be in order. However, it is not in order to rehearse arguments or to make new ones about Second Reading.
Mr. Hill: Thank you for your guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The new facts emerged in the speech of the hon. Member for Ipswich, who spoke about the new European link. I remember when the proceedings on the Channel tunnel were stopped by the then Secretary of State for the Environment in the Labour Government, the late Mr. Crosland. I had written a document about the bridges and tunnels of Europe, in which I proved conclusively what an enormous effect a Channel tunnel would have, even then, before we had got into the container age that exists in the seaports now.
There is no doubt that if the Euro-link goes ahead in any form it will act as a magnet for container traffic. We are talking in the main about container traffic. It would be subterfuge by the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company to pretend that it is interested in devising another port for all types of user. It is merely aiming at the substantial market. With China about to emerge as a world industrial giant and with Taiwan and Japan flooding the United Kingdom and the European seaboard with containers, the company's sole motive is to concentrate on profit through containers.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I find it difficult to relate the hon. Gentleman's argument, interesting though it is, to the debate about whether the Bill should be carried over into the next Session. The hon. Gentleman must address himself more closely to the terms of the motion.
Mr. Hill: I suppose that I am becoming over-eager on the subject. When it was debated on 13 May, because of parliamentary commitments I was unable to attend the debate. However, I know that that will be no argument for you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, although, naturally, it tempts me to drift into other subjects from time to time.
The European link will have a great effect and the statistics that will be available if the debate is held over will benefit all political parties. I particularly fear that the job protection statistics have not been gone into with the

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latest figures in mind. There has been a terrific change in seaports policy since May. For example, the statistics for Southampton are quite different from those in May. The port is now humming with work, and it has an anxious labour force which is viewing the debate with concern because it fears that the real statistics of job protection have not been analysed. It is not only a question of job creation. There will be job losses throughout the United Kingdom, some of them in the worst affected parts of the country.
The difficulty in arguing the case for more statistics is that they can be swayed one way or another, depending upon the attitude of the debater. The statistics which have been produced by the environmentalists, certainly by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, should be closely analysed. We can see this evening the lack of attention that is being paid to this private Bill, so its Second Reading may have been passed by the House almost by default. There may not have been a full analysis of the figures. It may not therefore have been possible to weigh the pros and cons——
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. No matter for what reason, the fact is that the House has debated the Second Reading of the Bill and has come to a decision upon it by granting it a Second Reading. We cannot have a postmortem upon it now.
Mr. Hill: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for putting me back once again on the rails. Perhaps the recess has made my steering gear a little rusty. I fully take your point. I have raised the subject many times. I wonder whether private Bills would not have to be introduced if there were a United Kingdom ports policy. I have asked for such a policy dozens and dozens of times. Unfortunately, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House has, with great courtesy, said that there is no time next week for such a debate to take place. If we were to be given an opportunity to discuss the Bill more thoroughly, could it not be combined with an appraisal of ports policy? Felixstowe is to be given more capacity——
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. That is not the issue before the House. The issue is whether this Bill, to which the House has given a Second Reading, should be allowed to be continued in the next Session of this Parliament. We are not discussing the merits of the Bill.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Can the hon. Gentleman tell me whether the people of Southampton petitioned against the Bill? I suspect that they did not do so because they did not understand its ramifications when the Bill was presented last autumn. If the motion were to be defeated, the Bill would have to start again and the hon. Gentleman's constituents would have an opportunity to present a petition. If the hon. Gentleman were to develop the argument about extending the rights of petitioners, he might be on safe ground.
Mr. Hill: I am getting advice from all sides. This is the true comradeship of the House. I said earlier that I thought that the Bill had not received full scrutiny before it obtained its Second Reading. I do not believe that some of the ports that will be jeopardised by the Bill were able to get their statistics, facts and petitions together in time for a thorough-going debate on Second Reading. The small points that I am raising tonight inevitably mean that the Bill should be carried over into the next Session of Parliament.
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May I now deal with the statement that I have received from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The area in question has recently been notified as a site of special scientific interest. That was not so previously. This matter should be discussed in more detail. The proposed development also encroaches upon an area of outstanding natural beauty. To hardhearted Members of Parliament these points may seem of little consequence, but in Japan environmental problems are now so great that they wish that they had considered the protection of the environment instead of indulging in a Gaderene rush to develop industry in order to compete with the rest of the world. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds would want to provide more facts and to involve more learned people in listening to and lobbying the Committee. That is why we must not be seen to be rushing through something upon which the fulcrum of a ports policy would depend. We would be the first to be accused of acting as vandals. Job projections are suspect and the House must discuss them more deeply.
I thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for your consideration——
Mr. Stott: As the hon. Gentleman is reaching the end of his contribution, may I say that I agree with every word that he has spoken this evening, but why on Second Reading did he not vote for or against the Bill, while the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen, (Mr. Chope) voted in favour of the Bill?
Mr. Hill: I said earlier that I was away on parliamentary business. I take great interest in the Council of Europe and the Western European Union. Although we are rightly paired with Labour Members of Parliament, it is not always possible to be in the House for every vote. The debate was underplayed. There was no great unrest about it in my constituency, but there is now a great volume of protest. My constituents feel, as I do, that there has been insufficient discussion of the new statistics.
If the Bill is carried over into the next Session, democracy will have been served this evening. One has to take into account the environmental considerations, the various statistics, the effect of the Euro-link and several other points with which I shall not weary the House. I do not know whether they will be accepted by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, North-West (Mr. Mitchell), in whom I have great faith on ports policy and shipping matters. If, however, I do not receive satisfaction this evening and there is a vote, I shall be forced to vote against the motion.
8.8 pm
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: The question to which we ought to address ourselves tonight is whether we should agree to this carry-over motion or to any other carry-over motions on Bills of this type. It will encourage a different approach to legislation if it should become common practice for the House of Commons to agree to carry-over motions. The Government have to get through their legislation in one Session of Parliament, which imposes a considerable discipline upon them. It also gives the Opposition an opportunity to ensure that there is a good debate and sometimes to extract concessions so that the legislation may be passed in one Session. It also means that the general public know that there is a 12-month period—sometimes longer if a parliamentary Session is

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extended—during which a Bill is being debated and is likely to be changed. However, under a carry-over motion that discipline disappears. Proposals can be changed without people being certain of how they affect them.
In recent years, more and more legislation of this type has been carried over. Sometimes legislation has been carried over to a third Session of Parliament. That is undesirable. The Government have to complete their legislation in one Session. Back Benchers who introduce private Members' Bills have to succeed within one Session if they do not want to lose their proposed legislation. That imposes an effective discipline. However, private legislation can be carried forward from one Session to the next.
I understand the argument that private legislation is not the same as other parliamentary business. Petitioners might have to engage people to speak on their behalf, and Committee proceedings can take a long time. On some occasions the promoters will have done everything possible to speed up a Bill's progress. They will have met objectors, tried to reach compromises and suddenly a general election will intervene. In such circumstances, there is an argument for such a motion. However, in this case the promoters had 12 months to make progress with their Bill. So far the Bill has received only its Second Reading.
A Committee was appointed, but one of its members had an interest and was declared ineligible to serve. So far the promoters have not become involved in the expense of acting upon petitions. The promoters have made little attempt to make progress. On the whole, they have brushed aside the objectors or ignored them. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) described what happened when he asked for information. He was told that since he was against the Bill the promoters wanted nothing to do with him.
If we are to continue with the private Bill procedure, we should impose the same discipline on the promoters as we impose upon ourselves. They should aim to put their Bills through in one parliamentary Session.
We must consider what are suitable measures for private legislation. In the past, the House spent more time on private legislation than it does today. Canal, turnpike and railway measures took up more time than public business. Even then the promoters were expected to make concessions to get their legislation through the House in a reasonably short time.
The Manchester ship canal was the subject of a private Bill which was presented to the House on three occasions last century. Each time the aim was to put it through in one Session. There was no question of a carry-over motion. Each time the promoters sought concessions, in spite of considerable opposition from the port of Liverpool to the idea of Manchester having its own canal and port. In the end, a Bill was passed within one Session. If that was reasonable then, we should today examine carry-over motions carefully. In recent years the House has often approved such motions on the nod.
If we are to continue to allow private Bills, we must ensure that they are not controversial. There should be a reasonable opportunity for give and take between all the parties concerned so that a compromise can be arrived at. We should question whether the private Bill procedure is acceptable for controversial measures. If the House refuses
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to grant carry-over motions automatically, people will begin to consider whether we should establish a more effective procedure.
Last century there was no procedure for major planning inquiries. We now have such a procedure. We hold planning inquiries into major proposals. For example, an inquiry was held into the proposals for the development of Stansted, taking into account their implications for airports policy.
In this case, it would have been better if a planning application had been called in by the Minister and a major planning inquiry held into whether the proposed facilities were required. That would have given an opportunity for all the issues to be aired. An inspector would have taken evidence from all the interested groups, whether from individuals representing themselves or being represented legally. They would have had an opportunity to ask questions. The inspector would have listened to all the evidence and prepared a detailed report for the Secretary of State, who would have issued a decision, and if the House disagreed it would have been given an opportunity to debate the matter. In theory, there would have been an opportunity for the House to reach a different conclusion from that reached by the Secretary of State.
The promoters chose not to go through that procedure and they have denied many people the opportunity of making known their objections. The private Bill procedure is not widely understood. Perhaps that is because so many major decisions have been the result of a planning inquiry instead of the archaic private Bill procedure.
The promoters have to advertise their Bill in the locality which in their view is affected. That would be acceptable in this case if the objectors came only from the Felixstowe area. It is not easy to advertise the proposals in Southampton, for instance, or in all the other areas with ports which might lose out as a result of the Bill. The Bill might be well publicised locally, but it might not be advertised in other affected areas.
The small group of parliamentary agents and those who retain them scrutinise such Bills carefully. We are fortunate that groups such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds notice when such legislation is proposed and alert other environmental bodies. However, I suspect that the dock workers were not alerted to the proposals at a time when they might have submitted petitions. They found out about the Bill through publicity following the Second Reading. If a planning inquiry had taken place, they would have had more opportunity to find out about the Bill and to petition against it.
I tabled an amendment which was not selected. It attempted to allow new petitions to be submitted even at this late stage. I understand that the Committee will have a discretion to hear new arguments. I hope that if the Bill reaches the Committee hon. Members on the Committee will be generous and will allow people to put forward their views. The simple solution would be to throw out the Bill. The promoters might then consider a planning application rather than a private Bill. That would make it easier for the many people concerned about the legislation to petition. I accept that there is still a limited opportunity to petition because the Bill must go to the other place. However, there are problems with petitions.
The private Bill procedure does not ensure that all those entitled to know about it and its implications are so informed. Unless people petition at the beginning of the procedure, their opportunity to make representations is

