Commons Sitting of 19 April 1988

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  EDUCATION AND SCIENCE

    School Buildings
    Mr. Pike: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what recent assessment his Department has made of the effect on educational standards of sub-standard school buildings.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Bob Dunn): Many factors may affect the educational standards achieved in schools and there is no reliable means of identifying the contribution made by any one in particular. Local education authorities are responsible for ensuring that school buildings are maintained at an appropriate standard.
    Mr. Pike: Is it not a fact that the Department's own inspectors have said that sub-standard buildings often have an adverse effect on the working conditions and education of our children? Is it not a fact also that the Department's own survey showed that £2 billion is needed by 1991 to put our schools in accessible order? When will the Government tackle this problem and put it right?
    Mr. Dunn: I may point out to the hon. Gentleman that £319 million was allocated for capital works in schools in 1988–89—26 per cent. more than in 1987–88. Taking account of capital receipts and other flexibilities, authorities' total national spending power in 1988–89 was £3·6 billion, which should enable many to start getting to grips with the problems to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.
    Mr. Pawsey: My hon. Friend's interest in this matter is considerable, and it is understandable and genuine. Can he tell the flouse whether he has had any success in persuading his colleagues to make more funds available to voluntary-aided schools to improve their buildings? I remind my hon. Friend of a visit that he made to my constituency and to St. Austin's and St. Marie's schools, and he may recall the condition of those schools. Can he hold out any hope of improving their condition reasonably soon?
    Mr. Dunn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. I remember with great clarity and affection the visit that I made to his constituency.
    In response to the first part of his question I can tell him and the House that allocations to voluntary-aided schools for capital projects totalled £55·3 million in 1988–89—an increase of 38 per cent. over the figure for 1987–88. As a result, 32 major improvement and replacement projects are due to start.
    Mr. Ashdown: The Government recognise the implications of sub-standard buildings; hence the 1981 building regulations. However, unhappily they prevent local education authorities from doing anything about the situation by limiting their funds and loading other legal requirements on to them. I understand that if Somerset county council, for instance, were to fulfil its legal obligations for special needs, it would not be able to spend any more on decent school buildings. Does the Minister recognise that probably not one LEA in the country can meet the requirements of the 1981 building regulations by the time limits set? What will the Government do? Will they simply wash their hands and say, "It is nothing to do with us"?
    Mr. Dunn: I am grateful to the hon. Member for the moderate way in which he phrased his question. I remind him that it is for local education authorities to ensure that schools are properly maintained. The Government have made additional resources available to local education authorities—a fact which I am sure the hon. Member for
    Yeovil (Mr. Ashdown) will welcome.
    Mr. Batiste: On the subject of the fabric of schools, does my hon. Friend recall the concern that I expressed in Committee on the Education Reform Bill about the incompetence of the Leeds education authority? Has he had a chance to read the letter from Councillor John Illingworth that I gave him this week? Does that letter not confirm my fears, and will my hon. Friend ask the schools inspectorate to launch an efficiency audit into the running of the authority?
    Mr. Dunn: I am sure that my hon. Friend's point will be noted by the schools inspectorate. I have received a copy of the letter sent by Councillor John Illingworth to his colleague, another Labour councillor, Councillor B. Walker. Councillor Illingworth had this to say:
    "Faced with this situation"—
    that is, school repairs and refurbishment—
    "the Group seems to have three stock responses:—

    1. Blame Mrs. Thatcher.

    2. Blame the Officers.

    3. Blame George Mudie.

    I am not sure in which order! I would like to suggest a fourth alternative: that the Group and the Party as a whole are collectively responsible for a situation which, even if it cannot be completely cured, could at least be made substantially better than it is at the moment."
    The councillor goes on to say:
    "I do not believe"—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I appeal for brief questions and briefer answers today.

    Education Reform
    Mr. Allan Roberts: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he expects to publish in full the details of his proposed national curriculum; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mrs. Angela Rumbold): The Government's proposals are set out in the Education Reform Bill now before Parliament.
    Mr. Roberts: When the Secretary of State publishes his proposed national curriculum, will he take account of the views expressed yesterday in the other place by Lord Joseph, that the present proposals represent too tight a straitjacket and that teachers will be testing pupils on too

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    many subjects, which will not allow time for other important subjects in the curriculum? If the Secretary of State cannot convince the Prime Minister of his view on the matter, is she likely to listen to the person whose protegôe she was?
    Mrs. Rumbold: I listened very carefully to the words of my right hon. and noble Friend in the other place yesterday afternoon, and I noted his concern about those children who fall into categories of lower attainment than the high fliers. I am certain, however, that as the debate proceeds in the other place and my right hon. and noble Friend learns the details proposed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, he will find and respond to the breadth and balance proposed in the national curriculum, and note the differentiation proposed by my right hon. Friend in the testing and attainment targets.
    Sir Peter Emery: When my hon. Friend publishes the national curriculum, will she draw the attention of school authorities to the desire of many people that schools should start the day in assembly or class, with a short Christian service—such as we have in the House of Commons, perhaps—featuring a prayer, a Bible reading, the Lord's Prayer and, if possible, the singing of a hymn?
    Mrs. Rumbold: I welcome my hon. Friend's comments and note his views. There has been considerable consultation and discussion with the Churches and with all the local authorities and others involved on the whole issue of school assembly. As far as possible, the Churches and the schools were agreed that some form of assembly should take place in schools. It is not always possible for such an assembly to start at the beginning of the day, however desirable that might be, but I am sure that those schools that can do so will take note of my hon. Friend's comments.
    Mr. Beggs: Does the Minister recognise that attainment testing of children of seven, eight, 11, 14 and 16 will place an increasing burden on classroom teachers? Will she endeavour to reduce the class contact hours worked by those teachers, to ensure that there is proper time not only for marking attainment tests but for preparing adequate pupil profile records? Finally, is it not time that more emphasis was placed on diagnostic testing throughout a pupil's school career, with the necessary remedial teaching?
    Mrs. Rumbold: I would commend to the hon. Gentleman Professor Paul Black's initial and interim report on testing and attainment targets. If and when he reads it, he will see that the report speaks extensively about the importance of testing. He will also note that much of what is being suggested is practice that is already being carried out with children in the classroom. The work being done on attainment targets will satisfy many people's queries and concerns about it.
    We are anxious that the work on records and profiles of achievement, which has been initiated in the schools, should continue and that teachers should find ample time to do it.
    Mr. Raison: Bearing in mind the admirable interest of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in English history, will my hon. Friend give an undertaking that if there is a move in another place to promote history to join the three core subjects in the curriculum, the Government will respond sympathetically to it?
    Mrs. Rumbold: I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend has also read Lord Joseph's speech, in which he made a special plea for British history, but I must leave these matters to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I assure hon. Members on both sides of the House that we shall expect the working group on history to look at British history and give due weight and attention to it when it comes to setting up attainment targets.
    Mr. Straw: Is the Minister aware that her arrogant dismissal of Lord Joseph's view, coming from one who lacks understanding, will do no more for the reputation of Ministers than yesterday's performance on the poll tax? How will Ministers meet Lord Joseph's view that the national curriculum is a straitjacket and too prescriptive?
    Mrs. Rumbold: The hon. Gentleman is much mistaken. Far from being arrogant about my noble Friend's remarks in another place yesterday, I listened to them with care and attention and got no impression that he was anything but highly supportive of the Government's proposals in all their measures. He voiced one or two concerns and we shall certainly take note of them.
    Mr. Harry Greenway: Will my hon. Friend reassure Lord Joseph that children are stressed by tests only if they are excessively formally conducted and unrelated to work that they have been doing? Will she also assure the House and Lord Joseph that tests for children will be closely related to their curriculum and conducted in an informal atmosphere?
    Mrs. Rumbold: Yes, I am confident of that, and I assure my hon. Friend that it will be so.

    General Certificate of Secondary Education
    Mr. McWilliam: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what representations he has received on Her Majesty's inspectors' report on the introduction of the general certificate of secondary education; and if he will make a statement.
    The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Kenneth Baker): None, Sir. The report provides reassuring evidence that the GCSE is being successfully introduced and is already leading to better teaching and learning in many schools.
    Mr. McWilliam: Is the Secretary of State aware of the great anxiety of many parents who, like me, have children who are guinea pigs in this examination this year, over the level of resourcing for the introduction of the GCSE? If he could not get the money from the Treasury this year that he needed to finance it properly, would it not have been better to phase it in over two or three years with the same resources?
    Mr. Baker: I got quite a lot of money out of the Treasury for the GCSE. The amount that was specifically provided in the year that has just ended was £115 million—the estimated amount spent on introducing the examination—and in the current year it amounts to £102 million. That is being spent on teacher training, textbooks and resources of that sort.
    Sir Dudley Smith: Does my right hon. Friend recall that when the change was made years ago from school certificate and matriculation it was done smoothly and without rancour? Is there any reason why the current change should not go through just as smoothly, allowing for political prejudice?
    Mr. Baker: I remember the change. I was one of the last of the cohort who took the old school certificate examinations. I thought that it was a good examination. As I did well in it I was rather attached to it. I understand that a change in an examination system is important. The planning for the GCSE started more than 10 years ago and the decision to go ahead with it was taken four years ago. A great deal of planning has gone into it, and I am glad that the inspectors think that it is settling in smoothly.
    Mr. Watts: Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that examining boards are making adequate provision for children who suffer from dyslexia, in particular by permitting them to have teachers to read papers to them, without which facility they are placed under a severe handicap?
    Mr. Baker: I think that every examining board makes allowance for that. I am specifically asking the working groups on the national curriculum to ensure that they take into account children with special needs.
    Mr. Fatchett: The Secretary of State will know that the Labour party has been fulsome in its support in principle for the GCSE examination and that it still holds that position. Will he deal with two matters that are worrying parents? First, they are worried that the additional assessment and case work will impose great strains upon children and lead to a squeeze in the number of subjects that children may wish to take. Secondly, they are worried that the extra work may impose additional burdens upon teachers. There are suggestions that there is a need for 5,000 additional teachers. Those are real worries. Will the Secretary of State try to put some of them to rest?
    Mr. Baker: The hon. Gentleman spoke about extra teachers. This year there has been a continuing improvement in the pupil:teacher ratio, and it is planned to be 17:1 in 1989. That allows some flexibility.
    The hon. Gentleman also asked about children being stretched in the assessment work. There is some evidence of this. I am not too worried about children having to work a bit harder for their examinations, but I accept that it is important that they should not be overstreched. The general evidence is that this examination is going very well. One of the interesting things that we have discovered in talking to heads and to children is that, as a result of the type of teaching that goes with the GCSE, more children are now deciding to opt to stay on at school post-16. That is one of the unconvenanted blessings of this examination.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the considerable concern that has been expressed by history teachers about the examination syllabuses and the examinations in the history curriculum? Will he arrange at the end of the first year of the GCSE for Her Majesty's Inspectorate to report on how the examination has gone?
    Mr. Baker: I am sure that Her Majesty's Inspectorate will do that. It is for the inspectorate to decide and it will almost certainly decide to do that. I assure my hon. Friend that I am also concerned about a particular aspect of history, and I shall be seeing the joint council of the GCSE examining groups in May to discuss progress.

    Higher Education
    Mr. Jim Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what discussions he has held with
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    local authorities about the provision and resourcing of access courses to higher education; and if he will make a statement.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Robert Jackson): My right hon. Friend has not discussed this issue with local authorities. It is for each authority and for the appropriate institutions to consider how to secure adequate provision of access courses in its area. In this connection I note that the number of access courses has more than trebled over the last three years.
    Mr. Marshall: Does the Minister agree that there will be genuine concern about the future of access courses once the new funding arrangements for polytechnics and colleges of higher education come into being? To encourage people to break the cycle of educational deprivation, particularly among women, older people and ethnic minorities, will he give a categorical assurance that access quotas will continue and that funding will be guaranteed by local authorities and by the Government?
    Mr. Jackson: The Government share the hon. Gentleman's desire for the widening of educational opportunity, and we have a good record of success in this sphere. The participation of mature students has increased by 32 per cent. since 1979, and the participation of part-time students in higher education has increased by 31 per cent. since 1979. The proportion of women in higher education has risen from 38 per cent. in 1979 to 42 per cent. in 1986.
    Mr. Andrew F. Bennett: Does the Minister agree that his White Paper of 12 months ago set out the Government's commitment to more access for mature students? What initiatives have the Government taken in the past 12 months to encourage access by mature students? Does he agree that all the talk about loans to students does a great deal to put off mature students from the thought of going into higher education? Many of them are already worried about debts for housing and other things, and they would be completely put off if loans were on the agenda.
    Mr. Jackson: As the hon. Gentleman knows, discussion about access quotas and the provision of access is a rising theme in the university and higher education world. The Government are encouraging that in discussions with the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom and with the Committee of Directors of Polytechnics. The hon. Gentleman spoke about loans. The basic fact that we must recognise is that our very expensive system of grants—the most expensive in the Western world—has not delivered very substantial access. Only 6 per cent. of university entrants came from social classes 4 and 5 in 1979, and it rose to only 8·1 per cent. in 1986. That is an increase over the period of office of the Government, but the figure is still low and it suggests that the grants system is not delivering access.
    Mr. Ian Bruce: When considering the question of people going forward to higher education, has my hon. Friend considered the A-level syllabuses? The GCSE is taking students very much towards university and the type of study that they would do there. A-levels are now rather out of line with that. Have any studies been made on that?
    Mr. Jackson: As my hon. Friend knows, a committee under the chairmanship of the vice chancellor of

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    Southampton university is considering the future of A-levels. Meanwhile, I should draw my hon. Friend's attention to the introduction by the Government of the AS-level, which we hope will be more widely used and will have the beneficial effects for which my hon. Friend hopes.

    Teachers
    Mr. Ashdown: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on teacher recruitment in national curriculum core and foundation subjects.
    Mr. Kenneth Baker: Recruits to initial teacher training in all subjects, including the national curriculum core and foundation subjects, were well up last year. Allocations to initial teacher training from 1990 and our energetic campaign of recruitment will both focus on the teachers' needs of the national curriculum.
    Mr. Ashdown: Does the Secretary of State agree with the Black report that proper assessment and testing in line with its recommendations, as against the crude snapshot tests preferred and favoured by the Prime Minister, will require more time for training and assessment and, therefore, less contact time with pupils? Does he accept that that will have an inevitable consequence for the pupil:teacher ratios required to deliver the national curriculum? Will he undertake to consider that matter fully when producing the figures on the number of teachers required to deliver the national curriculum, which was promised to me by the Minister of State three months ago?
    Mr. Baker: A review is being carried out on secondary staffing, but we are broadly satisfied that there are sufficient teachers within the system to deliver the national curriculum, bearing in mind that there will be a drop in secondary pupils of 280,000 over the next three years and that the school population at secondary level will not be up to this year's level again until the year 2000. We believe, therefore, that, with proper retraining and in-service training, we will be able to meet the needs of the national curriculum.
    Mr. Anthony Coombs: Does my right hon. Friend agree that teacher recruitment involves meeting a shortage of teachers in some subjects and a surplus in others? Does he also agree with Sir George Porter, president of the Royal Society, who last week said that the way to solve that problem was through a regional form of bargaining, even down to local authority level, for teachers' salaries, rather than through a nationally-based union?
    Mr. Baker: That raises very wide questions, but I agree with my hon. Friend that there is a shortage in certain key subjects—mathematics, physics and craft, design and technology. There was a substantial increase last year in the number of teachers training in those shortage subjects. For example, in CDT and business studies there was an increase of 21 and 19 per cent., and there has been an increase in the number of teachers training in mathematics and physics. That is part of our thrust, because they are key subjects.
    Mr. Duffy: Is the Secretary of State aware of the persisting fears, as revealed during the last few days, of the Catholic bishops of England and Wales that his Bill threatens the Catholic schools system? The bishops are especially anxious that the national curriculum should
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    make provision to enable teachers and the governors of voluntary schools to preserve and develop the distinctive ethos and character of their schools.
    Mr. Baker: I can give the hon. Gentleman an absolute assurance on that. We want to ensure that the particular ethos of Church schools, whether Catholic, Anglican, Jewish or of other faiths, is preserved. We also want to ensure that religious education is taught in the non-Church schools, and we shall bring forward amendments in the other place to ensure that religious education is part of the basic curriculum, standing alongside the foundation and core subjects, primus inter pares.
    Mr. Key: When does my right hon. Friend expect to be able to publish the report of the interim advisory committee on teachers' pay?
    Mr. Baker: I received the interim advisory committee's report on 31 March. I shall publish it later today, together with my proposals, as a basis for consultation. It is a long, detailed report, and I know that hon. Members will find it very interesting. The next step is to ensure that we enter into the consultations required under the Teachers' Pay and Conditions Act 1987 with the teacher unions, local authority associations and the Churches.
    Mrs. Clwyd: The Secretary of State is being particularly complacent in glossing over the serious difficulties facing schools in the shortage subjects. Why, according to the latest figures obtained yesterday from the central register and clearing house, are there significant shortfalls in applicants for the postgraduate certificate of education course, which starts in the autumn, compared with last year? In mathematics the number of applicants is down by 17 per cent., in physics by 20 per cent., in biology by 18 per cent, and in modern languages by 12 to 13 per cent. Surely that is a very serious situation.
    Mr. Baker: We are not in the least complacent. We have not finished computing the cycle of recruiting. We had a large advertising programme in March to encourage people to apply for teaching training, and overall there is an increase of about 3 per cent. in applications over last year—and last year was an exceptionally good year.
    Mr. Paice: In view of my right hon. Friend's statement about the shortage of mathematics and some science subject teachers, will he redouble his efforts to draw into the teaching fraternity people who have had a career either in the services or in industry, so that we can add their tremendous experience to the pool of wealth?
    Mr. Baker: I support what my hon. Friend has said. We have a scheme to encourage people who have experience in industry, commerce or the services and who wish to change their careers, because they have a great deal to offer. If they have an aptitude for teaching they can draw upon their experience and also upon their maturity, which are valuable assets in a teacher.

    Task Group on Assessment and Testing
    Ms. Armstrong: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he expects the Task Group on Assessment and Testing to publish its final report; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Michael: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science when he expects the Task Group on Assessment and Testing to publish its final report; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Kenneth Baker: My Department has just received the further advice I requested from the task group, and expect to publish it in due course, when I have completed my consideration of it.
    Ms. Armstrong: Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to clear up a confusion? Is it the Government's view that testing is formative and diagnostic, as the Black report recommends, or is it the Government's view that it is summative, as the Prime Minister suggests?
    Mr. Baker: If the hon. Lady reads the Black report, she will note that in some of its paragraphs it is quite scathing about the misuse of diagnostic testing. The very fact that the Black report also recognises that the results of assessment and testing, particularly testing, should be published means that that is a summative use of the results of testing and assessment.
    Mr. Michael: Is not the report of the task force at variance with the crude form of measurement favoured by the Prime Minister? Does the Secretary of State agree with the comments made by Lord Joseph in the other place, and will he reassure us that he will not create a testing industry, which would divert resources from the important task of education?
    Mr. Baker: If we have a national curriculum and attainment targets at seven, 11, 14 and 16, which is the system which we shall have, and which has received support from both sides of the House, we shall have to assess and test the children. This is what teachers need to do, what pupils want, and what parents want to know. They want to know the answer to the question, "How is my child doing at a particular age against national criteria?" That is what we shall provide.
    Mr. Latham: I warmly welcome the practical, commonsense approach of the Black report, but will my right hon. Friend confirm that it remains his view and that of his Ministers that the results of any testing at seven should be known only to the parents, the head and the class teacher?
    Mr. Baker: The Black report made it clear that there should be assessment and testing at seven, but that it would be unfair to the school and the child to publish those results. I have already expressed my considerable sympathy with that approach. Seven is too early an age at which to make judgments, because children come in at different ages and have had different levels of experience of teaching.
    Mr. Sackville: Are not some of those teachers who criticise assessment on the grounds that it will expose children of ethnic backgrounds to unfair competition failing to help those children, and even possibly damaging their future prospects?
    Mr. Baker: I agree with my hon. Friend. I have been impressed by the number of parents of ethnic children who are insistent that their children are taught the basics and should know exactly where they stand. I look upon that as a reinforcement of basic standards in our schools.
    Mr. Straw: The Secretary of State will recall that in the private letter which the Prime Minister's private secretary sent his private secretary in January, the Prime Minister expressed great concern about the "very large cost" of implementing the Black report. Has the Secretary of State
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    yet reached any views about the total costs of testing? If so, what are they? Do the answers on testing that he has given this afternoon have the support of the Prime Minister?
    Mr. Baker: I am quite sure that they do—[Interruption.] I might confirm it by letter. The hon. Gentleman knows well that I, too, expressed anxiety in Committee about the complexity of an assessment and testing scheme. It must not be so complex that it bears down on the administration of the school. I am also concerned about the cost. As I have told the hon. Gentleman, we have received further documents from Professor Black's group. We asked him particularly to address these points. I shall publish those documents in due course.

    Teaching as a Second Career
    Mr. Evennett: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he is satisfied with the progress to date of the teaching as a second career campaign.
    Mrs. Rumbold: The Department's campaign to improve teacher recruitment, including the most recent initiatives of the teaching as a career unit and the London exhibition, have proved successful. In May we are holding a conference in London between top industrialists and educationalists to see how we can reduce teacher shortages with the help of industry.
    Mr. Evennett: I thank my hon. Friend for her reply and congratulate the Government on their efforts to get more teachers into schools. However, is my hon. Friend satisfied that there are enough candidates coming forward from industry to go into teaching, particularly those with science or technology talents and skills? Is there anything further that can be done to encourage more people with those backgrounds and interests to go into teaching?
    Mrs. Rumbold: We share my hon. Friend's anxiety to get more mature people into the teaching profession, especially those with the skills of science and technology. As a result of the advertising campaign to which my right hon. Friend referred just now we have had a most encouraging response from about 14,500 people, about half of whom are mature people. We hope that a number of mature entrants with that sort of experience will come into the teaching profession.
    Mr. Win Griffiths: Like the Minister, we appreciate the need for this campaign to be successful, but can the hon. Lady assure us that the national curriculum will not be introduced until local authorities have confirmed with the Government that there are sufficient qualified teachers to teach all subjects in the national curriculum?
    Mrs. Rumbold: The hon. Gentleman knows that it is very important for us to begin to introduce the national curriculum as soon as possible. It is therefore our intention, once the working groups on mathematics and science have reported, that those reports should be consulted upon and that the process of putting an order before the House should begin. Thereafter, we intend that children in primary schools will start to study mathematics and science under the national curriculum. The same will be true of English and technology, as the working groups are set up.
    The hon. Gentleman asked about teacher numbers. He will be very pleased to know that recruitment for primary sector teaching has increased by 10 per cent. this year.

    Universities and Polytechnics
    Mr. Cran: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science what priority he attaches to the role of universities and polytechnics in regional development.
    Mr. Jackson: As national institutions, our universities, polytechnics and colleges have an important part to play in regional development by providing high quality education and training, by undertaking research and developing close links with industry.
    Mr. Cran: In the light of that answer, does my hon. Friend agree that it is indeed a strange decision by the University Grants Committee to recommend the closure of the geology department at the University of Hull, precisely because of the amount of help it gives to industry, attested to by the fact that Yorkshire and Humberside CBI has written to say exactly that? Can my hon. Friend find some inventive way of giving a signal to the UGC that it has taken a wrong decision?
    Mr. Jackson: The basic purpose of the subject rationalisation exercises that are being undertaken by the UGC is to strengthen provision nationally for teaching and research. We wish to strengthen it academically by concentrating on centres of excellence, and financially by deploying our resources in the most clearly targeted way. In such a process there will always be gainers and losers, and the losers will always dispute the criteria. Under the constitutional arrangements in this area the criteria are for the UGC to determine. With regard to regional interests, one of the half dozen major earth sciences centres projected by UGC will be in Leeds, which is not far away.
    Dr. Thomas: Will the Minister explain why the gainers tend to be in the south-east of England for higher education research as well as for other areas of public policy? Will he ensure that our new university research centres are geographically spread throughout the nations and regions of the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Jackson: I am sure that the UGC will rightly wish to continue to pursue a United Kingdom national policy in the allocation of its resources and that it will look for the areas of best advantage in terms of academic quality for the development of its research centres and for the deployment of its research resources.
    Mr. Brandon-Bravo: My hon. Friend will know that Nottingham is central to the east midlands region and that the city proudly possesses two distinguished places of higher education, Nottingham university and Trent polytechnic, the latter, of course, looking forward with great eagerness to independence under the coming legislation. Given Trent polytechnic's strong commercial and industrial links and the rapid growth of the science park at Nottingham university, will my hon. Friend bear in mind the role of the Queen of the Midlands in any discussions that his Department has on a regional technology centre?
    Mr. Jackson: I am happy to join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the good work done by Trent polytechnic and Nottingham university and I shall certainly take note of his suggestion.
    Mr. Madden: Will the Minister confirm that Bradford and Ilkley college is making a major contribution to the local and regional economy and enjoys widespread support, including that of local business, and will he find time to visit it before late September or early October? Will
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    he also arrange to make an early statement to remove entirely the college's uncertainty about its long-term funding?
    Mr. Jackson: I am undertaking an extensive tour of visits to universities and colleges up and down the land, and only last week I was in that area. I shall certainly take note of the hon. Gentleman's suggestion and look into the possibility of visiting the college.

    Children (Special Needs)
    Mr. Amess: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will make a statement on his Department's provision for those children assessed as having special needs.
    Mr. Dunn: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced last November that the Government would be providing for local education authorities to spend nearly £13·9 billion on education in 1988–89. Within this figure a sum is being provided for special schools. It is for local education authorities to determine whether children have special educational needs and to secure appropriate provision for them within the terms of the Education Act 1981.
    Mr. Amess: Does my hon. Friend recognise the anxiety felt by some parents, who believe that their children are not making the sort of progress at school that they would have hoped and that local education authorities also take some time to recognise that fact? Does he agree that provisions in the Education Reform Bill requiring testing will mean that assessment of and assistance for children with special educational needs will be given more quickly?
    Mr. Dunn: I understand my hon. Friend's point. Useful pointers may be derived from the way in which a child performs as a result of the application of the national curriculum. Thus, the national curriculum may provide a long stop in the identification of specific learning difficulties.
    Mr. Janner: Does the Minister accept that the Department of Education and Science and local education authorities do not have the power to provide children with the special need which many of them require most, which is physiotherapy, and that the Department of Health and Social Security has to be brought in for schools such as the Western Park school in my constituency, where some 50 children need physiotherapy and have the use of one physiotherapist for one hour each week? Is that not a disgrace?
    Mr. Dunn: The hon. and learned Gentleman will be pleased to know that all local education authorities are now operating the procedures introduced by the Education Act 1981. He rightly draws attention to a specific concern, but he knows that the employment of physiotherapists is not a matter directly for my Department.
    Mrs. Ann Winterton: Will my hon. Friend allay the fears of the parents of deaf children and give an assurance that the special needs of their children will be fully met by the proposals in the Education Reform Bill?
    Mr. Dunn: We shall be asking for and taking advice from a variety of working groups on children with special needs. My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the needs of children who suffer from deafness in one form or another.
    Mr. Fatchett: Is the Minister aware of the excellent work carried out by the Inner London education authority for children with special educational needs? Is he also aware that last week parents in ILEA expressed overwhelmingly their satisfaction with the authority and their desire that it should continue? Is it the Government's policy to listen to parents only when they say what the Government want? Will they just ignore the strong wishes of Inner London parents?
    Mr. Dunn: The hon. Member is incorrect when he says that the ballot last week was of all Inner London education authority parents. It was not. I have every confidence that the London boroughs will continue to provide for children with special educational needs in the future when they become education authorities in their own right.

    Student Loans
    Sir John Farr: To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he is yet in a position to make a statement on student loans.
    Mr. Jackson: No Sir. The Government will determine their policy in the light of the conclusions of the review of student support. They will publish their proposals for the future of student support in due course.
    Sir John Farr: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has said. Will he look into the possibility of introducing a pilot scheme whereby loans could be made to students whose application for a grant had been turned down by the local education authority?
    Mr. Jackson: This is certainly one of the subjects that we shall be looking at in the student support review, and I have considerable personal sympathy with my hon. Friend's suggestion.

  PRIME MINISTER

    Engagements
    Mr. Squire: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 April.
    The Prime Minister: This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House I shall be having further meetings later today.
    Mr. Squire: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the resolution passed in the Danish Parliament on 14 April on ships visits is not compatible with our long-standing policy of neither confirming nor denying that our ships are carrying nuclear weapons? Will she further confirm that this has major implications for our commitment to Denmark if we are requested to give assistance in the future?
    The Prime Minister: Yes. That resolution, which is very similar to a New Zealand one, has very far-reaching implications for the whole of NATO policy. The Danish Folketing passed a resolution that nuclear weapons were not welcome, even on ships going into harbours in Denmark. That, in view of our policy neither to confirm nor to deny the presence of nuclear weapons on ships, means that ships cannot visit and cannot practise reinforcement exercises. It has very grave implications, which we must consider in NATO, for the whole of NATO policy.
    Mr. Kinnock: Can the Prime Minister tell us whether there has been any progress with what Ministers recognize
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    to be an important investigation into the serious matter of the leak of the minutes of her meeting on 11 April with the Secretary of State for the Environment and other Ministers on the poll tax and housing benefit?
    The Prime Minister: No. I have nothing further to report to the House on that matter.
    Mr. Kinnock: Does the Prime Minister regard that leak as serious because it jeopardises national security or because it exposes the organised mendacity of the Government?
    The Prime Minister: No. So long as people are prepared to receive such documents there will be some people who will pass them on.
    Mr. Kinnock: So much is understood, but as it is now clear that on 11 April the Prime Minister agreed that the poll tax concessions announced last week should be paid for by poll tax increases not announced last week and that those concessions should then be reduced by further housing benefit cuts, is it not obvious that since last Monday the Prime Minister arid other Ministers have been seeking to double-cross their Back Benchers, and that for some it has worked?
    The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman, as usual, has only very partial information, from a received, stolen document. There were a series of meetings last week, which led to a wide discussion about the community charge and to the announced decision to reduce the rate at which benefit should be withdrawn in 1990–91 for the purposes of the community charge. The right hon. Gentleman knows that decision. Consistent with it, the rate at which housing benefit for rent payments will be withdrawn in 1989–90 will not be increased. The whole community charge rebate arrangements will, of course, be treated as one. Further meetings last week concluded that decisions on the related Exchequer grant for 1990–91 cannot be taken until the summer of 1989, in accordance with the normal procedures. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. John Carlisle: Will my right hon. Friend take time today to contact the British Amateur Athletic Board and urge it to reject the recommendation of the International Amateur Athletics Federation that Miss Zola Budd be banned for 12 months? Does she agree that this form of blackmail in international sport is totally unacceptable, particularly when the victim is completely innocent of the offence?
    The Prime Minister: As my hon. Friend is aware, we subscribe to the Gleneagles agreement. The particular matter to which he refers is for the British Amateur Athletic Board and the International Amateur Athletics Federation, but a number of us find it rather repugnant that so much effort is now concerned with stopping a young woman from competing in international athletics.
    Mr. Alex Carlile: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. and learned Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Carlile: Will the right hon. Lady follow the advice given by the DHSS of putting cooking foil under her bottom sheet and of not going shopping when she is hungry, or is that cynical advice to be reserved for middle-aged widows living on social security?
    The Prime Minister: I saw the reports of the advice to which the hon. and learned Gentleman refers. I understand that those who advise people on social security have been giving advice for a very considerable time. If one looks at the leaflet, which obviously I did after I had seen the report, because, like the hon. and learned Gentleman, I found some of it very distasteful, one finds that a great deal of the advice is very sensible. I share the hon. and learned Gentleman's views about two or three particular things, but I am informed, after inquiry, that there are people who will give advice, if asked, and that the advice has been given on the same basis, although perhaps not in the same detail, for a very long time.
    Mr. Warren: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether, following her reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch (Mr. Squire), she will consider the fact that, devoted as this country is to the nuclear deterrent within NATO, she should make it clear to the Soviet delegation to this country when she meets it later this afternoon that we are interested in making sure that there are nuclear reductions on both sides and that we are looking for substantial reductions in conventional arms in order to further the cause of peace?
    The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend. We welcome the agreement on nuclear reductions, but we are very well aware of the fact that, beyond the agreement that we hope will be reached on strategic weapons, we need to embark upon reductions in conventional weapons and chemical weapons. Proposals are being prepared for that very purpose.
    Mr. Sean Hughes: Does the Prime Minister recall the circumstances in which her folk hero, Sir Winston Churchill, came to power? It was because that the then Conservative Prime Minister had resigned because his majority had fallen to 81, with 33 Tory Members of Parliament voting against him?
    As the Prime Minister's majority slumped to 25 last night, with 38 Members voting against her, will she explain to the House why the precedent set in Winston's day does not apply now?
    The Prime Minister: I remember that one of Sir Winston Churchill's sayings was that in this House of Commons one is enough. It most certainly was for the Labour party, because it nationalised aircraft and shipbuilding by a majority of one vote, and a very questionable one, too.
    Mr. Amess: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Amess: Has my right hon. Friend seen a report that a 28-bed ward at St. Thomas' hospital will now remain open following an £85,000 reduction in its rates bill as a result of this Government capping Lambeth council's rates? Does it not suggest that excessive rate increases damage jobs and businesses and also damage the Health Service and health care?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. The high rates of profligate Labour authorities drive out jobs and divert resources that ought to go to health care. If the news that he has given is true, there must be
    676
    many people in Lambeth who are delighted with this Government's rate-capping policies, which have had such a good result.
    Ms. Short: Will the Prime Minister tell the House her views on the behaviour of the Israeli Government following the Palestinian uprising in the occupied territories? Will she use the influence that she has with America to arrange an international conference so that a settlement can be achieved, whereby a Palestinian state will stand side by side with an Israeli state? That is the only answer.
    The Prime Minister: We are doing everything that we possibly can to try to get negotiations going in the middle east. A vacuum is the worst thing for that part of the world. As the hon. Lady knows, we have used our influence with the United States. We also support Mr. Shultz in continuing his initiative. We support an international conference as a framework for negotiations between Israel, King Hussein of Jordan and a Palestinian delegation. It is important that efforts to that end should continue.
    Dr. Twinn: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Dr. Twinn: Does my right hon. Friend welcome the report of the National Association of Health Authorities in England and Wales, which states that patients who do not receive their treatment within a reasonable period of time should, at no cost to themselves, be able to turn to the private sector? The bill will then be picked up by the National Health Service.
    The Prime Minister: I know that new evidence has arrived recently, which is going to the Department of Health and Social Security. The report contains a number of valuable proposals for reform of the National Health Service. The report is particularly concerned with the waiting time for operations and contains the proposal that my hon. Friend stated. It will be considered carefully. We are most anxious that waiting time should be reduced and that the money that goes to the National Health Service should be used to maximum efficiency.
    Mr. Andrew Welsh: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Welsh: Is the Prime Minister aware of the loss of 28,000 electors in Scotland? That is equivalent to the disappearance of the whole of the Caithness and Sutherland constituency and is against all demographic trends. How can she explain such a massive failure to register, except in terms of the poll tax, which no one but her Government wants?
    The Prime Minister: There is a duty to register and it is up to citizens to exercise that duty. If they accept the freedom of citizenship, they should not opt out of their responsibility.
    Mr. Tredinnick: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Tredinnick: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the single European market, which will be introduced in 1992, offers immense opportunities to British industry? Does she also agree that if British industry is to take advantage of that agreement, it must act now?
    The Prime Minister: We have been working towards a single market in Europe for a long time. It is a market of some 320 million people. It is far larger than the market in Japan or the market in the United States. It offers great opportunities for business and commerce in this country. I agree with my hon. Friend that British industry should prepare for it now in order to get the right goods and services to meet consumer demand in that market. My right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is setting up conferences. There will be 20 regional conferences. Areas such as my hon. Friend's should he in a very good position to take advantage of that single common market.
    Mr. Stevens: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Stevens: Is my right hon. Friend aware that in my constituency, and in other parts of the midlands, house prices have risen substantially in recent months? The sale of houses is now comparatively easy. Does she agree that that is a reflection of the increasing prosperity in the midlands, which has been achieved through the economic policies of the Government?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, I have seen the reports about house prices. There is an excellent demand for houses in
    678
    the west midlands. There are also some very good estates of new private houses being built. Unemployment is falling faster in the west midlands than in any other part of the United Kingdom and prosperity is increasing. It is good news for all.
    Mr. Mullin: May we take it that the Prime Minister is now in favour of persons who blow up oil rigs?
    The Prime Minister: I am in favour of action against those who lay mines against shipping in the Gulf—action under article 51 of the United Nations—and of not letting people get away with constantly causing extra trouble on what should be a free international seaway. I fully support the action taken by the United States.
    Mr. Hanley: To ask the Prime Minister if she wil1l list her official engagements for Tuesday 19 April.
    The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.
    Mr. Hanley: Will my right hon. Friend continue to do all that she can to protect the British Merchant and Royal Navy seamen in the Gulf and to serve Britain's interests in furthering world peace in that area?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, the Armilla patrol has been there for nearly eight years and will continue to be there, together with the minesweepers. We co-operate closely with the other fleets in the Gulf to ensure that that seaway is kept free and open for shipping of all nations.
    Several Hon. Members rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I have notice of a personal statement first. Mr. Ron Brown.

Personal Statement
3.30 pm
Mr. Ron Brown: I should like to make a statement concerning an incident last evening. Of course, the media have made much of it—
Mr. Speaker: Order. Will the hon. Gentleman resume his seat? I advise him that he must make the statement that has been agreed with me.
Mr. Brown: I can agree many things, and if I apologise—[Interruption.]—I apologise to my hon. Friend the
Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Loyden)—
Mr. Speaker: Order. What the hon. Gentleman is now about to do, quite correctly, is laid down in our practice. He must make the personal statement that he has agreed with me.
Mr. Brown: With respect, Mr. Speaker, that statement is not acceptable. The facts, in all fairness to yourself and to others in this place—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Brown rose—
Hon. Members: Sit down.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has agreed a statement which he wishes to make to the House—[Interruption.] Well, if the hon. Gentleman does not now wish to make it to the House, that puts a completely different complexion upon it.
Mr. Brown: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: No, I am on my feet. If the hon. Gentleman is prepared to make the statement which has been agreed and in the proper form, I will hear him. If he seeks to qualify it in any way, I regret—it would be with regret—that I cannot hear it.
Mr. Brown: Since you know the grovelling statement, Mr. Speaker, I am not going to read it out; I am going to accept it. Right? [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that it is a grovelling statement and I ask the hon. Gentleman to make it.
Mr. Brown: All right, I will make a statement. This is the place, so they say, where precedent is so firmly established. My statement is simply this—it is only a few words—if the House is embarrassed, I must say that it is true that last evening an incident happened and I was involved. I apologise to the hon. Members—
Mr. Speaker: Order—[Interruption.] Order. Will the House please allow me to deal with this? I advise the hon. Gentleman that whatever private advice he may have received, as far as I am concerned and as far as the House is concerned, I must abide by our practice. If the hon. Gentleman wishes to make a personal statement—I hope that he does—it must be made in the form which has been agreed with me. I give him an opportunity now to do that; otherwise I am afraid that I may have to take other action.
Mr. Brown: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can I just say to you—[HON. MEMBERS: "No".]
Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman wants to come and say anything to me, he must do so privately after he has made his statement, but he must make his statement now.
Mr. Brown: Obviously, if, really—[Interruption.] In view of the fact—[Interruption.] So be it—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must say to the hon. Gentleman for the last time that he should make his personal statement now, without qualifications.
Mr. Brown: Mr. Speaker, I grovel, grovel and say—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. That is not a personal statement.
Mr. Brown rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Gentleman does not make his statement, I shall be forced to take other action.
Mr. Brown: May I quote, Mr. Speaker—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I wish to make a personal statement—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is making his personal statement.
Mr. Brown: With regard to the Mace—I do not know who he is—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—I apologise to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the House because I accept responsibility for any damage that was sustained by the Mace. I did not write this rubbish but you know it—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]
Mr. Speaker: Order. I cannot accept that as a personal statement by the hon. Gentleman.
Mr. Brown rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I must ask the hon. Gentleman now to leave the Chamber while I consider carefully what further action I shall have to take on the matter.
Mr. Brown: This is the agreed statement.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I ask the hon. Gentleman now to leave the Chamber, otherwise I shall be forced to name him.
Mr. Brown: That was the agreed statement.
Mr. Speaker: I ask the hon. Gentleman to leave the Chamber.
The hon. Member left the Chamber.
Mr. Speaker: Ten-minute Bill. Miss Widdecombe. [Interruption.] Will the hon. Lady kindly resume her seat for one moment? If hon. Members are not remaining for the ten-minute Bill, will they please leave the Chamber quietly?
Sir Peter Tapsell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I will take the point of order after the ten-minute Bill. Miss Widdecombe.
Mr. Cranley Onslow: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have already called the hon. Lady. I will take the points of order after the hon. Lady has finished.
Mr. Eric S. Heifer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I have already said to the right hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) that 1 have called the hon. Lady to move her ten—minute Bill. I will take the points of order after she has done so.

