Commons Sitting of 26 February 1987

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  WEST GLAMORGAN BILL [Lords]
  Considered; to he read the Third time.

  LONDON DOCKLANDS RAILWAY (BECKTON) BILL ( By Order)
  Orders for Second Reading read.
  To he read a Second time upon Thursday 5 March.

Oral Answers to Questions
  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Unemployment Costs
    Mr. Rogersasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, further to his answer of 29 January, Official Report, column 376, he will take steps to prepare estimates of the cost to the Exchequer of the current level of unemployment in Wales.
    Mr. MichaelCocks asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, further to his answer of 29 January, Official Report, column 376, he will take steps to prepare estimates of the costs to the Exchequer of the current level of unemployment in the south-west.
    Mr. Patchettasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, further to his answer of 29 January, Official Report, column 376, he will take steps to prepare estimates of the cost to the Exchequer of the current level of unemployment in Yorkshire and Humberside.
    The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John MacGregor): I regret that such estimates could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
    Mr. Rogers: Would it not be reasonably easy to calculate the cost of the 180,000 unemployed in Wales, especially as that figure has grown by at least 3,000 in the past month? When will the Chancellor take real steps to solve the unemployment in the valleys of Wales?
    Mr. MacGregor: The disproportionate cost of making regional calculations of the kind that the hon. Gentleman wants comes not from calculating unemployment benefit but in relation to supplementary and housing benefit.
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    The hon. Gentleman will know that with six years of steady growth in the economy, overcoming all the difficulties of the 1970s, the improvement in many of the basic industries in Wales and the attraction of new firms to Wales on a large scale, we are making considerable progress in turning the Welsh economy round on a basis that will ensure regular prosperity for the future.
    Mr. Cocks: The Minister referred to disproportionate cost, but has he considered the disproportionate cost of the tens of thousands of people who are on the dole in the south-west? Would it not put into perspective the Chancellor's possible concessions in tax relief if we had some idea of what it costs to keep all those people out of work?
    Mr. MacGregor: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will have observed that since the 1983 election there have been 100,000 new additional jobs in the south-west, which shows that employment is increasing. In addition, considerable employment and training measures are being used in the south-west, involving 80,000 people. That leads to an average overall unemployment level of 9·7 per cent. I believe that the best prospects for the south-west lie in the continuation of the Government's financial and economic policies.
    Mr. Patchett: Is the Minister aware that more than 250,000 manufacturing jobs have been lost in the Yorkshire and Humberside region since 1979 as a result of the Government's policies? What is he prepared to do to reverse that trend?
    Mr. MacGregor: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is also aware that there have been 74,000 new jobs in Yorkshire and Humberside since 1983. The hon. Gentleman will no doubt have seen the survey which came out this morning from the Association of British Chambers of Commerce. It is one of the most optimistic recent surveys of industry in Yorkshire and Humberside and shows that things are moving in the right direction.
    Sir Anthony Meyer: In view of the rising number of jobs in Wales that are dependent on inward investment, what effect would the Labour party's policies in that regard have on future employment prospects?
    Mr. MacGregor: I am sure my hon. Friend is entirely right in saying that, just as Wales has been one of the major beneficiaries on inward investment, often in high-tech and high-growth industries for the future, so nothing is more likely to make those industries and investors think less of investing in the United Kingdom than the kinds of policies that we are beginning to see emerge from the Opposition.
    Mr. Speller: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is a great problem associated with lumping these three questions together? The right hon. Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Cocks) lumped the whole of the south-west together. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that epitomises the problem, because the prosperity of Bristol drags up the apparant prosperity of the south-west? Does my right hon. Friend agree that his Department should consider the south-west as Devon and Cornwall, perhaps, which have a smaller population than Bristol, rather than lump them together so that, in economic terms, the best pulls up the worst?
    Mr. MacGregor: I take my hon. Friend's point, but he will realise that the question was not one that I tabled or

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    wished to see. He will also know that present and future improvements in infrastructure in his constituency are among the most important means of helping to ensure prosperity in his part of Devon.
    Mr. Hickmet: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the substantial Government investment in South Humberside, which has three enterprise zones, developmeent area status and substantial assistance from Europe? Is he further aware that unemployment in my constituency has fallen faster than in any other, bar five? Does that not demonstrate the Government's commitment to regions such as Yorkshire and Humberside?
    Mr. MacGregor: My hon. Friend is right. Scunthorpe has undoubtedly benefited from designation as an enterprise zone. The much better targeting of regional development policies to concentrate on areas of greatest need has helped my hon. Friend's constituency considerably. It received more than £12 million in the earlier regional development scheme after June 1983, another £4·2 million in the latest development scheme and a further £4·8 million in regional selective assistance. Those sums have contributed substantially to the results that my hon. Friend has described.
    Mr. Duffy: Will the Chief Secretary confirm that the 74,000 jobs that he claims for Yorkshire and Humberside were not in manufacturing? Can he confirm that the unpublished Government report to which he is privy said that matters would get worse in South Yorkshire? Does he agree that relief can come only from economic expansion at home and overseas? Why did the Chancellor not seek a co-ordinated economic expansion when he had the opportunity at the Group of Five meeting last weekend?
    Mr. MacGregor: The hon. Gentleman will know that South Yorkshire, like many other parts of Europe, has experienced problems with the decline of heavy industries. That is one reason for the fall in manufacturing employment. I hope that he will read the Association of British Chambers of Commerce survey, published this morning, which shows that in Yorkshire and Humberside there are substantially better expectations for home orders and export orders and confidence in manufacturing industry generally.
    Mr. Holt: Does my right hon. Friend agree that employment in Yorkshire and Humberside and Teesside could be vastly improved if the Government were to harmonise with the rest of the EEC and have light duties charged centrally so that we have fair competition? Does he agree that that would enable jobs which have been lost because of lack of harmonisation to come back to the north-east?
    Mr. MacGregor: My hon. Friend knows that that is not a matter for me, but I shall ensure that his question is passed on.
    Mr. Hattersley: The Chief Secretary will recall that in his first supplementary answer he made claims about the past six years, that in his second supplementary answer he made claims about the past three years and that in his third supplementary answer he made claims about the past four years. Does he not find it demeaning to spend so much of his time manipulating the figures in that way?
    Mr. MacGregor: Not in the slightest. I am not demeaning the figures—I am giving the figures. I have
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    given the employment figures since the June 1983 general election, when the electorate gave the Government a resounding vote of confidence in our previous policies.
    As for economic growth, between 1979 and 1981 we experienced a world recession and the difficulties of restructuring the British economy after the effects of the Labour Government's policies. The past six years have been the longest period of sustained, balanced growth for a long time. I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would be pleased about that.

    North Sea Oil
    Mr. Hunterasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what percentage of total revenue has been derived each year since 1979–80 from North sea oil.
    The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Ian Stewart): I shall arrange for the full figures to be printed in the Official Report. The figure for 1985–86 was 11 per cent. and that for the current year is expected to be about 4 per cent.
    Mr. Hunter: I believe that the figures will reveal that North sea oil has declined in relative importance in revenue terms, and also, by impliction, that there is a buoyancy in other areas of economic activity. Will my hon. Friend comment on that proposition?
    Mr. Stewart: It is undoubtedly the case that the decline in the oil industry following the reduction in the oil price has been substantially offset by the strength of the rest of the economy. One of the great achievements of the Government is that such a major reduction in the oil price has been taken in our stride and we have the strength of the economy that we see today.
    Mr. Donald Stewart: Is the Minister aware that there will be no achievements from the Government, apart from the lifeline of the revenue from Scottish oil, and that the spin-off for Scotland has been minimal, bearing out the forecast that Scotland has been the only country which has had oil discovered in its territory and has ended up worse than it was before the oil was discovered? Will the Minister take into account the fact that unemployment is rising in Scotland when it is falling in England and that we have had nothing out of Scottish oil?
    Mr. Stewart: There will be a short-term effect on oil and oil-related industries in Scotland immediately after a change in the oil price of the scale that we have seen, but Scotland is a part of the United Kingdom which benefits from the reduction in overseas debt, from increased net assets overseas—now £80 billion plus—from the annual yield of more than £5 billion that that brings to the United Kingdom, and from the reduction of the public sector borrowing requirement, which has been one of the important facts in the strength of the British economy as a whole.
    Mr. Tim Smith: Does my hon. Friend recall that only a year or two ago people were asking what would happen when the oil ran out? Oil revenue has run right down, but Government revenues are more buoyant than ever. Is that not the clearest possible evidence of the strength of the non-oil economy?
    Mr. Stewart: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He may recall a phrase in the last Budget speech of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor about having lost half the oil

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    revenues in 25 weeks, not 25 years, as some people had been suggesting. In fact, since my right hon. Friend's Budget speech last year, the strength of the non-oil economy has exceeded expectations and bears out very strongly what my hon. Friend has said.
    Mr. MacKenzie: Does the Minister accept that, although there has been a reduction in oil revenue, it is still very substantial, and that most Labour Members would much rather that that revenue was spent on building up our infrastructure and on creating more manufacturing jobs than on paying out unemployment benefit?
    Mr. Stewart: The right hon. Gentleman overlooks the fact that the benefits of the oil revenues to the balance of payments and to the Exchequer over the past few years have enabled a major restructuring of the British economy and that that is one of the things that has contributed so much to the present strength of the economy.
    Following are the figures:

    Annual figures for North sea revenues

    £ billion

    as percentage of total Consolidated Fund revenue

    1979–80

    2·3

    4

    1980–81

    3·7

    6

    1981–82

    6·5

    8

    1982–83

    7·8

    9

    1983–84

    8·8

    10

    1984–85

    12·0

    12

    1985–86

    11·4

    11

    1986–87 (Autumn Statement Forecast)

    4·4

    4

    1979–80 to 1986–87

    57·0

    8

    Share Ownership
    Mr. Formanasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the latest information he has on the extent of employee share ownership in the United Kingdom.
    Mr. Ian Stewart: The number of all-employee share schemes has increased from less than 30 in May 1979 to over 1,200 now. Under those schemes 1·5 million employees have acquired shares or options.
    Mr. Forman: I warmly welcome the progress that is reflected in those figures and urge my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to go further in that direction. Does my hon. Friend accept that the time has perhaps come to consider carefully some form of time-limited tax relief to give a substantial boost to this particularly attractive form of democratic capitalism?
    Mr. Stewart: I note what my hon. Friend says. I shall not comment about the future, but on past performance the profit-sharing and savings-related share option schemes that are already in force have proved very successful and popular. Indeed, there is no let up in the flow of new proposals for them.
    Mrs. Roe: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Stock-Exchange has recently produced information suggesting that 42 per cent. of individual shareholders are women? Since many of these will be married women whose tax position at the moment is unfair, as I think most people would accept, does not this welcome statistic emphasise the importance of the reform of personal taxation as outlined in the Green Paper?
    Mr. Stewart: I note my hon. Friend's comments. I am delighted to hear that such a high proportion of personal shareholders are women, but matters of that kind are not for now.

    Interest Rates
    Mr. Alan Howarthasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the current level of interest rates.
    Mr. Sedgemoreasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what representations he has had recently on the level of United Kingdom interest rates.
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Nigel Lawson): Bank base rates are currently 11 per cent.
    Mr. Howarth: My right hon. Friend will be aware that the very favourable configuration of public finances, upon which he is to be congratulated, is giving rise to much optimism about the future course of our interest rates. Does he agree that we now have an important opportunity to lower the Government's prospective borrowing requirement and that a prudent course of that sort, in contrast with the degrees of extravagance proposed by the various Opposition parties, would give the best prospect of fulfilling those hopes for lower interest rates in the long term?
    Mr. Lawson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks about the state of the economy, which is indeed in a particularly sound condition, as is widely recognised by everybody, even including now—for the first time that I can recall—the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. As to the question of the public sector borrowing requirement, as my hon. Friend knows, it is an integral part of the medium-term financial strategy that the public sector borrowing requirement should be reduced—as it has been. That has clearly brought great benefits in its wake, just as there would be great disasters were the public sector borrowing requirement to be inflated in the way that all the Opposition parties wish it to be.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: Will the Chancellor tell us the comparable rates of interest at present in Germany and in France, the two major countries which are fully within the European monetary system?
    Mr. Lawson: I am not at all clear that the difference between interest rates in this country and those in France and Germany is attributable to the fact that those two countries are in the exchange rate mechanism of the EMS and we are not. It is perfectly true that interest rates are higher in this country. That is well known. That is necessary at present in order to secure a steady downward pressure on inflation. Interest rates will be lowered only as and when it is safe to do so.
    Mr. Beaumont-Dark: Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the most important factors for manufacturing industry is not so much a reduction in tax as a reduction in interest rates? Does he also agree that one of the most helpful things that could happen would be to reduce Government borrowing so that 2 per cent. could come off interest rates rather than 2p off income tax?
    Mr. Lawson: I note my hon. Friend's suggestion that there should be a further reduction in Government

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    borrowing. It is difficult, however, to draw the precise connection between a particular reduction in Government borrowing and a particular effect on the interest rate. It is far more complex than that. The level of public sector borrowing is one factor that determines the level of interest rates, but there are many others as well, as I have pointed out on a large number of occasions. As for British industry, I am sure that my hon. Friend will welcome the fact that British industry is exceedingly healthy. That is one of the reasons for the strong improvement in the Government's tax revenues, which are coming from increased profitability and increased corporation tax.
    Mr. Robert Sheldon: If the Chancellor believes in the success of the Plaza II agreement, does he not also accept the consequences of that for lower interest rates in this country?
    Mr. Lawson: I share the right hon. Gentleman's hope that the Plaza II agreement, in which I participated, will be successful. I think that it will be helpful in a number of ways. So far the signs are that it is succeeding, but I think that it is premature to reach a final judgment on that.
    Mr. Andrew MacKay: At this time, when the country is greatly anticipating a cut in interest rates due to the Government's prudent economic policy, would my right hon. Friend care to speculate on how much interest rates would be likely to increase if the full public expenditure committed by the Opposition were implemented through an increase in borrowing?
    Mr. Lawson: Of course, there would have to be a massive increase in interest rates if there were to be the misfortune of a Labour Government, which, of course, there will not be, not merely, although partly, because of a massive increase in public expenditure and public borrowing, to which they are committed, but because their policies would completely forfeit the confidence of the world financial community. There would be a major exchange rate crisis, which would force up interest rates still higher. It is fortunate, indeed, that that nightmare will never become reality.
    Mr. Skinner: The Chancellor referred to the many factors involved in interest rates going up or coming down. Is it fair to say that the Government may follow the pattern of what happened before the 1983 general election, when they timed a cut in interest rates to precede the election but having managed to return safely to office they then carefully and dutifully put them up again?
    Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that another factor is that Brazil has suspended payments on the $108 billion debt and that, coupled with all the other Latin American debt, could have a serious effect on interest rates? What discussions did he have at the recent conference on that matter?
    Mr. Lawson: On the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I am, of course, grateful to him, as ever, for the helpful hints that he has given me. On the second part, we did have a discussion about the Brazilian debt problem in Paris last weekend, and I shall be seeing the Brazilian Finance Minister, Mr. Funaro, on Monday.
    Sir Michael Shaw: Does my right hon. Friend realise that among all the difficulties that face small farmers in my constituency, nothing would do more good and help to relieve the position in which they find themselves than the lowering of interest rates?
    Mr. Lawson: I entirely take the point that my hon. Friend has put, and I am confident that, over time, the success of the Government's economic policies will lead to interest rates coming down, but, as I have said on a number of occasions, they will come down only when it is prudent for them to do so.
    Dr. McDonald: Why are United Kingdom real interest rates so high?
    Mr. Lawson: That is a rich one coming from the Opposition Benches, because it was the Opposition who got real interest rates so low that they were negative, and they did that by getting inflation going through the roof, and we are not going to go that way.

    Public Expenditure
    Mr. John Townendasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has had any further correspondence with political parties on proposals for increases in public expenditure.
    Mr. MacGregor: No further correspondence, but I note a stream of pledge-laden documents from the Opposition in the past few weeks.
    Mr. Townend: Does my right hon. Friend agree that paying for the election promises of the Opposition, which exceed £24 billion and increase every time a shadow Minister makes a further commitment, would necessitate such a large increase in taxation that the brain drain, which has been reversed in recent years, would soar and there would be a haemorrhage of brains and talent such as the country has never seen before, which would adversely affect our ability to compete abroad?
    Mr. MacGregor: There is no doubt about that, coupled with the effects on industry of much higher interest rates, the effect on inward investment and the loss of overseas confidence in our policy as a result of the overall programme put forward by the Labour party.
    I know that the hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould) is making some assessments of what Labour party policy should be on jobs and the poverty package, but it is clear that the Labour party is still highly committed to a large range of spending programmes in other directions.
    Mr. Wrigglesworth: Is it because of the Government's anxieties about public expenditure that the exchange rate cover has been taken from loans from the European Investment Bank? Is the Minister aware that that has hit small and medium-sized businesses very hard and has meant the loss of thousands of jobs? Will the Treasury reintroduce exchange rate cover for those loans?
    Mr. MacGregor: I have no plans to do so, but that is certainly not because of anxieties about the levels of public expenditure. We believe that they should be prudent, and that is what we are pursuing. We believe in establishing priorities for extra expenditure, and that is what we have done. I think that the anxieties rest rather with the hon. Gentleman. It is clear from the latest Liberal/SDP document that the alliance is not prepared to cost any of its policies because it fears that, in the words of the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen),
    "A ragbag of listed policies is not in itself likely to be attractive to the electorate".
    I think that the right hon Gentleman has learnt the dangers into which the Labour party got itself.
    Mr. Hind: In the light of the promises made by the Labour party to increase public spending in a year by £28 million, will my right hon. Friend tell the House what that would do to the rate of VAT?
    Mr. MacGregor: If that were done on VAT alone, of course it would raise VAT to more than 41p in the pound. I note that one or two Opposition Members have said that we suggested fanciful VAT figures. I am sure that that is simply a smokescreen to cover up the levels of VAT or of income tax that would arise under the Labour party's policies.
    Mr. Campbell-Savours: Is the Minister aware that since the Al Fayed brothers took over Harrods the Exchequer has lost £20 million a year in corporation tax? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Labour will change the law in many of these respects to ensure that companies pay their taxes? That is how we shall fund our public expenditure programme.
    Mr. MacGregor: I note what the hon. Gentleman says, but he will note that, as a result of the increased profitability of British industry and British companies generally, there is now a bigger yield from corporation tax. That is largely the result of the improved profitability of British industry, which would not occur under a Government pursuing the policies suggested by the Labour party.
    Mr. Roger King: Will my right hon. Friend spare just one moment to consider the plight of many of the hapless politicians who may soon face the wrath of factory workers coming out of the factories, including in my constituency, with promises of skyjacking their taxes?
    Mr. MacGregor: I suspect that my hon. Friend is referring to the policies that the Labour party will put before the electorate at the election. Labour Members are trying to pretend that they would not put taxes up, but there can be no question that the kind of spending programme advocated by the Labour party could be met solely by increased borrowing—the money would have to come from substantially increased taxes as well. My hon. Friend is therefore entirely right.
    Mr. Gould: Will the Chief Secretary confirm that the material which he uses to describe what he calls "Labour's spending plans" is supplied by a political party—that is, by the political advisers employed by Conservative Central Office — and not by the Treasury, as is so often represented? Is the work on the increase and extension of VAT being done by those advisers or, on this occasion, by the Treasury?
    Mr. MacGregor: I can confirm that the material comes from a political party—the Labour party. It is documented in many of the spending pledges made by the Labour party over a period. I have constantly made it clear that I would take items off if the Labour party showed that it was no longer committed to them. In the past few weeks we have seen the following policy documents from the Labour party: "Investing in People", "Caring for People", "Towards a new Agriculture", "Jobs and the Environment", "For the Good of All", which deals with aid, and "Fresh Directions". Either the Labour party is still committed — I believe that it is — to its massive spending programmes, or it is undertaking a massive con on the electorate.

    Immigrants (Remittances)
    Mr. Greenwayasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will estimate the value of money sent to private individuals in (a) India, (b) Pakistan, (c) Bangladesh and (d) all other countries by people settled in the United Kingdom; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Peter Brooke): The Government do not hold any estimates of these amounts. My hon. Friend might like to seek the advice of the London embassies of the countries concerned.
    Mr. Greenway: I am grateful for that helpful reply. Does my hon. Friend agree that those countries and others benefit as a nation and as individuals by many millions of pounds of investment a year by companies in this country run by expatriate Indians, Pakistanis and the rest? Does he agree that these countries will suffer greatly if there were a Labour Government, because they would prevent companies from sending money on this basis and recall British investment already in those countries?
    Mr. Brooke: My hon. Friend is quite right to warn his constituents who control such companies about the draconian vindictiveness with which they are threatened by Labour policies on overseas investment.
    Mr. Pavitt: When the Minister is looking at the vast amounts of money that go to companies overseas, will he bear in mind that it is invidious to choose these three countries? That is because most people who are lawfully settled here still have family ties with those countries and often like to look after their elderly parents and their children who remain in the countries of origin.
    Mr. Brooke: I do not think that any value judgment was implied in my hon. Friend's question.
    Mr. Watts: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is strange that the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) should go around making speeches about massive increases in overseas aid, which would be at the taxpayers' expense, while intending to cut back on the opportunities for individuals to invest their money in developing countries?
    Mr. Brooke: The policies of the Opposition are matters for them. I share my hon. Friend's distaste for the siege mentality that they imply.
    Mr. James Lamond: If it is true, as Conservative Members assert, that considerable sums are sent abroad to these countries by individuals, could the Minister draw that to the attention of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Home Office, as it demonstrates once again the validity of the claim by many of my constituents whose families are not allowed to join them in this country and who send money abroad to try to support them in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan? Will the Minister also bear in mind that that admirable trait should not be used as a further stick against those people whom Conservative Members resent living and working in this country?
    Mr. Brooke: If I may say so again, the hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the purport of my hon. Friend's question.

    Personal Equity Plans
    Mr. Brightasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what further evidence he has of the latest response to personal equity plans.
    Mr. Lawson: The response to the new personal equity plans has been most encouraging. Latest available figures suggest that in the first month of the scheme more than 2,000 people a day invested in personal equity plans.
    Mr. Bright: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the present regulations, which mean that people can invest only in 30 or 40 major companies, are too restrictive? Would he look at the possibility of trying to extend this list so that they could invest in some of the smaller public companies and in some of the unquoted companies? Obviously this would help more investors, and especially employees in companies that are not covered at the moment by the scheme.
    Mr. Lawson: The Government do not dictate the particular shares that are being invested in. Different plan managers have different arrangements and, indeed, there is a large variety in the number of shares in which people have invested. I do not believe that any change is needed in this scheme. As I pointed out, this scheme, which is the third leg of popular capitalism after the growth, first, of employee share schemes and then the growth of shareholders by privatisation, is proving extremely successful despite the doubting Thomases that there were at the beginning.
    Mr. Wrigglesworth: Does the Chancellor not agree that this mouse of a scheme is attractive only to those who are already paying capital gains tax and to those who are already investing in shares? Will he look at the scheme again and make it much more attractive? Will he adopt the proposals that we tabled in the Finance Bill in order to make it attractive for newcomers to buy shares, and not only for those who already have shares?
    Mr. Lawson: The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. First, far from being a mouse of a scheme, as I said, in the first month alone—which is the latest figures for which we have records—over 2,000 individuals a day started up personal equity plans. As for the question of making it more generous, the scheme does not apply only to those who pay capital gains tax or to existing shareholders. Indeed, Barclayshare, one of the largest of the plan managers, has already estimated that roughly a quarter of those who subscribe to its personal equity plan are first-time shareholders.

    Income Tax
    Mr. Fallonasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what information he has on the starting rates of income tax in other European Community countries.
    Mr. Brooke: The United Kingdom has the second highest starting rate of national income tax in the Community and the third highest rate, after Denmark and Ireland, when local income taxes are included. I shall arrange for further information to be placed in the Official Report.
    Mr. Fallon: Are the starting rates of tax not too high? Will my hon. Friend reinforce his determination to cut tax for the low-paid by paying particular heed to the advice in last week's Militant newspaper that
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    "Labour leaders are at last realising the electoral damage being done by their pledge to reverse Tory tax cuts and that ordinary employed workers fear"—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman must summarise, not quote.
    Mr. Fallon:
    "that ordinary employed workers fear that Labour will increase their already heavy tax burden."
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I repeat that the hon. Gentleman must summarise, not quote.
    Mr. Brooke: Answering my hon. Friend's question sub specie aeternitatis, I think that my right hon. Friend has indicated that he proposes to cut tax. In the narrower context of St. Patrick's day, it would be wrong for me to quote. The quotation from Militant did not appear to be one which the Opposition enjoyed.
    Mr. Winnick: Has the Minister seen the memorandum from the Tory Reform Group— a number of Cabinet Ministers are associated with that organisation—which has argued strongly that, instead of cutting taxes, the Government should make further substantial investment in housing, education and the rest? Is the Minister aware that what we complain about are not tax cuts for the lowest paid, who should certainly get relief, but the tax cuts that have benefited the wealthiest people under the Tory Government?
    Mr. Brooke: I have read a wide number of representations, from Militant to the Tory Reform Group, but that does not allow me to anticipate my right hon. Friend's Budget.
    Mr. Maples: The disparity in the starting rates of tax highlighted by my hon. Friend's answer is serious. Many of us hope that he will soon find himself able to do something about it. Does he not agree that tax revenues are not maximised by high rates of tax? Is that not borne out by the fact that over the last seven years the yield of higher rate tax in real terms has risen by 40 per cent. over a period when rates of tax have been reduced?
    Mr. Brooke: My hon. Friend is quite right to draw attention to that element of buoyancy.
    Following is the information:

    Starting rate of income tax (per cent.) for a single person and for a married couple without children EEC Countries

    (a) National rates

    (b) National and local rates combined

    Single person

    Married couple

    Single person

    Married couple

    Belgium

    19

    22

    21

    23

    Denmark

    21

    21

    49

    49

    France

    26

    19

    26

    19

    Germany

    22

    22

    22

    22

    Greece

    5

    7

    5

    7

    Ireland

    35

    35/60

    35

    35/60

    Italy

    12

    12

    12

    12

    Luxembourg

    11

    11

    11

    11

    Netherlands

    15

    16

    15

    16

    Portugal

    2·5

    2·5

    2·5

    2·5

    Spain

    8

    21

    8

    21

    United Kingdom

    29

    29

    29

    29

    1. The rates relate to employment income.

    2. The starting rates are in all cases the lowest applicable when tax actually becomes payable. The figures reflect the latest enacted rate

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    scales, as far as is known.

    3. The rates shown may differ from the nominal rates of tax in the countries concerned because, where appropriate, they take account of employment income reliefs, minimum expense deductions, tax credits for personal allowances and other standard reliefs.

    4. In Belgium and Denmark local income taxes are payable in addition to the national rate. The combined figures for these two countries assume, in the case of Belgium, that the local tax is payable at the rate applicable to the majority of the population; in the case of Denmark at the Copenhagen rate, which is about average.

    5. The higher starting rate for a married couple in Ireland (60 per cent.) reflects the marginal relief just above the exemption limit. Where there is no longer any marginal relief, the rate reduces to 35 per cent.

