HC Deb 11 March 1986 vol 93 cc898-910

Question again proposed.

Mr. Mallon

I was referring to the repair and maintenance of Housing Executive houses, and my remarks apply not only to Northern Ireland but throughout Britain. Good money will have to be thrown after bad because of the decisions that are being made about maintenance work following the cuts that the Government have made.

I raise a constituency point; I have spoken to the Minister about it, although it applies to other parts of the country. There are in my area 184 houses which are being converted from gas to coal-fired. This is the third system to be put in those houses, all in an attempt to get the smoke to go up the chimney. A blind man might have seen at the beginning that a proper chimney was required, but no. Three attempts were needed to prove that a chimney was necessary. What has been the cost of that? If we skimp on such matters, we shall get a bad job and it will cost double or treble the money to put things right later.

As I have said, our second great natural resource in the Province is our young people. We shall debate this whole issue tomorrow, and I hope to speak then. Youngsters in Northern Ireland—the same will apply to many people in Britain—will find that unless daddy has a great deal of money they will not get third-level education. A Northern Ireland student studying in Britain will lose about £500, in addition to losing the travelling allowance to and from the Province. No one will be able to afford such education.

That policy is short-sighted. Bitter experience has taught us in Northern Ireland that when young people find themselves on the scrap heap of life at 18 they are prey to the paramilitaries and to those who want to use them. It costs much more to keep someone in gaol for 10 years than to keep him at university for three or four years with a proper grant. That matter must be considered.

The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West has dealt admirably with education cuts which affect those within the education system who are least able to look after themselves. It is not just the big schools in Belfast but the small rural schools which are losing additional hours of teaching. Those schools need them most because they have a greater percentage of problem and educationally subnormal pupils. The kitchens will be closed in many schools. That will be a false economy. The kitchens and the equipment will still be there but the Department will have to meet the extra cost of bussing in the meals. The Minister should note that that false economy will prove detrimental, especially in rural areas.

Class X deals with attendance allowances, invalid car allowances and related benefits. I have been trying to find out what is available to a totally blind person who is not otherwise disabled. In a caring society such a person cannot get a mobility allowance because, to qualify for it, one must be either unable or almost unable to walk. A blind person who can walk may not be able to get anywhere because he needs someone to help him. The totally blind person cannot get an invalid car allowance because, of course, he cannot drive. The totally blind person who is not otherwise disabled cannot get an attendance allowance because, to qualify, he requires constant attention day or night, or both day and night. If he can look after himself to any extent he cannot get an attendance allowance, nor can someone who helps to look after him get an allowance. Therefore, in a caring society a category of the severely handicapped cannot get allowances which are available for others.

There is a fault in the legislation if attendance allowances cannot be paid to the totally blind who are not otherwise disabled. Such a person should be able to take advantage of the mobility allowance. The legislation must be amended. We can gauge the attitude of Government and of society when they leave at a total disadvantage a small sector of the community who suffer through no fault of their own.

I leave the House with one thought. I have a small booklet here on disablement allowances. The totally blind person cannot get an attendance allowance, a mobility allowance, or any allowance to enable his relations to look after him. What he can get is very interesting indeed. It is rather cynical and insensitive. He can get a television licence at a reduced cost. That is written here. It is time that this book went into the incinerator and a proper system of services for the totally blind was printed, with the necessary changes in the legislation, so that those people are not at such a disadvantage.

Let me finish with one general point on class XI, vote 1. I note that £1,452,000 is earmarked for the Northern Ireland Assembly. We heard an interesting debate between the right hon. Member for South Down and Conservative Members on scrutiny, but here is £1,452,000 earmarked for an Assembly from which a former Secretary of State walked out and to which he refused to return, and from which the present Secretary of State has threatened to withdraw staff if they do not carry out the scrutiny that the right hon. Member for South Down was advocating. Yet within this appropriation there is that sum of money for a body which is not doing that.