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very limited. The Bill has a Second Reading, which, by tradition, tends to last three hours. When this Bill was debated, many of those who wanted to argue against it were unable to do so and a closure motion was obtained at 10 o'clock.
We must carefully consider the procedures of the House. Last century, when large numbers of private Members' Bills were introduced, there may have been Members of Parliament with little to do who could afford the time to sit, almost like a judicial committee, for several weeks, hearing the evidence and weighing up the case of the promoters and the objections of the petitioners. Whenever I have spoken to people about serving on a private Bill Committee, I have found them concerned about what that involves. It is said that one of the powers of the Whips is to apply pressure on an individual Member to serve on a private Bill Committee as a punishment. It is a fairly onerous duty. The folklore of the House is that if a Member does not turn up to a Committee sitting he can be fined. Of course, that is not really the correct procedure. I understand that the Chairman of the Committee is entitled to report such a case to Mr. Speaker and that it is for the House to decide whether he should be fined. However, that is an indication that the House considers it a serious matter if an individual does not turn up at Committee sittings.
It may take several weeks to hear the evidence and weigh the arguments of the promoters and the petitioners. That is a great imposition on any Member of Parliament who has considerable constituency commitments and other commitments to debating public legislation.
One of the conditions for serving on a private Bill Committee is that an hon. Member should not have the remotest knowledge of or interest in the matter under debate, because if he had he might be partial.
Traditionally, there are four Members on a Committee. The implication is that they will try to arrive at a consensus. If two people vote in favour and two against, it is not easy to arrive at a conclusion. I know that under Standing Orders the Chairman has a casting vote, but there is a feeling that it would not be in the best interests for the Chairman to cast a vote and for the legislation to continue on the basis of a three-two vote.
The procedure is designed to produce a Bill where there is consensus, and where the promoters will have been able to meet the petitioners on various matters. If we are to achieve as full a debate by this procedure as we would through a public inquiry, we must place an onerous task on the four Committee Members to spend a long time in Committee listening to all the arguments.
With this Bill, there would be many environmental arguments—for example, the damage to the estuary and the fact that the wildfowl would lose a substantial part of their habitat. There could also be an argument about docks policy, and the fact that the Government do not actually have one. That would take a long time. There could be an argument about the implications of taking jobs away from Tilbury, Southampton or other ports and moving them to Felixstowe. That is a controversial issue.
There is, of course, the question of the fixed Channel link and the consequences for our ports. If Southampton were to lose a great deal of its trade to Europe, it would be tempted to compensate for that by competing for the trade that Felixstowe claims it is seeking through the proposed development. It would be easy for ships coming from many parts of the world to dock at Southampton and
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the containers then to go by road to Europe, using the fixed link. Such arguments could be developed at considerable length.
Which four Members would really be happy to sit on a Committee listening to evidence week after week, and then have to arrive at what is virtually a judicial decision? This is not the sort of procedure ideally suited to such a proposal. We should choose the alternative procedure of a public inquiry, which would involve people with expert knowledge and provide an opportunity for people to put their evidence in a more satisfactory manner.
When a private Bill has completed its Committee stage—assuming that the Committee believes that it should go forward—it returns to the House for another short debate on Report. The Report stage is not a suitable opportunity to air the basic principles. We have had unfortunate debates on narrow, procedural issues rather than on the meat of the Bill. The Bill then moves to Third Reading.
The scope for amendment is a problem. If there is a public inquiry, an inspector can make a series of recommendations, which can range over a wide area, and the Minister can either issue instructions that embody those recommendations or he can overturn them. However, the private Bill procedure provides that at all stages the scope of the Bill must be narrowed rather than extended. In theory, that is to protect the rights of the petitioners, because if the scope were extended someone might feel that had he known that it would be so extended he would have wished to petition.
If, in Committee, someone suggested that the Bill should have added to it a clause saying that if the fixed Channel link was built the Bill should be regarded as null and void, that would provide a simple precaution. When the Bill was first put forward there was little realistic possibility of a fixed Channel link, but it now appears that it is a more likely prospect. The conditions under which the House gave the Bill a Second Reading, and under which people prepared their petitions, would be altered if, when the Bill left the Committee, there was a clear Government decision on the fixed link. It would be reasonable to include an amendment to say that once construction of a fixed link had begun the powers in the Bill should lapse. Because of the parliamentary convention that legislation must become narrower and not be extended, I suspect that such an amendment would not find favour. Therefore, I believe there to be considerable problems with this system.
It would be far better to throw out the Bill and force the promoters to start again. That would not impose any major financial problem, because the Bill has made little progress. If they did not wish to start again, they could drop the Bill and use the alternative procedure of a planning application, which would ensure that, in due course, there would be a public inquiry. If they do not do that, there will be many problems for petitioners and would-be petitioners. It is a pity that the amendment has not been selected, because it would have enabled people to have their objections heard at the next stage.
I am increasingly dissatisfied with the private Bill procedure, in view of the time of hon. Members that it occupies. Indeed, I have heard hon. Members serving on such Committees say that if only the lawyers representing the various petitioners got on with their case more quickly they would be more sympathetic to the arguments. I have some sympathy with that view, but is it a satisfactory way

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to consider petitions? After all, from the objectors' point of view the arguments being adduced on their behalf are extremely important.
We should, therefore, defeat the proposed carry-over motion and oblige the promoters to return to a public inquiry. They would then have to debate whether the measure was necessary or whether we already had a surplus of port facilities for containers, meaning that it would not be in the national interest to have further capacity. I argue that it is more in the national interest to protect a major estuary that is a natural habitat for waders and wildfowl. Let us retain this area of outstanding natural beauty.
I remind the House that the attraction of an area such as this is its wilderness nature. Once a large container port is established, even if trees and other environmental characteristics are placed round it, the nature of a wide area is changed. I suspect—my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich could tell me—that this development will involve floodlighting at night, enabling 24-hour operation of the facility. That would extend the effects on the area even further. It would be unfortunate if we exchanged attractive mud flats for unused concrete hardstanding, especially if unused capacity exists elsewhere.
A proper public inquiry would also enable those concerned to examine the traffic effects of the development. If a fixed Channel link is built, we shall have to consider not only the traffic effects on East Anglia, but the implications for the Dartford tunnel and the road links down to the point at which the fixed link crosses the Channel. Those issues would be better debated at a public inquiry, where all the implications — including the possibility of a second Channel tunnel — could be considered.
At a public inquiry, full consideration could be given to the impact on competitor ports. For example, how far would the development draw trade away from Tilbury and Southampton, and how far would it affect ports to the north of Felixstowe all along the East Anglian coast right up to Humberside?
A public inquiry would have the opportunity to consider the likely future demand for containers. There is considerable evidence to show that many goods are now being transported in smaller volumes. As trade develops in, say, the coming 20 years, volumes may reduce, meaning that fewer containers will be required. Such arguments could be examined closely at a public inquiry. Another important aspect which an inquiry could consider is how far existing dock facilities are being utilised and what could be done to increase their use, at Felixstowe and elsewhere.
For those reasons, the House should be unwilling automatically to grant carry-over motions of this type. Bills should not be allowed to meander through Parliament, with the public tending to lose track of what is happening and having fewer opportunities to voice their feelings.
If we are to retain the private Bill procedure, it should exist only for Bills which have a wide measure of consensus. In those circumstances the promoters, knowing that they can achieve a wide measure of consensus, have a realistic opportunity of getting their measure through in one Session of Parliament.
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Hon. Members should also examine carefully the environmental issues that are involved. We read in the press during the recess that the Government had suddenly become concerned about the "green" issue. The trouble with their concern is that all their actions point in the opposite direction. For example, we were told of the Government's great concern for the national parks. Then the Secretary of State for Transport announced during the recess not only that he intended to build a bypass through the national park at Okehampton, but that he envisaged getting the necessary legislation through almost on the nod. That does not demonstrate the Government's concern for the "green" issue.
We have seen the way in which the chairman of the Conservative party is willing to whip his Back-Benchers through the House to achieve legislation. I suspect that tonight, although a few hon. Members who are concerned with retaining the natural habitat have come to hear the debate, the payroll vote, the lobbying by Trinity college, which stands to make a great deal of money out of the development of this land, and various other financial interests, will result in Conservative Members voting for the motion. That will prove how little the Conservative party cares for the "green" issue. Its philosophy is that if, by destroying a bit of Britain, somebody can make a profit, that is all right.
In view of the remarks that I have made about the procedures of the House and the need for hon. Members more frequently to protect the habitat and the natural environment, I hope that the motion will be defeated.
8.38 pm
Mr. Tim Yeo: I regret the need for this debate. I felt that the issue could have been resolved at 7 o'clock without a debate or a Division. The discussion has been occupied largely by the hon. Members for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) and for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch), both of whom spoke at some length. I shall respond more briefly to the points that they raised.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) was in his place earlier. Felixstowe is in his constituency and he has shown a close interest in the progress of the Bill. He has been a consistent supporter of it and it is a source of regret to him and to me that he is prevented by virtue of the high office that he holds from taking part in the debate tonight. However, there is no question but that he shares my view that Felixstowe and the prosperity and expansion of the town is of the greatest importance to our constituents, to East Anglia as a whole and to the people of many other constituencies.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) was the promoter of the Bill. He is presently elsewhere on what I believe to be parliamentary business. However, I understand that he hopes to reach the House before the conclusion of the debate.
I strongly support the carry-over motion and there seems to be no reason to withhold it. I regret the speech of the hon. Member for Ipswich, which was completely unworthy of him. His record inside and outside the House led me to expect rather better things from him.
It is noteworthy that no representatives of the Liberal party or the Social Democratic party are in their places. That is exactly what happened on Second Reading. Very few of their number voted in the Division when the Question was put on Second Reading despite their professed concern for unemployment, which is clearly one