School Bus Passes (Revision of Regulations)
3.38 pm
Miss Ann Widdecombe: I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the law relating to school bus passes to allow local authorities greater flexibility in establishing routes and charging for transporting children to school.
The reason for the Bill is that, under present regulations, as set down by section 55 of the Education Act 1944, local authorities are obliged to supply free transport passes for children over eight years who live more than three miles from their school and for children under eight years who live more than two miles from their school. The result of that is that local authorities measure the route between a child's home and school, and assess whether that child is eligible for free transport on that basis.
The route taken is the shortest and some routes are extremely hazardous. I have walked lonely country routes which are designated as the correct and proper route for a child to take, walking to school, and some of them are not safe for fully grown adults to walk, let alone children. They go through lonely fields and woods. With all the publicity that has been given to the problems of abduction and molestation, I find it incredible that we still have this provision in the Act.
According to a ruling of the Law Lords, in assessing whether a route is unduly hazardous, county councils are not obliged to take any note of whether a child travels that route alone. Yet it is unreasonable to assume that a secondary school child will be accompanied to school every day, particularly if the parents of that child must accompany younger children to school. This Bill would make it compulsory for county councils to take account of the fact that a child may be travelling a route unaccompanied when they assess whether it is unduly hazardous.
This morning, I heard my hon. Friend the Minister for Transport campaigning for greater road safety for children, but some routes that have been established as manageable for children are clearly not and present immense traffic hazards.
Furthermore, the present law throws up too many anomalies. In my constituency, an entire village has lost its entitlement to free school transport because the school gate has been moved from one side of the school to the other and, lo and behold, they are now within a few yards of the three—mile limit. Two children can stand at the same bus stop and make the same journey to school, one having to pay the full fare and the other travelling free.
Problems arise when parents want to send a child to a school of a particular denomination and that school is more than three miles from the child's home. The child is not entitled to free transport unless the child has been baptised or received into that denomination. Many parents want their children to have a traditional Christian upbringing which they can receive only in Church and Catholic schools, but there may be nearer schools on which the children's entitlement to free transport is assessed.
That makes nonsense of our wise policy of increasing parental choice, because that choice will be limited by the expenses that parents can meet. In my constituency, a child eligible for a concessionary fare—a child can have a

683
concessionary fare only if there is a bus; it is not automatic—has to pay £50 per term. One hundred pounds to send two children to school is prohibitive for some parents and will result in certain schools being removed from their area of choice.
My county council supports this measure, and in 1980 the Government tried to introduce a similar measure. It was rejected in another place because, sadly, we laid down clear rules for how we could afford the extra costs involved in providing additional free transport. If we charge everybody something, we shall be able to extend the range of transport provided, but there is no need to lay down rules for that calculation. County councils should be able to choose according to the prevailing conditions. My own has come up with a scheme which would not penalise rural schools, but would help rural communities. This Bill would give county councils the flexibility to introduce different rules for assessing hazards and charging for transport.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Miss Ann Widdecombe, Mrs. Gillian Shephard, Mr. Henry Bellingham, Mr. Julian Brazier, Mr. David Evans, Mr. David Davis, Mr. John Redwood, Mr. James Cran, Mr. Keith Mans, Mr. David Nicholson, Mr. Simon Burns and Mr. David Porter.

School Bus Passes (Revision of Regulations)
  SCHOOL BUS PASSES (REVISION OF REGULATIONS)
  Miss Ann Widdecombe accordingly presented a Bill to amend the law relating to school bus passes to allow local authorities greater flexibility in establishing routes and charging for transporting children to school: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon 13 May and to be printed. [Bill 142.]

Personal Statement (Points of Order)
3.45 pm
Mr. Cranley Onslow (Woking): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. The whole House will have heard the unsatisfactory exchanges between yourself and the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Brown), when the hon. Gentleman clearly and deliberately refused to abide by the rules of the House and make an apology in a form agreed with you, as the rules lay down, for his disgraceful action yesterday evening.
I think that the House understands that, confronted with such extraordinary defiance, it is right that you, Mr. Speaker, should have had a moment or two to reflect upon what action you could take to protect the dignity and authority of the Chair and of the House as a whole, but equally the House is now entitled to know what remedies lie in your hands and in ours, and how soon they will be proceeded with.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: I shall take the point of order to be raised by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heller).
Mr. Eric S. Heifer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have just consulted the Clerks of the House and understand that the attitude that you have taken is based on "Erskine May", which says that you have to give leave. you have just given leave to the hon. Member for Maidstone (Miss Widdecombe) to present a ten-minute Bill. Giving leave does not mean that you have to agree with what she said or what is in the Bill. As far as I can see, we have now strayed beyond what is acceptable and understandable in the House of Commons.
I always understood, contrary to what some new Members might think, that personal statements were personal statements, not statements agreed with anybody else. If the statement was not acceptable, one had to decide afterwards whether it was acceptable. But it is a personal statement. In the House, are we now reaching the stage where personal statements are no longer acceptable? [Interruption.] Let me say to hon. Members who have just come in that some of us believe in the House of Commons and its procedures. The reason we do so is that—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. The point of order is to me.
Mr. Heller: The reason is that we passionately believe in parliamentary democracy, which has been fought for over the years. I am asking how the interpretation of the paragraph in "Erskine May" means that a statement has to be agreed—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman is outside the House, and he is speaking.
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Heifer: I ask how a statement has to be agreed with Mr. Speaker before an hon. Member can make it, having accepted that he made a mistake in the House.
That is my point. I want an explanation. Perhaps I have been living in a fool's paradise—
Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is making his point of order to me, not to Members on the Government Benches.
Mr. Heifer: If one takes the example of the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) who lifted up the Mace and wielded it above his head, almost hitting hon. Members, I always believed that his personal statement was made by him alone and was not necessarily agreed with anyone else. Where does it say that Mr. Speaker must agree with a personal statement?
Mr. Speaker: I will deal with that matter at once. It has long been a tradition in the House, and certainly it was the case in the episode that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, that personal statements are also agreed with Mr. Speaker. It is Mr. Speaker who gives leave for a right hon. or hon. Member to make such a statement. I hoped very much that a personal statement would be made this afternoon, in the terms that had been given to me and that I had agreed. I deeply regret that the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Brown) felt unable to do that.
Sir Hugh Rossi: Further to the point of order, Mr. Speaker. Over the years, this House has been accustomed to recognising that things may be said or done in the heat of the moment that are regretted afterwards. This House has always been extremely tolerant in accepting apologies for things that happen in the heat of the moment. On this occasion, the Mace, which is the symbol of the dignity of the House, was thrown to the floor of the House and, I understand, severely damaged.
If the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Brown) had expressed regret for his action, I am sure the House would have accepted his apology. It is clear from what we have heard this afternoon that the hon. Gentleman was not prepared to express his regrets; he spoke in terms of "Grovel, grovel, grovel." That is not acceptable to the House.
Some of us view with increasing anxiety the way in which some hon. Members treat the House and its traditions with increasing contempt. The time has come to put a stop to it. [HoN. MEMBERS "Hear, hear!"] We regard a five-day suspension on full pay as inadequate. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to look into the matter further and to inquire whether it is possible to ask for compensation in respect of any damage that may have been done to the Mace.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not believe that we can profitably pursue this matter by points of order. I am bound by the penalties that are described in "Erskine May". I call the Leader of the House.
The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Wakeham): This is a very serious matter, made worse by the events in the Chamber that we have just witnessed. I will arrange for urgent discussions to take place between the usual channels with a view to tabling a Government motion later today.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that any further points of order can arise from the remarks of the Leader of the House.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop.
Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: It is important that an incorrect statement of the practice of the House
686
should not be allowed to go unchallenged and therefore become the record. The reason why Mr. Speaker is required to give his agreement before a personal statement may be made is that the statement is neither debatable nor subject to interruption. That is why your predecessors, Mr. Speaker, have always enforced the rule of no departure from that statement. For instance, in the case of the late right hon. John Stonehouse, when he three times endeavoured to depart from the agreed personal statement, each time Mr. Speaker Lloyd recalled him very firmly to the statement that he, as Mr. Speaker, had approved. It is important that the record in this matter be stated correctly.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman was entirely correct in what he said. He said in terms of explanation what I said as a matter of fact.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Brown) is my parliamentary neighbour. I think that the House should understand that here is an hon. Member who has suffered an industrial injury such as most of us have been spared.
My point of order, Mr. Speaker, is succinct. I understood, having made a personal statement, that such a statement was a matter between the hon. Member concerned and Mr. Speaker. It would have been very much better if you had dealt with the situation than that my hon. Friend should be triggered off by noise. Some of us would think interruptions very vulgar and insensitive in such difficult circumstances. In all the consideration, could it be made clear that, when a personal statement is made, the whole House is silent, leaves this difficult matter to the Speaker of the House of Commons and does not start interrupting?
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: They were hounding him.
Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Brown) had made his statement in the form that he agreed with me, it would have been heard in silence. I agree with the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) that the House is always generous in those circumstances.
Mr. Patrick Cormack: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can you confirm that the Mace is not the property of the House, but the property of Her Majesty? Is it possible for you to ascertain and tell the House how much damage was done to that extraordinarily valuable piece of property?
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is entirely correct, and that assessment is being made.
Mr. Bob Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Can you confirm that the motion that the Government are proposing to put down will be debatable, and that it will be a three-hour debate? Can you also confirm that the time of the tabling of the motion will be displayed throughout the House on the annunciators, so that the Government do not try to slip it through the back door without hon. Members knowing?
Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that, in view of the business that is now before the House, I can deal with the matter finally by saying that, while of course I have not seen the motion that is to be put down, I can confirm to the hon. Gentleman and the House that it will certainly be debatable. I shall ensure as far as possible that the timing is well known to every hon. Member in the House.
Several Hon. Members
rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I do not think that I can take any more points of order. We are to have a debate tomorrow.

Orders of the Day

  Local Government Finance Bill
  [2nd Allotted Day]
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), further considered.

  Local Government Finance Bill
    Clause 2

      PERSONS SUBJECT TO PERSONAL COMMUNITy CHARGE
      3.58 pm
      Mr. Patrick Cormack: I beg to move amendment No. 40, in page 1, line 15, after 'over', insert
      'but has not attained his 80th birthday'.
      Mr. Speaker: With this we shall take the following amendments: No. 41, in page 1, line 15, at end insert
      'provided he is not in receipt of any form of income support'.
      No. 140, in page 2, line 6, leave out subsection (3).
      No. 103, in page 76, line 7, in schedule 1, at end insert
      'or is detained on remand'.
      No. 207, in page 76, line 7, at end insert
      'or held on remand'.
      No. 202, in page 76, line 26, after 'mentally', insert 'and physically'.
      No. 125, in page 76, leave out lines 30 to 38.
      No. 203, in page 76, line 30, after 'mentally', insert 'and physically'.
      No. 126, in page 76, line 31, leave out 'certified as' and insert 'deemed to be'.
      No. 204, in page 76, line 31, after 'mentally', insert 'and physically'.
      No. 127, in page 76, line 33, leave out from 'from' to 'involves' in line 34.
      No. 208, in page 76, line 35, at end insert
      'or acquires a disability resulting in severe impairment of intelligence and social functioning through accident or disease.'
      No. 128, in page 76, line 41, at end insert
      'or is a full-time school pupil'.
      No. 129, in page 77, line 3, leave out from 'education' to end of line 5.
      No. 130, in page 77, line 5, at end insert
      'or is undergoing a course of training leading to qualification as a nurse'.
      No. 131, in page 77, line 19, at end insert
      'and
      (c) he is not liable to pay income tax.'.
      No. 132, in page 78, line 20, at beginning insert '(1)'.
      No. 1, in page 78, line 26, at end insert—
      'Members of Religious Communities
      (1)A person is an exempt individual on a particular day if he lives as a member of a religious community.
      (2)The Secretary of State shall by order define what constitutes a religious community at any particular time.'
      No. 133, in page 78, line 26, at end insert—
      "(2) For this purpose a designated dwelling shall be taken to include a nunnery or monastery or other dwelling used by members of a religious order whose members have taken vows of poverty and in such circumstances there shall be no liability for collective community charge.'
      No. 222, in page 78, line 26, at end insert—
      'Homeless People
      A person is an exempt individual on a particular day if at any time on the day his sole or main residence is not a permanent structure.'
      Mr. Dick Douglas: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
      Mr. Speaker: Is it connected with this Bill? I am not taking any further points of order arising out of the former matter.
      Mr. Douglas: I accept that, Mr. Speaker. That is why I have been hesitant in raising the point.
      The House is rightly conscious of the privilege, propriety and constitutionality of the proceedings. yesterday, however, a distinct vote in the House showed a definite shift in opinion relating to the poll tax legislation. We have been made aware, through public pressure and the media, that Lord Jenkins of Hillhead is to seek leave in another place to move a motion asking the Government to take some time to reflect on what has happened here and in the country before the Second Reading debate proceeds in the other place.
      On the Order Paper for this evening and tomorrow evening are two orders relating to the poll tax legislation for Scotland. As Scotland is being made a guinea pig for this legislation before it has the whole-hearted approval of the rest of the nation, would it not be wise for the Government to desist from proceeding with any further orders to do with the Scottish legislation before this matter has been the subject of at least some deliberation in another place?
      Mr. Speaker: That is certainly not a matter for me. In this Chamber there are opportunities to amend legislation, and the House made its decision last night.
      Mr. Cormack: I want to recall one of the former hon. Members of this House whom I admired most—the noble Lord Broxbourne, who sat next to me for many years as Sir Derek Walker-Smith. He was one of the principal opponents of entry to the Common Market. He deployed his case with vigour and clarity, and always with complete courtesy and firmness. Although I did not find myself in the Lobby with him during those debates in the early 1970s, my respect for him grew with each speech that he made, because he debated as a true parliamentarian. When, at the end of the day, the House decided, against his profound convictions, that we should go into the European Community, he said that it was then his duty to try to ensure that what he had prophesied did not come to pass and that the thing worked.
      Sir Derek was one of the first and leading members of the delegated group to the European Assembly. I believe that he chaired the Legal Committee in that assembly, and he played a most constructive part in helping to mould it and direct its deliberations. It is in that spirit that I hope to approach the amendments this afternoon.
      I have never voted for the community charge or poll tax. I did not vote for it in the Scottish legislation in the last Parliament; I have not cast a single vote in its favour, nor do I intend to do so—
      Mr. Ian Gow: My hon. Friend paid a well justified tribute to our noble and learned Friend Lord Broxbourne, but so eloquent was that tribute that I must ask whether my noble Friend has died. If not, what was the purpose of the eulogy?
      Mr. Cormack: If my hon. Friend had listened a little more carefully, he would have heard me imply that I believed that the manner in which the noble Lord
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      approached that subject was a model and a lesson for us all. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) had such a profound conscientious objection to one aspect of Government policy that he gave up an extremely promising career in the Government to sit on the Back Benches and criticise and vote against that aspect of policy. So he, of all people, should respect those of us who cannot go along with the Government on this policy.
      The task of those of us who oppose the poll tax is now to try to take the sting out of it, to make it fairer and to remove the aspects of it that cause most concern. That there is concern no one can deny. The vote last night eloquently underlined that. No Conservative Member does not know colleagues who agonised about how they should vote and who told us—I do not criticise them for it—as we went into the Lobby at the end of the debate last night that they were with us in spirit but did not quite feel they could accompany us into the Lobby. That happens in the House from time to time. .l hazard a guess that if there was such a thing as a secret ballot here, the result last night would have been rather different.
      We now have a clear commitment by the Government to introduce the poll tax and an equally clear recognition by my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench that some of us believe the tax is still unfair. The two amendments in my name have far more simple and less far-reaching aims than the amendment we debated yesterday.
      Mr. David Winnick: I have just arrived in the Chamber, but I understand that the hon. Gentleman said that if there had been a secret, rather than a recorded vote, the new clause would probably have been carried last night. I certainly think that the Government would have been defeated on a free vote, but does he agree that, if there were a free vote in the Cabinet, it is likely that there would not be a majority for the poll tax even there?
      Mr. Cormack: I have never been in the Cabinet and my stand on this and other issues is unlikely to make my accession to that august body any more probable.
      The amendments have two simple aims, and I believe that they would make this tax fairer in the eyes of the public. The first is designed to remove people over the age of 80 from liability for the tax, and the Government have already recognised the justice of my general ambition in the second. It would take out of the tax altogether those who are in receipt of what is now called income support and what was until recently known at supplementary benefit.
      I shall deal first with the over-80s. One of the pledges in our manifesto when I was elected in 1970—it was quickly implemented, I hasten to add—and which caused most emotional support in the country was that to give pensions to people over 80 who did not receive them of right because they had not contributed. Successive Governments since the war, Labour and Conservative, had held out on the contributory principle, but between 1968 and 1969 the Conservative Party, much to its credit, decided to commit itself to giving pensions to the over-80s.
      In a particularly eloquent speech in October 1969 the then hon. Member for Finchley—now my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—said:
      "there comes a time when a principle has to be abandoned if the reality of the situation is such that some people are suffering hardship."—[Official Report, 31 October 1969; Vol. 790, c. 591.]

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      That is as classic an enunciation of the non-doctrinaire, pragmatic, Conservative approach to social services as I have ever heard. It is a policy that still guides my right hon. Friend and her colleagues, and they could remind themselves of it now with profit.
      People who are over 80 form a group that includes a large percentage of elderly relatives—mothers, fathers, uncles and grandparents—whom younger people have taken into their homes and are looking after. They are providing that loving family place that all hon. Members ought to regard with genuine respect and admiration, because it is a true family unit. Such old people will have to pay the community charge, the poll tax, if amendments such as this one are not accepted.
      In order to help and encourage younger people who play this sustaining and often costly role, there is real merit in what I am suggesting. I know that my hon. and learned Friend the Minister who piloted the Bill with great eloquence and skill through the Committee will argue that many of these old people will be helped. That is true, and it is right that it should be so, but they will not be totally helped. They will all still have to pay something, and not a few of them will have to pay the whole whack, because they will not qualify for help.
      Last week we discussed the £6,000 cut-off limit that many of us thought was far too low in the context of 1988 and when measured against our exhortations to prudence and thrift. yesterday, in his speech in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates), my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment made a clear, unequivocal and total acknowledgment of the fact that such concessions as are available to the elderly in the Bill will be linked to the system, and that the £6,000 limit will apply.
      Many people over the age of 80 therefore will not qualify for help and although I do not think that there can be many families who consider these matters in mercenary terms that will be a real financial deterrent to some people. It may make them say that the cost of conversion of a room and all the other things that go with it make it impossible for them to take in a mother or a granny or whoever it might be. If such an old person who is no longer able to look after himself or herself has to go into some form of care, then within a measurable period, if not immediately, the cost to public funds will be infinitely greater than any concession that might be made by my right hon. Friend. We should look at these things in that light.
      Mr. Ralph Howell: I sympathise with my hon. Friend's proposition, but surely he realises that not all people over the age of 80 are in need of help. The people that he is concerned with are the over-80s who are not very affluent, but some old people over the age of 80 are not in that category. May I commend to my hon. Friend my new clause 5? It would transfer the raising of funds for local authorities to a VAT supplement. That would mean that people over 80 who had little income would pay a very small community charge, but people who were richer would pay considerably more.
      Mr. Cormack: I am sure that my hon. Friend and I are aiming to achieve similar ends. However, I am speaking not to new clause 5 but to amendment No. 40. That
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      amendment has one overriding and commendable virtue, if I may say so without immodesty. It is that it is simple, easy to understand and totally clear. My hon. Friend was right when he said that some people over the age of 80 are affluent and will not need the sort of support that I am suggesting. We are back to the child benefit argument. Most of those people will be paying high income tax on unearned income.
      In order to benefit those in genuine need who will not be affected by the concessions that have already been made, we should allow the so-called affluent over-80s to have a tax holiday—that is what it amounts to—for a small amount of tax. Those who have worked hard and saved, and who have made a real contribution to our economy, deserve a tax holiday at the end of their lives. In a spirit of general benevolence, there would be nothing to criticise in a Government who decided to award those people such a modest bonus.
      4.15 pm
      Mr. Tony Marlow: My hon. Friend is a very compassionate man and we all want to show compassion. Has my hon. Friend worked out roughly how much this will cost? How many people are there over the age of 80? It is 1 million or so, is it not—and at £200 each that is £200 million. My hon. Friend has pointed out the problem of elderly people taken in by and staying with their families. Would it not be more satisfactory if one were spending this sort of money to target expenditure particularly to those over 80 who are staying with their families rather than to over-80s in total? After all, some ex-Members of Parliament on index-linked pensions may not require this munificence.
      Mr. Cormack: If when he replies to this debate my hon. and learned Friend the Minister, in a spirit of conciliation, says that he will ensure that all those living with their families will be exempt, then I shall consider very carefully whether it might be better to accept that rather than the whole of that for which I am asking.I am a reasonable and moderate person and I like to encourage my right hon. Friends on the Treasury Bench to behave in a similar manner.
      It would not be in the interests of the House for me to accede to other interventions because I know that other hon. Members are anxious to speak. I should like to make one last point on this group of elderly people. It is one about which we should all remind ourselves from time to time—that inflation, at whatever level, always benefits to some degree the earners but never the savers or those who no longer have any earning capacity.
      I should now like to come to the second of my two amendments, No. 41. It deals with people who are in receipt of income support or, as it was so recently called, supplementary benefit. I readily acknowledge that the Government have gone to considerable trouble to try to ensure that those for whom the poll tax will be a real imposition will be cushioned from the blow. One does not have to be a great student of these matters, nor does one have to read every line of the Committee Hansard, to realise that the system that has been devised with skill and care, as I frankly acknowledge, is exceptionally complicated and very difficult to understand.
      Even the extra and welcome concession made on Thursday last is so complicated that I was stopped several times at the weekend and asked precisely what it meant. I

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      was not asked that question by people of low intelligence. [Interruption.] There is merit in simplicity; unlike one of my hon. Friends who is muttering, not all my constituents are fellows of All Souls. He would obviously grace its common room and high table, but not many of my constituents would be able to emulate him. Perhaps my hon. and learned Friend the Minister would reflect for a moment on the point that I sought to make in an intervention during yesterday's debate. I said that, if anyone had suggested a uniform domestic rate and that, without any regard for the location, size, character or condition of the property, the rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate should all pay the same, he would have been laughed out of court.
      However, we are now being confronted, not on a property basis, but on a personal basis, with precisely that recommendation. It is for that simple reason, and because I believe that the proposal flies in the face of a long and honourable tenet of Tory social policy, that I cannot go along with the Bill, as I hope I have always made plain.
      However, if we consider the most needy in our community, we see that most, if not all, of them are either qualified for or receive income support. Instead of making them quake at the thought of forms and devising a most elaborate system to try to bring their contribution down to about 20 per cent.—even if we help some of them with that—it would be a simple and proper gesture to remove those people from liability for tax. That gesture would be entirely in accord with the principle enunciated by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when she made her plea for pensions for the over-80s.
      In the past nine years, this country has prospered greatly. It has done so—I do not expect Opposition Members to agree with me—largely as a result of the courageous and determined leadership of the Government. But we are in danger of creating a society in which those least able to fend for themselves are not accorded the same recognition and regard as those who, by their efforts and ability, prosper and progress. I am all for incentives and encouraging people, and I am against punitive taxation, but hon. Members, especially on this side of the House, have a particular duty to consider those people.
      Our social services have been created by those in all parties. The invaluable contribution of the Christian Socialists in the last century and earlier this century should never be forgotten; nor should we forget the contribution of Lord Beveridge and those others in the Liberal party who played their part. However, neither should we forget the contribution of those hon. Members who sat on this side of the House and were proud to be members of the Conservative party, as I am today.
      Mr. Allan Rogers: They are different now.
      Mr. Cormack: Every generation has different priorities. Every generation of government has different tasks to accomplish. This generation of government has had peculiarly difficult tasks to accomplish.
      Mr. Rogers: They are not gentlemen now.
      Mr. Cormack: I ask the hon. Gentleman to contain himself a little.
      I implore my hon. and learned Friend the Minister to consider a little further this group of people, who are the most needy in our society and among whom are numbered
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      the elderly, the handicapped, the infirm and single parents struggling to bring up families. They have many domestic problems with which many of us would find it difficult to cope.
      When the Minister has considered that, I hope that he will agree that instead of an elaborate system of concessions and rebates, which make people feel that they are receiving state-administered charity which they have to go through so many processes to obtain, those people deserve extra help. Some of them will be permanently deserving, but for others it will be a helping hand to put them back on the road to earning a living. We should remove them from that tax liability.
      I do not believe that the acceptance of either amendment or both would make perfect what I still consider to be a bad tax, but it would help enormously. It would be popular in the country, but, far more important, it would be right and would show that there had been a clear and unequivocal recognition of those deserving groups.
      Of course anomalies would remain. The flat rate would remain. Someone living in a small house would still pay as much as someone living in a large house. But, in a spirit of true compromise, we would have grasped one particular nettle.
      I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will recognise that there is justice, reason and real purpose in what I am seeking to advocate. I sincerely hope that, at the end of the debate, there will be need not for a Division, but rather for thanks and acclamation.
      Mr. Tam Dalyell: I shall be brief, as I wish to ask only two questions. First, in response to the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack ), who presented his amendment very movingly, I must point out that we in Scotland are rather nearer the situation than people in England. Decisions are being made in homes in my constituency and in every other Scottish constituency as to whether granny or mother-in-law and others can remain any longer. Most people, come the poll tax, will decide that they do not take the decision on the basis of the poll tax. It is no good overegging and exaggerating a case because that damages it.
      However, another situation may arise if the decision is whether mother-in-law, granny or auntie should come to live with a young or middle-aged couple. The fact that the poll tax will have to be paid then enters into the equation and into the decision as to whether to take in the person.
      Perhaps the Minister will tell us whether there has been any assessment at the Department of the Environment in respect of the number of extra people who will now have to be paid for, as the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South suggested, in old people's homes, which is far more expensive to the state, and does not take into account the loss in terms of loving care. Have any calculations been made as to the effect of those measures on the number of people who will have to be accepted into publicly financed homes and, if not, why not?
      Secondly, I should like to ask the Minister a question, following the written question that I put to the Secretary of State for Scotland yesterday as to
      "how many extra posts will be created in the Scottish courts administration in 1988, 1989, 1990 as a result of the community charge legislation".

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      The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton) replied:
      "The explanatory and financial memorandum to the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Bill estimated that up to 40 additional staff will be required. This estimate remains unchanged and additional staff will be deployed to the courts as and when required."—[Official Report, 18 April 1988; Vol. 131, c. 324.]
      We have to face up to it that in the categories mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, as in every other category, there will be many borderline situations and there will be matters that can be resolved only in the courts. The Scottish courts are making preparations for this. What estimate has the Department of the Environment made of the extra number of courts and administrators that will be needed as a result of this legislation? Those are my two brief questions.
      4.30 pm
      Mr. Edward Leigh: I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) will forgive me if I comment briefly on his eloquent speech. We all sympathise with his caring attitude to those in need, particularly the elderly, but I am afraid that I cannot go along with what he had to say. First, he repeatedly referred to the community charge as a poll tax. It is not that, because already enshrined in the Bill are a number or exemptions and rebates. My argument with my hon. Friend is fundamental. I do not believe that we as a society should force members of our society with slender means into a kind of sub-culture where they are given money by society and not asked to make any contributions. That is not fair to them.
      Mr. Cormack: Is my hon. Friend suggesting that those who are in receipt, sometimes as a result of great misfortune or tragedy, of income support have not made a contribution to society? Some of them have made notable contributions. The logic of his argument is that they should get nothing.
      Mr. Leigh: No, that is not the logic of my argument. My hon. Friend has not heard the rest of my argument. If somebody is short of funds, rather than saying, "We shall put you on one side, we do not expect you to pay anything and we do not think you are part of society." is it not fairer to say, "We ask you to pay a modest contribution towards your community charge, say 20 per cent., and we will give you money, if necessary, to pay that contribution"? We shall not be pushing those people out of society and we shall recognise that they are part of society and involve them in the decision-making process. That is what the Bill does. It is dangerous to say to whole sections of the community, "Thou shalt not pay." I would rather deal with people in need through the rebate system.
      We all sympathise with what my hon. Friend said about those aged over 80. They have made an immense contribution over the years, and what he said will, I am sure, be popular in the country. However, we as a legislature also have a duty to consider the country's needs. Is it a good idea to argue that someone who is over 80, however wealthy, should make no contribution towards the cost of local government?
      Mr. Cormack: Does my hon. Friend not believe in the old adage, "No taxation without representation"?
      Mr. Leigh: Of course I believe in it. That is why I want to involve all members in our society, whatever their age or the extent of their personal finances, in the decision-making and taxation processes. Therefore, I cannot accept any exemption, whether it is that in amendment No. 40 or that in amendment No. 41, which drives away whole sections of the community from the principle of paying taxes.
      My hon. Friend said that he might be prepared to withdraw his amendments if my hon. and learned Friend the Minister for Local Government gave a commitment that those aged over 80 who stay with their families should not pay. Unfortunately, a commitment has already been given that those living in residential homes shall not pay.
      Mr.Dick Douglas(Dunfermline,West): Unfortunately?
      Mr. Leigh: I do not think it is unfortunate, and I shall explain why. In Committee, I was not the only person who said this. My hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) said the same thing. It was brave of him to do so, because in his constituency there are many people living in residential homes who vote for him. He argued that we were giving those living in residential homes an unfair advantage, and so argued against the amendment.
      One cannot solve a political problem simply by exempting one section of the community or rebating another section. We have to abide by what we believe in, and we believe that, generally speaking, everybody should be made to make some contribution to local government because everybody uses the services of local government. One of the major faults of the present rating system is that many people are not being asked to make any contribution and that is why the voting turn-out in local government elections is so small.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South is trying to drive a spear into the heart of the Bill by setting up new exemptions which will defeat the fundamental purpose of the Bill. For that reason I cannot support his amendments.
      Mr. Terry Davis: There is more in common between the hon. Members for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) and for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) than the latter has just suggested. He is at least being logical. He wants to scrap the exemption for people living in residential homes, whether those homes are private or run by the local council, and I give him credit for that logic. The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South, my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and I also wish to be logical. We wish to extend the exemption, so we have something in common, although we differ about the point to which it brings us.
      However, there is no logic about the Government's position, because they wish to exempt those people living in residential homes, whatever their income or wealth, simply by virtue of the fact that they live in residential homes. The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South, my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and I agree with the Government on that, but we wish to extend it to those who live with families in the community. That is because we recognise that the way in which the Government have framed the Bill has led to there being a fiscal disincentive to remaining in the community. The Government's policy

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      in a different sector is to encourage care in the community. It is nonsense to say that one wishes to encourage care in the community when one then imposes a tax that will be paid only by those who live with their families in the community.
      In practice, I suspect that in most cases the tax will be paid not by the elderly person living in the community but by the son or daughter of the family. In many cases, the elderly person will not be told and will not have to bother about it. In the same way, the family at present pays the rates for the dwelling in which the elderly person lives with the rest of the family. It is not true to say that these elderly people are not taxed, because they are. Everybody who lives in a house is taxed through the rating system. The hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle is nodding, so he accepts my logic. The only difference between us is where this argument takes us.
      I am disappointed that the hon. Gentleman has not followed his logic through by tabling an amendment to scrap the exemption for people who live in residential homes, which is what we want to do. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill), who is not with us—I am sure he has an excellent reason for that—expressed reservations about this in Committee. However, he, too, has failed to take the opportunity to amend the Bill to put into effect his logic and that of the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle.
      We are debating an amendment that has been tabled by the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South, and I wish to support that amendment. However, there is a difference between us. There is some merit in the point put to him in an intervention—that not all people over 80 need help. The answer to that is that not all people in residential homes need help. The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South should take another point into account. There is a weakness in his argument because it is not only people over 80 who need help. Many other people need help, and many pensioners between the ages of 60–65 and 80 will find themselves in similar and distressing circumstances. By introducing the threshold of over 80, he is discriminating between the two groups of pensioners.
      Mr. Cormack: I am trying to get something out of the Government, but the hon. Gentleman will readily acknowledge, just as I acknowledge the arbitrary nature of any age limit, that amendment No. 41 would catch many of those people, and would help them. I have not entirely neglected his point in tabling my amendments.
      Mr. Davis: I regard amendment No. 40 as the most important because it exempts completely those above the age of 80. However, coming to the hon. Gentleman's defence, there is a precedent for his amendment. The age allowance within our taxation system provides an extra personal allowance for those over the age of retirement, and it is increased for those over the age of 80. The hon. Gentleman could have produced that as a precedent if he had made a longer speech. Therefore, I follow his logic. I would support the hon. Gentleman's amendment this evening if he decided to press it to a Division.
      To cure the anomaly relating to elderly people I would settle for exemption at 80; I would settle for half a loaf if I could not get the whole. This anomaly might be amended by future Governments. I have no doubt that there will he great pressure and many campaigns, especially from pensioners' organisations, to reduce the age at which
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      exemption from poll tax comes into effect. We may well find that hon. Members on the Labour side of the House will be supporting such campaigns.
      There are other anomalies in the exemptions described in clause 2 and schedule I, as they have come from the Standing Committee, particularly in relation to prisoners. The Government wish to exempt those who have been convicted and serving sentences in prison, but those on remand awaiting trial will not be exempt from the poll tax.
      Many hon. Members know that people wait for months for their trials. Some of my constituents have waited for as long as a year. if such people are in prison, after being remanded in custody awaiting trial, they are still liable to poll tax. However, if they are found guilty, as many people are after having been remanded in custody, they will be exempt from poll tax during their future sentence and for the period that they have served on remand already. However, if they are found innocent, as many of them are, and released from prison, not only have they been deprived of their liberty during the period of remand but they have to pay the poll tax because they are not exempt. That is a ridiculous anomaly. Many Members on both sides of the Standing Committee recognised that as a silly anomaly. Therefore, I commend to the House amendment No. 103, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham), as it would exempt everyone who is on remand in custody. That would mean that people deprived of their liberty will be treated in exactly the same way.
      I also commend to the House amendment No. 125, which would exempt those who are physically disabled and put them on the same basis as the mentally disabled. The Bill at present exempts people who are severely mentally disabled. Many of us in Standing Committee would have liked to widen the exem ption to include the mentally disabled as well as the severely mentally disabled, but we lost that amendment in Committee. There is an important point to make about whether people who are mentally disabled and people who are physically disabled should be treated in the same way. I certainly support the amendment No. 125 tabled by my hon. Friends, which would remove that discrimination between mental and physical disability. If amendment No. 125 is accepted by the House, those who are mentally or physically severely disabled will be put on the same footing and will be exempt from poll tax.
      Therefore, I commend all three amendments to the House.
      4.45pm
      Mr. William O'Brien: This group of amendments is extensive. In view of the guillotine that has been applied to it, I shall not detain the House long, as I am sure there are other important amendments to discuss.
      Amendment No. 140 and other amendments tabled by my hon. Friend require attention. We ask the Minister to consider the amendments seriously and carefully as they involve much interest and principle. We consider that amendment No. 140 cannot operate because of the number of people without a main residence, as we saw with the intervention of Mother Teresa in "cardboard city". It is difficult to understand how such people will be registered for the poll tax and who will collect it from them. We consider that clause 2(3) should be left out of the Bill, as it will not work.

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      Likewise, amendment No. 222 refers to homeless people. There is much concern about the numbers of homeless. A person should be exempt from paying poll tax on any particular day if at any time on that day his sole or main residence is not a permanent structure. If these two amendments, referring to the collection of a charge from people who are not resident in accommodation that is a main structure, are not accepted, the Minister should explain how the poll tax will apply to the homeless and those without any main residence.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis) touched briefly on amendments Nos. 125 to 127, which refer to the severely mentally handicapped and the question of certified people who would be exempt. This does not go far enough. The Bill in its present form provides for exemption from the community charge only for individuals who are suffering from
      "arrested or incomplete development of mind."
      In other words, the congenitally mentally handicapped. We consider that lines 30 to 38 in schedule 1 ought to be deleted, because numerous people suffer similar levels of mental disability through accident or disease. They are just as much disabled as those who have developed this condition of mind.
      It is inequitable that someone who attains mental maturity only to lose it through an accident or disease cannot be exempt from paying a community charge while someone with a similar disability who has never achieved full development of mind receives exemption. This unequal approach to the exemption of the severely mentally handicapped should be changed. We hope that the Minister will make a statement to the effect that some consideration will be shown for people who have developed this condition through accident or disease.
      Perhaps this is an example of the Government trying to restrict the concession that they have promised. We understand that promises have been made about certain concessions. If provision is not made for the numerous people who suffer mental disability through accident or disease, the Government will be seen as trying to restrict the promised concessions.
      In relation to amendment No. 126, we suggest leaving out the word "certified" and inserting "deemed to be". Again, "certified" has an unacceptable inference, particularly in relation to the mentally handicapped. Its use is also contrary to accepted social service practice. To require such formalisation of the status of an individual is anti-social. The word "certified" should be taken out of this part of the Bill. The phrase "deemed to be" is more acceptable in our opinion and may allow a more flexible approach to be adopted by medical practitioners. In other words, we are of the view—and I am sure that hon.Members on the Government Benches will accept it—that consideration should be given to erasing anti-social references, such as "certified", from the Bill. We offer an alternative that we consider is more acceptable to the medical profession and those who have to deal with the mentally disabled.
      Amendments Nos. 128 to 132 relate to people in full-time education, such as pupils in schools and students, including student nurses. We are still waiting for a definition of "student". There has been some question about what constitutes a person in full-time educat ion. Should people who go on Manpower Services Commission
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      courses after leaving school or who are engaged in community work be treated as being in full-time education, or even as students? Exemption should also be considered for people on vocational or professional training. A similar situation applies to people undergoing apprenticeships or clerkships or studying for articles in various services.
      I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to the exemption of people in full—time education and students. If students are to be exempt, a large group of the population, which is committed to vocational training, should also enjoy a similar exemption. Therefore, we would ask the Minister to take into consideration the differences between the principles being applied to the various people in full-time education who can be classed as students.
      We understand that the exemption from payment of people who are continuing full-time education depends on whether child benefit is payable. Will a 19-year-old person who is continuing in full-time education but for whom no child benefit is payable also be exempt? I hope that the Minister will consider that carefully and give us some explanation or agree with the point made in the amendment.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Hodge Hill referred to amendment No. 103, which deals with people detained on remand. Such people do not receive services, cannot work and are not entitled to any benefit while in detention or custody, which, as has been pointed out, could continue for some considerable time. A similar situation applies to people detained for immigration reasons or awaiting deportation. Such people have no income, yet their liability to poll tax increases each day that they are detained. A person held on remand and convicted would have the time spent on remand taken into consideration when he was sentenced. We hope that the Minister will clarify such anomalies.
      A question also arises with regard to the benefit payable to the partner or spouse of a person held on remand, particularly in the light of the recent changes in benefits which leave a lot to be desired. We should like the Minister to clarify how a spouse or partner will fare while a person is on remand or in custody.
      In Committee, hon. Members on both sides referred to the position of people in holy orders. The Government gave undertakings to alleviate the impact of the community charge on nuns and monks. There is still no evidence that the Government intend to move on that matter. Nuns and monks are still not included in the list of exemptions. What do the Government intend to do about that?
      As time is fugit and several hon. Members want to speak on other amendments, I simply ask the Minister to reply to the points that I have made on behalf of my hon. Friends, and, if possible, to give assurances that the people to whom I have referred will receive the exemption accorded to other categories referred to in the Bill.
      Mr. John Hannam: I shall be brief because of the constraints on time. I want to say a few words in support of amendments Nos. 202, 203 and 204 which stand in my name. As has been pointed out, their essence is covered by the Opposition's amendment No. 125 and partly by amendment No. 41 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack).