    Privatisation
    Mr. Nellistasked the Chancellor of the Excheqer what lessons he has drawn from the recent privatisation of British Airways for future flotations of publicly owned companies; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Lawson: The main lesson from the British Airways sale is that there is very considerable popular support for the privatisation programme. Over 1 million people became shareholders in British Airways, including over 90 per cent. of the company's employees.
    Mr. Nellist: Why does the Chancellor not admit that the deliberate undervaluation of British Airways cost working people, that is, his beloved taxpayers, £300 million, and that £50 million profit was made on the first day, including Lord King's personal profit of £13,000 in 24 hours? Is it not just like all the other privatisation exercises of the Government—legalised theft?
    Mr. Lawson: On the contrary. it is public ownership in the true sense of the word. It is returning savings to the people. As for the hon. Member's expertise in the pricing of new issues, I would have had a little more respect for that if he had predicted what would happen.
    Mr. Yeo: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there is one clear lesson to be learnt from the British Airways share sale, and that is that, even without the benefit of a large advertising campaign, there is massive public interest in and support for the Government's policy of privatisation? Is that not conveniently highlighted by the Oppositions determination to reverse our policy?
    Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend is right. That is precisely why we shall continue with this programme throughout the remainder of this Parliament and well into the next Parliament.
    Mr. Blair: Is it not the case that foreign speculation on gas, British Telecom and British Airways alone creamed off over £350 million on first-day profits, more than a full year's cost of the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) to give free TV licences to pensioners'? Why are the Government so mean with pensioners and so generous with foreign bankers?
    Mr. Lawson: The hon. Member's xenophobia, which he cultivates for the benefit of certain elements in his own party, because he himself does not believe in it for a moment, is entirely without the statistical foundation which he attempted to give to the House.

    Pensioners (Income Tax)
    Mr. Dubsasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many pensioners pay income tax; and what is the total revenue involved.
    Mr. Fryasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many persons in the last financial year for which figures are available, in receipt of retirement pensions, paid income tax of £300 or less for the relevant year; and what were the comparable figures in the two preceding years.
    Mr. Brooke: The available information relates to single people and married couples aged 65 or over. About 2½ million pay income tax totalling nearly £4 billion per annum. However, in each of the last three years about four and three quarter million had no liability to income tax while a further three quarters of a million paid tax of 1;300 per annum or less.
    Mr. Dubs: Does the Minister understand the sense of injustice felt by those pensioners who have a small occupational pension on top of their basic pension and still have to pay tax on it? Does not justice to pensioners demand that those poor people should be exempt from paying income tax?
    Mr. Brooke: Single pensioners can have income up to £16 per week over basic pension before paying tax, and married pensioners can have around £25 per week.
    Mr. Fry: Does my hon. Friend not appreciate that the figures that he has provided this afternoon show that it is dangerous to lump all pensioners together and that some pensioners are not quite in the category described by the Labour party? None the less, does he appreciate that it must cost the Inland Revenue a considerable amount to collect the taxation from the three quarters of a million pensioners he mentioned'? May we hope for further moves in the direction that the Government have taken to remove those people entirely from the income tax net?
    Mr. Brooke: Between 1979 and 1985 pensioners' total net income increased on average by 2·7 per cent. a year more than prices, whereas the average net income for the population as a whole increased by 1 per cent. per annum. I note what my hon. Friend said, but that again is a question for the Budget.

  PRIME MINISTER
  Mr. Speaker: Before we start Prime Minister's questions, I remind the House that questions should be related to the Prime Minister's responsibilities.
  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Franksasked the Prime Minister if she will list her offical engagements for Thursday 26 February.
    The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Franks: Has my right hon. Friend noticed the latest optimistic forecast from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research concerning jobs, inflation, growth and output? Will she confirm that the Government's policies, which have secured those improved prospects, will be continued, not only in this Parliament but in the next, despite the efforts of the Opposition to undermine national prosperity?
    The Prime Minister: I had noticed that report from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research,

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    which said that the economy would expand by nearly 3 per cent. this year. It has been accompanied by other optimistic reports at the same time from the Association of British Chambers of Commerce and the Institute for Fiscal Studies and by excellent construction figures. I confirm what my hon. Friend said, that the policies that have led to a healthy industrial and commercial base will be continued in the next Parliament.
    Mr. Kinnock: When £3 billion spent on high quality health and education services and building homes would generate at least four times as many jobs as an equal sum spent on tax cuts, does not the course of prudence dictate to the Government that they should be using whatever resources they have to generate jobs in Britain rather than using them for pre-election give-aways?
    The Prime Minister: More jobs are being generated in Britain, as the right hon. Gentleman knows. The healthy state of the economy, which I have just indicated from the reports today, has been brought about partially by the incentives that have been given by some of the income tax cuts. Most of us want to keep, at the top end too, some of our best brains in this country and one does not do that by high taxation.
    Mr. Kinnock: Does the Prime Minister not recognise that, whenever they are asked, the vast majority of British taxpayers say that they would rather have dependable, high quality services, decent old-age pensions and jobs for people in this country than a few pence off income tax? Is it not clear that their sense of prudence and patriotism is much greater than that of the Government?
    The Prime Minister: We have high quality services in this country. The Health Service is excellent, and, with regard to pensioners, Britain's spending on the elderly is the third highest in Europe as a proportion of the national income. With regard to what the right hon. Gentleman said about tax cuts, may I remind him of what the last Labour Chancellor said about these. He said:
    "With the rate of inflation remaining low, and with these substantial tax reliefs"—
    he was referring to some small cuts on 11 April 1978—
    "modest increases in earnings should ensure that real living standards can continue to rise over the year ahead without unduly increasing our industrial costs."
    He went on:
    "This is the best possible recipe for commercial and industrial success. It is the only recipe for curing unemployment."—[Official Report, 11 April 1978; Vol. 947, c. 1207–8.]
    That was a Labour Chancellor.
    Mr. Kinnock: Yes, and does the Prime Minister recall that when that Labour Chancellor said that there were 1 million, not 3 million, unemployed, that we had a surplus in our manufacturing trade, that we had lower interest rates and that everybody — old-age pensioners and others alike—was in relative and absolute terms better off? Will she accept that that Chancellor, also had a 25p band for income tax? Will she introduce that and use any other money she has for generating jobs, instead of trying to bribe at election time?
    The Prime Minister: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman has forgotten a few facts. We now have a higher standard of living than this country has ever known and the highest standard of Health Service that this country has ever known. The day that we were returned to No. 10 Downing
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    street spending on the National Health Service was £7¾ billion a year and now it is £18¾ billion a year. The standard of pensions has never been higher than it is now.
    Mrs. Peacock: Has my right hon. Friend had time today to study the report from the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, which suggests that four regions in the north of England, including Yorkshire, have above average investment? Will she congratulate those companies in my constituency that have invested over £20 million in manufacturing industry?
    The Prime Minister: My hon. Friend is right. The Association of British Chambers of Commerce has confirmed that manufacturing industry is doing well in the north as well as in the south, that exports are also doing well in the north, that a considerable number of people are taking up enterprise allowances in the north and that half the increasing number of self-employed also find their place in the north.
    Mr. Nicholas Brownasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 26 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Brown: When the Prime Minister next bats for the north in Cabinet, will she thump her right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy with her bat and tell him to get on with ordering coal-fired power plants from the north's engineering industry? What is the point of planning tax cuts for people to spend on imported electrical consumer goods when there will be no electricity in the mid-1990s with which to run them?
    The Prime Minister: I notice that the Labour party is a party of high income taxation at all levels. We happen to believe that people are entitled to the lion's share of their own earnings and that that gives rise to better incentives and a better standard of living for all people. With regard to power stations, my right hon. Friend the Energy Secretary will be taking decisions in the near future about what power stations, if any, he will be ordering.
    Mr. Lathamasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 26 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Latham: When my right hon. Friend met the American arms control negotiators yesterday, did she stress that the stars wars project, in its limited research form, has already been immensely helpful to the West in bringing Mr. Gorbachev to the negotiating table and, we hope, keeping him there?
    The Prime Minister: I believe that it is the strength and resolution of the West, including this Government, that have brought the Russians to the negotiating table at Geneva. It is continued strength and resolution that will in the end ensure balanced reductions of nuclear and other weaponry. Indeed, that is one reason why the Labour party's policy of one-sided nuclear disarmament is so dangerous and will be totally rejected by the British people.
    Mr. Steel: When the Prime Minister told the Institute of Directors on Tuesday that she believed it wrong for the state to take and spend so much of people's earnings, did

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    she not recognise what a poll in the Today newspaper shows, which is that a clear majority of people would rather see money spent this year on jobs, education, pensions and health than have two or three pence off their rate of income tax? Does that not show that the people have a rather higher concept of responsibility to their neighbours than has the Prime Minister?
    The Prime Minister: No. I am interested to learn that the Liberal party also wants higher income tax for people such as nurses and teachers. We do not wish to have higher income tax. We believe that a Chancellor does not give away money on Budget day, but decides how much of people's money he will take away.
    Mr. Gerald Howarth: Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the aerospace industry on achieving a 12·5 per cent. increase in exports last year, reaching a record £4·74 billion? Does this not show the strength of manufacturing industry in high-tech, and does it not give the lie to what has been said by the Leader of the Opposition, who is doing a great disservice to manufacturing industry?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I gladly congratulate the British aerospace industry and the company. It had a good year the year before last, which was shown in the company's annual report in March last year. I understand that it has had another very good year this year and we congratulate all concerned.
    Mr. Terlezkiasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 26 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Terlezki: Will not the trade union reforms announced this week be welcome in the whole of the country because they will ensure that no longer will the trade union barons have the power to dictate to our industries? Should not power belong to the ordinary trade union members, who should be the people to decide the future of their labour?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, all our trade union reforms have been designed to give more power to ordinary members of trade unions against the trade union bosses. They have led to a new atmosphere in industrial relations, with the lowest number of strikes for a long time and an excellent, profitable industry with good prospects for the future.
    Mr. Flannery: Will the Prime Minister take note of the hurriedly organised lobby of teachers' unions outside the House today? The lobby is asking for the right to negotiate as a union—a right of which it has been deprived by a Bill introduced by a Minister who does not understand what he is doing. Will the Prime Minister do something so that the unions generally know that this is an attack not only on the teachers' unions but on the trade union movement, to deprive it of the right to negotiate?
    The Prime Minister: The overwhelming majority of teachers, and of parents, know that teachers have had a
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    better deal from this Government than from any other Government. The increase in pay is outstanding and takes teachers way above what used to be their old bench-mark of the Houghton award. This settlement goes way above that and defines their pay and conditions of service for the first time, ensuring that better teachers get better pay. It is a temporary arrangement until permanent arrangements for negotiating can be worked out.
    Mr. Robert Atkinsasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 26 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Atkins: With regard to the Government's recently announced policy on the future of Leyland Trucks, will my right hon. Friend take time today to consider the division within the Liberal party? Its employment spokesman is in favour of Paccar, and its industry spokesman is in favour of DAF. Is this not—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Was the hon. Gentleman not here when I made my announcement? Questions must relate to the Prime Minister's responsibilities.
    Mrs. Clwyd: Does the Prime Minister recall Question Time on 22 January, when she described Mr. Duncan Campbell as ferreting around and as a threat to national security? Will she now apologise to him and to all those smeared by her accusations?
    The Prime Minister: No. The matters referred to were accepted by both Front Benches as a threat to national security. Yesterday Mr. Campbell gave the High Court a binding undertaking not to publish sensitive information about the secret defence project—[Interruption.] The injunction against him was accordingly discharged in the light of that binding undertaking.
    Mrs. Virginia Bottomleyasked the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 26 February.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mrs. Bottomley: With 15,000 deaths and 24,000 new cases of breast cancer a year, does my right hon. Friend agree that the announcement of a national screening service is further demonstration of the Government's commitment to women's health?
    The Prime Minister: Yes. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services said yesterday, the Government have accepted the recommendation of the Forrest report in full. This is greatly to the advantage of many women and greatly to the relief of many others, not only in relation to breast cancer, but with regard to cervical cancer. It was a very good statement yesterday and it is a further earnest of the way in which this Government constantly look after the Health Service and constantly improve it.

Business of the House
3.31 pm
Mr. Neil Kinnock: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business for next week?
The Lord Privy Seal and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Biffen): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 2 MARCH—There will be a debate on Welsh affairs on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
Motion relating to the Milk and Dairies and Milk (Special Designation) (Charges) Regulations.
TUESDAY 3 MARCH—Second Reading of the Local Government Bill.
Remaining stages of the Rate Support Grants Bill.
WEDNESDAY 4 MARCH—Progress on remaining stages of the Abolition of Domestic Rates etc. (Scotland) Bill (1st Allotted Day).
THURSDAY 5 MARCH—Completion of remaining stages of the Abolition of Domestic Rates etc. (Scotland) Bill (2nd Allotted Day).
FRIDAY 6 MARCH—Private Members' motions.
MONDAY 9 MARCH—Opposition Day (10th Allotted Day). The debate will arise on a motion in the names of the leaders of the Liberal and Social Democratic parties, subject for debate to be announced.
Mr. Kinnock: Does the Leader of the House recall that just five weeks ago the Prime Minister was describing Mr. Duncan Campbell as a ferret interested in revealing
"information of use to our enemies".—[Official Report, 22 January 1987: Vol. 108, c. 1021.]
But the Government have now—as the Prime Minister just said—accepted the undertakings of that same Mr. Campbell and not sustained the injunction against him. Would the Leader of the House arrange next week for the Solicitor-General to come to the House to explain why, instead of engaging in eight months of inactivity and two weeks of bullying, the Government did not seek much earlier to take that course of action and obtain an undertaking which Mr. Campbell has made clear he was willingly ready to give?
Can the Leader of the House also arrange for the Solicitor-General or the Solicitor-General for Scotland to come to the House next week to give the Government's reaction to the legal opinion which the BBC has obtained from the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates in Scotland, to the effect that the special branch raid on the Glasgow office made at the instruction of the Government was almost certainly unlawful?
Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that there is great and growing concern both in this House and outside about people alleged to be Nazi war criminals who are apparently still living in our country? Names have been sent to the Prime Minister by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre and I understand that the Home Secretary will be meeting representatives of that organisation next Monday.
Will the Leader of the House ensure that, as soon as possible after that meeting, the Home Secretary will make a statement to the House about any further action which the Government propose to take in respect of any people about whom there may be reasonable suspicion of involvement in war crimes?
Does the Leader of the House recognise that there is urgent and growing need for a wide-ranging debate on
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foreign affairs? The escalation of the Iran-Iraq war, the renewed Syrian involvement in the Lebanon, the continued incarceration of Mr. Terry Waite and other hostages, developments in South Africa, the Government's use of their Security Council veto against comprehensive sanctions, the threat to the anti-ballistic missile treaty posed by the development of the Strategic Defence Initiative and the implications for Britain of the Tower commission's report to the United States' senate today, are all matters which the House should be able to examine as soon as possible. Can the right hon. Gentleman make appropriate arrangements for such a debate?
Finally, the right hon. Gentleman may recall that last week I asked for an early debate in Government time on the British motor car industry, especially in the light of the Government's readiness to write off debts of £750 million and to make a present of Leyland Trucks to DAF of Holland, which has seven out of nine members of the supervisory board. In view of that, and of the continuing pressures on other parts of the motor vehicle industry, including Bedford Commerical Vehicles Ltd., can the right hon. Gentleman tell me now when such a debate will take place?
Mr. Biffen: On the first point, the right hon. Gentleman will have heard my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister explain the circumstances in which the action was taken by my right hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor-General in respect of Mr. Campbell. But I take note that he would like consideration to be given to a statement also covering the legal opinion from the Dean of the Faculty of Advocates; perhaps that is something that we might consider.
The right hon. Gentleman's point about the allegations —I emphasise that we are talking about allegations—of wartime crimes is certainly very much with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. I can confirm that it is planned that he will meet members of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre next week. I shall bear in mind the interest that the right hon. Gentleman expressed that the House should be kept informed of these matters.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the range of issues which compel consideration of a general foreign affairs debate, and perhaps that is something which we may consider through the usual channels. Finally, when the right hon. Gentleman talks about making a present of Leyland Trucks, he makes it clear that there could be a genuine educative role for any debate on the motor industry. Again, perhaps we could look at that through the usual channels.
Sir Peter Hordern: Is it not time that we had a debate on farming and land use?
Mr. Biffen: Yes, I agree with my hon. Friend. Several Government publications will come out next month and in that context we could well arrange a debate.
Mr. James Wallace: I thank the Leader of the House for agreeing to debate the prayer in the name of my right hon. and hon. Friends relating to the dairy industry and I am sure that it will attract interest on both sides of the House. It is now more than two weeks since the Secretary of State for Transport announced the increase in light dues and said that an order would be made in due course. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that has attracted considerable criticism and opposition from

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many sectors, especially those concerned about the future of the British merchant fleet? Can he tell us when the order will be laid and the House can have an opportunity to debate it?
Mr. Biffen: I note and acknowledge the compliment that the hon. Gentleman pays the Treasury Bench on the speed with which the debate on dairy charges has been arranged. I shall look into his second point and be in touch with him.
Mr. Harry Greenway: Could my right hon. Friend arrange a debate on rates before next Thursday so that the House may consider the planned rate rise in Ealing of 80 per cent. by the hard Left Labour council which has the support of the Leader of the Opposition for its high spending on obnoxious policies? Will he table any motion relating to such a debate so that we can consider the awful pressure and agony of that, not only on pensioners, poor people, ordinary working people and everyone else, but on industry which is required by law to be consulted by the local council but which has been refused that consultation so far by Ealing council?
Mr. Biffen: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for once again reminding us of the difficulties that are created by the activities of Ealing council and, indeed, the wider problem that commands attention — the action of the far-Left in these matters. As to next week's business, there is a debate on Friday on the inner cities and my hon. Friend may wish to make his speech on that occasion.
Mr. John Home Robertson: Will the Leader of the House explain today's major retreat by the Government, which will remove the dishonest cloak of a transitional period from the Government's proposal to impose a poll tax in Scotland? Is it not extremely sharp practice for the Government to table no fewer than 40 major and controversial amendments to a Bill which is subject to a guillotine, only 12 hours after the Business Committee had agreed to dispose of that part of the Bill within two hours? May we have additional time to debate those amendments?
Mr. Biffen: I shall look into the hon. Gentleman's point, but I suspect that there is a good precedent for it.
Sir Paul Bryan (Boothferry): When can we expect a debate on the Green Paper on the future of radio?
Mr. Biffen: I cannot say this afternoon, Sir, but I shall look at the point that my hon. Friend makes.
Dr. Norman A. Godman: Has the right hon. Gentleman had a chance to read early-day motion 649?
[That this House expresses concern at the irregularities and discrepancies in the management and funding of the Community Programme in the West of Scotland; deplores the fact that the Government has prevaricated and procrastinated in its answers to questions on this matter tabled by the honourable Member for Greenock and Port Glasgow and that it has refused to publish a report, compiled by officials of the Manpower Services Comission which has revealed mismanagement and misallocation of public funds in relation to certain projects funded under the Community Programme; and calls for an urgent public enquiry into these allegations so as to remove the uncertainty which is undermining confidence in the Community Programme in an area which desperately needs more jobs and investment.]
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That elegantly worded motion, which has been signed by over 100 hon. Members, is concerned with irregularities and discrepancies in the funding of the Manpower Services Commission community schemes in the west of Scotland. This important matter is causing considerable concern because, inter alia, it reveals weaknesses in the scheme of funding. May we have an early debate on this important issue?
Mr. Biffen: I understand that the Manpower Services Commission has carried out an investigation. I take note of the hon. Gentleman's request for a debate. I can offer no early prospect of that in Government time, but perhaps he will seek the other opportunities that are available.
Mr. Allan Stewart: Further to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Mr. Home Robertson), is my right hon. Friend aware that my constituents will be delighted that the Government have decided to end the transitional period and move more swiftly towards the implementation of the community charge? Is he also aware that the Labour regional councils in Scotland have announced massive rate increases? Does he agree that next week's debate will be an opportunity for Opposition Members to join Conservative Members in condemning those acts of political spite?
Mr. Biffen: I am sure that my hon. Friend speaks armed with the most compelling of arguments. However, I said that I would look at the matter in procedural terms, and I shall leave it there.
Mr. Robin Cook: If it is the Government's contention today that it was necessary to apply for the injunction against Mr. Duncan Campbell only to obtain an undertaking that he would not reveal technical information, will the Leader of the House explain why the Government sought to obtain an injunction against myself and 13 colleagues, since, patently, we have no technical information and would probably be incapable of understanding it if somebody sought to give it to us?
Mr. Biffen: I do not think that that comes under next week's business and I cannot add to what I said to the Leader of the Opposition.
Sir Bernard Braine: May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to early-day motion 450, which stands in my name and that of 74 other Members of all parties?
[That this House notes the written replies given recently by the Secretary of State for Social Services concerning the Infant Life (Preservation) Act; notes the reference in these replies to the fact that the Department of Health and Social Security has circulated to regional health authorities copies of a report by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists entitled, Foetal Viability and Clinical Practice, the publication of which was encouraged by the Department; points out that this report highlights the fact that developments in medical science make it possible for babies of increasingly earlier gestation to be born alive; reminds the Secretary of State that it is an offence under the Infant Life (Preservation) Act to kill any child 'capable of being borne alive'; draws attention to the statement in the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists report that 'in 1984 72 per cent. of live-born infants of 22–27 weeks' gestation born at the Bristol Maternity Hospital survived'; reminds the Secretary of State that many of the late abortions currently performed are, therefore, contrary to

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existing law; and urges him to re-examine existing departmental procedures to ensure that prosecutions are brought against those who perform such illegal abortions and to ensure that all centres where abortions are currently performed are contacted in order make it clear to them that late abortions are illegal.]
The motion draws attention to a report from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, which the Department of Health and Social Security has circulated to health authorities, which suggests that many late abortions are taking place illegally. As a recent decision in the courts may have thrown considerable further doubt and anxiety on the subject, is it not the Government's duty to make a clear statement to the House on the present legal position, and, if it is unclear, to take appropriate action?
Mr. Biffen: I note what my right hon. Friend says. I shall convey his request that the position be the subject of a Government statement to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Security. However, we are approaching a situation where little Government time is available certainly for any new primary legislation.
Mr. John Wilkinson: May I repeat to my right hon. Friend my previous request for an early statement on the British national space programme, as it is imperative that Her Majesty's Government make clear Britain's role in Europe's manned future in space and enhancement of Europe's launcher capability? This is the third and last time of asking.
Mr. Biffen: I am not sure whether to be encouraged by that, but my hon. Friend's request is in respect of a profoundly important aspect of our national economy and I shall certainly bear it in mind.
Mr. Nicholas Brown: Will the Leader of the House at least undertake to try to coax the Solicitor-General into the House next week to make a statement on the injunction agreement that was made yesterday? If he is unable to make a statement at the beginning of next week, will the right hon. Gentleman persuade him to undertake to make a statement once the Committee of Privileges has completed its deliberations on these matters?
Mr. Biffen: I note what the hon. Gentleman says and I think that I would best help the House by leaving the matter where I did in my reply to the Leader of the Opposition.
Mr. Jonathan Aitken: Has my right hon. Friend noticed the latest spot of bother for the Channel tunnel project, the spillage of a large quantity of dangerous and poisonous industrial waste at the old workings — an environmental issue of considerable concern for those in the area, including my constituents? Will my right hon. Friend arrange for an early statement to be made on the matter and could that statement please include an explanation of how this sensitive environmental issue, which has been known to the Department of Transport for some months, was suppressed throughout the hearings of the Select Committee and the proceedings of the Standing Committee on the Channel Tunnel Bill?
Mr. Biffen: My hon. Friend should not gloat. I shall draw his point to the attention of my right hon. Friend the
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Secretary of State for the Environment and, in any case, he will be available for questions on Wednesday of next week.
Mr. Hugh Brown: I welcome the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that he will look into the problem with regard to the business on Wednesday and Thursday next week, but is he aware that, although the Business Committee met yesterday, it is only today that we have found out through some press statement that more than 60 amendments are now being submitted by the Government? Does that not confirm my previous view that the Government have acted with arrogance and in ignorance in treating the House in this fashion?
Mr. Biffen: I could not accept such a description of my hon. Friends and myself, but I have said that I shall look at the matter procedurally and that I shall do.
Mr. John Browne: Does my right hon. Friend accept that the report of the Environment Committee of the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England points to a real concern in the nation about the physical condition of our churches, particularly our cathedrals and abbeys, which are, after all national assets? Does he also accept that many of us feel that it would be reprehensible to have to pay to pray, even on a direct donation basis, and that something must be done about the funding of these great buildings before it is too late? Is it not time that we had a debate on this subject?
Mr. Biffen: Any debate should properly follow the receipt of the Government's observations on the report; once that has been undertaken, I shall look at my hon. Friend's point.
Mr. David Clelland: May I draw the right hon. Gentleman's attention to early-day motion 365 on the subject of Play Board, in the name of myself and 89 other hon. Members from both sides of the House?
[That this House reiterates its support for the advancement of children's play, as expressed in Early Day Motion 363 which was tabled on 23rd March 1982; welcomes the establishment in 1983 and continued funding of Play Board as the national organisation dedicated to the development of children's play; applauds the achievements of Play Board during the past three years in co-ordinating effort, conducting research producing good-quality publications and especially in providing a much valued advisory and information service to local authorities and their Communities; and urges Her Majesty's Government during its review of support for children's play, to ensure that Play Board is appropriately positioned and adequately resourced to continue to provide these important functions in the interests of all children.]
Will he assure the House that no decision will be taken to change the independence or the status of Play Board before the matter has been discussed and hon. Members have had an opportunity to express their views?
Mr. Biffen: I shall look at the motion to which the hon. Gentleman refers and I shall refer it to the relevant Minister.
Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: Referring to the Leader of the Opposition's question about war criminals, does my right hon. Friend agree that there is something distasteful and abhorrent about the activities of so-called "Nazi hunters"? We must look seriously at any genuine

