Commons Sitting of 22 April 1986

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

PRIVATE BUSINESS
YORKSHIRE WATER AUTHORITY BILL
Lords amendments agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions
  EMPLOYMENT

    Tourism
    Mr. Roger Kingasked the Paymaster General if he will detail the number of foreign tourists entering Britain in 1979 and 1985 and also estimate the number of jobs created from this source.
    The Paymaster General and Minister for Employment (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): The number of visits to the United Kingdom by foreign residents rose from 12·5 million in 1979 to 14·6 million in 1985. In the six years to June 1985 the number of employees in the hotel, catering and leisure sectors, which most directly depend on both foreign and domestic tourists' expenditure, rose by around 101,000. In addition, self-employment has grown, for example, by around 19,000 in the hotel and catering industries between 1981 and 1985.
    Mr. King: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that extremely encouraging reply. Does he agree that if tourists moved outside the general area of London into rural areas more jobs and more opportunities in the tourist sector would be established?
    Mr. Clarke: I am glad to say that the English Tourist Board has used the additional money that we have given it to increase by about 20 per cent. this year the subvention to regional tourist boards. We have asked the tourist authorities, in making use of section 4 grants, to concentrate on areas of high employment where there is potential for growth. We have taken on board my hon. Friend's valid point.
    Mr. Madden: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that the retention of the Settle-Carlisle railway line would attract more people to this country and promote employment? What is he doing to persuade the Secretary of State for Transport to keep this important line open?
    Mr. Clarke: I remember from one of my previous duties the interest that arose in that railway the moment the railway authorities proposed to divert traffic from it. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is continuing to look with interest at all the proposals to save this picturesque route.
    Mr. Adley: In view of the Americans' facility of self-delusion, will my right hon. and learned Friend turn his mind to current opinion in the United States, which appears to see this country as a seething cauldron of unrest? Will he, as a politician, do what is perhaps not fair of us to expect the official British Tourist Authority to do and bluntly point out that if the Americans really want an unsafe holiday surrounded by violence the best thing they can do is go to Florida?
    Mr. Clarke: I am afraid that there is a wave of feeling in the United States that it is not safe to come to Europe. That could lead to a decrease in the number of visitors to Britain. The tourist authorities have been bringing trade and travel representatives and journalists to this country to reassure them that our airport security is good and that safety levels here remain much higher than in United States cities. A formal political reaction might arouse more concern than reassurance. A concerted attempt to control terrorism, especially at airports, will do more than anything else to reassure American visitors.
    Mr. Sheerman: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that the rather small number of new jobs to which he referred in his main answer are basically low-paid, seasonal, insecure and unskilled? Is he aware also that, in exactly the same period when that small number of jobs were created, we lost 1·75 million high-paid, regular, good jobs which earned more money for this country from abroad? Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman also aware that in West Derbyshire it will take 30 years to erase the quadrupling of unemployment in the tourist industry during that period?
    Mr. Clark: The figure I gave was for the increase in those trades most directly concerned with tourism. People know that well over 1 million jobs are dependent on tourism in one way or another, and the figures I have given in no way refer to the people who work in retailing, public transport or other sectors of the economy, where tourism helps. Those are real jobs—36,000 for men. They are perfectly good jobs and, with respect, the hon. Gentleman is out of touch with events and with the times if he goes back to dismissing tourist jobs as somehow not real jobs. West Derbyshire depends very heavily on tourism, and the hon. Gentleman's remarks will be carefully noted there if he tries to denigrate the industry.
    Mr. Butterfill: Has my right hon. and learned Friend yet made any decision on the difference between the increase in funding he will allocate to the British Tourist Authority and the English Tourist Board?
    Mr. Clarke: Yes we have. I shall give my hon. Friend the precise breakdown in correspondence later. We have agreed an allocation to the British Tourist Authority and the English Tourist Board and the amount for grants under section 4.

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Canavanasked the Paymaster General what is the current total number of unemployed people in the United Kingdom.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Ian Lang): On 6 March 1986 the number of unemployed claimants in the United Kingdom was 3,324,000.
    Mr. Canavan: Will the Minister now tell us the truth and admit that there are over 4 million unemployed, most of whom are being thrown out of work because of the Government's disastrous economic policies? The Government then fiddle the books to try to conceal the true length of the dole queue, which is costing the country over £20 billion a year. Why cannot that kind of money be channelled into public investment to create real jobs for the unemployed people of this country?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman is quite wrong. The number of real jobs and people in employment in this country has risen in every quarter over the past three years. Over that period about 1 million new jobs have been created.
    Mr. Fallon: Is my hon. Friend aware that under the initiative for the long-term unemployed on Teesside some 70 per cent. of those called in by jobcentres are getting a positive result? Will my hon. Friend pay tribute to jobcentre staff and assessers and invite the Opposition to visit some of this long-term work instead of criticising it as simply tea and sympathy?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right. Our restart initiative to bring help to the long-term unemployed around the country should be widely welcomed. It will help direct those unemployed people to the many jobs that are available.
    Mr. Wainwright: Does the Minister realise the serious damage now being done to morale on the youth training scheme and the community programme by the prospects of unemployment for some of those reaching the end of their courses and in the light of the figures that he has just given? Does he agree that the manufacturing and construction sectors, especially, should deliberately be expanded in order to match the number of people who are eager and well-equipped to work in them?
    Mr. Lang: I have just told the House that employment in this country has risen by about 1 million in the past three years. This suggests that there are a large number of jobs for people completing youth training schemes and the community programme. About two-thirds of YTS graduates go into employment or training and twice as many people coming off the community programme go into jobs as other long-term unemployed people.
    Mr. Marland: Is my hon. Friend aware that recently, after extensive research, The Mail on Sunday estimated that one-fifth of those who are currently claiming unemployment benefit simultaneously work in the black economy?
    Mr. Lang: We take very seriously any suggestion of fraud and would rigorously investigate any cases for which evidence is brought to us. My hon. Friend might like to know that we have expanded the fraud investigation staff by some 50 per cent. recently, and we plan further expansion.
    Mr. Evans: Is the Minister aware that the figures he has given to the House, massaged and fiddled though they are, are an absolute condemnation of six years of Tory Government incompetence? Will the Minister also confirm that when we get the June labour survey figures, as a result of the latest fiddle that the Government are embarking upon, we shall have a substantial drop in the percentage of those unemployed? Will the Minister also
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    say why the monthly labour market statistics are now leaving out such valuable information as the numbers of long-term unemployed? Is the Minister not ashamed of those figures?
    Mr. Lang: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that the long-term unemployed amount to approximately 1·4 million. On the matter of fiddling the figures, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will tell us which of the changes that have been made to the unemployment count he would reverse if the Labour party ever came to power?

    Business Expansion Scheme
    Sir Peter Blakerasked the Paymaster General what steps he will take to ensure that the current business expansion scheme does not disadvantage hotels.
    The Parlimentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. David Trippier): Under the Budget proposals for revisions to the business expansion scheme, hotel companies will continue to be eligible provided that they meet conditions on the backing of investments by property assets. Genuine risk-bearing investments will not be disavantaged.
    Sir Peter Blaker: Will my hon. Friend assure me that the hotel industry will not be put at a disadvantage compared to other industries by the proposals in the Finance Bill? Can he say the same for the self-catering accommodation sector?
    Mr. Trippier: I am anxious to give my right hon. Friend the assurance that he is seeking. Well planned hotel projects and projects related to tourism will still be attractive investments, and BES tax relief will obviously be a useful incentive. It is important to stress that BES was first introduced to attract those who would otherwise not have made safe investments to take the risk, and that is the reason for the tax incentive. The new proposals by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer mean that risk-free investments are excluded, as I believe they should be.
    Mr. Rowe: Does my hon. Friend accept that the business expansion scheme is admirable but suffers from one great defect—that the people who would be most likely to make such an investment are those most closely related to the people running the business? Will he speak to his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to see whether there is some device—for example, channelling through an enterprise agency—which will make it possible for parents to put their money into their children's enterprises?
    Mr. Trippier: That point has been put to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor several times, but there is, of course, the additionality problem. My right hon. Friend has always said that such money would be invested in those companies in any event without the additional incentive of the tax relief. That is the argument, but I shall be happy to draw my hon. Friend's points to the attention of my right hon. Friend.

    Youth Training Scheme
    Mr. Maddenasked the Paymaster General what provision he will make for young people leaving YTS between April and September in the current year to help them into employment.
    Mr. Trippier: Many young people completing one-year YTS this year will be offered a second year of training. Those who leave will have access to help from the careers service and jobcentres, and we aim to improve further the employment prospects of ex-YTS youngsters through the recently announced new workers scheme.
    Mr. Madden: How many young people will leave YTS during the period from the end of this month to September? Is not the reality that if they do not have a job there is no alternative scheme? The Government are dumping these young people on the dole queues, deserting them and forsaking them.
    Mr. Trippier: There might be an element of truth in the hon. Gentleman's claim were it not for the fact that in the recent Budget a new scheme was introduced called the new workers scheme. Approximately 170,000 people will complete their one-year YTS in the period to which the hon. Gentleman referred. Obviously the new workers scheme is complementary to YTS. If continuation places are not sufficient in an area the new scheme will apply. I understand that there are some 600 YTS continuation places available in the hon. Gentleman's constituency in Bradford. I hope that those places will suffice to meet the need. If not, the new workerss scheme will complement what is available, and YTS leavers will be eligible for those places.

    Industrial Relations
    Mr. Charles Wardleasked the Paymaster General whether he will review the operation of industrial relations legislation passed since 1979.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: We keep the operation of the legislation under constant review. We have made encouraging progress towards giving members a greater say in the affairs of their own union, a fairer balance of power between unions and employers, and better industrial relations.
    Mr. Wardle: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for that reply. Does he agree that the action attempted by SOGAT at Wapping contrasts sharply with the general reduction in the number of industrial disputes following the introduction of ballots? Would SOGAT be in its present difficulties with the courts if it had simply balloted the members it had instructed to strike?
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: My hon. Friend is correct. So far as I am aware, the only injunctions obtained against SOGAT—and certainly the sequestration of the funds—followed because it failed to ballot all its members to come out on strike. It is important that the Government have given union members the right to be consulted before they risk their jobs by becoming involved in strike action.
    Mr. Leighton: When the review referred to in the main question is undertaken, will the Paymaster General accept that the majority of British people feel that if Mr. Rupert Murdoch can essay his current industrial butchery and have the law on his side, there is something wrong with the law? Does he agree that if a union such as SOGAT, which did not set out to break, ignore or be in contempt of the law, has every penny of its funds sequestrated within days of entering a lawful dispute following a ballot, the law is grossly unfair and badly in need of reform?
    Mr. Clarke: SOGAT failed to ballot the wholesale membership, which it was calling out on strike. The union
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    must have known that that was unlawful. It went before the court and failed to withdraw the blacking instructions or, since then, to purge the contempt. The union has simply failed to comply with a law that has great popular support and has contributed to the improvement in industrial relations in other industries. The Government defend the right of members to be consulted before they put their jobs at risk. SOGAT led its members into folly and cost them all their jobs.
    Mr. Holt: While my right hon. and learned Friend is examining post-1979 legislation, will he also examine pre-1979 legislation, especially in respect of the undertaking given by one of the junior Ministers formerly in his Department to consider how legalistic and expensive the industrial tribunals have become and how out of touch with the working world?
    Mr. Clarke: We certainly keep the working of the industrial tribunals under review. It is right that workers who have established themselves with an employer should have protection against unfair dismissal. We wish the proceedings to be as devoid of legalisms and as informal as possible. We also believe that the procedures should not be misused by people with frivolous or reckless claims, causing unnecessary expense to many employers.
    Mr. Prescott: In view of the declared public sympathy of the Paymaster General for the printers' dispute, is he aware that the simple creation of new companies has swindled the employees out of £80 million in redundancy pay, thrown the right to strike and picket into confusion and allowed the sequestration of funds? According to Mr. Murdoch, that is all now possible under the Government's legislation. In the parliamentary reply that he recently gave me, did the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept that, comparing working days lost through industrial disputes under the present legislation with the situation under the Labour Administration, over 118 working days more per 1,000 employees are lost in disputes now than under Labour? Is it not about time that the Government's anti-trade union legislation was reviewed and repealed?
    Mr. Clarke: The hon. Gentleman's figures are virtually meaningless. They are an average, inflated in our case by the miners' strike in one year and in the case of the Labour Government by the winter of discontent. The number of disputes last year was the lowest for 50 years—the lowest since 1936. The number of days lost to February this year was the lowest for 19 years. The average figures are quite meaningless.
    Mr. Prescott: They are the Government's figures.
    Mr. Clarke: On the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, if he will allow me to answer it, there is a limit to the extent to which I can comment on the current dispute between News International and the various print unions. However, if I may speak generally, Fleet street over the years has been epitomised by extremely robust and incompetent management and extremely militant trade unions which have defended rackets of all kinds. I am constantly astonished at the way the hon. Gentleman keeps resorting to Fleet street as an example of the effect of his new industrial relatons legislation, which will sweep away our existing laws.

    Registered Unemployed Persons
    Mr. Heathcoat-Amoryasked the Paymaster General what steps he takes to check that all those registered as unemployed are seeking work.
    Mr. Lang: All claimants are asked about their availability for work when they first register as unemployed and subsequently if doubts arise.
    I am not fully satisfied with the existing test, and I am exploring ways in which it can be improved.
    Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: My hon. Friend says that people must be available for work. However, he must know that there are several categories of people, such as mothers with young children or those who have taken early retirement, who draw benefit but are not seeking work and would not take a job if one were offered to them. Does my hon. Friend consider that the unemployment figures are compiled in a sensible manner? Will he change them?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are, of course, others who are seeking jobs but do not feature on the unemployment register count. The labour force survey provides a better picture of the employment world and has shown the creation of a million new jobs in the past three years.
    Mr. Haynes: Why do the Minister and the Government pursue that line about scroungers? This is a planted question, and that is what it is about. The Minister should have a word with his right hon. and learned Friend the Paymaster General, now that he sits at the Cabinet Table at No. 10, with a view to providing real jobs and getting people out of the dole queue and back to work in the manufacturing industries—not as waiters or tourist guides.
    Mr. Lang: I may be responsible for the answers, but I am certainly not reponsible for questions. A moment ago I mentioned the creation of 1 million new jobs—these are real jobs. I would be happy to send the hon. Gentleman a copy of our booklet "Action for Jobs", which underlines over 30 employment measures and training measures designed to help people into those jobs.
    Mr. Brandon-Bravo: Has my hon. Friend read of the racket, operating out of Nottingham, which has been exposed by the national press? The unemployed, or rather some claimants under that guise, are bussed to other parts of the country to act as door-to-door salesmen and claim to help the disabled. Does my hon. Friend agree that to help those who are genuinely unemployed we should stamp on those malpractices?
    Mr. Lang: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I take his allegations seriously. If he has evidence to support this I shall be glad to see it. My hon. Friend may be interested to know that the number of cases where action has been taken against fraud has more than doubled in the past two years and prosecutions have risen by over 50 per cent.
    Ms. Clare Short: I am sure that the Minister does not wish to mislead the House by partial quotes from the labour force survey. Will he confirm that, according to the analysis of that survey undertaken by the Employment Gazette in January 1986, we have the terrible total of 5,460,000 people in Britain who wish to have a job but cannot get one? Does the Minister also agree that as 41 per
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    cent. of the registered unemployed have been out of work for a year or more it is not surprising that they do not seek work every day of every week of every year?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Lady is quoting selectively. The fact is that the labour force survey shows that the number of jobs in Britain has risen by over a million in the past three years. There are more people on the unemployment count who are not seeking work than there are those who are not on the count but are seeking work.
    Mr. Wrigglesworth: Will the Minister accept that in the north, Scotland and in Wales there are wards where 40 per cent. of the work force are unemployed. The predominant concern is the lack of jobs and the debilitating effect that that has on young people and on those in the 50-years age group who see no future of work once they have been declared redundant.
    Mr. Lang: I believe that there are pockets of high unemployment in all parts of the country. The Government's restart initiative, which will operate nationally from 1 July, will be helpful in this respect. It will draw in the long-term unemployed for interviews and give them help to try to find jobs.
    It is significant that, so far, over 90 per cent. of those who have been interviewed have been offered a positive employment opportunity.

    Tourism
    Mr. Proctorasked the Paymaster General what contribution tourism makes to the United Kingdom's balance of payments position.
    Mr. Trippier: The surplus of the travel account on the balance of payments was £600 million in 1985 compared with a deficit of £50 million in 1984.
    Mr. Proctor: Will my hon. Friend take this opportunity to repudiate the Opposition attacks on those who work in tourism and who contribute substantially to the country's economic prosperity? Will my hon. Friend give a breakdown of the figures that he has just given?
    Mr. Trippier: I am glad of the opportunity to repudiate what the Opposition have said about tourist industry employees. I wish that some of them had the nerve to address conferences on tourism and tell people who work in tourism that they do not regard their jobs as serious jobs.
    Mr. Prescott: I worked for 10 years in that industry.
    Mr. Trippier: In that case, the hon. Gentleman should be the last person to make the kind of remark that he has made in the past.
    United Kingdom residents spend about £4·9 billion abroad, but overseas visitors spend about £5·5 billion in Britain. We are obviously anxious to increase the latter figure.
    Mr. Warren: While awaiting anxiously the reply to a later question on the Order Paper on the subject of the Select Committee's report on tourism, may I ask my hon. Friend to acknowledge immediately that if tourism is as successful as he says it is, that which is given to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland should also be given to England, where the investment would realise far more?
    Mr. Lang: I must applaud my hon. Friend's initiative. He knows that that part of the Select Committee's report

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    was dealt with some weeks ago by my right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State for Employment. We intend to give a full and considered reply in the near future to the Select Committee's recommendations.
    Mr. Knowlesasked the Paymaster General when he proposes to reply to the recommendations of the Trade and Industry Committee on tourism.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I have already announced the Government's response to the Select Committee's recommendations for an alternative tourist board structure in the written reply I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) on 27 February 1986. We are still studying the remaining recommendations in the Select Committee's report. As my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway and Upper Nithsdale (Mr. Lang), the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State has just said, we hope to provide a considered response during the summer.
    Mr. Knowles: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for his reply. The response in the summer is awaited with interest by everyone in the tourist industry. Does my right hon. and learned Friend have the tourist figures for last year, and is he able to say which foreign country contributed the largest single increase?
    Mr. Clarke: Last year the number of tourists to this country from North America rose by 15 per cent. That is why it is important that Europeans generally, including ourselves, should reassure the American public that we are taking serious steps to cut down the risk of terrorism.
    Mr. Leighton: If, as the Paymaster General has explained, grants to the tourist industry are to be made to those areas with the highest unemployment, what is their purpose? Is it so that foreigners can be taken on guided tours of our large pools of unemployed people?
    Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friends and I despair of seeking to explain to the Opposition that there are good and substantial jobs to be won in this country by boosting our tourist trade. There is a whole range of jobs, from management right down to the equivalent of the factory floor, in every branch of hotel and catering and in all the associated trades that depend upon tourism. Some of the areas of high unemployment, including the north-east, are to be found in very attractive parts of the country that contain great buildings and historic cities that attract tourists. We are succeeding in making better use of those natural advantages and we are creating new jobs in those areas.
    Mr. Hicks: In view of the contribution that tourism makes to regional economies, does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that there is an urgent need both to widen the extent and to improve the quality of tourist attractions in areas such as the south-west in order to get away from the London, Stratford, Cambridge triangle?
    Mr. Clarke: I agree with my hon. Friend that that should be one of our most important objectives. We are to open shortly a new British travel centre in London. Its main purpose will be to help visitors to disperse from London by telling them of the attractions of other parts of the country. We are asking the tourist boards to concentrate particularly on building up the tourist industry in areas of high unemployment which have a tourist potential and on seeking to extend the English tourist season.
    Mr. Prescott: As I spent 10 years in an industry that deals with tourism, may I make it clear to the Paymaster General that I have no objection whatsoever to the development of employment in tourism? However, is he aware that most of the jobs in the tourist industry are normally low paid and part-time and that the conditions are bad? It seems that a great many Tory Members are tabling questions about tourism, when the House should be concerned about the loss of 1·8 million jobs in manufacturing industry that has occurred under this Government.
    Mr. Clarke: It is no good the hon. Gentleman delivering his lecture to me about the virtue of tourist jobs. He should address it to the Labour chairman of the Select Committee and the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman), who have spent their time today denigrating the boosting of this industry. It is simply not the case that they can be dismissed in the way that he describes. Given a continuing decline in manufacturing employment—as there has been for the last 20 years as a result mainly of technological change, and that even now the economy is expanding in a healthy fashion—it is important that we look to the new jobs in this area. He will discover, if he finds out more about industry, that there is a whole range of jobs available—[Interruption.] in tourist-related industry.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Let us conduct our proceedings in some sort of order. All these shouted comments from both sides of the House are not helpful.
    Mr. McCrindle: For what reason did my right hon. and learned Friend take the unprecedented decision to reject perhaps the principal recommendation on tourism of the Select Committee on Trade and Industry, concerning the structure of the British Tourist Authority and the various national boards, at a time when he could not conceivably have given adequate consideration to the well-researched recommendations of that Committee?
    Mr. Clarke: We made a quick decision on that because we believed that continuing uncertainty about the structure of the boards would merely undermine their work during the forthcoming season. The issue gets raised repeatedly, particularly by the English members, who feel that at the moment somehow excessive aid is given to Scotland and Wales compared with England. A decision had to be taken about the structure so that those within the boards could get on with their work. We have increased our expenditure in all these areas. The figures which my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) asked for a moment ago are that we raised our grant to the British Tourist Authority by about £20 million, that to the English Tourist Board by about £10 million, and section 4 grants by about £9 million. So all the boards in their present structure have more resources to devote to the industry.

    Tourism (Channel Tunnel)
    Mr. Hayesasked the Paymaster General if he has estimated the effect that the Channel fixed link will have on inward tourism in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Trippier: The fixed link will be a new international route and is expected to generate additional tourism to the United Kingdom. However, the likely increase has not yet been quantified.
    Mr. Hayes: I had hoped that my hon. Friend would be more robust with some of the whingers on the Opposition Benches and make it absolutely clear to them that the increased tourism which will be created by the Channel link will be pan-United Kingdom and not just jobs for the prosperous south.
    Mr. Trippier: Absolutely, and, at the risk of repeating myself, I obviously support all that has been said by my hon. Friends with regard to jobs in tourism. My hon. Friend makes a valid point. It is not just tourism in the south-east or around the area that the fixed link will be going through that will be affected, because our policy is to encourage greater dispersal of visitors on the inland tourist front. It will be better for tourism in Britain generally.
    Mr. Boyes: While some of us hope that the Channel tunnel is never built, if it is we would hope that some of the tourists will come to the most beautiful region of Britain, the north-east of England. In the borough of Sunderland, of which my constituency is a part, 29,000 people are already out of work. The number of tourist jobs that will be created will be no compensation whatsoever for that number of unemployed. What we really want to know from the Minister for Unemployment is how many jobs building this tunnel will bring for the north-east?
    Mr. Trippier: I think that it is wrong for the hon. Gentleman to deride in any way the jobs in tourism in the north-east. I take this opportunity of complimenting the north-east on the way in which it has developed and strengthened tourism. I am very familiar with the regional tourist board in that part of the country. It has been very successful. If the hon. Gentleman had listened a little more carefully to the reply to the substantive question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Mr. Hayes) he would have realised that this is wholly in tune with our overall philosophy. The tourists who are coming into Britain as a result of the fixed link will mean more jobs in the north-east as well.
    Mr. Boyes: How many?
    Mr. Trippier: It would be stupid and fatuous of me to predict an exact figure, but I can tell the hon. Gentleman that over the last 12 months there has been a net increase in jobs in tourism of 50,000. Opposition Members must realise that we are talking about the most dynamic sector of the British economy in terms both of wealth and job creation.

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Knoxasked the Paymaster General how many people were out of work in the Staffordshire, Moorlands parliamentary constituency at the most recent count.
    Mr. Lang: On 6 March 1986 the number of unemployed claimants in the Staffordshire, Moorlands parliamentary constituency was 3,570.
    Mr. Knox: Is my hon. Friend aware that unemployment in my constituency has risen very considerably under the two Governments in the last 12 years? How does he explain this in an area where wages and salaries are, and always have been, low, productivity is high and labour relations are excellent?
    Mr. Lang: The unemployment rate in the Leek travel-to-work area is 9·1 per cent. That is certainly higher than
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    we would wish, but it is lower than it was a year ago. My hon. Friend might like to know that unfilled vacancies at Leek and Cheadle are up by over 50 per cent. on a year ago. I commend to my hon. Friend our booklet "Action for Jobs", which contains details of over 30 specific training and employment schemes which we have launched to combat the unemployment problem. In particular, for the low-paid in his constituency the job start allowance of £20 for anyone taking a job at under £80 a week might be appropriate.
    Mr. Ashley: Is the Minister aware that many people in the Staffordshire, Moorlands constituency have already got on their bikes to seek work? If the Minister got on his bike to go to look for a job in the adjacent constituency of Stoke-on-Trent, South he would find that unemployment has risen far faster under this Government than it did under the previous Labour Government. The reason for that is the failure of the Government to expand the economy. May we have some action to expand the economy in Stoke-on-Trent, South, and some action to help the economy in general?
    Mr. Lang: The right hon. Gentleman will know that employment has also been expanding rapidly. As the right hon. Gentleman also knows, I was in Stoke-on-Trent yesterday at the national garden festival, and there I found substantial evidence of Government help, amounting to many millions of pounds. In the community programme, that money created about two thirds of the 1,500 or more jobs at the garden festival.

    Retired Persons
    Mr. David Atkinsonasked the Paymaster General if he has any plans to remove retired people from the unemployment figures; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Lang: We have no plans to do so. However, we shall continue our endeavours to ensure that those receiving benefits are genuinely available for work.
    Mr. Atkinson: Will my hon. Friend confirm that unemployment figures include retired people who do not want to work, are not seeking work, and have no need to work? Does he know how many people in that category are included in the unemployment figures? Does he not agree that it gives a false impression about how many people are presently unemployed?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right. The 1984 labour force survey showed that some 60,000 people in the claimant count were not seeking work because they had retired. This underlines the fact that the unemployment count is not necessarily the best way of getting a true picture of unemployment.
    Mr. Evans: Is the Minister not ashamed of the fact that all we have heard today from Tory Back Benchers are suggestions about how the unemployment figures, can be further fiddled? If the Minister wants to reduce the unemployment figures he should at least extend the job release scheme to those under the age of 62. That was the way it applied under the Labour Government.
    Mr. Lang: The job release scheme has a useful role to play. Can the hon. Gentleman tell us whether it is the intention of any incoming Labour Government to reintroduce into the labour count retired people who have been removed from it?
    Mr. Ralph Howell: Is my hon. Friend aware that his answer about the number of retired people included in the unemployment count is totally unsatisfactory? There is no sense in including such people in the figures. What plans has my hon. Friend for introducing a work test to establish exactly how many people are actively seeking work?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is knowledgeable in these matters and takes a close interest in them. He will have heard me say that we are unhappy about the adequacy of the availability for work test and that we are looking at ways of making it more effective.

    Lost Working Days
    Mr. Sedgemoreasked the Paymaster General how many working days have been lost through strike action in the last 12 months for which figures are available.
    Mr. Kenneth Clarke: A provisional total of 2·6 million working days were lost through stoppages of work due to industrial disputes during the 12 months to 28 February 1986.
    Mr. Sedgemore: How does the Minister think the Wapping dispute will affect this year's figures? Would it not help the Government, the print workers, newspaper readers and even wretched Lobby correspondents upstairs if Mr. Rupert Murdoch were to be declared an undesirable alien and if his cringing sidekick, Mr. Andrew Neil, were to be given early retirement and a clapped-out print works in lieu of compensation?
    Mr. Clarke: Inflammatory remarks by the hon. Gentleman will do nothing to help the position of anybody involved in the Wapping dispute. The hon. Gentleman is naming the only substantial dispute in private industry in Britain at the moment. He seems to overlook the fact that my reply to his question showed that Britain has had the least number of days lost in the period that he asked about for 19 years.

    Labour Statistics
    Mr. Dykesasked the Paymaster General what information he has about the methods used to compile unemployment figures in other Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.
    Mr. Lang: The OECD published "Standardised unemployment rates" in 1985. This gives a detailed description of the sources and methods it uses in compiling unemployment figures from national sources and the rates derived from these figures.
    Mr. Dykes: I thank my hon. Friend for that answer, but since on a pro rata basis the United Kingdom figures appear to be higher than those in the other large countries in the OECD and the EEC, should not we be the country to take an initiative in both those bodies to stimulate the collective economy?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. It is difficult to make comparisons between the different methods of calculating unemployment figures, but it is interesting to note that we have a higher proportion of our work force in work than almost any other OECD country. The OECD expects employment in the United Kingdom to rise faster this year than in any other major European country.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Dykesasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 22 April.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. I was present at Windsor for the arrival of their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain. In addition to my duties in this House I shall be having further meetings later today. This evening I shall be attending a state banquet in honour of their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain.
    Mr. Dykes: As we are approaching my right hon. Friend's visit to Israel, and bearing in mind that we take over the EEC presidency on 1 June, may I ask her to consider carefully the advantages of another EEC initiative on the middle eastern settlement? Does she agree with many hon. Members that it is not only a matter of specific and important anti-terrorist measures, but of trying to deal with the fundamental problem of the middle east, and the Americans do not seem to be making progress in that more important area?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is right to say that since the end of King Hussein's initiative there have been no new formal proposals. When King Hussein came here recently I was able to discuss certain practical steps with him and I hope to take those forward when I visit Israel in several weeks' time, and to be in touch with the United States about them. We take over the presidency on 1 July. I shall consider what my hon. Friend has said, hut I think it advisable that we obtain more agreement on the steps forward before we launch on an initiative.
    Mr. Kinnock: Is the action taken against the 21 Libyan students the beginning of further steps by the right hon. Lady's Government to isolate Gaddafi, including the imposition of economic sanctions and the denial of credits and subsidised foodstuffs from the EEC?
    The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary will later be answering a question about the deportation of Libyan students. It is an action which we felt was legitimate and desirable under all the circumstances. We are considering further matters about Libyan pilots in Britain and further action that we could take. He will be aware of the actions which the EEC decided to take and, of course, the meeting of Foreign Ministers continues.
    Mr. Kinnock: In the light of that answer, may I ask the Prime Minister whether she has ruled out direct economic sanctions against Libya, as reported in the Daily Telegraph this morning? Does she accept that if that is true that would be cynical and inconsistent, given the support for the bombing of Libya last week?
    The Prime Minister: The refusal to sell military equipment is, of course, a direct economic sanction of a specific kind which we took but which has not apparently been taken by all of the European Community. Sanctions as a whole will only work provided everybody operates them, but there are some that we take unilaterally, as the right hon. Gentleman is aware. Food matters have to be pursued through the EEC. We made our views known

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    strongly to the European Commission, when it cut out the management committee and decided on special export subsidies for the sale of butter to Libya.
    Mr. Kinnock: In that case, will the Prime Minister make further representations and put all possible pressure on our European allies so that they excercise the power that they must have to impose economic sanctions that are more effective against Gaddafi while not being so lethal towards his people?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, we are doing just that and we are particularly concerned about the Commission giving special subsidies for exports of food surpluses to Libya, and we make our views known very strongly indeed.
    Mr. John Browne: Will my right hon. Friend accept that a single bombing raid in itself is unlikely to stop terrorism? None the less, it does lay down to the terrorist a serious cost. Will she agree to lay down, in face of terrorism, yet more costs, such as the introduction of the death penalty for terrorism, and even introduce counter-terror activities, in our anti-terrorist operations?
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend is aware, the introduction of such a penalty would be a matter for this House. It has been debated on many occasions, but so far it has never got through. That would be the first thing that would have to take place.
    Mr. Wallaceasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 22 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Wallace: During her busy day, has the Prime Minister noticed early day motion 74, in the name of a number of her right hon. and hon. Friends, condemning the alleged lack of balance in BBC reports of the raid on Tripoli? Will she take this opportunity to dissociate herself from that motion? In particular, will she praise Miss Kate Adey, who, in difficult circumstances, maintained the best traditions of objective news reporting?
    The Prime Minister: The Government do not control the BBC. Hon. Members are as free to say what they like about the BBC, as is any other citizen.
    Sir Edward Gardner: Will my right hon. Friend do everything that she can to persuade the United States Government that no country dedicated to the defeat of terrorism can any longer afford to allow the extradition of terrorists from its jurisdiction to be impeded or frustrated by the absurd doctrine that murder perpetrated with the alleged motive of political interest is no longer murder, and so cannot be used as a ground for extradition?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. and learned Friend. The point has been forcefully made and will continue to be made. This matter is being increasingly recognised.
    Mr. Dalyell: At what point did the Americans tell the Prime Minister that they were going to use anti-personnel cluster bombs?
    The Prime Minister: As I indicated in statements and speeches last week, we set down certain criteria for the permission. The Americans selected the targets within those criteria. It was for them to choose the weapons which—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    The Prime Minister: —It was for them to choose the weapons to secure the defeat of those targets within the target permissions which we gave.
    Q.3 Mr. Gerald Bowdenasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 22 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Bowden: Has my right hon. Friend seen the survey recently published by the National Council for Educational Standards, which shows that the examination results in ILEA schools are 30 per cent. below the national average, while at the same time ILEA spends over 40 per cent. more per pupil? Is this not a great indictment of a Socialist, dogma-ridden education authority? It is failing in its duty to the children it is there to serve.
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend. ILEA spends far more on the education of children than many other authorities, including those with similar problems. The results are not good. Indeed, they are worse than any other similar authority. Surely this shows that it is quiet wrong to tackle the education problem merely by pouring more money into it. Commitment and devotion are required on the part of the staff, with more choice on the part of parents.
    Mr. Barnett: Is the Prime Minister aware that the Inner London education authority contains boroughs, some of which are among the most deprived in the country, that it is dealing with children coming from families speaking 145 different languages, that it has problems of quite a different nature from the problems of any other authority, and that the expenditure is entirely necessary? Speaking as a parent of children who go to ILEA schools, I am satisfied with the performance of their teachers.
    The Prime Minister: I disagree with what the hon. Gentleman has said, particularly in the latter part of his question. He will be aware, for example, that ILEA will spend on each secondary school pupil in 1985–86 the sum of £1,933. Metropolitan districts, some of which have similar problems, will spend on average £1,113 on each pupil, and some of them get better results.
    Mr. Teddy Taylor: In view of the failure of Foreign Ministers yesterday to agree on the banning of export rebates for Libya, is there nothing that the British Government can do to stop the use of taxpayers' funds directly to subsidise cheap food for Libya? Is not the management committee irrelevant, since on 15 March the Commission took it upon itself not to publish either the subsidy or the destination of cheap food?
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend is aware, my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary raised that matter with the Commission when it circumvented the management committee and gave a particular export subsidy for exports of butter to Libya. I am afraid that unless the rest of our Community partners agree with us there is nothing we can do alone.
    Mr. Steel: Is the Prime Minister aware that on Thursday new regulations come into effect in the United States which will give the United States authorities control over high-tech hardware, software and personnel in this country? In view of the Attorney-General's opinion that

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    such a claim is both illegal in international law and an infringement of our sovereignty, what protection will the Prime Minister give to British firms?
    The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman is aware, there has already been a debate in the House on the subject, initiated by his colleague the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. Meadowcroft). The position was stated in that debate and has been given a number of times since. In general we reject United States claims to extraterritorial jurisdiction in the United Kingdom. One of the right hon. Gentleman's colleagues is in touch with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry about a particular firm. That will be pursued.
    Mrs. Beckettasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 22 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Lady to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mrs. Beckett: Does the more conciliatory tone that the Prime Minister has offered of late mean that she now accepts that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is not the best basis for foreign policy?
    The Prime Minister: The best basis for foreign policy is what is in the British interest.
    Mr. Latham: Is my right hon. Friend aware that millions of people up and down the country will welcome the fact that since the Budget, and, indeed, because of the Budget, there has been a sharp and continuing fall in the level of the mortgage rate?
    The Prime Minister: Yes. That is very good news for all who are purchasing their houses. Last year the number of new mortgages reached 1 million for the first time. That is also good news for home ownership.
    Mr. Gareth Wardellasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 22 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Wardell: Is the Prime Minister aware of any evidence that any of the 39 human beings, including women and children, who were killed in the American air raid in Libya had been involved in terrorist activities?
    The Prime Minister: I indicated our view both in statements and in a speech. Terrorism thrives on appeasement, and Opposition Members are appeasers.
    Mr. Andrew MacKayasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 22 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. MacKay: Is my right hon. Friend aware that after yesterday's meeting in Luxembourg many of us feel that our European partners' response to state-sponsored terrorism is woefully inadequate, particularly when, notwithstanding my right hon. and learned Friend's robust support, they could not be persuaded to close down the Libyan people's bureaux in various capitals, which are clearly being used as places from which terrorists act?
    The Prime Minister: I rather agree with my hon. Friend. The European Community has gone further than it has been prepared to go before. It agreed to a severe cut in the size of people's bureaux throughout Europe. It agreed to confine members of those bureaux to the city where they are posted, to restrict the size of other official Libyan bodies to the minimum necessary and to apply a much stricter visa regime to Libyans. That is a good deal further than previously, but I agree with my hon. Friend that we should have liked a lot more to be done. We must consider how much further to go ourselves.
    Mr. Buchan: Does the Prime Minister believe that her safeguarding of British interests includes allowing the Americans free choice in the nature of weapons to be used, as she said five minutes ago? Would this extend beyond the anti-personnel cluster bombs to nuclear bombs, for example? Do we get a clear answer on that?
    The Prime Minister: It is a perfectly clear answer. We set down the criteria for targets which we believed were within legitimate self-defence. We were advised that the use of F111 aircraft was the best means of striking those targets. The precise methods that the United States uses is a matter for the United States within the criteria set down—[Interruption.] Of course it is a matter for the United States.
    Mr. Buchan: In view of that inadequate reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