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      I fully take on board the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) that we must be careful not to extend exemptions or tax reliefs so far across the board that they undermine the essence of the original system. I see the danger of that, but this debate is dealing with categories of exemptions and I would wish to see the severely physically disabled included in the category of the severely mentally handicapped for exemption from the community charge.
      I am sure that no hon. Member is unaware of the problems that the severely physically disabled face in everyday living. Their severe handicaps generally mean that a greater burden is placed upon them in seeking to live the everyday lives that we all want to see them have, and upon those who care for them. They face greater financial burdens than we have ever been able to provide for in our social security system. Even now, after the introduction of the new incomes support system, we have only a temporary bridging arrangement for the severely disabled through the trust fund being set up by the Disablement Income Group, and that is for the already most severely handicapped, not for those who will become severely disabled or handicapped after the introduction of the new scheme. Therefore, the future problems for the severely disabled are unknown and extremely worrying. Such people are unsure of their future position.
      We have always hoped that by now we would have achieved a substantial general disablement costs allowance which would at least provide for all the extra costs incurred by disabled people—medical treatment, clothing, transport and care in the home. All those essential requirements are costly and place additional burdens on those who try to overcome their disabilities. We have not reached that stage and I am anxious that the community charge should not be another burden which would be counter-productive to our aim to encourage disabled people to stay in the community at home rather than in institutionalised care.
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      I do not think that I need to elaborate any further today on the needs of disabled people. They are well known to all Members of the House. But it is important to remember that until the early 1970s the disabled were a basically forgotten sector of the community, living out of sight and unassisted through our systems of social provision. It has been only in the last 10 or 15 years that major efforts have been made to help them come out from behind those closed doors into everyday life, to work where possible, to join in recreational activities, to have social contacts and, above all, to live at home rather than in institutionalised care. I desperately want this progress to continue and I hope that the Minister will give sympathetic consideration to including the severely disabled in the community charge exemption category for the severely mentally handicapped.
      The Minister for Local Government (Mr. Michael Howard): All the amendments in this large group seek to exempt groups of individuals from the personal community charge. Before turning to the individual amendments, it may be helpful if I say a word or two about the Government's general policy on the subject and explain why wholesale exemptions of the kind proposed are unacceptable.
      One of our principal aims in abolishing domestic rates and introducing the community charge is to restore local
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      accountability. Local accountability must be restored and the only way to do it is to spread much more widely the burden of paying for community services. The community charge will achieve that aim by giving almost every member of the electorate a direct stake in how local authorities spend their money.
      Of course, we accept that there are some groups of people whose circumstances are special and who should be exempted from the community charge. For the most part they are people such as the severely mentally handicapped, for whom the process of local accountability cannot satisfactorily operate. But it is quite clear, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh), that widespread exemptions are counterproductive because they reduce the number of people who pay and therefore erode local accountability. For this reason, it is imperative that the number of exemptions is kept to a minimum.
      That is not to say, of course, that help should not be made available to those who would have difficulty in paying the full community charge. We are firmly committed to giving such help, but the right way to give it is through rebates, not through exemptions. The distinction lies in the fact that even those in receipt of the maximum rebate will make a small direct contribution towards the services that they receive, and the result will be that local accountability is preserved.
      Having stressed the importance of preserving local accountability, and therefore having explained our reluctance to accept further exemptions, I turn to the amendments in this group. I begin with the amendments to which reference was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack). My hon. Friend began his speech with a happy reference to Lord Broxbourne. I was delighted to hear that, because before I entered the House I was privileged to be in a professional association with Lord Broxbourne. Indeed, I thought at one stage that the reason for my hon. Friend's reference to Lord Broxbourne was not that mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Mr. Gow) but the fact that our noble Friend is within two years of the age at which he will qualify for the exemption from the community charge that was pressed upon the House by my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South. That was clearly a powerful additional point in support of his argument.
      Nevertheless, although I understand why my hon. Friend should have tabled such an amendment, and despite the fact that it was reinforced by that additional powerful consideration, I cannot, I fear, accede to his request. I hope, however, that I can reassure him that it is unnecessary.
      It is, of course, important that those on low incomes, and particularly the over-80s on low incomes, should receive assistance in paying the community charge. Our proposals give that assistance, both through rebates and through the increase in income support to reflect the minimum 20 per cent. contribution. In fact, as my hon. Friend will know, pensioners, and the over-80s in particular, are more generously treated under the income support and rebate systems than younger people, and quite properly so, because their needs are greater. A single person aged 80 or over receives a special premium of £13·05 a week in the current financial year on top of the basic income support payment, and a couple with one partner, or both partners, aged 80 or over, receive a

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      premium of £18·60 a week. These extra payments mean that for the over-80s the full 80 per cent. rebate will be available at significantly higher levels of income, and the rebate taper will extend further up the income scale than for others.
      I think that it is clear that we have paid special attention to the needs of the over-80s. I firmly believe that the correct way to recognise those needs is through the combination of rebate and extra income support rather than through total exemption. Our preferred approach targets help more precisely to those who need it and ensures that local accountability is preserved.
      Mr. Cormack: Could I just make two very brief points? First, I hope that the forms will be readily comprehensible. Secondly, and rather more seriously, would my hon. and learned Friend confirm that if even a married couple have savings of more than £6,000 they will not have the benefits to which he has referred?
      Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend need not belittle the importance of the first point, because it is a very serious one. I very much hope that the forms that will be available will be simple and comprehensible to those whom they are designed to help. On his second point, confirmation was given during the debate yesterday, at which I know my hon. Friend was present, that that is indeed the position.
      It was argued, although in a modest way, by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), among others, that the exemption for old people in homes creates an anomaly and a disincentive to care in the community. This is an argument to which I responded in Committee, and I am glad to explain once again why we do not believe that it will pose a problem.
      The first point to bear in mind is that those in residential care in nursing homes receive special treatment at present. Most receive rate relief, which is not available to old people living in their own homes. When the Abolition of Domestic Rates (Scotland) Act 1987 was considered in Parliament there was strong pressure for continuing that special treatment. In response, the Government agreed that those being cared for in such institutions should be exempted from liability to pay the personal community charge. If there is a disincentive effect, therefore, it is one that operates at present.
      I do not believe that there will be such an effect. Arguably, if an elderly person with a low income had to pay the full community charge in his home and pay nothing in an institution, that might influence the decision whether to stay within the community. But that is not the choice that most elderly, infirm or disabled people will face. Those on low incomes who remain resident in the community will be eligible for rebates. A single pensioner or a pensioner couple, for example, with no income other than the state retirement pension would qualify for an 80 per cent. rebate, plus an increase in income support payment to reflect the 20 per cent. contribution. That means that, in an area with the average community charge, there would be no financial incentive whatever.
      Mr. Brian Wilson: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Howard: If the hon. Gentleman will wait until I have finished my explanation, I will give way to him.
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      In an area with the average community charge there would be no financial incentive whatever, one way or the other. In a high-spending area there might be a relatively small advantage in removing to an institution, but in a low-spending area there would be a slight advantage the other way. But it is most unlikely, as the hon. Member for Linlithgow, I think, acknowledged, that this tiny financial advantage would influence the choice between care within the community and care in an institution.
      The hon. Gentleman sought to suggest that there might be a deterrent to those who were considering welcoming into their homes an aunt or uncle, or a relative of that kind. I believe that that point, too, was misconceived because, as he will be aware, the 20 per cent. community charge for someone on income support would be personal to that individual and would not fall on other members of the family in the way that the hon. Gentleman was suggesting.
      In the case of the better-off over-80s also a community charge liability is most unlikely to play any part in this decision. A pensioner with a small occupational pension, for example, would be most unlikely to gain in any way as a result of moving into a residential care home since he or she would have to contribute virtually all his or her income towards the cost of the care and accommodation in the home. Any gain from being exempt from the community charge would be dwarfed by the overall financial consequences of the decision to move into the home. For all those reasons, I do not think that there would be any significant effect whatever on this decision.
      Mr. Wilson: Will the Minister accept that he misrepresents the position in two ways? First, he misrepresents it by suggesting that a typical elderly person living with a family would be eligible for the maximum rebate. Will he confirm that someone who had an elderly person living in the family home and fairly modest personal assets would be liable for the full community charge, and that therefore there would be a considerable incentive for someone at present paying domestic rates to get that elderly person into residential accommodation?
      Secondly, does the Minister accept that it is again a misrepresentation to imply that there is no difference between the present position, in that there will be no rates to pay in residential accommodation, and the new position? If a couple and an elderly relative are living together in a family home, they are not put at a disadvantage, compared with residential accommodation, but the poll tax, when they will have three charges to pay rather than one, will create a disincentive. The Churches and everybody who is concerned with the care of the elderly has acknowledged that the Bill contains a strong incentive to get elderly people out of the family home and into residential accommodation. That is part of the reason why the poll tax is an anti-family tax.
      Mr. Howard: The hon. Gentleman is wrong on both counts. If there is concern, it is based on a misunderstanding. He is wrong about his first question. If a pensioner had assets, when he or she moved into a residential home his assets would be required to be applied towards discharging the costs of the care and accommodation that he received in that home. There would not, therefore, be any incentive of the kind to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

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      The hon. Gentleman is also wrong about his second point, for the reason that I gave earlier: that it is the pensioner and the pensioner alone who would be liable for any liability there may be to the community charge, be it 20 per cent. or greater. That liability would not fall on other members of the family.
      Mr. Wilson: Does the Minister not accept that he is using theory to justify legislation but that the reality is very different? If the Minister believes that an elderly person within the family unit makes that payment as an individual and does not realise that it forms part of the household calculations, he is living in a different world from that in which I and most elderly people live.
      Mr. Howard: I am glad that on this occasion I gave way to the hon. Gentleman. His question highlights one of the ways in which the Government's proposals are being fundamentally misrepresented. When those misrepresentations are corrected, as I have sought to do in the last few minutes, the answer from the Opposition is not that the Government's position is inaccurate but that it is a matter of theory. That is absurd. The answers that I gave the hon. Gentleman were not in any sense based on theory; they were based on the precise provisions of this legislation. It is only by departing from and misrepresenting the Government's legislative provisions that the Opposition have been able to engender the concern and the anxiety on which they rely in opposing the proposals.
      Mr. Terry Davis: Will the Minister confirm that if an elderly person now goes to live with another member of his family there is no increase in rates or in any other form of taxation but that if in future an elderly person goes to live with another member of his family there will be an increase in tax because that elderly person will be liable to the poll tax? If, however, that elderly person went into residential accommodation that was provided either by his council or privately he would not be liable to the poll tax.
      Mr. Howard: The answer is that there will be no increase for those who are already resident in that property. That is the relevant point, if we are considering deterrence.
      Mr. Terry Davis: Answer the question.
      Mr. Howard: I must answer the two questions that were put to me by the hon. Member for Linlithgow. It follows from the fact, as I have demonstrated, that there is no incentive of the kind to which he referred that no estimate has been made of the additional number of people who will move into residential homes. We do not think that that will arise. The hon. Gentleman also asked specifically about the effect on the courts. In England and Wales, disputes as to whether a person should be registered for the personal community charge will be matters for the tribunals—the local valuation courts, reconstituted under the relevant schedule to the Bill as valuation and community charge tribunals. In the explanatory and financial memorandum to the Bill we estimate that tribunals might need an additional 160 staff. They will be needed to deal with the effects of the non-domestic revaluation as well as matters concerning the community charge.
      5.15 pm
      As for the second of the exemptions that my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South wants, he seeks an exemption from the personal community charge
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      for those in receipt of income support. Again we think that an exemption of that kind would be unnecessary and counter-productive. It would undermine local accountability. Comprehensive assistance will be available to all those in receipt of income support.
      Without exception, all those in receipt of income support will be entitled to a reduction of 80 per cent. of their full community charge liability. They will therefore have to pay only 20 per cent. of the charge set by their local authority. What is more, income support levels will be increased to help recipients pay their 20 per cent. contribution. That increase will be based on the national average community charge. In areas such as that which my hon. Friend represents, where the community charge is lower than the national average, income support recipients will be slightly better off under the Government's proposals than they would be under the full exemption. That is a point upon which my hon. Friend will have to reflect.
      The hon. Members for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis) and for Normanton (Mr. O'Brien) referred to the position of prisoners held on remand. There was a vigorous Committee debate on this subject. Since then we have been reflecting on the arguments that were put to us and on the arguments that have been presented this afternoon. The case is not so clear-cut as has sometimes been suggested by the Opposition, but I accept that in some quarters there is considerable disquiet on the point. I shall therefore consider the points that have been made in the debate and will consult my colleagues and then report back to the House on the possibility of extending the exemption to cover prisoners on remand.
      Amendments Nos. 125 to 137, 202 to 204 and 208 are all concerned with the mentally or physically handicapped. Again these matters were exhaustively debated in Committee. We accept that those who are severely mentally handicapped and for whom accountability, the touchstone of this Bill, cannot operate should be exempt. There is a question as to how the phrase "severely mentally handicapped" should be defined for this purpose. As drafted, the Bill limits the definition to those who are
      "suffering from a state of arrested or incomplete development of mind."
      Strong concern was voiced in Committee that this definition was too narrow and that it did not cover those who become severely mentally handicapped in adulthood.
      In view of the concern that was expressed in Committee, I said that I would reconsider the definition in consultation with my colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Security and the Scottish Office. Discussions are continuing between the Departments concerned. It is a difficult issue and we need to make sure that we get it absolutely right. I am afraid, therefore, that I am not in a position to announce the Government's decision on that matter today, but I shall do so as soon as possible.
      Mr. O'Brien: In addition to the DHSS representatives, does the Minister intend to consult the organisations that are looking after the mentally and physically handicapped?
      Mr. Howard: The proper way forward is for the Government to produce their formula. When we come before Parliament with that formula, I am sure that those organisations will make their views known, and that at that stage they will be taken fully into account.

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      Amendment No. 126 also deals with a point that I agreed in Committee to consider. We envisage that one of the requirements that would have to be met before exemption could be claimed is a doctor's certificate. In Committee, however, hostility was expressed to the wording of paragraph 4(1)(c), which refers not specifically to a certificate but to someone being
      "certified as severely mentally handicapped."
      I said that we would look again at the wording of that phrase. We shall certainly do so. But it seems sensible first to see what the definition of "severely mentally handicapped" should be and what the criteria might be for claiming the exemption and then to look at the form of words used.
      Amendment No. 125 is rather wider in scope and I am afraid that I cannot extend to that amendment my offer of consideration that I made on the other two points. Amendment 125 seeks to exempt all those who are receiving severe disablement allowance. Because that allowance is paid to the physically handicapped, as well as those who are mentally handicapped, the amendment would change the whole purpose of the exemption. Amendments 202, 203 and 204 would also have the effect of exempting the physically handicapped, and must also—as I hope to persuade the House, despite the very persuasive advocacy to the contrary of my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam)—be rejected.
      As I explained in Committee, we do not believe it would be right to exempt the physically handicapped from the community charge. The community charge is specifically intended to extend to all adults. The exemptions are tightly drawn, and are—as I have already explained—based on the criterion of accountability. It would be untrue and, indeed, demeaning to those affected to claim that, because someone was physically handicapped, he or she could not play a full part in the widening of accountability which the community charge will bring.
      Mr. Wilson: How can the Minister defend what he is doing to the physically handicapped on the ground that it would demean them not to be able to pay a charge which many of them are not in a position to earn? Why in this section of the debate has he started talking about "the disabled" as a generic term rather than with the distinction—however odious it is to some of us—which has been drawn in terms of the mentally handicapped? It is surely possible within the legislation for the most severely physically handicapped people in our society not to be subjected to this charge. How can the Minister suggest that he is doing these people a favour by making them pay?
      Mr. Howard: I do not think that extending exemptions, which are related to the touchstone of accountability, would be the right thing to do for many of the disabled who are able to play a full part in local and national politics. It is no good the hon. Gentleman protesting in the way in which he does. He knows perfectly well that people who are disabled in this way are in receipt of special help, and their means will be taken into account in assessing their ability to pay the community charge and their entitlement to rebate. They will have their particular circumstances fully taken into account in that way, which is a more effective way than full exemption.
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      The hon. Member for Normanton referred to those amendments which seek to provide an exemption for members of religious communities. The hon. Gentleman may not have seen it, but we have already announced in a written answer given by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) on 31 March that we intend to provide for just such an exemption.
      The amendment, which we intend to bring forward in another place, will exempt from the community charge members of religious communities, the principal occupation of which is prayer, contemplation, the relief of suffering, education, or such other activities as may be prescribed. The exemption will extend only to those members of religious communities who have no income or capital of their own. A similar amendment will be brought forward to take account of religious communities in Scotland.
      The hon. Member for Normanton also referred to people who were in receipt of occupational training. He suggested that they should be regarded as being in a similar category—if I have understood him correctly—to those people who were still at school. I do not think that that would be a sensible course to take, because of the obvious differences between the two categories.
      Those people who are still at school but are over the age of 19 are in a very similar position—usually they are retaking A-levels or something of that kind—to other full-time students who, instead of staying at school, go to college to retake their examinations. They will almost certainly be eligible for the maximum rebate. They play a full part in the democratic process and we think that is a sensible way of dealing with them. Those who remain at school, and are under the age of 19, will be exempt in accordance with the provisions which are already in the legislation.
      Finally, I come to amendments Nos. 140 and 222, which would delete the provision that a person can be subject to the personal community charge whether or not he lives in a building, and add a provision that a person is exempt if his sole or main residence is not a permanent structure.
      These amendments would be unfair and discriminatory in their operation. They might, for example, result in an exemption for people who have their sole or main residence in mobile homes. Such a result would be intolerable. Most local authority services relate to people—not to property. That is one reason why we have decided to introduce a personal charge in place of a property tax. That is why I urge the house to reject that amendment also.
      Mr. Simon Hughes: This is a bit like the afternoon after the night before. The voices are calmer, the sense of tension is less and we hope that perhaps the Minister feels less under attack and a little more generous. He has told us a couple of things about the proposals, which he said in Committee he would accept, and on which he would announce his decisions today. He has now told us that these decisions have been deferred, although they will be made. We are grateful for that, but we need to push on the substance behind the amendments which we have been debating. The issue, although it has been approached in a different way from last night, is again: who should pay and who should not? Exemptions are about who should not. The Government are still

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      holding their position—with certain exemptions which they admit—that everyone should pay a flat rate. They say that that is necessary for accountability, and that that is the principle that they believe to be right.
      The Government have already accepted 10 categories of exemption. They are contained in schedule 1. Some of these amendments, which the Minister has not yet accepted—including some which stand in my name and
      the names of my hon. Friends—are tabled to clear up anomalies that arise from these definitions. There is an anomaly, for example, relating to prisoners. My belief is that, if there is a fair system, one would not continually need to add further categories of exemption. I agree largely with the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) that the way to deal with how people should be taxed should not always be to look for categories which one thinks it is either politic or in another way expedient to exempt. That manifests the unfairness of the proposal as a whole. Therefore, I do not argue for general political or expedient exemptions for large categories and, indeed, I have not tabled any amendments to do that. I have sought to tidy up some of the anomalies in the exemptions which have been put forward by the Government. I do not otherwise create great groups of people who should be exempt from the system.
      5.30 pm
      I say to the Minister—and it is interesting that this was the area on which most time was spent—that although, with his colleagues, he was resisting the banded community charge, it would perhaps help his colleagues, and his party generally, to look at the system that I and my colleagues propose—local income tax. The Minister may have seen in the papers yesterday that we have produced our response to his figures, which were produced a couple of months ago. In that response, we explain how local income tax should work. I have brought this response to the House for the Minister's consideration. Perhaps I can leave it with him. I am serious about asking the Minister to look at that response, and I am sure that he will. I shall not go into a great explanation, but the key point is that many of the assumptions in the Government's proposals are their own and would not apply under a properly worked out system.
      I will now illustrate relatively briefly the important points about exemptions, as opposed to people who will pay. Often in this House the best one can do is to choose examples which are relatively parochial to oneself. I shall compare some of the exemptions that are not to be granted with some of the figures that people will pay. I shall take my own borough because, as the Minister knows, it is relevant.
      On the Government's figures, the average poll tax will be £570 per person, which is the sixth highest projected poll tax in the country. That is based on current expenditure. Using that figure as the starting point, one can then look at how the tax will affect certain categories of people in a borough such as Southwark. I do not need to continue in great length, but it is a borough with great social problems and discrepancies in wealth and income. Southwark contains people in all the categories that we are discussing today.
      I want to put to the Minister, in more graphic form, concern that has been expressed about the way in which the exemptions and the full rates would work as presently
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      proposed. I refer to an unsolicited letter that was written to me by somebody in Rotherhithe. The letter, dated 11 February, states:
      "As one of your constituents, I am writing to ask you just how my family and I will stand in the event of the poll tax being passed. I am a widow with two daughters, who are both over 18 and working, and one son who will be leaving school this year.
      I have read that the poll tax could be as much as £500 per person in Southwark. That would make £1,500 from this household."
      That is an underestimate because, as I have stated, the poll tax would be more than £500. The letter continues:
      "Could you confirm that these figures are correct, and what, if anything, can be done to stop the Bill being passed"
      The answer to that second question is now more apparent. The letter then states:
      "To say that I am concerned is an understatement."
      That is the sort of concern that people have about the way in which the system, as currently proposed, will work. The result will be the sort of figures that I shall give for both the actual poll tax and the exemptions. My hon. Friends and I would argue that one could propose a local income tax rate of 6·8 per cent. On that basis, allowing for the rebate that the Government have conceded, a student nurse would pay a poll tax of £511. I should point out that there are many student nurses in Southwark at Guy's hospital. I repeat that that is allowing for the rebates. However, under the alternative system that we propose, that student nurse could pay £164. Under the Government's proposals, a one-earner couple would pay £1,140 in poll tax; we say that that need be only £362.
      I now give three examples of hon. Members who live in Southwark and who are appropriate examples. On the basis of my parliamentary salary of £22,548, I would pay £570 in poll tax. My local income tax would be £1,368. The hon. Member for Dagenham (Mr. Gould), who has just moved into my constituency and lives in a property that is about four times the value of mine, would pay, with his wife, a poll tax of £1,140. I am told that his local income tax would be £1,275. The Prime Minister, who has a salary of £51,068—she does not take the additional amount; only the Cabinet salary—would, with her husband, pay £1,140 in poll tax, just like the hon. Member for Dagenham and his wife, whereas under any fair system of income tax the Prime Minister and her husband would pay about £3,215—more than the hon. Member for Dagenham, myself, the student nurse or the one-earner couple. I do not think that anybody would object to that or criticise it as being unfair.
      We should compare that with the position of the people whom we seek to exempt. A debate will follow shortly on our first proposal relating to student nurses. I know that the Minister is making some concessions on that. I take the view not that all student nurses should be exempt, but that all those in training should be treated in the same way.I know that there is a later amendment, tabled by the hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) and his hon. Friends, and I shall support it. Such exemptions should apply across the board. There is an anomaly at the moment because some people studying some subjects will be exempt or will qualify for the 80 per cent. rebate, but others will not.
      Mr. Leigh: Will the hon. Gentleman give way on that point?
      Mr. Hughes: Perhaps we can come to the hon. Gentleman's point in the next but one debate, which is specifically about that matter.
      Mr. Leigh rose—
      Mr. Hughes: I should like to deal with the other exemptions.
      There is still an anomaly about people who have been severely disabled in accidents. The Minister said that he would think about that, but he did undertake to have done so by today. I ask the Minister to consider my amendment seriously, because it seems completely unfair that somebody whose disability is not congenital but derives from an accident, such as a motor or industrial accident, should be treated differently from other disabled people. If people are to be exempt because they have a disability and cannot profit from or contribute to the process of democracy in the same way as anyone else, I ask that all such people be given the same treatment.
      The hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis) made a point about remand prisoners. There is a strong argument for saying that somebody who is in prison does not benefit from local authority services in any way because he or she benefits from other services. However, if that person is then let off as a remand prisoner, it is ludicrous that he or she should have to pay the poll tax when a person who is convicted at the same time would not have to pay.
      The Minister has suggested that people in religious orders, in the categories that he defined, will be exempt. There is an amendment in my name to that effect, and I am grateful to the Minister for what he said. That seems entirely consistent with the argument that if one does not have any money, one should not have to pay. We are referring to people who, by their vows and profession, do not have the money to pay.
      The last category, which the Minister has so far resisted, is that of homeless people. My colleagues and I take the view that if someone does not have the ability to pay, he or she should not be within the system. I accept that there may be a drafting problem with that, but the Government's proposal would include people—not those in mobile homes, but others, examples of whom were given in Committee—who are homeless and who sleep in the underground subway at the Elephant and Castle or by the dustbins of the Tooley street hostel, which is on the other side of the river from the City, and people who do not have a place of residence. They cannot be expected to pay the poll tax, although they are at present. It is currently proposed that inspectors should be sent to collect the poll tax from people sleeping in doorways, who, even if they were found and identified, would hardly be likely to have anything in their pocket to contribute in the first place.
      Mr. Leigh rose—
      Mr. Hughes: No, I shall not give way. I should like to proceed quickly, because I know that other hon. Members wish to contribute.
      So far as the other amendments are concerned, it follows consistently that my attitude and that of my colleagues is that we should not exempt all those over 80. Some people over 80 have an adequate ability to pay. However, I support the amendment of the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) that those in receipt of income support should be exempt because, by
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      definition, they do not have enough income from any source to enable them to do without support from the state. The Minister knows—he has suggested this today, but I want to repeat it so that he understands it as a practicality—that in my borough, which will probably be the sixth highest poll tax-paying borough in the country, we shall have a higher than average rate. The 80 per cent. rebate will cover those on income support who are at the bottom of the income scale and there will be assistance on the basis of the average across the country, but that will leave a shortfall. The Minister knows that that means that everybody in a borough such as mine will have to pay a poll tax bill, however small their income and however much it has been accepted in the past that they will have support from the state because they cannot afford to pay more.
      Full-time school pupils should be exempt because they are not in the category of adult contributor to and beneficiaries from the community. Those who do not pay income tax should not pay the poll tax because they come in an income level below those from whom we think that society should take. The principle seems clear. I hope that at the end of the debate, and at the end of the series of debates on exemptions, we can re-establish the principle that exemptions should be not just for those who cannot contribute to the process, but for those who cannot afford to pay for the process in which, for the time being, they are beneficiaries.
      I ask the Minister to look specificially at the two remaining amendments which have not yet received his confirmation and approbation—the amendments relating to remand prisoners and those who become disabled later in life but who are not disabled from birth.
      We still look to the Government to accede to the view that we should still change the Bill, but it should still be made into a legislative framework for raising money for local services on the basis of ability to pay.
      I conclude with two sentences from a letter from another constituent who knows what the Government are proposing. The letter states:
      "Dear Mr. Hughes
      I would like to express my concern about the proposed poll tax … The Government ie Mrs. Thatcher seems to bulldoze her every whim on the British public!"
      My constituents understand. I hope that the Minister will understand that he needs to respond in good time, not just for the sake of people in Southwark, but possibly for many Conservative Members who are listening to the debate.
      Mr. Ralph Howell: While I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) on the motives behind his amendment and fully understand what he is trying to do to help those who are over 80 who have not got great resources, I am unable to support him. No category like that should be excluded because it includes all sorts of people, like the late Sir Charles Clore and Paul Getty, who would not have needed help.
      My principal reason for intervening is to try to persuade Ministers to think again about the whole concept of the unfairness of the community charge and to commend to them amendment No. 5 which I tabled. Then they would be able to sleep peacefully in their beds—
      Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): Order. I think that the hon. Gentleman is about to deal with an amendment which has not been selected because it is out

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      of order. I am sure that with his ingenuity he will be able to bring his remarks within the scope of the amendments which have been selected for debate.
      Mr. Howell: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was trying to say that rather than go down the route which my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South has suggested, there is a way in which we could solve the problem without these strange demarcation lines and exemptions.
      I do not believe that there should be exemptions. That is why I suggest to my hon. Friends on the Front Bench a system which would solve the problem. I hope that I am in order if I discuss a proposition for a supplement on VAT. It might be called a local government tax. I understand that we would need about 6 per cent. extra on VAT, making it 21 per cent., to raise the amount of money which the Government wish to collect from the community charge—a system which will work unfairly in the opinion of hon. Members on both sides of the House. Under the system which I propose there would be no need for exemptions, extra staff, registration or prosecutions because there would be no fraud. The system would be painless. It would mean that we could abolish the unsatisfactory rating system which we have and also avoid the even more unsatisfactory system which is proposed by the Government.
      Mr. David Winnick: What the Minister has said is not likely to satisfy the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack). I would describe the Minister's speech as a cogent form of Ridleyspeak. It is always more interesting to listen to the Minister than to the Secretary of State; nevertheless, the Minister made it clear that there is to be no concession. If there had been a free vote on the principle of the poll tax, no doubt the hon. Member for Gainsborough and Horncastle (Mr. Leigh) would have supported the Government, but he would have been in a minority. If he wishes to take my remarks as a compliment, he may do so.
      If the amendment relating to the over-80s were accepted, there would be anomalies. Some people over 80 have substantial means, but the large majority have not. The position is made much worse because anyone who happens to have accumulated over £6,000 is denied assistance. That is almost impossible to believe. Since the war, and probably before the war too, successive Governments have urged people to save. Yet what happens? If, having reached retirement age, they have accumulated the tremendous sum of just over £6,000, which may include redundancy money and which may have meant many sacrifices, they are denied housing benefit, and they will be denied assistance with the poll tax. That is why it is unacceptable.
      I am totally opposed to the poll tax. That will come as no surprise to the Minister and his colleagues. However, I will support any amendment such as that moved by the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South, which would make the poll tax that bit less offensive, obnoxious and less likely to cause hardship to people in need.
      5.45 pm
      The hon. Member for Staffordshire, South should be careful. According to some of the newspapers on Sunday, the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates), which was debated yesterday, was described as a sinister plot for power
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      initiated by the right hon. Member for Henley (M r. Heseltine). It could not, I think, have been a coincidence.
      The Observer story said:
      "Poll tax rift is plot for power."
      That was one newspaper. When I got to The Sunday Times, it had virtually the same story. It stated:
      "Ministers alleged yesterday that the rebels were motivated by hostility to the Government and that Michael Heseltine was the prime influence behind the uprising."
      I can only conclude that No. 10 had been very active over the weekend, that Mr. Bernard Ingham was doing overtime, that there was a co-ordinated attempt to smear anyone on the Government side who was critical of the poll tax and that the obvious way of undermining the potential revolt was to describe it as a sinister plot by the right hon. Member for Henley to get into No. 10. It did not work yesterday. The Government had their smallest majority in this Parliament, and they cannot be happy about what happened.
      There is tremendous fear among people, not least the elderly, about what the poll tax will mean. Much of that fear is justified. The whole concept of a tax without account being taken of people's ability to pay is novel and wrong. As I have said, I am only too willing to support any amendment which will help to ensure protection for people who will be penalised by the poll tax.
      What an odd position it is. Before the Government came to office, it would have been unthinkable that any Government would introduce a tax which would require a pensioner to pay the same as a multi-millionaire, with the pensioner not being allowed any assistance if he had savings of over £6,000.
      Mr. Nicholas Bennett: What about road fund tax?
      Mr. Winnick: This is a form of taxation. The hon. Member for Pembroke (Mr. Bennett) makes the weakest possible case. If he believes that the poll tax is right and proper, surely the next step for him is to suggest that everyone should pay the same rate of income tax. The hon. Member for Pembroke could not persuade many of his colleagues to support the Government last night. If there were a free vote, clearly he would be in a minority on his side.
      I hope that the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South will put his amendment to the vote. If he does, I will support it. It is a step in the right direction. Anything which would protect people from this obnoxious tax should be supported.
      Mr. Cormack: With the leave of the House, I can assure the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) that neither the Patronage Secretary nor any of his colleagues has been anything other than courteous to me. Not one has sought to dissuade me from my long-held personal convictions expressed over a long period on this issue.
      We have had an interesting debate and I know that it is the wish of the House to proceed to debates on other subjects of importance. I understand that the Opposition would prefer not to take up time by dividing on this; I understand that, because the guillotine places great constraints on us. It would be dishonest of me to seek leave to withdraw the amendment, because my hon. and learned Friend the Minister, who gave a typically courteous reply, did not meet any of the points that I advanced.
      The spectre of £6,000 will haunt the Government until something is done about it. As on many previous

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      occasions, I am content to say that our help is in the Lords and to allow the amendment to be negatived, but I am not content to seek leave to withdraw it.
      Amendment negatived

    Clause 5

      PERSONS SUBJECT TO COLLECTIVE COMMUNITY CHARGE
      Dr. John Cunningham: I beg to move, amendment No. 141, in page 4, line 45, at end insert—
      '(8) A registration officer shall seek only such information as he may reasonably require in connection with his functions.'.
      Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd):With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 142, in clause 6, page 5, line 2, at beginning insert
      'After consulting his employing charging authority as to the implications for civil liberties of compiling and maintaining a community charge register and having regard to any code or codes of practice which may be issued by the local authority associations and the National Council for Civil Liberties,'.
      No. 2, in page 5, line 2, after 'Or, insert,
      'In accordance with subsection (IA) below.'.
      No. 3, in page 5, line 4, at end insert,
      '(1 A) The registration officer shall perform his duties under this section in accordance with a code of practice drawn up by the Secretary of State in consultation with local authority representatives and the National Council for Civil Liberties.'.
      No. 210, in page 5, line 35, leave out from 'duty' to end of line 36 and insert
      'to take all reasonable steps to obtain such information as is reasonably required by him.'
      No. 153, new schedule—Personal Data—

      '1. Information in the form of personal data which is held by the Registration Officer shall be obtained and processed fairly and lawfully.

      2.Information in the form of personal data which is held by the Registration Officer shall be held only for the purposes of this Act.

      3.Information in the form of personal data which is held by the Registration Officer shall not be used or disclosed in any manner incompatible with the purposes of this Act.

      4.Information in the form of personal data which is held by the Registration Officer shall be adequate, relevant and not excessive in relation to the purposes of this Act.

      5.Information in the form of personal data which is held by the Registration Officer shall be accurate and, where necessary, up to date and shall not be kept for any longer than is necessary for the purposes of this Act.

      6.Appropriate security measures shall be taken against unauthorised access to, or alteration, or disclosure or destruction of, information which is in the form of personal data and which is held by the Registration Officer and against accidental loss or destruction of such information.

      7.An individual shall be entitled—

      (a) at reasonable intervals and without undue delay or expense—

      (i) to be informed by the Registration Office whether he holds information in the form of personal data of which the individual is the subject; and

      (ii) to access to any such information held by the Registration Officer save that such access may be refused where necessary for the purposes of the prevention or detection of crime.

      8.The Registration Officer shall neither request nor hold information in the form of personal data, which falls within the following description of information—

      (i) Police or criminal records,

      (ii) Medical records,

      (iii) Social work records,

      (iv) Education records,

      (v) Employment records,

      (vi) records of any individual under the age of 18, or

      (vii) information relating to housing benefit or housing allocation which is of a sensitive personal nature.

      No. 211, in page 5, line 36, at end add—
      '(9) The registration officer shall be responsible for ensuring that the register remains the property of the charging authority and that no part of it is sold by the charging authority or any of its employees.'.
      No. 212, in page 5, line 6, at end add—
      '(9) A registration officer's duty to compile and maintain a register shall not include the power to cross reference the register with any electoral register.'.
      No. 152, in clause 21, page 13, line 33, at end insert—
      '(3) Schedule (Personal Data) below (which contains provisions about the collection, retention and disclosure of information) shall have effect.'
      No. 167, in schedule 2, page 82, line 3, leave out 'any' and insert 'the'.
      No. 167A, in page 82, line 3, after 'information' insert
      'set out in paragraph 16'.
      No. 138, in page 82, line 29, leave out paragraph 11.
      No. 213, in page 84, line 6, at end insert—
      '(1A) The regulations may include provision that a person shown in a charging authority's register may have access to any supporting files or documentary evidence regarding themselves held by the registration officer for the purposes of determining that person's liability to a community charge of the authority.'.
      No. 149, in page 84, leave out lines 10 to 16 and insert—
      '(3) The extract and list shall not be copied and supplied to any person for any purpose other than for the purpose of administering the collection of the community charge and related purposes specified in this Act.'.
      No. 139, in page 85, line 5, at end insert—
      '21. In the course of carrying out his duties under the provisions of this Act a Registration officer shall not request or record the following descriptions of information—

      (i) police or criminal records,

      (ii) social work records,

      (iii) records held by the health authorities,

      (iv) Inland Revenue records,

      (v) records on the local authorities own employees held for employment purposes, and records of job applicants.'.

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      9. Any individual who suffers damage or distress as a result of the breach of any of the provisions of paragraphs 1 to 9 of this Schedule shall be entitled to compensation from the Registration Officer for that damage or distress unless the Registration Officer was not negligent in permitting or causing the breach.
      10. For the purposes of this Schedule "personal data" means information—howsoever recorded—which relates to a living individual who can be identified from that information (or from that and other information in the possession of the Registration Officer), including any expression of opinion about the individual.
      11. Nothing in this Schedule shall affect the rights of any data subject under the Data Protection Act 1984, as defined by that Act, save that for the purposes of that Act the Community Charge is not a tax.'.
      Dr. Cunningham: I shall also address my remarks to amendments Nos. 142 and 152, which is a paving amendment for amendment No. 153, which is the major amendment in this group. It sets out a new schedule embodying our views about privacy, personal data and the need to have some comprehensive safeguards written into the Bill to protect individuals and families from unnecessary intrusion into their personal lives and personal affairs, and to protect them from the use of these sensitive data by other people when the poll tax register is compiled, and perhaps available for sale for commercial purposes. Amendment No. 153 embodies the data protection issues which we should like to see written into the Bill.
      Many British people have always objected to personal information relating to them or their families being collected and held by anyone, whether by Government, local government or an agency. It is felt, understandably, to be an invasion of privacy that someone else can read about the details of our private lives. Such information should be kept only when absolutely essential for the proper administration of our affairs. Only those with good reason to hold such information should be able to do so or to have access to it.
      In particular, many people think it undesirable that the state should know the private details of the lives of individual citizens. There is a further closely related objection to holding large amounts of personal data, which is that the use of the information can, either intentionally or otherwise, cause distress or harm to the person to whom it relates.
      For many years, many organisations, political parties and individual Members of Parliament—first and foremost in this is the National Council for Civil Liberties—have received complaints from people who have suffered as a result of the information about them being disclosed without their consent, often without them having any knowledge of such disclosures. Obviously, I know of that from my experience, as I expect other hon. Members do, of seeing in my surgery constituents who have suffered in exactly this way. Notwithstanding yesterday's vote, the Government seem hellbent on proceeding with this awful legislation. That is all the more reason why some specific and detailed safeguard on these issues should be written into the Bill.
      The public are well aware of the threat that these proposals pose to them. Recently, Marketing Opinion Research International carried out a survey of opinion on this matter for Manchester city council, which showed that 76 per cent. of those questioned believed that the poll tax would involve officials snooping and intruding into their personal affairs and family lives.
      Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us in what precise terms the question was posed?
      Dr. Cunningham: No. I cannot—[Laughter.] Hon. Members laugh, but I was about to say that I cannot give the hon. Lady that specific reply now but that I can furnish her with a full copy of the survey and the results, if she wishes. That shows that one should bring with one every document to which one refers. I hope that she will accept that the survey was properly conducted with a large sample and I assure her that the reputation and professional standing of the company is beyond question. It was a properly conducted survey of opinion carried out professionally.
      Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: By whom?
      Dr. Cunningham: The hon. Lady cannot have been listening to me. I said that the survey was carried out by Market Opinion Research International, which is MORI for short. I am more than happy to let her see a copy of the full document if it will help to convince her of the result.
      We know that the poll tax will not be a tax or duty within the meaning of section 28 of the Data Protection Act 1984.That assurance was given to us in Committee by the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment. Therefore, it is pertinent to ask why the Government do not agree that the data protection principles should be enshrined in the Bill in a declaratory manner, as we are suggesting. That is what amendment No. 153 is mainly about.
      In addition, paragraph 8 of the new schedule ensures :
      "The Registration Officer shall neither request nor hold information in the form of personal data, which falls within the following description of information—

      (i) Police or criminal records,

      (ii) Medical records,

      (iii) Social work records,

      (iv) Education records,

      (v) Employment records,

      (vi) records of any individual under the age of 18, or

      (vii) information relating to housing benefit or housing allocations which is of a sensitive personal nature."