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evidence that is produced, but will my right hon. Friend confirm that there is no intention to bend or change our law in order to accommodate their clamour?
Mr. Biffen: I am sure that those considerations will be uppermost not only in the minds of Ministers but in the minds of all hon. Members who wish to live by the rule of law.
Mr. Greville Janner: Does the Leader of the House agree that it is both distasteful and abhorrent to hon. Members on both sides of the House that people guilty of war crimes should be living in freedom in Britain and not be brought to justice?
Mr. Stanbrook: Alleged to be guilty.
Mr. Janner: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the House an undertaking that he will ask the Home Secretary to make a statement to the House on how those people entered Britain, how they obtained British citizenship and what the Government propose to do about them now?
Mr. Biffen: I hope that we will not find that assertions of guilt by hon. Members or others are taken as tantamount to guilt. I said that I shall refer the matter to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary in answer to the Leader of the Opposition, and I believe that that also covers what the hon. and learned Member has in mind.
Mr. James Couchman: Will my right hon. Friend arrange for our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science to make a statement next week on the policies of the London borough of Haringey in relation to the promotion of homosexual and lesbian positive images, which allow it to employ four workers at £1 7,000 a year to promote openly gay or lesbian tendencies and which is likely to lead to the death by fasting of the Rev. David Rushworth-Smith?
Mr. Biffen: Of course I shall refer to my right hon. Friend the point that my hon. Friend has now raised. I am sure that it is one which will excite a great deal of anxiety in the House and outside.
Mr. Tony Banks: Is the Leader of the House aware of the extreme concern felt by hon. Members on both sides of the House at recent developments in football in London? The Fulham football ground is being forced to merge with Queen's Park Rangers and the asset-strippers that have got hold of Craven Cottage will develop it for luxury flats. Is the Leader of the House aware that, despite the great interest and anxiety in the House, London and among football supporters throughout the country, it has proved impossible for us to raise this matter on the Floor of the House? I know that the right hon. Gentleman is not very keen on the arts. He claims to be a great philistine. I hope that he is not also against the more muscular sport of soccer. Will he therefore arrange for us to have a debate at the earliest possible opportunity?
Mr. Biffen: It is rugby from the Welsh valleys which is the true art form in these matters. I shall consider the hon. Gentleman's request, but I think that he is right that there is no obvious and immediate ministerial responsibility. If the situation in prospect could lead to development plans which would be the subject of appeal to the Secretary of State, that would be even more inhibiting.
Mr. Michael Forsyth: When he considers the Opposition's complaint about business for Wednesday
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and Thursday, and especially the amendment which removes the phasing out of the community charge, will my right hon. Friend bear it in mind that, in Committee, the Opposition argued for precisely that measure?
Mr. Biffen: I am sure that all considerations will be borne in mind.
Mr. Nick Raynsford: Further to the right hon. Gentleman's reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), will he please give his attention to early-day motion 653 which has been signed by 78 hon. Members and expresses grave concern about the implications for football?
[That this House notes with concern and alarm the reports suggesting that the Chairman of Fulham Football Club is proposing to merge Fulham with Queen's Park Rangers Football Club, and that this would mean the end of Fulham Football Club's existence as a separate club playing football at Craven Cottage; notes that any such proposal would involve a flagrant breach of the undertakings given by the Chairman of Fulham Football Club late in 1986, that under his Chairmanship the Club would enjoy a period of at least two years stability playing at Craven Cottage; notes also with concern the interests of the Chairman of Fulham Football Club in Stamford Bridge Football ground where Chelsea Football Club's continued occupation is also under threat; considers that his intentions through Marler Estates and SB Properties to redevelop both grounds for luxury housing is incompatible with the interests of the football clubs; and calls for an urgeni statement from the Minister of Sport on the steps which the Government propose to take to protect the interests of the three football clubs immediately affected, Fulham, Chelsea and Queen's Park Rangers, and other football clubs whose future may be threatened in a similar way in the future.]
Does he accept that the Minister with responsibility for sport should take account of the wider implications for the survival of our national game, which is under threat from the activities of unscrupulous asset-strippers?
Mr. Biffen: The topic is being invested with somewhat lurid rhetoric. I tried to give a reasonably helpful, albeit modest, answer to the hon. Member for Newham, North-West (Mr. Banks), and I think that I have to leave it there.
Mr. Richard Ottaway: May I refer my right hon. Friend to early-day motion 63, which calls on the Government to introduce a legally enforceable right to interest to combat the growing problem of the late payment of debts?
[That this House, whilst noting that the Government recognises the increasing difficulties caused by the late payment of debts and congratulating it on its voluntary code contained in the booklet Payment on Time, believes that legislation giving a legal enforceable right to interest on the late payment of debts should be introduced to give teeth to the voluntary code; and notes that in a survey carried out by the Forum of Private Business 84 per cent. of its members supported the introduction of such legislation and that in a survey carried out by the Confederation of British Industry 83 per cent. of its members thought that the existence of a statutory right to interest would result in the faster payment of bills.]
It has the support of 168 hon. Members on both sides of the House. In view of the Government's perceived change of attitude to this issue, is it not time that we had a debate on it?
Mr. Biffen: I shall bear that request in mind. Once we get the Finance Bill, the scope for discussing practically every aspect of the national economy is limitless, and I hope that my hon. Friend can contain his impatience until then, when perhaps we can both be satisfied.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: I wonder whether the Leader of the House has seen the City page of last week's London Evening Standard, which refers to the setting up, with the blessing of the Bank of England, of a lifeboat for Morgan Grenfell. As he knows, the Government are reluctant to make statements about lifeboats, as was evidenced by their refusal to make a statement about Johnson Matthey banks for about six months. Can we have an assurance that the right hon. Gentleman will press the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make a statement so that we do not have the laggardly behaviour that we had with JMB and so that we know precisely what role the Bank of England played in the establishment of the lifeboat, especially in view of Morgan Grenfell's close connections with the Guinness fiasco? While he is about it, perhaps we can know exactly when those people at the head of the Guinness affairs, those crooks, will be dealt with—
Mr. Speaker: Briefly.
Mr. Skinner: —in the same fashion as those 9,000 miners in 1984–85?
Mr. Biffen: First, I was not aware of the cutting to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Clearly my reading is much more limited and doubtless that much more deprived on that account, but on the issue of substance—
Mr. Skinner: It is your paper; it is a Tory paper.
Mr. Biffen: I think it depends on what sort of Tory one is. I shall refer the points of substance that were made by the hon. Gentleman to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Mr. Richard Hickmet: On the Zircon matter, will my right hon. Friend note, in considering whether to ask the Attorney-General to come to the House, that a lot of bogus indignation is being expressed? The terms of the undertaking are extremely wide. They may even be wider than the original injunction, but they relate to technical information and data and to the—
Mr. Speaker: Order. This is business questions. Hon. Members must ask about debates or statements.
Mr. Hickmet: I will try to put my question in order, Mr. Speaker. When considering whether to ask the Attorney-General whether to come here, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that, if Mr. Campbell should breach that undertaking, the effect would be the same as if he had breached the injunction?
Mr. Biffen: I take the point that my hon. Friend makes. It is a perfectly valid one.
Mrs. Ann Clwyd: Since there is continuing public disquiet about the circumstances surrounding the Zircon affair and it is believed that the injunction against Mr. Campbell and others was an attempt to intimidate and stifle public discussion on the main allegation, that Parliament was deceived, and that the military spent a considerable amount of public money on this project—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We must not go into the arguments on this matter. The same principle applies to the hon. Lady as to the hon. Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Hickmet). She must ask about time for a debate or a statement.
Mrs. Clwyd: Certainly, Mr. Speaker. Given those circumstances, and since many questions should be answered, to which the public and Members of Parliament want answers, will the Leader of the House consider having a debate on the issues raised by the Zircon affair?
Mr. Biffen: I wholly reject the hon. Lady's opening words, which were not designed to contribute to a calm judgment of this matter, but merely to exacerbate passion. I have given a response to the Leader of the Opposition and I cannot add to it.
Mr. Patrick Ground: In considering whether there should be a statement on the Zircon matter, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that the Government accepted an undertaking from the New Statesman about a month ago that was worded in very similar terms to those that had been given by Mr. Campbell recently? Will my right hon. Friend say or ask whether the Government would have accepted an undertaking from Mr. Campbell after the New Statesman undertaking was given in the same terms?
Mr. Biffen: I note what my hon. and learned Friend says. That is a helpful comment, but in a sense I am not here to judge on merits, but only to take note of the request that there may be a statement.
Mr. Peter Shore: I want to reinforce the points, made by Labour Members who represent Scottish constituencies, about next Wednesday's business on the guillotined Abolition of Domestic Rates, etc. (Scotland) Bill. It is extraordinary to have 40 amendments tabled to the earlier clauses of this timetabled Bill and to have only two hours in which to debate the matter—including a major change in the timetabling of the Bill itself. I press the Leader of the House to be much more forthcoming than he has already been and to see to it that the Business Committee either withdraws most of those amendments or agrees to a change in the timetable.
Mr. Biffen: I note what the right hon. Gentleman says. I responded in good faith when the question was originally put, and I have to leave it at that.
Mr. Richard Holt: My right hon. Friend will recall the sense of outrage in the country recently over sentencing policy. In the light of that, does my right hon. Friend not believe that we should have an early debate to see whether the view expressed by the official spokesman for the Labour party in the other place—that sentencing in this country is too severe and too long—is the official policy of the Labour party? Does my right hon. Friend also agree that prisoners ought to be given more pocket money?
Mr. Biffen: If I disappoint my hon. Friend by not being able to provide Government time for such a debate, none the less, the issue that he has mentioned is of such topicality that I am certain that he can find one way or another of giving it greater expression.
Mr. David Winnick: Mine is meant purely as an innocent question. In view of the rosy optimism of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the

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Exchequer regarding the economy, will the Leader of the House arrange next week for an early statement to be made to try to explain to the House and to the country why the Tory vote in Greenwich has apparently collapsed?
Mr. Biffen: I note what the hon. Gentleman says, but I think that comment in all quarters of the House might be more entertaining tomorrow than today.
Mr. Michael Fallon: Does my right hon. Friend accept that there are considerable implications because of the Leyland-DAF deal for employment and competition in the motor components industry? Will he undertake that the terms of that deal will be debated in this House before the final joint venture agreement is signed?
Mr. Biffen: I shall look at the point that my hon. Friend has in mind in the more general context of a debate on the motor industry that has been requested by the Leader of the Opposition.
Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours: If I can use my words with great care. Mr. Speaker, may we have a statement on the allegations of Captain Holroyd and Mr. Colin Wallace? Is the Leader of the House aware that, in August of last year, the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) corresponded with and telephoned Mr. James Morgan-Harris of Thomas Eggar and Son, solicitors in Chichester—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is asking for a debate. He must not go into the detail of what he might say if there were a debate.
Mr. Campbell-Savours: Yes, Mr. Speaker. This concerns allegations unfairly being made against the right hon. Gentleman by security officers in the mid-1970s. Do not these matters require a statement from the Dispatch box and the fullest possible examination, leading to a full judicial inquiry?
Mr. Biffen: It was a request for a statement. I cannot respond immediately without having more information than the hon. Gentleman has given. Perhaps in due course he will give it. and then I shall be able to let him know.
Mr. Peter Bruinvels: Is my right hon. Friend aware that three semi-dangerous patients have escaped from the Towers hospital's regional secure units at Arnold Lodge? As a matter of urgency, will my right hon. Friend arrange either for a statement to be made to the House by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services or at least for a debate during the early part of next week? I consider this matter to be so serious that I have had to forgo voting in the Synod.
Mr. Biffen: God moves in a mysterious way. I shall of course draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services to the point that my hon. Friend makes, and I shall be in touch with him.
Mr. Max Madden: Will the Leader of the House, as the sort of Tory who believes in honour and true law and order, have an urgent word with the Home Secretary to ensure that the Home Office co-operates fully with solicitors wishing to represent those Tamils who are seeking political asylum here? Will he also ensure that Home Office officials do not make public pronouncements on this case? Members of Parliament are prevented from commenting on this case because of the sub judice rule. Why on earth are Home Office officials allowed to make most disparaging comments?
Mr. Biffen: First of all, I do not, as a Tory, aspire to any of the virtues with which the hon. Gentleman is most anxious to invest me. It is merely that, as a Shropshire Tory, I do not read a London evening newspaper. As to the hon. Gentleman's points about the Tamils, I shall draw all of them to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary.
Mr. Patrick Nicholls: Will my right hon. Friend consider again the answer that he gave to our right hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine)? Is he aware that, in addition to early-day motion 450, there are two other early-day motions on the Order Paper calling attention to the illegality of late abortions? Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that it is not a question of primary legislation being introduced but that it is perfectly clear, even according to official figures, that hundreds of babies are being aborted each year who are well able to be saved, in accordance with medical developments today? We need an urgent debate to fincl out why the present legislation is not being implemented.
Mr. Biffen: I take note of what my hon. Friend says. However, opportunities exist for the House other than the provision of Government time for a debate. I realise that this topic causes a great deal of concern across the House and in several directions.
Mr. Frank Cook: No hon. Member is more alert to occurrences throughout the Kingdom than the Leader of the House, so there is no need for me to ask him to call to mind the incident concerning Mr. Bob Brookes, who admitted the falsification of quality assurance records on welds at Hinkley Point 16 years ago. He will also be aware of early-day motion 656. It was tabled yesterday and already has 25 all-party names attached to it.
[That this House affirms that the integrity of all industrial plant is of prime importance in ensuring that risk to surrounding environs and adjacent communities is minimised; is gravely disturbed therefore to learn of reports that Mr. Bob Brookes has admitted openly that he colluded at the falsification of quality assurance records of are-welds in pressure pipework at Hinkley Point Power Station some sixteen years ago; pays tribute to the said gentleman for having after all this time the courage to confess the fault by approaching the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate to urge the re-inspection of the welds in question so as to ascertain their present state; urges the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate to arrange such reappraisal immediately; and instructs Her Majesty's Government to grant Mr. Bob Brookes immunity from all prosecution and protection from any victimisation that may result from his public spirited declaration and to offer an unconditional amnesty to any other worker who in the past has felt compelled to bend to similar pressures and now comes forward with the information to redress the wrong]
The Leader of the House will also know that there was a ministerial statement that welcomed this admission and the making of a clean breast, and it expressed concern about it. However, he should also know that today the CEGB has issued a circular about the incidents that is very prejudicial and highly misleading. It is virtually obstructing an independent inquiry. Will the Leader of the House please ensure that we have some kind of statement

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next week so that we can question the Minister with responsibility for these affairs and explore the matter further?
Mr. Biffen: I take at once the importance of the topic that the hon. Gentleman has raised, and I note what he says about the activities of the Central Electricity Generating Board. I understand that it is carrying out an inquiry at Hinkley Point, but I shall refer to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Energy the hon. Gentleman's anxiety that there should be a statement.
Mr. John Watts: Has my right hon. Friend received a request from the Official Opposition for time to be made available for a debate on the popular propositions in their new transport document "Fresh Directions", including the renationalisation of British Airways? If he has not had such a request—the Opposition seem to be reluctant to debate these policies — will he consider providing time for a debate on transport policy generally so that these matters can be considered by the House, as many of my constituents who work for British Airways and who have bought shares recently would like this matter to be clarified in the House?
Mr. Biffen: I must ask my hon. Friend to be patient. I am sure that the Opposition will be so pleased with their policy child that they will be using an Opposition day to have it debated quite soon; but if my optimism proves to be false, perhaps we shall look at it again.
Mr. Merlyn Rees: Is the Leader of the House aware that I rise late in these questions because I seek a statement from the Government next week on a matter that concerns me personally and my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Orme) who served with me in Northern Ireland 10 or 11 years ago? Allegations are going around; there are tapes; there are papers. I shall not go into them, out of deference to what has been said. However, they are extremely worrying to me and to my right hon. Friend. Everybody seems to have a copy of them. I understand that there are to be radio programmes about them. I am not seeking the protection of the Official Secrets Act 1911 to prevent them from being reported, but I am seeking a Government statement about them.
I understand that all the documents in the Holroyd-Wallace case have been sent to the Prime Minister. I listened to the House when the Attorney-General said that they were being investigated. What did that mean? The Attorney-General is a Law Officer of the Crown. I read in the paper this morning at breakfast time that the Treasury
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and Civil Service Select Committee is being asked to receive evidence on the matter next week. I want something to be said publicly about it, because it is extremely disturbing. It is not a fiddling matter. It is as worrying to me personally as the Wright case is in Australia. The Government or the Prime Minister have got to say something about it, otherwise we shall sit and watch it all being said on the "telly", because nobody is concerned.
Mr. Biffen: Of course I take account of what the right hon. Gentleman said and I shall immediately refer those points to my right hon. Friends.
Mr. Rob Hayward: Further to the answers that my right hon. Friend gave to my right hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Sir B. Braine) and my hon. Friend the member for Teignbridge (Mr. Nicholls), does he recognise the concern that there should be time for a debate on the whole question of abortion, especially as the recent court case raised questions about the time scale of abortions, the rights of fathers and the award of costs when complex legal matters are discussed?
Mr. Biffen: Yes, I take all those points to heart.

Business of the House
  BILLS PRESENTED
    PARLIAMENTARY AND OTHER PENSIONS
    Mr. John Biffen, supported by Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Secretary Hurd, Mr. Secretary Walker, Mr. Secretary Younger, Mr. Secretary Baker, and Mr. Peter Brooke, presented a Bill to provide for the continuance in existence of the Parliamentary Contributory Pension Fund; to confer power on the Leader of the House of Commons to make regulations with respect to that Fund and with respect to the application of the assets of that Fund in or towards the provision of pensions; to amend Mr. Speaker King's Retirement Act 1971; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 90.]
    DRUG COMPANIES (ACCOUNTS)
    Mr. Harry Cohen, supported by Mr. Tony Banks, Mr. Richard Caborn, Mrs. Ann Clwyd, Mr. Jeremy Corbyn, Mr. Tony Lloyd, Mr. Max Madden, Ms. Clare Short, Mr. Robert N. Wareing, and Mr. Eric Heffer, presented a Bill to amend the law relating to the accounts of drug companies: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 27 March and to be printed. [Bill 92.]
Orders of the Day
  Teachers' Pay and Conditions Bill
  Lords amendments considered.
  Teachers' Pay and Conditions Bill
    Clause 2

      ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON SCHOOL TEACHERS' PAY AND CONDITIONS
      Lords amendment: No. 1, in page 1, line 16, after "an" insert "Interim".
      4.10 pm
      The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Baker): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
      Mr. Speaker: With this we shall discuss Lords amendments Nos. 12 and 13.
      Mr. Baker: These three amendments, which were agreed in the other place, insert the word "interim" into the full title of the Interim Advisory Committee on School Teachers' Pay and Conditions. It allows us to make a clear statement of where the Government stand on the issue of school teachers' pay and why we believe that the interim advisory committee will have an important contribution to make.
      I shall not rehearse at length the history of discord and lack of progress over the past few years, but attempts to reform the outdated salary structure have a long and undistinguished history. In 1981, a Burnham agreement established a joint working party to review the salary structure. That went on for five years without reaching a negotiated settlement satisfactory to all parties.
      In July 1986, the ACAS-assisted Coventry negotiations led to heads of agreement signed by five out of the six teacher unions. On 30 October last year I made a statement setting out the Government's conditions, promising a huge amount of extra money and outlining a pay structure that we regarded as necessary to reward and motivate good teachers. On 21 November, an agreement was signed by four unions, but within a fortnight two of the initial signatories had withdrawn.
      In January, the chairman of the Burnham committee wrote to me saying that a majority of both the management and teacher panels wanted to see the ACAS proposals implemented if the Government would provide the resources. I had made clear the Government's position from the start and the fact that an effective pay structure was needed to recruit, retain and motivate good teachers. As there was no significant move towards meeting my concerns, I made it clear that the Government would not be prepared to make funds available to support the ACAS proposals. Teachers have to recognise the uncomfortable truth that their representatives were unable to agree on a set of proposals that I could defend to Parliament, the parents and the taxpaying public.
      I have been considering the alternative proposals about pay structure that have been put forward, including suggestions by the National Association of Head Teachers and the Professional Association of Teachers. I have also been considering the implications of the settlement in
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      Scotland where the outcome is similar in many respects to the Government's proposals for England and Wales. Once this Bill has received Royal Assent, the Government intend to bring forward proposals quickly on both pay and conditions of employment so that the time before teachers receive their 1 January increase is kept to a minimum.
      I do not intend in this debate to spell out the Government's proposals other than to say that there will be some important modifications to our earlier proposals on pay while retaining essentially the same structure. The proposals on conditions of employment will he based closely on the ACAS conclusions.
      I shall now turn to the Bill. We gave this Bill careful scrutiny in this House last year, where it was debated for very nearly 30 hours. It was also debated for over 20 hours in another place. No guillotine has been used in either House, and is not being used now. It returns to this House with 14 amendments, all of which were agreed without Division. These amendments agreed in the other place were proposed by Members speaking for the Opposition and the alliance, and were accepted by the Government without hesitation.
      I want to set out four reasons why an interim advisory committee is the right solution at the present time. First, I do not believe it to be possible for us to establish satisfactory new permanent arrangements while there is such discord among the teacher unions. The ACAS proposals were supported by five, then four, then two, of the teacher unions. In January, when the deputy general secretary of the National Union of Teachers wrote to me on behalf of the teacher unions about future pay determination machinery, PAT and the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers protested about the letter that he had written.
      Lord Houghton, who is one of the prominent Labour figures in education, agreed in the other place that an interim arrangement was necessary so that there is time for there to be
      "a better order in the arrangements between the unions themselves."—[0fficial Report, House of Lords, 27 January 1987; Vol. 483, c. 1283.]
      He recognised that with such rivalry and discord it would not be possible to arrive at new permanent arrangements now.
      The National Union of Teachers and the NAS/UWT have now become united in one respect, in initiating ballots about strike action: an initiative which Lord Houghton described as a "futile form of protest" and which Lord McIntosh, the Opposition spokesman in the other place, described as "unhelpful".
      A second reason why the interim advisory committee is the right solution is the lack of any consensus about permanent arrangements. In the other place, the alliance suggested an independent review body. That was its last proposal—a slight variation at the beginning—which I believe is its official position. The Labour party proposed a national joint council that looked remarkably like the existing Burnham arrangements. Both sets of proposals were ambiguous about the right role for the Secretary of State. I am clear that the new arrangements should not be a repeat of Burnham.
      However, it is too early to say what will be the right solution—
      Mr. Paddy Ashdown: I want to comment on the right hon. Gentleman's remarks about the ambiguity of the role of the Secretary of State. If the right hon.

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      Gentleman took the trouble to study Hansard or the newspaper articles written by myself and others, he would discover that there is no ambiguity about the role of the Secretary of State, which within our proposals, was fully recognised and given full expression.
      Mr. Baker: I have a note of the proposals that were put forward by the alliance in another place. In Committee, the alliance proposed an independent review body, but gave no details, and the hon. Gentleman must recognise that. The alliance did not call a vote. On Report, the alliance proposed an elaborate structure, in which the interim advisory committee was turned into a temporary review body. That is an interesting suggestion. Representative bodies of local authorities and teachers were to be set up, which could each make alternative recommendations to those of the review body by a two thirds majority. The Secretary of State could also make alternative recommendations. If no agreement could be reached, there would be binding arbitration.
      My point is that that proposal is elaborate because it sets up a review body and also other committees. The Secretary of State makes recommendations. There is no recognition of something that successive Governments have rightly had to recognise—that in the determination of pay a Government must take a view of the actual amount of money that is available for teachers' pay, because it is such a very large sum.
      Mr. Ashdown rose—
      Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman will have a chance to make his point in the debate.
      It is too early to say what will be the right solution for the longer term. Some will continue to advocate an independent review body. Others will want pay determination without the involvement of an outside body. What we need now is a breathing space and experience of the interim advisory committee machinery before decisions are made about the longer term. I hope that all parties will be willing to think radically and constructively about the longer term after experience of the interim arrangements in the Bill.
      A third reason why the Government favour the arrangements in the Bill is the balance that they provide both for the introduction of an independent voice and for a clear process of consultation involving the parties directly involved. The interim advisory committee will be independently minded. It will receive some guidance from me, but it will not be my poodle. Its reports will be published and will form the basis for thorough consultation.
      I have not personally been part of the Burnham proceedings but I am willing to give a commitment that Ministers will see the relevant local authority associations, teacher unions and organisations representing the governors of voluntary schools to discuss reports from the interim advisory committee. I am very willing to become directly involved in the consultations required under the Act which will inevitably have the character of negotiations.
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: It would be of considerable benefit to many of the teachers whom I have
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      met if my right hon. Friend would explain the difference between the independent advisory board and an independent review.
      Mr. Baker: An independent review body would operate in the way that such bodies now operate—for example, for Members' salaries, for certain officers in the armed forces, for nurses and for doctors. In the interim advisory committee we have provided for a halfway house between negotiations as they were known under Burnham —which have not worked — and an independent review body. An independent review body would, in effect, take away the negotiating rights that the unions specifically want, as expressed by them to me. I have made it clear, and I stress this, that the interim advisory committee is just that—an interim advisory committee. The Government do not look upon it as a permanent solution. But with the experience of recent months and years, it is simply not possible at this stage to find agreement between the various unions. I hope that in the coming months we shall find ways of agreeing to establish a negotiating procedure.
      Within the past few weeks, the National Association of Head Teachers has made it clear to me that it wants a separate voice in any future negotiating arrangements. That view has not been put to me by the Secondary Heads Association, which is the other union of head teachers. There are also head teachers in the NUT and the NAS/UWT. The controversial matter has come up many times in teachers' negotiating discussions. This week, when I saw Mr. Jarvis and the delegation, it was said to me quite strongly that the NUT has never agreed with that view. But this sort of issue must be hammered out. The interim advisory committee will give us time for hammering out. I stress that this is a breathing space. It is the sensible way forward.
      I emphasise again that, when the interim advisory committee makes its recommendations, I shall be personally involved in the consultations required under the legislation and in the consideration of those recommendations, which will inevitably have the character of negotiations.
      The proposals in the Bill—[Interruption.] May I just take this a stage further, because there are various stages in how the interim advisory committee will work, as hon. Members know because they now know the details of the Bill. The unions will have an opportunity, when the interim advisory committee is meeting and considering its proposals, to make representations either individually or collectively. When the recommendations emerge from the interim advisory committee, the unions will obviously make representations either individually or collectively. There is nothing to stop them from working with the local authority employer associations if they wish.
      The proposals in the Bill allow Parliament to have the final say before there can be a pay increase for school teachers or a change in their conditions of employment: no such parliamentary approval is required under the existing procedures.
      A fourth reason why the Government are putting forward the interim arrangements is that further consideration needs to be given to the position of head teachers — the very point which I just mentioned. Of course, the salaries for heads cannot be wholly detached from salaries for teachers, but I envisage that the advisory committee might receive a separate reference on the