Libyan Nationals
3.30 pm
Mr. Gerald Kaufman(by private notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the decision announced to the press today to expel a number of Libyan nationals from this country.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd): Twenty one Libyan nationals have today been served with notices of intention to deport on the ground that their deportation is conducive to the public good in the interests of national security. I took this decision in the light of the latest information about the active involvement of those concerned in organising Libyan student activity in the United Kingdom in support of the Gaddafi regime. I have authorised their detention while arrangements for their deportation are made. The House will understand that, in a matter affecting national security, it would not be right for me to disclose further details of the information available to me on which I took the decision to initiate deportation action. I shall not hesitate to use my powers under the Immigration Act 1971 to deport other Libyan nationals if evidence is received of their involvement in activities which might endanger security.
Mr. Kaufman: Mr. Speaker, may I first thank you for granting this private notice question following the failure of the Home Secretary to volunteer a statement on a matter about which his Department has saturated the media for the past seven hours.
I do not question the reasons for these deportations. I do ask about the timing, and must ask the plain question: why now? How long has the Home Office had the evidence on which the Home Secretary acted? Did it obtain it before, or after, the United States bombing of Libya?
On 1 May 1984, following the murder of Woman Police Constable Yvonne Fletcher, I asked the Home Secretary's predecessor about Libyans being trained by our armed forces, whose training was described by the Minister of State for the Armed Forces as being compatible with British defence interests. Since then, have further Libyans been admitted for training at Oxford airport flying school?
Two years ago I asked about 280 Libyan nationals being trained by British Airways and other airlines, most of them near Heathrow, and within close proximity to that airport, with all that that might imply. Two hundred and fifty are still being trained at Heathrow, Gatwick and other airports. The Government have said that they have issued guidelines about security risks. Is that all that they intend to do?
Was the Home Secretary consulted in advance about the internal security implications for this country of the decision to allow the use of British bases for the bombing of Libya? If so, did he say that it was in the British interest?
Is it not a fact that it can be easier for certain overseas nationals to enter Britain to commit acts of terrorism than for an Indian grandmother to enter Britain to attend a family wedding—[Interruption.] It is true.
After two years of complacency following the death of WPC Fletcher, why have the Government suddenly acted
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with such speed? Have they at last realised, following approaches from the Opposition two years old, that some potential terrorists are at large in this country? Or does it follow the outcry against the Prime Minister's collusion over the American bombing of Libya? Is this simply a cosmetic exercise to cover up the unacceptable face of Thatcherism?
Mr. Hurd: On the right hon. Gentleman's first point, the operation had to be timed exactly, as it involved 11 police forces. I was anxious that a short, factual statement should be made publicly as soon as we had received information that the first stage had been completed. I did not want there to be any misunderstanding, in Libya or elsewhere, even in the short term, about the purpose of the operation. I am ready to keep the House informed where the scale or sensitivity of the operation requires that.
Steps are being taken to ensure that pilots and engineers being trained in this country can do no harm either at the airports or in the aircraft. There are some legal and practical complications about further action, but the Departments concerned are reviewing the matter urgently.
Of course I was consulted, and I certainly support the Government's decision, which has frequently been defended and explained in the House. The right hon. Gentleman will know that the powers that I exercised in this case are serious ones, which are defined clearly in law. Student activity in support of a foreign Government need not in itself harm national security, which is the test. However, I judged that, following the threats last week, in this case there was a threat to national security. Therefore, the answer to the right hon. Gentleman's question is that I reviewed the position last week in the light of the latest information and decided that the criteria within which I must exercise my powers were met and that the presence of those 21 students in this country was no longer conducive to national security.
Mr. Terence Higgins: Did my right hon. Friend see the press reports last week suggesting that two of the Libyans arrested following demonstrations were in this country on visas which expired months ago? What check is made on such visas? If there is a genuine check, will my right hon. Friend ensure that such people do not stay in this country' after their visas have expired?
Mr. Hurd: Yes, I saw the report. The answer to my right hon. Friend's question is yes.
Mr. A J. Beith: Is the student who went on radio and offered to undertake a suicide mission among those to be deported? Why was he not deported earlier? Is willingness to take part in organised student activity the only relevant criterion, or will the Home Secretary consider others? Will he take special account of the position of those Libyans in this country who are opponents of Colonel Gaddafi and who would be at risk if they returned to Libya, and may even be at risk in this country?
Mr. Hurd: The answer to the hon. Gentleman's first question is yes. The person concerned has not, for some time, been in a position to act in the way that the hon. Gentleman described. The answer to the hon. Gentleman's second question is also yes. I am aware that by no means all the Libyans in this country are friendly towards, or supporters of, Colonel Gaddafi.
Sir Edward Gardner: Do aliens who have been served with notices of intention to deport have any right of appeal?
Mr. Hurd: My decision was taken in the interests of national security under section 15(3) of the Immigration Act 1971. As my hon. and learned Friend knows, in those circumstances there is no right of appeal to the immigration appellate authorities. Those concerned have a non-statutory right to make representations to a panel of three advisers, and they have been informed of that right. Some have already indicated that they do not wish to exercise it.
Mr. Dick Douglas: Can the Home Secretary advise us of the number of Libyan students resident in the United Kingdom? Further to the question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), can the right hon. Gentleman tell us what substantial body of information about the harmful activities embarked upon by the 21 students was available post-14 April?
Mr. Hurd: About 1,800 Libyan students are in this country, but, as I have said, many of them must be reckoned as critics or opponents of the Gaddafi regime. The 21 to whom I have referred today are organisers of activity in support of the Gaddafi regime. Such activity is not in all circumstances harmful to national security. I reviewed the information about their organising activity after the events of last week and decided that the presence of these 21 people in this country in the present circumstances was no longer conducive to national security, so I took the action I have announced.
Mr. Terry Dicks: Why have only 21 Libyans been deported? Why not deport all Libyans now in this country, as that is what the vast majority of people in the country want?
Mr. Hurd: Because my powers are limited in the way I have said, and I have exercised these powers in the interests of national security. I shall not hesitate to exercise those powers again when it seems to me that the criteria that I have been describing are met.
Mr. Tom Clarke: Is not the failure of the Government to do anything meaningful about the training of Libyan pilots and engineers supine and passive, and does that not therefore make the rest of the right hon. Gentleman's reply less than helpful and less than relevant?
Mr. Hurd: I have already answered that question. Steps have been taken to ensure that these people, whether the small number of pilots or the small number of engineers, can do no harm at the airports or in aircraft. We are considering further measures that will be necessary.
Mr. Michael Mates: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on this action. Is he looking equally closely at other nationals in this country whose Governments have been known to sponsor and support terrorism? In particular, if the evidence which has been reported is correct that Syrians might have been involved in the preparation of the bomb that nearly got to the El Al airliner, will he not flinch from taking equally robust action against Syrians, whether or not they have diplomatic immunity?
Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend will not expect me to comment on that particular example, but the general point
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that he makes is right. My concern has to be not just with Libyans but with any of those whose presence in this country is not condusive to the national security.
Mr. Ron Brown: Is not the expulsion of 21 individuals a crude, blatant attempt to whip up anti-Libyan hysteria in the country, remembering that the Government are very unpopular, and is it not also an attempt to justify further attacks against civilians in Libya?
Mr. Hurd: No, this is a measured and considered response to the organising activity in this country of those particular 21 people.
Mr. Nicholas Winterton: While welcoming my right hon. Friend's statement this afternoon and dissociating all Conservative Members from the pathetic utterances of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman), may I ask my right hon. Friend whether these measures are not totally inadequate? In the late 1930s the appeasers had their way, and history will prove our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to be one of the most stalwart defenders of civilisation and freedom in the world.
Mr. Hurd: I have taken the measures that lie within my power and responsibility. Other measures have been taken. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said, in our view further measures are still needed by our partners and ourselves.
Mr. Allan Roberts: Does the Home Secretary agree that the vast majority of the British people will support strong, non-violent action against people when there is evidence to suggest that they are involved in any way in terrorism? Is this why the Government have taken this action? Does the right hon. Gentleman also agree that the British people overwhelmingly reject violent retaliation against civilians who have not been engaged in terrorism?
Mr. Hurd: I have a strong feeling that opinion is shifting on the latter point made by the hon. Gentleman. As the facts are more clearly deployed, there is a much better understanding than there was a few days ago of the strength of the arguments which led the Government to take the decision that they took.
Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: How large is the Libyan community in Britain, and have any limitations been placed on Libyans seeking entry?
Mr. Hurd: Of course there are limitations. That is why the remark of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) was so mischievous. He knows that ever since the St. James's square disaster particular care has been taken to scrutinise the entry of Libyans, under arrangements which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan) announced at the time. Those arrangements have been in force ever since. I am informed that there are about 7,000 Libyans in this country subject to immigration control.
Mr. John Home Robertson: Is the Home Secretary aware that a significant number of Libyans, who may not have been a security risk in this country last week, are likely to be a security risk now that the Government have authorised the bombing of their homes?
Mr. Hurd: I have to look at the situation from time to time to see whether the evidence available to me justifies the use of my powers. That is what I have recently done, and shall continue to do.
Mr. Bill Walker: My right hon. Friend will be aware that for some years Libyans have been undergoing engineering training in my constituency. He will also be aware that during that time they have given no trouble and that the criteria he has used are acceptable to those Libyans as well as to my constituents. Anyone found acting against the best interests of this nation should be expelled under our rules. That also applies to those students now undergoing training in Perthshire.
Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Today is an Opposition day and we have already had an extension of Question Time. We must now move on.
Mr. Andrew Faulds: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I shall not take it if it is a continuation of the private notice question.
Mr. Faulds: No, it is not, Sir. Not at all. In the matter of priority of parliamentary consideration, how comes it that this private notice question on the deportation of Libyans was granted today, when the much more important matter of the use of British bases by the United States Government was not permitted on Monday, when the Foreign Office wished to make a statement but was overruled by No. 10? Why was that—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not know anything about that.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.
Mr. Speaker: With the leave of the House I will put together the Questions on the two motions relating to statutory instruments.
Ordered,
That the Value Added Tax (Land) Order 1986 (S.I., 1986, No. 704) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.
That the Value Added Tax (Land) (No. 2) Order 1986 (S.I., 1986, No. 716) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &c.—[Mr. Cope.]

Police Complaints Procedure (Amendment)
3.47 pm
Mr. Peter Pike: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Police and Criminal Evidence Act to establish an entitlement for a complainant to have access to the report of the police on the substance of his or her complaint; and to make related provision.
I have sought the leave of the House to introduce this Bill because I wish to remove a justified criticism of the present procedure, which was introduced under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1985. I have not introduced it as an anti-police measure. Indeed, in my view it is just as important to the majority of police that complaints can be investigated thoroughly and correctly, and that that can not only be done but be seen to be done.
In any free and democratic society it is essential to ensure that an individual has the right to make a complaint against those charged with protecting the community and enforcing the law and order. The number of police who give rise to such complaints, and the number of incidents, when seen in their true perspective, represent probably only a very small percentage. However, that does not mean that we do not have a problem.
The public's confidence in the police, and in their right to make a complaint in the knowledge that it will be fairly investigated, will be strengthened by the Bill. At present, after completion of an investigation, the complainant is given virtually no information by which to determine whether that investigation was carried out fairly. The complainant is ultimately notified if the Director of Public Prosecutions recommends any action. If no prosecution is recommended or instituted, the assistant chief constable then determines what disciplinary action, if any, should be taken. Many complainants feel that the action taken is not sufficient. However, it may be quite reasonable if the report has not been done fairly or adequately and the action taken is based solely on it. After all, if the basis of the report is wrong, the action taken will also be wrong.
The Bill provides for a complainant to have access to the substance of the report arising from his or her complaint. I do not expect the full details of all investigations to be given. Such a suggestion could inhibit an inquiry. In many cases there would be a substantial amount of material, but the substance of the report should sastisfy those concerned that all the relevant items had been investigated in a full and correct way.
I accept the point which has been put to me in the past 24 hours, that the individual complained about should have a right to see the substance of the report. I do not dispute that those complained against also have rights. It is possible that on a few occasions an unfair or unjustified complaint has been made. The essential point that I am pursuing is that it is important to bring this issue into the open. Secrecy breeds suspicion and allows uncertainty to remain. The problem is not new. It must have existed in almost all civilised societies. There is an old Roman saying—I shall not attempt the Latin version:
"But who is to guard the guards themselves?"
I do not pretend that the measure will end all the criticisms of the present procedure. However, it will be a welcome improvement. It will assist Members of Parliament whose constituents raise this issue with them from time to time. Frequently, they hear only one side of

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the case. I recognise that, whatever the problem—whether it concerns housing or another subject—one hears only the favourable points and not the adverse factors which need to be taken into account.
I am dealing with two cases in my constituency arising from the police complaints procedure. Time does not permit me to go into the details. The point at issue is that neither complainant is satisfied with the outcome of his complaint and the resultant investigation or action. If the substance of the report were made available, the complainant would be able to see on what basis the decisions and actions had been taken, and I, too, could make such a judgment.
Both constituents feel that they have suffered an injustice and are not happy with the position. Because the investigations have been carried out by the police, albeit from another police force, my constituents do not feel that the investigations have been conducted fairly. They feel that all the points they have raised to support their cases may not have been taken into account and investigated fairly and fully. Without the substance of the report, the question must be unanswered.
When the police act unfairly or improperly, it is essential that an individual in a civilised society should be able to make a complaint, confident in the knowledge that it will be dealt with responsibly. I do not believe that such confidence exists. That is bad for the complainant, for the police and for society as a whole. The Bill will help to remove these doubts and will be an important step in strengthening and improving our present procedure. It is important that we take this step. This modest and sensible proposal will improve the position. On that basis, I hope that it will receive the support which it deserves.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Peter Pike, Mr. Don Dixon, Mr. Jack Straw, Mr. Tony Lloyd, Mr. Ron Davies, Mr. Sean Hughes, Mrs. Ann Clwyd, Mr. Andrew F. Bennett, Mr. Chris Smith, Mr. Allan Roberts, Mr. Gerald Bermingham and Mr. Richard Caborn.

POLICE COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE (AMENDMENT)
Mr. Peter Pike accordingly presented a Bill to amend the Police and Criminal Evidence Act to establish an entitlement for a complainant to have access to the report of the police on the substance of his or her complaint; and to make related provision: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 25 April and to be printed. [Bill 138.]

Statements and Private Notice Questions
3.55 pm
Mr. Harry Ewing: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise for raising this point of order, but it relates to the principle of a private notice question versus a statement from a Minister and is directly within your responsibility.
I put it to you, Mr. Speaker, that Ministers have now become aware of the fact that on a private notice question you quite rightly limit the time for questions from those other than the right hon. or hon. Gentleman asking the question. For example, today you gave 15 minutes of the House's valuable time for the private notice question asked by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman).
In my view, the issue is so important that the Home Secretary should have made a statement. There is no question in my mind but that you would have given more time to question the Home Secretary had he made a statement rather than having to respond to a private notice question from my right hon. Friend. The point is that you ought to consider the amount of time that you allow for supplementary questions to a private notice question.
There is now no doubt that at this time of crisis in relation to Libya, America and Great Britain, Ministers are seeking to wriggle out of their responsibilities to the House. Today, the Home Secretary should have made a statement. Because he did not, and because you were placed in such a position, other right hon. and hon. Members who wanted to ask questions were, through no fault of yours, denied the opportunity to do so. In those circumstances, you ought to consider extending the time on a private notice question if the issue is of sufficient importance to warrant a statement from the Minister.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The point is that the Government did not make a statement and I granted the private notice question. A private notice question is an extension of Question Time. The whole House knows that I have a high regard for the time given to Back Benchers. It is precisely because there is such a long list of Back Benchers wishing to speak on the two Opposition motions that I gave only 15 minutes for the private notice question.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: It only wastes time.
Mr. Dalyell: It will illuminate the problem. My right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Kaufman) very properly asked the Home Secretary whether he was consulted in advance. The Home Secretary—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The private notice question is an extension of Question Time. I cannot deal with that. The hon. Gentleman must ask a question on a matter for which I am responsible. I am not really responsible for anything like that.
Mr. Dalyell: Your responsibility is to provide clarification. Unless you give time, Mr. Speaker, it is impossible to clarify from the Home Secretary's answers whether he knew in advance. It is important to give time so that the Home Secretary's answers can he clarified, so

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that we know what he really meant and whether he knew about the attack on Libya in advance, or was consulted afterwards. That is why my right hon. Friend raised a substantial issue.
Mr. Speaker: The House knows that I have an exceedingly difficult job balancing what is important and what is even more important. The two Opposition motions today are very important, and I had to make that judgment.
Mr. Gerald Kaufman: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I should be grateful if you would consider the genuine and important points of order that my hon. Friends have raised, in the light of a decision that you made a few weeks ago, which I thought was very helpful to the House. You will recall that on that occasion, following a point of order that I raised, a Minister then rose on a point of order and made what you turned into a statement because you said that it was an abuse of a point of order.
The point that my hon. Friends are making is that when a Minister is using the device of a private notice question to evade giving a full statement, you might consider turning that into a statement, with the consequences for questioning that would ensue from that.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The trouble is that I do not have that power. It is a matter for the Government whether they make a statement.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that we have had enough of this.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: I understand that, Mr. Speaker. However—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Then why is the hon. Gentleman trying to raise a point of order?
Mr. Campbell-Savours: My point of order arises on an additional point.
Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to deal with the first point of order. I must balance these matters. Many hon. Members, including a maiden speaker, wish to take part in the debate that follows. I gave an extension of 15 minutes on Question Time today, and that was a good run for a private notice question.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: My point relates to the same issue, Mr. Speaker, but approaches it from a different angle. I believe that the point is very important. Is the only distinction between a private notice question and a ministerial statement that a Minister has decided that the matter warrants precedence over other business, whereas you decide that for a private notice question? To some extent, therefore, they surely have the same status. If they have the same status, there must be times and occasions when you might wish to ensure that they are given equal time in relation to procedure in debate.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. There are times and occasions when I do that, and I have done that today.

Opposition Day
  12TH ALLOTTED DAY

    Housing
    4.1 pm
    Mr. Jeff Rooker: I beg to move,
    That this House calls for a new approach to housing policy which combines investment in good housing with responses to family and individual needs reflecting the informed opinions of tenants and home buyers, in order to bring about solutions based upon choice, freedom and fairness, to improve the quality of life throughout the whole community.
    Mr. Speaker: I should announce to the House that I have selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
    Mr. Rooker: In the Queen's Speech last November the Prime Minister said:
    "Labour could not hold a candle to our record on housing."—[Official Report, 6 November 1985; Vol. 86, c. 19.]
    The Government amendment to the Opposition motion today appears to reflect that view, although I notice that the name of the Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction does not appear on it. It is therefore important to set out some of the old problems as a result of the Tory record to see why new solutions are required.
    Our housing is old and deteriorating. One in four homes in England pre-date the first world war. I must add that those homes are not the only homes that are deteriorating. Britain spends less of its wealth on housing than any of the 11 Common Market countries and is behind the United States, Sweden, Norway and Finland in that respect. Indeed, we are at Third world levels in relation to the wealth we spend on housing.
    The period of this Government has seen the national house-building programme plummet from an average of 285,000 new homes a year under the previous Labour Government to only 180,000 a year for the first five years of the Conservative Government. That is a drop, as I have said repeatedly, of 2,000 new homes every week since the Conservatives came to power in 1979.
    So far, the best year that the Conservatives have managed was 1983 when 217,000 new homes were started nationally. Unfortunately it seems to have escaped the Prime Minister's attention that her best year of home starts is 47,000 new homes below the 1978 figure which was the worst year for new home starts under the previous Labour Government. That shows above all else that the Prime Minister's claim in the debate on the Queen's Speech in November is quite preposterous.
    All of us know that the Government generated a pre-election boom in home improvement grants. However, once the election was over the chopper came down quite firmly. The number of home improvement grants in 1985 is less than half of the 1984 total. The Government's Green Paper "Home improvements—a new approach", effectively spells the end of home improvement grants as a policy instrument for raising the standard of an area. Even those living in decent housing—this point escapes Ministers—need to know and be sure that their neighbours' homes will be looked after, if only for the narrow interest of preserving the value of their own homes.

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    The Government Green Paper, to all appearances, is finished. We have hardly heard a pip from the Government because of the overwhelming response against the proposals contained in that Green Paper.
    The Government must be constantly reminded that, in the rush of pre-election time-limited bonanza, extra staff throughout the country had to be taken on by local authorities. Because of the cuts, tens of thousands of our fellow citizens who applied for grants during that time, will never receive them unless there is a substantial and vast change in Government policy. People are extremely bitter. How can they now be blamed for being reluctant to spend money on their homes when a programme of improvement might resume rendering them ineligible for the grant that they might otherwise have received.
    Mr. Michael Latham: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Rooker: I will give way later as I wish to make progress now.
    On top of that failure, the demolition rates have also been cut. The building figures of new homes are down nationally and demolition levels are also down. It therefore follows that it is crucial that improvements are vastly stepped up. We do not need lectures from the Government, as the Labour party first introduced the system of home improvement grants for private sector home-owners.
    To add to the crisis, there is also an increase in households beyond the increase in population. The Government are aware that many "hidden" homeless people are forced to share other people's homes. The legally defined homeless figure rises each year the Government are in office. In 1985 it topped 90,000. I do not see how the Government amendment fixes figures in relation to the 90,000-plus homeless families in 1985. Those people are not homeless out of choice. Their freedom is severely limited and they do not believe that the system is fair.
    Is it Tory freedom and fairness which has caused an estimated 14,000 families to be in bed-and-breakfast accommodation? Are Conservative Members satisfied with the quality of life that they mention in the amendment for the estimated 750,000 handicapped people living in housing that is not suited to their needs? To add further to the crisis on the Tory record, it is known that long-stay patients in psychiatric hospitals are mainly long-stay because there is no alternative accommodation. In the face of that, how can the Government, through their manipulation of the Opposition motion, say that there is choice, freedom and fairness?
    I stress two further points to highlight the Tory record on housing—the record which the Prime Minister said that the Opposition could not hold a candle to. After six years of Conservative Government—the figures relate to April 1985—no fewer than 4 million out of the 18 million homes in England were either unfit for human habitation, lacking in basic amenities such as an inside toilet or hot and cold running water, or were in need of substantial renovation.
    Mr. Tony Marlow: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Rooker: I must continue.
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    That figure of 4 million represents 20 to 25 per cent. of the homes in England. That is some record and certainly shows that there is not much fairness. I give way to the first hon. Gentleman who wished to intervene.
    Mr. Latham: I notice that when the hon. Gentleman was giving the figures for new housing starts, he compared the Labour party record with the Government's record. He did not give the same comparison for improvement grants. Will he do that now?
    Mr. Rooker: I shall be quite happy to recount the figures. However, my point is that the Opposition's housebuilding record, as I have said, was 2,000 new starts every week better than the Government's. We were demolishing old and decrepit housing faster than the Tory Government. It naturally follows that, if we are to maintain housing standards, there must be a vast increase in improvement grants. No one can deny that, because of the pre-election boom, the Tories engineered a boom in home improvement grants to hide the cuts in new housebuilding and the further cuts in demolition. There is no denying that. That is not part of my case, but the record overall is not one of which the Government can be proud.
    Mr. Marlow rose—
    Mr. Rooker: There is also the Tory record on rents and mortgage interest. Even with the recent decreases in the latter, mortgage interest has on average been 50 per cent. higher under the Tory Government than it was under Labour.
    I want to be fair to the Government. I am in favour of being fair and placing the facts on the record. The increase in the retail price index between 1979 and 1985—in the first six years of the present Government—was 74·6 per cent. At the same time, rents went up by 144 per cent., and the index for mortgage interest rose by 158 per cent. That is the scale of the increase in mortgage interest compared with inflation under the Tories. Ministers may not agree with the figures, but it was provided by the Library and confirmed by a Minister in a parliamentary answer on 28 January.
    Despite those figures, the Government have the brass face to tell us that we cannot hold a candle to their record on housing. Despite that appalling catalogue, the Government are arrogant enough to claim in their amendment that they are fulfilling the housing aspirations of the British people.
    Mr. Marlow: There are two aspects to the provision of housing. One is national Government and the other is the local authority. The hon. Gentleman says that a great number of houses are sadly below standard. What proportion of those houses is in Labour local authority areas? Will he also explain why, although Lambeth has much higher rates than Wandsworth, the housing situation is much worse in Lambeth than in Wandsworth, a Conservative local authority with a lower rate? What is the secret? What is the difference? Why does that happen?
    Mr. Rooker: The hon. Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) always asks about Lambeth, to which he is, of course, extremely grateful for his home improvement grant.
    Mr. Marlow rose—
    Mr. Rooker: No, I shall not give way again. I did not say that the hon. Gentleman criticised Lambeth—he did that himself. I said that he is eternally grateful to Lambeth.
    Mr. Marlow rose—
    Mr. Rooker: Many of my hon. Friends—
    Mr. Marlow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—
    Mr. Speaker: Is the hon. Gentleman sure that it is not a point of frustration?
    Mr. Marlow: I am not a net debtor to Lambeth.
    Mr. Rooker: Millions of home owners and tenants are demanding a change of policy. What we do not save in our housing stock we shall lose. The next generation will have to foot the bill.
    Mr. Marlow: Will the hon. Gentleman answer the question?
    Mr. Rooker: There is no one answer. No one in his right mind would claim that there is one answer. None of my hon. Friends would claim that there is, and I am sure that the Minister would not either. However, a start must be made. The Government could make a start by redressing some of their own faults. They could, for example, lift VAT from improvements and repairs carried out by registered builders. The money lost in VAT would be saved out of the black economy. The Government made a fantastic and fundamental error in 1984 in imposing VAT. The imposition has caused considerable difficulties. Lifting the burden of VAT from improvements and repairs by registered builders would pay for itself.
    A programme should be pledged to ensure that within two to three years at the most every home in the land has hot and cold water, a bath and an inside toilet. That is a very modest proposal, but each of those basic amenities is lacking in at least half a million homes.
    The labour and materials are there, and, heaven knows the need is there. The investment would be a prudent one, and putting decent amenities into our houses would save the NHS a fortune.
    The Government must scrap the Green Paper on home improvements. We need proposals that would not penalise home-owners as the proposals in the Green Paper seem to do. Private money could be encouraged into improvement work through public channels. That has been advocated by some Labour-controlled local authorities.
    Grant procedures must be simplified to encourage those who are bewildered by the form-filling that is needed if they are to take up the opportunities. With the present lack of either newbuild or demolition, the take-up of grants needs to be positively encouraged rather than cut again as it was in 1985.
    On no occasion have the Government increased the financial limits of the grants or the cheap scheme for the first-time buyers which they inherited from the Labour Government. They should do so immediately.
    We need a national programme for the repair and modernisation of our 5 million or 6 million council dwellings. The Government should set it up in a way that actively involves the tenants. The Government know the scale of the problem. It is not fanciful to say that there is a demand for repair and modernisation. The Government's own report of last November on the condition of public sector housing stock itemised one area of stock after another—flats and houses categorised by age—and arrived at the need to spend £18 billion on bringing that stock up to good condition. A start should be made on a national programme actively involving tenants.
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    We must go further. It is crucial that tenants and home owners should have new rights to be involved in the modernisation, repair and improvement of their homes. Another of our modest proposals is that there should be a right to demand that the work is done satisfactorily before payment is made for repairs or improvement. That vital right does not exist today for local authority tenants or for home owners on the receiving end of improvement grants. They have no right to insist that the work be done to their satisfaction before the local authority can pay the builder or the contractor.
    Mr. John Maples: Or the direct labour organisations.
    Mr. Rooker: Yes, or the DLOs. People will not feel responsible for caring for the improved properties unless they are involved.
    Some Conservative Members have joined us in another demand that we have made on three or four occasions in the past year. The money locked up in local authority bank accounts, being the proceeds of the sale of property or land, must be released. To ignore £6 billion is simply not prudent financial management. I am sure that all the Ministers at the Department of the Environment agree. However, they cannot say so, because the Treasury will not permit them to do so.
    We need an immediate increase in resources devoted to the Housing Corporation, in order to enable the voluntary sector of housing authorities and co-operatives to flourish and to contribute in the area in which it can contribute so much—catering for the special needs of the young and the elderly. In addition, the voluntary sector should once again be able to concentrate on what it can do extremely well—rehabilitating rundown housing for family purposes.
    I make a plea on behalf of the Opposition generally and of some Labour Members in particular who have defective housing in their constituencies.
    The House must seriously consider the problems of defective housing and put muscle behind the Housing Defects Act 1984 which had all-party support. However, there must be the proviso that resources will be made available to make the Act a reality. If that is not done the House will be conning hundreds of people.
    We must not throw good money after bad—nobody is asking for that. However, hundreds of thousands of families who live in defective housing—owners and tenants—need to know where they stand. They are in homes which they cannot sell and for which there is a block on improvement grants and modernisation by public sector landlords. It is crucial that we take action.
    Without returning to the quick-build policies of the 1950s and 1960s—I have had to use statistics as a qualification of the scale of the damage, but we are not interested in playing the numbers game for the sake of building junk housing—which caused so much distress to people trapped in high-rise blocks and walk up deck-access flats, we must have a national comprehensive building programme for all kinds of tenure. That includes those who wish to rent, those who wish to buy and those who wish to do a bit of both through shared ownership.
    Mr. Maples: The hon. Gentleman has referred to those who wish to buy, and the motion refers to choice. I am sure that he will agree that most people, given the choice, would prefer to own their homes. Can the hon. Gentleman

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    explain how such aspirations would be realised by the 6 million public sector tenants if a future Labour Government stopped the sale of council houses?
    Mr. Rooker: A future Labour Government would not remove the right to buy—we have made that absolutely clear. It is no good the hon. Member looking surprised, for it is there, chapter and verse, in "Homes for the Future".
    Mr. Robert Atkins: It is called a U-turn.
    Mr. Rooker: It is not a U-turn. Let me give an example to prove that. In 1967 the Labour Government gave home owners of leasehold houses the right to buy the freehold, and that was without Conservative party support. Recently, the Tory Government went to the European Court to defend that piece of socially just legislation. We do not deny that we opposed the Government's proposals in the Housing Act 1980. But although our proposals are not the same as the Government's, because we want to replace what has been sold, we now accept each other's position. There is no argument about that and there is no point in the hon. Member for South Ribble (Mr. Atkins) refering to a U-turn.
    We accept people's right to buy, in the same way as the Tories opposed the right for home owners to buy their freeholds which had been granted under the Labour Government. No Labour Government have ever stopped a council—whether Tory or Labour controlled—from selling houses to its tenants.
    Mr. Maples rose—
    Mr. Rooker: No, I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Maples rose—
    Mr. Rooker: No. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be able to make his own speech later. I give way to my hon. Friend.
    Mr. George Park: Is my hon. Friend aware that, over a quarter of a century ago the Labour-controlled council of Coventry was building houses for sale?
    Mr. Rooker: The record of Labour-controlled local authorities providing homes for sale, up and down the country, is clear. If the Government half close the gap between their average levels of house building and that of the last Labour Government it would mean an extra 50,000 new homes a year. Our target is simple and we have made it clear. We will build and plan to repair and improve at a rate faster than the present rate of housing decay. The problem of house decay is serious and, if we do not meet it, future generations will have problems with which they will be unable to cope.
    Poor housing is an injustice for all our community, but those who live in it live out the injustice on a daily basis. An investment in housing is an investment in people both in their homes and in their jobs. We cannot offer real choice, freedom and the fairness inherent in decent housing unless the nation wakes up and starts to put people first. That is our intention.
    4.25 pm
    The Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction (Mr. John Patten): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
    'welcomes the Government's approach to housing policy which combines investment in good housing with responses to family and individual needs reflecting the informed opinions of tenants and home buyers, in order to bring about solutions based upon choice, freedom and fairness; and congratulates the Government on its achievements since 1979 in fulfilling housing aspirations and improving the quality of life throughout the whole community. '.
    The amendment recognises the crucial truth about the debate. Phrase like "putting people first" or "choice, freedom and fairness" may be new themes to the Labour party, but they are not new themes for the Conservative party. They have been the basis of our housing policy for the past seven years, since the introduction of the tenant's charter and the Housing Act 1980.
    It is right that I should welcome the Labour party's conversion to the importance of choice, freedom and fairness, but it has been some time coming. The Labour party's attitude to the introduction of the right-to-buy policy followed different priorities from those outlined by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) when he discussed the policy in his speech.
    When the Labour party was faced with one of the most popular housing policies introduced by any Government, what did it do? It opposed it. It did not put people first, it put the wishes of local authorities first. Even now, when the overwhelming popularity of the right-to-buy policy has forced the Labour party to accept it, it has done so grudgingly.
    Mr. Robert Atkins: A U-turn.
    Mr. John Patten: It has done a sort of U-turn, but more of that in a moment.
    From the policy paper "Homes for the Future", to which my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Maples) referred in his telling intervention, and which the Labour party conference approved six months ago, it is far from clear whether it has accepted the right-to-buy policy. I demonstrate that by quoting from the document which tells us that the right to buy
    "has the effects of restricting choice for tenants".
    With regard to the public sector stock, it says that the right to buy
    "has only made matters worse".
    Which is the real Labour party policy? That approved by the Labour party conference, or that skated over by the hon. Member for Perry Barr?
    Mr. Allan Roberts rose—
    Mr. Tony Banks rose—
    Mr. Rooker rose—
    Mr. Patten: I shall give way in a moment. I did not interrupt the speech of the hon. Member for Perry Barr.
    In that document, the Labour party proposed to allow local authorities to
    "determine whether, in the light of all the circumstances, council tenants should be able to buy their houses".
    That is not so much a conversion as a case of half falling off the donkey on the road to Damascus—a mixture of "Me-tooism" and totally muddled Labour party policy formulation.
    Mr. Allan Roberts rose—
    Mr. Patten: I shall give way with pleasure to the hon. Gentleman later. The U-turn referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Mr. Atkins) shows how much the ground has been shifted—it is ground not of Conservative party choosing but of the choosing of British people.
    Mr. Allan Roberts rose—
    Mr. Patten: I shall give way in a moment as I promised.
    Mr. Peter Riddell revealed yesterday in the Financial Times that Labour's own research had revealed that the party was
    "in danger of being seen as rooted in the 1960s and the 1970s in its approach".
    The hon. Members for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) and for Perry Barr are trying to drag the party into the 1980s. They have some way to go yet. But how much will it all cost?
    This morning a new document on housing was launched. It is a glossy new document published in the new, fashionable soft-focus colouring, blurred round the edges, such as we are accustomed to seeing in some newspapers. It refers to a new package of housing policies. But how much will it cost? My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Treasury is waiting, with his little calculator, for evidence of how much it will cost so that he can add it to the £24 billion of pledges that the Labour party has already given.
    I shall give way to the hon. Member for Perry Barr if he will tell me the cost. The hon. Member for Copeland is also sitting on the Opposition Front Bench. I shall gladly give way to the hon. Gentleman and to the hon. Member for Perry Barr if they will tell me the cost of their programme. It appears either that they do not know the cost of their programme, or that if they do know how much it would cost they are refusing to tell the House.
    Mr. Rooker: What is the cost of the 4 million people who are living in decaying and unfit housing? What is the cost of the people who are living in bed-and-breakfast accommodation? What is the cost of the 90,000 people who are homeless every year, and of the 4 million people in the dole queue who are being wasted?
    Mr. Patten: The hon. Gentleman should be ashamed of himself. One does not answer one question by asking five or six others. If the hon. Gentleman cannot give a straight answer to a straight question, let the hon. Member for Copeland, who is in charge of the Labour party's policy on the environment, get up and tell us the cost. If he will not do so, either he does not know or he is trying to perpetrate a fraud on the electorate by putting forward an uncosted and false prospectus.
    Mr. Allan Roberts: Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Patten: If the Opposition Front Bench will not tell us the cost, perhaps the hon. Member for Bootle will tell us what it is.
    Mr. Roberts: I shall say something about the cost of housing investment later, Mr. Speaker, if I catch your eye. As for U-turns and public expenditure on housebuilding, one of the Government's main arguments during the proceedings in Committee, of which I was a member, on the Housing Bill of 1980, in favour of the sale of council houses was that one could use the capital receipts from the sale of council houses to replace those that had been sold.
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    Why have the Government done a U-turn? Why will the Government not allow local authorities to spend their capital receipts on the building of houses? Has the Minister read the Labour party's document "Homes for the Future"? Is he in favour of the Labour party's commitment to replace every house that is sold by building a new one?
    Mr. Patten: We are, of course—
    Mr. Roberts: Answer.
    Mr. Patten: That is exactly what I am going to do. The hon. Gentleman should restrain himself. He asked a direct question. The answer is that each year we are permitting a proportion of the accumulated sums of money from council house sales to be spent on new building. Not all the £6 billion is now backed by cash. Much of the £6 billion has now been spent on other purposes, so not all of it is available. We are reviewing the capital control system. We have had this argument across the Floor of the House on a number of occasions since I became Minister for Housing. A new series of questions now has to be asked about the cost of the Labour party's programme. The Opposition Front Bench refuses to give that information because it does not have it. Therefore, I give due notice that I shall return to the issue again and again.
    Mr. John Powley: Did my hon. Friend hear correctly the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts), who said that it was the Labour party's policy to replace every council house that is sold with another council house? Will he speculate on the cost to the Exchequer and the financial institutions of this country of replacing about 900,000 council houses?
    Mr. Patten: My hon. Friend has put his finger on the confusion in the Labour party's policy. I listened carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Perry Barr. He said that he did not want to play the numbers game. He also said that there was a pressing need to build more and more houses. I invited him to give the answer, but he has not chosen to explain how that programme will be paid for.
    Mr. Tony Banks: Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Patten: I shall give way later to the hon. Gentleman. I am conscious of the fact that during our last debate I was unable to give way to him.
    It is as difficult as ever to tell what is the official policy of the Social Democratic party and the Liberal party on this issue, as expressed in their amendment on the Order Paper which has not been selected for debate. The Social Democratic party seems to accept the right to buy. That leaves the Liberal party, as I am always being reminded by the hon. Member for Perry Barr, in the extraordinary position of being the only party that does not officially accept the right to buy. The amendment of the Social Democratic party and the Liberal party does not suggest that they are about to resolve this confusion. If my right hon. and hon. Friends have not read the amendment, I recommend them to read it. It reads like a John Cleese parody of the risible results of consensus policy making.
    Mr. David Alton: Before the Minister leaves that point, will he give way?
    Mr. Patten: Perhaps I shall get a straight answer from the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Alton: The answer is unequivocally yes, the Liberal party would retain the right to buy. The amendment specifically says that it would.
    Mr. Patten: If that is now official Liberal party policy, it is extremely useful information to have from the hon. Gentleman.
    The hon. Member for Perry Barr ended on the question of the right to buy and home ownership, and naturally, I began on those issues in order to take up his points. The right to buy has been successful because it recognises the wish of the great majority of the British people to own their own homes.
    Mr. Tony Banks rose—
    Mr. Patten: Mortgage famines have disappeared and mortgage rates are coming down. Mortgage rates are being significantly reduced, for the second time in a matter of weeks.
    Mr. Banks: Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Patten: Before I turn to the rented sector, I shall of course give way to the hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Banks: On the Minister's point about the right to buy in the private sector, according to the most recent survey in the London borough of Newham, only 7 per cent. of the population can afford to buy a house that costs about £35,000, which is a low price in the south-east. Is the Minister aware that because of the massive unemployment and other poverty that has been brought about in Newham by this Government's policies, the right to buy in the private sector is effectively denied to the people of Newham?
    Mr. Patten: In the Housing and Planning Bill we are trying to include additional incentives for flat dwellers, a substantial number of whom live in the London borough of Newham, which will make it more possible for them to buy their homes. I do not want to devote the burden of my speech to the right to buy, but I had to deal with the points that were made by the hon. Member for Perry Barr.
    More choice, freedom and fairness are needed in the rented sector. I have made that point time and again since I have been Minister for Housing. I hope that the hon. Member for Perry Barr recognises that fact. The right to buy and home ownership have not been the only tunes that I have played either in debates in this House or in Standing Committee. That is one of the best ways to avoid the mistakes of the past.
    The hon. Member for Perry Barr referred to choice and fairness. Council tenants did not have much choice about the design of the estates and tower blocks that were built in the 1960s and 1970s. Alas, those designs reflected what the bureaucrats and architects in central Government and local government thought was best. The people were not consulted. All those who were involved made that fundamental mistake. The result has been many of the housing problems that face us today. We are trying to deal with the failed solutions to past problems, and we are now in the third or fourth cycle of trying to solve them. I very much regret that the management record of many local authorities has not made solving those problems any easier.
    I have said it before, but it has to be said again, that just as there are far too many homes standing empty in the private sector, so there are 116,000 houses and flats standing empty in the public sector. That is more than the total number of people who are accepted in this country as being homeless. In fact, 26,000 houses and flats have
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    been standing empty for more than 12 months. Those houses and flats are an affront to the homeless of this country.
    Mr. Alfred Dubs: Will the Minister give way?
    Mr. Patten: No. I have given way on many occasions, and in the interests of those right hon. and hon. Members who are hoping to speak I must make progress with my speech.
    We hear a great deal from Labour-controlled local authorities, in particular, about the need for more expenditure, but rent arrears now total more than £200 million. In the worst 20 authorities alone, rent arrears equal about £94 million.
    Labour authorities should tell us what they have been doing with the substantial sums of money spent on their stock. If their housing is in poor repair, how did they allow it to get into that state? What have they been doing for the past 30 or 40 years? Sheffield, for example, has been under Labour control for all but two of the last 40 years, and in the last six years alone it has spent £180 million on housing. Wolverhampton has been Labour for 30 years since the war, and in the last six years it has spent £115 million. Manchester has also enjoyed Labour control for most of the last 30 years, and it has spent £340 million on housing in the last six years.
    What have these authorities been doing for so long with so much money? What has been the result? On the most recent figures available to me, Sheffield has nearly 3,000 empty homes. It is owed nearly £10 million in rent arrears—15 per cent. of its annual rent income. Wolverhampton has nearly 2,000 empty homes—5 per cent. of its total stock—and rent arrears are nearly £3 million. Manchester has 6 per cent. of its stock standing empty—nearly 5,000 houses and flats. It is owed £4·5 million in rent arrears. What a record of the results of more than a generation of Labour control in those areas of housing. What a tribute to generations of Labour control. What an affront to the homeless.
    Perhaps the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser), who I understand will wind up the debate for the Opposition and to whose speech I look forward, will find time to comment on Lambeth's record of 1,800 empty council houses and over £9 million in rent arrears—25 per cent. of its annual rent income.
    The records of many of these councils are very poor, but they cannot be held entirely to blame. Many council housing departments are simply too big to manage properly, as I think all hon. Members recognise. I know that I have the agreement of the hon. Member for Perry Barr, because he quoted some telling figures in his speech on Second Reading of the Housing and Planning Bill. He told us that seven councils have more than 50,000 houses and flats to manage, and that a further 52 councils have between 20,000 and 50,000. The hon. Gentleman was certainly not exaggerating when he said that there was scope in that size of management for the bungling depersonalised approach. He was right and I commend his courage in saying it.
    We have to find ways to break up these great empires and to achieve more diversity of management and ownership. I believe that there is a growing consensus in the House that those are desirable ends, even if we might not necessarily be able to agree on all the ways of