I leave the matter there. I do not want to make a political point, but I should love to see that £1,452,000 being usefully used on something like services for blind people or allowances for young people who wish to continue their education.

10.11 pm
Mr. William Cash (Stafford)

I wish to make one simple point. In the House we are primarily concerned with the voting of money and the redress of grievance. In both cases, one needs to participate in order to be able to appropriate.

It is with great interest that I see the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) in the Chamber. I deeply regret the fact that he is not accompanied by his colleagues. There is an opportunity for a positive and constructive solution to the current difficulties with Northern Ireland—there is an opportunity for building bridges.

I was particularly interested in the point that the right hon. Gentleman made on the extract that he read by the gentleman from the London Business School and his reference to the Select Committee. I know that the right hon. Gentleman confined his point to the financial aspects, but it would be far better if his colleagues could find their way to coming back to this Chamber in order to participate in the vote which will lead to the appropriation of moneys under this order, and in so many other ways.

I think that a Select Committee could be devised—I am not proposing the Grand Committee system, because that would be wholly inappropriate—with amendments to Standing Orders 70(a) and (b) relating to public business which would enable us to have a Select Committee in which there could be real participation and in which Northern Ireland Members could sit down with those from the rest of the United Kingdom and discuss matters which are germane to the future of Northern Ireland.

I have nothing more to say on the subject, other than that I hope we can maintain dialogue. It is a matter of the greatest importance that those Members of the United Kingdom who represent Northern Ireland who are not here tonight, should attend future debates.

10.14 pm
Mr. Nicholas Winterton (Macclesfield)

I am delighted, in dealing with matters relating to Northern Ireland, to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash). I find myself thoroughly in sympathy, as I think the House will be aware from my earlier interventions, with his proposal about how the House, by involving the elected representatives of Northern Ireland, could deal with all matters relating to appropriation, which is the purpose of the order.

I hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland will give more than passing attention to the repeat—if one may put it that way—speech by the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), because I believe that he put forward a way of bringing the elected representatives of Northern Ireland back to this place to deal with matters that concern them and their constituents.

I have to relate my remarks particularly to matters of finance in the appropriation order. The message is clear. I believe that it gives an opportunity for all parties to the current dispute to come together with honour in order to solve the problem. I hope that the message gets to the Secretary of State and perhaps even beyond him, to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and to the Prime Minister. It is encouraging to observe my hon. Friend the Parliamentary-Under Secretary of State nodding to me, indicating that the message has been taken on board, because I know that it is felt strongly by a number of Members on these Benches as well as by representatives of the Province.

I wish to pick out two points from the order. The first is class V relating to the Housing Executive. I am taking up a point touched upon by the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) relating to the amount of money being spent on housing improvement and on rehabilitation. I have had the honour of visiting Northern Ireland on many occasions, not least recently when I visited south Belfast and other areas of Belfast. I know how important it is in Belfast for the massive programme of housing improvements to continue. It is unfortunate that there will be a cutback in expenditure in this respect.

I believe that the communities of Northern Ireland must be permitted to remain together and increasingly to blend. That will not be achieved by mass demolition and redevelopment. It will come gradually by communities which have lived together continuing to involve themselves in what is going on in their own areas—for instance, in Belfast. That comes about by communities working and staying together. It can be achieved only by rehabilitation and improvement, not by mass redevelopment which brings into an area many people who have nothing in common. I make a plea to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench that money allocated to housing rehabilitation and improvement should be increased.

The other point I wish to make follows remarks made by the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West relating to pre-five schooling, particularly in Belfast. The right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned a cutback in Stranmillis—an area which I have visited. From my experience on the Select Committee on Social Services, I know how important this form of education is, particularly in some of the more deprived areas. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister of State is very keen on this. No one, I think, has more knowledge of education than my hon. Friend. He is highly respected not only in the House, but elsewhere and, indeed, in the Province, where he has played a major role in recent times.