      The Government have given us no assurances on those matters. Ministers say that these matters will be covered by secondary legislation which will come before the Houss in due course. I cannot see the argument for proceeding in that way, and it remains unconvincing. What is the argument against writing these guarantees of personal privacy into the Bill? There is an overwhelming case for saying that the House should do so.
      The Department of the Environment and Welsh Office yellow document, "The Community Charge", was published in December 1986. Page 10, paragraph 32, states:
      "The only sources of local authority information that will not be accessible to the registration officer will be those that contain material of great personal sensitivity—social workers' casework files, for example, and information held by the police."

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      That is a much narrower statement than what is set out in paragraph 8 of the new schedule, but even the assurance that the Government gave in that publication is not in the Bill itself.
      6 pm
      We know from other disclosures since the Bill left Committee that other interference in privacy and civil liberties is guaranteed by what the Government propose to do. In a recent letter to me, the Minister for Local Government confirmed that, so that students can be "correctly and readily identified" for the purposes of the poll tax, they will have to carry personal identity cards. That is a serious step down a dangerous road.
      We know that Ministers are under pressure from their own colleagues in local government—that is, Conservative councilors—to ensure that every adult over 18 is personally identified in some way by the allocation of either a personal identity number or a card. That information was contained in the minutes of a meeting of the Conservative-controlled Association of District Councils policy committee on 20 January this year. So we know that pressure is building up in the Conservative party for more and more information to be held about people and for more and more national means of identifying and checking on them for the purposes of poll tax collection and registration.
      It has even been suggested by the same group of Conservative councillors and others that people presenting themselves with applications for benefit under the new social security system will have to demonstrate that they are registered for poll tax before they can even be allowed to have benefit. That is another intrusion into people's privacy.
      All those matters need to be dealt with and safeguards need to be given to people by specifically writing guarantees into the legislation. I do not believe that it is acceptable or even sensible for those things to be dealt with in a piecemeal way and for those matters to come before the House in dribs and drabs, as Ministers apparently intend. They should be put into the Bill itself before it leaves this House.
      Mr. Bruce Grocott: I strongly support amendment No. 153, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham).
      The House should be concernd, as it has been on occasions, about the relationship between any information collected for poll tax purposes and information that is already available on the electoral register—hence the name "poll tax", which will be attached to the tax for as long as it is in existence. I am concerned about the security of the information that may be collected for the poll tax register because at present the security for information on electoral registers is inadequate. Electoral registers are available to any type of organisation that wants to buy and use them for any purpose.
      The House may be interested to know that last year I took part in a survey that was directed at about one fifth of local authorities—84 in total, including London boroughs, metropolitan, Welsh and English districts. The survey tried to discover what use people made of the electoral registers, other than for the agreed purpose of establishing people's entitlement to vote. It will not come
      720
      as a surprise to any hon. Member who has ever taken an interest in these matters that no fewer than 93 per cent. of the local authorities that we surveyed sold their electoral registers indiscriminately.
      We all know what electoral registers can be used for. They are used for junk mail or by debt collection agencies. We know well enough some of the methods used by those agencies. The registers are used by private detective agencies and by a whole range of other groups and people who find it convenient to get hold of electoral registers as a cheap means of establishing the people who live in certain areas.
      I raised that matter because the present law is uncertain. Regulation 54 of the Representation of the People Regulations 1986 states:
      "So long as there are sufficient copies available after allowing for the number which may be required for his registration duties … the registration officer shall supply to any person copies of any part or parts of the electors lists on payment—".
      If that happens with electoral registers, we need to ensure that it does not happen with the poll tax registers. Until we have proper safeguards for the use of electoral registers, to protect the privacy of those who fill in their forms in good faith, we should be keen to support amendments such as the one tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland to protect people's privacy when the poll tax registers are compiled.
      The simple principle is that, when people fill in their electoral registration forms, they do so with one purpose in mind—to establish their entitlement to vote. If the local authority uses the register for any other purpose whatever, that is a gross infringement of the privacy that people assume they have when they fill in their forms. It is clear that that information should not in any circumstances be sold commercially or used by private commercial companies for matters that are totally unrelated to the democratic process, which is what the electoral register is for.
      We know about the flaws in the electoral register system and we know about the ambiguity of the law. So far, the Home Secretary has taken no action in that respect. It is unacceptable for the House to propose further uncontrolled registers—in this case the poll tax register—before we have dealt with the more immediate problem of the electoral register. At the very least, we would support the amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland.
      Mr. Dalyell: I thank the Minister for his courtesy in answering my previous question. In relation to the hon. Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) and my worries, I can only say that the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. We shall not be able to tell who is right until we have experience of the operation of the scheme.
      I ask the Minister to answer another question, which concerns the personal identity card mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham). There is real worry in the universities about the implications of a student identity card. In a sense, once again, the Scots are the guinea pigs. It has become a real issue in the university of Edinburgh. I do not normally refer to personal circumstances, but I have two children, both of whom are at that university at the moment. The students are extremely concerned about the implications of a personal identity card. Incidentally, I do not see how one can operate a poll tax at all without a personal identity

      721
      card because, by their nature, students are for ever changing lodgings. How one can keep track of students' situations without a personal identity card, I know not.
      My question is very precise and it is simple to ask, though possibly not so simple to answer. What is the Government's philosophy in respect of personal identity cards in any university, but particularly in the big urban universities?
      Mr. Simon Hughes: I rise briefly to speak to the amendments in my name and those of my hon. Friends, which in the group selected by Mr. Speaker are amendments Nos. 2, 3, 210, 211 and 212. This is an important debate because one of the express concerns, which is an unusual one in connection with local government finance, is that of civil liberties. That is what this series of amendments seeks to cover.
      Amendment No. 210 seeks to apply the same test in England and Wales as that which already exists in the Scottish legislation. A similar amendment has been tabled by the Labour party. It is important to make sure that the powers of registration officers to seek information are only those reasonably required. That test, as people know, has been well tried in the courts.
      Clause 6, if left unamended, would be nothing less than a snooper's charter. The Secretary of State, when the matter was put to him in a radio interview, accepted that as an appropriate description for the sort of activity that would be carried out by people chasing up information. The clause would allow registration officers
      "to take reasonable steps to obtain information."
      That phrase is much wider than that which the Scottish legislation uses and which we as a society have accepted is appropriate to govern the activities of officials. Registration officers could subjectively justify their activities.
      As someone who worked as a lawyer before I entered this House, I know, as do most right hon. and hon. Members, the difference between a subjective and an objective test. Some crimes one may commit irrespective of one's intentions and one's own views. One may commit other crimes whether or not one has any understanding of what the crime is. That is the crucial difference. I should like to hear the Minister explain why we must accept this version of the Scottish wording and not correct what is an anomaly.
      Mr. Douglas: The hon. Gentleman should not go away with the idea that section 17 of the Scottish Act offers any great safeguard. I hope he is not trying to indicate to this House that the provisions of the Scottish Act protect civil liberties. We know only too well, as has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), that for the poll tax legislation to work, every official who falls within its provisions will need personal identification.
      Mr. Hughes: The next point I want to make is that the Bill has become law in Scotland and that people there are now having to face the reality of it. We are seeing what happens in Strathclyde, with the way in which people have been going around with protection in order to collect information. The law as it applies to Scotland is not acceptable. All the implications of a local authority poll tax are that there will be intrusion into people's privacy all the time. The intrusion to which we already object in
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      respect of Scotland is grossly worse in the proposal for England and Wales, without any further justification: I cannot think of any.
      People need to be alert to the fact that we have in this legislation a limitless list of opportunities for people to look for information. They may refer to the housing department, season ticket records, library records, bus pass applications, and records of home improvement grants. When CIPFA reported in the context of the Scottish Bill a couple of years ago, it produced a list of 12 categories. They were the rent rolls of housing bodies; housing waiting lists; housing benefit records; registers of births, marriages and deaths; education authority records, including grants; planning and building control records; health authority records, except medical records which are protected—
      Mr. Irvine Patnick rose—
      6.15 pm
      Mr. Hughes: No, I will not give way because the list needs to be read in its entirety. It is a great long list of records, all of which will be available to snoopers who want information about people who have registered their names for poll tax. Those who hold those records will then be able to sell them.
      The remaining categories are the records of national utilities, such as electricity and telephone companies; local authority payroll records; insurance claims; estate agents and private data sources. That is the list.
      What happens if, as occurred in Strathclyde, the person canvassed is not totally willing to give information of a type that the person feels he should not have to give? The Government's original proposal in the Green Paper was:
      "Local authorities will be able to develop new techniques to meet the new circumstances that they will face."
      That will hardly encourage those who are concerned about civil liberties.
      Then there is the information that comes in the form of tittle-tattle from neighbours and unsigned notes delivered to the rates office. There will also be general surveillance of the kind undertaken by the DHSS, particularly if cohabitees are now to be treated as husbands and wives: who comes in through the back door after dark?
      Mr. Patnick rose—
      Mr. Hughes: I will give way in a moment.
      All that intrusion into civil liberties will of course cost a fortune. The administrative costs will be enormous. It will also mean that there will be available commercially a register compiled with the utmost "Nineteen Eighty-Four" mentality—the brave new world—and sold off so that almost everybody and the whole commercial world will be able to share that information.
      I now give way, because I shall be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman's defence.
      Mr. Patnick: I cannot understand the hon. Gentleman's logic. Much of the information is already available and, as has been discussed before in another place, is transmitted between various authorities. It is already being shoved around the country. Even under the right-to-buy provisions, one can claim benefit from another authority; other authorities are able to obtain such information. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the commerical sale of such information is wrong?
      Mr. Hughes: I object to its commercial sale, but I object also to a society in which all the information provided on every form one completes ends up a single place, in one computer, where there is a great master record. I know that the Government are determined to take over everything, but we now face significant implications in respect of the mass collection of information.
      We as a country have always resisted the notion that the Inland Revenue should be able to pass information to the DHSS just at the request of the DHSS. We have always objected to there being one computer network controlled by the state. Our country is meant to defend the liberty of the individual and not the rights of the state. That is why it is vital that we do not allow individual items of information to be collected by people—in a very undesirable job—going around and locking one up if, being unsure of one's rights, one does not give that information.
      I ask the Minister specifically to consider also amendment No. 213. If enacted it would provide that
      "the regulations may include provision that a person shown in a charging authority's register may have access to any supporting files or documentary evidence".
      In order to compile the register, the registration officer may draw on anecdotal evidence, including letters. People will have the right to examine the register but, just as in other areas, they may want to go further than that and wish to know why it is that their name is on the register. Unless one sees the supporting documentation, one needs access to the files and not just to the register itself.
      Even if the Minister does not at this stage accept our proposal that the sale of registers should be forbidden, I hope he will at least accept the concern felt by somebody who happens to represent the NCCL as its constituency Member of Parliament but who also believes in the rights of ordinary people, who know nothing about the law but who believe at the end of the day that the minimum information about them, and not the maximum, should be given to either central or local government.
      Mr. Peter L. Pike: I wish to speak to this important group of amendments because they protect the rights of individuals in society, including their right to privacy, which many of us see as vital.
      The lead amendment in the group is very simple but very important. It expresses our belief that the community charge registration officer should have only the information that is reasonably required for the purposes of collecting the poll tax. It has a good deal to commend it, and we feel that the Government should be prepared to move in that direction.
      The Government have repeatedly claimed that this is not a tax to vote, and therefore disclaim the name "poll tax". But, as I said many times in Committee, the position is even worse. It is not merely a tax to vote, but a tax on putting one's name down on the register to vote, for it is not even necessary for a person to use his vote. As has been made clear throughout our proceedings, the registration officer will have the right to check the electoral register. It stands to reason that, immediately a person places his name on the register so that he can vote in local or parliamentary elections, he will be charged the poll tax. This is a tax for claiming the right to vote, a right that we have upheld for many years. It is not so many years since it was extended to 18-year-olds. Obviously, we want to protect a right that is so important in our society.
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      The tax will prove both unpopular and difficult to collect. As well as creating a register for its collection, the legislation will enable that register to be sold. We must add provisions to stop that. The Government have said that they have made no decision on the matter, but we hope that they will be prepared to amend the Bill to prohibit such sales.
      We are also concerned about the sources from which the registration officer can obtain information. On 9 February in Committee, the Under-Secretary of State said:
      "the Secretary of State will have power to place prescribed information off limits to registration officers. We have made it clear that the power will be used to ensure that registration officers do not have access, for example, to social work case files and national sources of data, such as Inland Revenue records and health records. There is a danger of becoming embroiled in a debate on sensitive information when the basic information required by the registration officer will be simply the names and addresses of adults resident in his area. It will be unnecessary for him to have access to more sensitive information."—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 9 February 1988; c. 484.]
      If that is what the Government intend to do, and if they intend to do it by regulation, it is no good telling hon. Members that the Secretary of State will have the power to put certain sources of information "off limits". If the Government believe that those sources of information should be off limits, they should be prepared to accept some of the amendments.
      Amendment No. 139 refers to police and criminal records, social work records, health authority records and Inland Revenue records. That would seem to go along with the wording used by the Under-Secretary in Committee, and the Minister has used similar words on a number of occasions. If the Government are saying that they agree with us that those sources of information should not be available to the registration officer, they should be prepared at least to accept amendment No. 139.
      We believe that the legislation will result in an intrusion on privacy. The danger of it is that the Government recognise that the tax will be extremely difficult to collect, and are therefore leaving open as many doors as possible. They want to use every behind-the-scenes method. They may use snoopers, or intrusion on records here, there and everywhere. They know that if they have not the sources of the information, they will not obtain it, and will then find it extremely difficult to make the tax work.
      If the Government were convinced that the legislation was fair, and a better system than that which it replaces, the people would be prepared to accept it. It is because the system is wrong that the Government have had to include these provisions. I hope that they recognise the need to safeguard the information that is required, the way in which it is required and the way in which it can then be used. That is very important if we are to protect the rights of our citizens.
      Mr. John Butterfill: Much of what we have heard from the Opposition today reflects what we heard in Standing Committee. It seems to indicate a degree of paranoia among certain Opposition Members about what is required under the legislation.
      The community charge registration officer requires only to know names and addresses to compile the register. He does not need large amounts of sensitive information, as is being suggested by some Opposition Members. There is no necessity for him to acquire such information, nor, even if

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      he were able to acquire it, would he be able to sell it. All that he would be selling would be a list of names and addresses.
      Mr. Simon Hughes: Our concern is that we should not give the power for the information to be obtained. We should limit what is obtainable to the minimum that is necessary. We could then preclude any chance of the information being available. As the Bill is now worded, it is available, and people will be able to ask for it.
      Mr. Butterfill: The point has been made a number of times. The problem is where the registration officer should go. It was suggested in Committee that he should not be permitted to ask the police for the information. That strikes me as ludicrous. Opposition Members cannot have it both ways. In yesterday's debate on new clause 1, they were suggesting that there was not a problem. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) said, I recall, that 99 per cent. of the British public were law-abiding. If that is the case, we are talking merely about catching up with the odd 1 per cent. I suspect that it may be rather more than 1 per cent., and I also suspect that some Opposition Members agree with that. Nevertheless, a minority of people will have to be pursued for their names and addresses—people who would otherwise try to evade the tax. It seems to me entirely reasonable that the officer concerned should have power to obtain from other Government Departments the information that he needs, names and whereabouts of those people, in the execution of his duties. If he is entitled to do that, he has no real interest in their medical or social welfare records. All he wants to know is where they are in order to perform his statutory duty.
      6.30 pm
      Mr. Simon Hughes: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the real objection is that for the first time ever—not just in our lifetime—registers will be compiled for people's right to vote which will automatically allow them then to be taxed? Even if no further information is sought, that is the fundamental objection and that practice must be wrong. People will have a disincentive to use their vote because as soon as they are registered to vote they will be liable to pay the tax.
      Mr. Butterfill: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. The purpose of the register that we are discussing is not for voting but for the collection of the community charge. There is no relationship between the electoral register and this register. Of course it is true that the electoral register will be one other source of information for the community charge registration officer, in as much as it is also a source of information—
      Mr. Douglas rose—
      Mr. Butterfill: If I have not already answered the hon. Gentleman's point by then, I shall give way to him later.
      All of the things we are discussing and about which the House is concerned are sources of information, of which the electoral register is only one. It is quite wrong for the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) to single it out and make a crucial connection between the two registers. Of course, some people will try to evade the charge; some may go as far as to deprive
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      themselves of social security benefits in an effort to do so—but I doubt it. The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey is making far more of this than is necessary.
      Mr. Douglas: The hon. Gentleman will recall that in yesterday's debate the Secretary of State for the Environment pleaded in aid and asserted the fact that the Inland Revenue did not know where everyone lived, and defended the idea that it should not. For the first time in our history there will be an inter-relationship between registers and information being collected for the purpose of making people pay a tax, as the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) said. So the tax is directly related to the right to vote and if Conservative Members do not object to that, God help our individual liberties.
      Mr. Butterfill: It is not directly related; it is indirectly related, in the same way as any other personal particulars that have been registered are related to the tax. The register is merely another source of information.
      Secondly, I wish to correct the hon. Gentleman. My right hon. Friend did not defend, as the hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) suggested, the principle that the Inland Revenue should not have the right to know where people live. It has that right and often knows that information. The difference is that the Inland Revenue does not always know because it deals with people who live outside the districts in which they work—it deals with them in their places of work rather than where they live. Unless the Inland Revenue has a person's reference number, it is extremely difficult for it to trace an
      individual because he may well work miles from where he lives. That is the point that my right hon. Friend made yesterday.
      Mr. Patnick: I wonder whether my hon. Friend remembers what our hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) said yesterday?
      "We would have to give the local authority power to send to the Inland Revenue a random selection of answers received from the taxpayers, stating that Mr. X has stated that he is".—[Official Report, 18 April 1988; Vol. 131, c. 576.]
      We heard nothing yesterday from Opposition Members about that invasion of privacy, but today the game has changed.
      Mr. Butterfill: I thank my hon. Friend for his valuable point and contribution to the debate.
      We say that someone should have a right to obtain the
      information that he needs to perform his duties. He does
      not need any of the other extraneous information that the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey suggested—
      Mr. Simon Hughes: He might.
      Mr. Butterfill: I cannot conceive of circumstances in which he might. Still less can I conceive of a new breed of local authority official who, for his own amusement or private profit, compiles detailed registers on private citizens in some sort of nefarious and conspiratorial way. That would not happen and the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey well knows it.
      Finally, I turn to the other point to which I object—
      Mrs. Audrey Wise rose—
      Mr. Butterfill: I object to the inclusion in the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Southwark

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      and Bermondsey of the National Council for Civil Liberties. That is in no way to denigrate that body or to decry the excellent work that it does in many areas. My objection is that the hon. Gentleman proposes to enshrine in statute a body that is not democratically accountable, or accountable to this place. It may be internally democratic, but it is not accountable to the British public. It is fundamentally wrong to enshrine in legislation any body, however admirable it may be, that is not accountable to this place through ministerial responsibility.
      Mr. Simon Hughes: The hon. Gentleman has misread the amendment. The responsibility resides with the Government; it is only a duty to consult with local authorities and the NCCL. Surely that cannot be objectionable.
      Mr. Butterfill: It is objectionable that we are singling out a body that is not democratically accountable. Local authorities may be so, and there may be an argument in their case, although I disagree with it. They are at least democratically accountable to their electorate. I object to singling out a body that is not thus accountable.
      Mr. Terry Davis: The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) gave a hostage to fortune, and he may find his last point quoted back at him in the future when we talk about consultation with the representatives of British industry and business.
      My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) will be shocked to know that when the issue of identity cards was raised in Standing Committee several Conservative Members had the greatest difficulty—to understate the case—in understanding the concern expressed by Labour Members about identity cards. Several of them looked forward to the day when we would have identity cards in this country and advocated the system as being one that already worked satisfactorily in some continental countries.
      Mr. Butterfill: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that I for one will welcome the day when we introduce identity cards in this country.
      Mr. Davis: The hon. Gentleman has identified himself; there were others. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow will share my concern about such tendencies appearing among Conservative Members. To be fair to the Government, they did not advocate identity cards. I am sure that the Minister for Local Government will deny any responsibility for them—the Government will leave it to local authorities, and they have made that clear. Local authorities will introduce a system of identity cards, if we have one, so the Minister's point was that of Pontius Pilate.
      Mr. Tim Devlin: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
      Mr. Davis: The hon. Gentleman voted for the guillotine. Many of my hon. Friends want to take part in the debate; I shall not give way.
      I share the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott) about the sale of these registers. This information is collected for the purpose of taxation. The Secretary of State said on the radio this morning that this was a taxation measure, and objected on those
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      grounds to the House of Lords amending it. He denied that point in Standing Committee, but at least he has accepted it now. We shall have a register that is collected, established and available for the purpose of taxation and the Government want to make it available to the public and allow it to be sold to them. The Government have made it clear that they intend to keep people's names on the register for two years after they have died, at the address at which they lived before they died. All hon. Members have had the experience, while canvassing during an election, of knocking on doors and asking for the votes of people who had died a few months before.
      After the death of a partner, widows and widowers will be bombarded for two years with junk mail addressed to people who have died. Everybody should be able to understand the distress that is caused to widows and widowers on receiving that sort of mail. We have seen people upset because they have received an election address for somebody who died a few weeks before, but for two years people will be subjected to uninvited letters from every Tom, Dick and Harry in all sorts of businesses addressed to people who are deceased. That is one of the most reprehensible but also one of the most avoidable aspects of the Bill.
      It should be possible for us to ensure that the register is not made available. Information collected for income tax purposes is not available to anybody—I believe not even to Ministers unless the taxpayer wishes it. Quite rightly, it is kept confidential. For the purpose of this register inquiries will be made about who is living where, for how long, and on which nights. We can all see the intrusion that that involves into people's privacy. It is time someone said that it is not necessary for the Government to authorise registration officers over the length and breadth of the country to inquire into who slept where, on what night. and for how long. That is an intolerable intrusion into personal relationships.
      The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West says that it is not an issue and that, according to one of his hon. Friends, 99 per cent. of our people are law-abiding and that this will apply to only 1 per cent. The point is that the information would be sought and inquiries would be made not of 1 per cent. of the population but of 100 per cent. of the population. Everybody will be required to give this information.
      The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Patnick) says that this is nothing new and that local authorities already transfer this information from one local authority to another. The hon. Gentleman gave as an example the right to buy. The hon. Gentleman does not appreciate that the only basis on which that information is transferred from one local authority to another is where the person asks for that to be done. He does it because he is seeking to obtain a right, to increase his discount on the purchase of a house, and therefore asks the local authority to transfer the information. There is a great difference between that situation, between someone claiming income support or a tax allowance—something for which a person has to provide information—and having that information obtained from one's relatives, one's family, and neighbours. It is that to which I and my hon. Friends object.
      At the moment information obtained by the Inland Revenue is not made available. I would go further than some of my hon. Friends and make this register private. I

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      do not see why the information should be made available at all and that is why I urge all hon. Members to support amendment No. 141.
      Mr. Bob Cryer: I want to make a few brief comments on this important area of legislation, and especially on amendment No. 141 which modifies the registration officer's powers. Without that amendment the Bill is a snooper's charter, and with an extreme Right-wing Government in power we can be sure that those powers will be used.
      Clause 25 gives the Minister power to issue a directive to require further information from the registration officer. That directive is not subject to any affirmative resolution or to any scrutiny by the House. We must look extremely carefully at that power. In addition, we have the Scottish experience, because, in its 18th report, the Select Committee on Statutory Instruments, an all-party Committee with a Tory majority, said that the Secretary of State for Scotland was abusing his power and trampling on the rights of Parliament by granting himself powers additional to those provided by the primary legislation. The registration officer was provided with powers of sub-delegation to enable him to ask any questions that he liked without any modification by the primary legislation, although the primary legislation limited the powers that he had.
      6.45 pm
      The Secretary of State for Scotland has decided that the registration officer can demand documents, even though the primary legislation does not give him that power and says that he can only request information. With that very recent background, the statutory instrument was pushed through the House only a few weeks ago. We should say yes to amendment No. 141 which would modify the registration officer's powers and provide some clear guidance in the legislation that the registration officer's powers are not unlimited.
      Amendment No. 142 invokes a code of practice. A code of practice is not a legislative instrument. It does not require an absolute provision, as is the case with a statutory instrument or primary legislation. But at least it is some safeguard against the jackboot powers of the Minister given to him in clause 25. That clause gives the Minister power to issue a directive to the registration officer, saying that if he believes that information has not been collected he can demand further information. At least the registration officer could rely on a code of practice to offer some safeguard about his code of conduct.
      The new schedule, amendment No. 153, lists many safeguards. I do not have time to go into them, but I should like to emphasise what has been said about the prevention of the sale of information from what is essentially a private register. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis), who emphasised that the register should be private. It is appalling that the register will be considered to be in the public domain. Recently the Yorkshire water authority included in its demand note advertisements by moneylenders so that hard-pressed people could immerse themselves even further in the debt-ridden society created by this wretched Tory Government. No doubt that is the sort of enterprise culture of which the Government would approve. We are opposed to private information obtained
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      from citizens being hawked around to organisations that have nothing more to do than to sell to people and in some cases to immerse them in even greater debt.
      The last point that I want to emphasise is that, although it is not covered by the amendment, clause 25 gives the Secretary of State enormous power to issue directives to the registration officer in relation to the poll tax. If the Secretary of State is not satisfied, and if he has only a belief—he does not even have to entertain any evidence about that belief—he can demand further information. Even a registration officer seeking balanced information can be made subject to the Secretary of State's demand and fiat. For that reason, we ought to build into the legislation adequate safeguards to protect the ordinary citizen from this vicious snooper's charter and the jackboot heel of this wretched Government who want to invade people's civil liberties—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Crawley (Mr. Soames) can sneer, but there will be snoopers knocking on doors and demanding information, and) behind them they will have the imprimatur of the Secretary of State. We hope that the amendments will be accepted because they provide a modest safeguard against this intrusion.
      Mr. Patnick: I listened closely to the speech by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis) and found that he seemed to have double standards. As I said in an intervention during the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill), there was very little protest when yesterday my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates) suggested that three extra questions should be included on the form. They were, "Are you a higher taxpayer, a basic taxpayer, or a non-taxpayer?".
      Mr. Allan Roberts rose—
      Mr. Patnick: I assure the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Roberts) that I shall be brief and will speak for four minutes or less. When my hon. Friend the Member for Hampshire, East suggested asking for information, there was not a word from the Opposition. Now they say different.
      Mr. Howard: This is a large and important group of amendments covering many aspects of information-gathering for the purposes of the community charge, the powers of the registration officer, data protection and the rights of the individual. We debated all those issues in some detail in Committee, and I shall endeavour to respond to the points raised in the short time that is available.
      As hon. Members who served on the Committee will know, I alway attempt to adopt a conciliatory tone. Therefore, I shall begin my reply to the debate on this group of amendments by adopting a conciliatory attitude towards amendments Nos. 141 and 210. Those amendmens were addressed by the hon. Members for Burnley (Mr. Pike) and for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes). They seek to restrict the information officer to obtaining information that he "reasonably requires"—the phrase that is in the Bill.
      We had a long discussion on that point in Committee and I explained then that the Government's intention on this point was exactly the same as that of the Opposition—that registration officers should not be permitted to ask for information, other than that which was clearly needed

      731
      for the purpose of maintaining the register. I said that we believed that the Bill, as presently drafted, achieved that result. Having reflected on the points made in Committee and listened to the points made today, I shall certainly look at the matter again to see whether an amendment can be made which would make even clearer the policy that we all wish to see followed.
      The hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey referred to the amendments that would require registration officers to have regard to the civil liberties implications of registration and, in particular, to the codes of practice drawn up by or in consultation with the National Council for Civil Liberties. I have no desire whatever to cast aspersions on the aims and objectives of the NCCL, but I do not accept the suggestion that the NCCL should have a formal role in determining what should or should not be permissible under the law. That is the responsibility of Parliament, Government and the courts. As I made clear in Committee, the Government take very seriously the anxieties that have been expressed about the protection of privacy. It was with those concerns in mind that I met the Data Protection Registrar in February and agreed to draw up guidance, with his participation, on compliance with the data protection principles. I suggest that guidance of that kind is the correct way forward and is preferable to the issue of the NCCL codes of guidance, as proposed in the amendments.
      Amendments Nos. 211 and 149 seek to limit or restrict the supply of any part of the community charges register. I shall attempt to deal with this question quickly, as it was also discussed at considerable length in Committee. Paragraph 18 of schedule 2 empowers my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to make regulations requiring the sale of an extract from the community charge register and a list of dwellings designated for the purposes of the collective community charge. We have made it clear that we have not taken a final decision on the sale of the extract and list, or, indeed, on the question of allowing people to opt out before the extract is sold. We have received a number of representations on this issue, all of which we shall consider carefully before a decision is reached. There is nothing more that I can usefully say at this stage, although I would remind the House that the extract will consist only of a list of addresses and names and that it will in any case be available for public inspection.
      Mrs. Alice Mahon: Will the Minister give way?
      Mr. Howard: I shall not give way, as I do not have time.
      The hon. Members for The Wrekin (Mr. Grocott) and for Burnley spoke to amendments which seek to prevent the registration officer from cross-checking his register against the electoral register. There is a simple and obvious response to that suggestion, which I have given on many occasions. I am surprised that it has not yet been grasped by Opposition Members. The electoral register is a public document. It is available to the public and it would be absurd to suggest that it should not be available to the community charge registration officer.
      Amendments Nos. 152 and 153 seek to impose a schedule of restrictions on registration officers, most of them derived from the Data Protection Act. A similar amendment was discussed in Committee. I said then that
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      I saw no point in repeating the provisions of one piece of legislation in another. Registration officers will, of course, observe the provisions of the Data Protection Act—both the data protection principles enshrined in the Act and the exemptions which it provides. There is no need whatever to restate or amend the Data Protection Act for the purposes of this Bill. We also noted the points made by the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey in respect of amendment No. 213, which seeks to give registered individuals the right to inspect any information held by registration officers on backing files. That amendment is not necessary, as people who are registered already have a right to inspect the whole of their register entry under paragraph 17(1) of schedule 2. Under the Data Protection Act, individuals have additional rights to see any personal data held by a data user. That right of inspection under the Data Protection Act will extend to community charge backing files.
      Amendments Nos. 139, 167 and 167A are concerned with sensitive information, to which registration officers should be denied access. Amendment No. 139 seeks to specify on the face of the statute that police, social work, health authority, Inland Revenue and employment records are "off limits"to registration officers. That proposal is similar to one in the new schedule proposed in amendment No. 153.
      We accept that there are certain records to which registration officers should not have access only, and we have made provision accordingly, both by stipulating that registration officers should have access to local sources of data and by providing that even some locally held records should be withheld from registration officers. In the light of these provisions, I do not believe that anything would be gained by accepting the amendments before us.
      Let me consider in turn the sources of data set out in amendment No. 139. It refers to health authority and Inland Revenue records. I can assure the House that there is no need to place those records "off limits", as the Bill does not authorise registration officers to obtain information from those sources. So far as those records are concerned, therefore, the amendment is unnecessary. It also refers to police and social work records, yet we have already made clear that we intend to use the power conferred under paragraph 9(d) of schedule 2 to prevent registration officers having access to any police records and to the most sensitive social service records.
      In other words, the only real effect of amendment No. 139 would be to deny registration officers access to non-sensitive social service records and employment records. I can see nothing objectionable in allowing registration officers access to information of that kind, and I therefore urge hon. Members to reject the amendment. I remind the House that the only information that registration officers will require is a list of names and addresses. They will not need, and will not therefore be authorised to ask for, any other information which is not relevant to their functions. As all adults will in any case by under a duty to supply their names and addresses to the registration officer, I can see no objection whatever to names and addresses being checked against non-sensitive local authority records.
      The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) raised a point regarding student identity cards. The provisions that we are introducing into the Bill relate to certificates for the status of students which will enable them to obtain the advantage of the special arrangements for students

      733
      pursuant to the provisions of the legislation. I do not believe that it can be properly characterised as a student identity card any more than the card which entitles students to concessionary rail travel, or the National Union of Students card which students customarily carry with them. Indeed, the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals has said that it is content with our proposals.
      The hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Mr. Davis) sought to make a number of rather surprising points in view of the fact that he served on the Standing Committee and must have known that both the points to which I am about to refer were nonsense. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the registration officer will not want to know whether someone spends a night away from home. All that he will need to know is the address of someone's sole or main residence and when that residence changes.
      The hon. Gentleman also made an entirely misconceived point about the names of people who have been dead for two years. The register will contain names and addresses for up to two years after people die, but, as we made clear—
      Mr. Cryer: My hon. Friend said precisely that.
      Mr. Howard: No, he did not say that. The hon. Gentleman intervenes from a sedentary position, but, if he will wait for a moment, he will see how misconceived was the point made by his hon. Friend the Member for Hodge Hill. We made it clear in Committee that the public extract from the register would show only people currently subject to the charge. It is the public extract that may be sold, so that point was nonsense.
      I accept that there are legitimate concerns about the implications of the community charge for data protection. Our aim, both here and in Committee, has been to allay those concerns, not to dismiss them. It has always been our policy that the new system should be fully consistent with the provisions of the Data Protection Act, but it is astounding that we should have to listen to complaints from the Opposition about the civil liberties implications of the community charge, when a far greater threat to privacy would be posed by a local income tax, which is now part of the policy proposed by the official Opposition and the whole policy put forward by the Social and Liberal Democrats.
      Mr. Cryer rose—
      Mr. Howard: No, I shall not give way.
      Let me compare the exchanges of data needed for community charge purposes with those needed for the purposes of a local income tax. For the community charge, the registration officer needs to know the name and address of every person subject to the charge. For a local income tax, the local authority would need to know not only the name and address of each person liable to pay, but comprehensive details of every person's income. I ask the House to consider what represents—
      It being Seven o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker, proceeded, pursuant to the Orders [22 February and 13 April] and the Resolution yesterday, to put forthwith the Question already proposed from Chair.
      Question put, That the amendment be made:—
      The House divided: Ayes 220, Noes 331.

      Division No. 263]

      [7.00 pm

      AYES

      Abbott, Ms Diane

      Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

      Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

      Foster, Derek

      Allen, Graham

      Foulkes, George

      Alton, David

      Fraser, John

      Anderson, Donald

      Fyfe, Maria

      Archer, Rt Hon Peter

      Galbraith, Sam

      Armstrong, Hilary

      Galloway, George

      Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

      Garrett, John (Norwich South)

      Ashton, Joe

      Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

      Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

      George, Bruce

      Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

      Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

      Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

      Godman, Dr Norman A.

      Barron, Kevin

      Golding, Mrs Llin

      Battle, John

      Goodhart, Sir Philip

      Beckett, Margaret

      Gordon, Mildred

      Beggs, Roy

      Gould, Bryan

      Bell, Stuart

      Graham, Thomas

      Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)

      Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

      Bermingham, Gerald

      Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

      Bidwell, Sydney

      Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

      Blair, Tony

      Grocott, Bruce

      Blunkett, David

      Harman, Ms Harriet

      Boateng, Paul

      Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

      Boyes, Roland

      Heffer, Eric S.

      Bradley, Keith

      Henderson, Doug

      Bray, Dr Jeremy

      Hinchliffe, David

      Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

      Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

      Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

      Holland, Stuart

      Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

      Home Robertson, John

      Buchan, Norman

      Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

      Caborn, Richard

      Howells, Geraint

      Callaghan, Jim

      Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

      Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

      Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

      Campbell-Savours, D. N.

      Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

      Canavan, Dennis

      Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

      Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

      Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

      Cartwright, John

      Illsley, Eric

      Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

      Janner, Greville

      Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

      John, Brynmor

      Clay, Bob

      Johnston, Sir Russell

      Clelland, David

      Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

      Clwyd, Mrs Ann

      Jones, leuan (Ynys MÔn)

      Cohen, Harry

      Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

      Coleman, Donald

      Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

      Cook, Robin (Livingston)

      Lambie, David

      Corbett, Robin

      Leighton, Ron

      Corbyn, Jeremy

      Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

      Cousins, Jim

      Lewis, Terry

      Crowther, Stan

      Litherland, Robert

      Cryer, Bob

      Livingstone, Ken

      Cummings, John

      Livsey, Richard

      Cunliffe, Lawrence

      Lofthouse, Geoffrey

      Cunningham, Dr John

      Loyden, Eddie

      Dalyell, Tarn

      McAllion, John

      Darling, Alistair

      McAvoy, Thomas

      Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

      McCartney, Ian

      Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

      McFall, John

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

      McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

      Dixon, Don

      McKelvey, William

      Dobson, Frank

      McLeish, Henry

      Doran, Frank

      McNamara, Kevin

      Douglas, Dick

      McTaggart, Bob

      Duffy, A. E. P.

      McWilliam, John

      Dunnachie, Jimmy

      Madden, Max

      Eadie, Alexander

      Mahon, Mrs Alice

      Eastham, Ken

      Marek, Dr John

      Evans, John (St Helens N)

      Marshall, David (Shettleston)

      Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

      Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

      Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

      Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

      Fatchett, Derek

      Martlew, Eric

      Faulds, Andrew

      Maxton, John

      Fearn, Ronald

      Michael, Alun

      Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

      Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

      Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)

      Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

      Flannery, Martin

      Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

      Flynn, Paul

      Moonie, Dr Lewis

      Foot, Rt Hon Michael

      Morgan, Rhodri

      735

      Morley, Elliott

      Skinner, Dennis

      Mowlam, Marjorie

      Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

      Mullin, Chris

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

      Murphy, Paul

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

      Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

      Snape, Peter

      O'Brien, William

      Soley, Clive

      O'Neill, Martin

      Spearing, Nigel

      Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

      Steel, Rt Hon David

      Parry, Robert

      Steinberg, Gerry

      Patchett, Terry

      Stott, Roger

      Pendry, Tom

      Strang, Gavin

      Pike, Peter L.

      Straw, Jack

      Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

      Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

      Prescott, John

      Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

      Primarolo, Dawn

      Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis

      Quin, Ms Joyce

      Turner, Dennis

      Radice, Giles

      Vaz, Keith

      Randall, Stuart

      Walker, A. Cecil (Belfast N)

      Redmond, Martin

      Wall, Pat

      Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

      Wallace, James

      Reid, Dr John

      Walley, Joan

      Richardson, Jo

      Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

      Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

      Wareing, Robert N.

      Robertson, George

      Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

      Rogers, Allan

      Williams, Rt Hon Alan

      Rooker, Jeff

      Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

      Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

      Wilson, Brian

      Rowlands, Ted

      Winnick, David

      Ruddock, Joan

      Wise, Mrs Audrey

      Salmond, Alex

      Worthington, Tony

      Sedgemore, Brian

      Young, David (Bolton SE)

      Sheerman, Barry

      Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

      Tellers for the Ayes:

      Shore, Rt Hon Peter

      Mr. Frank Haynes and

      Short, Clare

      Mr. Frank Cook.

      NOES

      Aitken, Jonathan

      Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

      Alexander, Richard

      Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

      Alison, Rt Hon Michael

      Buck, Sir Antony

      Allason, Rupert

      Budgen, Nicholas

      Amery, Rt Hon Julian

      Burns, Simon

      Amess, David

      Burt, Alistair

      Amos, Alan

      Butcher, John

      Arbuthnot, James

      Butler, Chris

      Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

      Butterfill, John

      Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

      Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

      Ashby, David

      Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

      Aspinwall, Jack

      Carrington, Matthew

      Atkins, Robert

      Carttiss, Michael

      Atkinson, David

      Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

      Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

      Channon, Rt Hon Paul

      Baldry, Tony

      Chapman, Sydney

      Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

      Chope, Christopher

      Batiste, Spencer

      Churchill, Mr

      Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

      Clark, Hon Alan (Plym'th S'n)

      Bellingham, Henry

      Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

      Bendall, Vivian

      Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

      Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

      Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

      Bevan, David Gilroy

      Colvin, Michael

      Biffen, Rt Hon John

      Conway, Derek

      Blackburn, Dr John G.

      Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

      Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

      Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

      Body, Sir Richard

      Cope, John

      Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

      Couchman, James

      Boswell, Tim

      Cran, James

      Bottomley, Peter

      Currie, Mrs Edwina

      Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

      Curry, David

      Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

      Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)

      Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

      Davis, David (Boothferry)

      Bowis, John

      Day, Stephen

      Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

      Devlin, Tim

      Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

      Dickens, Geoffrey

      Brandon-Bravo, Martin

      Dicks, Terry

      Brazier, Julian

      Dorrell, Stephen

      Bright, Graham

      Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

      Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

      Dover, Den

      Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

      Dunn, Bob

      Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)

      Durant, Tony

      Browne, John (Winchester)

      Eggar, Tim

      736

      Emery, Sir Peter

      Knight, Greg (Derby North)

      Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

      Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

      Evennett, David

      Knowles, Michael

      Fallon, Michael

      Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

      Farr, Sir John

      Lang, Ian

      Favell, Tony

      Latham, Michael

      Fenner, Dame Peggy

      Lawrence, Ivan

      Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

      Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

      Fookes, Miss Janet

      Lee, John (Pendle)

      Forman, Nigel

      Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

      Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

      Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

      Forth, Eric

      Lightbown, David

      Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

      Lilley, Peter

      Fox, Sir Marcus

      Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

      Franks, Cecil

      Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

      Freeman, Roger

      Lord, Michael

      French, Douglas

      Luce, Rt Hon Richard

      Fry, Peter

      Lyell, Sir Nicholas

      Gale, Roger

      McCrindle, Robert

      Gardiner, George

      Macfarlane, Sir Neil

      Goodlad, Alastair

      MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

      Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

      Maclean, David

      Gorman, Mrs Teresa

      McLoughlin, Patrick

      Gorst, John

      McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

      Gow, Ian

      McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

      Gower, Sir Raymond

      Major, Rt Hon John

      Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

      Mans, Keith

      Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

      Maples, John

      Greenway, John (Ryedale)

      Marland, Paul

      Gregory, Conal

      Marlow, Tony

      Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

      Marshall, John (Hendon S)

      Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

      Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

      Grist, Ian

      Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

      Ground, Patrick

      Mates, Michael

      Grylls, Michael

      Maude, Hon Francis

      Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

      Mawhinney, Dr Brian

      Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

      Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

      Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

      Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

      Hampson, Dr Keith

      Mellor, David

      Hanley, Jeremy

      Miller, Hal

      Hannam, John

      Mills, Iain

      Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')

      Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

      Harris, David

      Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

      Hawkins, Christopher

      Moate, Roger

      Hayes, Jerry

      Monro, Sir Hector

      Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

      Montgomery, Sir Fergus

      Hayward, Robert

      Moore, Rt Hon John

      Heathcoat-Amory, David

      Morris, M (N'hampton S)

      Heddle, John

      Morrison, Hon P (Chester)

      Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

      Moynihan, Hon Colin

      Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

      Neale, Gerrard

      Hill, James

      Needham, Richard

      Hind, Kenneth

      Nelson, Anthony

      Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

      Neubert, Michael

      Holt, Richard

      Newton, Rt Hon Tony

      Hordern, Sir Peter

      Nicholls, Patrick

      Howard, Michael

      Nicholson, David (Taunton)

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

      Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

      Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

      Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

      Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Oppenheim, Phillip

      Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

      Page, Richard

      Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

      Paice, James

      Hunt, David (Wirral W)

      Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

      Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

      Patnick, Irvine

      Hunter, Andrew

      Patten, Chris (Bath)

      Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

      Patten, John (Oxford W)

      Irving, Charles

      Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

      Jack, Michael

      Pawsey, James

      Jackson, Robert

      Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

      Janman, Tim

      Porter, David (Waveney)

      Jessel, Toby

      Portillo, Michael

      Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

      Powell, William (Corby)

      Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

      Price, Sir David

      Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

      Raffan, Keith

      Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

      Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

      Key, Robert

      Rathbone, Tim

      Kilfedder, James

      Redwood, John

      King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

      Renton, Tim

      Kirkhope, Timothy

      Rhodes James, Robert

      Knapman, Roger

      Riddick, Graham

      737

      Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

      Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

      Ridsdale, Sir Julian

      Thorne, Neil

      Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

      Thornton, Malcolm

      Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

      Thurnham, Peter

      Roe, Mrs Marion

      Townend, John (Bridlington)

      Rossi, Sir Hugh

      Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

      Rost, Peter

      Tracey, Richard

      Rumbold, Mrs Angela

      Tredinnick, David

      Ryder, Richard

      Trippier, David

      Sackville, Hon Tom

      Trotter, Neville

      Sainsbury, Hon Tim

      Twinn, Dr Ian

      Sayeed, Jonathan

      Vaughan, Sir Gerard

      Scott, Nicholas

      Viggers, Peter

      Shaw, David (Dover)

      Waddington, Rt Hon David

      Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

      Wakeham, Rt Hon John

      Shelton, William (Streatham)

      Waldegrave, Hon William

      Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

      Walden, George

      Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

      Walker, Bill (T'side North)

      Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

      Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

      Shersby, Michael

      Waller, Gary

      Sims, Roger

      Walters, Dennis

      Skeet, Sir Trevor

      Ward, John

      Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

      Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

      Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

      Warren, Kenneth

      Soames, Hon Nicholas

      Watts, John

      Speed, Keith

      Wells, Bowen

      Speller, Tony

      Wheeler, John

      Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

      Whitney, Ray

      Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

      Widdecombe, Ann

      Squire, Robin

      Wiggin, Jerry

      Stanbrook, Ivor

      Wilkinson, John

      Steen, Anthony

      Wilshire, David

      Stern, Michael

      Winterton, Mrs Ann

      Stevens, Lewis

      Winterton, Nicholas

      Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

      Wolfson, Mark

      Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

      Wood, Timothy

      Stewart, Ian (Hertfordshire N)

      Woodcock, Mike

      Stokes, John

      Yeo, Tim

      Stradling Thomas, Sir John

      Young, Sir George (Acton)

      Sumberg, David

      Younger, Rt Hon George

      Summerson, Hugo

      Tapsell, Sir Peter

      Tellers for the Noes:

      Taylor, Ian (Esher)

      Mr. Robert Boscawen and

      Taylor, John M (Solihull)

      Mr. Tristan Garel-Jones.

      Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

      Question accordingly negatived.
      Mr. Deputy Speaker then proceeded to put forthwith the Questions on Amendments, moved by a member of the Government, of which notice had been given, to that part of the Bill to be concluded at seven o'clock.

      Clause 8

        REGISTERS: MISCELLANEOUS
        Amendments made: No. 189, in page 6, line 20, leave out `expires' and insert 'ends'.
        No. 190, in page 6, line 26, leave out 'expires' and insert 'ends'.
        No. 191, in page 6, line 32, leave out 'expires' and insert 'ends'.
        No. 192, in page 6, line 38, leave out 'expires' and insert 'end'.—[Mr. Howard.]

      Clause 13

        RELIEF FOR STUDENTS
        Mr. Matthew Taylor: I beg to move amendment No. 214, in page 9, line 19, after 'undertaking', insert
        'a full-time course in nursing education or'.
        Mr. Speaker: With this we shall take the following amendments: No. 144, in page 9, line 20, at end insert 'or training'.
        No. 238, in page 9, line 20, at end insert 'or nursing education.'.
        No. 252, in page 9, line 41, at end insert—
        '(7A) The Secretary of State shall make regulations to impose on students' grant awarding bodies a duty to reimburse students as regards payments they are liable to make to authorities in respect of personal community charges.'.
        No. 253, in page 9, line 43, after 'of, insert `nursing education or'.

      New Clause 13

        STUDENTS
        '(1) For the purposes of this Part a person shall be treated as undertaking a full-time course of education on a particular day if (and only if) he fulfills such conditions as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State.
        (2) The regulations may include provision that—

        (a) as regards any educational establishment of a prescribed description an individual (to be called a certification officer) may be designated by a prescribed person, or otherwise identified, in accordance with prescribed rules,

        (b) a certification officer shall at a prescribed time supply to a person who is pursuing or is about to pursue a course at the establishment, and who is of a prescribed description, a certificate in a prescribed form and containing prescribed particulars,

        (c) conditions prescribed under subsection (1) above shall include a condition as to the possession of such a certificate, and

        (d) failure to supply a certificate to a person in accordance with the regulations is actionable by the person concerned as a breach of statutory duty.'.

        Amendment (a) to new clause 13, in line 16, at end
        insert:
        '(3) The Regulations shall provide that persons shall be treated as undertaking a full time course of education if they are:

        (a) participating in a Manpower Services Scheme.

        (b) undergoing an apprenticeship.

        (c) undergoing a course of training leading to qualification as a nurse.'.

        Government amendments 59, 60, 21, 57 and 58.
        No. 254, in page 16, line 34, after 'or, insert 'nursing
        education or'.
        No. 145, in page 16, line 34, after 'education', insert 'or training'.
        No. 146, in page 16, line 36, at end insert
        'and training shall be taken to include—

        (a) participation in a Manpower Services Scheme.

        Mr. Taylor: I shall speak to amendment No. 214, tabled in my name and those of my hon. Friends, and also briefly to the other standing in the names of my hon. Friends.
        I hope that the amendment, and the series of amendments, appeal to hon. Members across the House. The amendment has been put forward by the Royal College of Nursing. I am proud to represent the college. I know that hon. Members on all sides would like to speak in favour of the amendment.
        The reason for that is the impact on student nurses will be severe. Student nurses are in special need of our help, and of our attention. Looking at the impact of the proposed community charge on first-year nursing students, some of its highest levels will affect those studying in London. In inner London the average annual charge will be £577 a year, or more than £11 a week—about 15 per cent. of their income.

        739
        In Camden, the charge will rise to as high as £782, or more than £15 a week—about 20 per cent. of a student's income. For those hon. Members who listened yesterday to the Minister extolling the virtues of his system and indeed the special rebates, I must tell them that the only student nurses who will be eligible for any of that help are in Camden. They benefit from the generosity of this Minister by no more than an extra 16p. It is difficult to see how student nurses with this low level of income and support, yet facing a higher charge, will be able to find the money they need. The effect of such a high charge on student nurses is likely to make far worse the difficulty already present in many areas. It will inevitably tend to force student nurses, looking to go into the profession, to work in areas outside London where there are lower levels of community charge. Of course there is a severe shortage of the kind of applicants for student nursing in the London area that we want.
        Moreover, there will be differences even within health authorities, let alone between district authorities. Taking an extreme example, a nursing student living in the Camden end of Bloomsbury district health authority will be liable for a community charge of £782, whereas her colleague living in the Westminster end of the same health authority will be liable to pay £398. Students are not always free to choose where they live, nor to move around easily as levels change. At the very least, resentment is bound to be caused among students affected by the different levels.
        There is no direct comparison between student nurses and ordinary students who will receive special help. The ordinary student grant is lower than nurses' pay. I make no pretence about that. It is not very much lower, but it is lower. Therefore, there might be an argument that students deserve help while student nurses do not. But there are compelling arguments why student nurses should be treated in essentially the same way.
        Although a student nurse receives a higher salary than the student grant, after deductions for tax, national insurance and superannuation they end up little better off in cash terms. In addition, they lose out in a number of other respects when compared with students. They do not enjoy the benefits to which students are entitled, such as free banking services and the long summer vacation. We all know that many students use their summer vacation to make up their incomes in order to support themselves during the term when they are on the lowest level of support. In other words, the student is not expected to survive on the grant; they are expected to make it up. That point has been made by Conservative Members on many occasions. The student nurse is not in a position to do that.
        Moreover, if Project 2000 is adopted, as I hope that it will be—the Government are considering that—nursing education will gradually be integrated into our higher and further education system. Student nurses would be paid a bursary. It would be lower than their present salary but still higher than a student grant—to reflect the manpower contribution of student nurses, not as some kind of generous give-away gesture—and they would be treated in many respects like an ordinary student. In passing, I would add that I hope that the Minister will tackle the question of what will happen to student nurses if the proposals under Project 2000 are adopted.
        Mr. Butterfill: Does the hon. Gentleman consider that any other person who is studying while he is working, whether for a trade or a profession, as happens in many trades and professions, should also he granted the exemption that he wants, or does he reserve it exclusively for nurses?
        Mr. Taylor: There are arguments for including all sorts of people, but special considerations apply to other groups. One is that many people on Manpower Service Commission training courses will be eligible for rebates. Another is that apprentices, for example, may be on higher incomes. Our amendment is directed to those on fixed nationally set incomes, where all are suffering the same kind of problems.
        In addition—I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has given me a chance to deal with this—the nursing profession has specific recruitment problems that we must recognise. Between 1984 and 1985 there was a 7 per cent. fall in the number of applications. Last year, the student intake showed a 10·33 per cent. fall. For the first time in their history many nursing schools are experiencing difficulties in filling their intakes. In London, where the poll tax will have the most dramatic impact, there was a 33 per cent. fall in entrants between 1980 and 1986. National statistics show a 25 per cent. fall between 1980 and 1986 and there is a predicted shortfall of 3,000 recruits every year by 1990. Therefore, this legislation will have a major impact on our ability to fill the number of nursing places that Britain so desperately needs to fill, and will need to fill even more in the years to come.
        Mr. Leigh: If there is a problem in recruiting nurses in London—as there is—surely that can be better dealt with by differential pay levels in London. Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is absurd to argue that just because student nurses suffer from the high spending of Camden council, to which he has repeatedly referred, whole swathes of the population of Camden should be exempted from paying towards the cost of Camden services? That is an illogical and absurd argument.
        Mr. Taylor: I do not know how many nurses the hon. Gentleman imagines there are in Camden. I rather doubt whether he will find that there are whole swathes of them by any stretch of the imagination. However, there are already differential levels of pay and London weighting for nurses. That clearly is not adequate at present. It makes better sense to treat student nurses in the same way as ordinary students, as I have argued throughout, rather than to throw money at the problem. We are not asking for money but for a recognition of the specific situation in which student nurses find themselves.
        I do not have much time because I want to allow other hon. Members to debate this group of amendments. I hope that some Conservative Members will speak because I know that there is support for them on the Conservative Benches. Therefore, I want to deal briefly with two other amendments in the group.
        There is a series of Government amendments which are designed to introduce what can only be called student identity cards. The Government have tried to call them certificates, but it is rather like the Government trying to call the poll tax the community charge—it does not really weather. I have no doubt that hon. Members on both sides of the House will find it easier to refer to them as identity cards, which is what they are.

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        Identity cards give rise to specific worries that all hon. Members should share. The first is that they are clearly an infringement of students' civil liberties, a subject which we debated earlier. However, here we do not have a proposal from the Opposition that the poll tax will lead to identity cards, but a Government amendment introducing identity cards for a specific group. If students are to receive identity cards in this way, that must surely open the door to others receiving them. There is no difference in logic between the need for students to have them and any other group.
        I cannot see why it is necessary for students to have identity cards. I can see that the college might have to hand over names and addresses to the local authority if the scheme is to work effectively, but why does that necessitate issuing cards? Presumably colleges already have the names and addresses of all their students in one form or another. Why cannot they hand those over as they are?
        Let me finally deal, still more briefly, with the student 20 per cent. contribution. We must hammer out this issue once and for all. The Government have accepted that people on income support should receive an increase in that support to cover the 20 per cent. that they will have to find from the money that is presently available to them. Yet the same situation does not seem to apply to students who have to survive on a grant.
        We have in the past tabled amendments to cater for that situation and we have also pursued with the Minister the question whether there will be an increase. If the Minister is prepared to say that there will be, the amendments become much less relevant. In Committee the Minister said that the issue would have to be decided by the Jackson review, and left it at that. There are two essential problems with that. First, students will have to apply for college places not knowing whether they will have to find that 20 per cent. from their grant because they will have to apply for courses while that review is being completed. Therefore, they cannot judge whether they will have to choose their college on the basis of the charge relevant to a particular authority. Should a student decide not to choose London on the grounds that he cannot afford it, or should he assume that the Minister will be generous enough to make up the money?
        Secondly, the Minister was perfectly able to say that income support would be uprated. If he could say that, despite the fact that it comes under the Department of Health and Social Security, why is his excuse for not telling us what will happen to students based on the fact that the matter comes under the DHSS? I fail to see the difference between the two.
        I hope that the House will support the amendments. In particular, I return to the case of the student nurses. They are a special group and I have explained to the House why they should be treated in the same way as other students. Large numbers of nurses will be looking to the House to show that we value their role.
        Mr. Robert Rhodes James: I am honoured to follow the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor), with whom I very much agree. Let me make an appeal to my hon. and learned Friend the Minister. As he will know, I support the Bill. I courageously supported the Government last night. I also have to declare a former interest in that my eldest daughter was a National Health Service nurse and student nurse.
        I am very much aware of the problems that student nurses face and, as a result, I was involved in the
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        establishment of the pay review body. I recognise that the Government accept the particular circumstances and problems of students, and for that I am grateful, but how can my hon. and learned Friend seriously argue that there is a difference between a university student studying whatever subject he or she may be studying and a student nurse? The argument will come that the university student is given a grant that is considerably lower than the salary given to a student nurse. This will ignore the fact that the student nurse is involved in work of great responsibility—my daughter, at the age of 20, was assisting in intensive care cases—and the salary is not very large.
        How can my hon. and learned Friend expect me, a supporter of the Bill, to go to my constituents in Cambridge and say that my university students will have the maximum rebate but my student nurses will not? I have to say that I am not going to do it, and I hope that my hon. and learned Friend will respond to my appeal, as a supporter of the Bill and of the principle, and make some concessions on this point. I am sure that when he reflects on the matter he will do so.
        7.30 pm
        Mr. Jeff Rooker: I want to intervene briefly on behalf of the official Opposition in what is by its nature a very short debate, so that I imagine that contributions will be brief.
        We shall support amendment No. 214, but I want to draw the attention of the House very briefly to amendment (a) to new clause 13. That encompasses also student nurses, but it goes wider. I know that privately there is a good deal of support for a wider exemption as typified in amendment (a), but publicly, in terms of voting, I understand that there will probably be more people in the Lobby for amendment No. 214 than there would be for amendment (a). Therefore, when the time comes, I shall advise my hon. Friends to support amendment No 214.
        Unless one or other of those amendments is accepted. or unless the Government can make a concession, we shall be left with the position, when this legislation reaches the statute book, that the apprentice in the bedsit will pay exactly the same poll tax as the managing director in the penthouse. That will be seen as patently unfair.
        A student undertaking a full-time course of education but who may be employed by, say, a Government Department and sponsored on a postgraduate course, on a salary, will get an 80 per cent. discount on the poll tax, but the student nurse will get no rebate whatsoever. Where is the justification? As we said in Committee, not all students are poor, although the vast majority are. They struggle and survive on the grant. But the way the Bill is drafted, a student who follows a full-time course but is sponsored by an industrial company or a Government Department, on a salary, will get an automatic discount of 80 per cent., while student nurses will get not a penny piece of poll tax rebate, except for those few who happen to live in the London borough of Camden. And when the nurses' pay review body reports it may well be that student nurses, even with their responsibilities, will be taken out of that.
        The hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) is quite right: student nurses are paid a salary, but they are carrying out a responsible job and, with the hours that they do, they are not in quite the same position. But students on a grant, with the supplementary benefit in the long recess and other jobs, can often make the same net

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        income in a year as a student nurse, because she is subject to tax and National Insurance contributions. Therefore, it is grossly unfair that student nurses are not covered.
        Apprentices working on schemes ought also to be covered.
        We all know the position since the Committee stage. We were not able to discuss the question of students having identity cards, because that was not on offer, but now we see Government amendment No. 59. Whereas the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals has said that it can operate new clause 13, it is wholly opposed to amendment No. 59. I shall quote very briefly from the letter sent to me, and I presume to other hon. Members, by the chairman of the committee, Professor Sir Mark Richmond. He said:
        "Universities do not supply students' names and addresses to third parties without their consent. To do so would be an invasion of students' privacy, and could place some of them, for example, certain groups of overseas students, at personal risk".
        He goes on to say:
        "We believe that supplying names and addresses would also contravene students' rights under the Data Protection Act since the records are frequently held on computer."
        There is no justification whatsoever for new clause 13. We have to press the Government on this in respect of these students. Does this presage poll tax identity cards for all poll tax payers? Going back to the debate that we have just had, the Government constantly say that there is no threat to civil liberties or to privacy, but at the end of the day there will be over 50 sets of regulations to come before the House after the Bill receives Royal Assent, some of which will give local authority treasurers the power to seek further and other information. The Government will then say that it has nothing to do with them, that the local authorities are to blame.
        That is simply not good enough. We need an answer to that tonight. What is going to flow from the requirement, for students to have identity cards?
        We naturally expect the Minister to say something about the student grant. We expect him to say, not that it is fobbed off to some other committee, but that the grant will at least take account of the 20 per cent. of the poll tax that students are required to pay.
        Sir Philip Goodhart: I know that no sensible person wants to penalise student nurses as an unexpected by-product of a change in local government finance. As a group, student nurses make a major contribution to society and they are certainly not overpaid. As the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) pointed out, student nurses in London are going to be particularly hard-hit, and I hope that many of them will come and work in the hospitals in my constituency.
        I part company with the hon. Member, however, on his amendment relating to student identity cards. I dislike almost all aspects of this Bill and the only thing that encourages me about it is that it is going to make the introduction of identity cards—not just for students but for the whole population—a necessity. I do not see any other way in which this system of local government finance can be operated, and as a long-term supporter of national identity cards I welcome this aspect of it. If it comes first with students, they can realise that it will apply to the rest of the country very soon indeed.
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        This amendment underlines the enormous problems that arise when we switch the whole basis of local government finance from buildings to people and then try to exempt particular groups. Certainly student nurses ought to be exempted, but why not student policemen—police cadets—and trainee firemen as well? One can think of a vast range of people. Some other students and non-students whose case we cannot possibly discuss in the very limited time available this evening ought to be exempted.
        Mr. Leigh: Will my hon. Friend give way?
        Sir Philip Goodhart: No, because I said that I would speak for less than five minutes.
        If the Bill reaches another place, it will have more than 90 minutes—indeed, nine days—in which to discuss these issues. I am sure that another place, particularly after last night's vote, will have the moral authority and the moral necessity thoroughly to investigate all the exemption issues. I expect that the Government will secure the defeat of this amendment, but I hope that it will be passed by another place and that we shall have a further opportunity to discuss it at length.
        Mr. Jim Cousins: Unless important amendments are made to this part of the Bill, there will be a dangerous breakdown of communications between the Government and a particularly important generation. There are over 20,000 students in my city of Newcastle upon Tyne, and 3,500 of them may or may not be covered by student exemptions. We do not yet know the precise definition of a student. The draft Scottish regulations that are to be discussed tomorrow do not fully cover many of the uncertainties about the definition of a student. That will put university, polytechnic and college of further education administrations in great difficulties.
        We are also creating very important divisions between one category of young person and another. Student nurses work alongside medical students and postgraduate science students, many of whom earn additional money by demonstrations and part-time lecturing. Student nurses will deeply resent student exemptions, and it will create a further disincentive to their recruitment. It is a mistake to assume that that disincentive will be confined to student nurses in London. The greatest fall in student nurse intake in any area prior to the introduction of this system, which will act as a further disincentive to student nurse recruitment, is to be found in the north. I expect that the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) would agree to extend what he said to student midwives and student health visitors who will encounter exactly the same kind of difficulties.
        I hope that the Government will seriously consider the points that have been raised and that they will relieve university and college administrations of having to tread an extremely onerous, difficult and trouble-strewn path by not implementing new clause 13 and by not introducing exemptions for one section of a key age group while forcing other sections of that key age group to depend on a rebate system that already has its curiosities. If we are to believe the letters, leaks or whatever we may call them about the future of the rebate system, there will be even greater curiosities.
        Whatever the outcome of the vote, I hope that the Government will further consider these matters: otherwise

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        we shall end up with a deeply divided generation and a crisis of confidence between the Government and the student community. Administration and certification uncertainties will be added to the uncertainties about the future of student grants and loans. Furthermore, the survey that was announced this morning carries an implicit threat to the future integrity of student unions.
        Mr. David Wilshire: Every time we have a debate of this kind I think to myself, "Here we go again: more exemptions, more requests for rebates." The fact is that 9 million people are already receiving some form of relief. Before we know where we are, 20 million people will be receiving help—precisely the number who are not paying rates now or who are getting help to pay them. I make no apologies for saying that I would prefer there to be no exemptions and no rebates—[interruption.] I thought that would excite Opposition Members. I am not in the least bit anti-nurse, anti-student or anti-anybody else who needs help. It is the method of help that concerns me. I am very much pro-nurse and pro-student. The hearts of those who are trying to do something for them are in the right place but their method is wrong. Nurses are paid; students are given grants; the elderly receive help. That is the way to deal with those who will have difficulties over the community charge. Amendment after amendment advocating exemptions is nonsense.
        7.45 pm
        I want to deal with what is going wrong as we discuss the amendments. These amendments, and all the amendments that we have discussed so far, also affect the principle and the future of local government. The threatened principle, where there are exemptions and rebates, is the link between services and costs. The Bill sets out to link users and payers—hence the name "community charge". I make no apologies for saying that we should charge for services. The term "community charge" gives the lie to the fact that this is a poll tax, because a poll tax is a charge for voting.
        I am well aware of the fact that the notion of charging everybody upsets some hon. Members. I have sat through 147 hours of hon. Members being upset about it. During those 147 hours I heard no hon. Member suggest that nurses should be given free postage stamps, and I have heard no call for cheaper water, electricity or coal for students, yet they are just as essential as dustbins, street lights and fire brigades. All exemptions and rebates cut right across the principle of trying to create a link between services and costs. That link is important, because it puts local government firmly in the real world. That is where the Opposition do not want local government to be. Local government has to face the inescapable, economic fact of life that services cost money. Exemptions disguise that fact. Public services affect the pockets of us all. If we look at the track record of local government, we see that it is usually the poorest who are affected most.
        Ms. Marjorie Mowlam: If the hon. Gentleman is against exemptions, could he explain why he is for rate capping? If he is referring to a direct relationship between services and accountability, that clearly works in the other direction.
        Mr. Wilshire: That has absolutely nothing to do with it. I was referring to the link between services and costs and to what people contribute. The rate-capping mechanism is concerned with local government misbehaving itself.
        Another point that concerns me greatly is that exemptions and rebates will have a detrimental effect on local government. I sat through the whole of yesterday's debate and I have sat through the whole of this one, but I have not yet heard any hon. Member discuss the effect that these amendments will have on local government. The discussion has centred on the effect that they will have on individual people. If, however, there is to be sensible local government, we must consider the effect on both individuals and local government.
        Ms. Joyce Quin: I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument with some difficulty. Is he saying that he is against exemptions, but favours the solution of increasing student grants, pensions and so on? The burden of the community charge, which we know will be there, will be compensated for in some other way.
        Mr. Wilshire: That is the way I would go. I would not be specific in a debate such as this. What I believe should happen, if we have a community charge which clearly introduces the link between services and cost, is that every local person should hand over money to the local council for services. If they cannot afford to do that, we should explore, as the hon. Lady has just said, ways of helping those who need help in paying the charge, but not in this particular way. All the exemptions and the rebates that we might allow will further confuse the real role of local government. It will confuse the point that local government is, above all else, a provider of local services. The sooner it gets back to such thinking, the sooner it will secure its future. Exemptions and rebates will confuse that role for local government in two particular ways.
        If there are exemptions arid rebates such as these, we will first turn a charge on all into a tax on some and introduce the ability to pay and arguments on the redistribution of wealth into the local government arena. Those are tasks for central Government. Secondly, we will involve councillors in social engineering. They will see within their arena the whole question of the redistribution of wealth and feel obliged to find ways of doing the Government's job. It is that social engineering that has brought us to this Bill in the first place. It would be ironic indeed, if we passed amendments which had the effect of the Bill making social engineering by local councillors worse rather than better.
        I urge the House to vote against the amendments, as it has voted against all the others so far. I urge the House to go on voting against them time after time when they attempt to make exemptions. I am against all attempts to introduce banded charges, to exempt more people and to improve the rebates. If we do not oppose these amendments, local government will get worse, not better. Local services will suffer, not improve.—[AN HON. MEMBER: "Hang the nurses."] When we come to the debate on capital punishment, my hon. Friend the Member for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) will get a nasty surprise, because he will probably find me in the other Lobby.
        Above all else, if we do not watch our step, if we do not vote against all these amendments, we shall end up where we started—with another Local Government Finance Bill.

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        I am quite convinced that the House does not want that. I am certain that I do not want another 147 hours of nonsense from Opposition Members.
        Mr. Wilson: The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) has demonstrated a notable Tory characteristic which can be summed up in one word—selfishness. I am thinking of his attitude not so much towards the poll tax, but towards his colleagues. What distinguishes the hon. Member for Spelthorne from the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James), who showed rather more circumspection, is that the hon. Member for Spelthorne has a majority of 20,050, whereas the hon. Member for Cambridge has a majority of 5,060. That really is—[HON. MEMBERS: "Do not challenge the hon. Gentleman's integrity."] I cannot challenge what is not there.
        Mr. Cormack: The hon. Gentleman does his argument a disservice. I had a majority of 25,000, which does not stop me from opposing this Bill. The hon. Gentleman should watch his words.
        Mr. Wilson: I am sorry, but I am not prepared to take that from the hon. Gentleman, because my experience of the poll tax is that many who will be protected from it will find it morally repugnant. I respect those Conservative Members who are prepared to share that opinion. I respect the fact that many of the most articulate and decent opponents of the poll tax on the other side of the House have nothing to fear from it politically. However, I believe that we heard the true doctrine from the hon. Member for Spelthorne—that, if they could get away with it politically, those in favour of the poll tax would not protect the lame, the weak, the mentally handicapped, the elderly and the young unemployed. In respect of all those categories, they would wipe out the nonsense about rebates or anything else.
        Mr. Butterfill: The hon. Gentleman will find that Conservative Members and, I am sure, many in the Labour party may regret his aspersion on my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James). I think it will be common ground on both sides of the House that he has never failed to vote according to his conscience on almost every issue, certainly as long as I have known him. Many other hon. Members have known him longer than I have.
        Mr. Wilson: We have grown accustomed to the moderate and helpful interventions in Committee of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) which invariably end up with him voting for the most reactionary side of the argument. I advise those hon. Members who voted with the Government last night, whose minds are yet to be concentrated, that this issue will progressively concentrate their minds. The smaller the majority, the sharper the degree of concentration. I do not think there is anything exceptional about that.
        Mr. Wilshire: I do not think that I can allow my integrity to be attacked without that point being withdrawn or my being able to put on the record quite clearly that I totally support this legislation, because I believe that it is right. I spelt out in words of one syllable that I care as much as anybody in the House. I am just as determined to find ways of helping people who need help,
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        but I do not believe that this particular Bill is the vehicle for helping people who need it. I resent very much my integrity being attacked.
        Mr. Wilson: The hon. Gentleman can resent it until he is an even deeper blue in the face, but what he has just propounded is the abolition of all rebates and all concessions to all categories of society. He wants that on the record; I want that on the record. I do not know what we are disagreeing about.
        We know that the wobbly Tory conscience is very cheaply bought. The announcement last Thursday about rebates is exposed for exactly what it is in this debate on student nurses. When we were debating this matter in Committee, it was drawn to the attention of the Government that, according to the pre-Thursday formula—the pre-magnanimity formula—there was not a student nurse in the country who would receive a penny rebate unless he or she lived in the London borough of Camden. There would not, for instance, be a student nurse in the whole of Scotland who would receive a penny rebate, because, in the view of the Government and the architects of this legislation, student nurses are far too well paid to deserve a rebate. The hon. Member for Spelthorne, the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West and the Minister are firmly of the view that every student nurse in the country is far too well paid to require a penny of rebate.
        Let us look at the post-Ridley miracle figures on the magnanimity of the new rebate system. Before last Thursday, in an area where the poll tax was £250 a head, which is above the English average, a student nurse would receive no rebate. After Thursday a student nurse will also receive nothing in rebate. In areas such as my own, where the poll tax is £300 a head, before last Thursday a student nurse would receive not a penny in rebate. After last Thursday a student nurse will receive not a penny in rebate. If we go to the highest rated authorities outside London, before last Thursday a student nurse would receive not a penny in rebate. After last Thursday, a student nurse will receive not a penny in rebate. That is what last Thursday is worth to student nurses throughout the country. That would surely have been appreciated by Conservative Members when they heard that announcement. The only concession arises where student nurses are living in a local authority area where the per capita poll tax is £550 per head, which, at present figures, would affect at most two or three of the London boroughs. In those areas, student nurses now begin to qualify for the magnificent sum of 66p per week in rebate, when they are being asked to pay £550 per year in poll tax. They are among the 9 million people whom the newly reformed Conservative Members are now prepared to wear on their chests as symbols of what happened last Thursday. However, nobody can hide behind their conscience as much as behind statistics. The fact is that outside the handful of London boroughs—possibly the one, two or three boroughs where the statistics begin to apply—the relevance of last Thursday is that not one student nurse in the country will receive a penny in poll tax rebate because, in the Government's view, they are far too highly paid to do so.
        8 pm
        That is the reality that Conservative Members, including the hon. Member for Cambridge, will have to take out into the country. I admire the hon. Gentleman for

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        the fact that he has some reservations about doing so. However, I assure him, and every hon. Member who is still prepared to cling to the principle of the poll tax, that just as they will eventually have to take the truth about student nurses out into the country, there are a thousand similar examples of people who will be cruelly penalised under the poll tax, but who do not yet realise it, and every one of those cases will have to be explained to an increasingly sceptical and hostile electorate.
        Sir George Young: I cannot preface my remarks with the protestations of loyalty with which my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) prefaced his remarks. However, I hope that the Government will listen to what we are saying in this debate, which is the seventh of eight in which we are asking the Government to think again on this issue.
        I rise in support of amendments Nos. 214 and 238 which seek to extend the protection for students to student nurses. Yesterday we debated the principle of banding, and the Government pointed out what they saw as difficulties, anomalies, and problems about the cross-over points. Today's debate has made it clear that the Government have their own banding proposals. However, unlike yesterday's debate, in which banding was on the basis of income, banding in this debate is according to educational status. If one is talking about tax, it is far more logical to band according to income than to educational status because that leads us into all sorts of difficulties, anomalies and cross-over points which are far more difficult to defend than the anomalies and difficulties that we defended yesterday. A rich undergraduate, for example—and there are some—who is able to supplement his income in the vacations will receive 80 per cent. relief, whereas a poor nursing student who has no such opportunity will not receive comparable relief. That is a difficult point to explain on the doorstep.
        Like other hon. Members, I have children at university and know that some of my children's contemporaries are being paid for by the police force or, in some cases, by the armed services. They receive a salary, but, for the purpose of this clause, they will count as students. How does one defend that position when their salary might be higher than that of a student nurse? It is certainly the case that the Government are sponsoring post-graduate students and that those students will be granted exemptions. There is a major inconsistency in the Government's approach towards those undertaking education and training.
        I should like to comment briefly on student nurses. Like the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor), I have been in touch with the Royal College of Nursing, which is concerned about this matter. If one considers the future of nursing and nurse training, one can see that student nurses will become more and more like students and slightly less like nurses. Page 6 of the Project 2000 briefing of the Royal College of Nursing, which hon. Members have been sent, states:
        "Project 2000 proposes that 20 per cent. of the students' time over the 3 years would be spent as an employee service contribution, rather than the present 80 per cent."
        That is a fairly dramatic turnround in the nature of nurse training. Nurses will become far more like students. The briefing then states:
        "Only two countries in the world, the UK and Eire, still have nursing students as employees."
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        In other words, we are going to move more towards the position that is adopted elsewhere and nurses will become more and more like students.
        Against that background, and against the problems that we face in London in relation to recruiting nurses, one simply cannot afford to put extra problems in the path of student nurses.
        The last sentence of the briefing from the Royal College of Nursing states:
        "Numbers entering nurse training dropped from 33,370 in 1979 to 22,825 in 1987."
        In view of that, is it really sensible to put an additional burden on the backs of student nurses?
        I hope that when the Division comes, my hon. Friends who have hitherto been loyal, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, will take the view that on this issue an injustice is being done to student nurses. It is an injustice that could be put right quite easily without doing any of the damage that we heard about yesterday, simply by carrying amendment No. 214. If that happened, it would enable those of us who have been campaigning for changes to the Bill to feel that we have at least removed one inequity from the Bill to the benefit of the legislation.
        Mr. Dalyell: As is my wont, and because of the guillotine, I should like to ask one question and then make an observation. The question is purely factual. What work has been done in the Department on the likely effect of the poll tax on the recruitment of student nurses, first, in London, and, secondly, in the rest of the country?
        My observation is that, like the hon. Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart), I was here 10 years ago when we had a controversial Bill. We had a Labour Government, and the Bill related to Scotland and Wales. Unfortunately for some people in that Government, they never got a guillotine. Therefore, it was possible for the House of Commons to do its job. I borrow a phrase from Enoch Powell who took part in those debates, in a situation not unlike this. Enoch said that that Bill had a "smell of death" about it. Were the House of Commons, on this occasion, allowed to do its job, that smell of death would emerge, because it is like lifting stones. Again, to borrow from Enoch Powell, it is a question of all sorts of creepy-crawly things creeping out from under the stones. That can only be done on the first, second, third and fourth attempts.
        I am not being personally rude to the Minister because that is not my wont. However, there is another comparison. The devolution Bill was handled by what we, in the Opposition, would regard as an exceptionally able Queen's Counsel, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith). There is one thing about very able QCs—one will not catch them out the first, the second or the third time; one must go on and on. It suited Jim Callaghan that I was allowed, with Enoch Powell and one or two others, 47 days on the Floor of the House—
        Mr. Rooker: And with the present Leader of the Opposition.
        Mr. Dalyell: Certainly. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was not as good an attender as I was and he did not ask as succinct questions as I did. Nevertheless, he came in and went out again, and did his part—[HON. MEMBERS: "A leadership bid."] I do not know whether this is a leadership bid. It is partly a reminiscence.