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    achieving them. We have to encourage more tenant participation in the organisation and management of the blocks of flats, houses and estates in which they live. The Housing and Planning Bill will promote just this kind of change, and I welcome the enlightened attitude of Opposition spokesmen of all political parties in the Committee on that Bill to these new attempts to help tenants of housing in council ownership.
    Mr. Marlow: My hon. Friend mentioned parts of the record of Manchester. Probably, like me, he has received a letter from a Mr. Taylor of the city of Manchester, who has been seeking to misrepresent the Housing and Planning Bill. He is not only doing that, but is threatening to set up a conference for the purpose of inviting trade unionists and other councils further to misrepresent the Bill. Can my hon. Friend say what action the Government will take to prevent Manchester from putting politics rather than people first?
    Mr. Patten: I am afraid that that letter has not come through to me. Perhaps my civil servants thought that I was too weak a spirit to receive such a threat from Manchester and decided to keep it off my desk. I deplore the way in which local councils, such as Manchester, or indeed Leicester, from time to time threaten people wishing to purchase their own homes that they will diversify management of tenure in the estates on which they live.
    Mr. Peter Bruinvels: What message does my hon. Friend have for those constituents of mine in Leicester, East who have been trying for the last three years to buy their own flats and have been prevented because the Labour party is denying them the right to do so? Those people are desperately keen to buy their own homes, but the Leicester city council, which is Labour-controlled at the moment, is refusing to allow them to do so. They want to be property owners, and they are being denied that right. What can we do in the Housing and Planning Bill to help them?
    Mr. Patten: As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has observed sotto voce, that is the authentic face of the Labour party at grass-roots level. What is going on in Leicester shows the yawning gulf between practice in so many Labour authorities in this land, alas, and the sensible, pragmatic and non-ideological words which come so often from Labour Front-Bench spokesmen. If my hon. Friend would like to write to me with examples of these shocking incidents, I shall look into them and see whether there is anything that I can do.
    Local estate-based management is one of the key changes which my Department is advocating to local authorities through our priority estates project and the urban housing renewal unit.
    Another matter that has been of great concern in recent debates on the Housing and Planning Bill is the need to bring in private investment. I must say to the hon. Member for Perry Barr that the misrepresentation by at least some parts of the Labour party of the intent of that Bill and the stories being put around in Labour party leaflets in places such as Wandsworth—I was shown a shocking example today—that the purpose of the Bill is to make it possible for tenants to be removed at will, freely and at the
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    stroke of a pen, is wrong. The hon. Gentleman knows that. We are to have a chance to debate it on Report on Thursday. I simply want to put him on notice now that I shall do all that I possibly can to make sure that the truth is told about these proposals.
    My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State hopes to say more about these initiatives when he replies to the debate. I should like to say how pleased we have been by the positive response that we have had from so many local authorities, many Labour authorities among them, to the offer of help by the urban housing renewal unit. More than 100 authorities have already asked for help from the UHRU and many schemes are being worked up. These authorities have realised that they do not themselves have all the answers, so they are prepared to work in partnership with central Government and with the private sector to try to provide some of the answers.
    We have to look at new ways of providing rented housing. That is a theme to which we have to return in the House. The private sector certainly has a part to play, as do housing associations and other forms of investment institutions. This is critically important. These alternatives can not only offer tenants the prospect of better management, but can offer more choice, more freedom and more fairness compared with the hopelessly divided forms of housing that we have, with owner-occupation, council renting and precious little in between. This is one of the great blots on the social landscape of this country and is unique in the Western world. We have to do something to break down those barriers.
    We need to spend money, too, on improving and repairing the stock. We were given the uncosted benefit of the uncosted thoughts of the hon. Member for Perry Barr and his uncharacteristically demure and self-effacing colleague the hon. Member for Copeland, who said what they were going to do, but not how they were going to pay for it, and when.
    We have been spending money. We have spent a record amount on home improvements since 1979. We have spent more than £3 billion, and approximately £0·5 billion is being spent this year. It is the same in the public sector, where about £2·5 billion is being spent from the capital account and the revenue account on housing repairs and renovations—not before time. In 1978–79, the last year of the Labour Government, only £1 billion was spent. We have increased the amount of money spent on council house repairs and renovations by some 14 per cent. since 1979.
    Let there be no tales from the Opposition about the Government not wishing to begin the substantial task of trying to bring back into good repair our housing stock and to undo many of the mistakes so tragically made in the last 20 or 30 years. Those are the areas in which expenditure is needed. It is not needed to play the numbers game or to provide vast new housing estates on which so much was spent in the '60s and '70s, to such disastrous effect.
    Those are our priorities. We want to help those who wish to buy their own homes. We want to improve diversify management for tenants, and we want to devote more resources to bringing back into use, by improvement and repair, houses for everyone, especially the homeless. Those are the priorities that really mean putting people first.
    4.51 pm
    Mr. Nick Raynsford: I am pleased to have the opportunity to make my first speech in the House on this subject. I say that for three reasons. First, I have worked in housing for the last 14 years, a major part of which was with the housing organisation SHAC. Secondly, housing has, sadly, been neglected far too much in recent years and has been given far too low a priority, both in terms of public expenditure and emphasis by the Government. Thirdly, the Government's policy on housing is so woefully lacking that there is a crying need for a new approach and a new policy to try to ensure that many of our fellow citizens who have to endure shameful conditions of poverty and squalor and homelessness have the prospect of a decent home.
    There is no doubt about the extent of the housing crisis. We know from the official figures that on the most cautious estimate something of the order of one in 10 properties are totally unsatisfactory—unfit unfit for human habitation or suffering from a lack of basic amenities such as bathrooms and WCs, or requiring considerable expenditure to tackle disrepair. There is a huge backlog of properties in bad condition. They are to be found in the private rented sector, especially in constituencies such as mine.
    I am pleased to have this opportunity to pay tribute to the two hon. Members who represented Fulham in the last 40 years—Michael Stewart, now Lord Stewart of Fulham in another place, and the late Martin Stevens whose unfortunate death led to the by-election which resulted in my election to this House. In my constituency a substantial number of properties are privately rented and many of the people who live in them have to endure appalling conditions. I was able to show those conditions to my hon. Friends the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Bar (Mr. Rooker) when they visited Fulham a couple of months ago. They saw some of the worst conditions anywhere in Britain.
    Apart from privately rented housing, many owner-occupiers live in properties that they do not have the money to maintain. They are living in houses that are literally falling to bits around them, and action is needed to tackle that problem if we are not to see a much greater problem of deterioration in owner-occupied houses. As we all know, there is a huge backlog of poor condition council properties. Many of those houses were built to prefabricated systems that have proved unsatisfactory. Those systems were often encouraged by central Government and local authorities are now being given the blame for them because they followed the advice of central Government 20 or more years ago.
    There is also a serious problem of unmet housing needs. We know from surveys carried out by organisations such as Shelter that 1·25 million households are registered on council waiting lists. That is a rather imperfect measure of need, but it shows the extent of the problem. Perhaps more graphic are the shameful figures of homelessness, of which the most recent for last year were published last week. They' show that 94,000 households were accepted last year by local authorities in England as homeless. That is the highest number ever recorded and an increase of some 13 per cent. on the previous year. That is a measure of unmet needs.
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    The problems of poor conditions and unmet housing needs have been greatly exacerbated by Government cuts in housing expenditure. I should like to put a couple of figures on the record. The Minister said a great deal about the Government's spending record, but for every £100 spent on housing in the last year of the last Labour Government, only £30 was spent by this Government last year. That is a measure of the extreme cuts in expenditure on housing for which this Government have been responsible. We spend less as a proportion of our gross domestic product on housing than any other European country. We spend less than West Germany and less than Greece. We are at the bottom of the European league for spending on residential accommodation. The figures for public sector house building are a disgrace. Ten years ago 170,000 new homes were started. Last year, the figure was just 33,000 one fifth of the level achieved 10 years ago. That is the record of this Government.
    The Minister talked about the polarisation between owner-occupation and council renting and said he wanted something in the middle. Many of us want that. Many of us, including myself, have served on committees of housing associations that have been striving to provide alternative tenures. For every three homes that housing associations were providing in 1979, the last year of the Labour Government, only one is being provided now, and that is because of cuts by the Government in expenditure on housing associations. That shows the hollowness of the Minister's claim that he is seeking some additional tenure through that medium. Some £20 billion is required to meet the backlog of poor condition in the council sector, but the current allocations go only a small way towards meeting that need.
    Home improvement grants have been mentioned and I should like to put some more figures on the record. The Government's policy on home improvement grants has been a classic example of stop-go-go when they seek to inflate the economy or to give an impression of activity, and stop when the Treasury says no. Last year, the number of home improvement grants approved was some 137,000, a 40 per cent. cut on the number a year before of 229,000. Is that the way to plan for the future? Is that the way to give confidence to people who want to improve their homes? Is that the way to run any public administration? The answer to those questions is no, it is a disgraceful way to proceed.
    Government policy does not involve only cuts because it is also one-sided. The Government are obsessed with the owner-occupied market and in assisting the extension of owner-occupation. They ignore the needs of those people who either cannot afford or do not want to own their own homes. The right to buy has frequently been mentioned, but the chief criticism of the right to buy in the Government's own Housing Act 1980 is that it provides a benefit to those council tenants who could and want to buy, and totally neglects the needs of the homeless, the badly housed and council tenants who want to transfer to other accommodation. It is a one-sided policy that neglected the needs of an important section of the population. It is rather similar to a policy towards the National Health Service that simply looks after the interests and needs of consultants and ignores the needs of nurses. That is the same as the one-sidedness that we see in the Government's housing policy.
    The one-sided approach is exemplified in the Housing and Planning Bill, 1986 which will have its Third Reading

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    and Report stage debate in two day's time. That Bill is a measure of the Government's preoccupations. Does it attempt to tackle the need for additional home building? The answer is no. Does it attempt to tackle the need for a better improvement policy or take any further that Green Paper on improvements that was published last summer and has since been forgotten? No, there is no proposal on that score. Does it do anything to meet the needs of the homeless? No, it does not. The Housing and Planning Bill proposes a series of fiddling changes around the edge in that it allows more generous discounts on the right to buy, facilitates disposals on privatisation, and extends the almost entirely abortive assured tenancy scheme.
    When he was speaking about privatisation, the Minister mentioned empty properties. He should know that over 200 properties are standing empty in Fulham Court, an estate that has been deliberately left to go to rack and ruin by the local authority while it has been attempting to sell that estate and privatise it. That is a measure of the criticism that ought to be directed at local authorities that neglect housing needs in their areas.
    Those are the actions of a Government who have abandoned their responsibility to meet Britain's housing needs. In their obsession to be seen to be doing something the Government are simply fiddling around the edges, neglecting all the fundamental principles of a housing policy.
    In some ways I feel rather sorry for the Minister because that is not his fault. The Government's policy is being determined not by the Department of the Environment but by the Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Security. The cuts in capital investment about which I have spoken are very much the product of the Treasury. I must stress that when the Housing Bill 1980 was going through Parliament it was the clear pledge of Ministers that local authorities would be able to use their full capital receipts in order to build new houses. That pledge has been reneged on and that is real evidence of a U-turn.
    There have also been cuts in subsidies. Under this Government the subsidies available to local authorities for housing revenue accounts have been cut drastically, forcing substantial increases in the real level of rents paid by tenants. Those increases were justified by Ministers at the time on the grounds that there was a generous rent rebate system to assist those tenants who could not afford them.
    Shortly afterwards—here comes another U-turn—the Department of Health and Social Security decided that the cost of that increased expenditure on rebates and allowances caused by the increase in rent levels was too much. Therefore, another Government Department cut expenditure caused by increased rents, for which the Secretary of State for the Environment and the Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction were responsible. As a result, one is seeing an increase in poverty, in rent arrears and in misery among people who do not have the means to pay their rent and who are seeing their housing benefit cut.
    If one wants a further example one needs to look no further than the miserable story of the board and lodging allowances. The Department of Health and Social Security decided to cut expenditure on board and lodging allowances because it regarded this expenditure as excessive, and as a result it is creating homelessness and
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    causing enormous misery among young people. The Department of the Environment is powerless. It has to sit back and watch another Department effectively dictating housing policy. That is a measure of the pretty pass into which the Government have allowed their housing policy to fall.
    To illustrate the absurdity of the Government housing policy I want to focus on that one issue of bed and breakfast. We have here the symbol of all that is wrong about Government policy. There is an increase in homelessness and local authorities have fewer resources to meet the needs of homelessness and are placing more and more people in bed and breakfast hotels. In parallel, single people who do not qualify for assistance under the (Housing Homeless Persons) Act 1977 have to occupy board and lodging accommodation because they cannot find a home to rent, for which the DHSS has to meet the bill. As a result, we have an increased expenditure on board and lodging and bed and breakfast when it is known that it would be cheaper to pay for new houses for tenants to occupy.
    For the record, on 20 December 1985, the Minister for Social Security, in answer to a question from the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Irving), gave figures showing that the cost of accommodating a family with two children in board and lodging accommodation would be some £10,800 a year in Cheltenham and £13,150 in London, but if they were housed in proper council housing the cost would be just £5,060—about half the cost of keeping people in squalor and misery in bed and breakfast accommodation. That is all that would be needed to provide a decent home for such people to live in. The Minister tried to give the Labour party a lecture about finance, economics and costs. I can only say that those figures show the economic and social lunacy of the Government's policy. They are paying more for keeping people in squalor rather than investing in new homes for people in need.
    The tragedy of all that is that the unmet housing needs in Britain are not so massive as to make it impossible for Britain, if it wanted, to go a long way towards eliminating homelessness and bad housing conditions. If there were a political will and a realistic programme over the next 10 to 15 years, we could go an enormous way towards ensuring that few people, if any, had to suffer the misery of homelessness and we could eliminate slum conditions.
    However, we do not have the political will at the moment and as a result we are suffering the problems that I have identified. We require a programme that ensures more investment in house construction and improvement, not a massive return to the days of high-rise and system building—that is not needed—but a sustained programme providing traditionally built houses that people want. That, sustained over 10 to 15 years, would ensure that there were sufficient homes to meet needs.
    A programme of improvement, carried out by housing associations and public authorities, with an effective improvement grant system, not subject to a stop-go approach, would ensure that we tackle the backlog of bad conditions, with local authorities playing a major role in improving conditions on their poorer estates. That requires money. Not only would it improve homes but it would ensure additional employment and would go some way to tackle the scourge of unemployment.
    We need a fairer subsidy system. How can we honestly proceed with a subsidy system which ensures open-ended

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    largesse to those people who are lucky enough to be buying their homes and paying the highest rates of tax through the mortgage interest system, when we are cutting housing benefits to the poorest tenants who depend on that benefit to try to make ends meet?
    Someone with an income of over £30,000 a year would qualify for some £1,480 a year in tax relief. Someone with an income of £4,000 to £5,000 a year would qualify for about £250 in mortgage tax relief. The Labour party is not opposed to tax relief. We are in favour of helping owner-occupiers, but we are opposed to the gross distortion of tax relief which ensures that the greatest benefit goes to the wealthiest. Of the £4·75 billion that went on tax relief, over £1 billion of tax relief went to people with incomes of over £20,000 a year. How can the Government justify that when they are cutting housing benefits to people on incomes of £5,000 a year?
    Finally, there is the need for freedom of choice, which requires a healthy rented sector as well as an owner-occupier sector. It requires the choice of renting from the council or from a housing association and the choice to buy. Those choices require a reasonable supply of accommodation and a fair subsidy system, recognising that people have different preferences at different stages in their lives. Older and younger people may want to rent and they may in the meantime wish to own a home. They should not be trapped into one tenure for their lifetime. They should have the option to move from one tenure to another.
    That new approach, advocated by the Labour party, requires a recognition, first, of the extent of the crisis—a recognition of the needs—and, secondly, investment to meet those needs, together with the political will to carry such a policy through until the scourges of homelessness and bad housing are no longer the blot they are at the moment on British society.
    5.7 pm
    Mr. Den Dover: It is with the greatest honour and pleasure that I welcome the hon. Member for Fulharn (Mr. Raynsford) to the House and congratulate him on his excellent maiden speech. It is evident that we have a first-class authority on housing on the Opposition Benches and I look forward to his contributions over the years. I hope that it will not be too long before he obtains some sort of promotion.
    I spent five hours one afternoon and evening recently canvassing in Fulham and I want to support what the hon. Gentleman said. There is a wide gap between the massive council estate with multi-storeyed housing, such as the Clement Attlee estate that I canvassed during those five hours, and the good rented or privately owned accommodation of the professionally up and coming people in Fulham.
    It is one of the Government's aims to narrow the gap between those two extremes. I should like to pay tribute to the work of the London Docklands Development Corporation in the East End, where we now see housing for sale and the breakdown of the enormous housing estates owned by the council. Some 96 per cent. of housing in that area is owned by the council.
    In addition to congratulating the hon. Gentleman, I want to back up his compliments to the former Member, the late Martin Stevens. He entered this House, together with so many of my other colleagues and myself, in 1979, and it is a compliment to his efforts that his name was
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    mentioned on the doorstep of many council flats and homes during our canvassing. I would like to pay tribute to his efforts.
    One of the Governments undertakings over the last seven years has been the priority estates programme. It is no good seeing these massive council estates with enormous voids—some 5 or 10 per cent. of houses empty—without saying, "What can we do about it?" We speak about how much homelessness there is, the lack of facilities, the lack of hot and cold water and of bathrooms in many houses. It is no good if we allow so many council houses to be empty. The best approach is to make sure that the tenants of those council estates manage their own affairs. The local authority housing management is too remote, perhaps being five, 10 or 15 miles away from the point of action. That is not good. Tenant committees are needed, with authority to spend, and to make decisions.
    Where we have seen the priority estates programme working, just south of the river, we see the voids vanish within a matter of weeks and much better cost-effectiveness in the management of those estates. There are people actively wanting to live on those estates, instead of trying to get out of them. These are the advantages of local management and choice by the local tenants.
    Regarding the improvement programme, I agree that the Government have seen a massive expansion, followed by something which is almost grinding down to a halt. It is that very word—expansion—which is so labour-intensive, which does not suck in imports, and which could help ease the unemployment situation in the construction industry, where there are already some 400,000 people unemployed. Something needs to be done about this.
    More needs to be spent on improvements. I criticise the Government in that they have failed to allow the capital receipts which have flowed into the council coffers from the sale of council houses, in accordance with Government policy under the 1980 Housing Act, to be spent on doing up rundown housing estates. If that money is not spent now, we shall have a much bigger bill to pick up in later years. Will the present formula ensure that the more houses a local authority sells, the more it will be able to spend money on doing up those housing estates?
    It is a national cake and if one authority sells perhaps 300 or 400 homes, and another sells none, they all take a share. That cannot make sense. I hope that, when we allow them to use capital receipts, it will be on the basis of being in proportion to the houses that they have sold.
    I feel that the Government have made a massive change over the last seven years. They have reduced housing subsidies, which were far too high, and we have seen housing ownership and sale of council houses which I greatly applaud. There is nothing wrong in giving people what they want. The swing towards more and more private houses being built, without any drain on local authorities or the Government, is much better than having unwanted, unnecessary council houses. The Opposition's pledge to build one new council house for every one sold is silly, and will be seen as such in later years.
    5.15 pm
    Mr. John Cartwright: I should like to add my congratulations to those already offered to the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Raynsford) on his impressive maiden speech. I have had the benefit of being briefed over

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    the years on housing issues by the hon. Member in his previous incarnation, and it was wholly appropriate that he should make his first speech to the House in this debate. Those who recall our maiden speeches in this Chamber will have envied the assurance and style with which he addressed the House. We were impressed by the sincerity which he brought to the debate, and his detailed knowledge of the issues involved. I am sure the whole House looks forward to hearing him again on this and other issues.
    The motif of choice, freedom and fairness now seems to be the watchword when it comes to discussion of housing issues. I echo what I took to be the message from the hon. Member for Fulham—that those are not the priorities, important though they be. The first priority must surely be greater investment. We are simply not building enough new homes, nor are we investing enough in the maintenance of our existing housing stock to maintain it in a reasonable state of repair.
    There is a wide measure of agreement that we now need about 145,000 new homes a year up until 1991 simply to meet the growth in the formation of new households. If we add another 60,000 to 80,000 new homes a year to make good the losses through slum clearance and changing employment patterns, that means that we ought to be building something between 205,000 and 215,000 new homes a year. We have not achieved that since 1980. The 1985 completions were only 187,000 new dwellings.
    We are as a result storing up problems for ourselves. Some of those problems are hidden in the overall national statistics. It is a sad fact that the big cities and urban areas are the worst hit by our current housing problems. It is there that we find the biggest concentration of unemployment, the biggest concentrations of low incomes, and, therefore, poor housing.
    Those who represent these areas know all too well what this means to ordinary people. Homelessness is growing, waiting lists are getting longer, young married couples are forced to live with their parents at the start of their married lives. Families are divided, transfers are more difficult, and overcrowding of council property is now a fact of life in many of our urban areas. All these problems we see at our advice services every week. They were problems that we were beginning to overcome in the late seventies but they have returned to haunt us, with little prospect of any early solution.
    They have brought with them some new problems—for example, the problem in London of the young single homeless. It is an unusual Friday night for me when I do not have at my surgery a young person whose parents have moved away from London, leaving him high and dry. These young people are moving around sleeping on floors, occasionally in cars. This underlines the need for more investment in housing.
    Looking at the condition of the existing housing stock, the Department's own survey reminds us that something like £19 billion is needed to bring housing up to a reasonable standard of repair at a cost of about £5,000 per home.
    These are cold statistics. For those of us who live with the problem, they translate into things such as dampness and condensation, mould growth and fungus, which we see in council flats throughout the winter months. They translate into inadequate, inefficient heating systems, with
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    people unable to maintain an adequate level of heating in more than one room. They mean rotting window frames, peeling paint, leaking roofs, and all the rest of the defects in rundown, inner-city council estates.
    If the Minister feels that I may be making a political point, I refer him to what was said recently by the Group of Eight, the body which brings together the construction industry and the housing professionals. They went to see the Minister on 13 March, and the RIBA president, Mr. Larry Rolland, commented on what they told him. He said:
    "The Government is failing to fulfil its responsibilities in the face of massive and growing deterioration in the stock of local authority housing: the longer work is delayed, the more disproportionate will be the cost."
    The Group of Eight went on to make clear
    "its view that the total amount of … planned spending by Government on construction was quite inadequate in relation to the scale of the problem."
    That is the view of the industry and of professionals.
    There are similar problems in private rented accommodation and in owner-occupied housing. Yesterday the Association of Metropolitan Authorities published the provisional results of its 1985 house condition survey in Greater London. To be fair, it shows some improvement compared to the last official survey in 1979. Only 6 per cent. of housing stock is unfit, compared to 9 per cent. in 1979. Property lacking basic amenities has dropped from 9 per cent. to 4 per cent. of the stock. That is the impact of the generous improvement grants made available up to the time of the last general election. They hit a peak of £183 million in 1984–85 but, as we all know, they are now much more tightly rationed.
    The interesting thing about the survey by the AMA is its suggestion that 500,000 homes, or one home in every five, in Greater London now need repairs costing more than £5,000; that is an increase of 28 per cent. compared with 1979. Of the homes needing such repair, 54 per cent. are owner-occupied. That underlines the broad spread of the problem of disrepair in housing stock. The case for a sensible programme of repair, rehabilitation and improvement of housing is absolutely overwhelming, even on the basis of the old proverbial view that a stitch in time saves nine.
    There is considerable agreement among all parties that we need greater choice in housing. For many people there is no choice. All they can do is put their names on an ever longer council waiting list because there is no way in which they will ever be able to afford homes of their own. Their income is simply too low to encompass that possibility. Others in slightly happier circumstances are restricted; they can choose only between going on to a council waiting list or buying a home of their own, even when neither choice is best for them and when both are difficult. For many young people with the necessary resources, buying is often easier than renting because it is easier to find a house to buy than to find a decent property as a sensible rent.
    I think we all accept that we are looking for new forms of rented housing to meet that demand. As a result of the growing consensus, I hope we can find ways of bringing together the skills of the building societies and the other financial institutions who can generate the funds that are needed; the skills of the volume builders who can build what people want to live in; and finally the skills of the housing associations which have proved that it is possible to provide efficient and sensitive localised housing

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    management. If we can bring together all those skills, I hope we can provide a new source of rented accommodation which we in the Alliance refer to as social housing but which will provide an alternative to local authority renting for those who desperately need rented homes.
    I endorse everything that has been said so far about the need to break up large-scale, centralised, local council housing management. All too often it has proved to be neither sensitive nor efficient. We want to encourage a variety of different approaches. By all means, let us have localised management, but let us try much harder than we have in the past to encourage genuine housing cooperatives in which tenants can run their own affairs and their own homes. There is limited experience of this yet, but many tenants in my constituency say, "We could not make a worse job of it than the local authority." Some of us hope that they might do a better job.
    Apart from housing co-operatives, we have advocated neighbourhood housing trusts, bringing together tenants, representatives of the council and perhaps outside experts. There is a range of different approaches under which we could devolve more power to ordinary people. The aim must be to do just that—to give tenants much more control over their homes and over their environment. If we are looking seriously for greater choice, we should be doing more to help first-time buyers by encouraging more low-start mortgages, and more shared ownership in which people buy part of their home and rent another part.
    Why have the Government not persevered with the concept of "do-it-yourself' shared ownership which was tried as an experiment a couple of years ago? Housing associations acted as agencies. When people found their own home in the private market they used the housing association as a vehicle for the purpose of shared ownership. That was an imaginative scheme and it was extremely popular. I have the sense that perhaps it was not so popular with the Treasury; that may be why it was not developed to a greater extent. I hope such imaginative and enterprising schemes will be reconsidered. The home purchase assistance scheme, under which grants from public funds were made to match the savings of individuals towards a deposit, was another approach to bring home ownership within the grasp of more people.
    When talking about ways of assisting people to own their own homes, it is only reasonable to deal with the interest which has been exhibited by Conservative Members in the position of the alliance on mortgage tax relief. I cannot understand why there should be confusion. We made it clear in our general election manifesto that we would retain mortgage tax relief, but that we would limit it to the standard rate of tax. That has been our position since 1983, and it remains so. I recognise from my constituency experience that tax relief is an important element in enabling people with limited means to own their own homes. Neither I nor the alliance is in the business of changing the rules of the game after people have started to play.
    If we are talking about fairness, we should point out on the other side that it is not reasonable for councils to put up rents to such an extent that they can subsidise the rates charged to all ratepayers as a result of the profits made from council tenant. That is not a fair approach; nor are the cuts in housing benefit which the least well off are now suffering.
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    One wider problem that flows from the absence of choice in housing, is the inhibition it places on mobility. People can no longer move around the country seeking work because of the problem of moving home. Often my constituents want to move to another London borough because of a change of job. It is easier to help people to emigrate to Australia, Canada and New Zealand than to enable them to shift from one London borough to another.
    There are also people who have followed the advice of the Government; they have got on their bikes and gone out to seek work. Some have come to London and have found work—even if not brilliantly paid. They then come to my advice centre on Friday nights because it is impossible to find anywhere to live in London. So they have a choice which I would not want to inflict on anyone—a job in one part of the country with no home, or a home in another part of the country and no job. It must be a priority in housing to tackle such mobility problems.
    Despite the knockabout in the earlier part of the debate, there is a growing measure of agreement among all parties about the need for new approaches to housing. Housing has been a major social problem throughout the post-war period. It is about time we solved that problem. I think we are now agreed that there is no one solution, be it owner-occupation put forward by one side or council renting put forward by the other side. Both have a contribution to make, but we need to encourage many other contributions. New approaches are urgently needed if we are to get more and better housing.
    If we are to get the much greater private investment which is essential to the solution of the housing problem the Government should seek to build on the growing consensus that is emerging. We will only get more private investment, if investors believe that there will be stability and a measure of agreement, whoever is in power in Whitehall. We cannot expect people to invest if they believe that housing policy will be totally changed as a result of change of Government.
    Bad and inadequate housing is at the root of many of the problems of our great cities and urban areas. I hope that, even at this comparatively late stage, the Government will give the housing problem the priority that it richly deserves.
    5.29 pm
    Mr. Michael Latham: Before I say a word about the speech of the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright), may I echo the congratulations of the House on the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Raynsford)? It was a remarkably fine performance. He is right to come to the House and talk about housing, as he has a deep knowledge of it. When I was on the board of Shelter and he was director of SHAC, I often used to read his papers, which were of great benefit to homeless people in the country. We shall look forward to hearing from him many times on this subject. Many of us were pleased that he referred to his distinguished predecessor, Martin Stevens, a man who was greatly respected and admired in the House and in his constituency, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said.
    It is a pleasure to follow the speech of the hon. Member for Woolwich—as always, because he too has a deep knowledge of housing. He and I have followed each other in housing debates many times in past years. The hon. Gentleman was right to mention the importance of tenant participation. The one thing that has clearly come out of

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    the initiatives taken by the Government, whether it be the priority estates project or the urban housing renewal unit, is the need for new thinking in the management of existing estates. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) is well aware of this, and has said so in speeches. I think that there is a broad consensus on this matter. It is important that we develop it and concentrate on it.
    I hope that my hon. Friend will make sure that the urban housing renewal unit is not simply involved in a monitoring activity but is up front pushing local authorities to get things done so that we can get effective reports back to the House of what is happening on the ground with regard to the achievement of the urban housing renewal unit.
    Several Members have mentioned improvement work. My hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Dover) concentrated particularly on the capital receipts question, as did the hon. Member for Perry Barr. First, I must declare an interest, as I always do when speaking on housing and building. I am a long-standing director of a building company, and have been involved in this industry for many years.
    I have said many times in the House that in my view improvement work is one of the single most vital aspects of construction activity. First, it is the most labour and craft intensive. Secondly, it is the one most directly related to the aspirations of ordinary folk in improving their own homes. Thirdly, in my view it is particularly good value for money. That is why personally I welcome the action that the Government have taken over the years in substantially increasing the improvement grant programme.
    I interrupted the hon. Member for Perry Barr, to ask him to give the figures. He had, perfectly properly from his point of view, contrasted the public sector housing build starts of this Government and their predecessor.
    Mr. Rooker: That is not true. I took the national building programme, public and private together. I never at any time distinguished between the public sector and the private sector.
    Mr. Latham: I stand immediately corrected by the hon. Gentleman, and accept what he says. However, I think that he would also say—because he referred to public sector starts—that that was particularly in his mind. Both he and the hon. Member for Fulham made a contrast between this Government and their predecessor in regard to public sector starts. There is no doubt that there has been a significant reduction in public sector starts under this Government.
    Everybody knows, as the hon. Member for Woolwich hinted, that housing thinking has moved on since the 1960s. We no longer talk, as Anthony Greenwood did, of 250,000 council houses a year. These mass building programmes are no longer necessary or desirable. They have created the very problems that the House is addressing today and that were addressed by both the Minister and the hon. Member for Perry Barr, from the Front Bench. The problems of squalor, social deprivation, tower blocks and so on came directly from the mass building programmes of the 1960s and 1970s.
    The Government have been right, in my view, to shift the emphasis in two directions—first, towards
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    improvement work and secondly, to encouraging people to get into home ownership. There has been a significant increase in that regard, about which I shall say a word later.
    I am disappointed that there has been a reduction in the number of improvement grants in the last year or so. Having said that, and having been critical of the Green Paper which was produced last year by my hon. Friend's predecessor, I accept immediately that there was a need for change and reform in the improvement grant system. Improvement grants were being made to people who did not need them. This was said by the Select Committee on Public Accounts, on which I serve, and it has been accepted that there was a need for change. Nevertheless, I urge my hon. Friend to bring forward new Government proposals. Last year's Green Paper has in effect disappeared down a black hole, so let us have some new proposals and a reasonably steady level of provision of improvement sector work.
    I wish to make a suggestion to my hon. Friend which I have made before in the Public Accounts Committee and on the Floor of the House. In my view there is a very real case for transferring responsibility for improvement grant work to the building societies, lock, stock and barrel. To all intents and purposes the local authorities act as agents for central Government in this regard. The vast majority of the money advanced by local authorities for improvement grant work is refunded by the Government in form of loan, grant or whatever.
    That being so, there is a real case—I am a vice-president of the Building Societies Association—for telling the building societies movement as a whole, particularly in the new era of greater freedom that will result from the Building Societies Bill which is now before the House, "Here is the figure that we as the Government are prepared to offer you this year and next year in improvement work. Take it, recycle it and offer it to people by way of improvement grants. You can charge an administration cost of 1 or 2 per cent." That is how it will be dealt with—no clawbacks, no holdbacks, no penalties, no targets and no bureaucratic problems of staffing such as local authorities have. In that way, we would deliver a more effective improvement grant programme to the people of this country. I commend that thought to my hon. Friend for serious consideration.
    As for shoddy workmanship and cowboys, which were mentioned by the hon. Member for Perry Barr, I express some disappointment to my hon. Friend about the response of the Green Paper and about the lack of action since. The Green Paper of last year said that the Government hoped that the building societies and builders would have discussions to ascertain whether the building societies were prepared to limit finance—mortgage or grant—to builders who were covered by a warranty scheme.
    There is no need for any further discussion. This should be got on with now. In the same way, local authorities should be restricting their grants to responsible builders who have proper warranty schemes. This was recommended several years ago by the Director General of Fair Trading. I believe that the time for action is now, and I hope that my hon. Friend will talk it over with the Department of Trade and Industry to get something done about it. As the Director General of Fair Trading has shown, far too many people are getting ripped off by cowboys and shoddy workmanship. Every hon. Member knows this, from his constituency postbag.