I have found this an interesting debate in which to participate as a Member from the mainland of the United Kingdom, but I feel deeply for the problems of Northern Ireland, a troubled part of the United Kingdom. I hope that the constructive and important speech made by the right hon. Member for South Down will bring some positive response from Her Majesty's Government.

10.20 pm
Mr. Stuart Bell (Middlesbrough)

I am not sure that there will be positive response from Her Majesty's Government. There will certainly be positive response from Her Majesty's Opposition. We are grateful for the intervention of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton). It was lively, informed and instructive. He referred to the Housing Executive and to a matter that affects education. I shall refer to those subjects in my speech.

I accept that in these debates I play the role of sweeper. I sweep up for all right hon. and hon. Members who have already spoken in the debate. I was particularly interested in and impressed by the contribution of the hon. Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash) and for his felicitous phrases about the voting of money, the redress of grievances and participation in order to appropriate money. He expressed well-founded regret that the Unionist Members of Parliament, with the honourable exception of the right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell), are not in their places tonight.

I have less sympathy for some of the reasons that have been given for their absence. They held by-elections a few weeks ago and they won those by-elections. They lost one seat, yet they have deigned not to participate in the proceedings of this House. The right hon. Member for South Down tried to justify that by saying that it was up to them to get their priorities right as between their constituents and their constituencies and the House of Commons. However, in June 1985 the right hon. Member for South Down was quick to criticise my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) and me for not being here to take part in a short debate on historic churches in Northern Ireland. We were in Northern Ireland at that time, but the right hon. Gentleman said: It is no substitute to be absent in the Province when Northern Ireland affairs are debated in this House."—[Official Report, 11 June 1985; Vol. 80, col. 857.] I would not have made great play of that, had it not been stated on a number of occasions tonight that the Unionist Members of Parliament are absent because they are in their constituencies. As elected representatives, their first duty is to the House of Commons and they should take their places here. All right hon. and hon. Members would welcome them back to the House and it is their duty to be here when debates on Northern Ireland take place.

The hon. Member for Stafford referred to a point that was made by the right hon. Member for South Down about the work of the House of Commons in connection with Northern Irish matters—that is, a Grand Committee and a Select Committee. One of the casualties of the Anglo-Irish agreement and of the attitude of the Unionist Members of Parliament to that agreement is the change in the procedures of this House as they relate to Northern Ireland. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West referred some time ago to a change in the procedures. This was taken up by the Leader of the Unionist Opposition, the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Mr. Molyneaux). Consultations were held on an informal basis to find out how we could improve the procedures of this House in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland. A casualty of the reaction of the Unionist Members of Parliament to the Anglo-Irish agreement is that those talks have not continued. The sooner that the Unionist Members of Parliament take their places in the Chamber the sooner we shall be able to look at the procedures with a view to modifying them in the interests of debates on subjects that affect Northern Ireland and in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland.

I was also glad to hear the speech of the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon). When we discussed the last draft Appropriation (Northern Ireland) Order I spoke after his predecessor, Mr. James Nicholson, who was then the Member of Parliament for Newry and Amargh. I was unable to be in the House when the present Member of Parliament for that constituency made his maiden speech. However, in the parlance of the House, I read it with care in Hansard. I am very glad to see that he has not only continued his involvement in the affairs of this House through his speeches from the Back Benches, but that in his short intervention tonight he has shown care and compassion for the people he seeks to represent, in addition to understanding the wider issues relating to Northern Ireland that are now before us. He referred to education cuts in Northern Ireland, to young people and to the intervention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West. We are, of course, very concerned about education. The cuts in the education budget will lead to 140 teacher redundancies in Northern Ireland, with the loss of 80 teaching posts in Belfast alone. The cuts in nursery schooling come at a time when nursery units need to be expanded and not reduced. The cut in further education in Belfast may lead to up to 100 job losses. Our concern about those cuts leads us to regret all the more the lack of Unionist Members in the Chamber to fight their corner.