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        I think that more and more this Bill is getting found out. It has geological flaws and part of the symptoms of a geological flaw is this kind of vignette debate.
        I do not want to anger my colleagues, but I think that there was a great deal in what the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) said. Once one starts exemptions, one can go on asking for other exemptions. If there should be exemptions for student nurses—as we believe—why not for trainee firemen or trainee a lot of other things? Other groups, some of which are small, will think that they have good cases. The difficulty is that the House of Commons does not have the time or the opportunity to explore those cases. I must behave myself, because I must not go on and on.
        Mr. Winnick: I take my hon. Friend's point that the Bill is basically defective and that there are anomalies in having exemptions for student nurses, people over 80, and so on. Does he agree with my earlier comment that if we work on the basis that this is an obnoxious Bill, our job in opposition, bearing in mind the Government's majority, is to do what we can to ensure that there will be protection for those who will be penalised? Although there are all kinds of anomalies in the amendments, if they were carried we would be protecting some people who otherwise would be harshly hit by this Treasury measure.
        Mr. Dalyell: I would not agree. It would be an interesting exercise if, by a magic carpet, the Minister could be transported to this side of the red line to put the awkward QC questions to the Government on the other side. I think that the effect would be dramatic—[Interruption.] He would do it just as well. That is the point about clever QCs. I am not insulting his integrity.
        Mr. Winnick: They would argue anything for money.
        Mr. Dalyell: No, I did not say that. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Monklands, East did not do anything like that. Ministers have a job to do and they have a loyalty. As my right hon. and learned Friend had a loyalty to Jim Callaghan, so the Minister has a loyalty to the present Prime Minister. All I am saying is that that does not refute our argument that the whole proposition is flawed fundamentally.
        Ms. Mowlam: I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that at the time of the peasants' revolt in 1381, when Richard II was facing the impact of a poll tax, the crowd shouted, "A plague on all lawyers."
        Mr. Dalyell: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ms. Mowlam). I really must sit down.
        Mr. Butterfill: The nub of the problem is the difference between full-time students and those who are studying whilst working. It is no doubt true that an increasing number study and train at the same time as they work. That trend is likely to continue. Therefore, we should be debating how we deal with those people and whether we should treat them in the same way as students.
        What has been argued from the Opposition Benches is that we should treat a particular group in a special way. That argument cannot hold water because we should not single out one group at the expense of others. There are many other groups which would fall into a similar
        752
        predicament as that which would be experienced by student nurses. My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart) outlined a few such cases.
        It is significant that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) said that he would have preferred amendment (a) to amendment No. 214. He pointed out that amendment (a) included a large number of additional groups which he thought were equally deserving. I suggest that there are even more groups in comparable positions than are included in amendment (a). The problem is that Opposition Members want to make political capital out of this. That is why they are not pursuing amendment (a) even though they admit that it is a better amendment than amendment No. 214.
        The hon. Member for Perry Barr said that amendment (a) was better but that he thought he would get more support for amendment No. 214. Why does he think that he will get more support for amendment No. 214? Because it concerns exclusively nurses. It is well known that there is greater public sympathy for nurses than for other groups who may be equally deserving. Therefore, what we have seen from the Opposition Benches is a study in cynicism. They are treating this as a pure electioneering exercise.
        Mr. Rooker: The simple fact is that I added up the numbers who were prepared to vote for a Labour amendment as opposed to a Social Democratic Liberal amendment. There seemed to be more hon. Members willing to vote for amendment No. 214. The procedure under the guillotine, for which the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) voted, does not allow the Labour party to vote for amendment (a). It is a simple matter of arithmetic.
        8.15 pm
        Mr. Butterfill: I accept that it is a procedural point but I am sure that it has suited the arguments of the Opposition, who have concentrated almost exclusively on the predicament of nurses. If that were not so, why did Opposition Members not concentrate on the arguments for other groups in addition to nurses?
        The answer to the problem of the nurses is not to give them exemption through the amendment but to deal with them through the independent review body which has been set up to decide what their pay should be. We decided to take nurses' pay out of the political arena. Yet Opposition Members insist on perpetuating it as a political issue. I believe that the public will make their own judgment as to the motives of the Opposition.
        Mr. Cormack: I am not making an electioneering speech. I hope that my hon. Friend will acquit me of that.
        It is a pity that the hon. Member for Cunninghame, North (Mr. Wilson) introduced such a note into his speech. In the Chamber we should always assume the sincerity of our opponents' arguments and go for their judgment and tactics, but we should not descend to the depths which he did in his unfortunate remarks.
        We are debating a peculiar anomaly of the Government's own creation. My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young), who has fought so valiantly on the issue, was right when he said that to treat a rich undergraduate in one way and a student nurse, who may be in straitened circumstances, in another is not only anomalous but thoroughly unjust. I hope that even at this late stage my hon. and learned Friend can do something.

        753
        No one by any stretch of the imagination could construe this as a wrecking amendment. It would be a small concession. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend can make this small, inexpensive concession for a group of people who probably command more public sympathy than any other group.
        At a time when the Government are about to make the right decision, as I believe they are, on nurses' pay, I would regret it if they were to take an intransigent line on the amendment. I urge my hon. and learned Friend to reply in the conciliatory spirit of which I know him to be capable. Able lawyer that he is, I am sure that he is not a man with a heart of flint. Somewhere he has deep feelings in which I would urge him to indulge himself just for a moment.
        Mr. Howard: We all enjoyed the remiscences of the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), but he is wrong when he suggests that as the Bill proceeds through Parliament new weaknesses, as he would have it, are identified and exposed.
        We have had an interesting debate on this important question. Despite the fact that the arguments against the Government's position have been enriched by the new, powerful and persuasive advocacy of my hon. Friends the Members for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) and Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack), who unhappily did not join us in Committee, none of the arguments which have been put forward were new. No new points were put forward. We argued the matter through in Committee. Indeed, a member of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill), put his finger with absolute precision on the distinction at the heart of the Government's case: there is a difference between those who are in full-time education and those who are at work and obtaining their education at work.
        Mr. Cormack: What is the difference between a young man of 22 with a commission in the Army and a salary at Cambridge or any other university and a student nurse at Addenbrooke's? Why should one be treated so very much more favourably than the other?
        Mr. Howard: My hon. Friend is entirely correct in identifying an anomaly. It affects a tiny number of people and in any legislation there are anomalies which one expects. The extent to which an anomaly becomes acceptable or invalidates the principle of the legislation can be decided by the number of people affected by it. That is the answer to my hon. Friend's question.
        Mr. Max Madden: The Minister has finally grudgingly admitted that this is an anomaly and he implied that there may be many others. Will he agree with equal honesty that the best way to remove the anomalies is to build into the legislation a clear recognition of the ability to pay?
        Mr. Howard: No, I do not agree with either of the hon. Gentleman's points. I did not imply that there were many other anomalies. We shall examine some aspects of his latter point shortly, but I certainly do not agree that his remedy would provide any improvement.
        First, I shall deal with the Opposition amendments Nos. 214, 238, 253, 254, 144, 145, 146, 252 and amendment (a) to new clause 13. These are designed to extend the definition of a full-time course of education to include student nurses, apprentices and participants in MSC schemes. We debated similar amendments at length in
        754
        Committee and I have heard nothing to today to convince me that the Committee was wrong to reject those amendments.
        The Committee accepted the Government's case that full-time students are in a unique position, and therefore merit special treatment in the form of a reduced charge: they will pay only one fifth of the personal community charges. Student nurses differ from students in two important respects. First, their financial situation is different. A student nurse's salary, for example, is considerably higher than even the highest student grant. The student grant outside London is less than £2,000 a year, compared with a starting salary of £4,540 for a student nurse. The average earnings of student nurses outside London are between £5,000 and £6,000—two and half to three times the student grant.
        I accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge that student nurses work extremely hard and carry out onerous responsibilities, so more than justify those salaries. Naturally, we accept and appreciate that, but that is not the point. By virtue of their hard work and the responsibilities that they discharge they receive incomes which are substantially higher than student grants.
        Secondly, student nurses are salaried staff whose training is carried out in the context of their full-time employment. Many jobs involve a similar element of on-the-job training. If we gave special treatment to student nurses we could not justify withholding it from a large number of other groups, from police cadets to trainee accountants, or even pupil barristers.
        I would not deny that some trainees have low incomes, for example, those participating in YTS and JTS courses. Many of those on YTS will be under 18, and therefore not subject to the personal community charge. Those who are over 18, as well as those on JTS courses, apprentices and other trainees, will be eligible for community charge rebates on the same basis as all other people whose incomes are low. The improved rebate arrangements will bring many more young people, including no doubt many trainees, within eligibility for rebates as well as increasing the rebate entitlement of many others. That answers the question of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) about an apprentice in a bedsit.
        Amendment No. 252 is rather different. It would oblige the Government to reimburse full-time students for the 20 per cent. payment they will be required to make towards the community charge. I must urge the House to reject this amendment, not least because it is premature. These matters are being considered by the review which is taking place under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science. The review is considering all aspects of student support arrangements, including the impact of the community charge, and I understand that it is likely to report shortly. Until it does it would be wrong to deal separately with only one aspect of student finances.
        I turn now to the first of the Government amendments, No. 21. This is a purely technical amendment to the rights of appeal under clause 22. It deletes subsection (2)(c) of clause 22 which provides a right of appeal if a registration officer does not accept that a person is a full-time student. That right will continue to be available, but it is no longer necessary to provide for it expressly, in the light of another

        755
        amendment which was agreed in Committee. It relates to entries in the register, which I need not go into in detail now.
        The hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Taylor) asked about the effects on our proposals of Project 2000. It is a proposal by the United Kingdom Central Council, which deals with the training of nurses, on possible changes to future training. Following consultation, Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Security will consider what, if any, steps should be taken to implement those recommendations. This Bill is concerned with the present system and at present student nurses are clearly not full-time students in the accepted sense. If Project 2000 is implemented in due course and student nurses are treated as students on bursaries rather than salaries, we shall certainly reconsider their position under the community charge.
        The hon. Member for Truro, his party and, indeed, if I understand his position correctly, my hon. Friend the Member for Acton favour a full local income tax. The House should consider the implications for student nurses and newly qualified nurses of the effects of a local income tax. A first-year student nurse in inner London would be likely to pay more in local income tax than in community charge.
        Mr. Matthew Taylor: Will the Minister give way?
        Mr. Howard: I shall sit down shortly in order to give the hon. Gentleman time to speak.
        A third-year student in inner London would pay considerably more than under the community charge—as much as £1,000 in Camden and £830 in Lewisham. A newly qualified nurse would be likely to pay more local income tax than community charge in every local authority in England. In Camden her bill could be as high as £1,500, in Manchester £375, and in Durham £300.
        In the light of the implications of the local income tax proposals put forward by the hon. Gentleman's party, one should truly assess the strength of the propositions that he has been advancing. For that, if for no other reason, I invite the House to vote against his amendment.
        Mr. Matthew Taylor: With the leave of the House, I should like briefly to respond to the debate.
        This is a debate not about local income tax but about making the Government's system fairer. I hope that the Minister will accept that, although figures under his proposals for local income tax may or may not be true, under our proposals, which he was given earlier today, he was simply wrong.
        The hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Rhodes James) spoke from family experience and with typical integrity, such as we expect from him. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Sir P. Goodhart) referred to the Lords. I beg both sides of the House not to leave this to the Lords in the hope that they will make changes. A direction from the House is needed, and the House's position should be made clear.
        The speeches by the hon. Members for Staffordshire, South (Mr. Cormack) and for Ealing, Acton (Sir G. Young) were equally generous and showed the integrity of those hon. Members.
        The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) spelt out the true opposition to the amendment. It has nothing
        756
        to do with local income tax. The hon. Gentleman said that he would prefer a Bill with no exemptions and no rebates. That is the true alternative. I say to hon. Members: for goodness sake recognise the value of student nurses and support them.
        Question put, That the amendment be made:—
        The House divided: Ayes 232, Noes 321.

        Division No. 264]

        [8.30 pm

        AYES

        Abbott, Ms Diane

        Evans, John (St Helens N)

        Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

        Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

        Allen, Graham

        Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

        Alton, David

        Fatchett, Derek

        Anderson, Donald

        Faulds, Andrew

        Archer, Rt Hon Peter

        Fearn, Ronald

        Armstrong, Hilary

        Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

        Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

        Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)

        Ashton, Joe

        Flannery, Martin

        Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

        Flynn, Paul

        Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

        Foot, Rt Hon Michael

        Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

        Foster, Derek

        Barron, Kevin

        Foulkes, George

        Battle, John

        Fraser, John

        Beaumont-Dark, Anthony

        Fyfe, Maria

        Beckett, Margaret

        Galbraith, Sam

        Beggs, Roy

        Garrett, John (Norwich South)

        Beith, A. J.

        Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

        Bell, Stuart

        George, Bruce

        Benn, Rt Hon Tony

        Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

        Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)

        Godman, Dr Norman A.

        Bermingham, Gerald

        Golding, Mrs Llin

        Blair, Tony

        Goodhart, Sir Philip

        Blunkett, David

        Gordon, Mildred

        Boateng, Paul

        Gould, Bryan

        Boyes, Roland

        Graham, Thomas

        Bradley, Keith

        Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

        Bray, Dr Jeremy

        Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

        Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

        Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

        Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

        Grocott, Bruce

        Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

        Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

        Caborn, Richard

        Harman, Ms Harriet

        Callaghan, Jim

        Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

        Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

        Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

        Campbell-Savours, D. N.

        Haynes, Frank

        Canavan, Dennis

        Heffer, Eric S.

        Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

        Henderson, Doug

        Cartwright, John

        Hinchliffe, David

        Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

        Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

        Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

        Holland, Stuart

        Clay, Bob

        Home Robertson, John

        Clelland, David

        Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

        Clwyd, Mrs Ann

        Howells, Geraint

        Cohen, Harry

        Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

        Coleman, Donald

        Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

        Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

        Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

        Cook, Robin (Livingston)

        Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

        Corbett, Robin

        Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

        Corbyn, Jeremy

        Illsley, Eric

        Cormack, Patrick

        Janner, Greville

        Cousins, Jim

        John, Brynmor

        Crowther, Stan

        Johnston, Sir Russell

        Cryer, Bob

        Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

        Cummings, John

        Jones, leuan (Ynys MÔn)

        Cunliffe, Lawrence

        Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

        Cunningham, Dr John

        Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

        Dalyetl, Tarn

        Kirkwood, Archy

        Darling, Alistair

        Lambie, David

        Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

        Leighton, Ron

        Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

        Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

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

        Lewis, Terry

        Dixon, Don

        Litherland, Robert

        Dobson, Frank

        Livingstone, Ken

        Douglas, Dick

        Livsey, Richard

        Duffy, A. E. P.

        Lofthouse, Geoffrey

        Dunnachie, Jimmy

        Loyden, Eddie

        Eadie, Alexander

        McAllion, John

        Eastham, Ken

        McAvoy, Thomas

        757

        McCartney, Ian

        Rogers, Allan

        Macdonald, Calum A.

        Rooker, Jeff

        McFall, John

        Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

        McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

        Ross, William (Londonderry E)

        McKelvey, William

        Rowlands, Ted

        McLeish, Henry

        Ruddock. Joan

        McNamara, Kevin

        Salmond, Alex

        McTaggart, Bob

        Sedgemore, Brian

        McWilliam, John

        Sheerman, Barry

        Madden, Max

        Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

        Mahon, Mrs Alice

        Shore, Rt Hon Peter

        Marek, Dr John

        Short, Clare

        Marshall, David (Shettleston)

        Skinner, Dennis

        Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

        Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

        Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

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

        Martlew, Eric

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

        Maxton, John

        Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

        Michael, Aluri

        Snape, Peter

        Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

        Soley, Clive

        Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

        Spearing, Nigel

        Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

        Squire, Robin

        Moonie, Dr Lewis

        Steinberg, Gerry

        Morgan, Rhodri

        Stott, Roger

        Morley, Elliott

        Strang, Gavin

        Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

        Straw, Jack

        Mowlam, Marjorie

        Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

        Mullin, Chris

        Taylor, Rt Hon J. D. (S'ford)

        Murphy, Paul

        Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

        Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

        Temple-Morris, Peter

        O'Brien, William

        Thomas, Dr Dafydd Elis

        O'Neill, Martin

        Turner, Dennis

        Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

        Vaz, Keith

        Parry, Robert

        Walker, A. Cecil (Belfast N)

        Patchett, Terry

        Wall, Pat

        Pendry, Tom

        Walley, Joan

        Pike, Peter L.

        Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

        Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

        Wareing, Robert N.

        Prescott. John

        Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

        Primarolo, Dawn

        Williams, Rt Hon Alan

        Quin, Ms Joyce

        Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

        Radice, Giles

        Wilson, Brian

        Randall, Stuart

        Winnick, David

        Redmond, Martin

        Wise, Mrs Audrey

        Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

        Worthington, Tony

        Reid, Dr John

        Young, David (Bolton SE)

        Rhodes James, Robert

        Young, Sir George (Acton)

        Richardson, Jo

        Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

        Tellers for the Ayes:

        Robertson, George

        Mr. James Wallace and

        Robinson, Geoffrey

        Mrs. Ray Michie.

        NOES

        Aitken, Jonathan

        Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

        Alexander, Richard

        Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

        Alison, Rt Hon Michael

        Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

        Allason, Rupert

        Bowis, John

        Amess, David

        Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

        Amos, Alan

        Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

        Arbuthnot, James

        Brandon-Bravo, Martin

        Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

        Brazier, Julian

        Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

        Bright, Graham

        Ashby, David

        Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

        Aspinwall, Jack

        Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

        Atkins, Robert

        Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)

        Atkinson, David

        Browne, John (Winchester)

        Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

        Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

        Baldry, Tony

        Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

        Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

        Buck, Sir Antony

        Batiste, Spencer

        Budgen, Nicholas

        Bellingham, Henry

        Burns, Simon

        Bendall, Vivian

        Burt, Alistair

        Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

        Butcher, John

        Bevan, David Gilroy

        Butler, Chris

        Biffen, Rt Hon John

        Butterfill, John

        Blackburn, Dr John G.

        Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

        Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

        Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

        Body, Sir Richard

        Carrington, Matthew

        Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

        Carttiss, Michael

        Boscawen, Hon Robert

        Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

        Boswell, Tim

        Channon, Rt Hon Paul

        758

        Chapman, Sydney

        Hordern, Sir Peter

        Chope, Christopher

        Howard, Michael

        Churchill, Mr

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

        Clark, Hon Alan (Plym'th S'n)

        Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

        Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

        Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

        Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

        Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

        Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

        Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

        Colvin, Michael

        Hunt, David (Wirral W)

        Conway, Derek

        Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

        Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

        Hunter, Andrew

        Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

        Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

        Cope, John

        Irving, Charles

        Couchman, James

        Jack, Michael

        Cran, James

        Jackson, Robert

        Currie, Mrs Edwina

        Janman, Tim

        Curry, David

        Jessel, Toby

        Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)

        Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

        Davis, David (Boothferry)

        Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

        Day, Stephen

        Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

        Devlin, Tim

        Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

        Dickens, Geoffrey

        Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

        Dicks, Terry

        Key, Robert

        Dorrell, Stephen

        Kilfedder, James

        Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

        King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

        Dover, Den

        Kirkhope, Timothy

        Dunn, Bob

        Knapman, Roger

        Durant, Tony

        Knight, Greg (Derby North)

        Eggar, Tim

        Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

        Emery, Sir Peter

        Knowles, Michael

        Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

        Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

        Evennett, David

        Lang, Ian

        Fallon, Michael

        Latham, Michael

        Farr, Sir John

        Lawrence, Ivan

        Favell, Tony

        Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

        Fenner, Dame Peggy

        Lee, John (Pendle)

        Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

        Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

        Fookes, Miss Janet

        Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

        Forman, Nigel

        Lilley, Peter

        Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

        Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

        Forth, Eric

        Lord, Michael

        Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

        Luce, Rt Hon Richard

        Fox, Sir Marcus

        Lyell, Sir Nicholas

        Franks, Cecil

        McCrindle, Robert

        Freeman, Roger

        Macfarlane, Sir Neil

        French, Douglas

        MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

        Fry, Peter

        Maclean, David

        Gale, Roger

        McLoughlin, Patrick

        Garel-Jones, Tristan

        McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

        Goodlad, Alastair

        McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

        Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

        Major, Rt Hon John

        Gorman, Mrs Teresa

        Mans, Keith

        Gorst, John

        Maples, John

        Gower, Sir Raymond

        Marland, Paul

        Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

        Marlow, Tony

        Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

        Marshall, John (Hendon S)

        Greenway, John (Ryedale)

        Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

        Gregory, Conal

        Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

        Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

        Mates, Michael

        Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

        Maude, Hon Francis

        Grist, Ian

        Mawhinney, Dr Brian

        Ground, Patrick

        Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

        Grylls, Michael

        Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

        Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

        Mellor, David

        Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

        Miller, Hal

        Hampson, Dr Keith

        Mills, lain

        Hanley, Jeremy

        Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

        Hannam, John

        Moate, Roger

        Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')

        Monro, Sir Hector

        Harris, David

        Montgomery, Sir Fergus

        Hawkins, Christopher

        Moore, Rt Hon John

        Hayes, Jerry

        Morris, M (N'hampton S)

        Hayward, Robert

        Morrison, Hon P (Chester)

        Heathcoat-Amory, David

        Moss, Malcolm

        Heddle, John

        Moynihan, Hon Colin

        Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

        Neale, Gerrard

        Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

        Needham, Richard

        Hill, James

        Nelson, Anthony

        Hind, Kenneth

        Neubert, Michael

        Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

        Newton, Rt Hon Tony

        Holt, Richard

        Nicholls, Patrick

        759

        Nicholson, David (Taunton)

        Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

        Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

        Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

        Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

        Stewart, Ian (Hertfordshire N)

        Oppenheim, Phillip

        Stokes, John

        Page, Richard

        Stradling Thomas, Sir John

        Paice, James

        Sumberg, David

        Patnick, Irvine

        Summerson, Hugo

        Patten, Chris (Bath)

        Tapsell, Sir Peter

        Patten, John (Oxford W)

        Taylor, Ian (Esher)

        Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

        Taylor, John M (Solihull)

        Pawsey, James

        Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

        Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

        Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

        Porter, David (Waveney)

        Thorne, Neil

        Portillo, Michael

        Thornton, Malcolm

        Powell, William (Corby)

        Thurnham, Peter

        Price, Sir David

        Townend, John (Bridlington)

        Raffan, Keith

        Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

        Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

        Tracey, Richard

        Rathbone, Tim

        Tredinnick, David

        Redwood, John

        Trippier, David

        Renton, Tim

        Trotter, Neville

        Riddick, Graham

        Twinn, Dr Ian

        Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

        Vaughan, Sir Gerard

        Ridsdale, Sir Julian

        Viggers, Peter

        Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

        Waddington, Rt Hon David

        Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

        Wakeham, Rt Hon John

        Roe, Mrs Marion

        Waldegrave, Hon William

        Rossi, Sir Hugh

        Walden, George

        Rost, Peter

        Walker, Bill (T'side North)

        Rumbold, Mrs Angela

        Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

        Ryder, Richard

        Waller, Gary

        Sackville, Hon Tom

        Walters, Dennis

        Sayeed, Jonathan

        Ward, John

        Scott, Nicholas

        Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

        Shaw, David (Dover)

        Warren, Kenneth

        Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

        Watts, John

        Shelton, William (Streatham)

        Wells, Bowen

        Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

        Wheeler, John

        Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

        Whitney, Ray

        Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

        Widdecombe, Ann

        Shersby, Michael

        Wiggin, Jerry

        Sims, Roger

        Wilkinson, John

        Skeet, Sir Trevor

        Wilshire, David

        Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

        Winterton, Mrs Ann

        Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

        Winterton, Nicholas

        Soames, Hon Nicholas

        Wolfson, Mark

        Speed, Keith

        Wood, Timothy

        Speller, Tony

        Woodcock, Mike

        Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

        Yeo, Tim

        Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

        Younger, Rt Hon George

        Stanbrook, Ivor

        Stanley, Rt Hon John

        Tellers for the Noes:

        Steen, Anthony

        Mr. Peter Lloyd and

        Stern, Michael

        Mr. David Lightbown.

        Stevens, Lewis

        Question accordingly negatived.
        It is being after half-past Eight o'clock, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to the Orders [22 February and 13 April] and the Resolution yesterday, to put forthwith the Question on amendments moved by a member of the Government up to the end of clause 15 and new clause 13.

      New Clause 13

        STUDENTS
        '(1) For the purposes of this Part a person shall be treated as undertaking a full-time course of education on a particular day if (and only if) he fulfills such conditions as may be prescribed by regulations made by the Secretary of State.
        (2) The regulations may include provision that—

        (a) as regards any educational establishment of a prescribed description an individual (to be called a certification officer) may be designated by a prescribed person, or otherwise identified, in accordance with prescribed rules,

        (b) a certification officer shall at a prescribed time supply to a person who is pursuing or is about to
        760
        pursue a course at the establishment, and who is of a prescribed description, a certificate in a prescribed form and containing prescribed particulars,

        (c) conditions prescribed under subsection (1) above shall include a condition as to the possession of such a certificate, and

        (d) failure to supply a certificate to a person in accordance with the regulations is actionable by the person concerned as a breach of statutory duty.'.—[Mr. Howard.]

        Brought up, read the First and Second time, and added to
        the Bill.

      Clause 16

        JOINT AND SEVERAL LIABILITY: SPOUSES
        Ms. Jo Richardson: I beg to move amendment No. 147, in page 11, line 8, leave out clause 16.
        Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments:
        No. 150, in page 11, line 8, leave out 'This section
        applies' and insert
        'Regulations may provide that this section shall apply'.
        No. 151, in page 11, line 16, at end insert—
        '(1 A) Regulations shall not be made under this Section until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a report on the relationship between joint and several liability for community charge and the assessment of married people for income tax purposes planned to be in effect from 1st April 1990.
        (1B) Regulations shall not be made under this Section unless a draft of them has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.'.
        No. 148, in page 11, line 45, at end insert—
        '(9) For the purposes of this section the power of recovery by distress shall not be exercised against a spouse in respect of arrears accruing from any period when subsection (7) above applied where the person who incurred the initial liability is no longer residing in the matrimonial home and the spouse is residing in the matrimonial home and is entitled to a rebate under section 23 below'.
        Ms. Richardson: Amendment No. 147 seeks to remove the most blatant contradiction in this Bill. Our other amendments provide safeguards that will be necessary if the proposed clause is carried.
        The concept of joint and several liability in clause 16 exposes the cynical hypocrisy of the major argument put forward by the Government time and time again in support of the poll tax: that every individual must be made personally responsible and accountable both for payment of the tax and, at least in the Government's thinking, for their voting behaviour except—I repeat, except—if they happen to be married or live with someone as husband and wife. That is the plain fact of the matter.
        In this instance, it is just a small matter of some millions of spouses—or millions of contradictions, really—for whom personal responsibility and accountability will be stood on its head by joint and several liability. It will enforce responsibility for each other's non-payment of tax and tax arrears, regardless of ability to pay, upon married and cohabiting men and women.
        Nothing exposes the real driving force behind the Bill more clearly than that provision: one law for one, and one law for another. That is what the Government put forward. The real driving force is to continue the Government's programme of redistributing resources from the poor and near-poor to the rich and the richest. It follows the pattern of successive Budgets, culminating with this year's obscene £2 billion tax handout to top

        761
        taxpayers, as well as the pattern of successive social security so-called upratings and reviews, with this month's tragic implementation of the new social security system, which has robbed the poorest in our society of a further £1 billion.
        It follows also the pattern of redistributing wealth from north to south. Last but by no means least, it follows the pattern of redistributing resources from women to men.
        Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: The hon. Lady speaks of the redistribution of wealth from the north to the south. But under the Bill as a whole there will be a substantial redistribution of money from the south to the north, which is the best regional policy this country will ever see.
        8.45 pm
        Ms. Richardson: The hon. Lady has not done her homework. I suggest that she reads the debate, because time and again the point has been made by my hon. Friends that what she claims is entirely untrue.
        Women's earnings are still less than three quarters of men's average earnings, and I am sorry to say that the gap is widening. For many women in part-time employment, the gap is even wider. Does the House have any real concept of what that means? It means that women form the majority of those in the poverty trap; 75 per cent. of women low-income earners will be only partially exempt. Anyone receiving income support will still pay 20 per cent. of the charge, but part or all of that sum may be returned—though I stress the word "may". Low earners will also have to pay a percentage of poll tax; again, there may be limited rebates.
        Last week's decision to extend limited exemption will only marginally slow down the rate at which the rebate is lost as income rises; those affected will now lose only 15p of rebate for every extra £1 earned above income support level instead of 20p. Several million women fall into those categories. Women who are unemployed, single parents, caring for children or for elderly dependants and who are pushed into unemployment or low-paid, part-time work at such levels of income, will find paying another £100 or £200 a year impossible.
        One may look at the case of black and ethnic minority women. Many women who are black or Asian are in jobs in the service sector and in professional services such as nursing; we have just finished a debate on student nurses. They are all jobs that are unjustifiably undervalued and underpaid. Asian women of working age are not economically active and have no paid work outside the house. Ethnic minority communities are concentrated in the inner-city areas and served by authorities that will be hardest hit by the poll tax. For example, it is estimated that the full charge in Camden will be £782.
        Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: That is because it is a rotten authority.
        Ms. Richardson: That combination of factors means that women from the ethnic minorities will be badly hit. Approximately 5 million spouses are unwaged. The vast majority on them are women, and most married women cannot register for unemployment benefit. Joint and several liability means that, where one partner is not in paid employment, they will be dependent on their spouse or partner for payment of the poll tax. In the case of non-payment, they will be responsible also for arrears accrued by a spouse or partner who has subsequently
        762
        deserted, regardless of their ability to pay and up to the point of attachment of earnings, of seizure of goods, or both.
        My postbag—this certainly applies to those of my hon.Friends as well, and probably to those of Conservative Members—is overflowing with the fears, insecurity, anxiety and turmoil that the measure has brought about m individual women and organisations representing women, especially women who suffer mental or physical abuse within the family. The concern that the proposal is causing should not be underestimated by Conservative Members, or by those in the other place who are interested in the issue. Despite the existence of violence against women in every society known to us, and in every time in recorded history, this is an aspect that must be drawn to the Government's attention all along the line.
        I pay tribute to the work of Women's Aid—especially the Welsh branch—on the issue of the register, and the
        danger posed to some women if their addresses are published, as well as its work on joint and several liability. For women living in strained relationships, abuse frequently takes the form of financial deprivation. Many women have no knowledge of how much their husbands earn, and no access to, or control over, their household income. Women in such already stressful and sometimes violent relationships will be placed under further intolerable stress and danger. They will be powerless to control their partners, and may come under pressure to withhold their names from the poll tax register and the electoral roll to avoid the tax—and the aggravation, and indeed the threats, that it will cause. If and when the relationship breaks down and he walks out without trace, leaving all the debts, she will be liable.
        Mr. Butterfill: Does the hon. Lady object to the principle now existing in many cases under English law whereby a husband can be responsible for his wife's debts, or is it merely the extension of that principle to put women on an equal footing for the purposes of the Bill to which she objects?
        Ms. Richardson: I am not sure what point the hon. Gentleman is making. If I talk mostly about women, it is because it is a plain fact of life that, in the majority of break-ups in this country, it is the man who leaves the family. I see case after case in my surgeries—I assure the hon. Member for Lancaster (Dame E. Kellett-Bowman) who is shaking her head—in which the woman who comes to see me has been left because her husband is in some way not strong enough to bear the burdens, stresses and strains of the poverty in which they live. I beg the hon. Lady to believe that. If she examines some of her cases, she will find that it is true.
        Let me return to the point that I was making about people leaving debts for which whoever is left behind in the home—usually the woman—is liable. In Committee, the Minister said that, by and large, it would be left to local authorities to decide how to recover the money. I raised the point in a meeting with my local authority last Friday. Until then, the authority had not appreciated it. My borough treasurer went pale at the thought of having to set up some form of policing mechanism to chase the departing spouse and find out where he, or even she, was, and to make him or her responsible—if that was the authority's decision.

        763
        Marriage guidance counsellors are warning us that financial problems are already a major source of marital stress and breakdown. The added burden of the poll tax on low-income families, and families of all kinds in which women have to bear responsibilities for full-time child care or the full-time care of disabled relatives—now one in eight women—will greatly increase that stress.
        Mr. Leigh: Will the hon. Lady give way?
        Ms. Richardson: If the hon. Gentleman does not mind, I shall continue with my argument. We have very little time.
        An estimated 5 million women are caring for disabled or elderly parents. Their ability to take up paid employment is severely limited, and for most of them it is out of the question. In fact, it is the second most common reason for women to take early retirement. The Scottish National Association of Carers is convinced that the extra burden of the poll tax will tip the balance on whether families are able to cope with the financial burden of their own tax as well as that of their elderly parents. The association says:
        "There are already enough tensions in households caring for an old person who may be incontinent or senile. The Poll Tax is the straw which will break the camel's back."
        Under the Government's proposals, a woman who is married or cohabiting, and who has given up her job or taken early retirement to care for her mother, or his mother, or her father, may find herself responsible not only for her own tax but for her spouse's, if he leaves, and for her dependant's tax. She will not be able to cope with that, other than by trying to put her relative into a hospital bed that may no longer exist, or into a home, if there is a place there.
        Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman rose—
        Ms. Richardson: No, I shall not give way again. The hon. Lady can make her own speech in a moment.
        The Government have created a cruel and inhuman situation, and have added unnecessary burdens to the already overburdened carers. Moreover, if the legislation is implemented, it will pose real problems for the security—and, sadly for some, the safety—of women. I cannot put the case better than it was put by the Women's National Commission—which is, after all, sponsored and supported by the Government. In its evidence on the poll tax, the commission said:
        "It seems likely that joint and several liability for husbands and wives and for common law partners will be repeated in the legislation for England and Wales".
        The commission was discussing the Scottish legislation.
        "Presumably, the Government assumes that husbands will pay the tax bill of their non-working wives. It is difficult to see what advantage the community charge has over rates in these circumstances."
        I echo that.
        "It is also difficult to see how this matches the objective of all adults paying the local tax. Women may not like the assumption, but they may have no option but to ask their husbands to pay."
        I hope that the House will support the amendment. Clause 16 must be deleted. It must be replaced with the only measures that can seriously tackle the discrimination and injustice at the heart of the Bill. Such measures must address the ability to pay of every individual at every level.
        9 pm
        Mrs. Ray Michie: I want to speak briefly about amendment No. 147, which seeks to get rid of clause 16, concerning joint and several liability. Joint and several liability offends the most basic of liberal values, which hold that everyone should be treated as an individual and not be assessed as an appendage to someone else. As we said in Committee, joint and several liability will lead to a gross invasion of privacy.
        For example, how will a registration officer assess who is living together as husband and wife? Will local authorities use the same criteria as the DHSS uses for benefit entitlement? If so, our fears are legitimate. If the registration officer uses the same criteria, he or she will have to establish that the couple in question usually lives in the same house and has a stable relationship. How can that be found out? He will also have to ascertain whether two people have a sexual relationship. That is the most intrusive and repugnant part of the information-gathering exercise. Are the people known by neighbours and friends as a married couple? In other words, is there public acknowledgement of their state, or will the information be gleaned from local gossip? This is a charter for clipes and snoopers.
        Joint and several liability places women in a particularly difficult position in cases of separation or divorce, as we have already heard. After splitting up with her partner a woman may find that he had failed to pay his poll tax bill and she will therefore be liable for his bill, in arrears, for the period during which she lived with him. Gingerbread, the single parents' organisation, tells us that women are often left to sort out the finances after marital breakup—gas and electricity bills, and so on. We have no reason to suppose that the poll tax liabilities will be any different.
        The consequences for women are potentially horrible, especially for those who may be in an unhappy marriage in which they stick it out for the sake of their children. Husbands and wives, and men and women living together as such, will receive individual bills, but the non-earning or low-paid wife will find herself having to go, perhaps, to a bullying and harsh husband to ask him to pay her poll tax. Not every Conservative Member may be aware of how much verbal and physical abuse goes on in domestic circumstances—in private and public. I am aware of it because of my former employment in the National Health Service, and it can be frightening and distressing for the couples involved—particularly the women.
        The concept of joint and several liability undermines the Government's basic case for the poll tax. They say that by charging each individual they will increase the tax base, thus enhancing local government accountability; but by making one person responsible for two, they are, in practical terms, reducing the tax base.
        We do not want only individual liability: we want individual assessment. If the Government are unwilling to remove joint and several liability from the Bill, they should at least review it. For example, rather than having complete joint liability, why not have one-way liability, whereby a local authority would be obliged to take into account the respective resources of the spouses when deciding whom to pursue for poll tax arrears? It should not be able to pursue a spouse who would have been entitled to a rebate in respect of the poll tax if she or he had been assessed on an individual basis. That would at least be a

        765
        step towards individual assessment, and one of this group of amendments goes some way towards it. In any case, the Government should withdraw the clause and rethink the issue.
        The Secretary of State said on the radio this morning that the Government were honouring a commitment made at the election to abolish the rate system and introduce a fair community charge, and that that had been overwhelmingly endorsed by the electorate. He was wrong on both counts. The poll tax is unfair, and to say that the commitment was endorsed by the people of this country is farcical.
        Because of our crazy electoral system, the Government have a majority of over 100 seats, but they choose to ignore the reality that just over 13·5 million people voted for them while over 18 million people voted against them and against the poll tax. It has to be said again and again that the poll tax proposals are fundamentally flawed because they are unfair. They are immoral simply because they do not relate to ability to pay.
        Mr. Butterfill: I hesitate to intrude in arguments being propounded by lady Members of the Opposition, but I do so because something should be said about the general principle of joint and several liability. Earlier I asked the hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) whether she objected to the principle that applies in some cases, but not all, that a husband should be responsible for his wife's debts, being extended to a wife.
        Many of the Opposition arguments that we have heard in other debates imply that men and women should be treated equally in all things. To some extent, lady Members of the Opposition are seeking to have their cake and eat it. I can understand why they wish to do that, but I wish that they would be rather more consistent in their arguments.
        Mrs. Wise: Has the hon. Gentleman overlooked the fact that the amendment that we are discussing calls for the deletion of clause 16? That would relieve husbands just as much as wives of joint and several liability.
        Mr. Butterfill: I have not overlooked that. I was looking at the principle underlying the arguments advanced by the hon. Ladies and the reasons that they are putting forward, and they seem to support the general tenor of my argument.
        When one goes further and looks at the practicalities, one sees that the problem is perhaps being overstated by the Opposition. To begin with, a wife who had been abandoned by her husband would not be responsible for the poll tax liability under joint and several liability after the time at which the husband had left the matrimonial home. She would be likely to be pursued under joint and several liability only if the local government officer charged with the responsibility for collecting the tax thought that her resources were likely to be greater than those of the husband and that he would be more likely to make a poll tax collection by pursuing her than by pursuing the husband.
        The whole concept of joint and several liability, which applies not just in this area but in many other areas—for example, in partnership law—is that the person seeking to collect the debt may collect it from any one of the persons who are jointly and severally liable, and the tendency is to go for the person most likely to be able to pay. I suggest to the hon. Member for Preston that in most cases the
        766
        husband's financial position may well remain better than that of the wife, certainly in the circumstances that most concern the hon. Lady. Therefore, it is likely that in most cases the local government officer will still seek to recover from the husband rather than from the wife. He will be likely to seek recovery from the wife only when he knows that she has significant assets or assets that are adequate to enable her to meet the liability.
        Mr. Cousins: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that in the northern region at least 40,000 women are the main earners in families where the husbands are unemployed, and that, under subsequent Government amendments, very often the low earnings of those 40,000 women can be attached to meet any poll tax default by their husbands?
        Mr. Butterfill: I am well aware of the situation described by the hon. Gentleman, but I do not think that even he would suggest that more women than men are the principal earners in households, even in the region that he represents. I recognise the problems of that region, but, overwhelmingly, the male will be the principal earner in most households, although that situation is changing in various parts of the country. It is changing in London, where a large number of women may well he earning larger salaries than their husbands. We recognise that that is a new phenomenon in some parts of the country, although it can be explained by different reasons in the north and south of the country.
        There would be no point in a local government officer pursuing for debt an abandoned wife who is in a poor economic situation, because she could not afford to meet that debt. Even if he took the matter to court, it would be unlikely that a judge would order a distraint upon the home when the home contains little more than the bare necessities of life. That problem should not, therefore, concern Opposition Members to the extent that it obviously has done. If we are talking about a general principle, it is entirely equitable and reasonable, and It should have thought acceptable to Opposition Members, that in most matters men and women should be treated equally.
        Ms. Mowlam: I should like to speak briefly in support of the excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson), seeking to remove clause 16. and to explain why this part of the poll tax legislation is so negative and such a nightmare that many of us never dreamt that it would be implemented.
        I should like to begin by responding to the two points raised by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill). First, he will be well within his rights to say that we want our cake and to eat it, when we have part of that cake. When we have equal pay for equal work and equal work for equal pay, we shall begin to entertain those arguments. When equal rights legislation is implemented, we shall entertain that kind of discussion, but not before.
        Secondly, the hon. Gentleman must realise that he is in the realms of fantasy. He must remember that the Bill places the local authority in a Catch 22 situation. Although he sat through 150 hours of Committee proceedings along with me, I must remind him that the Minister said then that, if the husband does a runner—it is more likely to be the husband who does that—the local authority will try to locate the husband. What about the question of cost that the local authority has to face with no extra funding? A certain level of poll tax that the local