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    The time for action is now, with no more discussions or working parties. There are clear proposals, and warranty schemes are in place. Let us get on with restricting the grant work to builders who are involved in such schemes.
    With regard to private sector housing, there are five points in a private builder's game plan—finance, land, marketing, buildings and sales. Marketing and sales are entirely a matter for the industry. They are not within the control of Government or part of Government. Building is effectively controlled by the National Housebuilding Council, and I would like to see the council involving itself in improvement work also. On finance—about which I asked the Prime Minister a question today—all the signs are that we are moving into an era of lower mortgage rates, which is welcomed by every hon. Member and by millions of home owners. All the mechanisms, therefore, are in place for a substantial increase in private sector housebuilding in the coming 12 to 15 months, and there is no reason why that should not be so.
    It is important that we achieve consensus on the one matter that has not been mentioned at all this afternoon, and which is not mentioned in either the motion or the amendment—the question of land and planning. I do not know the Labour party proposals on that matter; they were certainly not included in the policy document put to its party conference last year.
    As we approach the election—I hope and expect this Government to be returned to office, but Britain is a democracy and people will look at different proposals—I hope that the Labour party will not come forward with proposals for community land acts, land commissions, large development land taxes and all the other things that stifled the market in the past.
    Mr. Allan Roberts: The private sector built more houses for sale, as did the volume builders, under the previous Labour Government than it has under this Government, despite the Community Land Act.
    Mr. Latham: I remember serving for hours and hours and hours on the Committee stage of that Bill, together with my hon. Friend the Member for Hove (Mr. Sainsbury). If the hon. Gentleman really thinks that the building industry believes that the Community Land Act did it any good, I suggest that he talks to it—
    Mr. Roberts: I did not say that.
    Mr. Latham: I know that the hon. Gentleman did not say that, but the reality is that the Act had a severe cramping effect on the industry. Let us continue with consensus on this matter.
    I agree with the hon. Member for Fulham that we need more housing debates. I really want to hear more about the vital role that land and planning have to play in the release of housing for our people.
    I commend my hon. Friend the Minister on his start as Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction. He is showing great energy and dash, and I wholeheartedly support him.
    5.41 pm
    Mr. Kevin Barron: It was a pleasure to listen to the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. Raynsford). I am sure that he dearly wanted to get off his chest the good speech that he
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    made, especially in view of his activities before entering the House. Many of us felt that way when we made our maiden speeches.
    I want briefly to speak against the Government's amendment, which I believe to be hypocritical in view of their housing record over the past six years. There has been a reduction in the housing investment programme allocations of about 70 per cent. under this Government, and some of the legislation of the past two years has done nothing to meet the housing need. I refer especially to the Housing Defects Act 1984. The Opposition did not oppose its passage through the House, although we frequently warned about its pitfalls. Indeed, the Act is seriously defective in what it sets out to do.
    Four villages in my constituency have large estates of houses classified as defective under the Act. The Act gives the Rotherham metropolitan borough council the responsibility to make grants to reinstate those homes to a standard where they are saleable and mortgageable. It also gives the council power to buy back those homes from people who have bought them from public bodies. However, the council is in tremendous difficulties with the implementation of the Act.
    One major problem is that there is no reinstatement scheme to repair Reema houses. We are still waiting for a scheme to be accepted by the Department of the Environment so that money can be awarded. There is also the problem of lack of funds.
    The Minister spoke about what the Government have been doing on housing, and he referred to Labour authorities such as Sheffield and Lambeth. It is a pity that he did not go a few miles down the road from Sheffield to Rotherham, which has a serious housing problem. Its housing investment programme allocation for the financial year 1986–87 has been cut by just under £1 million, from £7 million to £6 million. In 1985, when the HIP allocation was £7 million, it also had an allowance of £117,000 to spend under the Housing Defects Act to alleviate problems on these estates. There is no such money this year. The Minister has made available an additional £30 million to assist local authorities which have been obliged to sort out problems under the Act, but not one penny of that new money will go to the Yorkshire and Humberside region—it has been spread between the south-west and the midlands.
    That leaves the question of what we do on those estates, given the attitude of the owners of the houses that have not been sold. I am sure that many right hon. and hon. Members face this problem. The Act provides that people who bought houses from public bodies should receive help. The problem in my constituency, however, is what to do about the houses on the estates still in the hands of public bodies such as the National Coal Board.
    The NCB has told me on numerous occasions that its policy has been to sell those houses to the sitting tenants. However, that cannot happen under the Act because grant would not be available to reinstate the homes to mortgageable standard. The NCB has also offered whole estates to the local authority. Indeed, before this Government took office my local authority bought a whole estate at Laughton Common. It has resold nine of those houses, and is quite prepared to do the same with the remainder of the estate if money is forthcoming. People living on the estate are secure in their belief that the local

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    authority will do that. However, it no longer has any funds to buy such estates and, indeed, would not wish to do so because they are now classified as defective under the Act.
    Another option suggested by the NCB is to sell the houses on the open market. On 6 December 1985, during my Adjournment debate on this matter, the Minister said that he had good news for the Rother Valley. He said:
    "I understand that a private sector party is interested in acquiring a considerable number of the National Coal Board's empty Reema properties in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. I can give the House the good news that agreement has now been reached on the sale of 21 vacant NCB houses in Maltby. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be as pleased as I am to hear that news."—[Official Report, 6 December 1985; Vol. 88, c. 603.]
    My information is that that sale fell through because the buyer discovered that he could not obtain assistance under the Act to repair the houses, if that became necessary, so that they would be at a standard in which people could live.
    Currently, the NCB appears about to accept an offer for both the empty and the tenanted houses on the Maltby estate, with more than 250 houses now up for sale. The Minister will know what I said about this matter in December, and I shall not change what I said then. If it is true, as we read on the Order Paper, that the Government have been so good in dealing with housing, I want to know from the Minister what will happen on that estate.
    If the 250 homes are sold to the private sector, it presumably will not have the money that the Minister has talked about to reinstate them, to bring them up to a stage at which they will be mortgageable. Indeed, whoever buys the homes may decide that people can live in them for another 10 years, paying rent, so that the price paid for them will be recouped and the homes can then be discarded. What will happen when the Housing Defects Act is implemented on that estate by the local authority? For the other 98 homes there will supposedly be grants so that they can be brought up to a mortgageable level. They will be reinstated and made good. Presumably the other 250 homes will remain in a state of disrepair.
    I warned the Minister in December that the Housing Defects Act was deficient and would leave many problems unsolved unless the Minister took action. My local authority believes that that is still the situation. It has been asked to give grants under the Housing Defects Act to bring the 98 houses at Maltby up to a mortgageable level, but at the same time no help has been provided for the other 250 houses. This makes nonsense of the matter. Indeed, it is wrong to ask the local authority to spend public money in this way, because even when that money has been spent and the 98 homes are reinstated it may still be impossible to sell them because of the condition of the neighbouring houses, which could even be attached. Thus, the problem that we have had since the Act was put on the statute book has still not been solved.
    We really need action now, so that we can protect the tenants and home owners on these estates. Maltby seems to be in the firing line at present because of the attitude of the National Coal Board towards selling the tenanted homes that it owns, but I am also concerned about houses in my constituency at Kiveton Park and Aston. If there is no reinstatement of the homes being sold by the National Coal Board, at least three estates in my constituency will be blighted, not because there is any major structural
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    default in the houses—for many years I lived on the estate at Maltby—but because of an Act introduced by the Government which protects only the people who bought homes from public bodies and does not seek to protect other homes which are presently owned by public bodies.
    I shall use every opportunity that I can to bring this matter to the Minister's attention. I understand the need to compensate people who brought homes in good faith from public bodies, but a serious problem in my constituency has been created by the very Act that has compensated others, and the problem will not go away. The problem will not be solved by allowing public bodies to sell homes to the private sector. Presumably grants will not be available to reinstate such homes to the level achieved in homes bought in terms of the Act.
    Even at this late stage, I ask the Minister to talk immediately to the National Coal Board to stop the sale of homes unless they are dealt with in the same way as the other 98 homes which were reinstated, so that they are brought up to the standard that is referred to in the Minister's amendment—housing fit for people to live in and bring families up in. Under the Housing Defects Act, the situation on the three housing estates in my constituency will be the opposite of the statement on the Order Paper.
    5.55 pm
    Mr. Mike Woodcock: In spite of the comments we have heard this afternoon, much has happened over the past three years to improve housing policy in this country. In particular, thanks to the policies of the Government, we have moved much closer to a true property-owning democracy. Private ownership is, and should be, the first and major plank in the nation's and the Government's housing policy. The Government should do all that is possible to encourage it. Private ownership makes people more responsible; it frees state resources; it brings greater security; it promotes family life and it improves the environment. Long may we continue to support through mortgage tax relief the sales of council houses, incentives to renovate older homes and, we hope, through the reform of the rating system, private ownership.
    The second plank in our housing policy will probably continue to be public sector housing. While I believe that this is a poor option next to private ownership, nevertheless, it is invaluable especially in areas of social need. However, necessary as it is, it should be a diminishing part of the nation's housing policy, because there is no reason why state resources should be deployed where private individuals are capable of providing for their own housing needs. This afternoon I wish to speak about the smallest plank in our nation's housing policy, and I refer to the private rented sector.
    Mr. Allan Roberts rose—
    Mr. Woodcock: I will not give way at this stage.
    The private rented sector was once the largest plank in the nation's housing policy, but it is now, I am delighted to say, the smallest. But, while it is the smallest plank, it is still a necessary part of our housing policy, and an area that successive Governments have attempted to reform. However, far from improving the situation, they have helped to destroy that plank. How has that happened? One

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    central reason is that successive Governments have paid more attention to electoral advantage than to what is fair, reasonable and in the best long-term interests of the housing market. The fact is that there always have been and always will be more tenants than there are landlords, and that has tempted Governments of both persuasions to carry forward reforms that are popular with tenants and to ignore reforms that might be popular among landlords. The result has been a continuing decline in the private rented sector; an increased reluctance to relet properties by private landlords; an increase in interest by irresponsible landlords; and a grave shortage of accommodation. All this has been to the advantage of no one.
    There will always be those who choose or need to rent, such as young people who are either not earning enough or have no desire to buy their own home at that point of their lives; people who stay in an area for only a relatively short time, such as transient and temporary workers; people who tragically are from broken marriages; people who prefer to rent privately rather than from the public sector; people who prefer not to live on council estates; and people who want something better than the public sector can provide. All these people need a healthy private rented sector, and they find it almost impossible to find the kind of place they wish to rent.
    On the other hand, thanks largely to the Government's policies, a vast number of people in this country have money that they wish to invest. Some people recognise the advantage of investing in property. Many people would be willing to invest in the private rented sector if they could get fair treatment. Those two groups—those who want to rent property and those who could provide the property to rent—should come together. However, far from encouraging that, our present policies are preventing it. Our laws have moved too far in terms of protecting tenants and have failed to consider the legitimate interests of landlords. By passing successive rent legislation, this House has added to the national housing problem and prevented many people from obtaining a decent roof over their heads.
    No one will deny that there are bad landlords and that tenants, like other consumers, need protection from unscrupulous people. However, landlords also need a fair deal. I therefore ask the Government why it should not be possible for landlords and tenants freely to agree rents that are legally enforceable. Why are local authorities entitled to register rents of private property even in cases where neither the landlord nor the tenant wants that to happen? In so doing, they help to destroy the private rented sector in an area, an opportunity that some Left-wing councils exploit to the full.
    Why should it be possible for local authorities to continue the registration process, even when the tenant in whom they had an interest has left the property? Why should it be possible for private landlords to be barred from representing themselves in county courts on possession actions, when tenants are free to represent themselves? Why do county courts continually, year after year, have such backlogs of actions that landlords are denied justice merely by the passage of time? Why should it not be possible for county courts to enforce their judgments on housing matters?
    Mr. Marlow: Would my hon. Friend like to point out to the Labour party that many of those "landlords" are little old ladies who have been left a small asset by their
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    husbands, which nevertheless forms a significant part of their income? If the Labour party cared, it would probably care for some of those old ladies.
    Mr. Allan Roberts: The hon. Gentleman should declare his interests.
    Mr. Marlow: The hon. Gentleman knows them.
    Mr. Woodcock: My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton, North (Mr. Marlow) is quite right. Landlords come in all shapes and sizes, as do politicians. But far from discouraging investment in the private rented sector, we would do well to encourage it. That would be to everyone's advantage. I shall give one further and very valid reason for the Government taking action over the private rented sector. The present Rent Acts significantly contribute to unemployment. Government interference in a free housing market results in considerable waste and in a lot of overuse and underuse of accommodation. Above all, it leads to an immobility of labour.
    We have heard much about the need for unemployed people to get on their bikes in search of employment. My constituency has a very high unemployment rate. Many people have told me that they have been round the country searching for jobs, but find that local authorities are unwilling to provide accommodation—
    Mr. Allan Roberts: Unable.
    Mr. Woodcock: Local authorities are unwilling and unable to provide accommodation unless the person has a job. However, the person cannot get a job unless he has a house. The law does not help the private rented sector to meet that need.
    Professor Patrick Minford, one of the best known monetarist economists in this country, recently claimed in an article in the Economic Affairs magazine that one fifth of the rise in unemployment since 1960 could directly be explained by our Rent Acts. Perhaps the Minister w ill take note of Professor Minford's arguments.
    I shall make a few suggestions about how my hon. Friend the Minister could improve housing, and could demonstrate the Government's professed belief in the private rented sector. First, why not make rent agreements freely entered into by landlords and tenants legally binding? Secondly, either remove the local authority's statutory right to register rents on private property, or give local authority tenants the same statutory right to a fair rent as private tenants have. Thirdly, remove the county court's discretion to bar landlords from representing themselves in possession actions. Fourthly, require county courts to enforce their own possession judgments. Fifthly, give a statutory right to have possession cases heard quickly. Sixthly, make shorthold tenancies enforceable for a term agreed at the outset. Finally, make fair rents payable on registration, at the time when they are deemed to be fair, and not a year later.
    If the Government did those things, there would be a significant improvement in the nation's problems, a terrific increase in private investment, a freeing of state resources, and the Government would demonstrate their belief in the private rented sector as well as making a considerable improvement to the unemployment problem. The Government have shown themselves willing to take actions which may not be electorally popular but which they believe to be right and just. I ask whether the time has not come for the Government to take such actions in the private rented sector.
    6.3 pm
    Mr. Tom Pendry: I intend to be brief in this all too short debate. Unlike many hon. Members, I am not a housing expert. Of course, I exclude the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Woodcock) from the charge of having some expertise. However, one does not need to be an expert to recognise the housing problems that exist. I make no apology for saying that I shall relate my remarks to the housing problems that the, Government are causing my constituents. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron), I shall devote my speech—much of which has been shed because of the lack of time—to doing just that. My local authority is little different from many others, at least in the Greater Manchester area. Consequently, many of my points are quite general.
    The House will know that in its 1983 manifesto the Tory party clearly said:
    "Our goal is to make Britain the best housed nation in Europe".
    One did not have to listen too long to the excellent maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. Raynsford) to know that that is already a pretty sick joke. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) said, both public and private sector housing are being hit by the Government. Council tenants are the victims of cruel cuts in the housing budget, which is barely a third of what it was under the last Labour Govenment. People in the private sector are being hit by the clampdown on improvement grants. Many owners are trapped in homes needing major repairs, but they cannot afford to do them.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr has recently visited Tameside and can vouch for what I am about to say. That local authority has over 5,000 families whose homes are unfit for habitation, and more than 10,000 council homes—half its stock—which do not have adequate heating. About 1,000 of the pre-war council homes are in urgent need of modernisation. Perhaps I can attract the attention of the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Bruinvels) by saying that they have problems in Leicester also. Indeed, it is a pity that we do not hear more about them from the hon. Gentleman.
    Such problems are not confined to the public sector. In the private sector in Tameside, 3,000 homes are unfit for habitation and 2,500 lack basic amenities. Indeed, 12,130 properties need repairs costing over £3,000 per property, and 7,000 of them need repairs that will cost in excess of £7,500 per property. The cost of outstanding repairs to the pre-1919 properties in the private sector is estimated to be £103 million, or 31 times the council's renewal budget for 1985–86.
    Those are the startling facts that we have to face when we go back to our constituencies and surgeries and hear about the sad cases of our constituents. Moreover, 1,135 Tameside families have been accepted as homeless, there are 6,000 on the general waiting list. A further 3,220 people are seeking transfers for one reason or another. Almost 2,700 of them are pensioners. Indeed, 1,500 are aged over 70. About 1,500 single people aged under 25 are also on the waiting list. From my surgery I know of one casualty of the system who is aged 65. She is a widow with an artificial leg, and she suffers from bronchitis. Her home in Hyde, in which she has lived for the past 40 years, is crumbling. She has an outside toilet and a stone sink,
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    and her home is bitterly cold in winter. The council scheme to modernise it is estimated to cost £11,000, but has been postponed because of Government action.
    By now the House will have a good idea of the problems in my constituency, but I must go on. The recitation of these facts may be tedious to Conservative Members, but the problems are rather more than tedious to those who have to face them day in, day out. Tameside's housing investment programme allocation for 1985–86 is worth only 45 per cent. of the value in 1979–80 and that causes us great concern. Its housing investment programme bid for 1985–86 was £23·5 million, but the actual allocation was just over £10 million. How can the local authority be expected to cope with such immense problems? I hope that the Minister will give us a hint when he replies. However, I very much doubt whether he is even listening to the debate.
    The cut in this year's programme has meant that Tameside's plan to build 140 new dwellings has been shelved, and there are no new public sector starts for 1985–86. Plans to modernise 450 council properties have been cut, and now only 240 properties are included. Tameside's bid for its programme this year was estimated by the council to be £24·7 million. The Government promised it £10 million, but the actual amount is £8·4 million. I hope that as a result of this debate the Under-Secretary of State will at least review the shabbily low figure that has been provided for my local authority.
    As my hon. Friends who represent other constituencies in Tameside know, because we are forever telling the House, Tameside is a low-wage area. More than 75 per cent. of council house tenants are in receipt of housing benefit. The financial circumstances of most of those people mean that they cannot even consider owning a house. As many of my colleagues have said, purchasing a house is not an option available to them. It is an academic question.
    The council estimates that a total housing programme of £42 million per annum sustained over a five-year period, is needed, to make meaningful inroads into the housing problems in my borough. The council and I recognise that the amount available will not be anywhere near £42 million per annum, but we expect to receive a more realistic sum.
    Recently, the chairman of the housing committee in my constituency, Councillor Peter Baily, sent the Minister a document entitled, "The Case for Housing Investment in Tameside". If the Minister has lost the document, I can provide him with another copy. If he reads it, he will recognise that there are gigantic problems. This morning the chairman of the housing committee said to me:
    "The size of the problem in this borough can only be resolved by an injection of Government cash of sizeable proportions and releasing hundreds of local skilled building craftsmen who are languishing on the dole."
    I am sure that those comments could be echoed by other hon. Members.
    I promised you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I would speak briefly. Therefore, I conclude by saying that the Minister must recognise that one reason why the Government lost the Fulham by-election and are doing badly in the polls is that they do not have a socio-economic strategy for salvaging local housing. In view of the Government's unpopularity, I hope they will consider that now is the right and proper time to do something positive. If they do not do so, it will be just another nail in their

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    coffin. I assure the Government that when their funeral takes place there will be a rush by many of the homeless people of Tameside to be pallbearers.
    6.12 pm
    Mr. John Powley: I suspect that not many hon. Members or people outside the House would disagree with the sentiment expressed in the title of this debate which, according to the business statement, is, "Housing—putting people first." I support that sentiment. The motion moved by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) contains sweet words and nice-sounding phrases. It contains words with which one could easily agree. Indeed, any stranger to this planet would probably support a number of aspects of the motion, but there is a problem.
    Many of my hon. Friends have been involved in housing for a considerable time. We are aware that the motion, nice-sounding though it is, is in sharp conflict with the performance of the Labour party when it had the opportunity to put housing policies into practice. It is as well to recall the Labour party's performance. It sought to municipalise as much housing as possible. It had a declared policy of building as many council houses as possible and of buying up as much land as it could on which to build council houses.
    A number of my colleagues have referred to some of the social and economic problems which the Government inherited simply because there was a mad scramble, in the vain hope of solving the housing problems, to build more council houses. As the waiting lists became ever longer, more council houses were built. Local authorities were on a treadmill, which resulted in a great deal of heartache and caused social and economic problems in many cities and towns.
    The Labour party's policy of municipalisation did nothing to solve the housing problem. All it did was to shift the tenure of a house from owner-occupied to tenanted. I know from experience in local government that many Socialist-controlled local authorities deliberately built council estates in previously Conservative-represented wards simply to change the political balance in those wards.
    Mr. Tony Banks: Nonsense.
    Mr. Powley: The hon. Gentleman says that that is nonsense, but we all know that it is true. Many Labour-controlled local authorities followed that policy. The Labour Government sought to buy the council tenant's vote by one means or another. The Labour party came to office in 1974 on the promise that it would apply a rent freeze. Of course, it forgot that the housing revenue account would have to be propped up by the ratepayer. There is no such thing as a rent freeze, because at the end of the day somebody has to pay the bill. I mention a few of the Labour party's policies to emphasise that the words in the motion are one thing, while the practices have been quite the opposite.
    Despite the support, or half-support, of the Labour party for the sale of council houses in one form or another, I urge caution. The Labour party's words will never be put into practice, even if it were to gain office. Housing matters are administered by local authorities. The quite definite policy of local authorities which are controlled by Labour party groups is to oppose the sale of council
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    houses. If a Labour Government said, "Our policy is to sell council houses," would they instruct Labour local authorities to sell council houses?
    Mr. Tony Banks rose—
    Mr. Powley: If that happened, I suspect that a way would be found for local authorities not to sell council houses. My local authority has sought, by every means possible, to oppose the sale of council houses. In 1980 it opposed the right-to-buy principle. It changed the tenure of some tenants in my area, which meant that they were unable to exercise their right to buy if they had exchanged a house. A number of means were devised by Norwich city council to inhibit the sale of council houses. I do not doubt that if it came to pass, Labour-controlled authorities would seek to inhibit the sale of council houses and deny tenants the opportunities that they desire.
    I turn to a few points which are important if we are to improve the housing stock. We need to increase the number of council homes which are offered for sale, especially in my constituency, which has an abominably low level of owner-occupied housing. About 35 per cent. of homes are owner-occupied and 52 per cent. are tenanted. Those percentages must be reversed if we are to improve housing conditions in my constituency.
    We need a waiting list in all areas of the country which accurately reflects true housing need and not just the wants of some people and some local authorities which seek to inflate their waiting lists just to try to convince a Minister that they need more in their housing investment programme allocation.
    We need to dispose of much of the land held by local authorities and nationalised industries so that private housing can be built. We need a bigger switch of resources from new build because, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham) said, the need for large council house building is now virtually at an end. We need to switch our resources from new build to improvement and repair. That must go on to a greater extent than at present. We need greater efficiency among many of our local authorities for the operation and management of our council estates and the operation of our repairs and direct labour organisations, much as I dislike them.
    I believe that were we to follow some of those policies, many of which were implemented by Conservative-controlled councils when they had the opportunity, there would be a distinct improvement in the quality of housing and it would reflect what the motion says. It would be putting people first in housing matters.
    6.21 pm
    Mr. Frank Cook: Two things have given me some delight this afternoon. The first was the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham, (Mr. Raynsford). The authority with which he made that speech and the confidence that was displayed was, I suggest, a pleasure to all in the Chamber. I count it a privilege to he able to call him Friend rather than Member. My second delight is that we are graced with the presence of a Clerk somewhat more comely than the usual more hirsute incumbents who give us the benefit of their sterling assistance as we pursue our procedures in the Chamber.
    I do not have the experience of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) to

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    comment on housing as a national issue. I leave that his greater expertise. However, I offer for the consideration of the House some comments on housing in my parish of Stockton in Cleveland. It is important to realise from the outset that not for ten years has Stockton district had the freedom of action in the democratic decision-making process afforded by Labour control at both national and local level.
    Stockton has about 18,500 units in its housing stock. That is about a 10 per cent. reduction on the figure held in 1979 when the Government took office. Therefore, one can see that there has been an obedient, if somewhat reluctant, response to the Government's doctrinaire requirements of house sales. In the past five years, that same Government have filched more than £30 million from the subsidy of the housing revenue account. In 1979 that subsidy was £4 million per year. Extrapolating from that, based on an index of escalation—even the deliberately misleading index published by the Government's ministry of massage parlours—the subsidy should now stand at more than £6 million per year. In fact, it is nil. It was zero last year and the year before.
    The last time the Government gave any positive direct financial support to the housing revenue account was five years ago, when they chipped in the princely sum of £13,000—not even the cost of a dog kennel in Dulwich. The Government have filched £30 million when more than 27 per cent. of Stockton district council's housing stock is more than 25 years old and badly in need of major renovation and the urgent attention that that term implies.
    It is true that in Stockton at present the average basic rent is £18·12 per unit per week. It can be logically reasoned from that that if the Government were now providing subsidy in real terms, as they profess, and as previous Governments did, that rent would be a mere £12 per week. In other words, they have deliberately imposed, through policy decisions, a £6 per week deduction from the pockets of Stockton tenants. That is a cynical and Scrooge-like mechanism to squeeze the most from those who can afford the least.
    Stockton's spend this year under the housing investment programme will be £13–5 million. If the Government had not sought to interfere over the intervening years, it would have been nearly £30 million, much more in line with real needs if we bear in mind the terms of the motion and the amendment which is to provide
    "good housing with responses to family and individual needs".
    I shall turn briefly to Stockton's housing capital programme. It is true that, under a Labour Government, Stockton district council averaged 330 new builds per year, even under a Tory-controlled council. Now, under the Tory Government, it can achieve an average of only 55.
    However, under the Government's restrictions, the council has managed to average a yearly total of 540 housing improvement completions. That is despite the fact that its total bid over the previous five years for housing improvement was £64·5 million and its sanction allocation from the Government has been a mere £23 million. That is 74·5 per cent. less that it deems necessary. In this year alone the Government have limited their housing investment programme allocation to £3·3 million, when
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    Stockton has provided hard evidence that more than £15 million is necessary, even by the Government's own standards.
    How then, with all those restrictions, has Stockton council succeeded in averaging 540 housing improvements with all the odds stacked against it? It has been done by imaginative application of initiative and creative accounting—in the interests of its tenants, of course.
    Mr. John Patten: Tell us more about that.
    Mr. Cook: I shall tell you in a minute.
    Mr. Rooker: Do not tell them.
    Mr. Cook: If the Government dispute that, are they saying that the houses should not have been refurbished? The creative accountancy took the form of exploiting loopholes left in the Government's restraints. [Laughter.] My hon. Friends know, regardless of the Tories' hilarity, that we have now learned that the Government intend to close those loopholes. In other words, not only does the regime want to halt housebuilding, it wants to stop renovation schemes too. Otherwise, what is its motivation for pursuing such measures?
    In the brief time left, I wish to make specific reference to Stockton's submission for assistance under the urban housing renewal programme and the community refurbishment scheme for the Clarences in Cleveland, where conditions are appalling. I challenge the Minister to visit that estate to see for himself the distress imposed upon tenants whose only crime is imposed indolence and concomitant low incomes. If the Minister will not agree to visit the area, will he at least consent to examine this small album of photographs which graphically record that estate's grievous need for urgent assistance—proof positive of the need for response to family and individual needs. I am confident that he will then give a positive response to Stockton's application on behalf of the Clarences.
    In support of that, I quote Stockton housing department's most recent report:
    "If a decision should be delayed until September"—
    I hope that the Minister is listening; he appears not to be—
    "or October of this year, then obviously it will not be possible to spend any money that might be allocated before March of 1987."
    That means that the inhabitants of that estate could well be condemned to a further three winters exactly like the last. A decision is needed now. Can the Minister please assure me that he will give that matter his most urgent attention?
    6.29 pm
    Mr. John Fraser: It is my most pleasant duty to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. Raynsford) on both his election and his maiden speech. Many people have to come to the House and build a reputation but my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham comes to the House with an established reputation. I have known my hon. Friend for many years. He has worked with Housing Advice, and for the housing association movement, and is greatly respected. My hon. Friend is fortunate to come to the House with such a reputation and I am sure he will establish a similar one for himself on other matters.
    My hon. Friend's success in the by-election was not simply a personal triumph. All the opinion polls in Fulham

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    revealed that the two major issues were housing and unemployment. The electorate in Fulham gave a decisive and unequivocal verdict about the Government's policies on those two major issues. Those matters will determine the results of other elections in many seats in the next general election.
    The Opposition have proposed the motion tonight because we believe that people should come first and have a right to a home at a price that they can afford, with choice and flexibility over where they live, control over their own homes and environment and the right to a home that is dry, warm, and well maintained. A home with such characteristics is an essential precondition to a happy and healthy life, to the stability of the family, to mobility of employment, and to security and contentment in old age. We believe that caring about people means caring about their homes.
    There are two tragic aspects of Britain's housing conditions today. The first is the condition of the housing stock. Some 3·9 million families live in homes which are either unfit for human habitation, lack the basic amenities or are in need of substantial repair. Those figures are based on returns recently sent to the Department of Employment on the housing investment programme returns. I can also quote the figure of just under 100,000 families who last year were literally homeless and vulnerable. That is an escalating, shameful and costly total.
    Another measure of the tragic state of Britain's housing is revealed in the description by the Audit Commission. The Audit Commission is no ally of the Labour party and it does not write our political pamphlets. It certainly does not write them in Lambeth. The commission did not misuse language when it described the crisis in council housing and the 85 per cent. of council-owned dwellings requiring repairs and improvements. I could continue to cite the condition of people and their homes and the increasing number of people who live in homes that are damp or in poor repair, with leaking roofs, dry rot, and so on. Many of these people are owner-occupiers, the elderly or the less well-off, who are the victims of the current recession.
    Mr. Marlow: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Fraser: No, I will not give way.
    The main feature about the housing crisis is that there is no division between the tenant and the owner-occupier. It is becoming more and more apparent from the crisis that there is a community of interest between those who live in the poorer owner-occupied homes, those in the privately rented sector, and those in council accommodation. All these people share the consequences of the famine of funds that has been imposed by the Treasury and probably reluctantly agreed to by the Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction. The Treasury has done for the homeless of this country what drought did for the hungry in Africa.
    The second tragic aspect of British housing is that the acute shortages and the poor condition of much of the housing stock is actually avoidable. We are not faced with an act of God; rather we are faced with a tragedy which I should perhaps not call man-made or person-made, but woman-made. It is a woman-made disaster.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham said, the political will is lacking. There is no shortage of funds to invest in housing in Britain. All of us with mortgages
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    receive letters from the building societies inviting us to spend more of their money. Each building society is competing with the other to lend money. The building societies in turn are competing with the banks to lend money and both institutions are awash with cash. The local authorities are not short of money to spend on housing. Indeed, the amount of capital receipts which are unspent and largely unspendable, at £6,000 million, is four times greater than the housing investment programme permitted by the Government on the last occasion.
    The real Minister for Housing is the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Treasury is more in the business of forging shackles for local authorities than in the business of building homes. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) spoke about loopholes. He should have taken care, as his words were given careful attention by that stooge of the Treasury who calls himself the Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs and Construction. We heard the Minister asking for more details about the loopholes from a sedentary position because he will want to work that information into his draft document on the limitations of capital spending by local authorities.
    Mr. Marlow rose—
    Mr. Fraser: There are no insuperable problems to the solving of our housing problems. The fault lies with the Treasury and the pace at which it has allowed local authorities to spend their money or the money that is freely available on the open market.
    The scale of the failure to deal with the housing problems is illustrated by the evidence of the Association of Metropolitan Authorities to the Duke of Edinburgh's inquiry. It calculated that at the present rates of building—which includes both private and public building—it would take 900 years to replace the existing housing stock. To put that another way, if William the Conqueror, who landed in 1066, had adopted in addition to administrative and constitutional changes a housing policy which involved replacing the hovels and shacks of the conquered Saxon kingdom, and if he had moved at the same rate as the Conservative Government, he would have come to the House of Commons now and said "Je l'ai fini".
    The figures of new housing starts are available. If we compare the figures for the last complete year of starts under the Labour Government—1978—with the present figure, the reduction in new house starts in the public sector is approximately 92,000. That figure has not been compensated in any meaningful way by an increase in private sector housing. The completion figures are equally dismal. The Government cannot pretend that there has been a change of emphasis and that somehow private sector housebuilding has compensated for the loss of between 70,000 and 90,000 local authority homes a year while the Government have been in office. Last year, fewer houses were completed for private purchase than in 1978.
    Lambeth's housing record has been attacked and compared with that of Wandsworth. However, I want to reveal a few of the facts about Wandsworth's housing programme. Last year, on the latest figures available, Wandsworth did not start one social home and it did not finish any social homes. It did not have any social housing under construction, yet, at the same time, there were 204 families either in bed and breakfast accommodation or in hostels. That statistic of no public housing was repeated

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    in Hammersmith, Fulham, Merton, Sutton, and many of the surrounding boroughs that could make a real contribution to housing in areas of acute housing stress. That is one aspect of how local Tory boroughs follow their Tory masters in Westminster.
    Last week I visited the Tory-controlled borough of Reading. That authority is not untypical of many Tory authorities. As soon as the Tories took control of the authority in 1983 they stopped building council homes, in spite of the fact that 120 families were homeless and 3,200 people were on the housing waiting list. Reading is in the affluent silicon valley and in the relatively affluent Thames Valley.
    Reading reveals a new and ugly consequence of the Government's housing policy. The hoods and the heavies line up outside the post offices in Reading to collect the money from people who live in bed and breakfast accommodation before those people step off the pavement. Indeed, there have been times in Reading when the police have had to be called in to stop that ugly trade in homelessness. Homelessness has become a boom business in Britain. Millionaires make fortunes out of it.
    When the police in Reading interfered with the collection of giro money for bed and breakfast accommodation, the hoods and heavies working for the landlords went round and collected the giros themselves and gave the tenants the change, making sure that the exploitation continued and the money went to those who run those squalid places. That is the picture of housing in one of the more affluent parts of Britain.
    Many people are stuck because of the ending of improvement grants. I believe that about a quarter of a million people are waiting for improvement grants that have been cut as a result of the reduction in the housing investment programme.
    Mr. Jonathan Sayeed: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Fraser: No, time is too short.
    Someone came to see me the other day. His was a typical case. He had come from the West Indies during the second world war to join the Air Force and serve this country. In his sixties, his health became poor and he fell upon hard times. Because of his ill-health he was not able to put his repair grant application in on time. Because of the moratorium on spending, Lambeth cut out its improvement and repair grant policy, as did Croydon and many other local authorities, both Labour and Conservative. The man was beside himself. How was he to stop the rain coming through his roof? His neighbours were besides themselves, too. They did not know how they were to stop the rain coming into their houses, either.
    It happened that the man suffered a stroke, so serious that a stair-lift had to be put into his house. He was therefore deemed to be so disabled as to qualify for an improvement grant on compassionate grounds.
    That is the scale of the problem of housing and repair improvement grants. It is repeated in many other districts. Many people who are fortunate enough to be able-bodied live in despair and terror about what is to become of their homes. There is no opportunity for them to resort to rented housing. That is what has happened to housing as a direct result of the Government's policy.
    Mr. Sayeed: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Fraser: The grants boom before the 1983 election was bribery, but we welcomed it. However, within a year that pattern of grant had been cut by 40 per cent., and cuts are still being made.
    The Government have a housing policy with gimmicks. There is the urban housing renewal unit. There is clause 5 of the Housing and Planning Bill, for evicting tenants. We will discuss that on Thursday. However, what Government policy amounts to is a row of gimmicks and no guts. It is a policy that is increasingly earning—as in Fulham two weeks ago—the outrage and contempt of the public.
    The Labour party has the necessary political will. The funds are available; there is enough money in the kitty to deal with the housing problem. We shall use energy, ingenuity and investment to increase the provision of housing across all forms of tenure. We have no ideological attachment to renting, buying or indeed swapping between different tenures. Our ideological attachment is to the meeting of need, and we have no obsession with tenure. We will emphasise quality as well as quantity—quality of construction, conversion, management and cost in use. We reject a housing programme based on the proposition that if people are hungry enough they will eat.
    We also believe that as far as possible there should be a choice of tenures and the chance to change from one form of tenure to another. We believe in the development of a subsidy system that is fair across the tenures and is geared to meeting need and stimulating housing investment. In the case of mortgage interest relief, the greatest benefit goes to the higher rate taxpayers. We believe in fairness across the tenures, and that is what we shall achieve.
    Our emphasis will be on people and their wishes and choices. We reject a housing policy in which a year of spend, spend, spend, such as 1982, can be followed a year later by cut, cut, cut. We reject a policy based on an obsession with tenure and little else, and we reject Tory policies that are a shabby abdication of the Government's central responsibility for meeting housing need. We reject those policies and ask the House to support our motion.
    6.46 pm
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir George Young): I begin on a happy note by joining all those who have complimented the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Raynsford) on his maiden speech. I make no secret of the fact that I spent several hours in Fulham trying to impede the hon. Gentleman's entry to the House. Like other hon. Members, I was struck by the depth of affection and warmth shown to his predecessor, Martin Stevens, to whom many people have paid tribute.
    The hon. Gentleman made a well-informed speech. That is no less than I would expect from someone whose organisation has been funded by my Department for eight years. I see that the miserly £69,000 paid to SHAC in 1978 had been generously increased to £128,300 by 1985.
    In housing terms the hon. Member's status in Fulham is that not of a secure tenant, but a licensee. He is well known as a housing expert and I am sure that we will all welcome his contribution to debates on the subject.
    I have a small quarrel with the hon. Gentleman. I believe that he said that for every £100 spent on housing under Labour £30 is spent now. Those figures conveniently omit capital receipts, and are based on HIP