The cost-cutting in education that has taken place over the years has led to the degeneration of plant in the Province's schools. The forcing of maintenance cuts and the moratorium on new school building will cost Northern Ireland dearly when major renovation work becomes necessary. Recently, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Peterborough (Dr. Mawhinney), told the Irish National Teachers Organisation that the education budget was being increased by £42 million, which represented a 6 per cent. increase. He also stated that spending had remained constant in real terms since 1979 and that spending per primary school pupil had risen by more than 10 per cent.

The first schedule to the order calls for a decrease of £350,000 in the sums for education and library boards. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warley, West made great reference to the cuts in that area. Such cuts hardly inspire the Opposition to view the Minister's statements on education with confidence.

The hon. Member for Macclesfield also referred to housing. We are, of course, most concerned at the cuts in housing. I have written to the Minister on the subject and he has replied to questions on the Order Paper. As has been mentioned, the number of planned housing starts has been cut from 1,000 to 850, and the number of planned improvement schemes on public sector estates has been cut from 1,200 to 40. In addition we see the cancellation of 4,500 planned improvement grants and 15,000 repair grants. I apologise to the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh for concentrating once more on Belfast, because I know that he would prefer to concentrate on the wider spectrum. but the waiting list in Belfast is 8,255 with 6,582 in urgent need.

The hon. Member for Macclesfield expressed his concern for such issues when he referred to the cut in the housing budget of £44 million in real terms. Earlier my right hon. and learned Friend the member for Warley, West said that the Housing Executive had expected an increase of £50 milion. Thus we are not entirely happy with the figures in the order or with the fact that housing problems are still so great. Indeed, they will continue to be severe for some time to come.

I come to the intervention of the right hon. Member for South Down. After a while hon. Members could almost write each other's speeches. I could perhaps write a fair speech for the right hon. Gentleman on integration, the constitutional position or on the uncertainty, as he would say, of the constitutional future of the people of Northern Ireland. However, I repeat that the way in which business is conducted in the Chamber has been a casualty of the Anglo-Irish agreement. But although the hon. Member for Macclesfield might have agreed with him over the prospect of a more devolved council administration in Northern Ireland, our earlier debate clearly showed that the withdrawal of consent in council chambers had made that less of a possibility.

One other intervention was from the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lyell). He referred to the money given from the state exchequer to Northern Ireland. He said that it was a useful cause. The money given over a period of time bears thinking about. In 1979–80 we gave by way of subvention to Northern Ireland the sum of £944 million, 25.8 per cent. of the gross domestic product of Northern Ireland. In the United Kingdom as a whole it was 0.55 per cent. In 1985–86, the figure has risen to £1,573 million, a quite substantial sum of money to go from our Exchequer to that of Northern Ireland. [Interruption.] My hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld and Kilsyth (Mr. Hogg) says, sotto voce, "It certainly is." Many Welsh and Scottish Members wonder why Wales and Scotland cannot be similarly treated. We accept the problems of Northern Ireland, and we do not criticise the Government for putting £1,573 million into the exchequer there, but it is something to take into account; and, without widening the debate, I trust that those who talk wildly of some kind of independence for Ulster will ask themselves where they think that £1,573 million a year is to come from, as they try to develop their plans.

The hon. Member for Macclesfield again, if he does not mind my referring to him, mentioned the Stranmillis school, a point taken up by my right hon. and learned Friend. He pointed out that the school was under threat because a subvention of £10,000 a year would not be made available. According to my information, this school is already over-subscribed, and is to be closed in the face of very high demand. Overall, some 300 nursery places will be lost. So we are grateful that the hon. Member for Macclesfield has picked this up and has added his weight to our concern at the school's imminent closure.