        767
        authority must obtain will be set, but, if the husband cannot be located, what does the local authority do? Does it say, "We're sorry. We're not going to collect that money?" Then it will be penalised by central Government for not collecting the money, so it will go for the person, usually the woman, who is left in the house.
        The Minister did a body swerve on that point. He tried to weave and bob over the question whether the local authority would issue a distress order. If one reads the report carefully, one sees that that is up to the local authority, but, if it is put in that Catch 22 situation, and has to get the money, clearly we know what it—
        Mr. Butterfill: Will the hon. Lady give way?
        Ms. Mowlam: No, I shall not give way, as a number of Labour Members wish to speak. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West has already made a fair contribution tonight.
        The distress order would be issued and the woman would be faced with the bill, the distress order and the loss of furniture. That is why the hon. Gentleman is not being honest to women when explaining the effects of this part of the legislation.
        Mr. Butterfill: Will the hon. Lady give way?
        Ms. Mowlam: No, I shall not give way.
        I should like to emphasise the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) last night, that the full impact of this part of the legislation will become real to the majority of people only when they experience it, just as happened with the social security legislation. We are talking about 1 million co-habitees, not just the odd thousand, and 25 per cent. of married people. We are talking about a large percentage of the population who will feel the full impact of the legislation.
        Let us look briefly at what will happen if this farce of a clause is not withdrawn tonight. A couple will sit down and begin to pay the bills—electricity, gas and telephone. When the two poll tax bills arrive, will one say, "Here's yours dear and this is mine"? I cannot believe it. This clause undermines the principle that the Government have been talking about throughout the legislation—that is local accountability, a personal poll tax and people seeing the services that they get-and makes it clear that this is not what the Bill is about. If we link it, although the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire) does not have the intellectual capacity to make that link, with poll capping, we clearly see central Government attacking local authorities to the death.
        9.15 pm
        The Minister was economical with the truth in Committee when he talked about joint and several liability because he implied that it will come into practice only when a couple is splitting up or there is a divorce. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Barking made clear, it will work before that. For example, 40 per cent. of married women have no independent income. What will happen? The wage earner will pay two poll taxes. Three quarters of women earn below the average wage of men and are part-time workers and low-paid workers. They will be paying not individual bills but joint bills as a family unit. Furthermore, when there is a divorce
        768
        or separation, the splitting of the poll tax will not work from day one. As a result of the Government's social security changes, women cannot register as unemployed if they are married, so they cannot claim rebate. Women are penalised by a combination of the poll tax and social security changes, and they will suffer.
        Let us look briefly at how joint and several liability will work. This has already been dealt with, so I will touch on it only briefly. I would like to know, but I shall not give him a chance to explain it, the opinion of the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West as to how the local authority chases the richest partner. He said earlier that all that would be on the register would be the name and address of each individual. He is now suggesting that the local registration officer will know how much everybody earns. Clearly, such information will be on the register, if not at the beginning, halfway through, when joint and several liability has to be implemented. Clearly, as in social security, neighbours will have to snoop about sexual relationships so that the officer can work out whether there should be joint or several liability.
        The operation of this will be farcical. Often, when couples split up, they separate for a couple of weeks, try to patch it up again, and split up again. The local registration officer will have to say, "Well, you argued the morning of the Tuesday so we don't count the three days when you were apart, but then you got back together for four days, so those four days you are liable for if he goes again." Whose word do we believe when somebody sees them walk through the door at 10 past nine? Does that count as a day when working out joint and several liability? Goodness knows how it will be implemented. I pity the poor registration officer who will have to work out such details. The Pontius Pilate attitude that we have seen exhibited by Ministers, who wash their hands of the matter and say that local authorities will decide, is reprehensible when the Government will corner local authorities and make them get the money in.
        The Secretary of State obviously does not want the title of feminist which the Chancellor of the Exchequer was after—feeble though it was, he at least introduced a move towards independent taxation for women—because clause 16 clearly penalises women. The clause shows that poll tax is part of the problem, but it is not a solution to the problems that face many people, particularly women, in this society.
        The Minister for Local Government says in an article he wrote for the Local Government Chronicle:
        "No one could have thought it possible to do this"—
        that is, to implement the poll tax—
        "while pleasing absolutely everyone."
        It has become blatantly obvious, especially in the past couple of days, that it is not a question of the Minister pleasing everyone; it is a question of the Minister pleasing anyone. Conservative Back Benchers did not support the Front Bench on this issue. Across the board, society after society, such as the CBI, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, and the Rating and Valuation Association, criticised the legislation.
        If the clause is not amended or withdrawn, the majority of women in this country will suffer from an unfair and unjust measure. The Minister told us yesterday that we are looking for the holy grail. Women are looking for justice and fairness in the poll tax legislation. If clause 16 is not withdrawn, certainly we shall not see that.
        Mrs. Wise: The poll tax legislation is bad enough for women in any case because they frequently have no income, and, if they are working, they are low-wage earners. Even a woman who is on her own and a low wage earner will be penalised by this legislation because she will pay a higher proportion of her income than do most men. This is bad for women.
        Clause 16 makes the situation for women infinitely worse. Many couples have only one income. I assure the Minister that we are complaining about the clause because it is detrimental to both sexes. It is almost always the case that things that are detrimental to women are detrimental to both sexes in the final analysis. It is bad for a husband to be regarded as liable for his wife's debts, and to have this fresh debt put on him. It is wrong from the viewpoint of both husband and wife, because the whole ethos is that the wife is an appendage to her husband. He has a burden because he has a wife and she lacks dignity because she is a wife. That situation is equally bad for both partners and not conducive to the development of a healthy marriage.
        A couple with one income is being doubly taxed. It is no consolation to the woman, who feels that she brings this debt with her by her very existence, that her husband must pay the bill. As has been pointed out, where there is stress or strain on a marriage, this is yet another complaint that a husband may make. A husband may be minded to say, "You have not brought in a penny. Why do you think you have a right to say how the household will be organised?" The poll tax will create intolerable stress in unhappy marriages. It is also demeaning for both partners to a happy marriage. The husband, at least, is that much more likely to have the wherewithal to meet the debt than the wife.
        The hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill), who has left the Chamber, said that local authorities will go after the husband because he is the richer partner. But the hon. Gentleman has not understood that local authorities will go after the accessible partner, the person left in the house, whether a man or a woman. That is the person whose whereabouts are known, and it will more often be the woman than the man. Whoever it is, it is an iniquitous situation. Of course, it will usually be the partner who also has the liability for the children. Therefore, it is the person who is on the spot and usually already carrying an unfair part of the former family's burden.
        The fact that we are asking for the removal of clause 16 shows that we want a more truly equal approach for men and women in this matter. It has been said that we should be pleased that men and women are being given an equal burden; that wives will be responsible for their husbands' liability and husbands for their wives' liability. I must inform Conservative Members that when we ask for equality we mean equalling up, not down. We want everybody to be treated not only equally but well, and that is what the Bill signally fails to do.
        There is the problem of those who are not formally married. Who is to decide whether people are living together as man and wife? Surely social security problems have given rise to enough experience to enable all hon. Members to understand what a minefield any discussion of cohabitation is. Will there be a repetition of those disgraceful events when widows who take lodgers are deemed thereby to have entered into a marital relationship? All hon. Members have had experiences in
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        their constituencies of the kind of disgraceful things that happen when officialdom has to decide whether people are living together.
        The wording of the clause is most odd. It has been said that responsibility for future debts extends only to members of the household—that they are not responsible once the family is broken up. That drew my attention to the wording of the clause. I did not have the good fortune, or misfortune, to serve on the Committee. I was not aware of every dot and comma in the Bill. Clause 16 provides:
        "For the purposes of this section people are married to each other if they are a man and woman—

        (a) who are married to each other and are members of the same household, or

        (b) who are not married to each other but are living together as husband and wife."

        Then it goes on to say:
        "For the purposes of this section people are not married to each other on a particular day unless they are married to each other throughout the day."
        If couples say that they are living together on a certain day, how will the matter be judged by the local authority? This is even worse than the social security system, and that is bad enough. I do not know whether Conservative Members understand the social security system—I hope that it is being brought radically to their attention at the moment—but anyone who does will know that the excuse for the cohabitation rule is that women who are claimants must not be treated more favourably than married women who cannot be claimants. That at least has some basis in logic, even though I disagree with it. But in this case, the Government are deliberately laying a trap. There would be no need for a cohabitation rule if there was not already joint and several liability for married couples.
        The Government are extremely ill-advised in pursuing this matter. The women of Britain will see that the Government have every reason to regret it unless they agree to delete the clause.
        9.30 pm
        Mr. John Cartwright: I wish to support the case so well made by Opposition Members against this clause. I endorse what the hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) has said about cohabitation, because the clause does not tell us who decides whether a couple are living together as man and wife. We can only assume that the registration officer's staff will have that unpleasant duty. The clause does not tell us what criteria are to be used. Like other hon. Members, I can only assume that they are going to be the sort of criteria that are now used in social security cases.
        The hon. Member for Preston referred to unpleasant cases. I have had at least two cases of 70-year-old widows who have been accused of cohabiting with young men living in their homes and have lost their social security benefits as a result. But at least in cases like that there is an appeal machinery; a person who loses a social security benefit has an opportunity of going to appeal. As far as I can see, in this clause there is no appeal mechanism of any kind.
        It seems to be suggested that we are going to have unpleasant snooping and peering into windows to see who is sleeping where and what is going on inside a household where there is said to be cohabitation. In some parts of the country the registration officer's staff will be extremely busy because in London and the south-east, for example, there are many cases of young people who get together in order to purchase a home. It may look as if they are

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        cohabiting, but often what they are doing—to use the phrase that one of them once used to me—is sharing a roof but not a ceiling. It will be extremely difficult for the registration officer to establish that sort of relationship. From what I know of local authority officers, I cannot believe that they will welcome this business of being turned into a team of poll tax snoopers, which will be the result of this legislation.
        I want to draw on some constituency experience to explore what this clause will mean in certain cases. Take the case of a man who moves in with a woman and her children, establishes a relationship and lives with her for a period. Perhaps it does not work out and he moves on, but he failed to register for the community charge while he was there and the local authority discovered that he was there. That may be why he moved on. The woman in that situation would find herself liable to pay his community charge. If she claimed that he was merely a lodger in her home, which he might well have been, it would be extremely difficult to prove because the fact could not be proved, so she would be stuck with that situation.
        Let us take the break-up of a relationship. A number of examples have been quoted of what happens in such a break-up. Presumably the joint and several liability to community charge will cease on divorce. That is clear, straightforward and undeniable. But separation is very much more difficult to define. At what point, for the purpose of paying the community charge, does that relationship end? Is it when the man physically leaves the property? Is it when the relationship has broken down and they have ceased to live with each other as man and wife? It is almost impossible to explain that and make it work in any fair or rational way.
        Mr. Dalyell: It was put to me by one distraught local government officer that we shall need a battalion of Sherlock Holmeses to sort it out.
        Mr. Cartwright: We had some discussion yesterday about the relative costs of various systems of paying for local services, but I think that the cost of administering this appalling tax is something that the Government have not even begun to work out.
        Coming back to the question of the break-up of a relationship, the working partner is usually, if not always, the man. It is the man who tends to depart, because it is the woman who is left to look after the children and she therefore finds it much more difficult to disappear and evade responsibility. If the working partner—in this case we will assume that it is the man—has departed, leaving his non-employed partner behind, he is not likely, the relationship having broken up, to want to pay her community charge. He may well find it possible to disappear and not be traced. He may well have told his partner that he has paid the poll tax when he has not paid all of it, and there may be a substantial part of it outstanding. In that case, we know that the woman who is left in the home will be liable to the charge. We know that that is what will happen because it happens now.
        After the break-up of a relationship, the woman is left behind with the children and she is pursued by the local authority for rent arrears and for the gas, electricity and other debts that have been built up on a family basis. I am convinced that that is what will happen with the poll tax.
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        I cannot see that the woman would be entitled to claim a rebate because the charge would have been assessed on the basis of her partner's earnings.
        There was much discussion yesterday of the anomalies that will flow from alternatives to the Government's proposals. The Bill is riddled with anomalies, and some of the worst anomalies and injustices will flow from clause 16. If the Government cannot accept this amendment, I hope that they will think through the clause again in order to prevent the injustice that will be done to women who can least afford to suffer. Lone parents in the inner cities, those who are most at risk, will be the least able to bear the burden that the poll tax will place upon them.
        Ms. Mildred Gordon: Some years ago I remarried. My husband, who is a Norwegian, came to England a week before our wedding to get the special licence. He used my address at the register office. A few weeks later I had a letter from the DHSS in Newcastle which said that at the register office my husband gave the same address as mine. I was asked whether I was co-habiting at the same time as I was receiving a widow's pension. I was able to explain that my husband had come to England a week before the wedding. The DHSS withdrew their allegation and apologised, but I was furious at the snooping. That was before the Government data network had appeared on the scene.
        Can the extent of the snooping that this clause will create be imagined? When I related my experience to my predecessor in the House, he told me about a case that he had had in Tower Hamlets. It concerned a 75-year-old woman who had had a DHSS snooper arrive at her house. He looked through the house and found that her lodger's greatcoat was in her bedroom wardrobe. She had allowed him to keep it there during the summer because there was a shortage of wardrobe space. Her widow's pension was taken away and my predecessor had to take up her case. If that has already been happening, what on earth will happen countrywide over this poll tax clause?
        Unemployed married women will be unable to claim a rebate because they cannot register for social security. There is also to be the indignity of joint and several liability. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Bournemouth, West (Mr. Butterfill) has left the Chamber so early in the debate because he asked a question that I shall answer. We are against joint and several liability, whether it is the husband who is liable for his wife's debts or whether it is the wife who is liable for her husband's debts. Women are not chattels. We stand on our own two feet. Nevertheless, we do not want to bear unnecessary burdens.
        In my constituency there are many families from Bangladesh. On the whole, the women stay at home and do not work outside it. They have extended families and take good care of their old people. The anticipated poll tax in Tower Hamlets will be astronomical—nearly £700. When the Inner London education authority is broken up, an additional amount for education will be added to that sum. The men are often in very low-paid jobs, because that is all that is available to them. The burdens on those families will be absolutely incredible. If a husband returns to Bangladesh, his wife will be left with a crushing burden that she will be unable to meet. She may end up by being put into prison for debt. The clause is pernicious. Therefore, I support its removal.
        Mrs. Maria Fyfe: One of the more farcical aspects of this clause, which has not been mentioned, is that, although husbands and wives, and couples living together—male and female—will be liable for each other's poll tax, homosexual or lesbian couples will not. It could be argued that this Government, who have been so keen in pursuing clause 28 of the Local Government Bill, are promoting homosexuality. People will work out that it will be cheaper to live in a homosexual relationship than a heterosexual one. Furthermore, one will be even better off if one goes to prison because one will not pay any poll tax at all.
        The farce does not stop there. Part of the Government's argument on accountability is that the present rating system undermines accountability on the grounds that, although there are 35 million voters, half are ratepayers but the other half are not. The Tory argument is that only the ratepayer pays any attention to the rates bill and to the services and the quality of services that are provided. That is obviously nonsensical, because any person who has been a councillor, or who holds surgeries, will know who the people are who complain about local authority services. At least nine times out of 10 it is the wife of a couple who comes along. By and large, community councils and tenants' associations are run by women. They are the backbone of those organisations. It is utter nonsense to say that, because a man's name appears on the tenancy agreement or on the mortgage payment, only he pays any attention to the rates and his wife does not know anything about it. In every household in the land, and particularly in Scotland where these things are to the fore because registration is going on right now, women are indignant. However, mostly they are amused at the idea that they pay no attention to how much the rates are, because it is the man who takes responsibility for paying and for complaining when things go wrong.
        We have spent many hours in Committee on this subject. We know the thinking of Conservative Members. I have noticed that not too many of them have come along to argue their case. They must be aware of how weak a case it is. However, we did hear in Committee how they envisaged it. They imagine a situation where, some time in the future, when the yearly poll tax bill comes through the door, a couple are sitting down at breakfast. The wife will say something like this. "Have you seen your poll tax bill this morning, darling?". The husband will say, "Yes, love. Have you noticed that it is £20 more than last year?" His wife will say to him, "And why is that? Is it because of inflation? Is it because of redistribution of the business rate from one authority to another? Could it be because of Government cutbacks? Might it have something to do with the latest pay increase for teachers, clerks, binmen or whoever?" He will say, "No, dear, it is because we have a high-spending, loony-Left Labour council. Let us write to that nice Mr. Ridley and tell him that he should poll-cap this local authority." The wife will say, "If you say so, dear. You know so much more about these things than I do." That is the picture that the Government have painted of the future. Couples will responsibly discuss their poll tax bills together. The Government imagine that today couples never discuss their rate bills. What utter piffle. The whole country knows that it is piffle, except for Conservative Members.
        Mr. Dalyell: Throughout these debates, I simply confine myself to a question. Ministers might listen to my
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        hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mrs. Fyfe) because we are a year ahead in Scotland. Therefore, the matter becomes that much more urgent.
        What factual work has been done in the Department on the sheer mechanics of doing the tracing? I interrupted the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright) by saying that one distraught local government officer has said that we would need a whole battalion of Sherlock Holmeses to do the tracing. If it is difficult in my constituency, it will be that much more difficult in Hackney or in any London area where there are a large number of immigrants.
        The factual question is how much manpower is it estimated will necessarily have to be available to do the tracing, especially for asking the most delicate questions about relationships between people?
        The whole business started with the Prime Minister, like Henry Plantagenet, saying, "Who will rid me of Becket or the rates?" The Secretary of State has said, -I will do the job", but they have not thought it through. All those things are coming home to roost. Let the Minister have time, but let him answer the question : what factual estimate is there of the amount of man or womanpower that will be required for tracing those difficult cases? He can get the answer from his civil servants in the Box if that research has been done.
        9.45 pm
        The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Christopher Chope): I begin by welcoming the hon. Member for Barking (Ms. Richardson) to our deliberations on this Bill. Her speech was extraordinary because it purported to put forward the interests of women, but failed to appreciate several crucial facts about our Bill, which will be very much in favour of women. I remind the House that 80 per cent. of single parents will be better off with the community charge than with the rates. I am sure that most Opposition Members will accept that the majority of single parents are women.
        Those Opposition Members who are aware of the financial problems that often arise on divorce, and in cases where an earning spouse moves out of the matrimonial home, leaving the wife behind, will appreciate that under the present rating system the rates bill remains the same, regardless of the number of people who occupy the house. However, under our proposals, when one adult leaves the house and only one is left, the community charge bill will be reduced accordingly.
        Mr. Rooker: What about joint and several liability?
        Mr. Chope: I shall come to the issue of joint and several liability in a moment.
        The second crucial issue that the hon. Member for Barking overlooked was that 80 per cent. of single pensioner households will also be better off under the Bill. Again, most single pensioner households are women. Furthermore, the hon. Lady failed to identify the benefits to women, especially to non-working wives, of joint arid several liability. If the husband has the money and refuses to pay for his wife, his wife need not worry because the enforcement action can be taken against the husband. When income support is paid to husbands and wives, it is paid to one spouse on behalf of both. To take the point made by the hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise), if the husband holds the purse strings, it is probably he who will accept the responsibility for paying both bills, or vice

        775
        versa. The spouse who does not hold the purse strings will be protected rather than penalised by having joint and several liability.
        There has been a lot of muddled thinking on this issue—[Interruption.] Yes, on the part of the Opposition. Anyone listening to the debate would be surprised to learn some of the recent history of this matter. When the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Bill was before the House in Committee and the issue of joint and several liability was raised, in that Bill, as originally drafted, joint and several liability applied only to spouses—in other words, to married couples. However, an amendment was tabled to extend that to unmarried couples. That amendment was put forward by none other than the Labour party. Opposition Members proposed and supported an amendment to extend joint and several liability to unmarried couples. Today they are suggesting that joint and several liability should be removed from the Bill.
        The hon. Member for Preston said that surely there was enough experience for people to realise what a minefield the whole area was. Perhaps she should have said that to her Front Bench colleagues when the Scottish Bill was going through Parliament. When other Opposition Front Bench spokesmen were handling the matter in Committee on this Bill, they had the grace to be embarrassed when the Scottish experience was drawn to their attention, but there has not been any equivalent shame in this debate.
        The hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Cartwright), among others, raised the issue of snooping. This shows that there is a misunderstanding about the stage at which joint and several liability arises. The personal community charge is in the first instance always an individual liability.
        Mr. Douglas rose—
        Mr. Chope: I will not give way, because I have a number of points to make. The hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) said that it was important that I should answer the points which had been raised in debate, and I shall do my best to do so.
        The bill will be addressed to the individual and should be paid by the person concerned. The reason why that is so important is that a MORI poll carried out for the Audit Commission showed that people who do not receive rate bills are three times less likely than those who do to know whether rate bills have gone up or down, let alone by how much. That is why the concept of an individual bill addressed to each adult is so important for the principle of accountability. There will not be household bills, and couples will not be liable for the bills of any elderly relatives or grown-up children who live with them.
        The fact that the community charge will be an individual liability applies also to married and unmarried couples. In the majority of cases, they will have the resources to pay their own bills, resources against which enforcement action will be taken if they fail to pay. Of married women, 60 per cent. have earnings of their own, and that figure is rising steadily. Other married women have income from other sources, such as investments.
        It is not the registration officer who decides whether joint and several liability exists. As we have repeatedly made clear, joint and several liability is an enforcement
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        and not a registration matter. It will arise only if the bill is not paid. Where that happens, the local authority will attempt to enforce against the individual concerned.
        If, having obtained a liability order, the local authority establishes that the individual concerned has no income of his or her own, and no or few assets, it will become apparent that the person is being provided for by someone else. The local authority may then need to pursue that partner under the joint and several liability provisions.
        Contrary to the statement of the hon. Member for Woolwich, it will be possible to appeal against joint and several liability. Before a local authority can pursue a partner, it will have to send him or her a bill and a reminder, and convince the magistrates court that if the bill has not by then been paid, joint and several liability exists. If the partner does not accept that he or she should be jointly and severally liable, there will be an opportunity to say so. If the local authority does not prove its case, the magistrate will not issue the necessary order.
        For those people who are living together as man and wife and who wish to retain the privacy of their relationship, there is no need for any official or snooper to be involved. So long as each individual pays his or her own community charge bill, the problem will be resolved. Only when a bill has not been paid and a community charge is outstanding will the registration officer be involved.
        The points made about amendment No. 148 raise legitimate concerns about what happens when marriages break down and past debts are taken on by the family. Often, if the wife was left behind, she might feel that she had an obligation to pay the outstanding community charges which were not paid by her husband. Certainly I take very much on board the discretion which we are giving local authorities in the matter.
        Local authorities can be trusted to use sensibly the powers of enforcement set out in the schedule to the Bill. The fact that they have certain powers does not mean that they will or should use them indiscriminately, any more than if one spouse leaves and there is a large electricity bill it means that the electricity authority must use its powers of enforcement indiscriminately.
        In advising local authorities on the use of these powers, I propose to recommend them to bear in mind the sort of circumstance described during this debate and to devote their energies to tracking down the husband rather than to pursuing the deserted wife.
        We have had a debate based on a misapprehension by the Opposition about exactly the stage at which joint and several liability arises. Earlier, the Opposition were in favour of joint and several liability—indeed, were in favour of extending it—so I find it amazing that tonight they have changed their mind completely.
        Ms. Richardson: With the leave of the House, I rise in the remaining minutes of this debate, during which the speeches from our side were excellent. [Laughter.] There was nothing to compare them with, because, apart from the Minister's speech, there was only one speech from the other side. It shows how committed Conservative Members are to the rights of women that they all left the Chamber.
        The Minister talked about those who would not be affected by joint and several liability because they are one-parent families. His speech bordered on the sexist and was certainly breathtakingly unaware of the realities of life today. The truly damning aspect of all the Minister's

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        so-called assurances is that they are assurances that the Government intend to wash their hands of every consequence of their actions.
        Local authorities will be made to make these judgments of Solomon and will be open to condemnation whichever way they turn. They will be blamed for what the Government have done. If local authorities wipe off debts, they will be forced to use the extra local taxes from the rest of the community. If they set up search-and-find units, they will be accused of creating further layers of bureaucracy and of snooping and policing people's private lives. The Minister will have removed himself from all the responsibility and accountability wrapped up in the tatters of his measure which he asks us to believe is designed to protect women and rescue them from the burden of the poll tax and their partners' anger at having to pay it.
        It is not paternalistic, ineffectual protection that women demand, but rights and a proper and full recognition of the value of their contribution as unpaid carers. They also demand the full recognition of the financial penalty which they suffer as a result of their caring responsibilities, whether or not in paid work. It is the Government's consistent failure to address those complexities and the realities of women's lives which render them incapable of ever producing legislation which is fair to half the population.
        I remind the House of the points that I made in moving the amendment. Although women are now half the labour force, they still earn less than three-quarters of men's average pay. More than half of all full-time women workers and three quarters of part-time women workers are classified as low paid. Five and a half million adult women, representing a quarter of the work force and earning less than the European decency threshold, will be expected to pay the same flat rate of poll tax as a millionaire and to be responsible for the arrears of a defaulting partner.
        The position is even more bleak for full-time unpaid carers, who will continue to face the same circumstances with no independent income. There is, of course, only one way—
        Mr. Chope rose—
        Ms. Richardson: I do not have the time to give way.There is only one way for the Government to tackle the serious flaws in the Bill and that is to remove clause 16. I invite right hon. and hon. Tory Members as well as my hon. Friends to vote for the amendment.
        Question put, That the amendment be made:-
        The House divided: Ayes 220, Noes 325.

        Division No. 265]

        [10 pm

        AYES

        Abbott, Ms Diane

        Beith, A. J.

        Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

        Bell, Stuart

        Allen, Graham

        Benn, Rt Hon Tony

        Alton, David

        Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)

        Anderson, Donald

        Bermingham, Gerald

        Archer, Rt Hon Peter

        Bidwell, Sydney

        Armstrong, Hilary

        Blair, Tony

        Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

        Blunkett, David

        Ashton, Joe

        Boateng, Paul

        Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

        Boyes, Roland

        Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

        Bradley, Keith

        Barnes. Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

        Bray, Dr Jeremy

        Barron, Kevin

        Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

        Battle, John

        Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

        Beckett, Margaret

        Buchan, Norman

        Beggs, Roy

        Caborn, Richard

        Callaghan, Jim

        Johnston, Sir Russell

        Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

        Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

        Campbell-Savours, D. N.

        Jones, leuan (Ynys Môn)

        Canavan, Dennis

        Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

        Carlile, Alex (Monfg)

        Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

        Cartwright, John

        Kirkwood, Archy

        Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

        Lambie, David

        Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

        Leighton, Ron

        Clay, Bob

        Lestor, Joan (Eccles)

        Clelland, David

        Lewis, Terry

        Clwyd, Mrs Ann

        Litherland, Robert

        Cohen, Harry

        Livingstone, Ken

        Coleman, Donald

        Livsey, Richard

        Cook, Robin (Livingston)

        Lofthouse, Geoffrey

        Corbett, Robin

        Loyden, Eddie

        Corbyn, Jeremy

        McAllion, John

        Cousins, Jim

        McAvoy, Thomas

        Crowther, Stan

        McCartney, Ian

        Cryer, Bob

        Macdonald, Calum A.

        Cummings, John

        McFall, John

        Cunliffe, Lawrence

        McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

        Cunningham, Dr John

        McKelvey, William

        Dalyell, Tarn

        McLeish, Henry

        Darling, Alistair

        McNamara, Kevin

        Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

        McTaggart, Bob

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

        McWilliam, John

        Dixon, Don

        Madden, Max

        Dobson, Frank

        Mahon, Mrs Alice

        Doran, Frank

        Marek, Dr John

        Douglas, Dick

        Marshall, David (Shettleston)

        Duffy, A. E. P.

        Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

        Dunnachie, Jimmy

        Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

        Eadie, Alexander

        Martlew, Eric

        Eastham, Ken

        Maxton, John

        Evans, John (St Helens N)

        Michael, Alun

        Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

        Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

        Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

        Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

        Fatchett, Derek

        Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

        Faulds, Andrew

        Mitchell, Austin (G't Grimsby)

        Fearn, Ronald

        Moonie, Dr Lewis

        Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

        Morgan, Rhodri

        Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)

        Morley, Elliott

        Flannery, Martin

        Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

        Flynn, Paul

        Mowlam, Marjorie

        Foot, Rt Hon Michael

        Mullin, Chris

        Foster, Derek

        Murphy, Paul

        Foulkes, George

        Oakes, Rt Hon Gordon

        Fraser, John

        O'Brien, William

        Fyfe, Maria

        O'Neill, Martin

        Galbraith, Sam

        Orme, Rt Hon Stanley

        Garrett, John (Norwich South)

        Parry, Robert

        Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

        Patchett, Terry

        George, Bruce

        Pendry, Tom

        Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

        Pike, Peter L.

        Godman, Dr Norman A.

        Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

        Golding, Mrs Llin

        Prescott, John

        Gordon, Mildred

        Primarolo, Dawn

        Gould, Bryan

        Quin, Ms Joyce

        Graham, Thomas

        Radice, Giles

        Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

        Randall, Stuart

        Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

        Redmond, Martin

        Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

        Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

        Grocott, Bruce

        Reid, Dr John

        Harman, Ms Harriet

        Richardson, Jo

        Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

        Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

        Heffer, Eric S.

        Robertson, George

        Henderson, Doug

        Robinson, Geoffrey

        Hinchliffe, David

        Rogers, Allan

        Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

        Rooker, Jeff

        Holland, Stuart

        Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

        Home Robertson, John

        Rowlands, Ted

        Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

        Ruddock, Joan

        Howells, Geraint

        Salmond, Alex

        Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

        Sedgemore, Brian

        Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

        Sheerman, Barry

        Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

        Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

        Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

        Shore, Rt Hon Peter

        Illsley, Eric

        Short, Clare

        Janner, Greville

        Skinner, Dennis

        John, Brynmor

        Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

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

        Wall, Pat

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

        Walley, Joan

        Smyth, Rev Martin (Belfast S)

        Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

        Snape, Peter

        Wareing, Robert N.

        Soley, Clive

        Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

        Spearing, Nigel

        Williams, Rt Hon Alan

        Steinberg, Gerry

        Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

        Stott, Roger

        Wilson, Brian

        Strang, Gavin

        Winnick, David

        Straw, Jack

        Wise, Mrs Audrey

        Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

        Worthington, Tony

        Taylor, Rt Hon J. D. (S'ford)

        Young, David (Bolton SE)

        Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

        Turner, Dennis

        Tellers for the Ayes:

        Vaz, Keith

        Mr. Frank Haynes and

        Walker, A. Cecil (Belfast N)

        Mr. Frank Cook.

        NOES

        Aitken, Jonathan

        Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

        Alexander, Richard

        Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

        Alison, Rt Hon Michael

        Colvin, Michael

        Allason, Rupert

        Conway, Derek

        Amery, Rt Hon Julian

        Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

        Amess, David

        Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

        Amos, Alan

        Cope, John

        Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

        Couchman, James

        Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

        Cran, James

        Ashby, David

        Currie, Mrs Edwina

        Aspinwall, Jack

        Curry, David

        Atkins, Robert

        Davies, Q. (Stamf'd & Spald'g)

        Atkinson, David

        Davis, David (Boothferry)

        Baker, Rt Hon K. (Mole Valley)

        Day, Stephen

        Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

        Devlin, Tim

        Baldry, Tony

        Dickens, Geoffrey

        Banks, Robert (Harrogate)

        Dicks, Terry

        Batiste, Spencer

        Dorrell, Stephen

        Bellingham, Henry

        Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

        Bendall, Vivian

        Dover, Den

        Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

        Dunn, Bob

        Bevan, David Gilroy

        Durant, Tony

        Biffen, Rt Hon John

        Eggar, Tim

        Blackburn, Dr John G.

        Emery, Sir Peter

        Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

        Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

        Body, Sir Richard

        Evennett, David

        Bonsor, Sir Nicholas

        Fallon, Michael

        Boswell, Tim

        Farr, Sir John

        Bottomley, Peter

        Favell, Tony

        Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

        Fenner, Dame Peggy

        Bowden, A (Brighton K'pto'n)

        Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

        Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

        Fookes, Miss Janet

        Bowis, John

        Forman, Nigel

        Boyson, Rt Hon Dr Sir Rhodes

        Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

        Braine, Rt Hon Sir Bernard

        Forth, Eric

        Brandon-Bravo, Martin

        Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

        Brazier, Julian

        Fox, Sir Marcus

        Bright, Graham

        Franks, Cecil

        Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

        Freeman, Roger

        Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

        French, Douglas

        Brown, Michael (Brigg & Cl't's)

        Fry, Peter

        Browne, John (Winchester)

        Gale, Roger

        Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

        Garel-Jones, Tristan

        Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

        Goodlad, Alastair

        Buck, Sir Antony

        Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

        Budgen, Nicholas

        Gorman, Mrs Teresa

        Burns, Simon

        Gorst, John

        Burt, Alistair

        Gow, Ian

        Butcher, John

        Gower, Sir Raymond

        Butler, Chris

        Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

        Butterfill, John

        Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

        Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

        Greenway, John (Ryedale)

        Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

        Gregory, Conal

        Carrington, Matthew

        Griffiths, Sir Eldon (Bury St E')

        Carttiss, Michael

        Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

        Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

        Grist, Ian

        Channon, Rt Hon Paul

        Ground, Patrick

        Chapman, Sydney

        Grylls, Michael

        Chope, Christopher

        Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

        Churchill, Mr

        Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

        Clark, Hon Alan (Plym'th S'n)

        Hampson, Dr Keith

        Clark, Dr Michael (Rochford)

        Hanley, Jeremy

        Hannam, John

        Moate, Roger

        Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')

        Monro, Sir Hector

        Harris, David

        Montgomery, Sir Fergus

        Hawkins, Christopher

        Moore, Rt Hon John

        Hayes, Jerry

        Morris, M (N'hampton S)

        Hayward, Robert

        Morrison, Hon P (Chester)

        Heathcoat-Amory, David

        Moss, Malcolm

        Heddle, John

        Moynihan, Hon Colin

        Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

        Neale, Gerrard

        Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

        Needham, Richard

        Hill, James

        Nelson, Anthony

        Hind, Kenneth

        Neubert, Michael

        Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

        Newton, Rt Hon Tony

        Holt, Richard

        Nicholls, Patrick

        Hordern, Sir Peter

        Nicholson, David (Taunton)

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

        Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

        Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

        Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

        Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

        Oppenheim, Phillip

        Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

        Page, Richard

        Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

        Paice, James

        Hunt, David (Wirral W)

        Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

        Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

        Patnick, Irvine

        Hunter, Andrew

        Patten, Chris (Bath)

        Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

        Patten, John (Oxford W)

        Irving, Charles

        Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

        Jack, Michael

        Pawsey, James

        Jackson, Robert

        Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

        Janman, Tim

        Porter, David (Waveney)

        Jessel, Toby

        Portillo, Michael

        Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

        Powell, William (Corby)

        Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

        Price, Sir David

        Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

        Raffan, Keith

        Kellett-Bowman, Dame Elaine

        Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

        Key, Robert

        Rathbone, Tim

        Kilfedder, James

        Redwood, John

        King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

        Renton, Tim

        Kirkhope, Timothy

        Rhodes James, Robert

        Knapman, Roger

        Riddick, Graham

        Knight, Greg (Derby North)

        Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

        Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

        Ridsdale, Sir Julian

        Knowles, Michael

        Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

        Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

        Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

        Lang, Ian

        Roe, Mrs Marion

        Latham, Michael

        Rossi, Sir Hugh

        Lawrence, Ivan

        Rost, Peter

        Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

        Rowe, Andrew

        Lee, John (Pendle)

        Rumbold, Mrs Angela

        Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

        Sackville, Hon Tom

        Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

        Sayeed, Jonathan

        Lightbown, David

        Scott, Nicholas

        Lilley, Peter

        Shaw, David (Dover)

        Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

        Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

        Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

        Shelton, William (Streatham)

        Lord, Michael

        Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

        Luce, Rt Hon Richard

        Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

        Lyell, Sir Nicholas

        Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

        McCrindle, Robert

        Shersby, Michael

        Macfarlane, Sir Neil

        Sims, Roger

        MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

        Skeet, Sir Trevor

        Maclean, David

        Smith, Sir Dudley (Warwick)

        McLoughlin, Patrick

        Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

        McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

        Soames, Hon Nicholas

        McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

        Speed, Keith

        Major, Rt Hon John

        Speller, Tony

        Mans, Keith

        Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

        Maples, John

        Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

        Marland, Paul

        Stanbrook, Ivor

        Marlow, Tony

        Stanley, Rt Hon John

        Marshall, John (Hendon S)

        Steen, Anthony

        Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

        Stern, Michael

        Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

        Stevens, Lewis

        Mates, Michael

        Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

        Maude, Hon Francis

        Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

        Mawhinney, Dr Brian

        Stewart, Ian (Hertfordshire N)

        Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

        Stokes, John

        Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

        Stradling Thomas, Sir John

        Mellor, David

        Sumberg, David

        Miller, Hal

        Summerson, Hugo

        Mills, Iain

        Tapsell, Sir Peter

        Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

        Taylor, Ian (Esher)

        Taylor, John M (Solihull)

        Ward, John

        Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

        Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

        Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

        Warren, Kenneth

        Thorne, Neil

        Watts, John

        Thornton, Malcolm

        Wells, Bowen

        Thurnham, Peter

        Wheeler, John

        Townend, John (Bridlington)

        Whitney, Ray

        Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

        Widdecombe, Ann

        Tracey, Richard

        Wiggin, Jerry

        Tredinnick, David

        Wilkinson, John

        Trippier, David

        Wilshire, David

        Trotter, Neville

        Winterton, Mrs Ann

        Twinn, Dr Ian

        Winterton, Nicholas

        Vaughan, Sir Gerard

        Wolfson, Mark

        Viggers, Peter

        Wood, Timothy

        Waddington, Rt Hon David

        Woodcock, Mike

        Wakeham, Rt Hon John

        Yeo, Tim

        Waldegrave, Hon William

        Young, Sir George (Acton)

        Walden. George

        Younger, Rt Hon George

        Walker, Bill (T'side North)

        Walker, Rt Hon P. (W'cester)

        Tellers for the Noes:

        Waller, Gary

        Mr. Robert Boscawen and

        Walters, Dennis

        Mr. Richard Ryder.

        Question accordingly negatived.
        It being after Ten o'clock, MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER proceeded, pursuant to the Orders [22 February and 13 April] and the Resolution yesterday, to put forthwith the Question on amendments moved by a member of the Government up to the end of clause 20.

      Clause 20

        STANDARD COMMUNITY CHARGE: SPECIAL CASES
        Amendment made: No. 66, in page 13, line 24, leave out from beginning to end of line 27 and insert—

        '(a) a county council,

        (b) a district council,

        (c) a London borough council,

        (d) the Common Council,'.—[Mr. Ridley.]

        Further consideration of the Bill adjourned.—[Mr. Kenneth Carlisle.]
        Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be further considered tomorrow.

        BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
        Ordered,
        That, at this day's sitting, the Ways and Means Motion may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.—[Mr. Kenneth Carlisle.]

Local Government Finance Bill [Ways and Means]
Queen's Recommendation having been signified—
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That any Act resulting from the Local Government Finance Bill may provide for

(a) sums to be paid to the Secretary of State in respect of non-domestic rating, and

(b) those and other sums to be paid into the Consolidated Fund.—[Mr. Kenneth Carlisle.]