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    allocations. If he includes capital receipts, and arrives at the figure that is spent rather than the provision, he will find that the answer is somewhat different.
    Whatever mistake the hon. Member for Fulham may have made pales into insignificance in comparison with what the hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) has just said. He said that he regretted the ending of improvement grants. In 1979 we spent £90 million on improvement grants. Last year we spent £450 million. Yet the hon. Gentleman has the audacity to say that improvement grants have been ended. In fact, much more money is being spent in that way than was spent under Labour.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Dover) endorsed the priority estates project. The project has encouraged the local management of tenanted estates. Measures contained in the Housing and Planning Bill, which we are to discuss on Thursday, are designed to continue and accelerate the progress of innovation in forms of tenure and management.
    The hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright) mentioned the AMA survey. I believe that he gave a somewhat partial quotation. The survey indeed shows that the number of properties needing repairs that would cost more than £5,000 rose slightly from 18 to 19 per cent. What the hon. Gentleman did not say was that the study also suggests that the number of statutorily unfit dwellings fell from 9 to 6 per cent. of the stock, and of dwellings lacking standard amenities from 9 per cent. to 4 per cent.
    Mr. Cartwright: The hon. Gentleman should read Hansard tomorrow. I mentioned that point.
    Mr. Young: I shall be delighted to read that in Hansard. The picture given in the AMA survey was not all bad.
    The hon. Gentleman also asked about do-it-yourself shared ownership. My Department wrote to all local authorities in January 1983 telling them that they no longer needed specific approval from my Department to carry out do-it-yourself shared ownership. I understand that a small number are doing so. In addition, there is nothing to stop local authorities funding housing associations to carry out do-it-yourself shared ownership, and I understand that a number are doing so.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Latham) I mentioned tenant co-operatives. Everyone is in favour of tenant involvement and tenant cooperatives. He asked whether we could have progress reports on the urban housing renewal unit. I shall be happy to answer any questions about that. In opening the debate my hon. Friend said that there was an enthusiastic response, not least from the members of the AMA which had been initially somewhat hostile. The idea is that the unit should be a catalyst and should try to prod local authorities to consider new solutions for the difficult problems faced on unpopular estates.
    Of course we shall consider my hon. Friend's suggestion that improvement grants should be run by the building societies, but obviously that is something that we shall discuss with the Building Societies Association.
    The hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) raised a constituency matter which followed up on his recent adjournment debate. My Department is in touch with the Department of Energy concerning the houses he mentioned on the National Coal Board's estate at Maltby. My Department is considering the implication of the proposed sales to a private buyer.
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    On a happier note, the hon. Member mentioned a scheme for improving Reema housing. I understand that a system of repair to these houses is currently with PRC Homes Ltd. for appraisal. I shall keep the hon. Member informed of important developments.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Mr. Woodcock) spoke of the need to involve the responsible private sector and to initiate some movement in that area in the interests of job mobility. My hon. Friend put forward a five-point agenda of worthwhile suggestions of how that could be done, for which we are grateful.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Powley) reminded the House of the reluctance of some local authorities to sell council houses. The Labour party policy on the right to buy is now crystal clear. Tenants in our inner cities will have the right to buy and local authorities are to have the right not to sell. One cannot have a fairer policy than that.
    The hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) made a valid point that my department should approve earlier in the year the schemes which are submitted under the urban housing renewal unit. Thus the spending can be achieved during the current year We have already approved a number of schemes this year and, of course, we intend to make decisions as soon as possible to achieve spending in the current year.
    Many of us read in yesterday's press of the Labour party's campaign of freedom and fairness which is launched today. The Times said that the drive will concentrate, among other things, on housing. Some of us hoped that today's debate would witness the launch of some fresh initiative and existing new policies on housing. Nothing new has emerged from the Opposition Front Bench. Most of the sensible proposals that it put forward are already being implemented.
    Mr. Terry Lewis: Where?
    Sir George Young: I shall come to that in a moment.
    I hope that the Opposition Front Bench can persuade its colleagues in London that housing is an important issue. I have a copy of the Labour party manifesto for the London borough of Ealing. Of its 81 pages, four cover the policy for policing in Ealing and 10 cover policies for women—including a policy for banning suggestive calendars at the works depots. But how much is there on housing? Twenty-one lines in the manifesto are devoted to housing, tucked away in the planning and environment section. There is more space on nuclear policy, on fairs, circuses and zoos, and on animal products, than there is on housing. In Ealing we shall have an exciting new policy of a ban on the sale of kittens in pet shops. There will be a borough pet-watch scheme.
    The section on housing contains no new ideas, but simply a commitment to a massive campaign of municipal building. That is a return to the quick-build policies of the 1950s and the 1960s which were rightly condemned by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker). There was no mention of partnership with the private sector, tenants' involvement, or the other ideas which were mentioned in the debate. It represents a step backwards.
    The hon. Member for Norwood (Mr. Fraser) mentioned Wandsworth. Wandsworth has pursued an active sales policy—it has sold almost 7,000 council dwellings and around 4,000 of the dwellings have been bought by sitting

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    tenants. On balance, priority has been given to council tenants who account for half the 15,000 to 20,000 potential purchasers on the council's special waiting list for the purchase of former council properties.
    Co-operation with the private sector has been a great success in Wandsworth. For some estates the only realistic policy is disposal to the private sector for resale. Some have doubted whether there was a market for high-rise council blocks. Recently, however, Wandsworth successfully disposed of the Livingstone estate to Regalian Properties. That demonstrates that there is a substantial market. The first 24 refurbished flats which were put up for sale by Regalian were sold within two and a half hours of being put on the market.
    The sales have provided substantial capital receipts for Wandsworth, a prescribed proportion of which can be reinvested in housing. In 1985–86 Wandsworth expected to supplement its HIP allocation of £17 million with some £36 million of capital receipts—£31 million from housing. In the past year, Wandsworth has raised more housing capital receipts than any other London borough.
    Wandsworth has demonstrated that sales have not led to an increase in the waiting list if priority is given to council tenants, who help to create additional vacancies for lettings. Sales have also provided additional resources to make faster progress in tackling the problems that remain.
    During the debate, there were a number of criticisms about the Government's economic policy. It is beneficial to consider some of the impacts of that policy on housing. In 1979 the mortgage rate reached 15 per cent. Since then it has fluctuated but it has now fallen to 11 per cent. and some societies hope that there will be a further reduction. A person with an average building society mortgage would have been paying £137 per month in November 1979. With the present mortgage rate of 11 per cent. that person pays £110 per month—saving £27 per month. That equates to a reduction in income tax of roughly 4p in the pound.
    As interest rates fall and as earnings continue to rise, home ownership has become attainable for more people. That has enabled the public sector to concentrate its resources on those who cannot or do not want to buy. An inevitable consequence of Opposition policies would be a rise in interest rates, a rise in mortgage rates, and therefore a growing dependence of more people on the public sector.
    The hon. Member for Perry Barr criticised the imposition of VAT on repairs and improvements. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman can tell the House whether the Labour party is now committed to lifting VAT on repairs and improvements? What would the cost be? From the hon. Gentleman's reluctance to come to the Dispatch Box, I take it that there is no commitment.
    Mr. Rooker: When the Government imposed VAT in the 1984 Budget we said that we would remove it. That is not a new policy, it is existing Labour party policy.
    Sir George Young: It is most helpful to have that commitment on the record. The hon. Gentleman may be aware that we are trying to cost the Opposition's expensive policies, and we are grateful for that further commitment.
    The homeless or those on the waiting list are disadvantaged if they have to compete with more people
    224
    for public sector accommodation if private accommodation for sale has been made more expensive because mortgage rates have been driven up by economic policies which push up interest rates.
    The Government's economic policies have also benefited council house rents. By keeping inflation down we have enabled council rent increases to be kept at a low level. On average, weekly rents have risen by only 70p in each of the past three years. The Government's economic policies have benefited not only owner-occupiers but local authority tenants.
    A couple of hon. Members mentioned improvement grants and asked for the Government's reaction to the Green Paper. The Green Paper produced some worthwhile responses. Some parts of that Green Paper have been welcomed in the debate, especially the section which asked for verification that the money had been well spent. It was suggested that the money should be linked to policies that have guarantees. Other parts of the Green Paper were not so well received. The Government will come forward with conclusions on the Green Paper as soon as possible.
    The hon. Member for Perry Barr said that Labour party policy was to focus on choice, freedom and fairness. That is an excellent description of the approach to housing policy which has been followed by the Government since 1979. We welcome the conversion of Opposition Members to our point of view. In my reply to this debate I have tried, modestly, to point to some of the considerable achievements in Government policy in the past seven years. However, we are under no illusion about the scale of the problems that still remain, especially those of homelessness and of disrepair to the housing stock. We shall continue to make every effort to tackle the problems that remain, to look for new and imaginative solutions and to bring together all the available resources in both the public and the private sectors.
    Despite the inevitable rhetoric in some of the speeches, there is in fact much common ground between us about the way in which we should proceed. It is on those sensible policies that we propose to make progress. I commend to the House the motion, as amended.
    Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
    The House divided: Ayes 173, Noes 269.

    Division No. 151]

    [7 pm

    AYES

    Abse, Leo

    Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

    Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

    Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

    Alton, David

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

    Anderson, Donald

    Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

    Archer, Rt Hon Peter

    Buchan, Norman

    Ashdown, Paddy

    Caborn, Richard

    Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

    Callaghan, Rt Hon J.

    Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

    Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

    Bagier, Gordon A. T.

    Campbell, Ian

    Barnett, Guy

    Campbell-Savours, Dale

    Barron, Kevin

    Canavan, Dennis

    Beckett, Mrs Margaret

    Carter-Jones, Lewis

    Beith, A. J.

    Cartwright, John

    Bell, Stuart

    Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony

    Clarke, Thomas

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

    Clay, Robert

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Clelland, David Gordon

    Bidwell, Sydney

    Clwyd, Mrs Ann

    Blair, Anthony

    Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S)

    Boothroyd, Miss Betty

    Conlan, Bernard

    Boyes, Roland

    Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

    Corbett, Robin

    225

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Marshall, David (Shettleston)

    Craigen, J. M.

    Martin, Michael

    Crowther, Stan

    Mason, Rt Hon Roy

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    Maxton, John

    Cunningham, Dr John

    Maynard, Miss Joan

    Dalyell, Tam

    Meacher, Michael

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)

    Meadowcroft, Michael

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

    Michie, William

    Deakins, Eric

    Mikardo, Ian

    Dixon, Donald

    Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

    Dobson, Frank

    Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

    Dormand, Jack

    Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

    Douglas, Dick

    Nellist, David

    Dubs, Alfred

    O'Brien, William

    Duffy, A. E. P.

    O'Neill, Martin

    Eadie, Alex

    Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

    Eastham, Ken

    Park, George

    Evans, John (St. Helens N)

    Patchett, Terry

    Ewing, Harry

    Pavitt, Laurie

    Faulds, Andrew

    Pendry, Tom

    Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

    Pike, Peter

    Fisher, Mark

    Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

    Flannery, Martin

    Prescott, John

    Forrester, John

    Radice, Giles

    Foster, Derek

    Raynsford, Nick

    Foulkes, George

    Redmond, Martin

    Fraser, J. (Norwood)

    Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)

    Freud, Clement

    Richardson, Ms Jo

    George, Bruce

    Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

    Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

    Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

    Godman, Dr Norman

    Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

    Gould, Bryan

    Rooker, J. W.

    Gourlay, Harry

    Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

    Hamilton, James (M'well N)

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Hancock, Michael

    Sheerman, Barry

    Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

    Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

    Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

    Shore, Rt Hon Peter

    Haynes, Frank

    Short, Ms Clare (Ladywood)

    Healey, Rt Hon Denis

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

    Heffer, Eric S.

    Silkin, Rt Hon J.

    Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

    Skinner, Dennis

    Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

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

    Home Robertson, John

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

    Hoyle, Douglas

    Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

    Hughes, Dr Mark (Durham)

    Stott, Roger

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

    Strang, Gavin

    Hughes, Roy (Newport East)

    Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

    Janner, Hon Greville

    Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

    Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Hillh'd)

    Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)

    Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

    Thorne, Stan (Preston)

    Kennedy, Charles

    Tinn, James

    Lambie, David

    Torney, Tom

    Lamond, James

    Wainwright, R.

    Leighton, Ronald

    Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

    Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

    Wareing, Robert

    Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

    Weetch, Ken

    Lofthouse, Geoffrey

    White, James

    McCartney, Hugh

    Wigley, Dafydd

    McDonald, Dr Oonagh

    Williams, Rt Hon A.

    McKay, Allen (Penistone)

    Winnick, David

    McKelvey, William

    Wrigglesworth, Ian

    MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

    Young, David (Bolton SE)

    McNamara, Kevin

    McTaggart, Robert

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    McWilliam, John

    Mr. Ron Davies and

    Madden, Max

    Mr. Sean Hughes.

    Marek, Dr John

    NOES

    Adley, Robert

    Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

    Aitken, Jonathan

    Atkinson, David (B'm'th E)

    Alexander, Richard

    Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

    Alison, Rt Hon Michael

    Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

    Amery, Rt Hon Julian

    Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

    Amess, David

    Bellingham, Henry

    Ancram, Michael

    Bendall, Vivian

    Arnold, Tom

    Benyon, William

    Ashby, David

    Best, Keith

    Aspinwall, Jack

    Biffen, Rt Hon John

    Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

    Biggs-Davison, Sir John

    226

    Blackburn, John

    Ground, Patrick

    Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Grylls, Michael

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

    Bottomley, Peter

    Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

    Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

    Hampson, Dr Keith

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

    Hanley, Jeremy

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    Hargreaves, Kenneth

    Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

    Harris, David

    Brandon-Bravo, Martin

    Haselhurst, Alan

    Bright, Graham

    Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

    Brinton, Tim

    Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

    Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

    Hawksley, Warren

    Brooke, Hon Peter

    Hayes, J.

    Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

    Hayhoe, Rt Hon Barney

    Browne, John

    Hayward, Robert

    Bruinvels, Peter

    Heathcoat-Amory, David

    Buck, Sir Antony

    Heddle, John

    Budgen, Nick

    Henderson, Barry

    Bulmer, Esmond

    Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

    Burt, Alistair

    Hickmet, Richard

    Butler, Rt Hon Sir Adam

    Hicks, Robert

    Butterfill, John

    Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

    Carlisle, John (Luton N)

    Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

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

    Holt, Richard

    Cash, William

    Hordern, Sir Peter

    Channon, Rt Hon Paul

    Howard, Michael

    Chapman, Sydney

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

    Chope, Christopher

    Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

    Churchill, W. S.

    Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)

    Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

    Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N)

    Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

    Hubbard-Miles, Peter

    Cockeram, Eric

    Hunt, David (Wirral W)

    Colvin, Michael

    Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

    Conway, Derek

    Hunter, Andrew

    Coombs, Simon

    Irving, Charles

    Cope, John

    Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

    Couchman, James

    Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

    Cranborne, Viscount

    Jones, Robert (Herts W)

    Critchley, Julian

    Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

    Crouch, David

    Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

    Currie, Mrs Edwina

    King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

    Dickens, Geoffrey

    Knight, Greg (Derby N)

    Dicks, Terry

    Knowles, Michael

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

    Knox, David

    Dover, Den

    Lamont, Norman

    du Cann, Rt Hon Sir Edward

    Lang, Ian

    Dunn, Robert

    Latham, Michael

    Durant, Tony

    Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

    Eggar, Tim

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Emery, Sir Peter

    Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

    Evennett, David

    Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

    Eyre, Sir Reginald

    McCurley, Mrs Anna

    Fairbairn, Nicholas

    MacGregor, Rt Hon John

    Fallon, Michael

    MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

    Farr, Sir John

    MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

    Fenner, Mrs Peggy

    McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

    Fletcher, Alexander

    McQuarrie, Albert

    Fookes, Miss Janet

    Major, John

    Forman, Nigel

    Malone, Gerald

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Marland, Paul

    Forth, Eric

    Marlow, Antony

    Franks, Cecil

    Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

    Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

    Mather, Carol

    Freeman, Roger

    Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

    Fry, Peter

    Merchant, Piers

    Galley, Roy

    Miller, Hal (B'grove)

    Gardiner, George (Reigate)

    Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

    Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

    Miscampbell, Norman

    Garel-Jones, Tristan

    Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

    Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

    Moate, Roger

    Goodhart, Sir Philip

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Goodlad, Alastair

    Montgomery, Sir Fergus

    Gorst, John

    Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

    Gow, Ian

    Morrison, Hon P. (Chester)

    Gower, Sir Raymond

    Moynihan, Hon C.

    Greenway, Harry

    Mudd, David

    Griffiths, Sir Eldon

    Neale, Gerrard

    Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

    Needham, Richard

    Grist, Ian

    Newton, Tony

    227

    Norris, Steven

    Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

    Onslow, Cranley

    Stewart, Ian (Hertf'dshire N)

    Patten, J. (Oxf W & Abgdn)

    Sumberg, David

    Pattie, Geoffrey

    Tapsell, Sir Peter

    Pawsey, James

    Taylor, John (Solihull)

    Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian

    Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

    Pollock, Alexander

    Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

    Porter, Barry

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Powell, William (Corby)

    Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

    Powley, John

    Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

    Proctor, K. Harvey

    Thornton, Malcolm

    Pym, Rt Hon Francis

    Thurnham, Peter

    Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

    Townend, John (Bridlington)

    Renton, Tim

    Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

    Rhodes James, Robert

    Tracey, Richard

    Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

    Trippier, David

    Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

    Trotter, Neville

    Ridsdale, Sir Julian

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

    van Straubenzee, Sir W.

    Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

    Viggers, Peter

    Robinson, Mark (N'port W)

    Waddington, David

    Roe, Mrs Marion

    Wakeham, Rt Hon John

    Rossi, Sir Hugh

    Waldegrave, Hon William

    Rost, Peter

    Walker, Bill (T'side N)

    Rowe, Andrew

    Waller, Gary

    Ryder, Richard

    Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

    Sackville, Hon Thomas

    Watson, John

    Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

    Watts, John

    St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.

    Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Wheeler, John

    Shelton, William (Streatham)

    Whitfield, John

    Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

    Whitney, Raymond

    Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

    Winterton, Mrs Ann

    Shersby, Michael

    Winterton, Nicholas

    Silvester, Fred

    Wolfson, Mark

    Sims, Roger

    Wood, Timothy

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    Woodcock, Michael

    Soames, Hon Nicholas

    Yeo, Tim

    Speed, Keith

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Speller, Tony

    Younger, Rt Hon George

    Spencer, Derek

    Squire, Robin

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Mr. Michael Neubert and

    Steen, Anthony

    Mr. Francis Maude.

    Stern, Michael

    Question accordingly negatived.
    Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 33 (Questions on amendments) and agreed to.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That this House welcomes the Government's approach to housing policy which combines investment in good housing with responses to family and individual needs reflecting the informed opinions of tenants and home buyers, in order to bring about solutions based upon choice, freedom and fairness; and congratulates the Government on its achievements since 1979 in fulfilling housing aspirations and improving the quality of life throughout the whole community.

    Transport
    7.13 pm
    Mr. Roger Stott: I beg to move,
    That this House strongly condemns the Government for the crisis in public transport which is the direct result of de-regulation of bus services, the abolition of the metropolitan councils and the drastic reduction in finance for public transport; and urges the Government to emulate the proven success of Labour transport policies implemented by Labour councils throughout Britain, which are based upon choice, freedom and fairness, to improve the quality of life for the whole community' and particularly for those who depend entirely upon public transport.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.
    Mr. Stott: Since 1981, apart from a very brief period when I shadowed information technology, I have been on the Opposition transport team on the Front Bench. During that time I have watched the various Secretaries of State for Transport come and go. Apart from the present Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, every one of them has put through legislation that has seriously weakened and undermined the principles and the concepts of an integrated transport policy. But in my view, and I suspect in the view of many other hon. Members, the Secretary of State who has done most mortally to damage Britain's public transport system is the current one, the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley), the Conservative party's original Neanderthal man, someone who takes a great deal of pride in inhabiting the higher astral planes of lunacy and who, by his legislative efforts in the House of Commons, has offered up Britain's public transport system—which involves the carriage of millions and millions of people every day—to the vagaries of the free market and the discredited values of free marketeers.
    Mr. Robert Adley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
    Mr. Stott: Not yet. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because it is a short debate, that is why.
    It is only in the United Kingdom that public transport has been reduced to the status of a political football, to be kicked around the park by Conservative Ministers and councillors in an attempt to reduce revenue support, rate precepts and local accountability. Years of painstaking work by Labour councillors throughout the land, who have worked tirelessly to provide decent, cheap, integrated public transport, has now been sacrificed on the altar of free enterprise.
    The whole continent of Europe and practically all the developed world recognise and accept that the provision of a proper public transport system is a prerequisite for the foundations of a decent life for their citizens. Governments of the Left and Governments of the Right all over the developed world have continued to provide resources to build on and to enhance the provision of mass public transport. On the continent of Europe and elsewhere there has been a renaissance in the railway industry, but here in the United Kingdom our railway industry is subject to profit centre accounting, appalling failures in punctuality, the closure of railway workshops and totally unacceptable overcrowding of trains as a consequence of timetable changes.

    229
    In 1974, when the Greater London council and the metropolitan counties were formed, the passenger transport executive/passenger transport authority arrangements were agreed. We saw emerging from that structure a genuine attempt to integrate public transport in our large conurbations—the buses with the trains, the trains with the ferries—a strategy to reduce inter-modal competition, to provide travel cards, through-ticketing, concessionary fares for the elderly and schoolchildren, saver tickets, support for section 20 railway lines and the development of timetables after consultation with the general public, and, particularly in Labour-controlled areas, to stabilise and reduce fares, as a consequence of which ridership increased dramatically. We also saw, as a consequence of those policies, fundamental and noticeable improvements in the local environment. During that time, of course, we also saw the development and the coming to fruition of the Tyne and Wear metro—something of which the Opposition, at least, are extremely proud.
    Those achievements have been possible because the metropolitan counties, the National Bus Company and the municipal operators have been able to use their expertise and the economies of scale that are available to them to respond flexibly to any given situation. Indeed, all these points were acknowledged—in my view properly—some years ago by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, which had a report on several PTEs and several municipal operators.
    So we asked the Secretary of State why he looked into the crystal ball when he could have read the book. Why embark upon a system of deregulation that would undermine years of transportation planning—planning which had the solid backing of the people in the metropolitan areas, as demonstrated time after time through the ballot box?
    It was not just a partisan politician such as myself who was saying that. It was every user and every operator of public transport. Such diverse groups as Friends of the Earth, the women's institutes and Rural Voice were saying it. The Secretary of State's manic myopia was, to say the least, grossly insulting to the elected representatives, the professional transport planners and everyone else who opposed this piece of lunacy.
    Regrettably, the GLC and the metropolitan counties have now gone out of existence. The joint boards are now having to deal with the provisions of the Transport Act 1985, and deregulation will become a reality in the autumn of this year. Some of the worst fears that I and my hon. Friends told the Secretary of State about during the long hours in Standing Committee are now beginning to be realised. I shall outline some of them and I hope that some of my hon. Friends will catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so that they can tell the House what is happening in their constituencies.
    Mr. Adley: I should like to concentrate the hon. Gentleman's mind on the realities of life. Can he tell me which investment schemes British Rail is still awaiting decisions upon from the Government? Can he tell me of any year during which there was a Labour Government when a higher level of public money was invested in British Rail?
    Mr. Stott: I acknowledge and respect the hon. Gentleman's interest in the railway industry. He is a stout
    230
    defender of the industry and has tilted against many conventional windmills on the Government side of the House. I will leave the answer to his question to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes). Perhaps he will answer it when he is winding up. One advantage of coming from Wigan is that one can play rugby well and can get rid of a ball quickly when necessary.
    About 70 per cent. of routes have been registered under the Transport Act 1985 by the municipal operators—not the passenger transport executives. It is clear that few services will be provided after 8 pm and virtually no services will be provided on Sundays. In the county of Berkshire only Reading, which is served by its municipal transport company, will have services on Sunday and after 8 pm on weekdays from October. I am advised that in the rest of Berkshire there are no registered routes for those days.
    Another example is the municipality of Kingston upon Hull. I am advised that it has registered 67 per cent. of its routes. I am also advised that the Labour council there will have to make some difficult decisions. As a consequence of the 1985 Act, it will have to make redundant 300 of its 810 employees. In addition, the local authority will have to meet the cost of the redundancies from its own resources, thus making it almost impossible to finance tendered services, the almost 40 per cent. of services that have not been registered. If the Government's lunacy comes to fruition, Kingston upon Hull will have fewer bus services in the city and another 300 people on the dole. So much for this brave new world.
    From a questionnaire sent to its members by the Federation of Public Passenger Transport Employers about a whole host of issues, it appears that less than half the non-registered routes will not be put out to tender. Yesterday, the Secretary of State answered a question by his hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway). In a question about London the hon. Member asked:
    "Will my right hon. Friend congratulate LRT on the improved services that it has provided since it was established following its removal from the auspices of the GLC?"
    The Secretary of State replied:
    "I shall certainly pass on my hon. Friend's congratulations to the chairman and board of LRT".—[Official Report, 21 April 1986; Vol. 96, c. 6.]
    The hon. Member for Ealing, North is not in the House. He made a statement to The Standard which was printed a little time before he put his question. The Standard reported:
    "Harry Greenway, Tory MP for Ealing North, says there are growing protests from people at the long wait at bus stops and at the general decline in service. He said: 'I am getting more and more complaints from people who claim they have to wait sometimes an hour for a bus. Such a delay is inexcusable.'"
    That hon. Member said that to The Standard and then came here and congratulated his right hon. Friend about the way LRT was being run.
    I should like to give some interesting figures from the constituency of Derbyshire, West. Today I was given a document produced by Mr. Keith Orford, the adviser and spokesman for the public transport unit at Matlock. He advises me:
    "North of Matlock the service to Bakewell via Winster will operate every hour, but the last departure from Matlock will be at 16.30. Only two buses a day will operate into Elton and Stanton and Birchover will only be served on Mondays by service to/from Bakewell."
    The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Mr. David Mitchell): Can the hon. Gentleman tell the House whether he is talking about services that have been registered, or whether the county council has already taken a decision about exactly what other services it regards as socially necessary and for which it will invite tenders?
    Mr. Stott: I am quoting from the document that Mr. Orford sent me this morning. To be fair to the Minister, I imagine that these are registered services and that other services are open to tender. It is that to which I should like to turn my attention. I suspect that the Secretary of State and his Department are proud of the number of services that have been registered to operate commercially from 26 October. They form about three quarters of the number of road service licences that currently exist. The impression is given that this means that 75 per cent. of existing journeys will be operated commercially.
    When the Minister was pressed by me and by some of my hon. Friends, following parliamentary questions that we tabled some weeks ago about the current mileage undertaken by those operators and what mileage would be registered, he failed to give us a reply. He said the information was not available, yet every bus company, most local authorities and the traffic commissioners, for fuel duty rebate purposes, hold the necessary sources of information, and those sources could quickly have been processed by his Department. It is a disgrace that the Minister did not answer the question and told my hon. Friends that the information was not available.
    Last year, my own council, Greater Manchester, said on page 68 of its TPP submission to the Minister that 72,070,000 miles were being run. That figure could have been made available by Ministers. It is now possible to tell the House the figures for registered services, those services that make a profit. In my area of greater Manchester, 64 per cent. of present service miles have been registered by the Greater Manchester Bus Company. An extra 4 per cent. have been registered by other operators, including National Bus Company subsidiaries, independents and even an occasional taxi driver.
    We must bear in mind that, before the Transport Act 1985, some 96 per cent. of all services in greater Manchester were run by the PTE and only 4 per cent. by other operators. I suspect that that applied to every metropolitan authority. No doubt the Secretary of State will say that it is premature to judge what effect there will be on the services and that that cannot be done until the PTEs and the PTAs have gone out to tender and have decided upon services to fill the gaps left by operators promoting services commercially.
    This raises the interesting question of how much money will be available to support those services. I shall take again the example of Greater Manchester PTE. Some months ago, it estimated that support to the tendered services would require at least £30 million a year. The best estimate at the moment is that the PTA should bank on having only £15 million from October onwards. Based on that, the director general of the Greater Manchester PTE estimated at a meeting last Friday that it would be possible to support only some 20 per cent. more services.
    In other words, that would mean that, in the Greater Manchester area, from October onwards, some 10 to 12 per cent. of those bus services will not run.
    There is a human price to pay for all that carnage. In my area—my hon. Friends will tell the House what is
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    happening in theirs—2,000 people in bus garages, administration and elsewhere will be made unemployed by the PTE in order that it should remain viable and profitable.
    I hope the House will bear with me if I continue with the theme of financial chaos. I have referred to the problems of finance. Tenders are supposed to be let for supported bus services during the summer to start towards the end of October. It would not be unreasonable for a bus operator to expect a reasonable length of tender in order to cover the costs of establishing the new services, particularly if one of those operators is the new, thrusting, entrepreneurial, dynamic operator that the Secretary of State wants to see. Would not such an operator consider that for tendered services at least there should be some reasonable length of contract? In order to meet that, would it not be reasonable for the PTA to expect that it should have some idea of the likely levels of expenditure over, say, the next two years so that it may decide how many tendered services can go out this year, next year and the year after? Not a bit of it.
    The PTA in Greater Manchester has been writing to the Department of Transport since before Christmas in an attempt to find out the likely level of expenditure which it will be allowed by the Secretary of State for 1987–88. On 6 January, one of the Secretary of State's civil servants replied to the effect that he was surprised that the PTA wanted to know that figure. The same civil servant relented somewhat in March because he then accepted that the authority did have a right to know, but he restated the Government's position. The only advice that he could give my authority was that given in 1984—that planning should be on the assumption that revenue support expenditure should be reduced by 25 to 30 per cent. over the next three years. That leaves the PTEs and the PTAs, and no doubt the municipal authorities, still guessing as to what will be the likely levels of expenditure next year and the year after.
    Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: The hon. Gentleman is right to support his case with illustrations from his area, which he knows well, but is it fair that, for example, Lancashire, which I believe is his county, has a transport subsidy per head of population of £13, while Greater Manchester, whose case he is using to illustrate his point, has a subsidy per head of population of £30? That simply does not make sense to the rest of the country.
    Mr. Stott: The hon. Gentleman and I shared many happy hours on the Bill in Committee but I think that he has hold of the wrong end of the stick. I was talking about the information coming from the Department of Transport to give PTEs and municipal operators some idea of the likely level of revenue support from that Department and elsewhere.
    Let me take the hon. Gentleman a step further. I do not know whether he was here, but a few months ago the Secretary of State pushed through an order setting the maximum precept limit, which he unwisely referred to as putting the stopper on the amount of public money spent on providing public transport in the metropolitan areas. It is some stopper; in every PTA area the precept has gone up because authorities have had to pay for the cost of deregulation and they have had to foot the bill for the nonsensical Government grant policy.