The questions of health were well covered by my right hon. and learned Friend. It is worth repeating, however, that the Government are underfunding in health provision, certainly in regard to the Eastern health board, and that there is something like £2.6 million to be made up in budget cutbacks. At a meeting on 8 November 1985 the board approved the closure of four hospitals. One was referred to by my right hon. and learned Friend, the Claremont street neurological hospital. The others are the Haypark geriatric hospital, the Samaritan gynaecological hospital and Templemore avenue geriatric hospital. These closures led to the loss of 200 hospital beds. While we would not wish to reduce the level of the debate to matters of small importance, it is a fact that the cuts have put great strain on the already overcrowded and underfunded Royal Victoria hospital. We echo the concern expressed by the National Union of Public Employees in late January at the conditions found in the kitchens of that hospital, and the need for a major cash injection to maintain adequate health standards.

We have had an interesting and prolonged debate, worthy of the subject, of the people of Northern Ireland, and of this Chamber. It is proper that, notwithstanding the absence of Unionist Members, we are here to defend the cause of the people who live in Northern Ireland, and give a full and thorough airing to the issues which concern them. We look forward to hearing the response of the Minister, to see whether we can reach some agreement on some of the issues discussed, and possibly see some action.

10.34 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr. Richard Needham)

The hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Mr. Bell) is a difficult man to follow when he replies, because in his role as sweeper he sounds increasingly more like a Government Front Bench spokesman than the Government spokesman will sound. It is a pity that his talent will be wasted for so long in that role.

I said that I would not quote Shakespeare, but having listened to the introduction of the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer), I must say that in some areas

The lady doth protest too much, methinks. I shall keep my remarks as brief as possible, but the debate raises important issues which have been seriously discussed. If I miss a point, I assure hon. Members that either my hon. Friend the Minister or I will write to them with the details.

The public expenditure White Paper, Cmnd. 9702, published on 15 January 1986, puts forward planned increases in public expenditure in Northern Ireland of 12.5 per cent. between 1985–86 and 1988–89. The equivalent figure for the remainder of the United Kingdom is 11 per cent. We accept the need to maintain high levels of public expenditure in Northern Ireland because of the genuine difficulties and problems that exist there.

In 1983–84–-the latest figures available—per capita public expenditure in Northern Ireland was £2,461, in Scotland £2,058, in Wales £1,861 and in England £1,632.

I am sure that the right and learned gentleman will agree that we fully accept the importance of public expenditure in Northern Ireland, and our plans will continue to reflect that. However, we must continue to consider value for money on behalf of taxpayers.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman talked about problems in housing. We are to some extent the victims of our own success. During the past few years our record on housing in Northern Ireland has been admirable. We have made massive strides to improve the housing stock. I regret as much as anybody the problems that we now face with the budget and the spending levels that we hoped, but unfortunately failed to maintain. The reason is that law and order has top priority in the budget, followed by industry and employment, especially employment, and expenditure under those two heads has increased.

The figures for public expenditure per head on housing for 1986–87, although not exactly comparable, are £59 for England, £125 for Scotland, £50 for Wales and £225 for Northern Ireland. I accept that loan charges take a considerable amount of that, and that receipts from council house sales have not been as great as we hoped. That necessarily affects the position. The urban renewal regulation, which provides European Community assistance, has come to an end, and Government support for housing is £2 million less this year than last year. Nevertheless, we continue to spend significant funds.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell

The Minister refers to the falling off of house sales. Does he agree that that is because the movement began much earlier in Northern Ireland, attained wider dimensions earlier, and subsequently the scope for it may be approaching exhaustion?

Mr. Needham

I accept the right hon. Gentleman's point. We have been working on the figures that the Housing Executive hoped to achieve for receipts. As it is the expert in that area, the Government accepted those figures. When they were not reached, the Government could only make up the difference with additional funds from the Northern Ireland block. He will appreciate that that has not been possible, for the reasons that I gave, but he is absolutely right.

The Government can he legitimately proud of their policy towards spending on housing in Northern Ireland in view of the two budget blocks I have mentioned. We have maintained it as a priority, and we are determined to keep it as high as we possibly can.