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of the issues at stake. They tell us also that they are concerned about "green" issues and infrastructure, but they are unable to muster any attendance for this debate. It should be said that after the debate had started a couple of Liberal Members entered the Chamber, occupied their places, spent a few minutes chatting to each other, looked around and apparently realised that they had come for a different debate. They have not remained with us. Perhaps their presence was some sort of hangover of enthusiasm from their conference.
I have heard nothing during the course of the debate which makes me believe that the Bill should not enjoy the facilities which I understand are normally made available to other private Bills at this stage in their parliamentary progress.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: How many Bills have received the consent of the House to carry over into the next Session which have not proceeded into Committee in the Session in which they were introduced?
Mr. Yeo: I do not have the answer to the hon. Gentleman's question but I consider it to be a rather specious one. He knows as well as everyone else why the Bill did not proceed into Committee. We know that it would have done so in normal circumstances.
Second Reading took place on 13 May and the argument was won overwhelmingly by the Bill's supporters, as was the subsequent Division. It was an extremely good Second Reading debate and all the relevant issues were aired at length. Unfortunately, the arguments of the hon. Member for Ipswich on Second Reading were as specious as his so-called new arguments this evening. He referred to the existence of so-called new material which he explained he wished to introduce into the debate. It became increasingly apparent as his speech continued that he had no new material. That is not surprising because we have had ample opportunity to examine the issues previously. He repeated some of the same unsubstantiated assertions about navigational and environmental concerns, all of which have been fully explored in the past and answered fully by the Felixstowe company.
Mr. Bennett: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us how he and the promoters envisage getting the undertakings on navigation rights worked into legislation?
Mr. Yeo: I believe that the hon. Gentleman has made a Committee point and not one that should be introduced into this debate. He is seeking to deal with a detailed matter and I do not think that it would be appropriate for me to detain the House on that sort of issue. We are here to debate whether the carry-over motion should be accepted by the House.
Mr. Stott: The hon. Gentleman has accused my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) of making unsubstantiated assertions. In fact, my hon. Friend has made no assertions in this context and his remarks certainly cannot be described as unsubstantiated. In August the Suffolk Coastal authority declared, together with another body, that the area of estuarial water with which we are concerned should be a site of special scientific interest. That is a fact of life and not an assertion. It is new evidence, which my hon. Friend has brought to light. I wish that the hon. Gentleman would moderate his language when attacking my hon. Friend and accusing him of making unsubstantiated assertions.
Mr. Yeo: The hon. Gentleman has raised a different point from the one advanced by his hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish. What he says about the site being designated as one of special scientific interest is true. I believe that the assurances that were given on Second Reading on behalf of the Felixstowe company were entirely adequate to satisfy those who are concerned about the possible environmental damage caused by the extension of the port. I believe that the environment will be enhanced by the programe of tree-planting and the other measures that the company is proposing to take to preserve the environmental advantages of the area.
The hon. Member for Ipswich spoke at some length about job creation, an issue that is central to the entire proposal. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was genuine in his concern for unemployment and I am surprised that he should now resort to contorted arguments to try to persuade himself that the Bill will not create many new jobs. There may be some variations in the estimates of the number of jobs that we shall gain, but I believe the estimate of 2,500 to be a reasonable working assumption of long-term job creation. However, there will be many indirect spin-offs which may spread into other constituencies as improved infrastructure encourages firms to locate their businesses in places that were previously not attractive.
The House and the voters of Ipswich and Suffclk as a whole should know that the hon. Member for Ipswich is so desperate in his opposition to this measure that he is resorting to obscure procedural devices in his untiring efforts to eliminate jobs from the areas surrounding his own constituency, including Felixstowe and the other nearby ports of Suffolk. The hon. Gentleman referred to the possibility of jobs being switched from one port to another and I accept that that is a possibility. Jobs could be transferred from one port to another if the Bill is not enacted. They could be transferred from British ports to continental ports, such as Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Those of us who support the Bill and the carry-over motion are anxious to prevent the destruction of job opportunities.
I am sad that the hon. Member for Ipswich and his hon. Friends should want to promote the export of jobs from Britain to the continent, but I am not surprised. It was the Labour Government, who were supported for almost two years by the absent members of the Liberal party, who introduced policies that were designed precisely to export jobs from Britain. The implementation of their policies achieved that unfortunate result with remarkable success.
The hon. Member for Ipswich talked about support for his arguments. He told us that he had received support from the Transport and General Workers Union nationally and at eastern regional level. He acknowledged that the group that knows more about the issue than anyone else — the members of the TGWU who work at Felixstowe, who are ably led by their chief shop steward, who has spent much time considering the merits of the proposal — is in support of the Bill. Once again we see the jackboot of national union leadership being used to grind the wishes of rank-and-file members on the spot into the dust. After all that has happened in the past two years, we might have thought that the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends had reached some different conclusions. The conclusion could have been that local union membership opinion was worth listening to in proposals of this sort.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I accept that the hon. Gentleman can put the case for the Felixstowe docks. Surely he will accept that my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) put the feelings of the rank and file Ipswich dockers.
Mr. Yeo: I merely said that I believed that the members of the TGWU at Felixstowe probably know a fair bit about this proposal and that their views are worth taking into account. I shall certainly take those views into account, even if Labour Members will not.
The fixed link was another item of so-called new material that the hon. Member for Ipswich introduced into the debate. I prefer to call the fixed link the Channel tunnel because fixed link seems to be an absurd bit of jargon. Even if half the construction will be a bridge there will still be a tunnel in the middle. Most people understand more clearly what one means when one refers to the Channel tunnel rather than the fixed link.
It appears from the speeches of the hon. Members for Ipswich and for Denton and Reddish that they will support the proposal for the fixed link. We have had an interesting preview of their attitude. I wonder whether the hon. Member for Ipswich consulted union members who work at Dover harbour, but that is just speculation. I believe that the question of the Channel tunnel is not of great relevance to this issue. It is for the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company to weigh up the commercial risks and the prospects for the proposed expansion. It is difficult to determine the effects of the Channel tunnel on the future of Felixstowe docks. We are speculating about developments that will not be fully operational for 10, 15 or 20 years. It is not for us to determine those effects; it is for the directors of the company to weigh up the commercial risks.
Mr. Patrick Thompson: Does my hon. Friend agree that the Opposition will drag up any reason or excuse, however irrelevant, to delay the passage of the Bill which is so badly needed to create jobs and make progress in East Anglia?
Mr. Yeo: My hon. Friend has put his finger on the point. We are subjected to many arguments of the most peripheral kind and of tangential relevance to this debate.
Reference has been made to the implications for road networks, traffic levels, and so on. I believe that those factors have been taken largely into account. The A45 is a road of high standard, which does not as yet carry an excessive amount of traffic. The House has already approved the A1/M1 link which will be of material value to Felixstowe, industries in the midlands and some constituencies in between. By the end of next year the Chelmsford bypass will be operating. This project is specially dear to the hearts of those people who, like me, frequently drive up and down the A12.
The environmental issue, which was raised earlier in this debate, was explored in great detail on Second Reading, and I cannot add much to that. I am satisfied that the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company will take action to protect the environment from unnecessary damage. I am personally concerned with this because my home is in a village called East Bergholt which is only a few miles from Felixstowe on the other side of the estuary. Many of my constituents have spoken to me about this proposal. Many have contacted the company and received constructive responses. The area is beautiful and it is
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important for us to ensure that it is not diminished as an attraction. The tourist business that we attract to East Anglia and Suffolk is important to us.
Some of the arguments that were introduced into the debate by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish were particularly specious. I acknowledge that he at least tried to address some constitutional aspects. He knows why the Bill has not been able to progress. He appeared to want to overturn a normal procedure. Perhaps if the hon. Gentleman had paid close attention to the hon. Member for Ipswich he would have heard his colleague acknowledge that in initiating the debate he was doing something out of the ordinary in parliamentary terms. It would not be right to conclude that this debate could be used to establish a new precedent for proceeding with private Members' Bills. There is no merit in the suggestion of the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish that a public inquiry should be held. These issues have been adequately debated already. There will be further opportunities in Committee to debate some matters further, assuming that this carry-over motion is passed.
I shall refer to two items of new material that have become available since 13 May. The first is the change in the unemployment figures in Suffolk. New information leads me to believe even more strongly than I did on 13 May that the jobs that would be created if the dock were expanded as proposed are even more important now than they were five months ago. A second item of new material that has become available since 13 May is the improvement in British export prospects because of the movements in sterling. The pound is now much stronger against the dollar, resulting in lower costs for most of the raw materials imported to Britain by manufacturing industry. The pound is now slightly weaker against European currencies such as the deutschemark, making our exports of manufactured goods even more competitive. Those points reinforce the need for the House to approve this motion.
On 13 May the House gave the Bill a Second Reading by a substantial majority after a debate in which the Bill's supporters had the best of the argument. I firmly believe that the Bill should be carried over in the normal way, and I therefore urge the House to approve the motion.
8.57 pm
Mr. Eddie Loyden: I wish to declare an interest in that I am a member of the Transport and General Workers Union docks and waterways section. I do not believe that it would be right to carry over this Bill, and my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) has given many reasons for that. The House should be aware of the wide-ranging implications that carrying over the Bill would have. My hon. Friend has put the constitutional points. The House has failed to recognise that the Bill has wider ramifications than those given consideration on Second Reading.
One of the things that I learnt in the port transport industry was that there is no way of predicting the outcome on the river of a construction in a tidal estuary. Despite what has been said by Conservative Members, I have seen no evidence of that. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) mentioned on Second Reading how much hydrographical research had been done into the feasibility of the extension of the port. He was not challenged when he said that he had heard little about any feasibility studies carried out by the port authority.

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There were at least two years', if not more, research carried out on tidal and current effects, siltation and other matters that would affect the meandering of the tidal estuary as a result of the construction of the new dock at Liverpool. There is no way in which we can predict the outcome of such a construction.
There is no evidence of any in-depth examination at Felixstowe. That leads people to wonder whether the port authority is throwing itself in at the deep end with the extension of the port at Felixstowe.
I do not believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich has been arguing the case merely on behalf of his constituents. In this place it is right for hon. Members to argue a case for their constituency and in the interests of their constituents. He has pointed out that the proposal would affect not only the port immediately adjacent to Felixstowe but other United Kingdom ports. We have already had massive evidence of the effects changes in the pattern of the port transport industry have had on regional economies especially in the north, north-west and Scotland. We have seen changes that have caused once major ports such as Liverpool, Manchester and the other northern ports to play a minor role. We should all recognise that changes in the port transport industry cannot be seen in isolation. We should not examine one port only and make a case for the extension of that port, because the extension can only be to the detriment of other ports and regions.
I do not believe that sufficient information about the consequences of the proposed change on other ports and regional economies has been given to the House. The Government have failed completely to recognise that the decline that is taking place in some parts of the country is related in many instances to the decline in the port industries.
Mr. John Powley: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the demise in some of the ports to which he has referred is due largely to bad management practices, bad labour relations, high labour costs and a low turnover in those ports? We wish our ports to achieve the higher efficiency, lower handling costs and greater efficiency in the use of manpower that is evident in Felixstowe at the moment and in several of our other ports, and which has resulted in the changes he has outlined.
Mr. Loyden: I do not accept that. Prosperity in this country was due largely to the major ports. The nation's wealth was based upon ports such as Liverpool, Manchester, the north-eastern ports, Southampton, Bristol and others. It is nonsense to argue that they were not successful in the past.
We accept that technological change and different methods of handling cargo need changes in the composition and layout of ports. At the same time, we have been faced with the movement away from some regions and into others. That has been to the detriment of some ports and regions. I do not want to block prospects for more work in Felixstowe, but I do not wish to see an expansion of work in Felixstowe at the expense of another part of the country. We are not talking about a real increase in jobs. We are talking about the movement of work from one part of the country to another.
One of the important points missed on Second Reading, which gives grounds for at least an inquiry into Felixstowe, is the fact that the Government have continued
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to give benefits to non-scheme ports as a way of allowing scheme ports to wither on the vine. That has been the intention of this Government from the beginning and that is why they support the expansion of the non-scheme ports. That will be done because the Government want to see an end to the National Dock Labour Board scheme and that can be done by extending the non-scheme ports at the expense of the scheme ports. That has clearly been the intention of the Government from the beginning and has wider implications for the whole of the port transport industry and on any planning that may take place in future. There is no evidence that that is taking place at the moment. The Government saw fit to remove the only constraints we had upon planning for the port transport industry when they amended the Harbours Act.
Mr. Patrick Thompson: Will the hon. Gentleman accept that if the result of the Bill passing in the next Session is an increase in exports and therefore an increase in national wealth, then, as surely as night follows day, this will lead to an overall increase in jobs for this country and for East Anglia in particular? That must be good not only for our region but for the nation.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Hon. Members are beginning to stray a bit. We are dealing with the carryover motion and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will address his remarks to that.
Mr. Loyden: The intervention was moving away from the point. The point that I am making is that the implications of this Bill are wide-reaching and should not be carried over. I am trying to develop the argument about the wider implications. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich argued the case about the adjacent ports, but it is not only the adjacent ports that are affected because other ports in the United Kingdom will be affected and the whole question of any comprehensive plan about the port transport industry will be directly affected by the development not only of Felixstowe, but of the others which will be in the pipeline once this Bill goes through.
There are wide ramifications for the port transport industry and they have been dealt with by my hon. Friends in some detail. The House must recognise the case for the environment. That case has been fully put by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich and it is not something that is confined to those people immediately adjacent to the environment that can be despoiled by this development. That piece of environment belongs to us all and we have seen the growing interest by the people in their environment, particularly when they see more and more of it being destroyed.
We are now conscious of the fact that we have to do all we can to preserve those bits of environment that still remain intact, areas which are things of beauty and places where people can take their leisure. That is not a matter for the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Board to consider. It is a matter that affects people throughout the country, who are concerned about the future of their environment. This is proven by the fact that environmentalists are having a greater say in the political direction in which Governments are going.
This Bill does not confine itself to the effects it will have either on the port industry in that area or the environment. This Bill will have a direct effect upon the port transport industry in the widest possible sense. In the post-war period I have seen in the port of Liverpool a