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      position of head teachers. Any new machinery that may be set up might need to provide some separate consideration for head teachers' pay.
      Mr. Martin Flannery: This morning I was at the mass meeting of the teachers who deplored the absence of the National Association of Head Teachers and the Professional Association of Teachers. They will grab the money when it comes, not having done anything about it. The right hon. Gentleman talks about an interim breathing space. But if someone not unlike the Secretary of State has a grip on one's throat, three years is a curious breathing space because one might be dead at the end of that time. The teachers are determined to struggle against what has been imposed on them. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman and his Government are responsible for the struggle—[Interruption.] I know that rowdy Conservative Members will not allow me to say what I want to say. Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that he and his Government are responsible for the disruption in our classrooms, not the teachers, who want an honourable settlement?
      Mr. Baker: I am always pleased to give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is a leading member of the National Union of Teachers, because he is a peripatetic personification of what is wrong with attitudes in the teachers' unions. In his first sentence he said that he was at the NUT-NAS/UWT rally. but was fed up with the National Association of Head Teachers and the Professional Association of Teachers. He could not resist having a go at two of the other unions.
      Mr. J. F. Pawsey: It is symptomatic of the whole problem.
      Mr. Baker: It is symptomatic of the problem, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey), who is the chairman of the Conservative education committee and knows about these matters, said.
      In reply to the second point raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery), may I say that the Bill provides for the interim advisory committee machinery to operate at least until 31 March 1990. An amendment to require the Bill finally to expire on that date was overwhelmingly defeated in the Lords. But the Government were ready to agree that any year-by-year extension of the Bill beyond 1990 must be by affirmative resolution.
      It would be optimistic to expect that conclusions about the longer term will be agreed quickly. We need experience of the interim machinery in the Bill. As the Government spokesman in the House of Lords made clear,
      "If in a new and more settled climate the Government were able to reach a conclusion by early 1989 on the form of future permanent machinery"—[Official Report, House of Lords, 27 January 1987; Vol. 483, c. 1293.]
      new legislation could be introduced which would set up that permanent machinery in good time for the 1990 settlement.
      The Government will work towards permanent machinery for March 1990. But if we are to reach conclusions acceptable to the Government, the local authorities, teacher unions and church bodies, there will need to be thorough and radical thinking. It is highly unlikely that conclusions can be reached if we are beset by discord and disruption. The teacher unions must
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      demonstrate that they can act responsibly and take seriously the interim arrangements which the Bill will set up.
      In the meantime, we need an interim advisory committee and full opportunity for the employers and the unions to represent their views, with outcomes subject to the approval of Parliament. The education of the nation's children is so important that we cannot afford the futile gestures of strikes against a Bill which has had substantial majorities in both Houses of Parliament. Parents will condemn any such industrial action by teachers who will, in total, be receiving an average 25 per cent. pay increase between March 1986 and October 1987. It is only when the Bill receives Royal Assent that I can bring forward the orders that will allow for those increases to be paid.
      4.30 pm
      Mr. Giles Radice: By the very nature of our procedure, at this stage we can only debate or amend amendments carried in the House of Lords arid, to our great regret and disappointment, the amendments carried in the Lords were relatively trivial, although the debates there were often of high quality. I found the arguments against the Bill totally convincing, but the Government whipped in their overwhelming majority of Peers to vote down the Opposition amendments. As a consequence, the Government have been able to preserve the Bill almost entirely in the shape in which it left this House in December. That means, of course, that it is still a bad Bill.
      The Bill still infringes basic rights, in that it removes the ability of local authorities and teachers' organisations to determine teachers' pay and conditions. It still gives unacceptable power to the Secretary of State, including the power until the end of September to impose a settlement under the negative resolution procedure and after September by positive resolution. On Second Reading I described the advisory committee, the nature of which we are debating in this amendment, as the Secretary of State's poodle. Clearly, he does not want a pet, but nothing that I heard during our subsequent proceedings or during the Bill's passage through the Lords has persuaded me to change my mind.
      I remind hon. Members about the powers of this so-called advisory body. Its members and its chairman and deputy chairman will be appointed by the Secretary of State, who can also dismiss them. It will be paid for by the Secretary of State and its agenda will be set by him. He can turn down or modify the committee's recommendations.
      The Secretary of State made great play of his generosity in consulting the teachers and local education authorities — if they are good boys or something—but I remind him that there is a crucial difference between consultation and negotiation. That difference means that the Secretary of State does not have to take a blind bit of notice of what the LEAs and the teachers say. He can consult them and then impose his own solution and, of course, that is what he intends to do.
      Mr. Hawkins: Is it not true that the chairman of a review body would equally be appointed by the Government? This does not appear to be terribly different from a temporary review body—if the hon. Gentleman sees what I mean.
      Mr. Radice: I think that even the Secretary of State admitted that this was not quite a review body. A

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      Secretary of State must take very seriously the recommendations of a review body, but I am not certain that he will look upon the advisory committee in that way. Most people would agree that independent review bodies are genuinely independent, but I do not think that anybody would seriously contend that this review body will be independent. That is the crucial difference.
      Provided the Secretary of State wins the support of Parliament, he can impose whatever settlement he likes. Therefore, the advisory committee not only remains the Secretary of State's poodle, but it is a dog that cannot even bark. If that body is to be as powerless as I believe it will be, that is all the more reason why its life should be short. Unfortunately, the Government did not listen to the arguments advanced by the Opposition and by Cross-Benchers in the House of Lords, or to our arguments in this House to restrict the duration of the Bill to one year. The Secretary of State was not entirely candid in what he said about this. If it were restricted to one year, it would be genuinely temporary. Instead, the Government have insisted that the Bill, and therefore the life of the advisory committee, should continue until 1990.
      Despite the amendments tabled in the Lords, the Government have even refused to allow the Bill to lapse after 1990, thus making a mockery of the Bill's long title, which refers to its temporary nature. It could last well into the 1990s. Inserting the word "interim", or the word "temporary" as we suggest, will not change the fundamental nature of the Bill. The only argument for accepting the Lords amendment is that it reminds the House of the Government's half-promise that the Bill, the advisory committee that it sets up and the powers that it gives to the Secretary of State will be replaced by legislation which will return pay determination, at least in part, to teachers and their employers.
      Whatever the Government's intention, the next Labour Government will repeal the Bill. We shall set up a new negotiating committee on which teachers and their employers will be represented together, and they will determine pay and conditions. The Secretary of State will be represented on this committee and, subject to parliamentary approval, he will have reserve powers. Unlike the Conservative party and certainly unlike the Secretary of State, we believe that in a democratic society all employees, including employees in the public sector, must have and must retain the right to bargain collectively with their employers. The Bill removes that right and makes no provision to bring it back. That is our charge against it.
      Mr. Alan Haselhurst: Is the hon. Gentleman telling the House that he wishes to retain the right of a future Labour Secretary of State for Education and Science—if such a Minister were ever to appear—to invite Parliament to reject a settlement reached through the process which a Labour Government would set up? Does he accept that perhaps a Labour Secretary of State would have to impose his own view?
      Mr. Radice: The hon. Gentleman is aware that under present legislation the Secretary of State has power, with the support of Parliament, to set aside an arbitration award. That is the kind of power we are speaking about. There is a case for the Secretary of State under present legislation having some reserve powers. That is not in
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      dispute. We are arguing whether we should give public sector workers, in this case teachers, the right to negotiate and bargain with their employers about pay and conditions. The Bill removes that right.
      The Secretary of State tries to justify the fundamental step of removing teachers' bargaining rights by reference to the shortcomings of the Burnham committee and to the need to achieve a lasting settlement of the teachers' dispute. I shall deal with both those matters because the Secretary of State spoke about them again in the debate. As I have said before and have said in this debate, we accept the need for a new negotiating structure. Many times, I and the local authorities and the TUC have reminded the Secretary of State that one of the key features of the ACAS deal was a new agreement on a negotiating structure which for the first time brought together pay and conditions. It also respected the role of the Secretary of State. However, he has not been prepared to discuss these proposals seriously.
      In the autumn the Government decided to write the teachers and their employers out of the script for the conceivable future and to replace them by a system of ministerial diktat. The various meetings that the Secretary of State held with the TUC and local authority representatives were sequences in an empty charade in which he has done little more than practise his by now well-known grin. All along, the Government have been determined to do away with collective bargaining. As they see it, that is the end of the matter.
      Mr. Kenneth Baker: The hon. Gentleman is saying that the negotiations and discussions that I have been having now over two months—in fact, going back three months —are an empty charade. In that case, they were empty as regards the proposals being put to me. Mr. Willis came to see me with the two teacher unions which are affiliates of the TUC. In the document that he left with me, he said that they wanted a joint negotiating council but that many major details were left out.
      It is the major details that are so important when a negotiating council is being set up. So important are they that in the past unions have gone to court to try to determine the details of Burnham negotiations. For example, a vital matter was left out as to whether the Secretary of State should establish the parameters of the negotiations, which was the original position under Burnham. I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman was saying a moment ago about what the Labour party would do if it was returned to power. He did not address that question. I take seriously the allegation that he is making—
      Mr. Radice: I want to make my speech.
      Mr. Baker: I am intervening on the hon. Gentleman because he accused me of indulging in an empty charade. I am pointing out that many of the proposals that were put to me were empty.
      In reply to the question about the speed of the charade, Mr. Willis wrote to me on 23 January saying that he wanted to discuss urgently the present position; he said that his office would be in touch with mine to make the necessary arrangements. That did not happen until a month later, on 23 February.
      Mr. Radice: If he had been honest with the House, the Secretary of State would have admitted that the new

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      negotiating body for the first time discussed pay and conditions together. It also recognised the position of the Secretary of State. It is up to the Secretary of State to say how many seats he wants on the body. My view is that the concordat which was torn up, with the support of the Conservative local authorities, was an acceptable way of recognising that the Secretary of State is responsible for 46 per cent. of pay. That was a retrograde step, because that should happen.
      The Secretary of State did not negotiate seriously. He did not say, "I would like to have x number of seats." He just said, "I am not being offered anything serious." Of course he was not interested, because he had made up his mind what he would do. He had his Bill and he did not want to change it. Why should he keep trying to pretend? He is not serious. He may convince one or two people from the newspapers, but he does not convince the House. He should say, "I made up my mind. Of course, I am always a polite man, so I like to meet people who want to see me, but I was not prepared to move." That is the truth of the matter, and he knows it.
      The second reason why the right hon. Gentleman wants to get rid of teachers' collective bargaining rights and impose his own solution is the need to get a long-term settlement. We all agree that we badly need a long-term settlement. For well over two years, our schools have been disrupted by the teachers' dispute. I think all of us in the House can agree on the paramount need to restore peace and calm in our schools.
      When, in October, after two years of prevarication, the Government adopted a more generous attitude to teachers' pay, there was a glimmer of hope. But since then, that hope has died away. Instead of building on the achievements of the ACAS agreement, the Secretary of State dismissed that settlement out of hand. He did not want it to succeed, and he knows it.
      Mr. Pawsey: At some stage in his speech, will the hon. Gentleman join me in condemning the action which has been taken by teachers in disrupting children's education and acknowledging the damage that that disruptive action has done to our schools?
      4.45 pm
      Mr. Radice: I acknowledge straight away the damage that has been done to children's education over the last two and a half years, as any reasonable person must. I deeply regret the prospect of further disruption. I have said that clearly, but the Secretary of State, who after all is the Secretary of State, has a responsibility. It is his job to try to reach a lasting settlement, but I do not believe that he is going the right way about it. He dismissed the ACAS settlement out of hand. He proceeded to remove the bargaining rights of teachers and put himself in a position to impose his own settlement.
      On Second Reading, I warned the Secretary of State —if he looks at Hansard he will see that this is the case — that an imposed settlement could lead to renewed disruption. As everybody knows, the three major unions are balloting their members on strike action. As I have said, we deeply regret the prospect of renewed disruption. Schools have suffered enough. But if disruption takes place, the Secretary of State must bear responsibility. He dismissed the ACAS settlement which was freely agreed by employers, teachers and teachers' organisations, instead of building on it. He has not tried to minimise the differences
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      between his position and that of ACAS. He has tried to maximise them. Every time he comes to the Dispatch Box, he emphasises the differences. He has not tried to reach a compromise. He has ignored our warnings about what could happen. Instead, he is intent, as he has just said, on imposing his own settlement.
      There was a prospect of lasting peace in our schools. My hon. Friends and I have worked hard to bring that about. Whether because of arrogance, vanity or obstinacy, the Secretary of State has thrown away that prospect. Nobody can pretend that the Lords amendments will significantly improve the Bill or make it easier to achieve lasting peace, but amendment No. 1 will at least be a symbol of our rejection of the disastrous policy which the Government, against our advice, are trying to pursue. It will remind parents and voters that there is an alternative to the Secretary of State's authoritarian policy. That alternative is far more likely to lead to the lasting peace which is so essential if we are widen opportunities and raise standards in schools.
      Mr. Pawsey: My only area of agreement with the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) is on the point that Burnham is outdated. I would have liked the hon. Gentleman to be fairer to my right hon. Friend and at least to have acknowledged the considerable sums that my right hon. Friend has found and made available for teachers' pay
      Mr. Radice: I did.
      Mr. Pawsey: It would have been good to hear the hon. Gentleman make that point more clearly. My right hon. Friend has put on the table 16·4 per cent, which totals 25 percent. over 18 months. That is a real achievement which should be acknowledged in all parts of the House.
      I have a sense of déjà vu. Therefore, it might be helpful to remember that the basic reason for the Bill was the failure of the Burnham negotiating machinery to deliver a package on pay and conditions that was acceptable to unions, employers and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. Months of meetings, days of deliberation, and hours of argument in London, Coventry and Nottingham only served to highlight the differences between unions. Those differences were highlighted by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) in an earlier intervention. The inescapable conclusion is that Burnham is finished and must be replaced. As Lord Houghton said in another place on 9 February, "Why is this Bill"—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. The hon. Gentleman must paraphrase any speech made in another place unless it has been made by a Minister.
      Mr. Pawsey: I am obliged to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for your advice.
      The speech made by Lord Houghton of Sowerby sought to bring out the fact that the normal machinery, after a considerable period, had broken down and it was therefore necessary for something new to be introduced in its place. The noble Lord was saying that it was appropriate for us to be considering alternative machinery. That seems to be an entirely reasonable point.
      Mr. Ken Weetch: The hon. Gentleman will know that in November 1986 the teachers' unions agreed on a national joint council. That was a consensus view that emerged from teachers. Can the hon. Gentleman tell me and the House what is likely to emerge in 1990 that is

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      substantially different from what has emerged now as a consensus position on the teachers' side, or is the Secretary of State waiting for the balance of power among teachers to alter?
      Mr. Pawsey: The hon. Gentleman is the chairman of the Labour party's Back-Bench education committee and a distinguished Member of the House. However, he must wait and see. He said that he wondered whether relative teacher strengths might alter. I found that to be an interesting and not insignificant point. I notice that the Professional Association of Teachers has been steadily increasing its membership at the expense of some of the older and more archaic-minded trade unions, so let us wait and see. Let us see what happens in two and a half or three years' time.
      My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State proposes an advisory committee that will be reporting to him on teachers' pay and conditions. The amendment before us proposes the inclusion of the word "interim". That seems to be an entirely reasonable suggestion. It provides for real consultation to take place between unions and employers. As Lord Boyd-Carpenter said in another place—I shall not quote his words precisely—there is nothing in the Bill that would prevent teachers and local authorities from negotiating to their hearts' content. He was certain that a suitable and sensible alternative would come forward. The point that he was making was that if a sensible alternative suggestion comes forward, why should any reasonable Secretary of State turn it down? There is no logic in assuming that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would turn it down.
      Mr. Flannery: Does the hon. Gentleman believe that an advisory body from a union over a period of three years is any substitute for free and direct negotiation? Is that his view of democracy?
      Mr. Pawsey: The hon. Gentleman must understand the chaos that has existed in our schools over the past two, three or more years. Does he accept that what has taken place over that period is a reasonable way of thrashing out teachers' pay or conditions? The hon. Gentleman must be reasonable sometimes. If he is reasonable, he must accept the fact that Burnham is outdated and that an alternative is needed. He must also accept that a period of two or three years is a reasonable time in which a new system could be put in place.
      Mr. Flannery rose—
      Mr. Pawsey: With the greatest respect, I am not giving way again. I have given way three times already. I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman this time.
      Mr. Flannery: Answer my question.
      Mr. Pawsey: The hon. Gentleman clearly was not listening. The right to join a trade union remains; the right to strike remains. The right to receive a 16·4 per cent. increase remains. Only the right of membership of a discredited body is taken away.
      While the advisory body itself is interim, it gives an opportunity to consider the pay, conditions and status of teachers and to decide what more permanent arrangements might be made to avoid the problems of the past. That interim arrangement will give a reasonable period for thought. It will provide an opportunity to consider the
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      various options and to produce a permanent settlement and solution to the advantage of teachers, the education service and, above all, the nation's children.
      Earlier, I referred to the rights of teachers. I subscribe to the view tht the status of the profession has suffered a great deal since teachers became more militant in the early 1970s. I find it significant that it was during the period of their greatest militancy that the greatest erosion of pay took place. I ask teachers to take careful note of the fact that more militancy does not equal more pay; more militancy does not equal more respect; more militancy does not equal greater status. Put more simply, if militancy works, why are teachers, arguably, underpaid and undervalued? Militancy is far more political than practical and I ask teachers outside the House to take careful note of that.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. This group of amendments lends itself to a fairly wide debate, but I hope that before long, I shall hear more about the amendments from the hon. Gentleman.
      Mr. Pawsey: I am grateful, as ever for your exceedingly wise guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for the way in which you carefully keep hon. Members on track and are anxious that we refer specifically to the amendments before us and for the fact that we should stress the importance of the word "interim".
      Those teachers considering disruptive action—
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Bob Dunn): In the interim.
      Mr. Pawsey: Yes, as my hon. Friend says, in the interim — should consider how much that action will further damage their standing in society. They should consider the impact it will have on the opinions of parents and children.
      Mrs. Virginia Bottomley: Does my hon. Friend agree that those teachers who want to show their concern about the interim measures do so much more effectively today, which is half term, than they do when they make their point and lobby Members of parliament during full term and sacrifice the education of the children entrusted to their care?
      Mr. Pawsey: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention, but I suspect that both she and I agree that the overwhelming majority of teachers are exceedingly responsible and care deeply for the children in their charge.
      Above all, I ask teachers to consider the damage that will be caused to children's education should they continue with their disruptive action.
      I notice that in an article that appeared in an evening newspaper last night there was reference to the Professional Association of Teachers. I find it significant that that association has come out strongly against next week's half-day strikes. Mr. Peter Dawson, the general secretary, says that the issue of negotiating rights is "light years" away from teaching. That seems to be a particularly apt comment.
      I have said before — I am not straying from the amendments—that a teacher's job is a great deal more than long holidays and free periods. Teaching is genuinely a demanding and most responsible job. The 25 per cent. increase in pay that has taken place over 18 months acknowledges two important points. The first is how far teachers' pay had slipped behind and the second is that the

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      Government recognise and appreciate the work that teachers do. That point was made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in his excellent speech.
      I understand the concern expressed by teachers but I urge them to give the advisory committee a fair chance. To reject it out of hand will not help their case. The committee will not have a long life. That point has been emphasised over and over again in the other place. As Lord Elton said —I can quote him directly since he is a Minister:
      "What we have here is an interim Bill. I was glad that my noble Friend emphasised that on two separate occasions in the record when we were in Committee, and also amended the Bill either twice or three times on the face to make clear that it was interim, and he has a further amendment today. There is no question that this is an interim Bill."
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      My noble Friend went on to say:
      "I feel the noble Lord, Lord Houghton of Sowerby, is absolutely right in saying that this is a functional little Bill to deal with a major problem, not in a dictatorial way by telling the profession and its employers, 'This is how you will do it', but in a permissive and liberal way—using the word in a different sense — permitting the profession and the employers to work out their own solution for as long as it takes, or over a period of three years according to what your Lordships may later decide. That seems to me to be the stark alternative to a dictatorial imposition." —[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 February 1987; Vol. 484, c. 434–35.]
      The interim and advisory committee will take evidence from unions and employers alike and there will be a clear duty upon the Secretary of State to consult both sides before acting on the advice given by the Committee. That consultation will play a significant part in the pay process. My right hon. Friend has an obligation to the nation's children. This Bill, I believe, will do much to ensure that that obligation is discharged.
      Mr. Ashdown: I listened with some care to the speech of the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey). We all know that this place is well founded on the words of Humpty Dumpty, who said in "Alice in Wonderland" that words meant what he intended them to mean. The hon. Gentleman, in describing this Bill as a liberal measure, seemed to exceed the normal practice in this House of making words mean what one wants them to mean.
      On one point, however, I can agree with and commend the hon. Gentleman. He took some care to identify the fact that teachers do a superb job, by and large. I wish we heard more of that here from the Secretary of State. I have heard no such thing as that said by the hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth from the Front Bench or anybody in authority in the Government. On the contrary, for the past eight years teachers have been consistently reviled, denigrated and insulted. Many of us believe that, given the attacks on their morale, the lack of resources with which they have to work and the disgraceful conditions in some of our schools, 90 per cent. of our teachers do an extremely good job. Of course there are some bad teachers, but there are some bad politicians too, and I suggest that the balance is in favour of teachers—there are more bad politicians than there are bad teachers.
      Mr. Pawsey: Clearly the hon. Gentleman knows a great deal more about bad politicians than I do, but if he had been spokesman on education for a longer period he would have known that my right hon. Friend has consistently said that the teacher force is based on the fact
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      that the majority of teachers do an exceptionally worthwhile job. My right hon. Friend has said that over and over again.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I do not see any reference to bad teachers or bad politicians in these amendments.
      Mr. Ashdown: I take the point, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was simply commenting on the speech of the hon. Gentleman who raised this matter in the first place, as is the custom in the House. I will merely say that, if what he says is true, it is a truth which has certainly not got through to the teachers or the general public, or indeed to Opposition Members, so perhaps it ought to be said more clearly and loudly.
      The amendment now before us was, of course, put down by my alliance colleague Lord Ritchie on behalf of the alliance parties in the House of Lords. It was one of the two most substantial amendments to get through, the other, of course, being to overturn the Government's original intention to enable the Bill to be extended on a negative resolution of the House. I welcome the amendment for that reason. It is at least some small amelioration in the Bill in a direction which must be welcome to all who are concerned about what the Bill does.
      That is not to say, however, that the Bill as amended is one which we find acceptable, and we would wish this matter to be pushed much further. Unhappily, during the process of this debate we have no such opportunity, but I ask the Secretary of State, when he sums up this section of the debate, to give more flesh to what he means by the word "temporary" than he has so far been prepared to do, because this is the centre of our concerns about this Bill.
      This Bill is not just about pay and conditions. It is about the fact that the right to negotiate pay and conditions has been removed from a substantial section of the work force. I do not seek to deny the constitutional right of a Secretary of State, in extremis and with the backing of Parliament, to move to impose his will for what he considers to be, and Parliament agrees to be, the good of the nation. But a decent Secretary of State with a proper respect for democracy and the institutions of this country would, at the moment when he sought to take that dire action, be prepared at the same time to limit tightly the extent of his powers and to put in place, or at least start to put in place, a mechanism which would ensure that he did not have to take that extreme power again.
      The Secretary of State has refused to do either of those things and our opposition to this Bill is based upon that fact. What is being taken away now is the right of 400,000 teachers throughout Britain to negotiate their pay and conditions on what is potentially a permanent or at least a long-term basis. Rights which they have enjoyed since 1919 are now being removed from them. It is an extremely important and dangerous act by the Secretary of Stats.
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: I am not trying to make a cheap party political point; I am trying to understand the alliance position on this. As I understand it, we are setting up an advisory panel that will recommend pay rises for teachers to the Secretary of State, who can only disagree with those recommendations with the approval of both Houses of Parliament. The alliance is not suggesting free union-local authority negotiations; it is suggesting a review body with a chairman appointed by the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of State can

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      disagree with the recommendations of the review body if he wishes, with the approval of both Houses of Parliament. What is the great difference between those two schemes?
      Mr. Ashdown: I must ask the hon. Gentleman to study our proposals more carefully. If he does, he will understand that it is perfectly clear that the review body has not been set up as a substitute for negotiations; we see negotiations going ahead within both formal and informal frameworks outside that review body and prior to its consideration. It is there in case those negotiations should fail, in order to assist in unblocking blockages. After the review body has made its recommendations there will be a full process of negotiations and ultimately, if necessary, arbitration on a pendulum basis. These are details of the policy that I can touch on later if the House wishes, but they are perfectly clearly outlined and stand on the debates on this matter in the House of Lords.
      Mr. Kenneth Baker: I am very glad to be illuminated, to the extent that one can be illuminated by listening to the hon. Gentleman's proposals, as to what his proposals are. What he has described is not a review body. He has described an advisory committee, with collective bargaining somehow going on in the background. It is a most vague and absurd idea.
      Mr. Ashdown: If the Secretary of State has taken the trouble to look at these matters at all closely he should know that that independent review body will be independent and will be in existence for consultation and may well take on other matters as well, but in no sense and in no way does it limit the right to or possibilities for full negotiations outside that body. These proposals have been carefully drawn up after consultation. They have been detailed in the House of Lords amendments and in various other articles as well and have received the support of a number of unions: the National Association of Head Teachers, the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association, the National Confederation of Parent-Teacher Associations, the Professional Association of Teachers have all supported them. The Secretary of State said that he put some weight on the opinion of the National Association of Head Teachers, and it has supported these proposals as a realistic and appropriate way to proceed.
      The issue now before us is not pay but civil rights. The removal of the rights of teachers to negotiate their own pay and conditions is an action that I regard as highly provocative, and it is bound to encourage counteraction from those who believe that their rights are being removed. I accept that some in the trade union movement and the teachers' trade unions have thirsted for industrial action, and there may be many who look forward to that idea with some relish. I regret that, but the removal, without replacement or at least a time limit on the Secretary of State's powers, of their rights to negotiate pay and conditions is a deliberately provocative act which is bound to increase the possibility of action that he and I, and no doubt others, hope does not come about.
      I hope, as I said to the teachers earlier, that they will decide not to strike, because a strike would damage the schools and their cause. The Bill can be overturned only in the process of a general election, and I much fear that
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      if the teachers were to decide to take strike action they would bring about a result that neither I nor they would seek — the possibility of the Bill's provisions being continued. However, I can understand the teachers' frustration and anger, and their determination to defend their civil rights. Their feeling is only encouraged by the provisions of the Bill.
      I shudder to think what would happen if a Labour Government brought before the House a Bill such as this, which sought to impose, without denned limits, the pay and conditions of those who work in the City of London. What a roar of protest would then arise from the Conservative Benches about the imposition of state control on an eastern European model. The Secretary of State has offered two defences. The first is that he will listen to the advisory committee. The second is that this is a temporary measure, a point on which he concentrated a great deal in his speech. Let us look at the history of so-called temporary measures brought before the House. When income tax legislation was first introduced, it was as a temporary measure. The same is true of the Defence of the Realm Acts, the Official Secrets Act 1911 and the Import, Export and Customs Powers (Defence) Act 1939.
      We as politicians know that actions ranging from the painting of double white lines by the local authority to major Government laws are called temporary when they are instituted but are, all too frequently, kept going for as long as the powers that be find them convenient. We are properly suspicious in a matter of such importance, and suspect that when the Secretary of State says "temporary" or "interim" he does not mean what he says.
      The hon. Member for Rugby and Kenilworth said that the Secretary of State had made this matter clear, but I merely quote the Secretary of State, who said on Second Reading that he saw the Bill lasting "until 1990". Is three years' duration temporary? The Secretary of State said that the Bill would last
      "until 1990-though with powers for its life to be extended on a year-by-year basis".—[Official Report, 8 December 1986; Vol. 107, c. 43.]
      Is that a reasonable interpretation of "temporary"? Are we not right to suspect that the Secretary of State's intention is to extend the Bill, and the removal of bargaining rights from that group of workers, to a much more than temporary basis?
      If that is not so, why did the Secretary of State give himself powers to extend the powers of the Bill on a negative resolution alone? Why has he not set a time limit to the Bill, which would show his earnest to put something else in its place? Why has he not already set in train negotiations or put forward the Government's thinking about what structure might take the Bill's place in a White Paper or a Green Paper or some appropriate forum before bringing it before the House? Why does the Bill give the advisory committee the power to consider long-term matters such as the possibility of regional disparities in pay?
      Why is it that when it comes to talking about negotiations, the Secretary of State uses weasel words? For example, he will discuss these matters with the trade unions and with others involved, and these discussions will have the "character" of negotiations. What does the Secretary of State mean by that? Either they are negotiations or they are not. No doubt the unions could conduct industrial action which they could say was not