The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West mentioned social security reforms, Eileen Evason and the difficulty that we will face in Northern Ireland with single payments. I do not think that Miss Evason's figures are more than speculative, but it is difficult for us to get the figures exactly right. Nevertheless, our figures show that, excluding the impact of the social fund, because in Northern Ireland there is a much larger number of families with children and a rather lower percentage of pensioners, the outcome, after implementation of the social security review, would be about even. That does not take into account the effects of the social fund. All that I can say is that this matter has not yet been decided, but we will obviously try to keep as much flexibility as possible.

I take the right hon. and learned Gentleman's point about the hard-nosedness of social security benefit officers and how they use their discretion and sense. I echo his sentiments. I recently had the opportunity to listen to the views of the main managers of the social security offices. I am sure that they make single payments in the most efficient and sensible way. When we introduce the social fund, we will try to keep it as flexible as possible. I am sure that the House agrees that the present method of applying single payments is immensely complex for those who administer it and for those who receive it.

The right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke about education cuts. Before I refer to the problems facing the area boards, I should like to remind the House of the figures given by my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Dr. Mawhinney). The 1986–87 education budget of £662 million was an increase of £42 million, which is more than 6 per cent. above this year's outturn, when, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman is aware, school rolls will continue to decline. Some £15 million of this increase—approaching 7 per cent.—will go to area boards to recount capital budgets.

I can understand that, despite this increase, there is considerable pressure on the current budgets of the boards. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough, who has responsibility for education, will meet several board deputations this week. I must emphasise that none of the measures that the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to have yet been formally submitted to the Department of Education. Therefore, it would not be appropriate for me to comment further.

I have considered the closure of nursery schools, but I assure the House that any such proposals would require the approval of my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough, and he would have regard to any objections put to him as well as to any recommendations made to him by the boards.

I cannot accept the comments of the hon. Member for Middlesbrough to the effect that the Royal Victoria hospital is under-funded. I have heard much about this hospital, but I can honestly say that I have never before been told that one of it its major problems is under-funding. I can accept an argument about the use of resources, but it is difficult to argue that it is under-funded, especially when one considers the amount of money that it has and the value for money that it gives to patients.

As the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West knows, expenditure on the Health Service in Northern Ireland is 25 per cent. per head higher than elsewhere in the United Kingdom. We have 50 per cent. more nurses than in the United Kingdom. I am not suggesting for one moment that there are not strong reasons for that, but those are the facts. We also have more general practitioners as a percentage of the population. We have a Health Service of which we can be proud, but, under the strategic guidelines, which I have tried to make widely available, it is right to move towards greater emphasis on care in the community and preventive care, and slightly less emphasis on acute medicine, of which we have a higher level of provision than in England and Wales, although waiting lists are just as long. It is extremely important to get the strategic guidelines right, to get the Health Service behind us in what we are trying to achieve and to ensure that we are getting the best value for money.

The right hon. Member for South Down (Mr. Powell) knows a great deal more about this subject than I know, and I have followed his writings on the subject closely. I am trying to ensure that we get the maximum of involvement and participation in the Health Service. It cannot be said, however, that there is too little cash in Northern Ireland. There must be careful reorganisation with the maximum consultation and involvement.

My hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton) asked me to give the Government's view about the constitutional point raised by the right hon. Member for South Down. I would not bandy words with the right hon. Gentleman on constitutional matters in the Chamber or outside. I listened carefully to what he said. Following the meeting with the leaders of the two Unionist parties last week, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister offered consultation with the Unionists on the future of the Northern Ireland Assembly and on arrangements for handling Northern Ireland business in Parliament. It is important that we get back to negotiations on that issue and on wider issues, which I shall not go into as I should be out of order.

The right hon. Member for South Down talked of the Comptroller and Auditor General's work. As a former member of the Public Accounts Committee, I endorse everything that he said. I assure him that when reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General come to the Department of Health or the Environment Department, in which I have an interest, I make absolutely certain that they are considered and acted upon as quickly as possible. As long as I have anything to do with it, I assure him that that will continue.