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decline which was partly due to technological change or to the changing pattern in the method of cargo handling. It was mainly due to the development and operation of non-scheme ports and the effect that our entry into the European Community had on those ports. In that sense the port was central to the economy of that area and it is a matter of grave importance to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company, which is the port authority, when it sees the possibility of its trade being further taken away by the development of ports on the south coast, particularly non-scheme ports.
The Bill should not be carried over. There should be a much closer examination of all the implications that would flow from the passing of the Bill. It would open the floodgates for further applications, because the restrictions would have been lifted and not only northern ports but those on the south-west coast and others would be affected.
The implications are wide and the House would do well to think carefully about the Bill. It would be an abuse of our procedures if the measure were carried over. It will have serious implications for the industry and the country generally and could deal a death blow to ports such as Liverpool. I ask my hon. Friends to oppose the carry-over motion.
9.10 pm
Mr. Christopher Chope: Before explaining why I have grave reservations about the motion, I should tell the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) that I did not vote for the Second Reading of the Bill. I abstained because I felt that this was a Bill to promote free and fair competition, but on the basis of what has happened since Second Reading I am worried about whether it really is free and fair competition.
The motion would prevent any new petitioners arguing against the Bill. That would be a grave step. Since Second Reading, a number of people have concluded that they should have petitioned against the Bill. If the Bill had got through in this Session, they could not have complained — they would have missed their opportunity — but it would be unusual for the House to give leave to promoters of a private Bill to have it carried over to the next Session, particularly when there has been no intervening general election and when the Bill has not even been considered in Committee.
This is undoubtedly a controversial Bill. It is not urgent, and major developments in the British docks industry since Second Reading have implications for the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Boothferry (Sir P. Bryan) said on Second Reading that the Bill was necessary because many shipowners wished to use east coast ports and some had refused to use ports such as Southampton because of their disastrous industrial relations record.
Since then, Southampton has demonstrated that it has put its house in order. Many of the stop stewards who have helped to bring about the changes there are in the Public Gallery for this debate. Unit costs at Southampton have been reduced substantially — from about £110 per container to about £70. At that figure, the port was attracting business away from Felixstowe. The evidence is that Felixstowe is having great difficulty in finding customers for its new Trinity terminal.
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Paragraph 2 of the original statement by the promoters in support of the Bill said:
"existing facilities in Felixstowe are barely sufficient to meet the current needs of port users and by mid-1986 the Port of Felixstowe will have completed its growth within its present limits. Further expansion will only be possible after that year if the Bill is enacted."
However, information provided for me today by shop stewards from Southampton shows that the situation in Felixstowe is so desperate that, far from existing users saying that there is insufficient capacity, the port is short of users and is prepared to approach Trio and Saecs, the two main users that keep Southampton going. The port of Felixstowe has come to those two customers and is threatening to undercut the prices substantially. I believe that a figure of something like £50 per container has recently been mentioned.
There is no way in which any large container port in Europe can operate on that sort of basis, and there is certainly no way in which any container port in this country can do so if it is playing fair. My fear is that the port of Felixstowe is trying to create a private monopoly for itself. On the basis of the information that I have been given, what is contained in paragraph 2 of the promoters' statement—whether it was true at the time, I would not like to judge, but certainly on the basis of recent evidence — it needs to be closely examined. The opportunity should be given for more people to come forward to petition against the Bill, to try to examine that allegation further.
The port of Southampton is now viable, but if it loses the business that Felixstowe now threatens to take from it there will effectively be only one major container port in this country. In my submission, that would be in neither the national interest nor the local, particularly in Southampton. It is pretty galling when a group of people who have made the sort of sacrifices that many of my constituents in Southampton have made find that they are threatened in the way that now seems likely.
The attitude of the Transport and General Workers Union on this is not one that I wholly endorse because, on the one hand, the local TGWU in Felixstowe is saying that it is heartily in favour of this whilst, on the other, some members of the TGWU national committee, as I understand it, are threatening a national dock strike in the event of this Bill getting on to the statute book. That is grossly reprehensible. I hope that no one working in Southampton would have anything to do with it.
At the same time, however, national members of the TGWU and the Labour party itself are committed to a policy of imposing sanctions against South Africa at a stroke. If such sanctions were brought in it would destroy the port of Southampton — the people in the Public Gallery today know that—because it would take away one third of the container traffic going through Southampton at the moment. So we do not want to have too much humbug about this.
I hope that, in the light of the new developments that have taken place since the Second Reading, the House will consider very carefully whether it would be right to allow this Bill to be carried over to the next Session and whether it would not be much fairer for all concerned for it to have to start again then.
9.19 pm
Mr. Roger Stott: The hon. Member for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo) accused my hon. Friend the

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Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) of making unsubstantiated assertions. I would like to level the same charge at the hon. Member for Suffolk, South. It is a pity that he is no longer in place to hear it. The reason why my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich continues to represent that splendid constituency is that he assiduously defends his constituents' interests. That is why they continue to support him no matter what adversity may be affecting the Labour party nationally at the time. My hon. Friend was absolutely justified in saying what he did in relation to what is, after all, substantial new evidence that has come to light since we debated this matter on 13 May this year.
Your predecessor in the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker, indicated that all Members who took part in this debate this evening—and rightly so—must confine their remarks to the issues which are currently on the Order Paper. None of us has any quarrel with that at all. Our difficulty, however, is that this is a rather unusual situation. It is certainly unusual for many of my hon. Friends, and I notice that the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr. Chope) found a little difficulty in staying in order when trying to say the things that he wished to say. I understand the position of the Chair. If, during my brief contribution, I wander outside the terms of reference of the debate, it will be because I find it somewhat difficult to address my remarks to the narrow proposal before us.
The parliamentary and constitutional issue was best spelt out by my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) when he said that if the House prevented the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company from carrying this private Bill through this evening's procedures into the next Session of Parliament, in a sense that would be offending the traditions of the House of Commons. I believe that, too, for several reasons, some of which I shall attempt to adduce.
It is a thoroughly bad practice for anybody to bring a private Bill to the House of Commons that fundamentally—I use the word constructively—disturbs the national pattern of ports policy. The hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. Hill) has belatedly gone down the road to Damascus with regard to ports policy. There are two new reasons for not preventing the Bill going further, and that is the conversion of the hon. Members for lichen and Test who have been lobbied heavily by their constituents. I should say in fairness to them that I made on Second Reading exactly the same points that they both made tonight. I am sorry that they could not join me in the Lobby when we debated that on 13 May.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) said that one of the issues that has come to light since Second Reading is the decision by the Nature Conservancy Council and Suffolk Coastal county council to designate the area of the estuary of the Orwell a site of special scientific interest, notified under section 28 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. If a county council and a reputable body have decided so to notify that area of estuarial water as an SSSI under the Act, I should have thought that the House of Commons would take serious cognisance of the fact. That is one of the substantial reasons whey we are taking our present position.
On Second Reading, although petitions were laid by many conservation bodies, that position had not been officially taken by the county council and the NCC. As it has been ratified by those bodies after Second Reading, it is important to outline some of the reasons why that was done. Many Conservative Members have referred to it.
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The hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Sir E. Griffiths) graced us with his presence rather late in the debate. No doubt he will make his excuses if he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. He cannot ignore the substantial body of opinion in his own area, together with the fears of the national bodies concerned with the conservation of wildlife, about the dangers to that unique habitat in East Anglia of the extension of Felixstowe. I need not rehearse all the arguments. They are clear and concise. I have no doubt that everybody concerned with the issue and the debate will have received the contents of the petition of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, which refers to the unique habitat surrounding the Felixstowe area, which will be irreparably damaged if the Bill proceeds. The House should not consider proceeding further without taking proper cognisance of what that august body has said.
If that claim by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is not enough, the House has a duty and responsibility in the national interest. On Second Reading, I drew the Minister's attention at some length to the way in which the Bill would undermine the very precarious national balance in our ports system today. If the Bill is to be allowed to proceed into the next Session of Parliament, the House would have done far better today to say that it should be taken away and submitted to the planning application procedure just as the proposal to extend Stansted airport was submitted to the planning application procedure and to a public inquiry. I believe that developing Felixstowe as proposed will have the same effect on our ports as the Stansted extension will have on our airports and that this is, therefore, a matter of great national interest.
Neither the Minister nor anyone else in the Chamber today has seriously and intellectually challenged the evidence to which I drew attention on 30 May. I refer to the evidence submitted by Dr. Gilman of the marine transport department of Liverpool university. Dr. Gilman has considered the matter very seriously and produced an academic paper on the subject. He has considered the levels of trade and the volume of imports and exports. The hon. Member for Suffolk, South shakes his head, but even he, in his somewhat spurious five-minute contribution today, did not challenge the intellectual basis of the argument that I made on Second Reading, and that is the kernel of our argument today.
Fresh evidence has now emerged in support of the case that we made about total tonnage movable in the United Kingdom. Either it can all be moved through Felixstowe or it can be moved through various other ports in the United Kingdom. The hon. Member for Suffolk, South and the Minister, however, must address themselves to the fact that there is already enormous overcapacity. If the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Bill proceeds into the next Session of Parliament without a wide-ranging planning investigation and without a public inquiry, the five berths at Felixstowe will provide 3·5 million tonnes additional cargo capacity for a system which requires just over 9 million tonnes in total and is already adequately provided for. All the academic research on cargo-handling trends, ro-ro services and containerisation shows that we are handling less cargo than in 1977 and 1979. Indeed, we are probably handling about as much as we did at the start of the container revolution in 1967, so the current handling capacity of our ports requires no additional provision at Felixstowe.
Mr. Yeo: The hon. Gentleman accused me of not responding to his point, but it has not been made in this debate by either the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) or the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden). The point was adequately answered on Second Reading by many Conservative speakers, and it was voted on. The hon. Gentleman is now dredging up the Second Reading debate again, and that has nothing to do with this motion. The Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company is the best body to decide on the commercial prospects for an expansion of Felixstowe. If it makes a mistake, it will make a loss. No taxpayers' money is involved in the scheme, and I have no doubt that the company has made a careful judgment about the prospect of future tonnage. On its past record, the company's judgment seems to be remarkably good.
Mr. Stott: That is so, and if the hon. Gentleman had read or heard what I said on Second Reading he would know that I paid tribute to the way in which the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company had made that port a success —there is no doubt about that. However, one cannot simply approve a project that, in the face of all the evidence available to us both on Second Reading and since then, will have a dramatic effect on the national interest of our ports.
Why does the hon. Member for Suffolk, South think that the hon. Members for Itchen and for Test are now getting cold feet about the proposition? They know the damage that this extension would cause to their ports, as my hon. Friends the Members for Ipswich and Garston know how it would affect the ports in their constituencies.
I accept that the hon. Member for Suffolk, South is ploughing his constituency furrow when he defends the Bill. However, I cannot agree that the Bill would be in the national interest, and therefore——
Mr. Yeo rose——
Mr. Stott: I must finish because the Minister must have time to wind up the debate.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish, I believe that there is a constitutional case against the Bill continuing into the next Session. There are also good sound, practical reasons.
I do not commit my party one way or the other. It is essential that we bear a certain factor in mind. The Government have proceeded at a great pace to try to get a resolution of the fixed link. They have encouraged it and set up an organisation that will evaluate the projects submitted to the Secretary of State. Whether or not we agree with the fixed link across the Channel does not affect the fact that if it were to come about it would have profound effects on our port strategy for the south and east coasts of the United Kingdom.
I have no doubt that the Minister has been to visit Dover, as I did early this year. Some 11,000 people are employed in that port, which moves more in tonnage and value than does Felixstowe. If there is to be at some stage a fixed link across the Channel, it will have a profound effect on our ports policy, and on what the Bill is proposing to do.
Like the hon. Member for Test, I believe that there should be a proper national ports policy. We should not proceed through piecemeal legislation such as this, nor should we do something that we should all regret.
9.35 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. David Mitchell): I shall reply briefly to the debate, because this is a procedural motion. I shall simply advise the House of the Government's attitude.
The hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) sought to draw me on the net effect of these proposals on the extension of employment in the ports industry. On another occasion I should be happy to debate the merits of allowing the growth of port capacity where customers want it versus the merits of refusing that development and forcing customers to use existing capacity elsewhere. Tonight I must resist that temptation. I am sure that the hon. Member for Ipswich will understand why. Likewise, I shall not follow the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) in his forecast of the capacity required in United Kingdom ports; nor shall I follow his speculation about a Channel fixed link and its possible effects.
The hon. Member for Ipswich asked me about the possibility of legislative backing for the guarantees promised by Felixstowe. My Department takes the view that parts of the harbour revision order are ultra vires as regards guarantees for Ipswich traffic. It is not for me to speculate at this stage about what legislative alternatives may be available to provide the port of Ipswich with the guarantees that it seeks. It is for the parties concerned—Ipswich, Harwich and Felixstowe — to sort out a legislative solution among themselves.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: If the House did not pass the carry-over motion today and the promoters had to introduce a new Bill, it would then be possible for them to solve the vires problem.
Mr. Mitchell: As I was trying to say to the House, it is entirely a matter for the parties to decide the way in which they wish to proceed.
To return to the Government's view, I understand that it is not infrequent for there to be a carry-over motion of this kind. From the remarks that I made on Second Reading, the House will be aware that the Government's stand is neutral in relation to the Bill, as is customary in such circumstances. I recommended to the House that the Bill should be given a Second Reading and allowed to proceed in the usual way to Committee where its provisions could be considered in detail. It is consistent with that approach that the Government therefore support the carry-over motion. The case for supporting the motion has been put eloquently by a number of my hon. Friends.
This is an important private Bill, although a controversial one. The House affirmed the principle of the Bill, albeit conditionally, on Second Reading and subject to proof of allegations of fact before the Committee. If the motion is carried, the House will have an opportunity to consider the arguments for and against the Bill on the basis of the current proposals before it in Committee and at later stages. It is perhaps fair to say that it is no fault of the promoters that the Bill has not made more rapid progress in this Session, due to wholly unlooked for problems that arose in connection with the proposed chairmanship of the Committee that was appointed to examine the Bill.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Does the Minister accept that if the promoters had made more of an attempt to meet my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch) and other objectors, particularly the petitioners, and that if they