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    Let me tell the House the cost to authorities such as mine, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire and others of deregulation, of the needless expense of making bus workers redundant, of the waste of assets that will be mothballed or sold off below book value, of the bureaucratic exercise involved in forming new companies and transferring assets around the place, of dismantling the existing systems based on co-operation and replacing them with ones where only profits count. As for grant policies, the Secretary of State for Transport sets one limit for expenditure, while the Secretary of State for the Environment, independently and arbitrarily, bases his rate support grant on altogether different and even less meaning full formula. The PTAs are then penalised by the Secretary of State for the Environment because they have the temerity to spend up to the levels that the Secretary of State says they can. That is reflected in a higher rate of precept in all the county council areas.
    Let me give some examples. The rate is higher by approximately 40 per cent. in Greater Manchester than it need be. The rate is higher by 82 per cent. in Merseyside, 82 per cent. in South Yorkshire, 17 per cent. in Tyne and Wear, 28 per cent. in the West Midlands and 59 per cent. in West Yorkshire. The result of the Secretary of State's stopper is that the PTAs are forced by the Government to levy higher rates to pay for the Government's own policies, which will mean worse services.
    The Transport Act 1985 removes passenger transport from the long-held status of a strategic national industry and relegates it to a use-it-or-lose-it activity. If current Government thinking is correct, the rest of the developed world is incorrect. No other Government in the developed world are prepared to subject the business of moving millions of people every day of the week to the inconsistencies of market forces.
    Mr. Rob Hayward: I believe that I heard the hon. Gentleman say that no other country in the developed world would do that. What is happening in Japan, which is privatising the whole railway system and has already privatised the underground system?
    Mr. Stott: Privatisation is different. We are talking about deregulation. No other country in the world is embarking upon leaving the mass movement of people to the vagaries of the free market. They all recognise the sense of a regulated transport system.
    Until the Transport Act 1985, the United Kingdom was beginning to catch up with the rest of the world in the provision of mass transit systems. Unfortunately, some areas of Britain had a woefully inadequate transport provision, but overall we were beginning to get it right. We were beginning to set in hand plans for mass transit systems that would take us into the next century, building on the successes of the Tyne and Wear metro and the many and varied innovations that have been pioneered by the GLC, the NBC and the PTAs.
    But along came old Nick, dragging the rotting corpse of Adam Smith behind him and eulogising those burnt-out ideas whose time has been and gone. The Secretary of State has been tearing down the safety net of social provision and replacing it with the vagaries of the free market.
    One of the most emancipating elements in the lives of ordinary people is the ability to be mobile. The provision of a regulated, integrated, inexpensive public transport
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    system has the support of millions of British people. They may not be completely wedded to Socialism, but the vast majority of them care about and will vote for and demand fairness for all, not a free-for-all. That is where the Government have made their biggest mistake. Public transport cannot be auctioned off in the market place. Public transport is an integral and necessary part of the nation's social provision.
    For most of the country, Sunday 26 October will be the day that the clocks are put back one hour. For the bus industry and its passengers it will be the day that the Secretary of State turns back the clock 56 years. British summer time ends on 26 October. The public transport winter replaces it. [Laughter.] If hon. Gentlemen opposite are laughing about that, I have to tell them that on 8 May this year the people of the United Kingdom, when they vote in the municipal elections, will give the Secretary of State the biggest trampling that he has ever had.
    7.40 pm
    The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): I beg to move, to leave out from "House" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
    `congratulates the Government on its radical approach to the long standing problems of public transport, its determination to obtain value for money and its introduction of policies of competition and deregulation for the benefit of the passenger which are based upon choice, freedom and fairness to improve the quality of life for the whole community and particularly for those who depend entirely upon public transport.'.
    That was an extraordinary outburst from the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott). I suppose that it is part of the new caring initiative that we have read about in the Financial Times. If so, I advise the hon. Gentleman to try again. It was not very good. His motion speaks of the crisis in public transport. I agree with the Opposition that there has indeed been a crisis with a reduction in services and higher fares, and subsidies spiralling out of control. Subsidies rose from £269 million in 1974 to £558 million in 1984, at constant 1984 prices, and over the same period services fell by 12 per cent. The crisis was the result of years of regulation, restriction, integration and socialism, and what I can now only call Stottism.
    We are putting in place the solution of deregulation, competition and privatisation. We are setting operators free to provide the services that customers want. Competition makes operators efficient and makes them provide passengers with the quality of service they want. So I am glad to be able to tell the House that the crisis is ending.
    Let us look at what has happened. First, London Regional Transport. There is no crisis here. The improvement in efficiency and in service to the public is truly remarkable. I remember that when the London Regional Transport Bill was being debated, the Bill's critics went on about fares rising 20 per cent. above the rate of inflation, 33 tube stations closing, 34 bus routes being withdrawn—remember the advertisement "Come in No. 9, your time is up"?—and concessionary fares coming to an end. I wonder how they dare return to this subject this evening. The hon. Members for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody) and for West Bromwich, East (Mr. Snape) do not dare come to the House. They are not here, and I do not wonder about that either.
    Fares have not gone above inflation, no tube stations have been shut, and bus mileage was trimmed by a tiny 2 per cent. to match supply with demand. The No. 9 still

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    runs. The present level of service will be maintained, as the decline in bus patronage has now been arrested. Londoners still enjoy concessionary fares.
    Mr. Don Dixon: Will the Secretary of State explain to the House why, when the London Regional Transport Bill was in Committee, he included a clause providing concessionary passes for pensioners in London, but refused to put a similar section in the Transport Act 1985 which would have safeguarded concessionary passes for pensioners throughout the country?
    Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman now knows that that clause was not necessary, because the boroughs have since come together to provide slightly better schemes than were provided by the GLC.
    My predictions of possible cost savings, which were pooh-poohed by the Opposition, were, I fear, wrong. The late unlamented GLC proposed to increase revenue subsidy for London Transport from the £190 million that it had planned for 1984–85 to £245 million by 1987–88. These enormous sums would have had to be found by the ratepayers and taxpayers on top of the cost of capital, which is provided as a grant to London Regional Transport, not a loan. The House will want to hear these figures.
    LRT's performance has shown that subsidies at these levels are not necessary. I set Dr. Bright and his colleagues tough managerial objectives. Unit costs were to be reduced each year by at least 2·5 per cent. in real terms, fares were to be stable in real terms, investment in the system was to be increased, and revenue subsidies were to be halved in three years so that they would be no more than £95 million by 1987–88. In every respect LRT has hit or beaten my targets. LRT has published an estimate of its revenue deficit for 1985–86. At £109 million it is a remarkable £81 million less than the GLC's plans for the previous year—an enormous saving. For the present financial year, 1986–87, the estimated deficit falls still further to £79 million, which is about £150 million less revenue for ratepayers and taxpayers to find.
    These figures are not the product of creative accounting, a concept which I prefer to leave to the GLC. They result from a continuing and relentless attack on waste and inefficiency. That will continue to lift the burden from the shoulders of ratepayers and taxpayers. We may soon see the total elimination of revenue subsidy in London, if London Regional Transport continues as it has begun. This would mean a saving of £245 million a year for Londoners compared to the GLC's plans. Those are dramatic figures, and they demonstrate the total hollowness of the Opposition's arguments against the London Regional Transport Act 1984.
    The grant for capital investment has increased from £150 million for 1984–85 to £216 million in the current year. We invest in the future; the GLC subsidised the past. We are seeing the rapid development of an efficient and attractive public transport system in London. I stress the word "attractive". Patronage is booming, the Underground had its busiest year ever last year and services are being increased by 3 per cent. The long-run decline in bus travel is halting. Contrary to what was alleged yesterday at Question Time, the waiting times and the speed and performance of London's buses are the same as they have been for the last three years. No cuts overall are planned
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    in the service but London Regional Transport is quite rightly systematically changing the pattern of services to meet what people actually want. To speak of a crisis in London's public transport is to turn the English language on its head. The fact that LRT is doing so well shows what a determined management can do when faced with a challenge. The next step is for London buses to face the rigours, and the stimulus, of bus deregulation in London. That is the best way to ensure lasting reductions in subsidy and improvements in services.
    Next, long-distance coaches. Again, there is no crisis here. Hundreds of new services have started—over 900 have started and 700 of those are still in business—since the deregulation of long-distance express coaches. The number of passengers carried on the NBC's national express services has increased by about 50 per cent.
    Fares have been reduced in real terms. On some important routes, notably London to Exeter and London to Newcastle, they are lower in cash terms now than they were six years ago.
    Equally striking is the improved quality of coach services—the national express rapide services and the numerous luxury commuter services bear elegant witness to that. Passengers have made it clear that they want quality and are prepared to pay for it—in a deregulated industry, operators provide the kind of service that passengers want.
    Then railways. For the longer distance there is now competition between rail, air, coach and car. Inter-city is gradually "getting there". We have worked to ensure that it becomes both unsubsidised and competitive. The impact of competition has already brought benefits to rail travellers. Attractive cheap fare offers have been developed. High quality executive Pullman services are offering new standards of service. Contracting out is going to lead to higher standards of catering and cleaning. Intercity is able to plan for new rolling stock within its financial resources. Electrification of services to Norwich will soon be completed. The east coast main line electrification, the biggest railway investment project for 25 years, is now under way.
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: Many of us agree that inter-city services are excellent, but what about those clapped-out diesel engines that are often used on inter-city services from various stations, such as York, Peterborough and Edinburgh? Those of us who use inter-city services a lot know that British Rail has a heck of a problem with those diesels that are rather ancient. Can the Secretary of State say anything about investment plans?
    Mr. Ridley: I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that we are catching up with the appalling neglect and backlog of under-investment under the last Labour Administration. In a moment I shall have something to say about investment in railways, when I shall come back to the hon. Gentleman's point.
    I admit that there are many railway services that will always run at a loss and require Government support. The public service obligation grant for this year is about £830 million. Even here there has been a remarkable turnround in value for money. Over the past three years British Rail has been able to reduce its dependence on PSO grant by 25 per cent. Over £250 million at today's prices has been cut off the bill to the taxpayers. That has not been done by closures, which would deprive communities of rail

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    services, as Opposition scaremongers are always trying to make out. It has been done by effective management to improve efficiency.
    I pay tribute, as I hope Opposition Members will, to Sir Robert Reid and his board for what they have achieved. Contrary to the popular myth, this success has not led to a fall in the standard of the services offered. The chairman told the Select Committee on Transport two weeks ago that the financial targets need not undermine, and have not undermined, the quality of service on the railway.
    Mr. Stott: If that is the case, can the Minister explain what I know from personal experience? I get the train from Wigan to London every week. This year, apart from two occasions, that train has been woefully bad at time keeping. If the Secretary of State were to catch a train and to walk into a second-class compartment, he would find it heaving with people. People have to stand almost all the way from Wigan to Westminster. That is a consequence of British Rail policy. That is what people have to put up with.
    Mr. Ridley: One of the worst features of some hon. Gentlemen, including the hon. Member for Wigan, is the use of their personal travelling experiences to make a general case.
    Mr. Stott: When does the Secretary of State travel? What is his experience?
    Mr. Ridley: As a frequent train traveller, I have had experiences which have been just as unfortunate as those of other hon. Gentlemen. I keep them to myself and do not direct them into public complaints, as the hon. Gentleman has sought to do.
    I accept that there are areas where the board is not yet achieving its quality targets. That concedes the hon. Gentleman's point to some extent. We shall ask British Rail to look for improvements for the travelling public. For example, punctuality still needs to be improved. Improvements in quality are important. I shall be discussing with the chairman of the board what needs to be done as we work towards agreeing objectives for the next few years.
    Mr. Adley: Is my right hon. Friend not pleased to note that we have now reached a situation where he, as a Conservative Minister, is congratulating a nationalised industry, and the Labour party, which is supposed to support nationalised industry, can do nothing but knock it?
    Mr. Ridley: I hope that Opposition Members soon will be pressing for the privatisation of the railways.
    Improved efficiency on the railways has made it possible to authorise an increasing level of investment, which is the answer to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell). British Rail plans to spend over £2 billion over the next five years, more than half of which is already authorised. What better demonstration could there be that improved costs and efficiency are the way to the high-quality, modern railway that we want? So there is no crisis there either.
    The hon. Member for Wigan was less than fair to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) in passing to him the poisoned chalice. The hon. Member for Aberdeen will not be able to answer. If he likes, I shall give him a note of the answer.
    Next, buses, where Opposition hopes of a crisis are looking dimmer every day. The first of the benefits of
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    deregulation and competition, which the Transport Act has brought, are already to be seen in many towns where the National Bus Company has introduced minibuses. At the beginning of 1984, as a response to the new policy, the NBC introduced a fleet of minibuses into Exeter to provide a flexible, high frequency service. In the first year alone it reported a 60 per cent. increase in passenger traffic on the same routes, with the minibuses carrying some people who had previously used cars. Loss was turned to profit and more people were employed. Now I believe that patronage has increased by nearly three times.
    Minibuses for Exeter led the way. There are now about 1,000 in Worcester, Cheltenham, Oxford, Norwich, Leicester and many other towns, and I understand that they are coming into London soon. The list is growing all the time as more and more NBC subsidiaries see the scope for serving passengers and turning losses into profit.
    Mr. Sydney Bidwell: I was told today that there will be an estimated 19,000 redundancies in the National Bus Company. Is that fact or fiction?
    Mr. Ridley: The hon. Gentleman has got it wrong. There have been 20,000 redundancies in the National Bus Company over the past 10 years. That is what the hon. Gentleman must be thinking of. That is the problem with which we seek to deal.
    The success of minibuses shows the scope for the bus industry to operate profitably and to expand. It proves that there is room for innovation and that passengers can be tempted away from other forms of transport. The Transport Act gives all operators, not just the NBC, the incentive to examine their services, to find out what passengers want and to provide it. If they do not, a competitor will.
    The implementation of the Act has started well, despite the hopes of Opposition Members. Alarmists and irresponsible people like the hon. Member for Wigan have been up to their usual scaremongering tactics. In the last few weeks they have put about claims that bus services will be drastically reduced because they have not all been registered. The hon. Gentleman was at it again this evening. In fact, by the end of February, some 15,000 commercial services had been registered, representing about 75 per cent. of the existing network. The hon. Gentleman said it was 68 per cent. for Manchester. It is a revelation that 75 per cent. of the services have been registered, because nearly all those services were being subsidised previously. Now it turns out that those services did not need subsidy. Is that not another astonishing result that has come already from the Transport Act?
    The most irresponsible lie is that those registered commercial services are the end of the story. The hon. Gentleman was trying to say so again this evening. When he was challenged by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, he admitted that that was not what he had meant. He had left out the vital part which makes it clear that other services will run after deregulation. Local authorities have both the power and the money to subsidise those additional services which they believe will be necessary to meet local needs. This scare, too, is typical of the Labour party. We saw it with coaches, with LRT and with concessionary fares.
    The decision about which local services to subsidise is, as the House knows, for local authorities. We have increased the provision for local public transport support

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    outside London from £247 million in the last financial year to £273 million in 1986–87. That is an increase of 10 per cent.—substantially more than the rate of inflation. So there is more money than there was last year. The consequences are reflected in the local authority rate support grant totals.
    The Opposition keep suggesting that the new passenger transport authorities will not have adequate resources for public transport subsidies. The hon. Member for Wigan was at it again today. Let me give him some figures. Let us take South Yorkshire as an example. Public transport subsidy in 1986–87, after redetermination, will still be about £40 per head. That may be a reduction of one third on last year's figures, but it is still far in excess of the amounts of subsidy paid in the shires, which averaged about £5 per head last year, and were below £2 in Somerset. Are we seriously asked to believe that an authority spending £40 for every man, woman and child in its area, cannot fill the gaps in its public transport operation? If authorities cannot provide the necessary socially desirable services with that kind of money, something is wrong with them. Talk of massive cuts in local services is, quite frankly, rubbish.
    Public transport subsidy—excluding redundancy payments—in the metropolitan districts next year is likely to average about £30 per head compared to a figure of about £5 in the shires. That suggests that there is considerable scope for further cuts in future, reducing the heavy burden on ratepayers, which I am conscious still remains, and to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
    Finally, on the question of concessionary fares, we were told when the Bill was going through that it would be the end of concessionary fares as we know them, passes would be replaced by tokens, and authorities would find it impossible to administer schemes applying to all the operators who would be providing the services once deregulation had set them free. This further campaign of scaremongering was intended to play upon the fears of the most vulnerable people in the community—the old and the handicapped.
    In fact, many county councils have announced plans for schemes applying to the whole of their area. They include Essex, Kent and Lancashire—three of the largest counties in the country. I understand that in Lancashire the scheme will cover all the eight districts in the county which have their own transport companies. Similarly Derbyshire, where considerable doubts were expressed about the effects of deregulation on concessionary fares, has now announced a scheme for half-fare passes covering the whole of the county area. We said that the Bill would give authorities flexibility to make suitable arrangements, and we have been proved right. We have also made allowances for the changes introduced by the Act by the increase of 13 per cent. in provision for expenditure on this item.
    In the metropolitan counties, we were told that existing schemes would collapse with abolition. But we took full account of the cost of existing concessionary fare schemes in setting maximum precept levels. In the event, five out of the six joint boards in England have maintained their schemes for elderly and disabled people practically unchanged. The sixth—South Yorkshire—has decided to introduce a small standing fare of 5p per journey.
    In London, as I predicted, the boroughs have agreed to continue the existing arrangements for concessionary
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    travel in 1986–87 without resort to the statutory reserve scheme. I think that the scares about travel concessions were particularly mean and many old people have been unnecessarily worried. These fears were groundless, deliberate and mischievous, and I hope that the Opposition will suffer grievously from peddling such rubbish.
    To sum all this up, service has improved on coach, rail, underground and bus. Fares have been held at their real value, and in some cases reduced. Concessionary fare schemes have been maintained. The annual savings to the public purse from reduced revenue subsidies to London Regional Transport and BR are already about £350 million—with more to come in the future, including a contribution from buses. This has enabled increased investment to take place in the public transport industries. I am proud of this record.
    The only crisis that we witness today is the crisis of a Labour party which has no new ideas, as the hon. Gentleman amply demonstrated in his speech.
    I regard the Opposition motion as impertinent, and I ask the House to pass the amendment and to reject the motion with contumely.
    8.4 pm
    Mr. Stephen Ross: I think that the Secretary of State has some justification for his remarks on British Rail. He was however, pretty selective in his statistics relating to London Regional Transport, to which I shall return later.
    It is a tragedy for the country that our public transport policies have become so politically controversial. It is therefore important that the Select Committee on Transport—I note that at least two, and perhaps three members of the Committee, of which I am a member, are present in the Chamber—should try to find some common ground as it undertakes its current investigation into the financing of the public transport services. So far we have been examining the railways and interrogating members of the British Railways Board and departmental officials. We are also looking at new developments, including the so-called Pacer and Sprinter trains, tomorrow morning.
    My current view is that, slowly and surely, the railways are getting themselves out of the mire. The coal strike was of course a major setback. Permission for new capital programmes such as the east coast main line, Bournemouth-Weymouth, East Anglia, and Hastings has been forthcoming, and we have to say that correctly and truthfully.
    Many of our stations, particularly the London terminals are becoming what they always should have been, busy, clean and quite exciting places providing some excellent facilities. One has only to look at Victoria or Waterloo to see what changes have taken place. I think that it is absolutely tragic that that lovely station at Great Malvern, which has just been done up, should have been damaged by fire the other day. British Rail is looking at some of its masterpieces, and that is one of them.
    A promise has also been given in the House that extra capital resources will be made available to the railways to take proper advantage of the Channel tunnel development. This should provide a massive stimulus for the railway network if enthusiastically pursued.
    I was in Fort William the other day and had the wonderful experience of seeing the integrated system whereby the Wiggins Teape mill is sending its paper by

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    rail from Fort William to arrive south of London next morning. Wiggins Teape exports to the Common Market and it could take advantage of the arrangement by sending its paper to Italy or to Austria. But it is when we compare our standards with those of our Common Market neighbours that we realise how far still our railways have to go. New rolling stock is desperately needed, particularly on the southern region. What will happen—perhaps the Minister will deal with this—if British Rail Engineering Ltd. abandons Eastleigh, as is now rumoured? Surely we need to sustain a major railway workshop in the south.
    Sir Robert Reid's article in The House Magazine, and his evidence to the Select Committee, were optimistic. Despite the continuing high levels of investment that is needed, he feels he can keep within the tough PSO limits. It is true that productivity has risen, as has passenger volume, and for this achievement I bow to management and unions. I think that both are to be congratulated. They have shown common sense, the results of which are now beginning to be revealed.
    I should like to see a moratorium on all closures for at least three years, and a continuing exploitation of the capital assets of the railways. With regard to the stations, for instance, much more can be done and more thought could be given to streamlining ticketing. It is at that point that delays occur which lead to people occasionally missing trains.
    I oppose the possible loss of the Settle-Carlisle line, England's most dramatic railway. British Rail itself has shown that it is possible to make a line profitable if one exploits the scenic beauty. In this case, it has made a profit of £1 million. There is surely a case for a heritage grant to restore and maintain the line.
    I would want reconsideration of the closure of Marylebone station, which is now regularly used for steam excursions to Stratford-on-Avon and elsewhere. We urgently require a new coach station in north London, but why must it Marylebone?
    Much improved rail links are needed to our principal airports. This comes high on my list. More and faster inter-city cross-country trains are also needed. There is a need for the link between the Midland and Southern via Snow hill to be rapidly built. I want to see the docklands light railway integrated with the Waterloo and City line.
    I would like to see a moving belt for heavy luggage at certain stations. Why cannot we do what the Danes do? I saw such a belt when the Select Committee visited Ejsborg recently. At Portsmouth harbour, moving belts on the platform to take luggage down on to the boats would help elderly people with their cases. Such facilities would improve people's travelling.
    We also want a more forthcoming and helpful work force. That is happening. Trains on the Portsmouth line do not now shut their buffet cars at Haslemere; they are open all the way to Portsmouth, which is encouraging. People are talking to us and saying nice things over the radio. Things are beginning to happen, so let us keep that up, but we also want flexibility from the Government.
    However, I do not take the same rosy view of the bus industry as does the Secretary of State—to me its future is bleak. It is clear that a substantial number of rural routes may disappear or require high subsidies if they are to remain open. Surely this exercise, which has totally missed out, was to encourage the entrepreneurs to register routes. Where are they? They have not appeared.
    Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Oh yes they have.
    Mr. Ross: There are three in my constituency, and I can tell the House exactly who they are.
    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: The Wyre borough has a very imaginative scheme, including school buses and taxis. It will work very well in the rural areas.
    Mr. Ross: We have heard that in Manchester the figure is 4 per cent. outside of the National Bus Company. It is less than that in my constituency. Two of the routes registered are exactly what we expected—one a taxi company that will run hourly on the most profitable routes, and the other a coach company that will run its coaches two minutes before the NBC runs its buses.
    One scheme that I very much welcome is from a hotel that will run a minibus service to a railway station. For years I have been trying to persuade the bus company to do that, and it is now thinking of doing so. However, that is the only good thing to have come out of the exercise.
    We have been given some statistics already. I understand that in Clwyd 65 per cent. of routes have been registered, while in Gwynedd the figure is 60 per cent. In my part of the world 85 per cent. have been registered, but there is little competition. Where is it? I do not want to tread on the ground of the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott), but I understand that Manchester will have a shortfall of at least £10 million, and perhaps even £15 million, to cover the services that will now have to be subsidised due to other expenses falling upon it. It will also have some competition on the Glossop-Manchester line, where a bus service has been registered. In Ryedale and West Derby some rural services may disappear.
    I have to tell the Secretary of State that many of the minibuses appeared not after the 1985 Act, but before it—largely because of the withdrawal of the bus grants. That is why, at long last, other methods of transporting people are being considered, and I welcome that. It is too early to say with any certainty how it will all pan out in the end. The traffic commissioners are inundated with work, and some of the documentation is faulty. It is becoming obvious that there will be future problems with the Act.
    The Secretary of State gave certain assurances that management-worker buy-out schemes would be given priority, but it now appears that they may not have that opportunity. I want to question the right hon. Gentleman on that issue while I have the opportunity. Will he give management-work force bids priority? In early press releases he said that he was hoping that such bids would come forward, and indicated that they would he considered sympathetically. Do they now have to compete with open market bids?
    We have suffered under Sealink, and I do not want the bus company in the Isle of Wight bought by the same gentleman because that would be an absolute disaster. There would be a total monopoly. I know that the management and work force have put in a bid, and I hope that they will be given every opportunity to succeed. After all, the Secretary of State has strongly indicated that such bids would be sympathetically considered, but it now appears that they will have to compete with bids from the private sector. It could be that some will miss out, which would be disastrous for constituencies such as mine.

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    If bus subsidiaries fall into the wrong hands, that could create monopolies, and the Secretary of State must protect us against that. It is tragic that by his total commitment to market forces, fine systems like the Tyne and Wear metro are put at risk—
    Mr. Ridley: No, it is not.
    Mr. Ross: Of course it is put at risk.
    Cross-country timetabling on buses will become almost impossible. I can go into my local inquiry office and find out how to go to Bournemouth and then on to Dorchester on a bus. That will not happen in future because no one will know what services are running. Travel cards and through ticketing will be highly unlikely. I have experience of that—I am still arguing with British Rail and Sealink. They withdrew the concessions for the disabled, the forces and students. They have returned the concession to the disabled, but not to the others. That hurts in my constituency. At the end of the day, the local authorities will take all the blame if the routes do not run. That is what always happens.
    The Secretary of State has a great deal of personal responsibility in London. I travel by bus every day, and frequently travel on the underground. Returns may be marginally higher, but the service has certainly deteriorated. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a 30p ticket on the 507 bus has risen to 40p—a 30 per cent. increase? That is far more than the rate of inflation. Some underground lines are no longer running as far as they used to run—for example, those to Uxbridge in peak periods. The Bakerloo line is cutting back all the time.
    The only good news of late is that Westminster city council has decided to keep most of its bus lanes, despite all the criticism from another place. I am sure that it is right to do so. All the buses seem to be for sightseeing tours; too few of them pick up passengers at the bus stops, so there are long queues. Quite frankly, the criticisms of the bus lanes are wholly wrong.
    I find it difficult to support either the motion or the amendment. I cannot support the Labour motion, but then I cannot support the Government amendment either. I tabled an amendment but it was not called. However, I believe that my amendment is nearer right than wrong, and that it will be proved right at the end of the day.
    8.16 pm
    Mr. Rob Hayward: I have listened to the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) during other debates. I had the fortune, or perhaps misfortune, to listen to him on many occasions during the debates on the Telecommunications Bill, so his scaremongering this evening came as no surprise to me. During the proceedings on that Bill we were told that it would lead to no public telephone boxes, no rural services, no services for the disabled, no directory facilities, and so on. Wat has happened? Two years after the Bill was enacted, we have all those services, and most of them have improved. It therefore came as no surprise to listen to yet another torrent of scaremongering tonight—it has happened over and over again in transport debates.
    It was significant that the hon. Member for Wigan made reference to no other form of transport than buses. He made no reference to coaches, to railways, or to any modern developments such as the docklands railway. Why
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    not? It is because during the past two, three or four years, Opposition Members have persistently set about using scaremongering tactics. As each piece of legislation has passed through the House, we have been told that services would disappear. At every Third Reading we are told that either long-distance coaches, London transport, or any service one chooses to mention will disappear. What is the truth? Anyone travelling on the M4 knows that he can hardly move in the inside or second lanes because of the number of coaches. Such services take a fair amount of time to develop. The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) may say that they are not there now, but people have to develop the expertise. The entrepreneurs do not spring up immediately; it takes time. That is precisely what has happened to the coach services.
    My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State quoted costs for the ordinary passenger. People now have an alternative. It is no longer a case of take British Rail or leave it and do not come to London. People regularly use coach services because they prefer them. That pressure is applied to British Rail, and I welcome the improvement in its services as a result. It is now recognising that passengers have an alternative.
    When I first entered the House, there were scaremongering stories about the Serpell report. There have been three speeches in the debate so far, but no reference to the Serpell report, yet in 1983 it was the talk of the Opposition Benches. It was another general election scare.
    I also disagree with the hon. Member for Isle of Wight about services in London. If they are deteriorating as he suggests, why are more and more people using the underground and buses? That is happening, despite the fact that inner London has a progressively declining—and in some areas a rapidly declining—population. All the population statistics show that there should be a progressively diminishing use of bus and underground services. However, the long-term decline on the buses has been halted and the number of people using the underground has risen.
    Is it not significant that there is only one London Member in the Chamber this evening? Surely, if, as has been predicted so often in debates, this Government's schemes would be a disaster for London Regional Transport, Labour Members would be lining up to cite examples of complaints about the No. 12 bus, the underground services to Cockfosters or the west end of London, or services anywhere else. Instead, such examples are notably absent.
    It is really amazing that the scaremongering tactics continue. This evening we have heard that the next case will be that of buses. People genuinely fear the future and change, but change need not necessarily be revolutionary: it can be evolutionary.
    Reference has been made to minibus services.
    Mr. Martin Flannery: I represent a constituency in South Yorkshire, as the hon. Gentleman knows. Earlier, we heard the Minister talking nonsense. After the introduction of our policy, which he criticised, the votes increased at every election. I ask the hon. Member for Kingswood (Mr. Hayward) about private ownership. Hon. Members talk about private ownership of transport as though it is new. The municipalisation of transport came about because of the total failure of private

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    ownership of the railways, buses, trams and so on. Therefore, there is nothing new about privatisation; it is an old idea and it has failed.
    Mr. Hayward: I am pleased to say that I am not aware that any hon. Member's children were educated by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery), because he has an interesting interpretation of history. The decision to nationalise British Rail and municipalise the bus services immediately after the war stems from a political viewpoint with which I happen to disagree and with which he agrees. The decision resulted not from complete failure one way or the other, but from a difference of political viewpoint and should not be interpreted otherwise.
    I am sorry that the hon. Member for Wigan has left the Chamber, because I wish to refer to developments in Avon, an area he knows well. Reference has already been made to minibus services. There were previously extremely few minibus services around the country; they could almost be counted on the fingers of one hand. Under the catalyst of the recently passed Transport Act, we have seen the blossoming of such services throughout the country.
    Mr. Flannery: Where?
    Mr. Hayward: In Bristol, in the county of Avon—to the extent that the evening newspaper the other day carried a full page article under the headline, "Bullseye! Bus is on target". What a change for a headline to say that a bus service is on time. The reason is that minibuses have been introduced throughout Bristol.
    The article states:
    "The fleet started operating in February and the City Line bus company soon declared them a success, with a 20 per cent. increase in passengers recorded."
    That has happened in only two months. The buses are serving roads which in my constituency have never had a bus service. Pensioners, who were being frightened by Labour party spokesmen, can now get on and off buses outside their own doors. Previously they had to walk a quarter of a mile or half a mile to get on a large, almost immovable, double decker service, which could not go down the side streets. Now pensioners are lauding the service over and over again. The sub-heading to the article is: "Have a good day? We certainly did". The article is written not by bus operators or Tory Central Office but by the reporters from the Bristol Evening Post who travelled on the buses.
    Another such article states:
    "As we got off the bus, three people refused to get on as it would have meant standing. But they were happy to wait on the stop, confident in the knowledge that another would be along in a minute."
    When was something like that last written by a reporter about any municipal bus service or rail service? That is the sort of change that has taken place in my area and other areas of the country.
    Mr. Ridley: I was told by the National Bus Company that it was the prospect of the ending of network subsidy that made it conclude that it was necessary in the first place to try minibuses.
    Mr. Hayward: I thank my right hon. Friend for that information. I referred to it as a catalyst. There is no doubt that it acted as a substantial catalyst to move bus companies to provide a service that people want to and do use.
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    What I also find depressing about the speech of the hon. Member for Wigan is that he did not refer to future investment. He said nothing about the docklands light railway or developments in terms of future services, electrification or improvement in rolling stock on British Rail. I support very strongly the development of the docklands light railway, as it is a long-overdue innovation. It will afford the opportunity for large numbers of jobs to be created in an area of London that currently has high unemployment. I want to put on record my hope that the City of London corporation does not oppose the light railway to the point where it becomes impossible to develop. Such a development will be to the benefit of the people in that area, in terms not only of employment but of transport.
    I believe that the public transport services in this country are not adequate at present but they are improving. Over the past few years, substantial changes haze taken place. I welcome them, as I believe that the public generally welcome them, which is why people increasingly use these services.
    8.26 pm
    Mr. David Marshall: Last year, according to Ministers and supporters, the 1985 Transport Act would lead to lower fares, better services and many more jobs being created. Many Labour Members took a vastly different view. In fairness, at this time, it is still as difficult as ever to state with absolute certainty what the final outcome of the Act w ill be. However, I believe that some chickens have come home to roost when it comes to jobs.
    I accept that in the short term in many areas there will be lower fares and better services, but only in the short term. That situation will not last long. After the initial battles have been fought and won there will he a return to the present fares level, and perhaps even higher fares. Many services will disappear or will be drastically curtailed, and frequencies will be substantially reduced so that the companies will be able to stay in business.
    I declare an interest as a sponsored member of the Transport and General Workers' Union. I will confine most of what I say to the Scottish situation, with special emphasis on the Strathclyde region and Glasgow.
    Earlier this month my hon. Friends the Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland and for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) and myself met the directors of Strathclyde passenger transport executive to discuss the transport situation in the region and in the city of Glasgow. It is perfectly clear that tremendous problems confront the PTE as a result of the 1985 Act. Because of this the travelling public of Strathclyde, which has half of Scotland's population, will also face tremendous problems.
    Present financial support from Strathclyde regional council for bus services operated by the PTE is about £8 million per annum, yet the 1985 Act requires the newly formed company to be viable year by year and only allows for the company to be funded on one occasion after reconstitution, with approval having to be given by the Secretary of State. Any further loss in any given year could give rise to the company being put into receivership. Presumably if that ever happened it would be swallowed up for a song by some asset-stripping entrepreneur. Even more restrictive is the fact that any proposal to the

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    Secretary of State showing a predicted loss will be rejected out of hand, and the new company will not be allowed to commence trading.
    The tremendous problem facing the PTE as a result of all this is perhaps best illustrated by stating that £1 million represents the average wage of approximately 100 employees or 2 million passengers carried for a 50p fare. If those figures are multiplied by eight, one can see the full horror of the scenario now facing Strathclyde PTE. Given the short amount of time available for the submission of a business plan, the end result has been the submission of a plan that means the closure of two garages—leaving only four garages in Glasgow—and the prospect of 574 redundancies in August and September. That is just for starters in an area that already has unacceptably high unemployment.
    A breakdown of those redundancies shows that 113 redundancies will be made in management and administration, 18 among engineering supervisors, 30 among inspectors, 171 among traffic staff, 125 among craftsmen, 84 among manual workers and 33 others. That represents a reduction in the number of employees from 3,247 to 2,673. Thus, 574 jobs are being thrown down the drain for no good reason. Where are most of those good people going to find jobs, particularly in Scotland? There is nowhere for them to go and there are no jobs for them to find. They have just been thrown on the scrapheap.
    One of the most objectionable aspects of the Act is that Strathclyde PTE and the other municipal operators in Scotland—in Grampian, Lothian and Tayside—are apparently being set up with a substantial compulsory form of debt, in order to prevent unfair competition with small operators. But as far as I am aware no such strictures are being imposed on the Scottish Bus Group. Yet compared with it, the PTE and others are very small. The PTE will operate about 560 peak-hour buses as against about 3,000 operated by the Scottish Bus Group. The bus group is really 11 separate companies, yet it is collectively one operator as far as competitive legislation is concerned. It will be able to have common ticketing, co-ordinated fares and other things that other companies will not be able to have. In addition, it has the tremendous advantage of having built up very substantial resources over the years, which it will be able to use to wage a low fares policy in an attempt to eliminate or take over its competitors' services.
    It is significant that the National Bus Company in England has not been given similar advantages, as far as I am aware, over its competitors. Why has the Scottish Bus Group been treated so favourably compared with every other operator in Scotland and England? The intention is simple. It is that the bus group should be able to gobble up as much as it can of Scotland's bus services. In a year or two it will then be privatised and sold off by the Government.
    Another nauseous aspect of the Act is its affect on employees, and in particular on their pensions. It is true, as Ministers said at the time, that existing employees may have their pensions protected. For example, Strathclyde PTE has made an application for admission to the local government superannuation scheme. But the business plan that has been prepared and submitted states that the preferred option for new employees is for a new superannuation scheme, which is extremely unlikely to be
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    capable of providing similar benefits. What a way to treat workers who will be doing the same job of work side by side, but who will be subject to two different types of pension scheme.
    In order to remain in business, many companies will be tempted to pay lower wages and to attack bus workers' wages and conditions. The Act could well have been devised to facilitate greater exploitation of workers by their employers. Perhaps that was the motive for it.
    I understand that 75 per cent. of existing services in Scotland have been registered and that the Scottish Bus Group has registered 81 per cent. of its services.
    That is an indication of how it intends to operate. But in the Highland region only 20 per cent. of existing services have been registered. How does the Minister explain that away? How will Highland region be able to subsidise the tendered services necessary to maintain a semblance of its existing services?
    Mr. David Mitchell: Where has the money been coming from to provide services on loss-making routes in that area?
    Mr. Marshall: I assume that the local authority has taken a positive decision to subsidise socially desirable and essential services. There is nothing wrong with that. It is both acceptable and desirable. But it will be impossible to do that to anything like the same extent in future, because the money will not be available.
    I do not know whether my next observation will prove true of other cities, but as a result of the Act, there will be utter chaos in Glasgow city centre. Is the Minister aware that in peak hours the number of buses using Argyll street, one of the busiest in Glasgow, will increase from 100 to 168 per hour? In Union street, the number will increase from 120 to 295 per hour, and in Hope street it will increase from 180 to a massive 309 per hour. That is only for the services that are already registered. As those three streets link up in the centre of the city, hon. Members can imagine the traffic jams that there will be. The city centre will come to a standstill. Timetables will mean nothing and utter chaos will result. The city will not be able to cope.
    The sad thing is that there will be no overall benefit to the bus operators, because there just are not enough passengers to fill those buses, or even to half-fill them. Many of the people will not be prepared to sit and wait for the amount of time that it will take to make even a short journey. It just will not work.
    There is great cause for concern about the position of British Rail in Strathclyde. It cannot plan ahead or estimate what effect bus deregulation will have on its income. A catastrophic drop in income, which could happen almost overnight, would mean many hundreds of extra redundancies. As Robbie Burns, the Scottish bard, once said:
    "Forward tho' I cannae see,
    I dread and fear."
    That admirably sums up the public transport situation.
    What is the Minister's assessment of the Act's effect on ferry services? He has now had enough time to assess the position. I can foresee many of the services that at present feed into the ferry services no longer operating. If the ferries become non-viable, will they be withdrawn, and will the islands be left with much more restricted services?