I cannot comment on much of what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mid-Bedfordshire (Mr. Lyell) said, except that I agreed with most of it.

I shall move on smartly to the speech of the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) who is becoming a more than adequate number three batsman who seems to be playing the bowling at hourly intervals. I have some personal interest in milk quotas as my constituency has a farming make-up similar to many parts of Northern Ireland, and I can understand the problems that farmers face. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is aware that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and my noble Friend Lord Lyell are doing what they can. Under the chairmanship of my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, they have concluded that an additional 50 million litres of quota should be sought for reallocation to exceptional hardship cases, small producers and special cases in Northern Ireland. I tried to work that out in the number of cows and got a nought in the wrong place. I am told that it is not 1,000 cows, but 10,000.

There has been much consideration over recent months of the Commission's proposal to introduce a Community outgoers scheme and of the fact that it may provide the means of fulfilling the objectives set out by the Howe Committee. My colleagues, the Secretary of State and the Minister, have been ensuring that the views of Northern Ireland industry are taken into account during the United Kingdom discussions on the proposed scheme.

The point made by the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh on education and training for the handicapped is an issue in which my hon. Friend the Minister is involved and is aware of. He will be writing to the hon. Gentleman in detail about it. No decision has yet been made on Enterprise Ulster, and my hon. Friend the Minister is receiving deputations, having meetings and discussing its future.

I was alarmed to hear the views of the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh on what is happening in planned maintenance, and even more alarmed when I saw one of my hon. Friends nodding his agreement. As for my nodding in agreement with my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield, I should say that I was known as nodding Needham at school. It does not necessarily mean that I agree with him. I shall obviously take this matter up with the chairman of the Housing Executive. I was of the opinion that we may not be able to do as much as was hoped for but I trusted that we would do what we did as well as possible.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell

The Minister has been good enough to place this emphasis on the matter. May I offer a lead? I think that the supervision by the Housing Executive of the execution of contracts is very often lacking in effectiveness.

Mr. Needham

That is certainly a subject that I shall take up with the Housing Executive. I will report to the right hon. Gentleman when I have done so.

On the constituency point of the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh, which ended up not as a constituency point, if it has taken three goes to get his 184 houses changed from gas to coal-fired under the existing maintenance system, one shudders to think that he may be right about any future maintenance system. I think that that is rather a separate and special point. Again, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not mind if I come back to him on it. I am aware of the problem, as he knows.

Mr. Mallon

My goes have not solved the problem. I would like the Under-Secretary to take action before the fourth go at it and more money is poured down the drain.

Mr. Needham

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will understand that I am not in favour of pouring money down anybody's drain.

Mr. Bell

Or up the chimney.

Mr. Needham

Or up the chimney. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for helping the Front Bench, even with the jokes.

I shall write to the hon. Member for Newry and Armagh about the blind. I am aware of the case to which he referred or from which I believe his interest came. There are other methods by which people can be helped to obtain assistance through the courts, depending on their individual cases. Certainly, it is an issue that I shall consider.

I hope that I have covered the points raised by hon. Members.

Finally, I refer to the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for Macclesfield on rehabilitation versus rebuild. I am convinced that it is right to rehab, as it is sexily called, where possible, but I should point out that there are cases where it makes much more sense, because of the size of the houses, their condition and the expense that would be incurred in rehabilitation, to knock them down and replace them. I think that my hon. Friend will agree, having visited the Province, as I know he has, and having looked at many of the new housing schemes in Northern Ireland, that we have done a good job in the replanning of layouts and finding additional space for people to live in.

I have got through my first winding-up speech on an appropriation order. Like other right hon. and hon. Members, I am distressed that some of our colleagues from Northern Ireland are not present, but we have had a debate that demonstrates the importance of Northern Ireland affairs and that we cover them carefully and considerately.

I commend the order to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved, That the draft Appropriation (Northern Ireland) Order 1986, which was laid before this House on 19th February, be approved.