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had been able to meet some of the points made in the petitions and got those petitions withdrawn, much more rapid progress could have been made?
Mr. Mitchell: Progress could hardly have been made without the Bill going into Committee. The motion before the House would allow exactly that. It would enable the Committee to consider whether proper arrangements had been made to meet the points that have been raised by hon. Members speaking on behalf of, for example, the port of Ipswich, which clearly is very much involved in the consequences of the proposed measure. The view of the Government is that it would be unfortunate if the House were not to agree to the motion. Therefore, I urge the House to allow the Bill to be carried over in the usual way and to agree to the motion.
9.39 pm
Dr. David Clark: First, I apologise to the House for not being here during the very early stages of the debate. I had to attend an important conference in Newcastle which discussed, interestingly enough, the marine environment. Therefore, it is apposite that I should participate in this debate, albeit on the motion in front of the House, in terms of the marine environment. It is also apposite that I should represent, with my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Dixon), one of the major ports in this country, which is on the Tyne. I do not speak as a constituency Member or in defence of the Tyne port. I do not need to do so.
The Bill should not be carried over into the next Session. Many developments affecting the Bill have occurred since we had our wide-ranging Second Reading debate on 13 May. Sufficient new evidence and information of national import has been obtained since then to merit my submission. The Bill may appear to be an innocuous, local measure, but it has wide-ranging implications not only for the Felixstowe area but for places such as Southampton and Liverpool.
The changes in economic factors since we discussed the Bill on 13 May were skilfully argued by my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Mr. Weetch). He described the nuances in the changes in the economic arguments, especially in relation to jobs. The hon. Member for Suffolk, South (Mr. Yeo) used the same employment statistics to support his case. The statistics show a worsening economic position. That is why I think that we should refuse to allow a carry-over period.
We are conscious not only of the Bill's economic and conservation implications but of its effect on the leisure industry. Since the Second Reading further aspects have emerged. We were all aware of the navigational problems. We knew that if the river were deepened and the wharfs built the channel would be restricted and that the pleasure boats would have to use the same routes as merchant ships. In addition to that, new marinas are being developed at Dovercourt, Harwich and Shotley, which will have an effect on navigational rights on the river. The Minister made it clear that navigational disputes between Ipswich and Felixstowe are ultra vires and must be settled elsewhere.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: The Minister failed to answer my question. I argued that if we had a new Bill it would be possible to include such considerations in that new Bill. I understand that since the promoters gave notice
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in their original proposals that they would include that aspect in the Bill there would be no difficulty. If the promoters took the Bill away and started again they could solve the problem from the start and it would he tied up in legislation instead of being left in such an airy-fairy way that the guarantees sought by Ipswich cannot be given.
Dr. ClarkMy hon. Friend, perhaps. deploys my argument more skilfully than I can. That is the very thrust of the point I intended to make.
In addition to having a responsibility to the good citizens of Felixstowe, the House has a responsibility to the people of Ipswich. The problem of navigational rights is tricky, as I well know from my experience on the Clyde and from our debates on the Norfolk Broads. Indeed, we may have to deal with a private Bill from the Norfolk Broads. Navigational rights are common rights and cannot be bartered over a table. Those rights must be negotiated in this Chamber alone.
I use the Minister's argument to support the point that the Bill should not be carried over. If the promoters feel it proper and right to extend the port, they should return to the House with a new Bill I believe that to be the logic of the Minister's case.
Mr. Stott: My hon. Friend makes a salient point, and I should have touched on it in my contribution. I draw his attention to column 102 of Hansard of 13 May, when I read into the record a letter from Captain Wiechmann, master of the Cast Salmon—a ship that travels up and down the Orwell river regularly. He expressed concern that
"if the proposed extension of the Felixstowe quays takes place into the narrower section of the River Orwell, then the reduced channel will effectively prevent any possibility of passing whilst vessels are berthing or unberthing at the new quays."— [Official Report, 13 May 1985; Vol. 79, c. 102.]
That seagoing master regularly uses the river. He has committed his views on paper in a letter to his employers.
Would it not be better for the Bill to be withdrawn so that we could obtain the views of the pilots, the master mariners and others who use the river about the Felixstowe proposals?
Dr. Clark: I concur with my hon. Friend. I have a report of his speech in front of me now. He makes a salient point. The Minister may argue that the Bill should be allowed to go to Committee, but that does not help the House. As we all know, it is Second Reading that provides an opportunity for a wide-ranging debate.
The rules of the House will not easily allow the introduction of new information. Therefore, we should start again with a wide-ranging debate on the merits of the case. We are this evening discussing a narrow motion on whether the Bill should be carried over.
The hon. Member for Suffolk, South made an interesting point when he said that the proposal did not affect the environment and then referred to the planting of trees. The House might wish to know that it is reported that the port of Felixstowe is prepared to plant 500,000 trees to screen the development. It thinks that that planting would make the scheme environmentally attractive. However, if it takes 500,000 trees to make the scheme environmentally attractive, there must be something environmentally unsound in the first place.
Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Is it intended to plant broadleaved trees or conifers? Many people have been alarmed about the environmental impact of conifers.
Dr. Clark: My hon. Friend raises an interesting point to which I shall come when I deploy the next stage of my argument.
The hon. Member for Suffolk, South spoke about the development affecting not the environment but the habitat. The whole point about that habitat, which has been declared an SSSI, is that it is not forest but mud flats. That is where birds such as redshanks, turnstones and grey and ringed plovers go. They go there not because there are trees there but because there are not trees there. That is the especial value of the site. That is why that area, rather than, say, the Kielder forest, was declared an SSSI. Put 500,000 trees there and there would be no point in designating it an SSSI. Fleet forest, Galloway, Kielder forest or the New Forest would serve the purpose.
That brings me to the whole question of the new information in relation to the SSSI. I remind hon. Members again that the Second Reading took place on 13 May last. The Nature Conservancy Council, the body responsible for advising the Government and the nation on matters pertaining to the natural sciences and the environment, notified Suffolk county council, the owners, on 20 August that the area should be designated a site of special scientific interest.
Following the passage of the Wildlife and Countryside (Amendment) Act 1985, which received the Royal Assent in June and became effective on 26 August, that site became protected. That is a new development of which this House did not have knowledge when the issue was discussed on 13 May.
The whole scientific reason for that designation was not because there were 500,000 trees in the area but, rather, because there were not 500,000 trees there. That designation was not lightly given. Under the Ramsar convention, the area has been designated an EEC special protection area. It is regarded as an area of outstanding international quality. It is of immense value to wildfowl, waders and other birds.
It is our job in Parliament to deliberate on these matters as a whole, and Back Benchers, especially on the Opposition Benches, depend greatly on information given to us by outside bodies. Reference has been made to the RSPB. I have no doubt that the Transport and General Workers Union gave advice, for example, to my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich. We have a responsibility to listen to the arguments advanced by outside bodies, especially those that Parliament has set up to advise hon. Members.
In 1973 we established the Nature Conservancy Council to advise us on matters pertaining to the natural sciences. When we debated this issue on 13 May, we did not have the benefit of that council's advice. Its advice was not made public—I do not know whether it was given to the Minister beforehand—until 24 May 1985. Again, that is a pertinent piece of new information.
The council's attitude to the proposal of the Felixstowe company is outlined in considerable detail and with great clarity in four pages. It is the first time that we have been able to discuss the council's analysis. That is a reason why we should start again and have another Second Reading if we so wish. The council has analysed the likely effect of the Bill's enactment on the bird population and the natural habitat. It states that it would be impossible to recreate the present habitat and adds:
"In view of the foregoing, the Nature Conservancy Council must advise that the passage of this Bill would lead to serious
112
damage to nature conservation interests and the national and international status of the Orwell Estuary. Therefore, the Nature Conservancy Council consider that the interests of nature conservation would be best served if the Bill is not enacted."
That was made public on 24 May.
On two national dimensions—the establishment of the SSSI and the evidence of the NCC—it is clear that we should not allow the Bill to go forward. If we allow it to proceed, we shall have only a truncated debate on an issue which has major national ramifications.
The issue is not as simple as that. Since the debate of 13 May other evidence has become available about the establishment of the area of outstanding natural beauty. The area in question was one of the original 36 AONBs which various Governments of both political complexions have seen fit to establish. It is a great pity that the present Government do not have the determination to establish the north Pennine as an AONB without sheltering behind a public inquiry. When they designated the area that we are discussing there was no need for a public inquiry. The Government were so sure that it was an area of outstanding natural beauty that they felt that there was no need to hide behind an inspector. They were able on their own judgment and on the merits of the case to establish the area as one of outstanding natural beauty because of the quality of the land.
It is interesting to consider the importance of an area of outstanding natural beauty. I recommend all Members to read an article that appeared in the County Council Gazette of September 1985 by Mr. Edwin Barritt, the county planning officer of Suffolk. In that article he argues fairly and outlines the conflict between the environment and jobs. He addresses himself to whether new jobs will be created and makes two pertinent points that are relevant to the motion. He quotes the Secretary of State for the Environment, and it is to be noted that no Minister from the Department is on the Government Front Bench this evening. It appears that in 1982 the then Secretary of State for the Environment said:
"It would be inconsistent with the aims of designation"—
that is, designation as an AONB—
"to permit the siting of major industrial and commercial developments in areas of outstanding natural beauty. Only proven national interest and lack of alternative sites can justify"—
Mr. Yeo rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question now be put.
Question put, That the Question be now put:—
The House divided: Ayes 123, Noes 52.