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    Deregulation day may be 26 October, but 26 January 1987 is an even more important day. We will then see just how many registered services are withdrawn after the initial three-month registration period. We will then see the full extent of the crisis in our public transport services as a result of the Act. As I have said, some chickens have already come home to roost. Thousands of jobs have been sacrificed on the altar of Tory party ideology. In the long term, no great benefit will accrue to the travelling public, although there may be short-term benefits. Yet again, the victims will be the most needy members of our society: the unemployed, the elderly, the young, the handicapped, the disabled, the non-drivers and the non-car owners. The Act must be committed to the wastebin by the next Labour Government.
    8.37 pm
    Mr. Martin M. Brandon-Bravo: One becomes accustomed to the hyperbole of motions, but I must comment on two aspects of today's motion. I could not help but smile at the reference to the abolition of the metropolitan councils. The Labour party has a cheek to insert that into the motion, as I believe that it is now in favour of their abolition and has no intention of reversing the clock. But I was also surprised to read of the
    "proven success of Labour transport policy".
    For most of the years between 1964 and 1979, a Labour Government had full responsibility, and the Opposition now have no right to lecture this Government on the problems of public transport.
    I wish to comment first on investment in road construction; secondly, on the disturbance from noise, vibration and other environmental disadvantages as a direct result of decisions taken by transport Ministers and, thirdly, on the impact of bus deregulation. I welcome the current substantial programme of road building and maintenance. It has been unfairly and unjustly under-played and unsung. It deserves all the praise that the House can give it.
    At the risk of being marginally parochial, I should like to comment on the current ministerial plans for the M42. Although this route may be primarily concerned with commercial transport, it has a direct impact on the motion because of the volume of public transport using the motorway. I understand that that motorway plans to deal with traffic flowing from the west midlands to the east and east coast ports. The perceived wisdom is that the M42 should join the M1 at exit 24. If one steps back a few paces and looks at the map of Britain, one sees clearly that there is no justification for that decision. If the traffic flows from the west midlands to the east coast ports on the Humber, it does not matter whether it joins the M1 at exits 23, 26 or even 27—the traffic would be moving north up the M1 and then to the Humberside ports. Traffic flowing to the growing ports on the East Anglian coast would wish to use exit 23 or lower exits because it would be travelling south of my home city of Nottingham. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will look again at his plans for the M42 and exit 24.
    Let us assume that the proposal is cast in tablets of stone and that the link will be at exit 24. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider on commercial and public transport grounds the six-mile stretch from junction 24 to the Nottingham boundary. That single track, six-mile stretch passes the largest solid fuel power station in
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    Europe, and horrendous accidents occur on it. If there is to be a dual carriageway, I plead for dualling from junction 24 to the city boundary.
    Whether or not my hon. Friend duals that six-mile stretch, he is committed to a major trunk road improvement on the A453 just outside and within the Nottingham city boundaries. The decision affects the public transport provision. If the improvements on the A453 result in a dual carriageway through or around the large estate of Clifton, it will have an impact on what is almost a small town, because 30,000 people live in the Clifton-Wilford-Silverdale area of Nottingham.
    I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for the extra time he has allowed to consider the matter and to look carefully at the competing alternatives. I thank him also for acknowledging clearly from day one the need for a public inquiry. I ask him to assure those 30,000 people that the inquiry will be open and conducted without prejudice.
    We cannot separate the disturbance caused by commercial traffic and heavy public transport traffic in Greater Nottingham with an urban population of 550,000. I understand the problems—they concern the statute of limitations, or whatever the phrase is—caused by roads being built before a certain date when the affected population receives no help. It is clear that, if new improvements, widening or reconstruction affect people living nearby, they have redress in law to obtain soundproofing and the like.
    What is the position of people who live near a main road that carries much commercial and public transport traffic? What happens if that road existed before the Act provided protection? I draw the attention of the House to decisions made some miles away by Ministers of Transport which have a direct bearing on the environment and against which people have no protection. I draw attention to another parochial case concerning the Silverdale and Wilford estates in my constituency through which a dual carriageway passes. Only a few years ago, a decision was made to build a bypass loop road to the east of the city deliberately to bring large volumes of traffic on to the dual carriageway. The homes of people on the estates shake, even on Sunday morning, yet they are told that they have no protection in law because the road existed before the bypass. The bypass is five miles away and they therefore receive no compensation. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to consider this matter again.
    I turn to the main part of the debate—the impact of deregulation. Reference has already been made to deregulation of motorway coaches, and I should like to refer to buses. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State pointed out, rightly, that it would appear from initial registration that we are dealing with 75 per cent. commercially viable, free, stand-alone, unsubsidised public transport services. I am delighted, because that 75 per cent. is better than we had hoped. In Nottingham, despite the horror stories and scare tactics which hon. Members on both sides of the House have noted month after month, 97 per cent. of existing services have been registered by Nottingham City Transport plc—so much for the so-called decimation of public transport under the legislation.
    Mr. Richard Caborn: Now let us see it work.
    Mr. Brandon-Bravo: Nottingham will make it work. In addition to the 97 per cent. registered by Nottingham

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    City Transport plc, one of the subsidiaries of the National Bus Company, Trent, has said that it, too, will take the opportunity to provide services into the city. The previous regulations did not allow it to do so.
    I again thank my hon. Friend the Minister for his treatment of concessionary fares. We have all heard the scare stories. My postbag is full of letters from elderly people who are terrified about what will happen when the legislation "stops" them from being given concessionary fares. It is clear that the concessionary fares scheme in Greater Nottingham will remain. Because other operators will be involved, the scheme will be even better. Unfortunately, that will be quickly forgotten. It is up to Conservative Members constantly to remind people of the shameful way in which the Opposition use every possible device—no matter how much anguish it causes the elderly—to peddle abuses.
    It is true that we have heard of loss of jobs. On paper—I say on paper—our undertaking will employ 100 fewer people than before. I stress that that is on paper because the staffing levels were something in excess of 1,100 persons. Of that so-called loss of 100 it transpires that 40 were unfilled vacancies and of the other 60, half have already been absorbed and the city will take the others, if necessary, into other jobs within the city council's employment. There is not the slightest risk of anybody being made redundant or the slightest difficulty in ensuring that everybody is employed. The 100 people that the new plc will not employ will mean lower costs.
    On the matter of socially desirable routes, it sounds as if there is only 3 per cent. to subsidise. To be fair, some of the 97 per cent. of registered routes may have a lower frequency. [Interruption.] I do not wish to mislead the House and the hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) should not be so juvenile. Within the existing budget of a city as large as Nottingham was £750,000 of blanket subsidy from the rates. All that will happen now is that that £750,000 will be used by careful, well targeted and specially allocated subsidies to tendered socially desirable routes. The hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay) laughs. I challenge him to question me because that is the truth.
    The scare campaigns go on. The citizens in our area were told that the wicked Transport Bill would cost the poor ratepayer £2·6 million extra on the rates. The Minister already has the details. Every single item on the list is phoney, because it is there already. Whether that Bill had become law or not the expenditure would have been part of the city's expenses on such things as pensions, administration, concessionary fares, debt charges, holiday pay, children's fares, concessions to the blind and disabled and so on. Every one of those items was a legitimate charge before the Bill and it is a perfectly legitimate charge afterwards. Nothing has changed. That is the way the scare stories go on.
    I hope that when the population look at the way in which the Transport Act 1985 will work out, certainly in my area, they will realise what a con game was carried out by the Labour county council and the Labour city council and will realise that the Act is good for them because it puts the customer first, not the local authority.
    8.52 pm
    Mr. Sydney Bidwell: The hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo) and the Secretary of State have alluded to what they claim to be a fictitious agitation and fear for the retention of free off-peak transport for old people in London and concessionary fares elsewhere. It was a legitimate fear. In fact, it was the most powerful lobby that London Members have experienced.
    For a long time, no assurances were given that the Government would seek to persuade local authorities to retain those concessions. If they were retained, it was as a result of a great deal of agitation and lobbying, mainly from the Labour movement and the Labour party. Those are the facts and most old people understand that in London and elsewhere. Therefore, the indignation we have heard is artificial.
    I bring to the debate a background, many years ago, as a railway worker. I am now sponsored by the Transport and General Workers Union and am currently the chairman of the TGWU group in Parliament, which is 31-strong. I speak with some authority on the feeling of the organised workers in the bus industry, other sectors of the transport industry and members of the TGWU. We organise over 90 per cent. of road traffic workers in public transport.
    I agree with the hon. Member for Nottingham, South about motorways and other major highways and about the safety of the transport sector which intertwines with the management and Government policies towards the nation's transport. Road haulage workers in the TGWU are responsible for the bulk of freight carried by road. They work by day and night. Their alertness at all times is vital to road safety, including passenger road safety. That is why the House must look with deep sympathy at their worry about the weakening of rest period provisions, which, although customary in the United Kingdom, are threatened from September by EEC regulations. Perhaps the Minister will mention that worry.
    The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) basically agrees with the Opposition's motion. He has agreed with members of the Select Committee on Transport on most of our criticisms of the Government's approach to transport especially with regard to the Transport Act, 1985, which has been freely alluded to in the debate. I understand that he cannot support us because he would have to bless Labour party policy. I imagine that is why he is prevented from joining us in the Lobby tonight.
    However, most of what the hon. Gentleman had to say underscores the agreement of the bulk of the members of the Select Committee. I say "the bulk", because the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. King), who is sitting on the Conservative Benches, did not agree with the majority of us on that Committee. Nonetheless, some of his hon. Friends and one Liberal Member joined us to spray considerable doubt and criticism on the Transport Act 1985. In fact, the Select Committee's painstaking report gave a great deal of ammunition to our spokesmen on the Bill. The report was authoritative and based on experience.
    Both the Opposition motions tonight disown the free-for-all basis of the Government's doctrinaire policies on transport. Years of experience, argument and discussion called for integration and co-ordination of all forms of

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    movement on wheels and in the air. In other words, there is a call for planning. Although "no real co-ordination" is the Minister's watchword, the reverse is called for by so many transport experts. That claim is supported by common sense and history.
    Some hon. Members, unfortunately not too many, will remember the pirate buses that operated in London. Experiences of that sub-standard system led to the creation of London Transport. Transport which puts people first requires public control for public purposes. That is the firm belief of the Transport and General Workers Union. It would be hard to find a member of that union with great experience of these matters who would come close to the Government's position on transport, although some must have voted for the Conservatives at the last general election. However, they must have been convinced by the Government acting under false pretences, but they would never dream of doing that now, when they consider the future for public transport.
    The full impact of the Government's policies on bus deregulation has yet to be felt, but the changes in subsidy are causing sharp increases in fares. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) who was a fellow member of the Select Committee. He takes the same view as I, that although the initial impact of deregulation, privatisation or the innovative services, may produce extra public services, in the long run they will not work. In the long run, they do not reduce car traffic, they will cause congestion.
    That is the simple logic of demand, needs and prices. The terraced streets of our major cities are being choked with cars, large and small. Ambulance and fire services cannot carry out their duties quickly. The congested roads mean more late arrivals at work, unpunctuality and less transport efficiency. Congestion wastes fuel and causes more wear and tear on those who require transport in their daily lives, especially those who work all hours of the night and day.
    Since I have had the honour of being sponsored by the TGWU, I have been proud to specialise in matters concerning road passenger industry workers. The bus and coach workers who are an important group, are very worried about pay, reasonable hours, and their pensions. Those matters have not been settled in the National Bus Company.
    I have already alluded to the massive redundancies that face those workers. They are worried about retaining their hard-won rights and they wish to be treated like decent human beings. They may not be so treated if the scale of privatisation envisaged by the Secretary of State goes ahead. The workers are worried about bus services, deregulation and the lowering of standards.
    I have been told today that it is important to consider the standard of the vehicles which will be used by the privatised companies. Those vehicles must be up to the mark to gain the necessary licence and the traffic commissioners' blessing. We must look carefully at the conditions in which some of these vehicles are kept. I ask the Secretary of State carefully to consider the way in which many of these privatised vehicles will be kept. That will have a bearing on the overheads of private enterprises which are in competition with public ownership, as the public sector must, under the existing regulations, ensure that vehicles are kept in decent garages and are properly maintained.
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    It is too early to judge the results of innovations. That was apparent when we visited the Worcester-Hereford trial area. Conservative Members should consult the leader of the Hereford Tory group on the Conservative-controlled Hereford county council to discover what the council thinks after its experience of bus deregulation. The Opposition have ventilated those points sufficiently in a previous debate.
    The Select Committee on Transport revealed wider opposition to the full aspects of the Transport Act 1985. With their fetish for privatisation, the Government have done nothing so far—not all Tory Members support that view, but it is certainly the belief of the guru who holds the office of Secretary of State for Transport—to allay the fears of transport workers. As the Opposition said, the Secretary of State has helped to bring about the defeat of the Tories at the coming municipal elections and at the next general election. The Labour party will provide transport for people and not simply for private profit. We believe that the latter weakens the trade union movement and the conditions of organised transport workers. Transport will be an issue at the general election as it has not been before to any profound degree. The issue will help us win a Labour victory, sanity for the people and justice for the transport workers.
    9.5 pm
    Mr. Roger King: The motion says:
    "That this House strongly condemns the Government for the crisis in public transport which is the direct result of de-regulation of bus services".
    However, total deregulation has not yet occurred. One cannot but think that the Opposition are trying to strike while there is much indecision and concern about the future prospects of public transport because after deregulation, when it is seen that all the fears were unfounded, it will be too late to present such a motion to the House.
    As we have heard, the Select Committee on Transport, of which I am a member, visited Hereford among other places to see the experiment of deregulation. Many lessons were learnt there, some good and some bad. One thing that we learnt was that people in that area were for once in their lives being treated as customers rather than as passengers. We saw what a difference that made to them and what elation there was. At long last they were wanted by the bus undertakings that were providing the service. It was a miracle.
    I shall never forget what was said by one Hereford lady. I think that she was a Liberal. Tut-tutting away, she said, "It really is a disgrace. The centre of Hereford is full of buses these days. We shall have to move the parking meters to make room for them." A Liberal—a person who I would have thought would be strongly in favour of a public transport system—was criticising the fact that car-parking space would have to be lost to accommodate the expanded bus service.
    Deregulation will cause some problems as experiments in the new way of providing passenger transport in our conurbations develop. However, I am convinced that the formula is correct both for our cities and for our rural areas. My hon. Friends have mentioned a number of successful experiments. Another one is taking place in Luton—well away from my constituency. It was described recently in The Sunday Times in an article

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    entitled "Fast lane for buses". It highlights a gentleman by the name of Bob Dudley, who runs a small minibus undertaking in that area. He is now making about £1,000 a week
    "from six smart blue and white vehicles."
    Mr. Dudley started his deregulated service earlier than most. According to the article:
    "Dudley is convinced that the change will bring more jobs to the bus industry. 'There is so much opportunity here and in other towns that for any coach operator to say that unemployment will result is a load of nonsense. An improved service will lead to more people using buses and more jobs.'
    This is happening in Luton. Dudley's six minibuses run every five or six minutes between the town centre and estates for a flat 20p fare (10p for children and pensioners) against the 45p municipal fare."
    The result is not surprising:
    "In two years the number of full-time drivers has increased from two to five, with four to five part-timers as back-up."
    Mr. Dudley says that if he could raise £100,000 capital he could operate another 20 buses profitably in the Luton area.
    Private operators are already successfully in the field in Exeter, the Isle of Wight, Worcester, Shrewsbury, and other places. Some of them are subsidiaries of the National Bus Company. They are proving successful in providing the services that the community requires. They are very different from the old monolothic undertakings with their fixed systems.
    Jobs have been provided in the bus industry in other ways. There is the manufacture of buses. Freight Rover in Birmingham is currently the subject of a takeover bid or management buy-out. I rang the management today and found that Freight Rover has 500 minibuses on order. It is working flat out to provide a new product for an expanding market. That is the future.
    The motion also discusses the future of the railway industry. The Opposition have criticised the railway for being rundown and neglected. I often wonder whether the Opposition ever bother to read any of the information that is published. Railnews is a testament to the achievement of management and unions and their acceptance and understanding of the future for the industry. The paper is full of good news. Line after line deals with expanding services and new products being introduced.
    Mr. Flannery: My train was an hour late yesterday.
    Mr. King: In 1979, when Labour went out of office, the Cambrian railway system, which runs from Shrewsbury to Machynlleth, Aberystwyth and Pwllheli was down and out. The speed limits were set at walking pace and there was old rolling stock. There was a total air of neglect and closure was threatening. What has happened after seven years of Tory Government?
    The line has been expanded and developed—there is new rolling stock, new equipment, new sprinter trains and the reintroduction, for the first time in many years, of a through service from Pwllheli along the old Cambrian coast express. That is one example of a rural railway which has been totally revitalised as a result of the Government's policies of investment and the encouragement of investment in the railways.
    It is good news all the way. Journey times from Lincolnshire, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, the east and west midlands and north Wales will be as much as 20 minutes quicker as a result of new rolling stock. There has
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    been an improvement of 40 minutes in the journey time of one Cambrian coast line train. There are new trains to Nottingham and Sheffield, and there will be a two-hourly sprinter service. Thanks to the Government's support, help is on the way for the hon. Member for Sheffield. Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery). The hon. Gentleman's train may have been late today, but, starting soon, it will be on time thanks to the investment that the Government are bringing to the railways.
    The policy of the Government is simple—the passenger is no longer just the passenger, but has become the customer. He has the freedom of choice to decide how he will travel. The customer will dictate the level of services and where those services go. The response from the railway and the bus industries—sometimes lethargic—is that they have awakened to the fact that competition means a revitalised industry and many new opportunities. Management buy-outs are thrusting their way forward to obtain the bus industry from its present management. That augurs well for the future of public transport in this country.
    9.12 pm
    Mr. Bob Clay: I served on the Standing Committee which dealt with the Transport Act 1985. I have had some difficulty in trying to work out how the Government will answer for the rubbish that was discussed in Committee, given the reality of the situation.
    I have found this evening's debate staggering, although I must confess that the Government have been ingenious. There have been few times when Government predictions have become so unstuck so quickly, yet they talk as though nothing had happened.
    I do not think that The Economist is a Marxist journal or even a Labour party journal. Last week's edition discussed deregulation and, in contrast to this evening's speeches, it said:
    "Unavoidably, there will be some muddle on the roads. That's competition. Some unprofitable services will end. That's Government policy. But already there is avoidable muddle in preparing for deregulation, and more services may collapse than even the Government intends. That's Whitehall."
    That contrasts strongly with the nonsense and the pure mythology which we have heard from the Government this evening.
    I make no apology for speaking for my own area because I think that the Tyne and Wear transport system is a system of which not everyone in Tyne and Wear can be proud, but the Labour party and the Labour movement can be proud. In my area fares have increased by 20 per cent.—a 20 per cent. increase on a low fare policy. Yet the Government claim that they are bringing in policies to reduce fares. There have been hundreds of redundancies and the misery and confusion of deregulation. Mr. Martin Ballinger, the general manager of Northern General Transport, who is not a great friend of the Labour party so far as I am aware, said recently in public that from the point of view of bus management, deregulation is like playing darts in the dark.
    It is disgraceful that tonight the Secretary of State and many of his supporters have tried to give the impression that on average 75 per cent. of all existing services have been registered commercially. That is not so. It is possible that 75 per cent. of the routes have been registered. I shall pass on with interest and malicious pleasure to the people living on estates in my constituency and to other people

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    living on estates in the Sunderland and Tyne and Wear area, who do not have the benefit of any registered bus services and who have enjoyed until now a bus frequency of up to eight buses an hour, the fact that the Secretary of State has said that 75 per cent. of the services have been registered commercially. Their services have not been registered commercially. No buses have been running on a Sunday, or on weekdays after 7 o'clock at night.
    In some cases the existing route has been registered, but where there used to be a bus every 10, seven, or even three minutes an hour on some of the busiest corridors, only two or, at the very most, four buses an hour are now running. That has to be contrasted with the nonsense that we have heard from Conservative Members about minibuses. If the orders from one of the major manufacturers of minibuses in this country have increased by only 500 as a result of the Government's policies, Conservative Members ought to be worried. They have no conception of the number of vehicles that are required to carry public transport passengers in urban areas that enjoy good public transport policies.
    Mr. Caborn: I served on the Standing Committee with my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Clay). Does he realise that, since we served on that Committee, the Secretary of State has taken a great delight in ripping the centre out of the South Yorkshire passenger transport authority, that since 1 April fares have increased between 250 and 300 per cent., that use of the buses has fallen by 35 per cent. and that this has had a profound effect upon the community in south Yorkshire? We have been told by the committee that is running the transport service that the works services are not being registered. The price increase now being paid by each family is between £7 and £10 a week. That throws into disarray the argument that the Secretary of State lodged against the South Yorkshire passenger transport authority.
    Mr. Clay: I agree with my hon. Friend. I was a great admirer of the south Yorkshire system. As a bus worker I watched the success of that system and argued successfully for the introduction of a similar system in my area. It breaks my heart to hear those figures about south Yorkshire. It also breaks my heart that although in my area, which enjoyed the second lowest fares in the country after south Yorkshire, the overall fare increase so far has been only—I say "only" because of the comparison with south Yorkshire—20 per cent., the 5p flat fare for children has already been doubled from 5p to 10p. Conservative Members may say, "What is a 5p increase?" If a family with two children makes one return journey a day for five days a week, that fare increase alone will cost the family £2 more each week. That is before taking into account the increase in adult fares.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, North referred to the fact that no works journeys have been registered in south Yorkshire. That also applies to the Sunderland area of Tyne and Wear. Nobody has registered the existing works journeys that carry people to and from the shipyards, the pits and Rolls-Royce. They will not be registered because they are not regarded as commercially viable.
    It is a myth to say that 75 per cent. of the existing services have been registered. The bus mileage will be way below the previous figure. It is not the people who see public transport as a profit-making operation, but the
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    people who depend on it in the evenings, on Sundays, very early in the morning, when it is the only way that they can get to work, who will suffer as a result of this—unless, of course, the passenger transport authority can put more money into providing a massive range of subsidies because it cannot have the cross-subsidy that it has depended on until now.
    Mr. Caborn: Will my hon. Friend give way?
    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: Not again.
    Mr. Caborn: Have you finished?
    Mrs. Kellett-Bowman: There are other hon. Members who want to speak.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Order. Hon. Members should address the Chair.
    Mr. Caborn: Does my hon. Friend know that in south Yorkshire where 64 per cent. of the routes have been registered, only 31·6 per cent. of the total registered mileage is included in that 64 per cent? I think that underlines the point that has been made.
    Mr. Clay: That is one of the most revealing statistics that has been given tonight, and it gives the lie to the empty propaganda that we have heard from the Government Benches.
    Mr. Flannery: Sheer lies.
    Mr. Clay: My hon. Friend, from a sedentary position, has used an unparliamentary expression which I would be extremely tempted to use myself, but I want to move on.
    It is hypocritical of the Government to make the point that even those parts of the services that are not registered—they claim that it is only 25 per cent., but we argue that it is more—can be subsidised by the local authority.
    Tyne and Wear has had a 17 per cent. increase in its precept for public transport. That is very interesting given that the Government argued—this is another matter that we have been debating tonight—that the abolition of the metropolitan counties would save rates. We have a situation in which the passenger transport authority in my own area has already had to increase its precept for public transport by 17 per cent., despite the fact that the abolished county council had held the overall precept, including that for public transport, steady for two years. That precept will have to be increased even more in the future when the full reality of what will need to be subsidised dawns on people later this year.
    The whole theme of what we have heard from the Government tonight has been minibuses, and this sums up the argument. I ask myself what this country would look like—it is laughable if one thinks about it—if we were seriously to consider running public transport systems on the basis of minibuses. I have nothing against minibuses. I wrote a pamphlet with some mild criticisms of my own much admired and respected PTE some years ago suggesting that it might buy a few minibuses. I wish that it had, and no doubt it now will.
    It was not the Government who thought up minibuses; they came in long before the Act. Minibuses are very good for an estate which has not a large number of people using public transport, and in rural areas in some cases, but the idea that the cities of this country—London, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle, Sunderland,

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    Edinburgh, Glasgow—can have a public transport system in which minibuses play anything more than a very peripheral part is an absolute absurdity.
    The tragedy is that, because of the abolition of the metropolitan counties, the withdrawal of subsidy, deregulation, the chaos that is being created, the demoralisation, and the way passengers are being driven away from public transport, in those areas such as Tyne and Wear and south Yorkshire, where ridership had gone up, we may end with third or fourth-rate public transport systems in which the Government have achieved their objective and the only public transport is minibuses because hardly anybody else is in a position to provide or use public transport. That seems to me to be the final irony of the Government's obsession with minibuses.
    It is a mini-policy for public transport and I hope that my hon. Friends will not only support the Opposition motion tonight but be determined to carry out its sentiments and rebuild, when we have a Labour Government, on the lines of the inspiring example of areas such as Tyne and Wear and south Yorkshire.
    9.25 pm
    Mr. Tom Sackville: I should like to speak about Greater Manchester, of which my constituency forms a part. There has been a spate of inaccurate information aimed at scaring the public, especially the elderly, about cuts in bus routes. It is a malicious campaign and those responsible for it should be ashamed of themselves. My local newspaper, the Bolton Evening News, said on 9 April under the headline:
    "Going, going, gone!
    More than one tenth of the bus services now running in Greater Manchester will disappear on Oct 25".
    The paper tells us that out of 600 routes now operating, 439 have been registered, and on the same page there is a quote from an executive of the PTA who says:
    "100 communities … stand to lose all public transport".
    When we look to see how those figures are arrived at, it becomes clear that there is a suggestion that because a service has not been registered the people in the area will lose public transport. That is a mischievously inaccurate suggestion that is designed purely to scare the most vulnerable members of the public.
    It is said in slightly more rational statements by Labour politicians that a subsidy of £15·5 million is available for the remaining routes, and that even with an 11 per cent. increase in fares there will be an £8 million shortfall. We are told that only by cutting 10 per cent. of the routes can that shortfall be made up. We are asked to believe that no possible savings can be made in operating costs. That is plainly nonsense.
    Greater Manchester PTE bus unit costs are some 25 per cent. higher than average bus costs in other metropolitan areas. The assumption by the Opposition and apparently by officers of the PTE is that, in spite of this clear evidence of extravagant and wasteful management, there is no scope for major savings. Clearly, savings are possible in labour costs. There are absurd and unnecessary overtime agreements in some depots, and savings can be made in servicing and in repairs and maintenance. During the debate we heard how immense savings have been made by London Regional Transport with only a minuscule
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    reduction in passenger mileage. Is it seriously suggested that it is not possible to make savings in Greater Manchester transport?
    To make up the alleged £8 million shortfall would require only a 5 per cent reduction in costs. This does not even take into account the operating surpluses on many of the routes already registered to be operated by Greater Manchester buses. Is there a business in Britain that cannot make a 5 per cent. saving on costs? In the last few years, British industry has found cost savings of 10, 20 or 30 per cent., yet in the case of a top-heavy municipal transport undertaking we are asked to believe that it cannot even find 5 per cent.
    Why have local politicians, especially the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) bought this claptrap from the officers of the PTE? It is because in most municipal enterprises, the political masters have no commercial experience. When the politicians are told by managers who do not want to upset their own comfortable existence that they are running a lean and efficient operation and can make no savings, they do not have the ability or the will to disagree with them, even though the absurdity of the argument is staring them in the face. What do they do? They give up before they even start and resort to playing politics in the press, scaring local people, especially the elderly and the less well off, about withdrawals, first, of concessionary fares—which turned out to be nonsense—and now about necessary services.
    I am not saying that there will be no withdrawal of services in Greater Manchester. The Greater Manchester PTE has not been particularly successful in the past in matching services to demand and it may well be that services which should have been reduced in the past now will be. But there is no reason why any socially necessary routes should be cut. If they are, it is thanks to the failure of locally elected members and local management to do their job, to come up to date and to provide an efficient transport enterprise for the bus users of Greater Manchester.
    9.29 pm
    Mr. Robert Hughes: This has been a debate with two halves. Conservative Members have loyally supported the Minister although here and there an occasional apprehension of what might happen has crept through even some of their laudatory speeches. On the other hand, my hon. Friends have spoken with deep feeling about the realities of the situation, as they are advised, not by politicians, as the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville) said, but by professionals with years of experience in running municipal transport. The facts have been given to us by those who know the business. An American once said to me: "You are entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts." The facts of the matter are quite clear.
    The Department of Transport has been one of the most prolific, if not the most prolific, in begetting of legislation. Since the Government came to power, 33 Acts of Parliament have been put on the statute book by the Department of Transport, 16 of which have a direct effect on public transport. Ministers from the Department of Transport are the perpetual stars of the television programme, "It will be all right on the night", that famous programme of goofy clips. Here we are, 33 takes later, and their performance is getting worse not better.

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    The Government's response to the Opposition's motion is curious because it begins, "Leave out from 'House'". But if one reads the Government's amendment one finds that they have reinstated many of the words in the original motion. They have reinstated the words:
    "which are based upon choice, freedom and fairness to improve the quality of life for the whole community and particularly for those who depend entirely upon public transport."
    In other words, the Government are wholly converted to Labout party policies and have adopted them as their own. The Emperor of Marsham street is now fully clothed. One hopes that he will now venture out into the cold real world of transport which he has created, and perhaps look at his transport legislation, repeal it and make a fresh beginning.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott) spent most of his speech discussing bus passenger transport, and I want to spend a few minutes on British Rail, not least because some challenges have been made about investment figures. The Government have boasted about their investment in British Rail. The Minister said that the Government have given British Rail all the cash it wanted. Indeed, they have boasted again tonight about their investment programme.
    The Minister challenged me to find the figures to prove otherwise. I always like to respond to a challenge but when I do so I like to look at the facts. I do not want to quote facts from any Labour party handouts but from the Secretary of State himself. I am sure that he will accept the accuracy of those figures. In 1984 he replied to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott) about investment in British Rail, giving figures for each year since 1979 at 1983 prices—in other words, at constant prices, giving a true comparison, like for like. He said that total investment in British Rail in 1979 was £539 million; in 1980 it was £525 million; in 1981 £451 million, and in 1982 £345 million. Certainly 1983 was projected at £380 million. Where has the great increase in investment come from? Those figures show a continual decline in the four years since the Government took office. Those are the facts. They are the Secretary of State's own figures which he cannot challenge, unless he has been lying in Hansard, and, of course, he would not do that, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
    Moreover, figures in British Rail's latest corporate plan show, again at constant prices, that when the Government came to office in 1979 there was a large reduction in investment in British Rail from 1979 until 1982. It is true that investment is due to rise for the next few years, but the fact is that averaged over the period between 1979 and 1986 during this Government's period of office, average investment in British Rail has been lower than the amount invested in British Rail by the Labour Government between 1974 and 1979. Indeed, investment averaged out at a lower rate during the Labour Government's period. Actually, investment went up and remained relatively stable until we left office. There is the true comparison, like with like. The Secretary of State has been seeking to give misleading figures.
    From 1985–86, a bit of upturn is projected. That is supposed to peak in 1987–88, and to fall again between 1990 and 1991 to below the figure which the Labour Government achieved between 1974 and 1979.
    Far from my hon. Friend from Wigan passing me a poisoned chalice, what he has passed me, being a good rugby man, is the ball, so that I can score a try.
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    If we go further into these investments, what we have to look at as well, is what British Rail in 1981 projected as its investment programme after the Government announced that there was to be a 25 per cent. reduction in support for British Rail.
    The 1981 projection for 1983 was £495 million. The 1983 projection for the same year was £279 million. The 1984 projection was £525 million, as compared to £357 million. For 1985, it was supposed to be £535 million. It was reduced to £430 million. In 1986 British Rail said that it wanted £564 million, and under the 1981 projection, the 1983 projection was £406 million. In 1987 it was supposed to be £573 million. The 1983 projection was £400 million. In 1988 it projected that in 1981 it would want £565 million. In 1983, the revised projection was £350 million. In every one of these cases the projection was substantially lower than the projection in 1981.
    That is the true measure of how British Rail has had to respond to Government cuts in investment plans. We spend only 0·32 per cent. of GNP as compared with other railway countries, such as Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Holland, Switzerland and West Germany, which spend 0·76 per cent.
    If people want to look for mitigating factors, I have no doubt that Ministers would say, "Well, of course, it is all right to reduce these projections, because there would have been a reappraisal of needs. British Rail performance exceeded expectations, and there was no need for investment." I need quote only one document to show the utter fallacy of that excuse. The transport users' consultative committee for the north-east of England, published a document in February 1986 which, in the introduction by Mr. James Towler the chairman, says:
    "I derive no satisfaction in reporting a big increase (33 per cent.) in the number of complaints we received regarding British Rail services during 1985; nor in reflecting on the many examples of unimaginative timetabling, incomprehensible fares and poor information relating to trains that were often overcrowded, dirty and late."
    It gives me no satisfaction either to quote this sort of thing. The document goes on:
    "Sadly, this represents a continuing trend which has accelerated during the last three years and is a matter of great concern. It coincides with a measure of success on the part of British Rail towards meeting their objective of a 25 per cent. cut in the Passenger Service Obligation by 1987. This suggests that rail users are bearing the brunt of economies as British Rail managers strive to meet their cost reduction targets.
    My overriding concern is whether British Rail, in its eagerness to achieve financial targets agreed with central Government, can also meet its commitment to provide a reasonable service for its passengers".
    So say all of us.
    Of course, it is not only the passenger who will have to pay the price. Other people who have paid the price for British Rail are the railwaymen who have lost their jobs because of cuts in the work force. There were 182,000 employed in British Rail in 1979; that is down to 144,000. We have all heard from the Government that the object of the exercise is to slim down the work force so that British Rail can be leaner and fitter. The truth is that the patient is suffering from anorexia.
    On the bus passenger side, the Secretary of State answered not a single charge made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wigan. The Secretary of State spoke in blissful ignorance of the facts. He cannot deny that. Sadly, many of my hon. Friends could not speak in the debate, but when they have put down questions asking for information about specific areas, the answer they have got

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    is, "I do not know." The Secretary of State has said that he does not know the facts, yet he has the nerve to give the House today a rosy picture of how everything will turn out.
    Hon. Members have described how difficult things will be. The Highland region of Scotland has been quoted. Only 20 per cent. of its services have been registered. The Secretary of State is in blissful ignorance not only of what is happening in the localities but also about what the Secretary of State for the Environment is doing; he has cut the money available to local authorities. They have been rate-capped. They have been savaged by local authority auditors and taken to court.
    All the professional advice we have is that services will be cut, fares will increase, and there will be more redundancies. I am told that the National Bus Company is sitting on over 7,000 redundancies, in addition to the 20,000 which have been mentioned by the Secretary of State. Enormous costs will be involved. We have been told that the Secretary of State will bale out new companies which will take over NBC subsidiaries; the Government will subsidise the redundancy payments. It is a disgrace if new companies are to be given such a start.
    The Secretary of State may have a point when he says that we cannot know what will happen. That is true, because October is some time away. All the evidence is that the position will be much worse than the Secretary of State has suggested. There is not a large number of new companies coming forward. At night, on Sundays and in the early mornings there will not be services. Where companies were operating in competition with one another to provide hourly services, the services will run within five minutes of each other at peak times, but at off-peak times there will be no buses. Where services previously operating between A and B have gone off the main road into villages to pick up passengers, that will cease; the services will run directly from A to B.
    Private bus operators have told me that they believe the competition will be so cut-throat that safety standards will be threatened. They have told me that they would rather go out of business than run on that basis. The Secretary of State has brought forward a cowboys' charter.
    In his amendment, the Secretary of State has apparently adopted Labour party policy objectives, but it is a smokescreen for his true philosophy. He expounded that philosophy with great frankness and candour, for which I pay him credit, when he went to the annual dinner of the Bus and Coach Council. Having gone through the different legislative measures, he said to bus operators, "You are now free to operate without the constraints of the social conscience." That means that the elderly, women and children are going to suffer. We know that the Secretary of State has no social conscience. That is why he will be condemned, and that is why the House should support the motion.
    9.44 pm
    The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Mr. David Mitchell): When the Conservatives introduced choice and competition on the long-distance coach services, the Opposition proclaimed disaster, and, in the transition from the old to the new system, they endlessly prophesied crises. They were wrong, and now everybody can see that they were wrong.
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    There has been more investment in long-distance coaches, not less. There are more long distance services, not fewer. There are more jobs and more coaches, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Hayward) demonstrated. There are more passengers and there are lower fares. All these benefits have come from choice and from competition.
    Mr. Flannery: It is not true.
    Mr. Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman may say that it is not true. I shall write to him with the facts and figures so that he can see that what I have said to the House is absolutely accurate.
    It is extraordinary that the Opposition have learnt absolutely nothing. They are back on the same proclamations of disaster and the same prophecies of crises as we start to introduce choice and competition for local bus services.
    The background to the debate is twofold. First, there is the local election campaign and the Opposition's intended use of today as an opportunity of further misrepresentation and scandalmongering designed to frighten people into believing that they will lose bus services. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Sackville) gave a good example of that from his local newspaper.
    I should perhaps remind the House that we are in the middle of transition from the old system of monopoly to a system of choice and competition. The transition involves two separate stages. The first was the registration of the profitable commercial viable routes by 28 February, and they were published on 1 April by the traffic commissioners. What Opposition Members have been doing is pretending that that is the end of the story and that what is registered as a commercial route represents all the services that will be run. They know perfectly well that there is a second phase to transition. This is the phase when substantial sums are made available to the councils and local authorities concerned, and the joint boards, to buy in services on the socially necessary routes that have not been registered, and the people on those routes will have the certitude of a service and a contract with their county council or PTE.
    Against that background, I deplore the deliberate misrepresentations of the facts by the hon. Member for Wigan (Mr. Stott). Every Member in the Chamber heard him refer to west Derbyshire. I had to drag out of him the fact that the list of services that he read out with such relish, implying a huge cutback, was only of registered services. The hon. Gentleman ought to be ashamed of himself for behaving in that way. [Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman went on to say, "We were beginning to get it right." I suppose that that refers to the chronic decline in bus services, with more subsidies, higher fares, and fewer passengers in recent years.
    Mr. Stott: Can the hon. Gentleman tell me where there has been any chronic decline in the PTE areas in the last 12 years? The chronic decline in public transport has been in the rural areas, where Conservative-controlled councils have put no money into public transport.
    Mr. Mitchell: I shall be happy to deal with that shortly, because an important point comes out of what the hon. Gentleman has said.

    265
    The inefficiencies bred by the monopoly system have meant higher fares in the shire counties, and the bill has been passed on to the ratepayers in the metropolitan counties in a scandalous fashion.
    When the hon. Gentleman says, "We were beginning to get it right," I do not think anybody seeing the decline that has taken place—certainly not the 20,000 National Bus Company employees who have lost their jobs in the last decade—would say that the hon. Gentleman was beginning to get it right.
    The hon. Gentleman made a rather cheap reference to my alleged failure to answer a parliamentary question. He suggested that I had wilfully withheld information from the House. We could have given the vehicle mile figure from the fuel duty rebate statistics, but that was not the question that I was asked. I was asked for the route miles, which is quite different—
    Mr. Stott: No.
    Mr. Mitchell: There is a great deal of difference between route miles and the amount of miles run by vehicles on the routes. We do not have the figures for which the hon. Gentleman asked—[Interruption.] We do not have them.
    The hon. Gentleman claimed that disaster faces the Greater Manchester council area and the PTE in tackling deregulation. Perhaps he knows—but perhaps he does not—that Mr. Hickman, the chairman of the Greater Manchester council transport committee last year told a conference that 90 per cent. of routes needed subsidy—that is, only 10 per cent. were commercial. Now, so great is the improvement in efficiency that has already been wrought by the approach of competition that 56 per cent. of routes have been registered—not 10 per cent., but 56 per cent. Truly the galvanising effect of competition is even greater than I had hoped.
    Another example is West Yorkshire, where last year 55 per cent. of routes were in need of subsidy. Now, 70 per cent. of bus mileage has been registered as commercial network. That is not conclusive, but it has meant a remarkable reduction in cost to make those routes competitive.
    The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes) referred to investment in British Rail. He made an unintended mistake. He said that he was scoring a try, but he will have to try harder. He quoted the level of investment on the ground, but if he looks at the figures for approval for investment, which is what comes to the Government and some time later appears on the ground as actual investment, he will see a different picture from that which he described.
    The real question is how many applications for investment Ministers have turned down. It is for British Rail to propose and for Ministers to dispose. I have turned down only one application from British Rail—for electrification between Royston and Cambridge. In giving the go-ahead to the electrification of the east coast main line, we have given the go-ahead to the largest single electrification investment in British Rail for 25 years. The hon. Gentleman should take that into the score.
    The hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Ross) asked whether the NBC managements would have preference with buy-outs. I am glad of the opportunity to clarify the position. Where bids from employees and third parties are broadly comparable, preference will be given to employee bids. I hope that a large number of them will be successful.
    266
    The hon. Gentleman referred to the Tyne and Wear system as an integrated system that would come to an end—
    Mr. Stephen Ross: No.
    Mr. Mitchell: I may have misunderstood. I shall make the position clear.
    The integrated system on Tyne and Wear depends upon the metro and the feeder routes coming into it. If those feeder routes are not provided commercially, they can be provided by the PTE under the tendering system. Either way, the integrity of the system—that is the feeder routes and the metro—can remain intact while people want it. The implication of the hon. Gentleman's remarks is the exceedingly illiberal thought that people should not be allowed to use other services and other means of transport, even if that is what they would prefer.
    The hon. Gentleman asked what would happen to Eastleigh, and said that British Rail would need a major works in the South. I have no information to suggest that British Rail does not intend to maintain a major works at Eastleigh. I met a deputation yesterday led by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Sir D. Price) and including a large number of people from the works. I undertook to convey some very sensible points that they put to me to the management of British Rail, and a letter doing so will be on its way tomorrow.
    The hon. Gentleman asked about the Settle-Carlisle line and tourism. My noble Friend the Secretary of State for Employment has recently been drawing attention to the valuable opportunities for exploiting the railway system as a means of enabling tourists to see the scenic beauty of parts of the country.
    Mr. Dalyell rose—
    Mr. Mitchell: I assure the hon. Gentleman that when we receive the transport users consultative committee's two reports we will consider the hardship matters to which tey draw attention, as well as the wider areas such as tourism and other matters raised in questions in the House yesterday.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham. South (Mr. Brandon-Bravo) raised important matters affecting roads in that area. I shall ask my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State—the hon. Member for Eltham (Mr. Bottomley)—who deals with that matter to write to my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend also referred to terrified elderly people who were led to believe that concessionary fares would disappear. I join him in his condemnation of the way in which the Labour party has used—in the worst sense of the word—elderly people and frightened them into believing that they would lose their concessionary fares. I believe that the Labour party will live to regret its misrepresentation, because there will be a boomerang effect. Many people who have been frightened will know that the Labour party misled them and will not forget that when they cast their votes.
    The latest scare campaign in Nottingham involves the suggestion of a huge increase in financial liabilities. In circumstances such as that an accountant is needed as chairman of the transportation committee, and I can only imagine that in Nottingham there is a turf accountant.
    The hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Mr. Marshall) referred to increases in the number of bus services causing congestion in Glasgow. Those services

    267
    are registered because operators believe that they can fill the buses, and that will mean fewer cars and less congestion.
    Finally, I refer to the central point of the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North. The most extraordinary feature of the debate is the Opposition motion, which refers to Labour's transport policy as being based on choice, freedom and fairness. The Labour party must be joking. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw that. The fact is that the Labour party has carried out extensive market and survey research to discover what the voters want, and has found that they want choice, freedom and fairness, but which party would produce it?
    Let us consider which party's policy gives more choice. The Government's policy is for competing services, but this has often been attacked as wasteful duplication. Many leaflets were distributed showing a queue of buses and people trying to decide which one to catch. Does that or the Labour policy give the better choice? The Labour party supports local monopoly and a regulated system, with one operator on the route. Under that policy there is no choice for the operator or for the passenger. How can the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North say that that is a policy of choice?
    Let us consider fairness. Where was the fairness in a system that denied those who paid, either as passengers or ratepayers, the improvement in efficiency that competition brings? Where was the fairness in a system in which the cost falling on ratepayers in the shire counties averaged £5·20 a head? In the metropolitan counties the cost to ratepayers averaged £36·60 a head, and in South Yorkshire it was £60 a head for every man, woman and child in the county. Where was the fairness in a system that imposed so great a burden on the rates in some parts of the country that businesses were scared away, with consequent higher unemployment and an increased burden for everyone?
    Mr. Allen Adams rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
    Question, That the Question be now put, put and agreed to.
    Question put accordingly, That the original words stand part of the Question:—
    The House divided: Ayes 162, Noes 251.