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      strikes, but in the character of strikes. What would be the difference? These are weasel words designed to hide the Government's intentions behind a smokescreen.
      5.15 pm
      The Secretary of State assures us that he will take great note of what the advisory committee says, but the House must reflect on the fact that the members of the advisory committee are appointed by the Secretary of State. They can be removed summarily by the Secretary of State. Their terms are set by the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State tells the committee what it can and cannot discuss, and he can, finally, simply ignore its recommendations. I ask the Secretary of State, and every Conservative Member now present, whether they would be prepared to place their civil rights in the hands of such a committee, appointed by a Labour Secretary of State, which would be the child or poodle of the Secretary of State.
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: The salaries of Members of Parliament are determined in almost precisely the same way as teachers' salaries under the Bill. There is an independent review, and recommendations are made to Parliament that Parliament can turn down. The only difference is that Parliament always turns down the recommendations of the committee set up to look into Members' pay.
      Mr. Ashdown: The hon. Gentleman tests the patience of the House when he equates the pay of Members of Parliament with that of teachers. We have the right to discuss our pay and vote on it. Those whose rights lie in the care of the House expect us to speak not for ourselves but as their representatives. I note, because it is a matter of some evidence, that not one Conservative Member has said that he would be prepared to place civil rights of his constituents in a body such as this, with such control over it by a Labour Secretary of State. No silence could be more eloquent.
      I cannot understand why the Secretary of State does not understand that by creating this advisory committee, he is creating an instrument that others could use most effectively against what he is seeking. I remind the House that the Secretary of State has the right summarily to dismiss from the advisory committee anybody he wishes. What would happen if there were a change of Government in the next few months and a Labour Secretary of State had the power over the committee that the Secretary of State wants for himself? What would happen if the Labour Government chose to put on the advisory committee people such as Frances Morrell, Deirdre Wood, Councillor Pearman, Derek Hatton or David Blunkett? Is that the instrument that Conservative Members want to create?
      Mr. Alan Howarth: If by any extraordinary chance the hon. Gentleman's party found itself participating in government, would he propose to abolish the review bodies that make recommendations on nurses' pay or police pay? The existence of such review bodies is important as a safeguard of the independence and interests of the groups of workers with whom they are concerned.
      Mr. Ashdown: I take the hon. Gentleman's point, but he knows that the independent review body has been proposed by the Opposition and is not proposed in this
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      Bill. This is an advisory committee. The hon. Gentleman seems not to have followed these matters or to have listened when they were discussed earlier.
      My party has put forward detailed proposals in the Lords amendments and I will not go through them now with the House. Suffice to say that they have been supported by the National Association of Head Teachers —on whose opinion the Secretary of State put so much store — by the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Association, the Society of Education Officers, the National Confederation of Parent-Teacher Associations, the Professional Association of Teachers and others.
      Our proposals offer a genuine way forward to restore to teachers the right to negotiate over their pay and conditions, and gives the Government an appropriate and proper say in these matters, including the right to determine the overall cost envelope.
      When the Secretary of State criticised the proposals on the basis that they were ambiguous about his role, I asked him for details. He then complained that the proposals were too complicated and detailed about the role of the Secretary of State. He cannot have it both ways. The proposals lay out very clearly the role of all parties in this dispute in a way that could set the framework for the future.
      This Bill is bad, sad and potentially dangerous. It is bad because it is an instrument to damage goodwill even further amongst the teachers. The Secretary of State can introduce 19 or 1,900 points to define teachers' contracts, but if he does not have the good will of the teachers he cannot put this into effect and cannot produce a decent education system.
      It is sad because the Secretary of State, who is sometimes regarded outside this House as having a faintly liberal conscience in this Government, is now seen once again to be doing the bidding of his mistress in No. 10 Downing street in both attacking civil liberties and the role of local government, as he did in his previous job.
      This Bill is dangerous because it takes away the civil rights of some people in this nation and places that control in the hands of the Secretary of State. I have no doubt that those powers will be used in future by others if they are established here today.
      This is the Secretary of State's last chance genuinely to allay those fears by instituting a replacement for the Bill and some time frame in which that replacement can be made. This is a disgraceful Bill which we oppose. Although we accept this amendment to improve it, our opposition to the Bill as a whole is in no way diminished.
      Sir John Farr: I address my remarks directly to the amendment which came from another place and has been accepted by my right hon. Friend. I am probably the only Member in the House who does not agree completely with the insertion in these three points of the words "temporary" or "provisional" or "interim", which have the same meaning. If there is merit in this advisory committee and consultation is found to be adequate, why insert the word "interim", which would indicate that it has a limited future?
      One uses the word "interim" in various ways. One has to remember in this House in particular that the Stormont Government was an interim Government which governed Northern Ireland for a long time with varying success. If this advisory committee is a success and is meeting the

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      demands of the profession and the parents and the governors, and is getting on with the job more successfully than is feared, I would not like to see it swept away.
      Other advisory committees have been mentioned; one of them is the University Grants Committee, and it is no push-over. That committee is looked upon with fear and trepidation by the Secretary of State because it is its own master. It is given money, but try to suggest to it—as I used to do years ago before I learned better — that a university or college should get more. One is very soon told that the committee knows its own business and that it is independent, it has its own money and it is up to it to allot it.
      There is a chance that after a year or two this advisory committee will make a name for itself. Later we shall be dealing with amendments relating to its composition. Schedule 1 sets out the way in which the advisory committee is to be constituted and to proceed. It may well be found that the committee is fair-minded and is doing a first-class job. I hesitate to accept the Secretary of State's suggestion that we should insert in the Bill, at the behest of another place, the word "interim".
      I am pleased to welcome this Bill and to see it on its way because there is so much dissension and strife within the teaching profession in this country. Teachers should get on with the task of teaching children. There have been numerous complaints in my constituency. I have received a letter today from 63 secondary teachers in Leicestershire. They say:
      "The Secretary of State in the Teachers' Pay and Conditions Bill is removing the rights of teachers and their employers to negotiate on pay and conditions of service."
      Having listened to my right hon. Friend and the debates in the other place, and having accepted the advice of the noble Lord, Lord Houghton—who is still a very skilled and alert and independent parliamentarian, whose word is not to be taken lightly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey) said—I would say that the Secretary of State, far from giving himself dictatorial powers, will receive and publish the views of the interim advisory committee and consult the teachers' unions, local education authorities and representatives of the voluntary schools. Any change in pay or conditions of employment will have to be approved by both Houses of Parliament.
      This advisory committee could eventually prove to be a winner. I strongly urge the Secretary of State to press on with the excellent job he is doing, because most of the parents in this country are thoroughly fed up with teachers and will never forgive them for the years of education which have been lost to our children. The Bill gives the teaching profession a chance to restore its self-respect.
      5.30 pm
      Mr. Gordon Oakes: I tend to agree, but for different reasons, with the hon. Member for Harborough (Sir J. Farr) when he wonders why the word "interim" has been inserted. I wonder why it has been put in, because it is purely and simply cosmetic. Would the hon. Gentleman agree that the word "temporary", although it appears in the long title of the Bill—which the word "interim" does not — is meaningless? I was surprised that the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) said, no doubt in support of his SDP colleague in the other place, that two
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      amendments were made there. To my astonishment he said that this was one of them. I was equally astonished that the hon. Gentleman named the process of having the affirmative procedure rather than the negative procedure as the other amendment. What has happened is a disgrace. A thoroughly unacceptable Bill came before the House, the Government marshalled their troops and passed the Bill through its first stages. I was amazed when the Secretary of State said that there was not a single Division in the other place and that everything seemed to be done by agreement.
      The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mrs. Angela Rumbold): There was no Division on the "interim" provision.
      Mr. Oakes: In that case, I withdraw my remarks. I find it amazing that the other place let many of these provisions through. It has a dual role as a revising Chamber and as a guardian of the nation's constitutional rights against dictatorial action. I suggest that this is dictatorial action.
      Today at Question Time the Prime Minister seemed to say in a reply that teachers had never had it so good. No doubt the tens of thousands of teachers outside the House today, did not come to lobby their Members of Parliament but to thank them for never having had it so good.
      Mr. Harry Greenway: Teachers have it better than they did under the Labour Government. I know because I was in the profession then.
      Mr. Willie W. Hamilton: The teachers call the hon. Gentleman a ventriloquist's doll.
      Mr. Oakes: I think, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I have the Floor.
      The unions dislike the Bill intensely, and not for some of the reasons that have been given by Conservative Members. They dislike it, not because they are squabbling among themselves, but because it is a fundamental attack by the Government on free collective bargaining. Even if the other place saw fit to let it through, I doubt whether the International Labour Organisation would be happy to see such legislation introduced in a democratic country.
      Mr. Hawkins: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain for the benefit of the public the negotiating rights and collective bargaining involved in the pay settlement of the police, of judges, generals, nurses, doctors, dentists and Members of Parliament?
      Mr. Oakes: The hon. Gentleman keeps talking about hon. Members' pay. We determine our pay. For the other groups, that has traditionally been a matter for negotiation. They have different types of review body. With this review body the Secretary of State has powers to appoint, dismiss and ignore. He can do anything with a report from this interim body.
      The hon. Member for Yeovil also said that the other place had taken the important step of changing the procedure by which the legislation can be extended from the negative to the affirmative procedure. I raised that point on Second Reading. Many years ago, we passed legislation on protection against terrorism. Every year it is subject to the affirmative procedure and year after year it is renewed by the House. If the Government genuinely believe that this is a temporary Bill to overcome a temporary crisis, why have they in both Houses refused amendments from my hon. Friends and insisted on retaining that power of continuation? That would prove

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      more conclusively than the word "interim" that they believe that the measure is for only two or three years. The Government insist on retaining the provision because they want the Bill to be permanent and the Secretary of State to have this power.
      The measure affects 400,000 teachers at present. I have no doubt that the Secretary of State for the Environment would dearly love to emulate this legislation for local authority unions. It is not insignificant that when the Government want to change the rating system they use Scotland as a guinea pig. They have decided to try it on the Scots and see what happens, and we shall debate that next week. If we have the misfortune to have a Conservative Government after the general election, they will introduce a similar change in the rating system in England and Wales.
      As a member of the Transport and General Workers Union I must warn the trade union movement at large that this, too, is a guinea pig measure. It is the teachers' unions this time, but it will be other unions next time. The measure, far from being an expedient to deal with critical circumstances, is a guinea pig for introducing yet more anti-union legislation. It is a disguise and a cover.
      I am surprised that the other place passed the Bill and I am amazed that another clause was not amended in either this House or the other place. That is the clause that allows regional discrimination. On Second Reading I suggested that, if the Government intended that, they should use the phrase "local education authority" or words to that effect. Instead—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman is anticipating later amendments. He must stick to the amendment that we are discussing.
      Mr. Oakes: I agree that I am straying. I know that time is pressing and I shall return to the point.
      The word "interim" is purely cosmetic. This is an extremely bad Bill and I hope that by a vote later we can demonstrate our contempt for what the Secretary of State is doing to trade union negotiations.
      Mr. Alan Howarth: I welcome the amendment made in the other place, stressing as it does the interim character of the advisory committee which it is proposed to establish. The right hon. Member for Halton (Mr. Oakes) cast doubt on the genuineness of the Government's intention that it should be an interim arrangement, but I am perfectly certain that no one has been more reluctant than my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to resort to the powers that the Bill vests in him.
      Obviously, it is preferable that teachers' pay, conditions of service and career structure should be determined through negotiation rather than by order. However, in the event, my right hon. Friend had no choice but to take these powers. Indeed, it was his duty to do so. It was imperative that a settlement of this long-running, damaging and distressing dispute should be achieved. The teaching profession needs to have questions resolved about its career structure. Given the atmosphere that had developed, it was plainly necessary to provide a breathing space to enable passions to cool. Moreover, all are agreed that the Burnham structure must go.
      The problem has been the failure to achieve agreement within the Burnham committee, the proceedings of which have been characterised, sadly, by vitriolic disagreements
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      between the teachers' unions at, for example, Coventry and Nottingham. An impasse had been reached and my right hon. Friend was right to require an interim set of new arrangements to be introduced, giving us time to reflect coolly and to make progress on a new set of arrangements. That became plainly necessary when the negotiations under the aegis of ACAS failed and the pressure for it was particularly strong because of continued disruption.
      Within Burnham, a search for a new structure had gone on for five years. It must be reasonable at the end of a five-year unsuccessful search for better arrangements to approach the matter in a new way. Sadly, over the past two years we have seen sporadic but fairly intensive disruption of schools. The hon. Member for Sheffield. Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery), who I am sorry to see is no longer present, sought to blame the Secretary of State for that disruption. Indeed, the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) also attempted to lay responsibility for disruption at the door of my right hon. Friend and perhaps his predecessor.
      In reality, those who make that assertion demean teachers. Teachers are responsible adults who must take their own decision whether or not in any circumstances it is acceptable to pursue a pay dispute by dint of damaging the interests of the children who are their charges. In my judgment, that cannot be right. That view is widely and strongly held by the public. The teachers have done their professional standing and esteem no good in the eyes of society through their disruption. If they again resort to such disruption they will do themselves further damage, and I hope that they will not.
      It became inevitable that my right hon. Friend would have to take interim powers at the moment when the Labour-controlled employers threw over the concordat that had existed for so long, which gave the Secretary of State's representatives on the Burnham committee adequate leverage to represent his proper responsibilities and concerns. They are real. The Secretary of State must have leverage in any negotiating machinery which is established. He is the trustee of the nation's interests in a variety of respects. He is a trustee of the taxpayers' concerns. He is a trustee for our children and their education. He is a trustee on behalf of the community. The community has an interest in the undisrupted provision of high-quality education for a range of reasons, including the well-being of the economy and law and order.
      The local education authorities, similarly, should regard themselves as trustees of the nation's interest in the quality of education, as should the teachers. It was deeply regrettable that the employers plucked a figure out of the air and said that they were not satisfied with the substantial extra amount of money that my right hon. Friend had laid on the table. They wanted an extra £85 million. It is easy to say, "We will have an extra £85 million," when they are not footing the bill. Sadly, teachers' representatives refused to accept a career structure that offered sensible incentives.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying rather wide. He must address his remarks to the amendments.
      Mr. Howarth: I am grateful for your caution, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
      In the interim phase that my right hon. Friend is proposing, during which we can think more calmly and

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      fruitfully, the teachers' unions can reflect better on the question whether there should be a career structure that gives incentives — for example to teachers who are willing to take on extra responsibility, and whose skills and qualifications are in short supply.
      The fears of Opposition Members and the teaching profession that this will not prove to be an interim arrangement can be allayed. If they speak the truth as they know it, they know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has great personal good will towards the education profession and teachers. That is manifest in his impressive achievement in negotiating with the Treasury to make it possible to offer an extra £608 million for teachers' pay.
      Mr. Ashdown: I am sorry to have to disabuse the hon. Gentleman of his belief that the Secretary of State enjoys the confidence of teachers. I have travelled up and down the country — only for about a month since I took on my present job — and spoken to many people. The constant message that I have received is that the only person who could have made the previous Secretary of State for Education look like a good guy is the present one.
      5.45 pm
      Mr. Howarth: The hon. Gentleman is entitled to make his cheap debating points and make personal and defamatory assertions about by right hon. Friend in the interests of gaining some political advantage and playing to the gallery. However, nobody will admire that intervention.
      The good will of my right hon. Friend has been manifest in the money that he has made available and in his urgent desire to offer more incentive posts to the teaching profession than the other parties in the negotiations have sought to offer. My right hon. Friend will correct me if I am wrong, but I understand that under his proposals, which are still available, he will make available 140,000 additional incentive posts, compared with the mere 85,000 that the ACAS negotiations put on offer. Indeed—this is the most extraordinary matter— that compares with a current figure of 105,000. The ACAS proposals would have reduced the number of incentive posts available for good teachers.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is discussing details of the proposed arrangements. That cannot be in order on this amendment.
      Mr. Howarth: I will do my best, in my remaining few remarks, to keep strictly in order.
      The anxiety being expressed by teachers' representatives is less about whether this is an interim arrangement than about whether negotiating rights will be restored. I am sure that my right hon. Friend intends to do his best during this interim period to set up the machinery for genuine negotiation. In the meantime, I am willing to accept, as are many teachers—this is a widespread view — that he will wish to make consultation a genuine reality. By his willingness to accept that the recommendations of the advisory committee should be published, he indeed makes that inevitable. The good points that the teachers' representatives will put in the process of consultation with the advisory committee, and subsequently with my right hon. Friend, will be published
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      and cannot be ignored. The independence of the advisory committee need by no less than the independence of, for example, the University Grants Committee.
      I ask my right hon. Friend to tell the House that he will search urgently to find a new structure, and that it is his hope that we shall find a new structure within the three-year interim period. The Government will, I am sure, search urgently to shorten this interim phase, but one of the conditions of success of that undertaking must be that members of the teaching profession put pressure on their unions and representatives to bury their differences and be more constructive in their approach to achieving a structure in which all parties can be sensibly and appropriately represented; in which all parties can genuinely negotiate and build on the good progress that has been made; in moving the teaching profession closer towards salaries that adequately reflect the importance of what they do and the good quality of their work; and which establishes clear definitions of their responsibilities and of the manner in which they will fulfil society's legitimate and optimistic expectations of them.
      Mr. Weetch: I shall be very brief in my speech and state my conclusions in the introduction.
      My first point follows the one made by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth), who said that he believed that the Government would search urgently for a more appropriate and apposite form of negotiating machinery. Experience is doubtful on this point. When people assume dictatorial powers with promises to hand it back to democracy later, the hon. Gentleman will find that it is seldom handed back. Experience suggests that, when people assume dictatorial powers, those powers, if they prove convenient, are consolidated; they do not disappear.
      Mr. Howarth: The hon. Gentleman mentioned democracy. Will he acknowledge that the proposal in the Bill that any new pay settlement should be approved by the House is an advance? What could be more democratic than that?
      Mr. Weetch: The hon. Gentleman has been in the House long enough now to know that, when the Government say that they have the approval of Parliament, they mean that they have the support of the Whips' machine in getting the requisite number of votes through the Lobby with a built-in Government majority. It is true to say that the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965 had some disadvantages in that respect and this represents a small advance.
      But let me draw the attention of the hon. Gentleman and the Secretary of State to the Government's statement on Second Reading in the other place. The point was made that most of the fundamentals of the dispute with the teachers have already been settled — the place of the Secretary of State in the negotiating machinery, the fact that there must be an equitable balance of power and the fact that conditions and pay must be negotiated at the same time. I would be the first to concede that rough edges remain and more negotiations are needed, but nevertheless the landmarks have been put down and it would not have been beyond the wit of man to reach some consensus.
      In November last year, a consensus emerged with the support of ACAS, whose expertise is to be directed in such an area. But the Secretary of State, in a one-sided statement, said that what had emerged as the consensus in

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      November was the same thing as the old Burnham machinery. I doubt whether that was correct. That statement has not been challenged, but I do not believe that that is so.
      The hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon concentrated on the right things, so let me take up another of his points. Why is the Secretary of State doing this? The dispute has a certain amount of artificiality about it. The Secretary of State wants to determine the financial structure of the profession. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should say that 140,000 posts of responsibility would be better than 80,000. In other spheres of policy, the Government are trying to draw comparisons with a commercial and industrial model—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I pulled up the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) and I must do the same with the hon. Gentleman.
      Mr. Weetch: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker; I shall not stray any further.
      We have had today one of the biggest teachers' demonstrations and rallies. The teachers are amazed that the dispute still stands, when they are so willing to compromise on a settlement. The Government are trampling across the negotiating machinery for ulterior purposes. If the Bill is an attempt to lift the low morale in the schools at the moment, the Government will fail because the Bill is a recipe for continuing discontent.
      Mr. David Crouch: This is the first time that I have attempted to speak on this important measure. It is not a Bill that I like much, but I voted for it. That is the part that I have played so far, I do not like the Bill because I do not like having to take such measures. The right hon. Member for Halton (Mr. Oakes) spoke of 400,000 teachers being put at a disadvantage. I voted for the Bill that I do not like because several million children have been put at a disadvantage for the past three years, along with their parents. I cannot believe that any hon. Member is not concerned first about our children's education. We have for so long watched the negotiations and talks drag on and fail and fail that eventually it was necessary for my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to take some measure.
      I am speaking in response to a lobby of teachers from my constituency of Canterbury. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will know that I wrote to him some weeks ago when I received a similar lobby of 68 teachers from one school in my constituency of all political shades and all extremes and non-extremes of view expressing their anxiety about the Bill. I told them what I said again this afternoon, that the Bill is necessary.
      I now realise what is really sticking in the teachers' gullet. It is not that the Secretary of State is taking powers to do their job for them to negotiate their pay. They are worried that this might become a permanent arrangement. They are worried that, when the Bill becomes an Act and goes on to the statute book this afternoon, it might stay there. In the telling phrase of those highly intelligent teachers, whom I respect, the Bill is like a red rag to a bull to the moderate teachers in my constituency. They further told me that it had unified the teachers' unions against the Bill, not because of any proposed pay settlement—that was not the problem — but because they felt that the Secretary of State appeared to be taking draconian measures.
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      I told the lobby that the Bill is only a temporary measure. I took the words that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister used this afternoon when she described the Bill, I think absolutely properly, as a temporary measure. I see it as an interim measure. That is what this important amendment from the other place is about. It would insert the word "interim" to describe the advisory committee and that is an important addition, because it could help to calm the present anxiety, even anger, of the teachers. They are angry about the Bill going on to the statute book and staying there; that is not the intention of my right hon. Friend and the Government and that was reinforced by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister's statement this afternoon.
      I strongly welcome and support the amendment. If it is understood in the mass lobby and in the common rooms throughout Britain that this is a temporary measure, the steam might be taken out of the present pressure on the Government. We should stress the temporary nature of the Bill and that is why I have sought to make this brief intervention.
      I told the lobby this afternoon that it is not in the nature of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to act as a dictator. He is the last person whom I would ever expect to act in such a manner and the lobby agreed with me. I can tell the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) that the teachers did agree with me. It is not in the nature of teachers in my constituency to behave in a disruptive manner. Canterbury is not that sort of place. I see to it that it is not.
      Mr. Flannery: What about Thomas a Becket?
      Mr. Crouch: I do not think that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, would allow me to digress on St. Thomas a Becket, but perhaps there will be another occasion when I can draw attention to the difficulties that he encountered with the monarch of that time.
      Mr. Radice: Is the hon. Gentleman trying to talk out the Bill?
      Mr. Crouch: No, I am not. I shall even take advice from the hon. Gentleman and not try to delay the House.
      Let us proceed, because it is important that the Bill should be put on the statute book as a temporary measure. "Interim" is the key word. I stressed that this afternoon to teachers from my constituency. Unlike the hon. Member for Yeovil, I am not suspicious about my right hon. Friend's intentions. I do not think any hon. Member is suspicious of my right hon. Friend's intentions on this.
      I said that I rose to speak in response to a lobby. It is not wrong to sit here waiting to be called to speak when one has been approached by a lobby. That is how Parliament works, and that is how it should be. That is what I am doing tonight. That is my response. The Bill is a response to the failure of the teachers' unions in the past three years to find a solution to their problems. That is why I welcome the Bill and the amendment.
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      Mr. Flannery: The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch)—that place of murder—always makes a highly civilised speech and he knows that I have great respect for his approach. He gave a speech with the wrong conclusion. The tenor of his speech was to recognise that teachers, who are on holiday at the moment, saw fit to come here because they feel so deeply about the Bill. They came here at just

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      a few days' notice to make their feelings clear. They did not say that they would take any form of action other than the democratic procedure.
      The Secretary of State and his predecessor have achieved something that I in a lifetime in teaching have never managed—they have unified the profession. Never before have the National Association of Schoolmasters/ Union of Women Teachers, the National Union of Teachers, the Assistant Masters and Mistresses Associaton and the Secondary Heads Association come together on one issue. If that is not a lesson to the Secretary of State, I do not know what is, but I doubt whether he has learnt the lesson.
      The Secretary of State has embarked on a venture which can only be catastrophic for all of us. I have great difficulty supporting the amendment. We could argue about the difference between interim and temporary. The amendment is a palliative. We do not know precisely what it means, but it serves notice on the right hon. Gentleman that there is a struggle of which he should take notice.
      The struggle is about the deprivation, for the first time that any of us can remember, of a union's right to direct negotiations. That happens all over eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and China, and it has occurred under some very Right-wing regimes. It is salutary and terrible that it is about to happen here. The entire trade union movement is watching this slender debate, because we are effectively discussing the right of a union to exist.
      Unions exist to negotiate freely and fully with employers. That is the result of 200 years of struggle. The Government are blithely reneging on promises that they have previously made. Teachers will struggle on. The Conservative party talks piously about children and how it does not like them being harmed, but only it is harming children. I hope that the Government heed better counsels, reach a proper agreement with teachers and withdraw the advisory committee, just as we shall withdraw the entire Bill when returned to government.
      Mr. Greenway: It is nice to hear the hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) talk about the children. That is more than can be said for the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown), who rightly spoke of good teachers. We have good teachers. I have heard my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State say that often. The hon. Member for Yeovil did my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister a serious injustice and failed to mention children at all. He must learn to take account of them.
      Mr. Ashdown: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. He should read my speech tomorrow.
      Mr. Greenway: Children must come first. Education in schools is about them and their needs, aspirations and futures. It concerns what they can achieve for themselves and the country, how the teaching profession can assist them and how teachers can be rewarded properly.
      I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch) that we must stress the short-term nature of the amendment. That is crucial, as is the content of the advisory committee.
      I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will take account of the vital need for the advisory committee to represent people who understand the
      460
      teaching profession, how it works and the needs of schools. I hope that there will be teachers on it. The committee must comprise weighty people. The fact that the measure is short-term puts extra pressure on my right hon. Friend to ensure all parts of the profession are represented. It is crucial to make this point although it may be made again later. If the House forgets that this is not a permanent arrangement and falls into the trap of letting my right hon. Friend forget it, the profession will face unnecessary problems.
      The Bill has become necessary as a result of the profession's disunity. Lord Glenamara, no less, a former Labour Secretary of State, told me in more than one conversation that the teachers, because of disunity between unions and within unions, had themselves scuppered Burnham. The great problem is what should succeed it.
      The amendment concentrates the mind on the fact that the arrangement is interim, on the importance of the content of the advisory committee and on what should succeed Burnham. The unions should already have discussed the successor to Burnham, but they have been too busy fighting a rearguard action. If they do not get down to considering that serious matter, they will not be ready for the next stage after this interim arrangement has ended, as it surely will.
      Mrs. Elaine Kellett-Bowman: I would not be prepared to support the amendment if it was a permanent arrangement. I am aware that many admirable people, such as doctors, nurses and members of the armed forces, have no direct say in their pay negotiations, but teachers always have and I hope that they will have such rights again in the near future.
      Teachers have unfortunately been unable to agree on a package of pay and conditions.
      Labour Members have said that there was consensus at Nottingham. That is simply not so. Only two out of the six unions represented there supported the ACAS agreement. In those circumstances, we need the breathing space that this Bill will provide to sort out the new negotiating machinery for the teaching profession. It is on that basis, that it is an interim arrangement, that I support the Bill tonight.
      Mr. Kenneth Baker: My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) spoke with great spirit. I understand that the House does not want to divide on this amendment, but it would be a discourtesy if I did not very briefly acknowledge the points that were made by several hon. Members on both sides of the House. The points varied between those made by the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) and by other Labour Members who said that they did not want a committee under any circumstances, to the points made by Conservative Members who said that they were prepared to support the Bill on the understanding—I mention particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Rugby and Kenilworth (Mr. Pawsey), for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway), for Lancaster (Mrs. Kellett-Bowman) and for Canterbury (Mr. Crouch), who all made exactly the same point that it was an interim proposal. I wish to emphasise how important that is in the Government's thinking.
      I have had to act to bring in the measure because of the failure and the background of the negotiations with Burnham during the past few years, which my hon.