Division No. 293]

[10.12 pm

AYES

Amess, David

Lang, Ian

Ancram, Michael

Lawler, Geoffrey

Aspinwall, Jack

Lawrence, Ivan

Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

Lester, Jim

Baker, Nicholas (N Dorset)

Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

Batiste, Spencer

Lightbown, David

Beggs, Roy

Lilley, Peter

Best, Keith

Lloyd, Peter, (Fareham)

Bevan, David Gilroy

Lord, Michael

Blackburn, John

Lyell, Nicholas

Boscawen, Hon Robert

McCrindle, Robert

Bottomley, Peter

MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Maclean, David John

Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

McQuarrie, Albert

Brooke, Hon Peter

Major, John

Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

Maples, John

Browne, John

Mates, Michael

Buck, Sir Antony

Mather, Carol

Burt, Alistair

Maude, Hon Francis

Butcher, John

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Cash, William

Mayhew, Sir Patrick

Chalker, Mrs Lynda

Miller, Hal (B'grove)

Chapman, Sydney

Mills, Iain (Meriden)

Cockeram, Eric

Mitchell, David (NW Hants)

Colvin, Michael

Monro, Sir Hector

Coombs, Simon

Morris, M. (N'hampton, S)

Cope, John

Murphy, Christopher

Couchman, James

Neubert, Michael

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Nicholls, Patrick

Dorrell, Stephen

Norris, Steven

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

Onslow, Cranley

Dover, Den

Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

Durant, Tony

Penhaligon, David

Emery, Sir Peter

Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian

Fallon, Michael

Pollock, Alexander

Fenner, Mrs Peggy

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

Fookes, Miss Janet

Powell, William (Corby)

Forth, Eric

Powley, John

Fox, Marcus

Raffan, Keith

Franks, Cecil

Rhodes James, Robert

Freeman, Roger

Roe, Mrs Marion

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

Gow, Ian

Skeet, T. H. H.

Gregory, Conal

Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

Stanbrook, Ivor

Ground, Patrick

Stewart, Andrew (Sherwood)

Gummer, John Selwyn

Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

Harris, David

Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

Hawkins, Sir Paul (SW N'folk)

Waddington, David

Hayes, J.

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Walker, Cecil (Belfast N)

Hind, Kenneth

Warren, Kenneth

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

Wells, Bowen (Hertford)

Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

Wood, Timothy

Howell, Ralph (N Norfolk)

Young, Sir George (Acton)

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Jones, Robert (W Herts)

Tellers for the Ayes:

Key, Robert

Sir Eldon Griffiths and Mr. Tim Yeo.

King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

NOES

Bagier, Gordon A. T.

Crowther, Stan

Beckett, Mrs Margaret

Dewar, Donald

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

Dixon, Donald

Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

Dormand, Jack

Campbell-Savours, Dale

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

Chope, Christopher

Eastham, Ken

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Foster, Derek

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Foulkes, George

Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S.)

George, Bruce

Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

115

Godman, Dr Norman

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

Golding, John

Nellist, David

Gould, Bryan

Pike, Peter

Haynes, Frank

Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

Heffer, Eric S.

Redmond, M.

Hill, James

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Rogers, Allan

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Skinner, Dennis

Lambie, David

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

Loyden, Edward

Spearing, Nigel

McCartney, Hugh

Stott, Roger

McKay, Allen (Penistone)

Strang, Gavin

MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

McNamara, Kevin

Welsh, Michael

McWilliam, John

Marek, Dr John

Tellers for the Noes:

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Mr. Ken Weetch and Mr. Andrew F. Bennett.

Maxton, John

Maynard, Miss Joan

Question accordingly agreed to.
Question put accordingly:—
The House divided: Ayes122, Noes 53.
Question accordingly agreed to.
Ordered,
That the promoters of the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Bill shall have leave to suspend proceedings thereon in order to proceed with the Bill, if they think fit, in the next Session of Parliament, provided that the Agents for the Bill give notice to the Clerks in the Private Bill Office not later than the day before the close of the present Session of their intention to suspend further proceedings and that all fees due on the Bill up to that date be paid.
Ordered,
That on the fifth day on which the House sits in the next Session the Bill shall be presented to the House.
Ordered,
That there shall be deposited with the Bill a declaration signed by the Agents for the Bill, stating that the Bill is the same in every respect, as the Bill at the last stage of its proceedings in this House in the present Session.
Ordered,
That the Bill shall be laid upon the Table of the House by one of the Clerks in the Private Bill Office on the next meeting of the House after the day on which the Bill has been presented and, when so laid, shall be read the first and second time and committed (and shall be recorded in the Journal of this House as having been so read and committed).
Ordered,
That all Petitions relating to the Bill presented in the present Session which stand referred to the Committee on the Bill shall stand referred to the Committee on the Bill in the next Session.
Ordered,
That no Petitioners shall be heard before the Committee on the Bill, unless their Petition has been presented within the time limited within the present Session or deposited pursuant to paragraph (b) of Standing Order 126 relating to Private Business.
Ordered,
That in relation to the Bill, Standing Order 127 relating to Private Business shall have effect as if the words "under Standing Order 126 (Reference to committee of petitions against bill)" were omitted.
Ordered,
That no further fees shall be charged in respect of any proceedings on the Bill in respect of which Fees have already been incurred during the present Session.
Ordered,
That these Orders be Standing Orders of the House.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, the Housing Bill [Lords], the Housing Associations Bill [Lords], the Housing (Consequential Provisions) Bill [Lords], the Landlord and Tenant Bill [Lords] and the Weights and Measures Bill [Lords], may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour. — [Mr. Solicitor-General.]

Housing Bill [Lords]
Order for Second Reading read.
10.20 pm
The Solicitor-General (Sir Patrick Mayhew): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
I hope that it will be for the convenience of the House if I deal with the Housing Bill and the other three associated Bills on housing — that is, the Housing Associations Bill [Lords], the Housing (Consequential Provisions) Bill [Lords] and the Landlord and Tenant Bill [Lords]—together.
I am sure that the House would wish me to express its thanks, its appreciation and its admiration to those primarily responsible for the completion of this enormous task. These four Bills will consolidate an area of law last consolidated some 28 years ago, since when there have been 17 further Housing Acts and unnumbered other amendments. The Table of Derivations in the Housing Bill alone occupies 47 pages. The four Bills together comprise 778 clauses and 36 schedules.
The subject matter is diverse. The draftsman identified 16 distinct topics within the scope of the existing legislation. Sixteen separate Bills would not have been a practical proposition and the present format was, therefore, chosen. The Housing Bill contains the majority of the provisions within the scope of the consolidation, but within that the draftsman has arranged the parts in such a way that the seeker after enlightenment can approach each part as if it were a self-contained unit.
Two topics were, however, sufficiently distinct to merit separate Bills. The first is the Housing Associations Bill dealing with a clearly identifiable sub-division of the law on housing. It also has a different territorial application. The Housing Bill extends to England and Wales only whereas the Housing Associations Bill extends to Scotland as well.
Secondly, there is the Landlord and Tenant Bill. The last of the four Bills is the Housing (Consequential Provisions) Bill, which deals with technical matters arising from the three substantive Bills, such as repeals, consequential amendments and transitional matters. It is more convenient, in a consolidation exercise of this size, to gather them together in this way.
There are two other matters relating to the exercise that I should mention. First, there was no pre-consolidation tidying-up Bill, so these Bills merely re-enact the law as it stands. However, the Law Commission, for the purpose of a satisfactory consolidation, made a number of recommendations for amendments that would remove technical anomalies and inconsistencies, and for the repeal of a number of provisions of doubtful use. Those amendments have been incorporated. Secondly, the number of Acts to be consolidated and the diverse nature of the subject matter have led the draftsmen to recast the provisions in a more modern and consistent style. In particular, the provisions have been divided up as far as possible into short sections and short subsections, and subparagraphs have been almost entirely dispensed with. I believe that that style is welcome and admirable.
As the House knows, consolidation exercises involve a great amount of detailed and painstaking work. We are particularly fortunate that the Joint Committee on Consolidation, &c., Bills undertakes a careful and detailed scrutiny of the proposals to ensure that, subject to any