    Division No. 152]

    [10.00 pm

    AYES

    Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

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

    Anderson, Donald

    Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

    Archer, Rt Hon Peter

    Buchan, Norman

    Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

    Caborn, Richard

    Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

    Callaghan, Rt Hon J.

    Bagier, Gordon A. T.

    Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd & M)

    Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

    Campbell, Ian

    Barnett, Guy

    Campbell-Savours, Dale

    Barron, Kevin

    Canavan, Dennis

    Beckett, Mrs Margaret

    Carter-Jones, Lewis

    Bell, Stuart

    Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

    Benn, Rt Hon Tony

    Clarke, Thomas

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

    Clay, Robert

    Bermingham, Gerald

    Clelland, David Gordon

    Bidwell, Sydney

    Clwyd, Mrs Ann

    Blair, Anthony

    Cocks, Rt Hon M. (Bristol S)

    Boothroyd, Miss Betty

    Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

    Boyes, Roland

    Corbett, Robin

    Bray, Dr Jeremy

    Corbyn, Jeremy

    Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

    Craigen, J. M.

    Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

    Crowther, Stan

    268

    Cunliffe, Lawrence

    Marshall, David (Shettleston)

    Dalyell, Tam

    Martin, Michael

    Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (L'lli)

    Mason, Rt Hon Roy

    Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

    Maxton, John

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

    Maynard, Miss Joan

    Deakins, Eric

    Meacher, Michael

    Dixon, Donald

    Michie, William

    Dobson, Frank

    Mikardo, Ian

    Dormand, Jack

    Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

    Douglas, Dick

    Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

    Dubs, Alfred

    Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

    Duffy, A. E. P.

    Nellist, David

    Eadie, Alex

    O'Brien, William

    Eastham, Ken

    O'Neill, Martin

    Evans, John (St. Helens N)

    Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

    Ewing, Harry

    Park, George

    Faulds, Andrew

    Patchett, Terry

    Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

    Pavitt, Laurie

    Fisher, Mark

    Pendry, Tom

    Flannery, Martin

    Pike, Peter

    Forrester, John

    Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

    Foster, Derek

    Prescott, John

    Foulkes, George

    Radice, Giles

    Fraser, J. (Norwood)

    Randall, Stuart

    George, Bruce

    Raynsford, Nick

    Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

    Redmond, Martin

    Godman, Dr Norman

    Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)

    Gould, Bryan

    Richardson, Ms Jo

    Gourlay, Harry

    Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

    Hamilton, James (M'well N)

    Roberts, Ernest (Hackney N)

    Harman, Ms Harriet

    Robinson, G. (Coventry NW)

    Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

    Rooker, J. W.

    Haynes, Frank

    Sedgemore, Brian

    Healey, Rt Hon Denis

    Sheerman, Barry

    Heffer, Eric S.

    Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

    Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

    Shore, Rt Hon Peter

    Holland, Stuart (Vauxhall)

    Short, Ms Clare (Ladywood)

    Home Robertson, John

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

    Hoyle, Douglas

    Silkin, Rt Hon J.

    Hughes, Dr Mark (Durham)

    Skinner, Dennis

    Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

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

    Hughes, Roy (Newport East)

    Stott, Roger

    Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

    Strang, Gavin

    Janner, Hon Greville

    Straw, Jack

    John, Brynmor

    Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

    Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

    Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

    Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

    Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)

    Lambie, David

    Thorne, Stan (Preston)

    Lamond, James

    Tinn, James

    Leadbitter, Ted

    Torney, Tom

    Leighton, Ronald

    Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

    Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

    Wareing, Robert

    Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

    Weetch, Ken

    Lofthouse, Geoffrey

    White, James

    McCartney, Hugh

    Wigley, Dafydd

    McDonald, Dr Oonagh

    Williams, Rt Hon A.

    McKay, Allen (Penistone)

    Winnick, David

    McKelvey, William

    Young, David (Bolton SE)

    MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

    McTaggart, Robert

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Madden, Max

    Mr. Chris Smith and

    Marek, Dr John

    Mr. John McWilliam

    NOES

    Adley, Robert

    Benyon, William

    Aitken, Jonathan

    Biffen, Rt Hon John

    Alexander, Richard

    Biggs-Davison, Sir John

    Amess, David

    Blackburn, John

    Ancram, Michael

    Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Arnold, Tom

    Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

    Ashby, David

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Aspinwall, Jack

    Bottomley, Peter

    Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

    Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

    Atkins, Robert (South Ribble)

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

    Atkinson, David (B'm'th E)

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

    Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

    Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

    Brandon-Bravo, Martin

    Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

    Bright, Graham

    Bellingham, Henry

    Brinton, Tim

    Bendall, Vivian

    Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

    269

    Brooke, Hon Peter

    Heddle, John

    Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

    Henderson, Barry

    Browne, John

    Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

    Buck, Sir Antony

    Hickmet, Richard

    Budgen, Nick

    Hicks, Robert

    Bulmer, Esmond

    Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

    Burt, Alistair

    Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

    Butcher, John

    Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

    Butler, Rt Hon Sir Adam

    Holt, Richard

    Butterfill, John

    Hordern, Sir Peter

    Carlisle, John (Luton N)

    Howard, Michael

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

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

    Carttiss, Michael

    Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

    Cash, William

    Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)

    Channon, Rt Hon Paul

    Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N)

    Chapman, Sydney

    Hubbard-Miles, Peter

    Chope, Christopher

    Hunt, David (Wirral W)

    Churchill, W. S.

    Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

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

    Hunter, Andrew

    Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

    Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

    Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

    Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

    Cockeram, Eric

    Jones, Robert (Herts W)

    Colvin, Michael

    Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

    Conway, Derek

    Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

    Coombs, Simon

    King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

    Cope, John

    Knight, Greg (Derby N)

    Couchman, James

    Knowles, Michael

    Cranborne, Viscount

    Knox, David

    Crouch, David

    Lang, Ian

    Currie, Mrs Edwina

    Latham, Michael

    Dickens, Geoffrey

    Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

    Dicks, Terry

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

    Lilley, Peter

    Dover, Den

    Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

    du Cann, Rt Hon Sir Edward

    Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

    Dunn, Robert

    McCurley, Mrs Anna

    Eggar, Tim

    MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

    Emery, Sir Peter

    MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

    Evennett, David

    McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

    Eyre, Sir Reginald

    McQuarrie, Albert

    Fairbairn, Nicholas

    Major, John

    Fallon, Michael

    Malone, Gerald

    Farr, Sir John

    Marland, Paul

    Fenner, Mrs Peggy

    Marlow, Antony

    Fletcher, Alexander

    Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

    Fookes, Miss Janet

    Mather, Carol

    Forman, Nigel

    Maude, Hon Francis

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

    Forth, Eric

    Mayhew, Sir Patrick

    Franks, Cecil

    Merchant, Piers

    Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

    Miller, Hal (B'grove)

    Freeman, Roger

    Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

    Fry, Peter

    Moate, Roger

    Galley, Roy

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Gardiner, George (Reigate)

    Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

    Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

    Moynihan, Hon C.

    Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

    Neale, Gerrard

    Goodhart, Sir Philip

    Neubert, Michael

    Goodlad, Alastair

    Newton, Tony

    Gow, Ian

    Norris, Steven

    Gower, Sir Raymond

    Onslow, Cranley

    Greenway, Harry

    Pattie, Geoffrey

    Griffiths, Sir Eldon

    Pawsey, James

    Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

    Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian

    Grist, Ian

    Pollock, Alexander

    Grylls, Michael

    Porter, Barry

    Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

    Portillo, Michael

    Hampson, Dr Keith

    Powley, John

    Hanley, Jeremy

    Proctor, K. Harvey

    Hannam, John

    Pym, Rt Hon Francis

    Hargreaves, Kenneth

    Raffan, Keith

    Harris, David

    Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

    Haselhurst, Alan

    Renton, Tim

    Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

    Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

    Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

    Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

    Hawksley, Warren

    Ridsdale, Sir Julian

    Hayes, J.

    Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

    Hayhoe, Rt Hon Barney

    Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

    Hayward, Robert

    Roe, Mrs Marion

    Heathcoat-Amory, David

    Rost, Peter

    270

    Rowe, Andrew

    Townend, John (Bridlington)

    Ryder, Richard

    Trippier, David

    Sackville, Hon Thomas

    Trotter, Neville

    Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.

    van Straubenzee, Sir W.

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Shelton, William (Streatham)

    Viggers, Peter

    Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

    Waddington, David

    Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

    Wakeham, Rt Hon John

    Shersby, Michael

    Waldegrave, Hon William

    Silvester, Fred

    Walden, George

    Sims, Roger

    Walker, Bill (T'side N)

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    Waller, Gary

    Soames, Hon Nicholas

    Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

    Speed, Keith

    Warren, Kenneth

    Speller, Tony

    Watson, John

    Spencer, Derek

    Watts, John

    Squire, Robin

    Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Wheeler, John

    Steen, Anthony

    Whitfield, John

    Stern, Michael

    Whitney, Raymond

    Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

    Wolfson, Mark

    Stewart, Ian (Hertf'dshire N)

    Wood, Timothy

    Stradling Thomas, Sir John

    Woodcock, Michael

    Sumberg, David

    Yeo, Tim

    Taylor, John (Solihull)

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

    Younger, Rt Hon George

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

    Mr. Tony Durant and

    Thornton, Malcolm

    Mr. Archie Hamilton.

    Thurnham, Peter

    Question accordingly negatived.
    Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 33 (Questions on amendments):—
    The House divided: Ayes 226, Noes 17.

    Division No. 153]

    [10.12 pm

    AYES

    Adley, Robert

    Carlisle, John (Luton N)

    Aitken, Jonathan

    Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

    Alexander, Richard

    Carttiss, Michael

    Amess, David

    Cash, William

    Ancram, Michael

    Channon, Rt Hon Paul

    Arnold, Tom

    Chapman, Sydney

    Ashby, David

    Chope, Christopher

    Aspinwall, Jack

    Churchill, W. S.

    Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

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

    Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

    Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

    Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

    Cockeram, Eric

    Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

    Colvin, Michael

    Bellingham, Henry

    Conway, Derek

    Benyon, William

    Coombs, Simon

    Biffen, Rt Hon John

    Cope, John

    Biggs-Davison, Sir John

    Couchman, James

    Blackburn, John

    Cranborne, Viscount

    Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

    Crouch, David

    Boscawen, Hon Robert

    Currie, Mrs Edwina

    Bottomley, Peter

    Dickens, Geoffrey

    Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

    Dicks, Terry

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

    Douglas-Hamilton, Lord J.

    Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

    Dover, Den

    Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

    du Cann, Rt Hon Sir Edward

    Brandon-Bravo, Martin

    Dunn, Robert

    Bright, Graham

    Eggar, Tim

    Brinton, Tim

    Emery, Sir Peter

    Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

    Evennett, David

    Brooke, Hon Peter

    Eyre, Sir Reginald

    Brown, M. (Brigg & Cl'thpes)

    Fairbairn, Nicholas

    Browne, John

    Fallon, Michael

    Buck, Sir Antony

    Farr, Sir John

    Bulmer, Esmond

    Fenner, Mrs Peggy

    Burt, Alistair

    Fookes, Miss Janet

    Butcher, John

    Forman, Nigel

    Butler, Rt Hon Sir Adam

    Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

    Butterfill, John

    Forth, Eric

    271

    Franks, Cecil

    Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

    Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

    Lilley, Peter

    Freeman, Roger

    Lloyd, Ian (Havant)

    Galley, Roy

    Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

    Gardiner, George (Reigate)

    McCurley, Mrs Anna

    Goodhart, Sir Philip

    MacKay, John (Argyll & Bute)

    Goodlad, Alastair

    McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

    Gow, Ian

    McQuarrie, Albert

    Gower, Sir Raymond

    Major, John

    Greenway, Harry

    Malone, Gerald

    Griffiths, Sir Eldon

    Marland, Paul

    Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

    Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

    Ground, Patrick

    Mather, Carol

    Grylls, Michael

    Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

    Hamilton, Hon A. (Epsom)

    Mayhew, Sir Patrick

    Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

    Merchant, Piers

    Hampson, Dr Keith

    Miller, Hal (B'grove)

    Hanley, Jeremy

    Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

    Hannam, John

    Moate, Roger

    Hargreaves, Kenneth

    Monro, Sir Hector

    Harris, David

    Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

    Haselhurst, Alan

    Moynihan, Hon C.

    Havers, Rt Hon Sir Michael

    Neale, Gerrard

    Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

    Neubert, Michael

    Hawksley, Warren

    Newton, Tony

    Hayes, J.

    Norris, Steven

    Hayhoe, Rt Hon Barney

    Pattie, Geoffrey

    Hayward, Robert

    Pawsey, James

    Heddle, John

    Percival, Rt Hon Sir Ian

    Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

    Pollock, Alexander

    Hickmet, Richard

    Porter, Barry

    Hicks, Robert

    Portillo, Michael

    Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

    Powley, John

    Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

    Proctor, K. Harvey

    Holt, Richard

    Pym, Rt Hon Francis

    Howard, Michael

    Raffan, Keith

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

    Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

    Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

    Renton, Tim

    Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N)

    Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

    Hubbard-Miles, Peter

    Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

    Hunt, David (Wirral W)

    Ridsdale, Sir Julian

    Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

    Rippon, Rt Hon Geoffrey

    Hunter, Andrew

    Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

    Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

    Roe, Mrs Marion

    Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

    Rowe, Andrew

    Jones, Robert (Herts W)

    Ryder, Richard

    King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

    Sackville, Hon Thomas

    Knight, Greg (Derby N)

    Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

    Knowles, Michael

    St. John-Stevas, Rt Hon N.

    Knox, David

    Sayeed, Jonathan

    Lang, Ian

    Shelton, William (Streatham)

    Latham, Michael

    Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

    Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

    Shersby, Michael

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    Silvester, Fred

    Twinn, Dr Ian

    Sims, Roger

    van Straubenzee, Sir W.

    Skeet, Sir Trevor

    Vaughan, Sir Gerard

    Soames, Hon Nicholas

    Viggers, Peter

    Speed, Keith

    Waddington, David

    Speller, Tony

    Wakeham, Rt Hon John

    Spencer, Derek

    Waldegrave, Hon William

    Squire, Robin

    Walden, George

    Stanbrook, Ivor

    Walker, Bill (T'side N)

    Steen, Anthony

    Waller, Gary

    Stern, Michael

    Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

    Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

    Warren, Kenneth

    Stewart, Ian (Hertf'dshire N)

    Watson, John

    Stradling Thomas, Sir John

    Watts, John

    Sumberg, David

    Wheeler, John

    Taylor, John (Solihull)

    Whitfield, John

    Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

    Whitney, Raymond

    Temple-Morris, Peter

    Wood, Timothy

    Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

    Yeo, Tim

    Thorne, Neil (Ilford S)

    Young, Sir George (Acton)

    Thornton, Malcolm

    Younger, Rt Hon George

    Thurnham, Peter

    Townend, John (Bridlington)

    Tellers for the Ayes:

    Trippier, David

    Mr. Tony Durant and

    Trotter, Neville

    Mr. Francis Maude.

    NOES

    Alton, David

    Penhaligon, David

    Beith, A. J.

    Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

    Campbell-Savours, Dale

    Stewart, Rt Hon D. (W Isles)

    Carlile, Alexander (Montg'y)

    Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

    Clay, Robert

    Wigley, Dafydd

    Godman, Dr Norman

    Wrigglesworth, Ian

    Hancock, Michael

    Howells, Geraint

    Tellers for the Noes:

    Kennedy, Charles

    Mr. Michael Meadowcroft and

    Kirkwood, Archy

    Mr. Paddy Ashdown.

    Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

    Question accordingly agree to.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
    Resolved,
    That this House congratulates the Government on its radical approach to the long standing problems of public transport, its determination to obtain value for money and its introduction of policies of competition and deregulation for the benefit of the passenger which are based upon choice, freedom and fairness to improve the quality of life for the whole community and particularly for those who depend entirely upon public transport.

    BTR Sarmcol
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Boscawen.]
    10.23 pm
    Mr. Dave Nellist: This debate arises as a result of representations that I have received from two leading black South African trade unionists who have visited Britain in recent weeks. At a press conference held in the House on 10 April, Moses Mayekiso, the Transvaal organiser of the Metal and Allied Workers' Union, and Jeremiah Zulu, the president of the Transport and General Workers' Union in South Africa, who are both members of the central executive committee of the recently formed Congress of South African Trade Unions, or COSATU, reported to me their federation's concern for the actions of the South African subsidiary of the British-owned BTR Group. Under the code of conduct by which British owned multinationals operate in South Africa they are requested, each year, to declare to the Department of Trade and Industry answers to a number of questions under the EEC code of conduct. For the period ended 30 June 1985 BTR stated under the heading "Progress made in Implementing Policy" the following:
    "At BTR Sarmcol, Howick a trade union with majority representation was responsible for collective bargaining on behalf of all waged employees and had negotiated a wage agreement and were negotiating on grievance and disciplinary procedures and a retrenchment procedure. Negotiations broke down and the agreement with the trade unions was discontinued. New negotiating machinery is currently under review."
    Those weasel words belie the fact that almost a year ago—on 30 April 1985—1,000 workers who were on a legal strike were sacked by BTR after a 10-year battle for union recognition and a two-year negotiation with the company.
    One of the major concerns of COSATU and the Metal and Allied Workers Union which represented the victimised workers is that the EEC guidelines which are supposed to protect the interests of these workers, and the Government's policy of "constructive engagement" with South African capitalism which is supposed to ameliorate the worst excesses of apartheid have acted in this case—I would argue in all others—as nothing more than smoke screens for the exploitative actions of British companies which are only too happy to reap the super-profits that come from the cheap labour system which is the essence of apartheid.
    BTR can effectively put its case through its press officers and the British press. That avenue is largely denied to workers. It has led to a series of wild claims by BTR management. In an interview in the January 1986 edition of the European Rubber Journal the chairman of the newly merged operation—BTR South Africa and Dunlop South Africa—the perhaps aptly-named Peter Fatherley made a series of allegations on how well the company was run and on its operations. The unions' response to those allegations in a leaflet appropriately headed "BTR's Fatherley Advice" picked those points to pieces.
    I shall give an example of some of those allegations as an illustration to the Minister this evening. BTR claimed that it provided a pension scheme and loans for home purchase. Perhaps that is true. But the company does not agree to requests from the workers because its policy is not to extend home loans to hourly paid employees.
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    I shall quote a number of cases which will illustrate the value of the pension scheme. Mr. S. Zuma a national executive member of MAWU, employed by Sarmcol for two periods which totalled more than 20 years was given, on retirement, a pension of 4·2 rand per month which represents less than £2 a month. Mr. S. Zuma has now passed away.
    Mr. Zakwe stopped work in 1982 after 25 years' service with BTR. His pension was the equivalent of £10 per month. Another worker with 22 years' service received 35 rand per month, which is less than £10 a month.
    BTR claims to provide educational grants for the children of black employees and to provide basic education for their employees. BTR's educational grants amount to the following: for primary schools grants of 120 rand, about £40 per year for 16 selected schoolchildren. That is a total of 1,800 rand, the equivalent of £600. Secondary school grant is nil and the grant for tertiary education is also nil.
    BTR claims to have set high standards in its relationship with its black employees, as it claims it has an integrated work force, with black foremen. It does not mention the fact that these racial groups cannot even share the same toilet facilities, and not a single black person is in lower middle management or above.
    Perhaps the best example of the two worlds that are inhabited by the senior management of BTR and those who comprise the bulk of its work force is given in an interview about four and a half years ago with Sir Owen Green, the managing director of BTR, in The Observer of 27 September 1981. He said:
    "Growth is the objective, profit is the measure … I don't believe British industrial companies really commit themselves to the bottom line, to profit … The education system doesn't encourage this idea. Those educated post-war have been taught, almost brainwashed, that it is socially undesirable to make much money. So they combine other objectives: that it is just as important to have good personnel policy, decent factories, to play a significant social role. They blur the issues—the key is the bottom line."
    The salary of Sir Owen Green was raised from £97,000 a year to £142,000 a year in late 1984, but the starting wage of an employee at BTR Sarmcol is 336 rand—approximately £80 a month, or £20 a week.
    For these reasons, Brother Zulu of the TGWU is visiting the House tonight. I ask the Minister when he replies to these points to bear in mind that he is not speaking directly just to the few hon. Members who are in the Chamber this evening. He is also speaking indirectly to the 500,000 organised workers in the South African trade union federation, COSATU. They have been involved in solidarity action with the BTR Sarmcol strikers, who include 90 per cent. of the workers in the Howick-Pietermaritzburg area who went on strike on 18 July 1985. There was also a two-month boycott of white businesses in the same area and in recent weeks solidarity strikes have taken place in a number of other plants in the newly merged BTR-Dunlop group. These workers will want clear answers from the Minister about whether the British Government intend to oppose the circumvention of the pious hopes that are contained in the EEC code of conduct, or whether they are prepared to condone the open flouting of what is widely regarded among the South African working class as a "bulldog with rubber teeth."
    I draw the Minister's attention in particular to the misleading nature of much of the information that is contained in BTR's own report on the code of conduct for

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    the 12 months to 30 June 1984. In its submission the company claims that only 95 of its 2,377 employees are paid below the university of South Africa's supplementary cost of living level. This was set at 287 rand a month in February 1984. That is approximately £25 a week. MAWU has consistently claimed that many more BTR employees are paid below the level to which the company will admit. This is borne out by a company circular entitled "Revised Wages Structure" dated 2 August 1985. It is in the union's possession and it gives details of the wage rates being paid to the strike-breaking work force that has been recruited to run the Howick plant. This document shows that, despite an increase of between 12 and 18 per cent. on basic wages, employees in grades 1 to 4, in which the overwhelming number of employees are located, are still being paid starvation wages, below the minimum requirements of the EEC code. Indeed, allowing for an annual inflation rate of 18 per cent., by the end of July of this year the basic minimum rate of BTR Sarmcol will be more than 40 per cent. below the supplementary living level requirements in the Durban area.
    This failure to provide factual information about the activities of companies such as BTR is enough to call into question the EEC code. However, my criticism goes far deeper. Since 1977 Britain has subscribed to the EEC code of conduct for companies with subsidiaries in South Africa. This code requires that these companies should submit to the Department of Trade and Industry an annual return that provides information about their attitude towards worker representation, trade unions, the pay of their black employees, their wage structures, fringe benefits and the extent of desegregation at work. The most important aspect of the code is the pay recommendations, which have become enshrined not as the minimum level but as the goal to which these companies aspire. The minimum standard of living level is the lowest sum upon which a specific size of household can live in the South African social set-up. The MLL contains 10 basic elements, such as food, clothing, rent, fuel and light. Their costs are meticulously calculated, and make fascinating reading. For example, under personal hygiene a household of six is assumed to use per month
    "3 x 100g Lifebuoy soap, toilet paper, 15 razor blades per year for Blacks and 45 for Coloured and Indian males over 18 and sanitary requisites."
    Replacement of household equipment
    "assumes that a bed, or chair will last 15 years, saucepans, kettles and fry-pans 10 years."
    Any wage below this would be a starvation wage.
    "The Supplemented Living Level makes provision for more items … the SLL is not a subsistence budget, nor is it a luxury budget. Perhaps it can best be described as an attempt at determining a modest low-level standard of living."
    Again these standards differ for different racial groups. The SLL makes some allowances for personal care, for example, toothpaste, one toothbrush per person per year, and for hair-cuts, for recreation and entertainment, contributions to pensions, unemployment, medical and burial funds. It also allows for additional expenditure on the basic items in the minimum living level. In practice, the SLL is roughly 50 per cent. greater than the MLL, and still represents a very low standard of living.
    In fact, both these figures are merely reflections of starvation levels and are not even recognised by black workers and their unions as being a realistic assessment of
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    the actual living needs of workers in South Africa. In addition, a number of highly questionable premises are used in drawing up the figures. For example, an inflation rate was assumed, for the period February to August 1985 of 3·6 per cent. when the actual annual rate of inflation was 16 per cent., more than twice the rate assumed. The study also established 5·5 dependants in the average-sized black family, despite the fact that the average is more like eight persons per breadwinner in the Howick area.
    This might seem like abstract statistical hair-splitting to hon. Members, but what it adds up to is that the EEC code of conduct and the university of South Africa living levels serve to whitewash a situation in which 20 per cent. of the children of BTR employees in Howick aged between two and nine suffer from malnutrition. The literally starvation wages paid by this company mean that in 1984 BTR's South African operations contributed 3 per cent. of the company's £200 million profits after tax on only 2 per cent. of its sales, while the British operations contributed 42 per cent. on 45 per cent. of sales.
    That would be a sufficiently outrageous state of affairs if it were the only misuse of the code of conduct by one single unscrupulous employer. However, it is increasingly obvious that the policy of this Government and of big business generally and the interests that they represent is to use that code to shield companies from the outrage of workers in Britain and South Africa and internationally. Only a minority of the 400 British companies, which between then own half the 2,000 foreign-owned companies in South Africa and therefore control £12 billion of foreign investment in that country, even send in reports. One of the first actions of this Government, on taking office in 1979, was to cease the practice of listing those companies which failed to comply with the guidelines for the code.
    Had it not been for some sharp eyes, the latest Department of Trade and Industry report would have claimed that the number of black employees of British-owned companies paid below the EEC levels had halved. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), who is present with me this evening, has noted that the EEC report has already had to be amended by an erratum slip since it was issued three weeks ago and now shows a massive 21 per cent. increase in the number of black workers in South Africa paid below the lower datum level and a 33 per cent. increase in those paid below the upper datum level, taking the situation back to 1978 levels.
    One company alone, Pritchards Services Group, which is not unknown to at least one Tory Member, has admitted to paying 1,660 black workers less than poverty wages. That is almost double the 900 total figure disclosed three weeks ago by the Britain Government.
    There is a growing realisation among workers in British and South Africa of the manner in which the capitalist class and its political representatives use the EEC code to prop up rather than undermine apartheid. That common cause of the BTR management and the Tory Government is precisely the same common cause made between its South African subsidiary and the Botha Government, whose police have arrested over 100 striking workers in Howick and in September last year opened fire on a crowd of strikers and their families, killing one child and causing the hospitalisation of three others.
    This realisation by workers has been accompanied by an understanding that the only way to tackle companies

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    such as BTR, which seek to use the apartheid system as a source of ready profits, is to use their own strength as workers by building direct links between British and South African workers to expose and undermine the thousands and millions of threads that tie together the City of London and the slave labour system in South Africa.
    Through this debate I give notice to the Minister and to his friends in the British multinationals. They have had an easy ride so far, but the formation of COSATU and its clear appeal to workers internationally for support mean that in future the Minister and his friends will face the wrath of the organised working class of South Africa. Workers will not just show solidarity in single disputes such as that at BTR, but will take the campaign further. The working class movement will have a clear answer in Britain and in South Africa to people in companies that seek to enslave their class brothers and sisters in that country. Increasingly, that answer will be public ownership, nationalisation and the control and management by workers so that investments that are being used to prop up the racist regime can be turned against it.
    Internationalism is not just a moral matter facing British workers. For us, internationalism is summed up in a simple phrase: a chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Trade unions in South Africa are denied the right to organise and workers are paid cheap labour poverty wages of £20 to £25 a week. That means that British firms with factories in Coventry and the midlands and elsewhere in Britain can co-operate in South Africa and play off workers in one country against workers in another.
    We in the Labour movement learned early in our history, perhaps as far back as 100 years ago, that where factories were operated up and down Britain and were owned by the same employer, the same gaffer, we could form combines to make sure that our union policies were equal to the joint policies of management. That lesson is being learned internationally, and that is why Transport and General Workers Union members at a Dunlop factory in Leicester donated in recent weeks £200 to the families of strikers in South Africa.
    The conditions of black workers in South Africa cannot be summed up in a few phrases. The polarisation caused by apartheid in South Africa has led to the richest 5 per cent. owning 88 per cent. of all personally owned wealth—double the rate in the United States of America. Whites own 98 per cent. of all farms, 93 per cent. of private property, 99 per cent. of quoted shares and 95 per cent. of unquoted shares. That is the society that the Government and the Prime Minister defend.
    Britain is South Africa's fourth largest trading partner and that is why the Prime Minister has not even taken up the suggestion of economic sanctions against that country. She has not taken up that suggestion because of the £12 billion worth of British investment in that country and not because of the excuse that she gave to me in the House, that sanctions might affect the lives of 250,000 British workers and threaten their jobs. She does not care for the 2·5 million she has put on the dole in the last seven years. What leads us to believe that she cares for another 250,000 if sanctions were to be employed?
    The Prime Minister does not care about a society where one in three black children under the age of 14 are stunted in growth because of malnutrition. In the country that pioneered heart transplants, there is only one doctor to
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    every 174,000 people. Some 11 million blacks are forced to live in the Bantustans, the concentration camps, the so-called homelands.
    The Congress of South African Trade Unions is a movement beginning to organise hundreds of thousands, and soon millions, of workers under its banner, and it stands on the Freedom Charter of 1955. That charter offers to the workers and peasants of South Africa the hope that the wealth that only they have created in their country can be fairly and equally divided among them and their families. This debate is about one company, the breaking of the EEC code of conduct by one management, but the surrounding facts and figures of the dispute and the growing power of the trade unions is a warning not just to P. W. Botha but to BTR, to the Minister and to all others in Britain and in South Africa who seek to prop up the hated system of apartheid.
    10.44 pm
    The Minister for Trade (Mr. Alan Clark): By raising this subject this evening the hon. Member for Coventry, South-East (Mr. Nellist) has given me an opportunity to stress the importance which the Government attach to full compliance by British companies and their South African subsidiaries with the EC code of conduct. It also gives me an opportunity to congratulate the majority of companies on a generally high standard of performance under the code and to thank them for their co-operation in submitting reports to my Department.
    However, the hon. Gentleman has made a number of allegations about a particular company. I shall not comment on those, either to agree with them or reject them, because it is our consistent practice not to comment on the performance of individual companies under the code. I shall elaborate on the background to this practice in a moment.
    I am naturally aware of the dispute which has arisen between BTR/Sarmcol and the Metal and Allied Workers Union. It has been accompanied at various times by incidents of violence and intimidation. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will join with me in condemning those who seek to pursue their disagreements by such means.
    Meanwhile, one can only have sympathy with the plight of the destitute former employees of the company. But this is something which is happening thousands of miles away in another country and ultimately the company and the union must resolve their disagreements directly.
    For those reasons, it would not be appropriate or helpful for the Government to intervene with the company. But I remain confident that they will continue actively to seek ways to resolve this dispute. I hope, too, that the hon. Gentleman will urge his contacts in the union to act in a similar manner. I understand that the dispute is to be considered by the industrial court. That is apparently the appropriate forum for the dispute to be considered in at this stage. I believe that it should be given every opportunity to resolve the problems between the company and the union.
    The hon. Gentleman has alleged that the company has failed to comply with the EC code of conduct, that it is in breach of the code provisions. The company's report under the code is available for public inspection and it speaks for itself. Members of the House and of the public may judge for themselves whether the hon. Gentleman's allegations against the company are justified or not.

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    I recognise that the code encourages companies to ensure that their workers are free to form or join a union. Under the revised code, agreed last year by the EC member states, companies are encouraged to pay particular attention to unions representing black African workers and to be prepared to sign recognition agreements with them. But that does not mean that companies are obliged to recognise unions not representative of their work force or that companies must accept all the conditions which unions may seek to impose. Free collective bargaining has to be free on both sides if it is to have any meaning.
    I mentioned that it is not our practice to comment on the performance of individual companies under the EC code. That is a long-standing practice, and there are a number of very good reasons for it. The hon. Gentleman must not expect me to depart from this, either to condemn or praise individual companies. His intention has plainly been more to condemn than to praise. In so doing he ignores the considerable contribution which British and other European subsidiaries in South Africa have made to the advancement of black Africans and to the changing opinions there in favour of fundamental, peaceful change.
    My Department produces an annual analysis and summary. The latest, covering the period July 1984 to June 1985, was placed in the Library of the House prior to the Easter recess.
    Mr. Richard Caborn: It is wrong.
    Mr. Clark: It has been corrected since. In that document, we list all the companies which have provided reports under the code to the Department, as well as those whose interests are known or believed to warrant a full report but which have declined to submit one. But we do not otherwise consider it appropriate or helpful to single out individual companies and comment on their performances. Our purpose is to give a concise, factual summary of the position emerging from the reports as a whole, drawing attention to the areas where progress has been made in terms of the response of the subsidiaries of British companies to the standards and objectives laid down in the code.
    Mr. Caborn rose—
    Mr. Clark: The hon. Member for Conventry, South-East has left me little time, and I feel in fairness to the parties to this dispute and the points that he has raised that I should progress in response to his argument as far as I can.
    The credibility of the code as a catalyst to promote better conditions and opportunities for black African employees depends heavily on the co-operation of the companies concerned. We should not encourage this if we were to set ourselves up as judge and jury and put individual companies on trial. We and our partners in the
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    EC are clear that the code must remain a voluntary code. We must continue to give companies every encouragement to comply with it on a voluntary basis. The Department's analysis of code returns demonstrates the success which this approach has achieved. Only three companies still decline to submit a report: 98 per cent. of all the companies whom we believe ought to submit reports did so. Our analysis also demonstrates the contribution which these companies, that is, the vast majority of them, are making towards the social and economic advancement of their black African work forces. I shall say more about this in a moment. It is significant that the business sector, both local and European companies, are in the forefront of those in South Africa calling for fundamental reform of the system and the abolition of apartheid.
    Mr. Caborn: How the Minister can actually make that statement I do not know. The report, although it was wrong in its compilation, now shows clearly a reduction of 21 per cent. paid below the lower datum line. We are back pre 1979. That is the situation on the code itself.
    Mr. Clark: I think the hon. Gentleman was mistaken. What I was drawing the attention of the House to was the high level of companies which are filing reports under the code. There are virtually no exceptions to this. Judgments and assessments about whether or not companies are in breach of code guidelines are unlikely to be simple or clear cut. In an extreme case, the Department might be involved in a risk of legal proceedings if companies sought to contest accusations against them made outside this House.
    All the information submitted to the Department about companies' performance is publicly available. Copies of all company reports are available in the Library of both Houses, as well as in the Department's Library and our diplomatic posts in South Africa, where they may be inspected by callers. It is possible for interested members of the public to judge for themselves and to study in detail the records of individual companies in complying with the code.
    The companies themselves are also asked to make their reports available. Some of the larger companies publish and distribute their reports widely, attaching considerable importance to the contribution they are making, welcoming the opportunity to publicise it, and accepting a responsibility to give a lead.
    The company mentioned by the hon. Member will doubtless take careful note of the points he has made and consider whether or how to respond. The facts about the company's performance under the code are on the record and publicly available in the company's report. Interested shareholders, customers, consumers or members of the public at large may judge for themselves and react as they consider appropriate.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Adjourned accordingly at seven minutes to Eleven o'clock.