      461
      Friends the Members for Rugby and Kenilworth and for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Howarth) mentioned. I had to do it. I do not seek dictatorial powers. I wish to emphasise that. I will search for a new structure because we need it. There is no doubt about that, but we must have a negotiating mechanism that works.
      I listened to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown).
      Mr. Ashdown rose—
      Mr. Baker: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall not give way to him now because I gave way to him earlier.
      Mr. Archy Kirkwoodrose—
      Mr. Baker: I have just said that I will not give way. The hon. Member for Yeovil can ask me his question later in the evening. I listened carefully to his views and I also read the debates containing the arguments that the Liberals and the alliance put forward in the House of Lords. They moved from an independent review body in Committee to a different set of proposals on Report—
      Mr. Ashdown: That is simply nonsense. I wish to ask the Minister a single question. Would he consign the civil rights of any one of his constituents to a Secretary of State for Education and Science who came from the Labour party, and who was invested with the powers to which he has helped himself in this Bill? Yes or no?
      Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman has not read the Bill. The Bill is not a question of consigning civil rights. If the hon. Gentleman read the Bill, he would understand that the rights of trade unions are not changed in any way, shape or form. He does not know the Bill any more than he understands the proposals put forward by the Labour party. The hon. Gentleman was putting forward proposals in which he tried to combine collective bargaining with an independent review body. The proposals that have been put forward by the alliance in this matter simply will not work.
      The reason why we need an interim advisory committee—I emphasise to Conservative Members that this is an interim measure — is confirmed very much by Lord Houghton, whose words I paraphrase. He said that it seemed to him that finding a suitable form of machinery would probably take a little longer than 1988 because there were two issues to be solved before satisfactory negotiating machinery could be devised. First, there was the role of the Secretary of State—he recognised that—and secondly, there had to be a better order in the arrangements between the unions themselves. The latter part of that would be very difficult indeed, said Lord Houghton.
      When that emerges, we can move to a more permanent structure involving negotiating.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Lords amendment: No. 2 in page 1, line 20, at end insert
      "( ) The members of the Committee shall include persons having relevant knowledge of or experience in education."
      Read a Second time.
      6.15 pm
      Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: I beg to move, as an amendment to the Lords amendment, at end add
      'and who have served on the Burnham Committee'.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient also to take, amendment (b) to the Lords amendment, in line 3, at end add
      'and shall include members or employees of organisations representing school teachers, associations of local education authorities, bodies representing the interests of governors of voluntary schools and organisations representing the interests of parents.'.
      Mr. Bennett: The procedure that we have had to go through this evening is not especially satisfactory. It might have been far better had we had the opportunity to vote, as we used to have, on whether we should consider Lords amendments, rather than having to weave our remarks around the amendments today. I am conscious of the fact that it would be convenient for the House to try to vote at about 6.30 this evening. Therefore, I will speak briefly to this amendment and try to ensure that Labour Members especially get a chance to express their concern about the legislation.
      The Minister has again given us his half-performance, all front and Hollywood set and Mr. Smiles, but his performance had no depth. He has not told us what he intends to do. It has now been four months since the Government announced this legislation. That is four months in which most Secretaries of State could have got on and got negotiations going. However, all that the Secretary of State has done is to tell us that, even at this stage, he is not sure whether the new advisory committee will take on the character of a negotiating body. He told us that he does not know what he will do for the long term. He certainly cannot give us any evidence that he is trying to bring harmony back into our schools.
      The right hon. Gentleman is left with a position where he is creating bitterness and anger in most of our secondary schools and creating a great deal of apathy in the primary sector. He is left with a position where it will be difficult to persuade teachers to go back to giving their enthusiastic best, which is what we need for all our children.
      The Secretary of State must get back to a negotiating position, and to do that he must get back some of the expertise of the Burnham committee. He may feel that he can impose a settlement, but he must remember that the negotiations on teachers' pay are extremely detailed and complex, and although we may all have had criticisms of the Burnham committee, it has, on the whole in the past, been able to sort out the nitty-gritty. The purpose of our amendment is to stress to the Government that they must call on that expertise in this interim period.
      The House now wants the opportunity to vote for this amendment and to express its disgust at the way in which the Government have treated the negotiations. The Government have taken no steps to restore good will, and to create the partnership tha.t we so badly need between teachers and parents, so that children will get back to a first-class education system. That is what we all need.
      Mr. Kenneth Baker: I understand that the House wants to come to a fairly quick decision on this matter. Therefore, I will not seek to detain it with a long speech.
      On Second Reading in another place, a variety of views were expressed about whether members of the interim advisory committee should be independent or whether they should be representatives of particular groups. Lord McIntosh, who repeated the views of the main Opposition in Committee, was among those who said that they would

      463
      like the advisory committee to have a representational membership. That was a minority view in the other place as a variety of speakers referred to the importance of the independence of the advisory committee. The Government believe that it is essential that the interim advisory committee should be an independent and not a representational body.
      I assure the House that I shall appoint independent-minded members to the interim advisory committee as I have done with bodies such as the University Grants Committee, which performs a controversial task without evidence of political bias. I will take that responsibility seriously and I shall consider any suggestions about the membership that are put to me.
      It would not be right to appoint nominees or representatives of groups with direct interest in the committee's recommendations. In particular, a system of nominated members might lead to the use of mandate and recall, quite contrary to the principle of an independent committee.
      Although we do not accept that members of the interim advisory committee should be appointed in a representational role, we fully recognise that some of its members will need to have relevant knowledge or experience of education. Hence our willingness to see an additional subsection in the Bill stating:
      "The members of the Committee shall include persons having relevant knowledge of or experience in education".
      I have answered the points made, but I wish to emphasise that the members who will be appointed to the committee will be of an independent turn of mind and not representational.
      Mr. Greenway: Will my right hon. Friend consider appointing those who have been in the teaching profession, because they know how it operates?
      Mr. Baker: Yes, Sir.
      Mr. Ashdown: In normal circumstances, I should be rising to move the amendment that stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends. However, I understand that hon. Members have other pressing engagements and that there are good reasons for seeking to draw the discussions on this amendment to a close by 6.30. If the matter is pressed to a Division, I shall be happy to vote in favour of the amendment that was moved by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett).
      At this point I wish only to draw the attention of the Secretary of State for Education and Science to the points that are contained in our amendment, because he did not address them in his speech. The purpose of the amendment is to have it on record that the voice of teachers, parents, local education authorities and governors of voluntary schools shall be heard. That is particularly important in the case of two special groups. I refer first to the teachers.
      The Secretary of State could say, as he has just said to the hon. Member for Ealing, North (Mr. Greenway), that teachers might be included and that he will consider the matter. However, the concern of teachers is that they may not be included. Indeed, they suspect that, when the advisory committee is set up, the voice of teachers will not be heard, for reasons that have already been rehearsed in sufficient detail.
      Mr. Christopher Hawkins: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Ashdown: No, the hon. Gentleman has intervened many times during our discussions today and twice in my previous speech. In the interests of time, therefore, I shall not give way to him.
      In view of the way in which teachers' rights have been diminished by the Bill, teachers are rightly suspicious that their voice will not be heard on the advisory committee. If the Secretary of State genuinely intends teachers' representatives to be included on the advisory committee, he would give very little away by saying so now. Therefore, I invite him to say that teachers will be included, not that they may be included, on the advisory committee.
      The Secretary of State has to recognise that for various reasons, which we do not have to rehearse now, the trust of teachers has been shattered by the actions of this Government and the Secretary of State. They are deeply suspicious about the Bill. If the Secretary of State genuinely hopes that there will be peace in the schools, he ought to reassure teachers by saying now that the voice of teachers, through their representatives, will be heard on the advisory committee.
      If he refuses to say so clearly and unequivocally, we must assume that his intention is not to include teachers' representatives on the advisory committee and that instead he intends to ensure that it is constructed in such a way as to ensure that the voice of teachers is not adequately heard. Therefore, I ask the Secretary of State to say that teachers' representatives shall be included, not just that they may be included on the advisory committee.
      Secondly, I find it strange that parents are mentioned nowhere in the Bill. We have heard so much about the rights of parents and about the importance of parental power, but parents are not specifically referred to. If the Secretary of State believes that parents should have powers, why should they not also be allowed to have a voice on the advisory committee?
      I ask the Secretary of State to say clearly and unequivocally that those two groups, together with the local education authorities and the representatives of the voluntary schools, will have sufficient representatives on the advisory committee to ensure that their voice will be heard. That is not too much to ask, and in the case of teachers it is a minor concession that would do much to allay their fears.
      Question put, That the amendment to the Lords amendment be made:—
      The House divided: Ayes 155, Noes 220.

      Division No. 103]

      [6.24 pm

      AYES

      Abse, Leo

      Brown, Gordon (D'f'mline E)

      Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

      Brown, Hugh D. (Provan)

      Anderson, Donald

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

      Archer, Rt Hon Peter

      Brown, Ron (E'burgh, Leith)

      Ashdown, Paddy

      Bruce, Malcolm

      Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

      Buchan, Norman

      Ashton, Joe

      Caborn, Richard

      Atkinson, N. (Tottenham)

      Callaghan, Rt Hon J.

      Bagier, Gordon A. T.

      Callaghan, Jim (Heyw'd &M)

      Barron, Kevin

      Campbell-Savours, Dale

      Beckett, Mrs Margaret

      Canavan, Dennis

      Beith, A. J.

      Carter-Jones, Lewis

      Bell, Stuart

      Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

      Benn, Rt Hon Tony

      Clay, Robert

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

      Clelland, David Gordon

      Bidwell, Sydney

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Blair, Anthony

      Cohen, Harry

      Boothroyd, Miss Betty

      Coleman, Donald

      Boyes, Roland

      Conlan, Bernard

      465

      Cook, Frank (Stockton North)

      Marek, Dr John

      Cook, Robin F. (Livingston)

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Corbett, Robin

      Mason, Rt Hon Roy

      Crowther, Stan

      Maynard, Miss Joan

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Meacher, Michael

      Davies, Ronald (Caerphilly)

      Meadowcroft, Michael

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

      Michie, William

      Deakins, Eric

      Mikardo, Ian

      Dewar, Donald

      Milian, Rt Hon Bruce

      Dormand, Jack

      Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride)

      Douglas, Dick

      Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

      Dunwoody, Hon Mrs G.

      Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

      Eadie, Alex

      Nellist, David

      Eastham, Ken

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Fatchett, Derek

      O'Brien, William

      Faulds, Andrew

      O'Neill, Martin

      Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

      Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

      Fields, T. (L'pool Broad Gn)

      Owen, Rt Hon Dr David

      Fisher, Mark

      Park, George

      Flannery, Martin

      Patchett, Terry

      Forrester, John

      Pavitt, Laurie

      Foster, Derek

      Pendry, Tom

      Foulkes, George

      Pike, Peter

      Freeson, Rt Hon Reginald

      Powell, Raymond (Ogmore)

      Garrett, W. E.

      Radice, Giles

      George, Bruce

      Randall, Stuart

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      Redmond, Martin

      Godman, Dr Norman

      Rees, Rt Hon M. (Leeds S)

      Hamilton, James (M'well N)

      Richardson, Ms Jo

      Hamilton, W. W. (Fife Central)

      Robertson, George

      Hardy, Peter

      Rooker, J. W.

      Harrison, Rt Hon Walter

      Ross, Ernest (Dundee W)

      Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

      Ross, Stephen (Isle of Wight)

      Healey, Rt Hon Denis

      Rowlands, Ted

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Sedgemore, Brian

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Sheldon, Rt Hon R.

      Home Robertson, John

      Shields, Mrs Elizabeth

      Howarth, George (Knowsley, N)

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      Hoyle, Douglas

      Skinner, Dennis

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

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

      Hughes, Roy (Newport East)

      Soley, Clive

      Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

      Spearing, Nigel

      Jenkins, Rt Hon Roy (Hillh'd)

      Stott, Roger

      John, Brynmor

      Thomas, Dafydd (Merioneth)

      Johnston, Sir Russell

      Thomas, Dr R. (Carmarthen)

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Thompson, J. (Wansbeck)

      Kirkwood, Archy

      Thorne, Stan (Preston)

      Lambie, David

      Tinn, James

      Lamond, James

      Torney, Tom

      Leadbitter, Ted

      Wallace, James

      Lewis, Terence (Worsley)

      Wareing, Robert

      Litherland, Robert

      Weetch, Ken

      Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

      Welsh, Michael

      Lofthouse, Geoffrey

      Williams, Rt Hon A.

      Loyden, Edward

      Wrigglesworth, Ian

      McCartney, Hugh

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      McDonald, Dr Oonagh

      McKay, Allen (Penistone)

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      MacKenzie, Rt Hon Gregor

      Mr. John McWilliam and

      Madden, Max

      Mr. Frank Haynes.

      NOES

      Adley, Robert

      Buck, Sir Antony

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael

      Burt, Alistair

      Amery, Rt Hon Julian

      Carlisle, John (Luton N)

      Atkins, Rt Hon Sir H.

      Cash, William

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

      Chapman, Sydney

      Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

      Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

      Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

      Colvin, Michael

      Benyon, William

      Coombs, Simon

      Best, Keith

      Cope, John

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Cormack, Patrick

      Biggs-Davison, Sir John

      Cranborne, Viscount

      Boscawen. Hon Robert

      Crouch, David

      Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Bright, Graham

      Dunn, Robert

      Browne, John

      Durant, Tony

      Bruinvels, Peter

      Dykes, Hugh

      Bryan, Sir Paul

      Eyre, Sir Reginald

      466

      Fallon, Michael

      MacKay, Andrew (Berkshire)

      Farr, Sir John

      Maclean, David John

      Favell, Anthony

      McNair-Wilson, M. (N'bury)

      Fenner, Dame Peggy

      McNair-Wilson, P. (New F'st)

      Fletcher, Sir Alexander

      Madel, David

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Malone, Gerald

      Forman, Nigel

      Maples, John

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Marlow, Antony

      Forth, Eric

      Mates, Michael

      Fox, Sir Marcus

      Mather, Sir Carol

      Franks, Cecil

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Fraser, Peter (Angus East)

      Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

      Freeman, Roger

      Merchant, Piers

      Fry, Peter

      Meyer, Sir Anthony

      Gale, Roger

      Mills, lain (Meriden)

      Galley, Roy

      Mills, Sir Peter (West Devon)

      Gardiner, George (Reigate)

      Miscampbell, Norman

      Gardner, Sir Edward (Fylde)

      Moate, Roger

      Garel-Jones, Tristan

      Moore, Rt Hon John

      Gilmour, Rt Hon Sir Ian

      Morrison, Hon C. (Devizes)

      Glyn, Dr Alan

      Murphy, Christopher

      Goodhart, Sir Philip

      Neale, Gerrard

      Gorst, John

      Nelson, Anthony

      Gow, Ian

      Neubert, Michael

      Grant, Sir Anthony

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Greenway, Harry

      Onslow, Cranley

      Gregory, Conal

      Oppenheim, Rt Hon Mrs S.

      Griffiths, Sir Eldon

      Ottaway, Richard

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsm'th N)

      Page, Sir John (Harrow W)

      Ground, Patrick

      Page, Richard (Herts SW)

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Patten, Christopher (Bath)

      Hanley, Jeremy

      Pawsey, James

      Hannam, John

      Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

      Hargreaves, Kenneth

      Portillo, Michael

      Harvey, Robert

      Powell, William (Corby)

      Haselhurst, Alan

      Powley, John

      Hawkins, C. (High Peak)

      Price, Sir David

      Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

      Proctor, K. Harvey

      Heathcoat-Amory, David

      Raffan, Keith

      Henderson, Barry

      Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

      Hickmet, Richard

      Rathbone, Tim

      Hicks, Robert

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon

      Hill, James

      Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

      Hind, Kenneth

      Ridsdale, Sir Julian

      Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Holland, Sir Philip (Gedling)

      Rossi, Sir Hugh

      Holt, Richard

      Rost, Peter

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

      Rumbold, Mrs Angela

      Howarth, Gerald (Cannock)

      Ryder, Richard

      Howell, Rt Hon D. (G'ldford)

      Sackville, Hon Thomas

      Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, N)

      Sainsbury, Hon Timothy

      Hubbard-Miles, Peter

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      Hunt, David (Wirral W)

      Shaw, Giles (Pudsey)

      Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

      Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

      Hunter, Andrew

      Shelton, William (Streatham)

      Jenkin, Rt Hon Patrick

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Silvester, Fred

      Jones, Robert (Herts W)

      Sims, Roger

      Joseph, Rt Hon Sir Keith

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      King, Roger (B'ham N'field)

      Speed, Keith

      King, Rt Hon Tom

      Speller, Tony

      Knight, Greg (Derby N)

      Spencer, Derek

      Knowles, Michael

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Knox, David

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

      Steen, Anthony

      Latham, Michael

      Stern, Michael

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Stevens, Lewis (Nuneaton)

      Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

      Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

      Lester, Jim

      Stewart, Ian (Hertf'dshire N)

      Lewis, Sir Kenneth (Stamf'd)

      Stradling Thomas, Sir John

      Lightbown, David

      Sumberg, David

      LiIley, Peter

      Taylor, John (Solihull)

      Lord, Michael

      Taylor, Teddy (S'end E,

      McCrindle, Robert

      Temple-Morris, Peter

      McCurley, Mrs Anna

      Terlezki, Stefan

      Macfarlane, Neil

      Thomas, Rt Hon Peter

      MacGregor, Rt Hon John

      Thompson, Donald (Calder V)

      467

      Thompson, Patrick (N'ich N)

      Wells, Bowen (Hertford)

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Wells, Sir John (Maidstone)

      Thurnham, Peter

      Wheeler, John

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Whitney, Raymond

      Trippier, David

      Wiggin, Jerry

      van Straubenzee, Sir W.

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Waddington, Rt Hon David

      Wolfson, Mark

      Wakeham, Rt Hon John

      Wood, Timothy

      Walker, Bill (T'side N)

      Woodcock, Michael

      Wall, Sir Patrick

      Yeo, Tim

      Waller, Gary

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Wardle, C. (Bexhill)

      Warren, Kenneth

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Watson, John

      Mr. Peter Lloyd and

      Watts, John

      Mr. Mark Lennox-Boyd.

      Question accordingly negatived.
      Lords amendment agreed to.
      Lords amendment: No. 3 in page 2, line 4, leave out from "shall" to "a" in line 10 and insert
      "give notice of the matter and of any relevant direction—

      (a) to such associations of local education authorities as appear to them to be concerned and to any local education authority with whom consultation appears to them to be desirable,

      (b) to such bodies representing the interests of governors of voluntary schools as appear to them to be concerned, and

      (c) to such organisations representing school teachers as appear to them to be concerned,

      and shall afford them".
      The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Bob Dunn): I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we shall discuss Lords amendments Nos. 5 and 9.
      Mr. Dunn: This is a series of amendments giving effect to a commitment given by my noble Friend Baroness Hooper on Second Reading that the position of governors of voluntary schools should be reflected on the face of the Bill. That commitment was welcomed by the Bishop of London and there was no opposition to the amendments.
      The governors of voluntary aided schools employ 20 per cent. of school teachers. Moreover, they have a general responsibility for the successful running of voluntary schools. Those schools are a very important part of our education service.
      The first of the amendments provides that the advisory committee shall give notice of matters referred to it to bodies representing the interests of the governors of voluntary schools and shall afford them a reasonable opportunity for submitting evidence and representations.
      The second applies the principle that organisations representing the governors of voluntary schools should be consulted along with organisations representing local education authorities and teacher unions by the Secretary of State after receiving a report of the advisory committee.
      The third applies the same principle to the consultation by the Secretary of State before making an order coming into force in the period up to 1 October 1987.
      This series of amendments ensures a proper role for an important part of our school system. Therefore, I am happy to bring forward these amendments and I urge the House to agree to them.
      Amendment agreed to.
      Lords amendment: No. 4, in page 2, line 14, at end insert—
      468
      "( ) The Secretary of State shall, upon receiving a report from the Committee, arrange for it to be published."
      Mr. Dunn: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this we shall discuss amendment (a).
      Mr. Ashdown: I shall be brief in speaking to the amendment because it is brief, and although its scope is not great, it is important. The Lords have proposed to us an amendment requiring the report of the advisory committee to be published. We have merely tabled an amendment, the aim and purpose of which is to ensure that that is done within a set and specified time. Our amendment suggests that the report should be published within six weeks. However, if the Minister is prepared to discuss the matter and advise us whether he favours a broader or narrower approach with a different number of weeks or a different specified time, provided that it is reasonable, we shall be happy to accept it. We might be satisfied if the hon. Gentleman can go further and give an undertaking that the report will be published quickly.
      The defence of the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State against the amendment may well turn on clause 3 under which the advisory committee reports to the Secretary of State "on any matter" and the Secretary of State in due course conducts "consultation". The Under-Secretary of State may well argue that that consultation cannot be conducted except on the basis of a report being published. He may give an undertaking that such a report shall be published within a certain period, but that still leaves a loophole which worries us.
      Clause 3(1)(a) states that the Secretary of State shall consult to the extent that it appears to him to be "desirable". We are concerned about what will happen unless the report is fully published within a reasonable time scale. It is perfectly possible for the Secretary of State to publish only a small part of the report and to consult in line with paragraph (a), but we ask for a time limit to be set.
      All hon. Members know that there are many occasions on which serious and important reports which have been produced by various bodies for the Government reach conclusions that are unacceptable or uncomfortable to the Government. The Government merely use the device of sitting on the reports, more or less in perpetuity, so that they are lost from sight. Numerous parliamentary questions then ask when the report will be published, but all produce nothing.
      The Secretary of State can use that device when the advisory committee produces its report. He can simply ignore it and not bring it into the public domain. If the Secretary of State were to say to us, as no doubt he would if he were sitting in his place, "I would never do such a thing" — [Interruption.] I see the Under-Secretary of State shake his head. Is he saying that it is not true to say that the Secretary of State would say such a thing? I guess that he is not. The Secretary of State might assure the House that he would never do such a thing, so I draw his attention to a column in Hansard which fell to my eye the other day, when the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. Raynsford) asked the then Secretary of State for the Environment when he intended
      "to publish the 1983 survey of improvement grants referred to in the Green Paper 'Home Improvement"'. — [Official Report, 1 December 1986, Vol. 106, c. 518.]

      469
      That survey was reported on in 1983, three years ago, and has not to this day been published. The Minister who is now responsible for that matter has said that a final report will be published as soon as possible. That was a report which was delivered to the present Secretary of State for Education and Science when he was Secretary of State for the Environment. If the right hon. Gentleman can delay the publication of that report for three years, we can be worried about him delaying publication of any report of the advisory committee if the committee—independent though it is not — were to say something that the Government found unwelcome.
      We are asking for an assurance. I ask the Under-Secretary of State at least to say that he envisages these reports being published in full — not partially — and without delay. If the hon. Gentleman can be as specific as possible, we shall consider whether to push the amendment to a vote.
      Mr. Dunn: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) for his comments. He knows full well, having deliberated with us in a different capacity than that which he now has, that we have always given an assurance that there will be no undue delay in the publication of the report. Much will clearly depend on the urgency of the report and the length of time taken for it to be printed and published. We would certainly normally expect publication to be within six weeks.
      There is an air of déjà vu about this debate. The hon. Members for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) and for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) will recollect the debate in Committee on the 1980 Act, on what became section 12, and our difficulty in trying to fit a period of consultation, deliberation, exercise and evaluation within a time frame that had never been printed and supported by law. We believe that the assurances that we shall give and our commitment to them should meet the concerns of the hon. Member for Yeovil.
      My hon. Friends gave a clear commitment in the debates on Second Reading and in Committee that all reports from the interim advisory committee on matters referred to it by the Secretary of State would be published. Therefore, I hope that the House will agree with the Lords amendment and I ask the hon. Member for Yeovil to withdraw his amendment.
      6.45 pm
      Mr. Ashdown: In the light of the Minister's assurances, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Lords amendment agreed to.
      Lords amendment No. 5 agreed to.