117
amendments that it may suggest, the consolidation Bills meet the necessary' requirements. In the light of its report, we were able to consider them with much greater confidence.
Therefore, I should like to thank the committee on behalf of the House for its endeavours on this and other consolidation Bills that the House has considered during the Session. I should also like to thank the Law Commission and Parliamentary Counsel for their efforts and congratulate them on their epic achievement in the preparation of the Bills. It is a superlative piece of consolidation, to use the words of a distinguished Law Lord in another place. It is essential that the law should be accessible and intelligible. This consolidation represents a significant contribution to both these objectives. I commend the Bills to the House.
10.27 pm
Mr. Nicholas Brown: As I have done on previous occasions, I should like to state on behalf of the Opposition our thanks to the Joint Committee for the painstaking work that it does, and our support for that work. It is right that the laws of our country should be set out in as clear and comprehensive a form as possible. It is the task of the Joint Committee to draw together existing legislation in the same area and present the fruits of its labour to Parliament for approval.
Approval is usually forthcoming without a great deal of further debate. There are two obvious reasons for that. The first is that the Joint Committee is dealing with the existing law of the land and not considering controversial new legislation. The second reason why Parliament does not normally subject consolidated legislation to further vigorous scrutiny is that both Houses are represented on the Committee, the Opposition as well as the Government. Indeed, the major advantage of such a Committee is that it scrutinises, on behalf of Parliament, proposals for consolidation and the form that it should take. That relieves Parliament of the necessity of considering consolidation measures in some other way. In short, we rely upon the work of the Committee.
In as far as the Bills now before us represent the recommendations of the Joint Committee, the Opposition are willing to see those recommendations pass into legislation, satisfied that in form and substance they have been subjected to proper scrutiny. However, that is not all that we are being asked to do. The Government have now said that they wish to table a substantial number of amendments to these complex Acts, which are supposed to represent the final views of the Joint Committee on Consolidation, &c., Bills before being presented to the House. It is reasonable to ask what scrutiny the new amendments will receive before being enacted as legislation.
I received a pile of papers 4½ in thick from the Solicitor-General's office for my consideration today before tonight's debate. Until this afternoon there had been no agreement through the usual channels about the proposed amendments to the legislation. The failure properly to consult the Opposition over what should be non-controversial legislation is completely out of keeping with the spirit in which those matters are usually dealt with. It pushes the rights not just of the parliamentary Opposition but of Parliament itself to one side. That is all the more irksome to me in that I telephoned the Solicitor-General
118
in mid-September to clarify the position and received a very pleasant letter dated 24 September stating in relation to the Bills now under discussion:
"The draftsman is endeavouring to prepare the amendments and the accompanying notes by the beginning of October and I hope, therefore, that I will be able to send them on to you in the near future."
Yet the information was dumped on me today, accompanied by a letter dated 15 October saying:
"Insofar as the proposed amendments to the various Housing Consolidation Bills are concerned, these have not yet been finally settled. It will be some time before they are finalised but, in view of their number, I thought you would appreciate having those already prepared at this stage, albeit subject to possible change."
As well as providing the information only hours before the debate, therefore, the Solicitor-General is saying that there is more to come and that what we now have may change. How much confidence can the House be expected to have in a rolling programme of amendments which we are to be asked to pass en masse after a few brief but no doubt reassuring remarks from the Solicitor-General? We shall be discussing more than 100 amendments to four complex Bills. The full list of enclosures that I received today reads as follows:
"Housing Bill, Housing Associations Bill, Landlord and Tenant Bill, Housing (Consequential Provisions) Bill, Law Commission Report on the Consolidation of the Housing Acts, Report and evidence on the Housing Consolidation Bills before the Joint Committee, Notes or. Amendments and proposed amendments to the Housing Consolidation Bills, Weights and Measures Bill, Table of Destinations for Weights and Measures Bill, Draftsman's Notes on clauses for the Weights and Measures Bill for the Joint Committee, Report and evidence on the Weights and Measures Bill before the Joint Committee."
I understand that some of the Government's amendments will relate to matters now outstanding following the abolition of the Greater London council. Parliament will need to satisfy itself that what is proposed represents consolidated legislation and that we are not being invited to legislate anew by the back door. The vehicle for scrutinising these matters is the Joint Committee and I am most unhappy that the procedure is being bypassed in this way.
To conclude, inasmuch as the legislation represents real consolidated legislation agreed in the normal way it has our support on Second Reading, but anything that the Government propose to do which goes beyond that must be submitted to parliamentary scrutiny. I should have thought that discussion through the usal channels might be the best way to facilitate that.
10.33 pm
The Solicitor-General: With the leave of the House, I should like just a minute or two to comment on what the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East (Mr. Brown) said.
I am, of course, grateful for what the hon. Gentleman said by way of tribute to those who have been responsible for this massive work of consolidation. The hon.. Gentleman was also kind enough to refer to the fact that on 24 September I wrote to him to say that something in. the order of 100 amendments would probably need to be made.
The amendments are of two kinds—amendments to take account of the provisions of the Local Government Act 1985, and minor drafting corrections and improvements. It is not uncommon in consolidation legislation for a consolidation measure to be amended after it has passed the Joint Committee to take account of the most recent

119
state of the law represented by new legislation. That is what is proposed here and the relevant amendments take account of the provisions of the Local Government Act 1985 in a manner wholly appropriate to a consolidation Bill, that is to say, to reflect the state of the law.
The amendments came forward from the parliamentary draftsman and as soon as they were available we took steps to see that they were placed before the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East. Unfortunately, for the reasons that he has explained to me, and which I wholly understand, they came into his possession only today. In the letter of 24 September, I say:
"On Second Reading I would merely propose to give a brief outline of the ground that the consolidation covers, look ahead to the amendments at the Committee Stage, and leave it at that."
That seems to be the sensible way to approach this consolidation measure.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]
Committee tomorrow.

Housing Bill [Lords]

  HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS BILL [LORDS]
  Read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House. —[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]
  Committee tomorrow.

  HOUSING (CONSEQUENTIAL PROVISIONS) BILL [LORDS]
  Read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]
  Committee tomorrow.

  LANDLORD AND TENANT BILL [LORDS]
  Read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]
  Committee tomorrow.

Weights and Measures Bill [Lords]
Order for Second Reading read.
10.35 pm
The Solicitor-General (Sir Patrick Mayhew): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The Bill is a consolidation of the law relating to weights and measures, which was last consolidated in 1963. It has been examined by the Joint Committee on Consolidation, &c., Bills, which has reported that, as amended by it, it represents pure consolidation.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time.
Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]
Committee tomorrow.

Dartford Tunnel
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Archie Hamilton.]
10.36 pm
Mr. Cyril D. Townsend: I am grateful to have this opportunity, on the first day that the House is back from the long summer recess, to raise an issue of considerable interest and importance to my constituents in Bexleyheath, Barrehurst and Welling, and to the travelling public—the Dartford tunnel. To be more precise, there are two deep-bored tunnels between Dartford and Purfleet, just to the east of my constituency. The first was opened in 1963, the second in 1980. They are the joint responsibility of Kent and Essex county councils, which built them and operate the toll booths. The Dartford tunnel joint committee acts in a proper and prudent financial manner.
Technically, the two-lane tunnels are part of the A282, which runs from the M25/A13 junction to the M25/A2 junction. They are not part of the new, and yet to be completed, M25, which is a Department of Transport responsibility. They have a unique position in the national motorway network, and one that is clearly ludicrous and should have been tackled years ago by a Secretary of State for Transport.
Rightly, the M25 is the Government's motorway priority—the jewel in the motorway crown. The delays in its construction—a regular subject for Adjournment debates over the years—are a national disgrace, but we all hope that by Christmas next year we in Greater London will at last have a bypass. When it is complete, there will be much trumpeting by Transport Ministers, both male and female, and much joy among Britain's ever-expanding army of drivers. However, that army will soon become painfully aware that the jewel is flawed, and that while the motorway may be splendid, the growing queues at Dartford are certainly not.
The success of the M25 in attracting traffic, and each year more traffic is attracted, is far beyond that originally envisaged. The density at the Dartford tunnels is becoming similar to that on parts of the M1 and the M4. Inevitably, breakdowns in the tunnels are becoming more frequent. The highest recorded figure so far for vehicles travelling through the tunnels was 83,379 on 25 August this year, a bank holiday weekend, when traffic, involving many of my constituents, queued for five miles north of the tunnels. Regularly, the Department's forecasts of traffic flows have been absurdly low. A Government-commissioned traffic forecast study was published in July. It predicts long delays at Dartford by the late 1980s and the early 1990s. After making some sensible assumptions the report suggests that about 85,000 vehicles per day will want to use the tunnels on an average day in six years' time. The study states:
"By the end of this decade excess demand is likely to be causing summertime delays of between one and two hours."
This is on a major motorway. It claims that when the annual average weekday traffic reaches 70,000, public complaints about the traffic delays will become fierce because drivers will have become accustomed to fast and free-flowing progress along the M25. The report thinks that when the annual average weekday traffic reaches 75,000
"conditions will be unacceptable through the summer months."

121
"Unacceptable". Exactly so. Already the Government have foolishly left it too late to avoid these problems, because it would take about seven years to construct another deep bored tunnel. Last week The Economist said 10 years. The Department has blundered and people know it. We debate tonight bad Government administration. The motorist and lorry driver will pay the price for years ahead—and British industry, too.
The Dartford tunnel began life as a purely local crossing. The planners should have seen the clear need for the M25 to have its own crossing. The Dartford tunnel is Britain's biggest planned bottleneck. Future queues may be 10 miles long. Time won by the £1 billion M25 will be turned into time lost at Dartford. It is futile for the Department to go on talking about median flows and isolated peaks. At this late hour the Minister of State must carefully consider all the possible new ways of improving the M25 crossing at Dartford, and some of them are most interesting. A bridge at Dartford, either suspension or stayed girder, might be constructed. This might take less time and money than a tunnel. The local topography would make it difficult to align the bridge approach roads with the A282 in Kent. Perhaps the private sector could take up the challenge and fund and build a new crossing, using the very latest technology. The great need is for action. That is what I call for tonight.
In a recent letter to the British Road Federation the Minister of State wrote:
"We are well aware that time is not on our side in the Dartford tunnel and we do not intend to let more of it slip past without taking action in this matter."
With the greatest respect to my hon. Friend — I am grateful to her for coming along tonight to reply to this debate—that is exactly what my constituents fear will happen.
The Minister will remember that I led a delegation from Movement for London, which has done excellent work on this subject, to raise this matter in November 1984. I have had lengthy correspondence with her Department. She has taken the trouble to visit the tunnels but I do not need to tell her that the Government's response to this long-contemplated congestion has been ridiculously inadequate, presumably because she has not had the support of the Treasury.
The Government gave a grant of about £7 million to build 12 extra toll booths, making 24 in total, which opened in July, and to widen the approach roads. This temporarily relieved the pressure, but it was like thickening the walls of a sandcastle as the tide comes in. Six lanes of motorway cannot go into four lanes of tunnel, and sometimes one tunnel is blocked for repairs.
I should be grateful if the Minister of State could answer the following questions. If she cannot do so immediately, perhaps I could have a written reply in due course. The Minister has announced that she will commission an engineering feasibility study into how a new crossing could be built. Who are the consultants to be, when will she receive the results of the study, what is the earliest date when we can expect a Government decision, and exactly how will the new crossing be provided? Is it possible to bring the date forward? What measures are her Department taking to warn motorists of delays next summer so that they can divert from Dartford if necessary? Where are motorists supposed to go instead of Dartford? Will they have to go into the London borough of Bexley? Will EEC funding be available for the new crossing?
122
It is wrong to argue that a third crossing at Dartford will remove the need for the east London river crossing, which is long overdue and essential for dockland. The routes serve entirely different functions. When it is built, the Bexleyheath constituency will have protection on all sides from strategic traffic crossing it.
Current predictions are that, with the increasing flow of traffic, existing debts for the Dartford tunnels will be repaid before the end of the century. I hope that my hon. Friend will not argue tonight that the imposition of tolls is appropriate because the tunnels provide a local service to road users with the need to travel between Essex and Kent. Believe it or not, that has been the Department's line until recently.
We are discussing a national asset. It is located on the country's motorway network and provides direct access between the M1, M11 and the Dover ports. Tolls are not paid where the M25 crosses the Thames to the west of London.
Bexley council fears that if the tolls continue, traffic travelling from or to the Dover ports and the other eastern and southern locations, once on the A2, will continue through to Falconwood and use the east London river crossing to travel northwards.
My constituents who face ever-increasing costs to travel through the tunnels, would like tolls to be abolished before too long. Bexley council has said:
"no bridges within London are tolled; the Rotherhithe and Blackwall tunnels are not tolled; the Woolwich Ferry is the "Woolwich free ferry" and it has been made clear that it is not proposed to charge tolls on the proposed East London River Crossing. It is unlikely that any of these crossings of the Thames have the national significance of the Dartford Tunnels. Kt is apparent, therefore, that the imposition of toll charges only at the Dartford Tunnel is inconsistent."
If we are to have such tolls, far more sophisticated thinking must go into their collection. I have in mind a range of possible reductions and easy ways to pay for special users and the latest electronic aids to cut out delays.
Some of my hon. Friends may believe that all that can be done at this stage is damage limitation, after too little has been done too late for too long. But problems have their possibilities. If the Government can summon courage and imagination, bring into play the skills and enthusiasm of free enterprise and, above all, act decisively, the problem could be solved in a manner that will be of lasting benefit to the people living in the locality and to the country's transport needs.
10.49 pm
Sir Nicholas Bonsor: I intervene for only 30 seconds to express my whole-hearted support for what my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend) has said. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will take note of the extreme concern felt by my constituents and by all those who use the M25 or live within the vicinity of the Dartford tunnel about the clear inadequacy of the present administrative system. I hope that the Department will do something to enable a toll-free crossing to be established and to ensure that the enormous increase in M25 traffic which will occur when the system is completed is properly accommodated. My hon. Friend the Minister knows well the concern of my constituents and myself. I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath for raising the matter tonight.
10.50 pm
The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Mrs. Lynda Chalker): I welcome the debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath (Mr. Townsend), which gives us the opportunity to emphasise the Government's commitment to ensuring that the Dartford tunnel plays its full part as a vital link in the M25 and as an essential component in the local economies of Kent, Essex and further afield.
Before I deal with my hon. Friend's remarks and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Upminster (Sir N. Bonsor), I wish to take issue with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath about the M25. I ask him to put the matter in context and to face the facts of the M25. There has been a problem with one contract out of very many. We now have well over 80 out of the 120 miles of orbital motorway open. There have been problems and delay with one contract, but much of the remainder has been completed ahead of time, to high specification and without problem. It has been a real feat of engineering. We hope to overcome the problems following the building of the motorway, and it does not behove anyone to pour cold water on the achievements of the British civil engineering industry, which has done so well in building over some very difficult territory.
I wish now to deal with the main part of my hon. Friend's remarks. We must get the reasons for the delays clear in our minds. I do not disagree with him about the delays—I am well aware of the strength of feeling. I suffer from the delays myself—perhaps my hon. Friend does not realise that—and so do many of my staff.
It is important that we emphasise what has caused the delays, which were due to the limited capacity of the toll booths. Once all the new toll booths are open, delays will be due to the limited capacity of the tunnel. Motorists may regard that distinction as academic; they are interested only in the reasons why and in getting through the tunnel. But it is important to understand the position.
The theoretical capacity of the toll booths is 65,000 vehicles per day, but 80,000 have actually gone through them. The theoretical capacity of the tunnel is 80,000 vehicles per day, but 100,000 will go through. Therefore, it is not true to say, as my hon. Friend has said tonight and previously, that the capacity of the tunnel is limited to 60,000 vehicles per day.
Of course, the Government have always recognised that the M25 would bring increasing traffic to the tunnel. That was why we agreed to pay the 100 per cent. grants to Kent and Essex to double the number of toll booths to 12 in each direction. That work will cost £7 million, and when completed will ensure that the capacity of the toll booths matches that of the tunnel. As my hon. Friend said, the first new booths were opened in July. The final work on the booths will be completed next spring, and then there will be 12 in each direction. At present 20 booths are in action, 12 for southbound traffic and eight for northbound traffic.
The effect of the new booths is bound to be complicated by other work that needs to be done. As I am sure my hon. Friend will readily agree, the approach roads to the Dartford tunnel are not adequate, which is why we have embarked on 100 per cent. grant, costing £14 million, to improve them. Work on the northern approaches is complete, while work on the southern approaches will be finished early in 1987. Meanwhile, I fear that the work
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will have some effect on traffic using the tunnel. We regret that, but the tunnel manager has told us quite clearly that serious delays tend to be due to accidents, emergencies or the approaches which are not complete. None of those things could be planned for. We cannot plan for the bumps and troubles that occur. We can seek to avoid them in future where it is reasonable to do so, and that. I assure my hon. Friend, we shall do.
As for the the traffic study to which my hon. Friend referred, the tunnel manager's report for 1984–85 said that the traffic rose from 12·5 million vehicles in 1982–83 to 20·2 million in 1984–85, an increase of 60 per cent. That occurred in the period during which the north-east quadrant of the M25 was opened and which is now taking a significant proportion of the increased traffic that will use that quadrant of the motorway. That helped the tunnel revenue, increasing it by £5 million in the last financial year, enabling the tunnel debt to be reduced by £4·5 million.
The study has also prompted a debate on tunnel capacity. I dismiss suggestions that traffic will continue to increase by 60 per cent. every two years. Apart from the fact that the rest of the M25 is gradually being opened and that some of the traffic that goes to the north-west will inevitably go along the southern corridor of the M25 and up the west side in due course, we cannot expect the traffic to go on growing in that quadrant, using the tunnel as fast as it has in the crucial period about which my hon. Friend was talking.
The present volumes on the north-east quadrant which join the tunnel to the A1(M) are largely complete, though there may be some further growth, perhaps of 10 to 20 per cent. The current increase is running at the rate of 7·16 per cent., even after the summer peak. I agree with my hon. Friend, therefore—and I have never doubted this since I first came to the Department—that, on traffic grounds, there is need for additional capacity, and that has already been amply demonstrated.
That is why we announced in June the results of the traffic study commissioned from Colquhoun's and Mott Hay and Anderson. The consultants found that traffic would exceed road capacity at the tunnel in a few years. That came as no surprise to my hon. Friend, to me or to anybody else. They found that by the end of the decade the excess demand would cause delays at peak times during average months, and that at peak summer periods delays could be of an hour or more. They also found that with the east London river crossing in the early 1990s, the delays would still increase. That tells me that we are right to get on with the work that we are now doing, about which my hon. Friend asked some questions.
The press notice issued by the Movement for London in the summer, which said that the traffic study had shown that delays of 50 to 109 minutes would occur in August 1989, was misleading. The figure of 109 minutes was the maximum delay that the consultants projected for any August Friday when traffic reached that level, namely, of 109,000 vehicles. The level was not likely to be reached until the average annual weekday traffic was 80,000 vehicles, 40 per cent. above the 1984 level, and above the consultants' high forecast for 1989. Even in those extreme circumstances, the delays predicted on other days in August would be less than half that figure, and at other times of the year would be much less still. I agree with my hon. Friend that no time should be lost in increasing the

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capacity at Dartford, but I ask him not continue to repeat figures which are unduly alarmist, because to do that does not do anything to solve the problem.
The consultants found that the tunnel would be at the very limits of capacity by the mid-1990s. That is why we recommended an engineering study of additional capacity. In the June statement, I accepted its conclusions and recommendations. In July, the Secretary of State told the Transport Select Committee that it was not a question whether we should build the third crossing at Dartford, but what was the best way of doing so. Nevertheless, any commitment to the construction of additional capacity will depend on a sound economic case based on sustained traffic growth.
I deal now with the appointment of consultants and private finance, which my hon. Friend mentioned. As the next step, we are considering the possibility of private finance for additional capacity. The Secretary of State floated the suggestion as a possibility in July, and we need to make progress quickly in the light of the traffic study which I announced in June. My hon. Friend will be well aware that private finance raises new issues and that we must resolve them correctly. The Dartford scheme could be a precedent for other schemes. It is important to start off as we mean to go on.
The tunnel manager's annual report urged an early decision on the increase in tunnel capacity. It stressed also the need for proper engineering and financial evaluations of alternatives. I do not want to see any repeat of past engineering and financial problems encountered with other estuarial crossings. I am sure that my hon. Friend would not wish that either.
I hope shortly to tell the contractors, civil engineers, banks and all those interested in the tunnel scheme the basis on which we may proceed. This has a bearing on the engineering study announced in June. We need to develop guidance, and that has affected the commissioning of the study. I owe it to the prospective promoters to give a reasonable firm idea of what will be expected, and the likely rewards. I hope that that general comment will suffice for the moment. I give my hon. Friend an undertaking that I shall write to him with any detail as it becomes available. I would not want to be drawn on the detail now.
If the idea of privately financed tolled crossing proceeds, legislation will be needed in due course. That is because the Secretary of State has no general powers to toll, and any new crossing provided by the private sector would have to be tolled to give the promoters some sort of return.
I think that my hon. Friends the Members for Bexleyheath and for Upminster will understand that the issues are not straightforward. We must proceed carefully. I can give them both a firm assurance that I have no
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intention that the Department will drag its heels. I aim to see that traffic needs are met and that the public get, the best value for money that we can give.
It is obvious that tolls constitute a burning issue for many hon. Members, not least myself. During the debate on Second Reading of the Dartford Tunnel Bill I said that tolls at Dartford could not be abolished without paying outstanding debts. The debt has now been reduced from £65 million to £61·7 million, but it is still true that. as the law stands, abolition would mean that outstanding debts would fall on the ratepayers of Kent and Essex, which would be unfair to them.
Successive Governments have taken the view that it is reasonable to expect users to pay for estuarial crossings. I note what my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath said about crossings on the west side of London, but I think he understands that there is no free crossing. Every crossing has to be paid for by somebody. If we enter into debts, we have to repay the moneys. It is as simple and painful as that. We are examining new ways of paying for tolls. We are examining also new technology. These examinations will form part of future studies. I cannot give my hon. Friends the Members for Bexleyheath and for Upminster the assurances that they seek on toll-free systems. As I have said, borrowed money has to be paid for, and the sooner it is paid the better.
I well understand the feelings of hon. Members and toll payers generally. Those who are delayed at Dartford should always remember—I remind myself of this as I sit in the queue—that motorists on other routes who do not have estuarial crossings can similarly be subject to long delays and are looking also for relief. We cannot guarantee that any route, be it tunnel, bridge or ordinary road, will be free from congestion at all times, especially at peak times. We all want to reach our destination as quickly and safely as possible, but it would not be cost effective or provide a real return for the taxpayer or ratepayer if we were to build roads to a standard which meant that they were empty for much of the time and coped easily with every sort of peak that we could imagine.
The Government are fully committed to ensuring that the Dartford tunnel can fulfil its role as a vital link in the M25, not just in 1985 or 1990, but throughout the 1990s to the year 2000 and well beyond. That is why we look forward to accelerating the rate of progress on the provision of additional capacity at Dartford. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Bexleyheath will bear with us while we go through a complicated but interesting and highly necessary process and face one of the problems that we regard as having the highest priority in the Department.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at five minutes past Eleven o'clock.