    Clause 3

      POWER OF SECRETARY OF STATE TO MAKE PROVISION BY ORDER
      Lords amendment: No. 6, in page 2, line 35, at end insert—
      "( ) An order may make different provision for different cases, including different provision for different areas."
      Mr. Dunn: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
      Mr. Speaker: With this it will be convenient to take amendment (b) to Lords amendment No. 6 and Lords
      470
      amendments Nos. 7, 8 and 11. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that privilege is involved in Lords amendment No. 7.
      Mr. Dunn: I address this group of Lords amendments in the knowledge that Lords amendment No. 6 enables provision to be made for different cases, including different areas as regards conditions of employment as well as remuneration. This would allow orders to accommodate such variations as may be needed to meet the particular position of the voluntary sector. The amendment was moved in the other place as a Government amendment following representations by interests representing voluntary schools. Different provision for voluntary schools is, in fact, only one case in which different provision may be needed. A difference in conditions of employment could be needed as between ordinary schools and special schools. It is even more likely that a difference will be needed as between teachers In schools and those teachers who do not work in schools, such as peripatetic teachers or those who teach children at home.
      Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the Minister. I am afraid that it is my mistake. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) should have moved amendment (b) before the Minister spoke. I ask the hon. Member for Yeovil to move amendment (b).
      Mr. Ashdown: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker. I am sorry to stop the Minister in mid-flow. It was a matter that I was happy to leave. I beg to move amendment (b), in line 3, after 'cases', insert
      'but only where different provision is made under arrangements existing at the date of this Act.'.
      This is a probing amendment. The intention is to maintain the status quo on differentials and not to give the advisory committee, which the Secretary of State has assured us is interim, the possibility of dealing with the question whether there shall be disparities of pay and conditions across the rest of Britain or in certain categories.
      When one considers the temporary interim nature—that is what the Secretary of State has assured us is in his mind—one is suspicious because it appears that he has given the advisory committee powers to consider matters of much longer-term importance. As I say, this is a probing amendment because I am somewhat confused by what the Government have said at various times when this matter was discussed. It was discussed on 10 December, at which time the Minister of State, Department of Education and Science said quite clearly that the Government's intentions in the clause were to allow them
      "to continue the higher rate of pay in special schools and social priority allowances for the inner cities."—[Official Report, 10 December 1986; Vol. 107, c. 620.]
      That is perfectly clear and seems to set out the current case. I support that and this amendment tries to put it into effect. When Baroness Hooper spoke on this matter in another place, she said:
      "The Government have no radical proposals for regional or other pay differentiation, though that is an issue".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 26 January 1987; Vol. 483, c. 1229.]
      However, regional variations and the possibility of such variations were mentioned by the Secretary of State on a number of occasions—certainly outside the House if not

      471
      inside it. Even the Minister of State, despite the fact that she said originally this was only to cope with London weighting and special provisions in special schools, said:
      "It is important that individual head teachers can offer special rewards and that individual authorities can examine the possibility of attracting people to areas in which they can pay for shortage teachers or shortage skills that they believe are important,".—[Official Report, 10 December 1986; Vol. 107, c. 620.]
      What exactly is the Government's intention? The Minister should come clean about that, because Government spokesmen seem to be pointing in different directions according to which audience they happen to be addressing. This matter is vital. If the advisory committee continue the present system under which special pay is allowed for special schools and under which there is a differentiation for London and London weighting, I shall not be very worried.
      If the advisory committee were to address the problem whether premiums could be paid to temporary teachers to attract them to areas in which education is suffering because of shortage, we would support that—provided we could find an appropriate way of doing it. If on the other hand the advisory committee does what the Secretary of State often seems to indicate he would like to do — institute a mechanism for regional variations between one area of Britain and another—that would worry all of us and I should be profoundly opposed to it.
      Such a regime could serve only further to divide Britain, which is so sorely and sadly divided under this Government. Teachers would be bound to go where they could get the highest pay and there would be further erosion because the best people would leave the north and go to the south of England. That would be divisive for the education system and the nation and would be damaging to the teaching structure. The Government must say clearly whether that is in their mind, and whether it is one of the powers that they would seek to give the advisory committee.
      My central point is that if the advisory committee is temporary, interim, transitional—to use the words that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State used today — why should the Government seek to give it powers to investigate matters of long term-consequence to the teaching profession such as regional variations? If it is genuinely temporary and interim, surely it should be allowed to maintain the status quo in this matter. Many people will look at the Minister's answers to discover whether it is the long-term and secret intention of the Government to prolong the life of the advisory committee so that it can draw up damaging regimes to set up a regional differential system for teachers' pay.
      Mr. Radice: The Minister should start again.
      Mr. Dunn: The hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) invites me to start again. I would dearly love to do so, but I am conscious of the pressure of time.
      Just before I realised that I was speaking at the wrong time, I was describing some of the differences that might occur between teachers with different responsibilities. I said that it would be even more likely that a difference will be needed between teachers in schools and teachers who do not work in one school, such as peripatetic teachers or those who teach children at home. They are unlikely to be
      472
      able to attend staff meetings or to take administrative responsibilities in a school. This amendment will allow such a distinction to be made.
      The amendment subsumes the power in the previous clause 3(4)(a) to make different provisions about remuneration. That power will be needed in order to pay higher salaries to teachers in special schools than those in ordinary schools, for the social priority allowance for schools in difficult areas, and for the London allowance which, as hon. Members know, has been paid for many years.
      I have been asked outside the House whether the Secretary of State intends to use this power. He and I have been surprised at how much fuss has been made about this issue. There has always been a difference in pay between London and other areas. Since 1945—before I was born — a London weighting has been paid. The teacher unions press each year for the weighting to be increased.
      Mr. Radice: They are suspicious of the hon. Gentleman.
      Mr. Dunn: Suspicious of me? I am one of the most honest and straight person that I have ever met — [Interruption.] I have never invoked parliamentary privilege and I do not intend to do so now. Each year the teachers' unions press for the weighting to be increased. Therefore, they must believe that regional differences are justified.
      The reference in this subsection is an enabling provision. The Secretary of State is not required by the legislation to provide for different provision in different areas, but the legislation allows this possibility to be kept open. The alliance amendment as ably moved by the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) is intended to limit any use of this power to the type of provisions presently in use for differential pay. The hon. Gentleman's amendment — with which I do not agree—clearly makes that point, but this would be an unreasonable constraint on the type of issue which could well be usefully considered by the interim advisory committee. In addition, in terms of conditions of employment, different provision could not be made for different cases. Therefore, it would undermine the very reason why the interests representing voluntary schools asked for the amendment to be made.
      Neither the Government nor the Secretary of State intend to bring forward any immediate radical proposals for regional pay differentations. We shall consider carefully whether it is an issue that should be addressed by the advisory committee. I ask the House to reject the amendment.
      Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: The Minister's reply will disappoint not only hon. Members but the teacher organisations, because clearly the amendment was intended to probe whether the suspicions of teacher unions and other people were justified. The Secretary of State has confirmed those suspicions, because instead of trying to create good will and trying to break down barriers he has created barriers. He well knows that the teacher organisations and the majority of our people do not favour the development of more regional allowances and an extension of the scheme for London allowances, nor do they favour differential rates for different subjects.
      These are extremely contentious areas and the Government want to pretend that this is only an interim measure to bridge the gap across the present problems.

      473
      They are foolish to bring in new proposals which cause a great deal of anxiety and suspicion. I am worried by the Minister's reference to peripatetic teachers. He said that they would have to be paid at a different rate to teachers whom he suggested turned up at parents' evenings. I know a large number of peripatetic teachers who turn up at staff meetings and parents' evenings. They feel that they have the same responsibilities as other teachers to pass on information to their colleagues and to make sure that parents know about the instruction that pupils are receiving.
      The Minister's remarks will give rise to considerable anxiety on the part of teachers who move from place to place if they feel that they might be treated in a different way to other teachers. We are alarmed and dissatisfied by the Minister's response. If he wants to reach a quick agreement about teachers' pay, he should give a clear and categorical assurance that, at least in the first two years, he will not use this procedure or even contemplate using it to enforce different rates of pay and different subject ratings in various parts of the country. He has increased our fears and the fears of the teachers and done nothing to allay the suspicions.
      7 pm
      Mr. Kenneth Hind: One point that causes me great concern is that northern teachers might be tempted to move south if there were regional differentials in pay. Those of us who represent cities in the north are aware that we have major problems in employment. We need improved training to equip our children for the jobs that we hope to develop in the regions. To do that, we have to keep our good teachers in the north and in the provinces. We do not want them to be sucked into the south-east where there is relative prosperity compared with parts of the north. Therefore, I urge my hon. Friend to be circumspect in his proposals.
      One way in which my hon. Friend could overcome the suspicion voiced by the hon. Member for Durham, North (Mr. Radice) from a sedentary position would be to call together employers and the trade unions, and to encourage them to hammer out an agreement that would meet the approval of the advisory committee. That might overcome the worries and anxieties that the teachers' lobby expressed today to hon. Members.
      It would be a sign of good faith by my hon. Friend that he sees the Bill purely as a temporary measure, whose provisions are not to extend beyond 1990 except with the approval of the House. It will reassure teachers, particularly in the provinces, that their career prospects will at least be equal to those of teachers in London and the south-east. It will also reassure parents in the regions that their good teachers will not be attracted to other parts of the country by higher salaries.
      Mr. Dunn: I welcome the contributions of the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) and of my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind). I hope I did not mislead the House earlier. I must make it clear that the Government have no intention of discriminating against peripatetic teachers or those who teach at home. Some of the duties of other teachers may not fall upon peripatetic teachers.
      I direct the attention of the House to the debate in Committee, when my hon. Friend the Minister of State said:
      474
      "There is a provision for different cases. This will allow us to continue the higher rate of pay in special schools and social priority allowances for the inner cities. It is an important method of ensuring that there arc teachers in schools that are in serious need of an extended number of teachers to help with their special deprivations."
      Later, she said:
      "The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hillsborough (Mr. Flannery) and the hon. Member for Burnley talked about regional differences. They were concerned about any proposition that there could be different regional pay. Their argument was that the proposed pay structure that should be accepted included sufficient rewards for classroom teachers and there was no need for any incentives for shortage teachers or shortage skills, and no need to get teachers to go into difficult posts by having different scales because it would create difficulties.
      The Government's argument is the reverse. It is important that individual head teachers can offer special rewards and that individual authorities can examine the possibility of attracting people to areas in which they can pay for shortage teachers or shortage skills that they believe are important, and also that they can get good teachers to take up difficult posts either in inner city areas or in rural areas." — [Official Report, 10 December 1986; Vol. 107, c. 620.]
      In another place, when the Lord Chancellor speaks in a judicial capacity he speaks from one part of the Woolsack. When he speaks in a political capacity, he takes a step to the left or the right; I cannot remember which. I should almost like to do the same. In joining debate with my hon. Friend the Member for Lancashire, West, I must remind him that the problems of recruitment because of the high price of housing in the south-east, which I represent, are in no way less severe than those in the region to which he has referred and in which I was born.
      In the light of recent developments, I hope that the House will accept the Lords amendment and reject the amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown).
      Mr. Ashdown: The Minister has put his case with his usual urbane charm and in a very civilised manner. Of course, lurking underneath are the concerns which, as was said by the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett), have not been put to rest. I hope the Minister listened carefully to the hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Hind), who spoke with considerable cogency and put the case with great effect. Nevertheless, for the convenience of the House, although I do not wish this to be taken to indicate our consent to regional differentials, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      Lords amendment agreed to.
      Lords amendment No. 7 agreed to. [Special Entry.]
      Lords amendments Nos. 8 and 9 agreed to.

    New Clause

      ARRANGEMENTS FOR SETTLING REMUNERATION AND OTHER CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT OF TEACHERS IN FURTHER EDUCATION
      Lords amendment: No. 10, after clause 3, insert the following new clause:
      ".—(1) Any arrangements for settling for the whole of England and Wales any matter relating to the remuneration and other conditions of employment of teachers in further education, or any description of such teachers, shall be such that every organisation which—

      (a) was represented immediately before the passing of this Act on the Burnham Further Education Committee, and

      475

      (b) has members whose conditions of employment may be affected,

      is afforded a reasonable opportunity of participating in the process.
      (2) The 'Burnham Further Education Committee' means the committee set up in pursuance of section 1 of the Remuneration of Teachers Act 1965 to consider the remuneration payable to teachers in further education.
      (3) It is the duty of the parties to any such arrangements to take any steps necessary to secure that the requirements of this section are complied with.
      (4) This section applies to arrangements notwithstanding that they were made before the passing of this Act and any steps required to be taken in relation to such arrangements shall be taken before anything is done in pursuance of the arrangements after the passing of this Act."
      Mr. Dunn: I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
      Mr. Speaker: With this amendment it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendment No. 14.
      Mr. Dunn: The amendment, put down by my noble Friend Baroness Cox in Committee in the Lords, stemmed from the general concern that the interests of those smaller unions on the Burnham further education committee who had a distinctive contribution to make should be protected. That concern was first expressed in Committee here by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson). He feared that the Association of Polytechnic Teachers might be excluded from any national negotiating framework set up by representatives of the local authority employers and the further education teachers. The concern is a valid one. The National Joint Council for Further Education, which deals with the conditions of employment of further education teachers, and was set up jointly by the local authority employers and representatives of teachers in further education, does not include the APT. The APT has pressed without success to be in this body. As it has 20 per cent. of polytechnic lecturer in its membership, it has a strong case for representation.
      The amendment protects not only the APT's interest but also that of the other smaller unions on Burnham FE, who have a right to be involved because of their distinctive contribution. I am thinking particularly of the National Society for Education in Art and Design, and the Association of Agricultural Education Staffs.
      The amendment was accepted in another place without a Division and, I think it is fair to say, with a good measure of support from all sides. The noble Lord, Lord McIntosh of Haringey said that he was in sympathy with the intention behind the amendment, and the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock said that he supported the amendment in principle. I hope that the House will agree that the amendment should be accepted.
      Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Will the Minister give us a little more information? As he will be aware, the FE negotiations over pay and conditions were going well until the middle of the autumn, when they ran into certain difficulties. As I understand it, the negotiations have restarted today. While I have been in the House I have not been able to find out whether the negotiations are going on or whether they have run into further difficulties. I hope that the negotiations are continuing and that, as a result of the negotiations today, there may well be a phase when some detailed working parties have to be set up.
      When this measure receives Royal Assent, I am a little concerned about how far the negotiations might have to be interrupted in order to adjust the groups of people who are doing the negotiating. It might be rather unfortunate if the negotiating body was being changed in the middle of negotiations that were reaching a certain measure of success. I hope that the negotiations that started again today will have reached major agreement on many points. I am sure that the Government would want those negotiations to be successful and for harmony to return to our FE institutions.
      It would be helpful if the Government could say whether they envisage those negotiations being completed with the existing group of negotiators or whether they feel, as a result of the amendment, that it will be necessary to restart in some of those areas in which agreement has already been reached. I hope that the Minister will tell us that the negotiations are moving along successfully. I also hope that he will tell us what is going to happen on the matter of changing the negotiators if the amendment is carried and the measure receives Royal Assent in the not-too-distant future.
      Mr. Dunn: Like the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett), having been in purdah, as it were, in the House from midday, I am not aware of the developments to which he referred. However, I shall of course ensure that we become aware of what has happened today.
      The hon. Gentleman is right in his interpretation. The national joint council meeting does not involve the APT because there is no requirement for it to be involved. However, as he rightly surmises, it will require the APT to be involved from the point of Royal Assent.
      Question put and agreed to.
      Lords amendments Nos. 11 to 14 agreed to.

    NORTHERN IRELAND
    Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101 (Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments &c.).
    That the draft Audit (Northern Ireland) Order 1987, which was laid before this House on 10th February, be approved.
    Question agreed to.

    Maltby Far and Low Commons
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Portillo.]
    7.12 pm
    Mr. Kevin Barron: I should like, through you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to thank Mr. Speaker for granting me this Adjournment debate on a local issue for my constituency which also has some national implications. I do not want to rehearse the arguments I put forward in an Adjournment debate on 19 December 1984 on the ownership of Maltby Far and Low Commons. However, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. William Bunting of Periplanta, Thorne, near Doncaster. Over many years he has sought to answer the question of who does own Maltby Far and Low Commons. His historical research has been invaluable to those who object to what is happening on the commons. It has been a thorn in the side of the applicant who has had the go-ahead to build on a section of Maltby Far and Low Commons.
    On 19 December 1986, the Secretary of State for the Environment granted a limitation order on the commons under section 193 of the Law of Property Act, 1925. This is the first time since the Act's inception that common land has been handed over to be used as a golf course. It obviously has major implications for other common land throughout the country.
    The local objectors and I believe that a golf course would be an asset to the district that I represent and live in. We believe that the only thing wrong is that the common land should not be used to complete that golf course. It took the Secretary of State for the Environment over two years to make the decision, since first receiving the inspectors' report on the public inquiry in November 1984. During that time, the local authority has sought from the Earl of Scarbrough, the applicant in the case, the evidence of his claim to ownership. It believes that his continued refusal strengthens the impression that he is unsure of his ground in relation to this matter. It certainly has made his ground unsure.
    The Earl of Scarbrough's solicitor sent a letter to Rotherham borough council in October 1985 stating:
    "Our client considers that the matter should rest with the Secretary of State's determination that he is satisfied as to our client's title to the commons."
    I and many residents of Maltby believe that there has been a breach of natural justice in this case. Indeed, it was said at the public inquiry in 1982 that we had to take the Earl of Scarbrough to a court of law before we could see his claim to the ownership of the commons. That would involve expense perhaps in the region of £20,000, which either I or other people who have rights to the commons would have to find. I believe that that was said at the public inquiry in full knowledge of that fact.
    I have received a selection of letters since the granting of the limitation order, and I should like to read out what my constituents have been saying in relation to this matter. I received a letter from Mr. John Hadgett of Muglet lane in Maltby, who wrote:
    "However, what the Secretary appears to have forgotten is that Lord Scarbrough has far from satisfied myself, and indeed, many more people who object to the golf course that he has claim to the land. And basically that is all we would like him to do."
    478
    That is all we have ever asked the Earl of Scarbrough to do. We just want him to show us his claim of title to the land that the Secretary of State for the Environment has supposedly seen.
    I received a letter from Mr. Tom Routledge of Dunns Dale in Maltby, who states:
    "I do not object to golfers or golf courses, but to the fact that the commons are being used. In a free democracy the onus should be on the Earl to furnish proof of ownership."
    Mr. K. McGrath of Greenland avenue in Maltby, who I should add is related to me through marriage, has been very specific about the decision. He said:
    "I would like to draw your attention to paragraph 6 where it states 'You (Messrs. Allen and Overy) wrote to the department on the 7th July 1981 giving details of your client's title to the soil, supported by copy documents of title'. The first two lines of paragraph 11 seem to contradict the aforementioned quote. Paragraph 11 goes on to say that no better claims had been received from anyone else. This is an extraordinary statement. Am I to assume from this that the Department of the Environment has seen evidence, which is not satisfactory, i.e. not conclusive proof of ownership, but that nothing better has been offered by anyone else?"
    That question should be fully answered at the Dispatch Box tonight. Is it the case that, because there has been no definite proof of evidence from anyone else about ownership of the commons, the Department of the Environment has accepted from the Earl of Scarbrough something that falls short of definite evidence about the ownership of the commons?
    The decision on the limitation order has not pleased many members of the local community who use the commons for their own recreation. The actions of the Secretary of State and the Earl of Scarbrough have made people suspicious of their motives. In a letter that I received from a Mr. K. Routledge of Hawthorn avenue, Maltby, he used what is now quite a popular saying in political circles. He said:
    "Scarbrough"—
    meaning the noble Lord—
    "his legal advisers and his beloved Tory party have been less than economical with the truth."
    Of course, it would be quite wrong to use this language just because the Earl of Scarbrough is president of the South Yorkshire Conservative Association, but his actions on Maltby commons need some explanation. The information that I received from the Rotherham metropolitan borough council in relation to the proposed golf course was that it knew about the proposals on 15 August 1975. It received the planning application for the building of the golf course on part of these commons in April 1976. What seems extraordinary to me, particularly since the land was registered as common under the Commons Registration Act 1965, is that the Earl did not apply for his limitation order until 25 June 1979, and he would obviously have to have that before the golf course could go ahead.
    Of course, in May, 1979 there was a general election and the Conservative party took office, so presumably the noble Lord then had somebody in the Department of the Environment who might be politically sympathetic.
    Since the inspector's report was submitted to the Department of the Environment, there have been three Secretaries of State who could have given the go-ahead to the golf course. The right hon. Members for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Jenkin) and for Mole Valley (Mr. Baker) chose not to give permission. It is most unfortunate that the present Secretary of State for the Environment has seen fit to give that permission.

    479
    I would like that decision to be rescinded and a full investigation made into this matter because of what could be termed the family connection. Through marriage, the Secretary of State for the Environment is related to the family of the Earl of Scarbrough. To be more precise, the right hon. Gentleman's elder brother, the fourth Viscount Ridley, married the third daughter of the 11th Earl of Scarbrough, who is the sister of the present Earl of Scarbrough, the 12th Earl, who is the applicant in this case.
    I believe that this matter ought to be investigated further. I refer the Minister and the House to the Royal Commission on standards in public life and the memorandum by the Secretary to the Cabinet in 1975 in relation to the question of interests of Ministers. The memorandum says:
    "Ministers must so order their affairs that no conflict arises, or appears to arise, between their private interests and their public duties."
    The document goes on to give further detailed enlightenment on the question of family interests as well, in relation to these matters.
    I believe that the public interest would have been better served, and would be better served now, if the decisions on Maltby commons had been taken by another Minister and not by the Secretary of State for the Environment, who has this family connection—I put it no higher than that—with the Earl of Scarbrough.
    I repeat that I would like that order giving permission for the golf course to be built to be rescinded as soon as possible, so that a full investigation can be made into this matter.
    7.25 pm
    The Minister for Environment, Countryside, and Planning (Mr. William Waldegrave): I shall deal with two matters rather quickly. First, I hope that the hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr. Barron) will not criticise me or my Department, on the ground that we have taken over this matter. On several occasions during the course of this matter, he has been anxious that we should take time, and we have bent over backwards, particularly since the last debate in which he raised the issue, to extend the time for objection as he asked.
    The history in this case is long and tangled. I complimented the hon. Member on the previous occasion on which he raised this on the immense amount of research he had done into it and the fascinating account he then gave of its history, about which hon. Members can read in Hansard. It is right to spend a lot of time, even at the inconvenience of applicants in this case, to try to make sure that no injustice is done.
    In that sense, the hon. Member was a little naughty to say that the previous two Secretaries of State had not taken the decision, as if they had refused to take the decision. He gave some slight indication that there was now one wicked Secretary of State who had come to the wrong conclusion, while two benevolent previous ones had not done so, but it was, in fact, because at that time the mater was still being investigated.
    I can reassure the hon. Gentleman at once on one other matter. I am sure that he in no way wished to imply—because in view of recent rulings he would not have allowed himself to do so — that there was any
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    impropriety on the part of the Secretary of State for the Environment. In any event, I can assure him that none of the decisions that have been taken in this matter has been taken by the present Secretary of State. I have myself dealt with the whole matter, first of all as a junior Minister and then, out of courtesy to the hon. Member, when I was lucky enough to be promoted to Minister of State, I thought I should continue. The decision letters are indeed issued under the authority of the Secretary of State, but all the decisions have been taken by me. I have looked back through the files and at no point have the papers gone to the Secretary of State. This is a matter on which the power has been delegated to me. So I hope that the hon. Member will not pursue the matter. If he does, I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will want to defend himself most vigorously, because there really has been no impropriety.
    The decisions that Ministers have to take on questions such as this are hedged about with legal safeguards, and that is part of the problem and the difficulty. Like the hon. Member, in planning matters I quite often find my own constituents are extremely frustrated by the way in which I, as the planning Minister, am unable to enter into campaigns, for example, on local planning issues. I have to say that this is a matter in which I have to stand back, as the appellate authority, and this often irritates my constituents.
    We have something of the same situation here over the question, which I can well understand being frustrating to people—why why the Department of the Environment will not release the papers on which it made the judgment. That was the only judgment that we could legally make, that there was a prima facie claim, which might reasonably be substantiated in law, from my noble Friend Lord Scarbrough, and we had to acknowledge the fact that no one else had put in any other claim. On the legal advice we had, that laid a duty on us to allow the procedure to begin.
    The further legal advice that we have is that we cannot insist on these documents, which are not ours to disclose. being disclosed. It is not for me to say whether they should be disclosed. I have to work within the legal constraints that are on me and I do not have the right to disclose them. But I can understand that it is a difficult point, and I do not know whether I have made the explanation clearly tonight. It is a difficult argument to put across in a common-sense way.
    I have another point to make tonight to the hon. Member, which may in some sense encourage him, although it makes it difficult for me to say very much. We are still in the period within which the decision could be legally challenged. So in some sense, although not the strictly sub judice sense, I have to be careful in what I say tonight.
    There is nothing on this subject that I can teach the hon. Member because he is the expert on it all, but perhaps I could refer once again to the chain of events that brought me to make the decision that I made, with legal advice, last year.
    In the previous debate I put on record a fairly detailed account of the chain of events as seen by my Department from the time that Lord Scarbrough submitted the application under section 193 of the Law of Property Act 1925 to enable part of Maltby commons to be used. together with other land, for the purpose of a golf course. At that time a non-statutory local public inquiry into the

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    application had been held and the inspector's report had been published. We were waiting for the responses from both the applicant and the objectors to the reference-back letter which had been sent by my Department on 6 November 1984. This has stated that the Secretary of State was disposed to accept the inspector's recommendation that the order be made, subject to modifications.
    I undertook in that earlier debate to give consideration to all representations made following that letter both on the detail of the proposed modifications recommended by the inspector in his report and on the issue of the ownership of the commons. I can assure the House that all those representations were very carefully considered, and that is why we took further time. No one can accuse us of being hasty—the hon. Gentleman did not so accuse us—in reaching our decision, which was issued two years later, on the same date that the limitation order was made. There is still time for a legal challenge of that decision and I must be scrupulously careful to avoid further comment on the case.
    However, it may he helpful if I refer to some of the events which occurred following the previous debate. First, we extended the closing date that we had given for receipt of responses to the "reference back" letter. Originally, it was the 27 February 1984, but we allowed no fewer than three extensions of the time, the last, in response to a letter written on 15 January 1985 by the hon. Member for Rother Valley, to 12 February 1985. We received representations. Among others, there was a request from the Rotherham metropolitan district council that the Department should let the council have copies of various documents, all relating to land title, and the hon. Gentleman has referred to this.
    A letter was sent to the local authority on 13 February 1985 explaining that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was not prepared, with the legal advice that he had, to produce those documents. There followed a further request by the council in July 1985 for disclosure, which was again given careful consideration. The reply, sent on 14 October 1985, stated that the Secretary of State was satisfied that he was entitled to find, on the basis of the legal advice that he had received—the inspector's report and the opinion which had been given by Francis Ferris QC to Rotherham council—that the Earl of Scarbrough had sufficient standing to make the application. That letter also explained why we were not prepared to disclose the requested documents.
    The Department also had correspondence during 1985 with the solicitors acting for Lord Scarbrough. We were advised that the modifications to the proposed order as recommended by the inspector, the effect of which would have been to reduce the area of commons over which the limitations would apply, were acceptable to Lord Scarbrough. After careful consideration of all the representations that had been made, the order was eventually made in a decision letter issued on 19 December 1986. Paragraphs 5 to 12 of that letter dealt at some length with the issues that had been raised concerning the standing of Lord Scarbrough to make the application and
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    on the question of disclosure of ownership documents. Various other legal matters were raised in the inquiry, including whether limitations and conditions under section 193 can be imposed for the benefit of a new use of common land arising after the coming into force of the Law Property Act 1925. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State's views on these other legal issues were set out in a paragraph 13 of the decision letter.
    Section 193 of the 1925 Act does not set out any criteria for the matters that the Secretary of State should take into consideration before deciding to impose any limitation on, and conditions as to, the exercise of the public's right of access for air and exercise. Nor has this issue been tested in the courts. Clearly, he needs to satisfy himself that any limitations applied for are necessary or desirable for preventing an estate, right or interest of a profitable or beneficial nature, belonging to the applicant, from being injuriously affected. Paragraph 17 of the decision letter sets out his opinions on this aspect.
    I understand that, as directed by the Department, Lord Scarbrough has advertised in the local press the fact that the order has been made, but I emphasise that the limitations set out in the order do not come into force until the commencement date of the works of construction for the golf course upon the common land.
    Mr. Barron: The Minister has set out a good scenario of where we are. In the past 10 years, no work has been done on the commons—the land at issue—and a very little on the rest of the golf course, which is on the land owned by the Earl of Scarbrough. The Minister has rightly said that this could still be a matter for judicial review, but that means expense either to individuals or the local authority, which is therefore the public purse. I invite the Minister to agree that the offer made during my previous Adjournment debate by my hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Dr. Clark) that an independent body such as the Open Spaces Society, which has been dealing with such problems for nearly a century, should see the document, and the evidence that the Secretary of State for the Environment saw, and which gave him grounds to give permission for the limitation order to go ahead.
    Mr. Waldegrave: It is not within my power to insist on the documents being released—that is the legal advice that we have. It is up to Lord Scarbrough or his agents to show them to the Open Spaces Society or anybody else. I am not sure that it is for me to comment on that. I have no information as to when, if at all, the works are to start and other planning matters may have to be dealt with but are outside the scope of the debate.
    I fear that, particularly in view of the possibility of a legal challenge, it would be unwise of me to comment further. I can understand the hon. Gentleman's disappointment, and I congratulate him because this is a classic example of how a local Member of Parliament can pursue the interest of his constituents with considerable scholarship and tenacity. In that personal sense, I am sorry that the outcome of the debate has been so unsatisfactory for him.

  Green Belt (Hertfordshire)
  7.35 pm
  Mr. Peter Lilley: I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the subject of the green belt in Hertfordshire. I am particularly pleased that my hon. Friend the Minister is responding to the debate, as I know, from first-hand experience, that his commitment to the green belt and preserving our green and pleasant land is unsurpassed. In particular, I welcome the opportunity to bring to his attention the concern of my constituents about the need to preserve our green belt and to give him an opportunity to allay a few of the fears raised by misreporting in the media of recent statements on the rural economy.
  When I made my maiden speech, I said that the one thing that united the inhabitants of the various settlements in my constituency was a desire to remain separated from each other and from London by the green belt. St. Albans is the first distinct and distinctive city out of London. It is also the most beautiful. The centre of St. Albans is built on a hill and from there one can see—to the north, the west, the east and the south—green land and trees. Indeed, the green belt penetrates to the centre of the city, where the old Verulamium site was, and up to the abbey.
  We maintain our character because of the green belt regulations. In 1958, the first proper green belt was established in Hertfordshire and covered a swathe of land to the south of Hemel Hempstead, St. Albans and Hertford. In 1976, that green belt was extended to encompass the whole of St. Albans, Harpenden, Redbourn and Sandridge. Since then, virtually all the land that has not been built upon and is not urbanised has been green belt land. In Hertfordshire as a whole, about 234 square miles, which is about 37 per cent. of the county, is accounted for by green belt land.
  The green belt regulations, despite some fears and doubts, have been vigorously upheld in my area. We have lost land to the M25, but the last major loss of land for housing in my constituency was in Jersey farm, and that was not technically classified as green belt land before it was released for building. I understand from Mr. Briscoe, of Hertfordshire county council, to whom I am indebted, that no major appeals on green belt land have been won by developers since then, and that was over a decade ago.
  In my district, out of literally scores of appeals, through which Mr. Kenworthy, deputy director of planning was kind enough to search, involving applications to develop the green belt land in St. Albans, only one significant decision went in favour of the developers. That was not in my constituency, although it was in the district of St. Albans. The scores of other appeals were all turned down, and the green belt has been preserved.
  I was particularly pleased that the first decision made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, of which I was aware, was to reject an inspector's recommendation for development of Napsbury lane site in the green belt in the south of my constituency. Had that been developed, we would have joined London Colney and effectively become a part of a concrete strip from St. Albans to Hyde park.
  However, despite the Government's excellent record in maintaining the green belt, the pressures are intensifying. In recent years the electrification of the railway line has reduced travelling time to about 18 minutes from St.
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  Albans to St. Pancras. We have had an extra lane on the M1, and we had the junction of the M25 and the M1. All these changes make St. Albans a very attractive place to live. When I hear people talking about the Government's failure to invest in the infrastructure, I can only believe that they ignore the evidence of their eyes.
  As a result, St. Albans is something of a boom town, having excellent location and great beauty. The most immediate threat to it is what the press call the application to develop the "golden triangle". My hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) has rightly insisted that we call this the "green triangle". The site is in his constituency, although it is in the district of St. Albans. My hon. Friend has successfully led the battle at every stage against that threat, particularly in persuading the Department of Transport to reword the very misleading advertisement put out in its name by its agents which suggested that this site was ripe for development and that there might be Government approval for it.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Watford succeeded in making it absolutely clear that there was no Government presumption in favour of development of this site. My hon. Friend's position, which I fully endorse, is that this Government believe in the sanctity of the green belt. That springs from our philosophy as a Conservative party committed to conserving all that is best. It is enshrined in the circulars which have been issued by successive Secretaries of State and which have statutory backing.
  The original circular, which is reaffirmed by subsequent circulars, made clear the purposes of green belts. They are threefold:
  "(a) to check the further growth of a large built-up area;"
  That is most important from my point of view and that of my constituents.
  "(b) to prevent neighbouring towns from merging into one another;"
  and
  "(c) to preserve the special character of a town."
  That also applies particularly to St. Albans.
  Those original circulars have been reinforced by the Secretary of State's specific reference to the M25 when he wrote to SERPLAN about it before it was complete. He said:
  "The general presumption against development in the green belt is not affected by the M25, and there should continue to be the strongest restraint on development there. The improved access which the motorway provides will enhance the recreational value of the Green Belt."
  He went on to say:
  "The emphasis should be on better use of existing urban land, redevelopment and the return to use of neglected sites, rather than the allocation of new land for development."
  So we are protected from the exceptional pressures which the M25 will bring to bear. My hon. Friend the Minister himself spelled out the incompatibility with green belt policy of many projects for building large new retail developments in the green belt. I welcome his comments. He told the Confederation of British Industry conference:
  "it is difficult to see why major developers and institutional investors should be advancing giant speculative projects for shopping and leisure complexes outside towns that fly full in the face of long established green belt policy—a policy to which this Government is fully committed."
  The Minister also said:
  "I would say that the promoters of some of the wilder schemes have no reason to think they will succeed in breaching green belt policy…It could well be considered irresponsible to attempt to launch these proposals that run

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  completely counter to established policy. Those Who pursue them to the point of appeal may find that they have the costs of any inquiry awarded against them."
  We are confident that the golden triangle application which has just gone to appeal this week will in due course be rejected. We are saddened that the appeal will not be heard until February 1988, but I appreciate that my hon. Friend, in responding to this debate, will not be able to pre-empt any decision on that case and will be able only to comment generally because of the possible legal involvement of himself and the Secretary of State.
  There is concern locally that even if my right hon. Friend does, as we are confident that he will at the end of the day, reject any application to develop on this site, we shall face repeated applications from developers putting in slightly altered plans. Local councils will incur heavy burdens of costs in refuting them, and the uncertainty will persist. I welcome my hon. Friend's latest circular entitled "Award of Costs Incurred in Planning Proceedings". The sanction of awarding costs against developers who make repeated appeals will act as a potent deterrent to that practice.
  Despite the Government's impeccable track record, forces have been aroused by the media reports—or misreports—of the Government's statement on the rural economy. I understand that this simply upgrades the importance of environmental considerations to the very extent that it downgrades agricultural considerations. But I would be grateful, as would my constituents, if the Minister would reaffirm the Government's position in those related matters for the benefit of all of us. I know that other hon. Members from Hertfordshire are here today and would like to reaffirm our commitment to the green belt, which is an intrinsic part of the environment in our county.
  7.47 pm
  Mr. Robert B. Jones: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Lilley) for having initiated this debate. If I come, like a green belt, between my hon. Friend and the Minister, it is because my hon. Friend has been such an articulate and powerful spokesman for the green belt in the St. Albans area, and the Minister has been quite the most sensitive and environmentally minded Minister we have had in the Department of the Environment since it was created. That is a happy background against which to consider this most important topic of the green belt, particularly in Hertfordshire.
  My constituency meets the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans more or less at the junction of the M1 and M25 motorways. My area therefore suffers very much from the same pressures as his. The constant pressure from loony Left-wing boroughs in London is driving out their residents to come and seek peace and prosperity in the fields of west Hertfordshire. That is very desirable for those residents but it adds to pressure on housing and business land in our areas.
  One of the difficulties is that the gaps that exist between the various communities are very narrow. The gap between Hemel Hempstead and Abbots Langley on the south-east side, in the constituencies of my hon. Friends the Members of Hertfordshire, South-West (Mr. Page) and for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) is only about half a mile wide. The gap between Hemel Hempstead and the Berkhamsted-Potten End community on the western side
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  of Hemel Hempstead is less than a mile wide. The gap between Hemel Hempstead and Redbourn, in the constituency of St. Albans, is even narrower.
  If one accepts the principle, as seems to be the case in successive structure plans in Hertfordshire and elsewhere, that there should be growth around the edges of the freestanding towns in the green belt, one does not need much imagination to realise precisely what will happen in the end if we do not rigidly maintain our green belt boundaries. I am also concerned that, despite the excellent intentions of my hon. Friend in looking again at agricultural policy in the environmental context, this may lead to some weakening of the planning background in areas not covered by the green belt but still within the pressured areas of Hertfordshire.
  There are areas within my constituency of Hertfordshire, West and within the constituency of nny hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans which do not fall within the Green Belt. Some areas are of outstanding natural beauty but other areas do not fall into either of those categories. It is to those areas that the pressure will be most directed. Therefore, my hon. Friend must be clear about the importance of maintaining rural local authority policies on the environment wholly separate from those on the green belt.
  Does my hon. Friend consider the designation of an area of outstanding natural beauty to be as strong a designation as the green belt? In some of our agricultural areas we shall have to fall back on that if we are to ensure that development does not take place. In that context I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the present terms of reference of the Countryside Commission. They mean that the commission must look at the area of outstanding natural beauty, in our area the Chilterns, on a strictly hill contour basis, rather than also incorporating the vistas of those hills which come from the open land around them. The whole concept of areas of outstanding natural beauty should be extended so that the agricultural land surrounding them is considered in the same planning vein.
  I must emphasise the point that my hon. Friend made about costs. The Environment Select Committee of which I was a member reported on the green belt and land for housing at the beginning of this Parliament. It made recommendations about costs and all members of the Select Committee were grateful to the Department for taking them on board so promptly. We have yet to see evidence of how that works in practice. In my area we have had a series of planning applications by developers for land adjacent to Grove road, Station road and Bulbourne road in Tring. In common with the experiences of my hon. Friend, all those applications were rejected on appeal by the Secretary of State. That underlines the fact that the Government have been particularly careful about preserving the green belt.
  However, it has now reached the stage where local authorities find the burden of presenting their case and individual objectors find the burden of repeating their arguments and remarshalling their forces every time so considerable that punitive costs should be awarded when there have been several try-ons for the same site. Without referring to the particular sites, because that would be wrong, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will reassert his determination to use the costs machinery to deter developers from constantly submitting planning

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  applications for areas which clearly are integral parts of the green belt and important for the preservation of the environment.
  The issue of the green belt and future development, alone among the non-social issues on the political agenda, is close to the hearts of my constituents. Those who feel strongest about it are often those living in the centres of the towns or those who have come from the inner cities. They are not necessarily those who live on the edge of the countryside. The green belt acts as an important area for leisure and recreation and as a green lung. Therefore, I welcome the Minister's constant reassertion of the value attached to the political and planning concept of the green belt. That has been one of the great successes of our planning system since the 1947 legislations.
  Mr. Christopher Hawkins: I fully understand my hon. Friend's anxiety to preserve the environment, which I share because there is a national park in the High Peak; clearly, it is a major interest of mine. In the north, unemployment is much higher than in the south and when constituents find even a well-paid job in the south, they find it extremely difficult to meet the housing costs and find that there is no rented accommodation. Does he agree that we must do what the Government are planning and both pick some areas which are not particularly environmentally sensitive and allow housing to be built there and do something about the Rent Acts? Will my hon. Friend comment on that balance that we need to strike?
  Mr. Jones: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but we should not widen this into a general debate about housing policy. On his narrow point about building houses on bits of the green belt to deal with the problem—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. If the hon. Gentleman pursues that point, I hope that he will pursue the question of building houses on the green belt in Hertfordshire, which is the subject of the debate.
  Mr. Jones: Indeed, to be specific, no matter how many houses are built in St. Albans and West Hertfordshire, they will all sell at high prices, so that is no solution to the problem. The real solution lies in many of the points that my hon. Friend touched on, especially the extra objective that was added to green belt policy by the Government, again in response to the environment Select Committee's report, which was to reinforce the redevelopment of the inner cities by using strategic green-belt policy.
  This is a most important subject and we are fortunate to have this debate tonight. When my hon. Friend the Minister replies, I hope that he can once again reassure us of his determination to preserve the green belt.
  7.55 pm
  Mr. John Powley: I am honoured to follow my hon. Friends the Members for St. Albans (Mr. Lilley) and for Hertfordshire, West (Mr. Jones) in this debate on the green belt in Hertfordshire.
  The House will know that I have experience as a county councillor and that Hertfordshire played an important part in determining the structure plans which were the responsibility of county councils. At that time I lived in Cambridgeshire and watched with considerable interest how Hertfordshire dealt with its structure plan provision
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  and organised its housing and industry planning, particularly its green belt. I had the pleasure to visit that county to see the provision it was making in its structure plan for the green belt so that we in Cambridgeshire could learn from its experience when we made structure plan provisions. That experience has subsequently been of benefit to my home county of Norfolk.
  It has been interesting to see how over the years Hertfordshire has dealt with the sensitive problem of retaining the environment, which everyone wants to retain, and met housing pressures. It has also built roadways through Hertfordshire to improve its road communications. I have seen pressures build up in Norfolk which Hertfordshire experienced 10 years ago and I hope that from watching the Hertfordshire experience, I have been able to contribute to preserving the green belt in Norfolk.
  Whether we talk about Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire or Norfolk, we are all dedicated to retaining the green belt around many of our fine cities. Norwich has a reputation as a fine city. Indeed, it says so on all the signs leading into the city. One cannot retain a fine city—such as St. Albans in Hertfordshire—if the green belt is destroyed by over-development, by over-industrialised development and encroachment on good agricultural land. It is right that the Government should be vitally concerned and they have appointed a Minister with responsibility for the environment. I remind the House that my right hon. Friend the Minister is piloting through the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Bill to improve the environment as part of the green belt which we have experience of in Hertfordshire.
  I could not let the occasion pass without emphasising my considerable concern—
  Mr. Christopher Hawkins: Before you reach your peroration—I do not want to delay you needlessly—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Ernest Armstrong): Order. It is not my peroration, but the hon. Gentleman is delaying me.
  Mr. Hawkins: I did not intend to wake up Labour Members, but I wondered whether my hon. Friend had any thoughts on the problem of farming, which is important in Hertfordshire, as it is in my constituency, particularly when we have surplus production in Europe. What should we do with the land that farmers will no longer be using to produce butter and beef mountains and wine lakes? Does that fit in with my hon. Friend's plans?
  Mr. Powley: I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes, with some validity, but I do not want to trespass on the constituencies of my hon. Friends from Norfolk, which in the main are farming constituencies. My constituency of Norwich is not a farming constituency, and thus I would be trespassing on other people's territory were I to follow that line of thought.
  I conclude by supporting the remarks that my two hon. Friends from Hertfordshire have made, and I look forward to the response from the Minister.
  8.2 pm
  The Minister for Environment, Countryside and Planning (Mr. William Waldegrave): This is the second debate in two days on this important subject. However, this debate has a considerable advantage over the one that I answered yesterday because on this occasion I have a full

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  two hours for the reply, which will allow me to cover the matter in the necessary detail. My hon. Friends have given me this opportunity because they want me to go into the matter in some depth.
  We have had some powerful contributions to the debate. I have never seen anyone sacrifice the rules of geography to the rules of order more skilfully than my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Powley), who appeared to locate the Norfolk Broads—temporarily, for the purposes of the debate—in Hertfordshire. My hon. Friend kept in order and kept his eye closely on you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. His point was well taken that, although there is no green belt immediately round the Norfolk Broads and no geographical relationship with the Norfolk Broads—which is so ably represented, in part, by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Ryder), who is on the Front Bench—the issues there are very much the same. There is the Government's commitment to the conservation of our incomparable heritage in the countryside and in its natural beauty.
  The gently dissident voice of my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Mr. Hawkins) rightly reminded us of a good phrase used by my right hon. Friend now the Secretary of State for Education in the context of green belt. He said, "Green belt not green museums." We must not turn the villages and small towns, even of our green belts, into colonial Williamsburgs, to be looked at by the tourists pouring out of charabancs. That is not in our best interests. We want living communities. My hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, West (Mr. Jones) referred to the important circular that we put out last year and the advice that we repeated in the recent circular that, for example, redundant farm buildings should be sympathetically redesigned for the kind of local employment needs which there may often be, even in green belt. It is better to have those buildings properly re-used than have them lying derelict as eyesores and dumping grounds.
  Mr. Robert B. Jones: Does my hon. Friend agree that redundant farm buildings present the same opportunity for small businesses today that the old Nissen huts presented small businesses that started up after the war? Not only is that helpful on the fringe, it is the seed-bed of much of our future economic growth.
  Mr. Waldegrave: My hon. Friend makes a fair point. In my urban constituency an important role is played by small businesses under the viaducts and railway arches, such as one sees near Waterloo station, where often small firms have started off and gone on to greater things.
  My hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans (Mr. Lilley) paid a fine and moving tribute to that beautiful city. I have just re-read—as it is necessary to do occasionally to reinforce one's views about lawyers—"Bleak House", which takes place in and around St. Albans and ends in a dramatic chase on foot from London to St. Albans and back. People were tougher in those days. That book reminds us, as my hon. Friend did, of the contiguity of St. Albans to the great urban centre, and therefore the importance of ensuring that fine city is protected by a proper green belt. It could so easily have become swamped in urban sprawl, in a way that is essential it should not.
  My hon. Friend paid tribute to the stalwart defence of that green belt that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and his predecessors have undertaken. My hon.
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  Friend referred to the Napsbury lane site application, which we turned down. He then referred to one of the issues which is coming up, and he fairly absolved me from any duty to comment on it tonight. However, whether it is a green triangle or a golden triangle, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Garel-Jones) has made certain that no Secretary of State will be other than well aware of the importance of any proposed development in that area through the green belt.
  At the instance of the local authority, that inquiry has been referred, but that inquiry will and must be extremely thorough. My hon. Friends the Ministers for St. Albans and for Hertfordshire, West referred to the M25 being built and the fact that it was said at the time that the M25 was not to be used as a Trojan horse for development all around London. That will be one of the material considerations of the inquiry. My hon. Friend the Member for Watford, and those whom he represents, will be giving evidence to that inquiry in due course.
  I welcome the debate tonight because it gives me another opportunity—which is necessary when things are being misinterpreted—to hammer at the truth until it is understood. I can explain once again what we are doing with the change to the agricultural dimension of rural planning and, perhaps even more important. what we are not doing. What we are not saying—here I have to disappoint housebuilders and some of the landowners—is that the countryside is up for grabs; that we are not interested in green land, because the only protection for green land is its use as agricultural land.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, West (Mr. Jones) was a distinguished councillor and adviser to the Association of District Councils at one time. He knows as well as I do that the planning system is the basic protection. Our circular said that in today's world, where we are living with surpluses in many commodities and where the taxpayer and consumer are having to pay for those surpluses, it is irrational if we say that we do not need development, to steer that development away from the best agricultural land on to the worst agricultural land—overriding the ordinary considerations of development versus environment, which in agricultural areas will have agriculture as an important local industry and one of the material considerations in any decision on development versus non-development.
  In many cases, particularly in cases where there has been efficient and high-productivity farming, the remaining unimproved land is often of great environmental and ecological interest. If there is a nice flat field which has been in cereals or rye grass for 20 years—and will, sadly, have lost any ecological interest—we should not be steering the development away from that on to the undrained water meadow where the Agricultural Development and Advisory Service man may, in the old days, have said, "What you need here is a drainage grant to make this grow more cereal surpluses".
  That is all that the circular says and no more. Now we must look at development versus environment head on. The environmental notations in the local plans are as strong as ever they were. It is important to maintain the countryside. If there is, as there sometimes will be, environmentally satisfactory land use other than farming, we must not steer away from it in order to protect an agricultural output that we do not need.
  The previous debate that I answered was about a golf course, and I was interested recently to see work by the

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  London Wildlife Trust showing that many golf courses round London also manage very well as wildlife centres. It is possible to imagine that, even in the green belt, land can be used for recreation or other purposes which may make farming impossible but be environmentally satisfactory. We have what could be an attractive opportunity to bring a little more income into the countryside and make more room for carefully managed recreation if it fits environmentally. We should not miss that opportunity simply because of an outdated overriding imperative about agricultural production. That is what we were saying—no more and no less.
  Mr. Christopher Hawkins: I greatly welcome much of what my hon. Friend says. Although I may appear to be pressing for building to some extent, I strongly agree with protecting the environment. However, in the past I have had cases of the barn, as the Minister mentioned, that could be converted into a nice home, and so on, for which the planning application has been turned down. Will the appeals procedure be changed to reflect the new approach? I have had cases of triangular pieces of farming land, too small for dairy farming and too near a town for sheep because of the dog problem, which have gone through the whole planning gamut but have got nowhere. Unless we change the appeals system, what my hon. Friend the Minister is saying will not happen.
  Mr. Waldegrave: My hon. Friend raises the problem of another of the important environmental notations—the special protection given in national parks, in one of which his constituency lies. I know that on occasion he has had reason to criticise the High Peak national park. The issues there, when one is trying to manage land surrounded by enormous pressures of population, are a little different even from green belt land. I am not saying that every decision has been right in the past. We must be sensitive to keeping the communities there alive, too, but that is a slightly more specialist subject than the ordinary management of green belt. However, I take my hon. Friend's point, and it is vital that there should be real jobs and real communities in the national parks. If we stray too far into the national park debate I may be rebuked by you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I shall not continue down that line.
  I see that my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry is anxious to pursue his own debate so I shall make two more swift points. If I continue at length he may become disgruntled.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, South (Mr. Powley) made an important point about structure planning that has lain behind some of the anxieties that have been expressed in recent weeks about our commitment to green belt and wider countryside protection. Our discussion paper says that in future we shall go for single tier plans run by the district councils, by the development control authorities. Some people have asked what will happen to, for example, the protection of green belt. Until now general policies have been set out in structure plans. Let me make it clear once again, as I made it clear to the Council for the Protection of Rural England last week, that we have no intention of surrendering the proper strategic planning on top of the unitary plans. That
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  will still be done by counties, or perhaps by consortia of counties, and will be built into the district plans which the districts will hold.
  However, we cannot put up with the way in which structure plans have now become immensely complicated. One famous case contained 252 so-called policies, which is nonsense. Planning of that detail should be done by the district. However, there is a proper place for strategic guidance and strategic planning which will still come from county planners or a consortia of counties, as happens in the SERPLAN area of East Anglia, but they must then be built in and have their statutory course from the district unitary plans. I hope that we can set that red herring at rest—if that is what one does to a red herring.
  The conservation of the green belt rests, as both my hon. Friend the Member for St. Albans and for Hertfordshire, West said on getting the other side of the equation right—that is, the re-use of the brown land, land which has been used before and can be used again. That is vital. It is encouraging that since I have been in the Department of the Environment much more housing is being built on re-used land than we ever believed would be the case in the past.
  The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) is not here—indeed, no member of the Labour party is here, nor of the Liberal party—but he made a speech which disturbs me greatly. Perhaps I should not say this because I know that it will make him cross. It would have been a rather courageous speech in the sense that it turned policy upside down. It was made to the National House Building Council, so it may have been a popular speech at the time. The hon. Gentleman said that we were over-exaggerating the possibilities of building on brown land and it was probably right to extend building into green areas and even into green belt.
  I was deeply disturbed by that. That seemed to me to show the beginnings of a commitment by the Labour party to move away from proper countryside protection and, above all, to move away from the pressure to re-use land which we have been succeeding in getting. If we let the housebuilders think that those pressures will come on, they will go back to the old business of trying to apply for the earlier sites again and again, whatever we do about costs—although we can do something about that. I greatly regret that speech.
  Mr. Lilley: May I congratulate my hon. Friend as I had intended to do earlier, on his decision over Tillingham hall. It brought great relief not just in Essex but in Hertfordshire as well that the Government clearly will not allow massive or major new developments in green belt land, but are ensuring that it will occur in the already urbanised land.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have been tolerant, but the debate is about Hertfordshire and we must not develop it into a general debate about the green belt. Many hon. Members, had they been aware that such a debate was contemplated, may have wished to take part. The House is debating the green belt in Hertfordshire.
  Mr. Waldegrave: That was an extremely wise decision, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Many more Conservative Members would have wanted to take part if the debate had been wider. I do not know whether any Labour Members would have wanted to do so. Tillingham hall is not in Hertfordshire, but it is fair to say that the clarity of the

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  decision, which rests four square on green belt criteria, should be of consolation and encouragement to those defending the green belt in Hertfordshire. They would be defending it in the Norfolk Broads if there was any there.
  I am grateful to my hon. Friends for giving us the opportunity once again to reaffirm our commitment. It is particularly satisfactory to have a debate introduced by what I think, without flattering him, I can call one of our principal free market philosophers. He wrote with Sam Brittan a book which has been a text book for many of us. If he is willing to endorse the necessary constraints to a market, as there must be necessary constraints to markets, in certain social and planning activities, it gives us all great hope that the commitment to green belt ranges throughout the Conservative party. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving us the opportunity to endorse it.

  Regional Assistance (West Yorkshire)
  8.19 pm
  Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock: I welcome this opportunity, which I had not expected, to call attention to the effects of regional policy on investment in West Yorkshire, especially my constituency.
  The textile industry has been through hard times in the past few years, but companies now involved have a bright future. There is lots of investment in the traditional industries, and we have new ones. Last week, I had an opportunity to visit the British yarn show in Leicester where many of my companies were exhibiting. I have no doubt that we shall be able to sweep the board in the face of Italian manufacturers when the yarns get through to designers.
  We have a tremendous amount of investment in my constituency now. Traditional industries are re-equipping with high technology machinery to stand with the old, and we have new factories. In the past year, we have had a machine tool company and a company which makes curtains for a big store establish factories. A third factory is nearing completion. We have also had investment of some £18 million in a pets food factory, 50 per cent. of the production of which goes to export. We are hoping to hear soon of further investment which will create a new factory and new jobs in an area which desperately needs them.
  About £60 milliom is being invested in my small part of West Yorkshire. We have investment of £40 million in a new hospital, which is creating jobs for builders and in cement, steel and bricks. It will provide further jobs when it is fitted out.
  I welcome assisted area status. It was not available to Batley and Spen when I was elected. I welcome the Government's changes to travel-to-work areas which enabled help to be given to many of my companies.
  8.21 pm
  The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Mr. Giles Shaw): I should like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Mrs. Peacock) and congratulate her on getting this short additional Adjournment debate to draw attention to the importance of regional policy in her constituency.
  I confirm that, since 1979, it has been Government policy to concentrate assistance provided under the Industry Acts on helping areas of greatest need. The map was redrawn in 1984 to exclude large parts of the country and concentrate assistance on areas in the north, the west midlands or the south-west where we knew there were substantial problems and genuine need because of industrial decline or other reasons.
  The fact that my hon. Friend has been able to record an increase in investment in her constituency is eloquent testimony to the effectiveness of that policy. She will know that it is based on travel-to-work areas, which are the most sensitive instrument for measuring unemployment. among other things. Like me, she will benefit in part of her constituency from being part of the Bradford travel-to-work area. That has allowed her to obtain assisted area status for a portion of her constituency in which there has been substantial development.
  In the constituency which my hon. Friend so admirably represents, she has several traditional textile industries. She will share with me a feeling of great satisfaction that,

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  after the long lean years of the recent past, there are now substantial improvements in textile orders. The British textile and clothing industry now ranks fourth in the national league table of manufacturing industries and last year it produced record exports for the fifth successive year.
  The textile industry has been able to diversify out of traditional clothing to many industrial uses which provide an entirely new field for endeavour. I trust that the companies in the constituency which my hon. Friend so outstandingly represents will also benefit from those developments.
  I am aware that there are applications before me for further assistance for a certain company which wants to
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  locate in my hon. Friend's constituency. I assure her that they will receive early consideration. I hope to be able to make an announcement shortly.
  It has been a privilege to take part in this brief debate about the importance of regional policy in West Yorkshire, especially Batley and Spen. I look forward to many years of the representation that my hon. Friend has provided for a constituency which, until she took over, was most feebly represented in the House. We now know that she has been able to deal with the issues that have confronted her constituency in a wholly admirable manner, and I wish her well.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-four minutes past Eight o'clock.