10.15 pm
Mr. Richard Shepherd: I want to speak by way of inquisition and inquiry because I have great difficulty in understanding the mechanism by which we arrive at the allocation of funds. We do not know the amount to be raised, how it is to be disposed across the country or what effect it will have on local businesses; nor do we know what its impact on the country will be.
This may be an intellectual difficulty, but it is also practical in terms of the business and interests that we serve and of the economy of our country. We have no idea what the sum of money to be raised will be, or where it will fall—on London or on my constituency in the midlands. In the absence of revaluation we cannot identify what the sum of money is, yet the Government are asking us to march to the sound of trumpets to allocate large sums of money, without knowing what they are. It is a monstrous proposal that the House of Commons should give taxation to a Government without knowing the quantum. I wait to hear from the Government what the quantum to be raised is, and I want to know its impact on the north-west, the north-east and the rest of our nation.
The Government cannot give me any of these figures. What an absurd tax! If the House of Commons stands for anything, it stands for the control of the supply of money. We are giving the Government the right to raise money without the amount being known by the House. I want the Government to explain to me the effects of raising this money on the economic life of my country and on employment and the generation of business. In many ways this issue is fundamental to the economic purpose of my country.
Why do we arrive almost at Third Reading of a Bill in these circumstances? The House exists to grant money, yet the Government cannot tell me how much money they will raise and what that will do for business. Casually, we are saying that this should go through on the nod and that we shall ascribe these funds to the Consolidated Fund Bill, whose purposes and allocation we do not know—and I am asked to support that. That is why, with the greatest respect, this should be challenged and we should hear facts and figures in advance of the debate. We should hear of the amelioration of some of the effects—not the detail or the quantum, but merely some hypothetical amelioration for the next five years.
I ask these questions by way of a preface to considering whether we should support this money going into the Consolidated Fund tonight, in advance of Thursday's debate and of the revaluation next year that will give us many of the answers to these questions.
10.19 pm
The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): I well understand why my hon. Friend

783
wants to inquire about the meaning of this resolution and why it is on the Order Paper. The answer to his main question about how much this will raise is that, currently, the non-domestic rate yields about £8·5 billion and it is the Government's intention that a similar sum should be raised by the new form of non-domestic rate contained in the Bill.
We made it clear that we would not increase the non-domestic rate and that the total would be redistributed according to the revaluation that is currently taking place and, of course, according to the uniform rate poundage that will be imposed by the Bill. I cannot forecast the individual rate bills of each and every commercial hereditament that will result from these changes because the revaluation is not yet complete. I shall have much more to say about that on Thursday when we will be able to discuss the whole matter.
Mr. Richard Shepherd: Is my right hon. Friend saying that he cannot tell me, even in the most general terms, whether the west midlands will be paying a significantly higher tax, the same tax or a lower tax, because of the one critical factor that enables the House to judge the merits of the proposal—revaluation? If it is, how can he come to the House and propose that we raise unknown taxes that will have an unknown effect on vital constituency interests of every hon. Member? Hon. Members have not been aroused about this because of the absence of this knowledge and the diffidence of the Secretary of State about a fundamental point.
Mr. Ridley: Revaluation has taken place for decades in respect of rates on domestic and business premises. It is never possible to predict the results of revaluation before the revaluation takes place. There is nothing new about having a non-domestic rate revaluation.
I should like to make one other point to my hon. Friend. It is necessary to have this resolution because the Government had a choice whether to set up a separate fund for the payment of the non-domestic rate by local authorities which would then be redistributed per capita and pro rata to every local authority, or to pay the money into the Consolidated Fund and redistribute it in the way that I have described.
We decided that it would be cheaper and therefore provide a little more revenue for local authorities if the money was paid into the Consolidated Fund rather than into a separate fund set up for the sole purpose of redistributing this £8·5 billion. As a result of that decision, this money resolution is needed to make sure that the Consolidated Fund can receive and pay out the money in question. There is no change of policy here, nor is there anything new, except for the point that I have made, that instead of a separate fund we shall use the Consolidated Fund. That is a sensible decision.
I shall be happy to respond to any of my hon. Friend's points about the impact or the effect of the non-domestic rate in the debate on the Bill on Thursday. That is the proper time at which to raise these matters.
Mr. Bowen Wells: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. If my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) is right in saying that the House is being asked to debate the money resolution
784
before the substantive debate takes place on Thursday, can you tell us how you have been advised in this procedural matter? Surely it must be the wrong procedure.
Mr. Speaker: Nothing out of order has taken place. The Government have put down a Ways and Means motion and it can be debated.
10.25 pm
Mr. Jeff Rooker: To avoid any misunderstanding on either side of the House, let me say that the measure could have gone through on the nod. I hope that we can now dispose of it in a few minutes. Without that agreement, there would not have been five days for the Report stage of the Local Government Finance Bill. If there had not been five days, there would have been no opportunity whatsoever even to discuss the part of the Bill relating to the business rate. That was part of the arrangement agreed between the Front Benches to protect the opportunity for the House to debate the business rate, because that would not have been possible in only four days.
As the Secretary of State has said, the sum of money is the same. The Bill does not invent business rates. They are already there. We do not know the consequences of revaluation and of the unified business rate. We did not discover that in Committee and hon. Members will not even find out about it on Thursday, but, in the limited time available on Thursday, questions can at least be put.
The only point that is questionable, which I raised with the Government earlier, is the use of the words "Consolidated Fund" in the Ways and Means resolution. The fact that the Consolidated Fund will be used has a simple consequence: it then becomes national, not local, taxation. That means that the other place will not be able to discuss the business rate, as opposed to the poll tax, part of the Bill. Hon. Members might consider that point on Thursday.
Mr. Richard Shepherd: If I have understood the matter correctly, we have seen the transfer of the business rate away from the local authorities and, therefore, the transfer of the direct relationship to the national Exchequer. We are to pass the motion on the nod, just to do a cosy deal between the Labour party and the Conservative Government to ensure that we can now get this measure through.
Mr. Rooker: I resent the term "a cosy deal." Opposition Members, in demanding five days, were trying to protect the right to debate the business rate. No Conservative Members were asking for a debate on the business rate. We said, "Right, the Ways and Means resolution, on the nod." It is as simple and clear-cut as that. The decision whether the scheme is carried through is not in the hands of my hon. Friends. It is for hon. Members on Thursday to decide whether to support the Bill. The Bill is not about the rights of the Secretary of State for the Environment. The Bill states that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will henceforth fix the business rate. Hon. Members must either accept or reject that on Thursday.
10.28 pm
Mr. A. J. Beith: The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) has done the House a service in drawing attention to some of the features of this Ways and Means resolution, but it also

785
seems a little distasteful that he should lecture the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) as if he were a recalcitrant schoolboy, misbehaving and daring to interfere in the arrangements into which the hon. Gentleman entered in good faith for perfectly respectable reasons. We can accept his argument that, in reaching an agreement to take the business on the nod, he believed that he was advancing the interests of hon. Members, but that does not preclude the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills from speaking. He is in no way party to that agreement and is drawing the attention of the House to some important matters.
The important dimension that the hon. Gentleman has added to the discussion is the possible impact of this on the consideration of the Bill in another place, which has assumed a greater relevance since the Secretary of State today purported to be in a position to issue Mr. Speaker's
786
certificate and identify which Bill was a money Bill and which Bill could be considered by another place. The Secretary of State, in the remarks that roused me from my slumber this morning, purported to say what Bill the other place could consider and appeared to try to say that the other place had no right to consider the essential features of the Bill. That is not so, but it would be true in respect of the business rate if the resolution goes through. For that reason, the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills is right to draw attention to the matter and the House should take the matter more seriously.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That any Act resulting from the Local Government Finance Bill may provide for

(a) sums to be paid to the Secretary of State in respect of non-domestic rating, and

(b) those and other sums to be paid into the Consolidated Fund.

Community Charges (Scotland)
Mr. Dick Douglas: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. John Maxton: My hon. Friend is taking time.
Mr. Douglas: I know that I am taking time. I do not need my hon. Friends on the Front Bench to tell me that.
On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It will not have escaped your notice that 29 of the amendments to the Local Government Finance Bill, which applies to England and Wales, were tabled by the Secretary of State for Scotland. May I have your assurance that your office has examined these amendments and ensured that they were not in conflict with the regulations that we shall debate tonight and tomorrow night? If they are, we are wasting our time.
Mr. Speaker: I would have to look at those amendments carefully. As far as I am aware, none of them is in conflict with the regulations.
10.30 pm
Mr. John Maxton: I beg to move, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Standard and Collective Community Charges (Scotland) Regulations 1988 (S.I., 1988, No. 631), dated 28th March 1988, a copy of which was laid before this House on 30th March, be annulled.
Coming from Scotland, I find it interesting that Tory Members are beginning to get slightly panicky about revaluation. After all, we have been debating the poll tax only because of the panic that developed in Scottish Tory breasts as a result of revaluation. That is what the poll tax is all about. That is why we have got it, and that is why Tory Members may soon be more aware of what revaluation means. However, the poll tax is no answer to the problems of revaluation.
These regulations are not the most controversial part of the poll tax legislation. Nor are they necessarily the most obnoxious, although there are parts of them, particularly those relating to the collective community charge, which raise some important questions. However, the poll tax in all its forms is so hated and despised by the people of Scotland that it is right and essential that we, the representatives of the people of Scotland, should take every opportunity to put their views before the House and vote against any measure that helps to bring this iniquitous legislation into force.
I cannot remember when any Government proposal was so universally opposed in Scotland. The most recent opinion poll in Scotland shows that fewer than 15 per cent. of the people of Scotland support the poll tax. That is nearly 8 per cent. below the level of the Tory vote in Scotland, so 8 per cent. of Tory voters do not support the poll tax. Furthermore, many people who will benefit from the proposals still oppose them because they know that they are unfair, unworkable and undemocratic. Many of them resent strongly the imposition of this tax when they so overwhelmingly voted against it in last June's general election. Any Government who paid even lip service to the concepts of democracy would have withdrawn the tax after their humiliation in that election.
After last night's embarrassments, it is clear that many English Tories fear that they will suffer the same fate as Michael Ancram, Michael Hirst, John McKay, Gerry
788
Malone et al if this tax becomes law in England and Wales. Et al is Albert McQuarrie. That is why we shall take every opportunity to raise the injustices and absurdities of this tax in the House. There is still time for English Tory Back Benchers to come to their political senses and defeat the English and Welsh Bill on its Third Reading, and force the repeal of the Scottish legislation.
These regulations give us the opportunity to debate two of the important but less well publicised aspects of the poll tax in Scotland. The standard charge is the tax imposed on second homes. What these regulations are proposing makes sense since they ensure that houses with no roofs on, or those in need of repair nor redevelopment, should be exempt.
The standard charge is absurd in itself. Having made all the great claims that they were abolishing property taxes and introducing a personal tax right the way down the line, the Government are reintroducing a property tax in the form of the standard charge. The charge is on the property, and no matter how many people live in it and use it the charge will be exactly the same.
It does not matter whether one has already paid a personal community charge or poll tax in a local government area; if one owns a house in that area the same tax will be paid. We who believe in the rating system see nothing wrong with that. It is right to pay rates on a second home. But this makes nonsense of the Government's argument that they are abolishing rates. The standard community charge is just rates in another form-a very unfair form. Everybody will pay exactly the same standard charge whatever the size of house and whatever the income. The Queen will pay on her holiday house at Balmoral exactly the same as someone owning a one-roomed holiday flat in the same area. One cannot get more absurd than that.
If the standard community charge is ridiculous when set against the so-called principles of the poll tax, the collective community charge proposals contain the seeds of even greater unfairness and administrative nightmares than the personal poll tax.
Once the Government settled for the asinine poll tax, someone in the Department presumably asked, "How do we deal with those who move about all the time and have no fixed abode; do we allow them to get away with paying nothing?" Of course Ministers, who are convinced that everybody should pay something, said no to that. There had to be some form of tax. They came up with this nonsensical collective community charge. It means that every boarding house and hostel and other place where the occupants are transient will be designated a collective charge property, and the collective charge multiplier will be given by the assessor. The owners will then pay the personal tax, multiplied by their multiplier, to the local authority each year. They will regain the tax by charging on a daily basis each person resident in their property.
Let me ask the Minister one or two questions about the collective charge. First, why have refuges for women facing domestic violence been left in the collective charge category in Scotland, when it seems that they are to be totally exempt in England? On 4 February 1988 the Minister of State, Department of the Environment said:
"women's refuges … will be exempt not merely from the requirements to show the names of resident individuals on the register, but from the collective community charge."—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 4 February 1988, c. 462.]

789
I want to know from the Minister what is happening in Scotland, because in these regulations that is the only type of property at present that would definitely be in the collective community charge category.
Secondly, what arrangements have the Government made for the repayment of the collective community charge to those who are entitled to rebates or who may have already paid their community charge elsewhere? Many people living in hostel accommodation will be entitled to rebates, but their landlord must pay a full poll tax for each of them and charge them the full amount.
In the draft rebate scheme that I have seen there does not appear to be a plan to ensure that they can reclaim this money. Even if they can, it is a reversal of a usual rebate scheme whereby one claims the rebate but pays only the minimum amount. One does not pay the full amount and then claim it back, which will apparently happen in this case.
Let us take the example of a young unemployed person resident in Castlemilk or in another housing scheme in Scotland, who is registered there for the poll tax and liable to pay 20 per cent. He goes to look for work elsewhere, stays in a hostel and has to pay the full daily rate of the community charge in that hostel. What arrangements are there for him to claim that back? Are there any?
Thirdly, what compensation do the Government intend to give to charitable bodies that run hostels and refuges if they fail to collect the full amount of poll tax from their clients, which will almost certainly be the case? They will still have to pay the local authority the sum that the local authority has agreed with them. The hostels face increased administrative costs anyway as a result of this tax, without also facing a loss of income, which would be better used carrying out their real work.
Fourthly, at the other end of the scale, how will the Government ensure that unscrupulous private landlords do not artificially keep their bed usage figures low in order to make a profit from those who stay in their properties?
Perhaps the truth is that the civil servants and the registration officers have made up their minds that there will be few collective community charge places. In fact, the only one may turn out to be the women's refuges, which are to be exempt in England and Wales.
The word from registration officers and Scottish Office officials is that they are so alarmed by the implications of this absurd tax that the registration officers are being advised not to place properties on the register but simply to put them either into the commercial rating system or to ensure that everybody is registered.
If that is true, would it not be more honest for the Government to introduce amendments into the English Bill, even at this late stage, to abolish the collective community charge altogether? It is an unfair, unworkable tax. Many poor people will pay the tax twice and may have to try to claim it back.
The regulations are part and parcel of the administrative nightmare that the Government are creating with the poll tax. We have seen examples of that already in Scotland with the registration process that has already begun. We want the Government not only to withdraw this part of the taxation but the whole tax. The Scottish people do not want it. They never have. They voted against it and the Government should withdraw and repeal the legislation.
10.41 pm
Mr. Allan Stewart: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) has used the opportunity of the debate to make a number of fairly general points. Because time is limited, I do not propose to follow several of his points. He represents at least one faction in the Labour party on this issue—those who wish the law to be obeyed. That is the position of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) and it was the position of the Leader of the Opposition when he came to Scotland and made that most excellent 50-minute speech in which he did not mention devolution once. In passing, I would also add that he notably failed to congratulate the famous 50 on their victory in the last election.
However, the House will be anxious to hear from Opposition Members who take a different point of view, such as the hon. Members for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) and for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan), who is in some danger of being accused of being a moderate these days, and the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Leith (Mr. Brown), who may come in to make a contribution.
Mr. Alex Salmond: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the latest opinion poll in Scotland showed that 20 per cent. of Conservative voters favour a campaign of non-payment? Is that a faction within the Conservative party?
Mr. Stewart: I do not want to speak for too long in answering that point. My clear impression is that there is on the ground in Scotland a massive campaign of disinformation, which, in part, is unquestionably successful, and successful in some areas of my constituency. But when I meet people in Eastwood arid explain the position in detail, people generally go away much more supportive of the community charge. However, as I understand it, the hon. Gentleman's position on the community charge, and that of the hon. Member for Moray (Mrs. Ewing), is clear. Gordon Wilson is clearly on the record as saying that they will not pay the community charge.
Mr. Bill Walker: Is my hon. Friend aware that Angus district council, which is administered by the Scottish National party, has not followed the advice or the example of the SNP leadership, including those in this House, and it is urging people to comply with the community charge, which it is putting into operation?
Mr. Stewart: That shows that Angus district council, in this if not always in other matters, is following a common-sense course.
I understand the Labour party's position, as expressed by the hon. Member for Cathcart, to be that if there is to be a community charge it should not be a standard community charge. [Interruption.] I have obviously misunderstood the hon. Member; he believes that there should be a standard community charge. I hope that local authorities will implement the multiplier with flexibility and will bear in mind in particular the needs of the tourist industry. The hon. Member for Cathcart will recall that on Report I referred to the size of the multiplier and that he disagreed with my view that it should not be as high as two, but I think he agreed that local authorities should be encouraged to implement it with flexibility.
Paragraphs (b) and (c) of regulation 3 are fairly clear about the closing order and the demolition order, but I

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hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will confirm that paragraph (a) deals with dangerous buildings and the making of an order by a local authority. I hope that he will explain what will happen when orders are revoked or when undertakings are given by the owners of the property that lead to suspension orders. There are three redundant words in paragraph (e). If a building is incapable of being lived in, by definition it is not being lived in.
I welcome the Government's general line in regulation 4 concerning refuges for spouses who have had to leave the marital home because of physical violence or because of the threat of such violence. Also, I welcome the fact that the names of people in that position will not be made publicly available. It is not proposed, either, that the collective community charge multiplier for such hostels should be made available to the public. These provisions should have the support of the whole House.
As for regulation 5, I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister of State will explain how paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) will work. I presume that paragraphs (b) and (c) would work through the collective community charge record that the owner of the property will be under an obligation to maintain, but that record will not show the information that is required under paragraph (a) concerning
"the maximum number of persons for whom the premises are capable of providing residential accommodation."
I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to clarify that matter.
I welcome the regulations. Despite the Opposition's programme of disinformation, they confirm that the procedures for implementing the abolition of domestic rates in Scotland are steadily on course.
10.49 pm
Mr. Alistair Darling: The hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) seemed to be having difficulty in understanding the terms of regulation 5, or, alternatively, in reading the joined up writing of his brief, which clearly had been handed to him from the Government Benches in order to pad out this debate.
I should like briefly to speak about regulation 5, because it concerns a major problem, particularly in Edinburgh and Glasgow—the problem of houses in multiple occupation. Section 11 of the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act gives the registration officer power to designate premises where the community charge will be paid. Most of those premises are in places where a large number of people, particularly young people, live. They are characterised by an itinerant population of people who are forced to move after a short time, either because of harassment by the landlord or, alternatively, because of the Government's social security regulations.
When we look at the terms of regulation 5 and the factors that the registration officer has to consider, anyone who knows anything about houses in multiple occupation will immediately realise that a formidable difficulty faces the registration officer. Under regulation 5(a), he has to discover
"the maximum number of persons for whom the premises are capable of providing residential accommodation".
Here is an immediate difficulty, because he will probably find that the number of people living in those premises far
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exceeds the capacity of the building. It is not uncommon to go into a room in which one person could decently sleep and find four or five beds. Indeed, it has been found that there is a sort of Box and Cox arrangement, with different people staying at different times during the day and night. That shows the desperation of many young people who have to find accommodation. How will the registration officer find out how many people the premises are capable of providing for?
Under regulation 5(b), the registration officer has to find out the number of people who have stayed there at any time during the past three months. From my experience of canvassing houses in multiple occupation, I can tell the registration officer that no one knows exactly how many people stay there. The people who stay there do not know who is expected from night to night. The landlord is most reticent as to how many people stay there. Indeed, a number of cases—and there will be more—coming before the courts in Scotland concerning fraud turn precisely on the question of how many people are supposed to be staying in the premises at any one time. The fact is that the registration officer will not be able to find the number concerned, because the information is not readily available.
If one adds to the difficulty of determining for how long someone has stayed in those premises, to calculate the daily basis on which the community charge is payable, the difficulty of calculating rebate, one sees that this regulation alone will add to the bureaucratic nightmare and the considerable expense that will be incurred in order to operate this ridiculous Act.
Ironically some good could come to Scotland from these regulations if the Government would accept the demands of Glasgow and Edinburgh district councils for the power to police such premises and, perhaps, get rid of the exploitation and hardship being endured by some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Time and again the Government have turned their back on reasonable requests that would allow the districts to look at fire regulations, the accommodation available and decent standards of health and hygiene. The fact is that the Government are quite happy to turn a blind eye to the activities of some of the most disreputable people in Scotland. That is deregulation; that is free enterprise at its best—let these people practise their Rachmanite tendencies on the most vulnerable in society.
I believe that if the Government would give councils the powers that they so desperately need, many of the problems in city centres, such as Edinburgh and Glasgow, could begin to be tackled. That is the only good thing that could come out of the regulations. If that is not done, regulation 5 will not work. The registration officer will have no more luck than the environmental health officer, the fire officer or anybody else who has tried to tackle the activities of landlords in these cities.
I hope that the Minister will pay attention to what has been said. It is not just hon. Members sitting on these Benches who have said it, but respectable people—even Government supporters in my constituency—[Interruption.] I was giving the Government a chance to salvage themselves. Many people living in the city centres of both Edinburgh and Glasgow would like the Government to take firm action to regulate these properties and to make the regulations work. Sadly, in this regulation, just as with everything else to do with the poll tax, the Government will be found wanting.
10.54 pm
Mr. Bill Walker: I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) because, if I recollect exactly, before he got involved in a description of his hon. Friends which they found amusing, he was saying that the community charge, as referred to in these regulations—especially the collective community charge multiplier and the describing factors that appear in regulation 5—is unworkable.
However, I believe that there are positive advantages in the regulation. One is the fact that some sort of order and discipline will be brought into a situation in which, if I understood the hon. Gentleman's description correctly, there is multiple occupancy on a scale that is totally unacceptable. I accept that the hon. Gentleman knows much more about that than I do, because I do not fully understand it.
Mr. Darling: Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Walker: I think that that is a fair summing-up of what the hon. Gentleman said.
That being so, one of the ways of bringing about change is to hit people through their pockets, which is exactly what this will do.
If one accepts that the regulations are partly intended to ensure, first, that the landlord pays for the numbers, and, secondly, that those people who are occupying the premises on a transient multiple basis will be charged by the landlord, if the landlords are the Rachmans that the hon. Gentleman is claiming, the one thing that is absolutely certain is that they will make the charge. I do not think that any of us have any doubt about that. Once they have made the charge, the important thing will be how it is collected.
I do not deny that there will be some administrative difficulties and problems. However, the same is true of all taxes because people often try to avoid making their payments. That is true of value added tax. It is equally true that the community charge will involve self-declaration, as is often the case with value added tax. That tax also involves keeping records. If one does not keep records, one can find oneself in great trouble and difficulty. That will also be true in this case.
I turn to another matter that was raised earlier. 1 do not wish to make any comment on the Queen's country residence in Scotland, which is just north of my constituency. However, I remind the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) that staff in a second home, whether Balmoral or anywhere else, will pay the community charge. Many of those large homes have substantial staffs, all of whom will pay the community charge. Therefore, it is not quite true to say that people living in such homes will not be making their contribution or paying their share because they will be. Those who are living there will pay it—[Interruption.] I did not wish to make comments about the monarch. The hon. Member for Cathcart did that—I did not. I merely commented that people living in the second homes—the staff working there—will pay the community charge. Therefore, there is no question of those large homes not making their contribution to local finances.
I turn now to another matter that affects us in rural areas. Quite properly, holiday homes and second homes should make their contribution. That is what one would expect them to do. My constituency has many holiday and
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second homes and they should contribute to the expenses and costs, which they will be required to do under the regulations because, however one looks at it, anybody using a holiday home makes use of the police and the roads and is glad that the fire services are available. In my experience, all such people make use of the leisure arid recreation facilities. The libraries are well used, as acre water and sewerage facilities.
When hon. Members read Hansard tomorrow, they will realise that the hon. Member for Cathcart was spreading disinformation throughout his remarks. He kept making reference to a poll tax. There is no such thing. It does not exist. People are beginning to think that there are two different taxes—a community charge and, in addition, a poll tax. That is not surprising because Opposition Members have set out on a deliberate policy of disinformation. The more the community charge is investigated, and the more people refer to the fine booklet which has been distributed throughout Scotland, the moire they realise just what the community charge means. That booklet explains fully and clearly what the community charge is and how it affects second homes.
At public meetings in my constituency it has been most interesting—[Interruption.] Opposition Members seem to think that it is funny that people in Tayside, North, particularly in Pitlochry, should now accept that the community charge is a much fairer way of paying for local government. They accept that a contribution of 14p in the pound to local government expenditure is not draconian. Indeed, it is not any of the things which it had been called in the disinformation. It is a bargain when we consider the services that are provided. [Interruption.] Possibly the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) has not realised what a difference there is between 14p and 25p. That is why we are finding in Scotland that the community charge is being accepted by many more people. On 5 May Opposition Members will get a shock when they see just how many people have understood what the community charge means and have showed their appreciation by their votes.
11.2 pm
Mr. Archy Kirkwood: I preface my comments by supporting strongly the remarks of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling). He hit upon an important point in relation to houses in multiple occupancy which requires urgent attention. It may be difficult to make substantial improvements in the position through the poll tax legislation. In Committee on the Housing (Scotland) Bill the Under-Secretary of State suggested that the Government may consider legislation at an early stage to deal with some of the problems. If the Minister could confirm that, I think it would go a long way to alleviating the anxiety which is felt on this side of the House and, I suspect, on the Government side too.
It will be difficult for the Government to argue the case for the regulations because they cut across the underlying principle of the community charge which in essence and concept is wrapped around the principle of the individual's ability to pay. The community charge has a personal nature. The standard and collective charges have nothing to do with personal involvement. Therefore, it is an awkward and far-reaching anomaly in the principle and concept of the legislation. It exposes an important flaw.

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I want to concentrate on the practicalities of some of the proposals in the regulations. There are questions which have been substantially unanswered about the scope of definitions in the body of the regulations. There is much vagueness in the legal definition of such terms as "practicable" and "short periods" which are in the main sections of the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act 1987 which has spawned the regulations. The vagueness will lead to much inconsistency in the application of the regulations.
If a wide degree of discretion is left to registration officers, it will lead to a wide degree of implementation. In turn, that will lead to a wide degree of reference to the courts to appeal against the designation that has been nominated by the registration officer. That is not in anyone's interests and I invite the Minister to comment.
There are substantial unanswered questions about how the multiplier is to be implemented. The factors to be taken into account in these orders are substantially inadequate to get any degree of certainty whatever into the formula that is to be used to calculate the multiplier as it affects the collective community charge.
The extent of the collective community charge remains somewhat in question. If my briefing is right, in Committee the Minister said:
"there must be a strong presumption in favour of individual registration"—[Official Report, First Scottish Standing Committee, 29 January 1987; c. 721.]
That is, as opposed to standard or collective registration. Paragraph 7 of the consultation paper states:
"It is, however, envisaged that personal community charge registration should be the norm in all cases where it is practicable."
I should like to know whether that remains the case and whether the standard and collective charges will be the substantial exception rather than the rule. If so, will the Minister answer one or two brief questions?
The Department must have done some investigation and research into how the collective community charge will work. How many premises in Scotland will be affected? How many individuals will be affected? What is the sum expected to be collected through the collective community charge? If it is to be the exception rather than the rule, I expect the answers to those questions to be minimal. If so, they may not be worth having. If the Minister takes into account the sum required to set up a proper appeal procedure and considers how landlords will be expected to pay the arrears of residents who abscond without paying, what proportion of the collective community charge contribution do the Government expect not to collect? Those are important questions and we need answers to them.
Some of the questions involve substantial implications for the civil liberties of a vulnerable group of people who may be subject to the collective charge, and that must be addressed. By definition, such people come from vulnerable and fragile social circumstances. As soon as they go through the front door of a residential establishment which is subject to the collective community charge they will he faced with a series of intricate, far-reaching and intrusive questions. That must be borne in mind.
The hon. Member for Dunfermline, West (Mr. Douglas) drew attention to some amendments made to the
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English Bill, particularly regarding the 5 per cent. maintenance fee, which have a substantial bearing on this debate. It is not right to say that the amendments being considered in another form on the Local Government Finance Bill are not impinging on our debate this evening.
These are important regulations. They do not clarify very much for me, as a lawyer. They are suffused with vagueness and raise many questions about the practicability of the collection of the charge. They are unworkable and unjust, and flow from an Act which is unfair and unwanted.
11.8 pm
Sir Hector Monro: The Labour party should bear in mind that it stands massively discredited in the view of the Scottish people through its campaign of mass misinformation. The Scottish people do not like being hoodwinked and this will bounce back markedly in a few weeks' time.
I have in my hand the Scottish Local Government Information Unit bulletin, from which one notices that the editorial team comprises such people as Jean MacFadden, David Sanderson, Mark Lazarowicz, Steven Norris and other well-known Socialists. One would therefore take it that the information given in that bulletin about the community charge is hardly likely to be favourable to the Conservative party. Therefore, I quote from it with a degree of confidence, in view of the figures that it contains.
It states that in Dumfries and Galloway, for instance, the community charge would, if levied this year, be £210. Has the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) left the Chamber? No, I now see him, writing his Hansard notes. The figure for Roxburgh would be £211. Yet candidates from the Opposition party are going round quoting figures double that as being what the community charge is likely to be. They give out massive misinformation, and they also fail to indicate that rates will cease to be payable when the community charge comes into force.
Opposition Members must have pretty ghastly consciences about what they have been telling the people of Scotland concerning the practical impact of the community charge in due course. It is disgraceful that Labour candidates in Niths—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order!"]—are saying that the community charge—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. There is no vacancy here.
Sir Hector Monro: Opposition Members who support their candidates in those statements are a disgrace to politics generally in Scotland.
I believe that what is proposed by my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Scottish Office in the regulations before the House tonight is a move in the right direction in clarifying local government in respect of the change to the community charge system. When he has had an opportunity to speak tonight and to clarify points that have been raised on both sides of the House, he will be able to show that the Act was correct in both its policy and in its detail. I support it.
11.12 pm
Dr. John Reid: The hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) excelled himself with his contribution tonight. He almost achieved that for which he

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has been striving throughout this parliamentary Session—he almost cleared the Strangers' Gallery, with the exception of one slumbering person there.
The best that can be said of the three contributions from the Government Benches tonight is that none of them was worse than the contribution of the Secretary of State for the Environment yesterday. They were slightly better, possibly because all of them were patently from the same set of notes. All we heard tonight was one comment about misinformation, and nothing whatsoever about the regulations before the House.
It was also patently obvious from those contributions that Government Members have learned nothing from three months of debate. Everyone else in this Chamber and outside it—particularly in Scotland—knows that we are here dealing with a personal poll tax, a regressive tax, and a tax that in no way relates to ability to pay. It is also a tax that presents an administrative nightmare.
If the personal poll tax is already massively unpopular in Scotland, the regulations with which we are dealing concerning the collective community charge take matters to total absurdity. Those regulations emphasise the nightmare that will face not only the Government and the bureaucrats who will have to administer the charge but the people who will have to pay it.
One provision in the regulations illustrates the poll tax taken to its ultimate absurdity. As we heard earlier, it is to apply to those who frequently have to move about and occasionally to those who have no fixed abode. The results of the regulations laid tonight will be overpayment of tax by individuals, under-entitlement to rebates to individuals, and carte blanche to landlords for overcharging in cases of multiple occupancy. It is nothing more than carte blanche for fiscal Rachmanism. We expect the Minister to tell us whether he will encourage Glasgow and Edinburgh in the policing of multiple occupancy and how he will ensure that any of the charges collected by landlords under the regulations will be fully paid. What is to stop individual landlords lowering bed usage in their declarations and withholding charges from the Exchequer?
The regulations will be an administrative nightmare. It was ironic yesterday when the Secretary of State for the Environment told us that it would not be possible to alleviate the problems of the lower paid by means of the poll tax because of the bureaucratic apparatus that would have to be set up. The Government can set up a bureaucratic apparatus to investigate DHSS fraud and social security claimants, they can set up a vast apparatus to administer the regulations that are before us, but it seems that it is not possible to produce an apparatus to encompass the scheme that was urged upon the Government by certain Conservative Members last night.
There are four brief reasons why the regulations should be rejected. First, they rely almost entirely on the discretion of registration officers, and experience suggests that they will not be successful. Secondly, we come to the multiplier and the inadequacy of the factors that are to be taken into consideration when setting it. Seasonal variations and occupancy should be taken into account. Thirdly, the collective community charge is unwieldy and shows the poll tax in its most anachronistic form. Fourthly, a host of important questions remain unanswered. Not least of those questions is that concerning women who face domestic violence, who have
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been left within the terms of the collective community charge in Scotland. It seems that such women have been exempted from the charge under the English legislation.
The poll tax as it stands is a burden and an injury to the Scottish people. It is an unfair tax that is being imposed on an unwilling people in an undemocratic fashion by an uncaring Government. The regulations add insult to injury and the Government would be best advised to save their face, our time and much trouble and misery in Scotland by abandoning them.
11.18 pm
Mr. Brian Wilson: One of the minefields of the legislation that we are discussing is that of homes in multiple occupation, and I regret that time does not permit me to pursue it. Nor can I investigate those remarkable claims of support for the legislation. I understand that the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) can in his constituency find pockets of support for the poll tax, while I assume that the hon. Member for Tayside, North (Mr. Walker) holds his public meetings in Brigadoon. But opinion poll statistics tell us that 80 per cent. of people in Scotland oppose the poll tax and will continue to do so ever more deeply and ever more strongly. I intend to deal only with the standard community charge.
I understand that there were once some Tory votes in Millport. I have some statistics about the impact of the standard community charge on that community. They reflect—even in the context of second homes—the fact that the charge takes no account of ability to pay. Once again that is the fatal flaw. There are 1,300 properties in Millport and 60 per cent. of them are occupied throughout the year. The other 40 per cent. are second homes. However, the popular second-home image is irrelevant to Millport. Second homes need not be bijou country residences. They can be tiny homes that may have no basic amenities and no inside toilets.
Under the legislation, the owners of these second homes will be liable to pay twice the community charge. In cash terms that means that, on an island with a population of 1,300 with 1,300 properties, the Government will take an extra £250,000 a year out of the island of Cum brae and the town of Millport.
Mr. Allan Stewart rose—
Mr. Wilson: I know of the distinction offered between one and two times the personal charge hut, given everything else to do with the legislation, who would expect a local authority to set the lower charge? The Government supported by the hon. Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) have not even allowed the possibility of setting it lower than one personal community charge in the Scottish legislation, unlike its English counterpart.
So, with this legislation, the Tory Government will take an extra £250,000 out of a seaside town that needs assistance, support and rehabilitation, not this penal fine. I understand the logic of what the Government are doing. It would not make sense, even by their standards, to say that people who own second homes without inside toilets or any of the amenities we would expect in our own homes should be exempted from the poll tax. How could they say that about second homes when they are not prepared to say it about first homes? Logically, how can they give relief to people who spend two weeks a year in such homes when they tell people who live for 52 weeks of the year in the

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most primitive conditions that they must pay the same poll tax as the people who live in the most prosperous, biggest mansions on the hill? In a perverse sort of way, I suppose, we should praise the Government for not allowing that sort of illogicality.
However, by extending the principle of ignoring ability to pay for second homes as well as first ones, the penalty that will be imposed on Millport will be £250,000, which it can ill afford.
I conclude with an anecdote from a phone-in radio programme in which I recently took part with the ex-hon. Member for Argyll and Bute, Mr. John J. MacKay, now exalted to even greater heights while he awaits the departure of the hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro)—
Sir Hector Monro: He will have to wait a long time.
Mr. Wilson: I hope that Hansard caught that. The hon. Member for Dumfries said that Mr. MacKay would have a long wait; on a historical note, he had a long wait in Argyll as well.
A blind man from Strachur phoned in and asked whether he would have to pay the iniquitous tax. Mr. MacKay, adopting the caring voice of Thatcherism, said that he was afraid that he would. The blind man said that he lived in a little house and had to move to another little house in winter, and asked whether he would still have to pay it. The answer again was yes. When he asked whether he would have to pay two poll taxes, the answer from caring Mr. MacKay was again yes. At that point I intervened to ask whether the blind man on the other end of the line would actually have to pay three poll taxes. Mr. MacKay had to agree that he would. That blind man has to divide his time between two tiny homes in Strachur and, despite having a minimal income, will have to pay three poll taxes so that the Duke of Argyll can save £5,000, £10,000 or £15,000 a year, like all the other Tory grandees who are the beneficiaries of this shameless handout.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mrs. Margaret Ewing: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I know of your deep concern for the protection of Back-Bench Members, and it cannot have escaped your notice that my hon. Friend the Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond), who has tried to put forward the Scottish National party's view on the regulations, has once again been excluded from doing so.
Madam Deputy Speaker: I understand the frustration of the hon. Lady and her party. I only wish I could have called every hon. Member who wishes to speak in this debate.
11.19 pm
The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Ian Lang): I think we know the policy of the Scottish National party on the community charge: it is to urge the people of Scotland to break the law. We want no part of that sort of policy in the House.
This has been an interesting, useful and constructive debate. As the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Maxton) said, this is not the most controversial part of the community charge. This short set of regulations contains
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only three substantive provisions. I shall refer briefly to each in turn; and, in doing so, I shall try to deal with as many of the points raised during the debate as I can.
Regulation 3 prescribes certain classes of premises—briefly, uninhabitable property—that are not to be liable for the standard community charge. The standard community charge is payable in respect of dwelling houses where there is no one who is solely or mainly resident. That is, holiday homes and similar property. The hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) asked whether it is worth it. The answer to that is yes. Because with the abolition of domestic rates, no payment would need to be made for the local services that are provided for property of this kind if something like the standard community charge was not provided for. That would clearly not be right, since property-based services—fire services, street lighting, and so on—are provided in respect of these dwelling houses as they are provided in respect of other dwelling houses. In addition, owners and tenants of the property may use personal local services while they are actually resident in the property.
The Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act 1987 therefore provides for a simple system whereby property of this kind gives rise to liability for a standard community charge, to be set at between one and two units of the personal community charge for the area.
Mr. Maxton: It is a property tax.
Mr. Lang: The hon. Member for Cathcart says that it is a property tax and in his speech he said that it was an absurdity. The liability is on the owner of the property for the benefit that he as an individual has from the local services that are available. It is not a tax that is variable according to the circumstances of different types of property. The person liable to pay the charge is the owner or long-term tenant of the property. Local authorities will have discretion as to the level of standard community charge in each area.
We expect that it will produce a broadly similar level of revenue as domestic rates produce on these premises at present. During the passage of the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Bill it was recognised that uninhabitable property should not be subject to the standard community charge. Regulation 3, therefore, fulfils the undertakings that were given on this point during the passage of the Bill.
Where property is clearly ruinous, we expect that it will be categorised by the assessor not as a dwelling house but under some other description—such as "premises" or "store"—and will thus remain in rating, with no question of standard community charge liability arising. Dwelling houses in respect of which closing or demolition orders have been served or which, though not subject to such an order, are incapable of being lived in because they are under reconstruction, would give rise to standard community charge liability, if they were not prescribed as being exempt. Regulation 3, therefore, provides for this prescription.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastwood (Mr. Stewart) queried Regulation 3(a). This refers to the demolition of dangerous property. He asked what would happen if the demolition order were to be revoked. In the relatively rare event of that taking place, the property owner would resume liability for the standard community

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charge. If it became inhabited as a sole or main residence, the resident would be liable for the personal community charge.
Regulations 4 and 5 relate to the collective community charge, which will be applied, in place of personal community charge liability, in respect of premises whose residents are so transient that it would not be practicable for registration officers to register them individually for the personal community charge, and for local authorities to collect personal community charges from them. There has been much criticism of the collective community charge mechanism, and indeed it is our firm intention that it should be used only in a very small number of cases. That answers the point made by a number of hon. Members. But no one has denied that a small number of such cases will exist, and that therefore something along the lines of the collective community charge is necessary.
Regulation 4 provides for the one use of the collective community charge that does not relate directly to the transience of the residents. It ensures that women's refuges will, in all cases, give rise to collective community charge liability.
Mr. William McKelvey rose—
I am sorry, but I shall not give way because I am on an important point.
This provision will ensure that the names of women staying in refuges will not appear on the community charges register, and the concomitant provision in regulation 15 of the Community Charges (Registration) (Scotland) Regulations 1988, which we debated on 28 March. ensures that the collective community charge multiplier, which will normally identify on the public register premises liable to the collective community charge, will not appear on the public register in the case of women's refuges. It will thus be impossible to distinguish from the public register women's refuges from any other address. These two provisions were brought forward after careful consideration, during the passage of the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Bill, of the position of women in refuges and the need for their anonymity to be preserved. I am confident that the mechanism that we propose will achieve that on a consistent basis throughout Scotland.
The hon. Member for Cathcart asked about the English situation. I accept that it would be possible to deal with the position of women in refuges along these lines rather than through the mechanism provided in regulation 4. That procedure is indeed envisaged for England and Wales. The mechanism that I have described was formulated after careful consideration of the views put forward, including the views of Scottish Women's Aid, during the passage of the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Bill. It provides a standard mechanism for all women's refuges throughout Scotland to which Scottish Women's Aid attaches considerable importance.
I would therefore be reluctant to replace that mechanism with a general provision for anonymous registration, which would depend on women resident in refuges making individual applications to the community charges registration officer for their names to be removed from the public form of the register.
The hon. Member for Cathcart also asked me about rebates from collective community charge contributions.
802
We have always made it clear that those who pay collective community charge contributions, like those who pay the personal community charge, should be eligible for—
It being half-past Eleven o'clock, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question, pursuant to Standing Order No. 15 (;Prayers against statutory instruments &c. (negative procedure)).
The House proceeded to a Division—
Mr. Harry Cohen: On a point of order; Madam Deputy Speaker. May I urge you to reconsider the question of locking the doors? I suggest, with respect, that they were locked two minutes too soon.
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I can help the hon. Member. There is something wrong with the digital clock. I shall allow another two minutes.
The House having divided: Ayes 164, Noes 277.

Division No. 266]

[11.30 Pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Faulds, Andrew

Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Allen, Graham

Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)

Alton, David

Flynn, Paul

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Forsythe, Clifford (Antrim S)

Armstrong, Hilary

Foster, Derek

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Foulkes, George

Barron, Kevin

Fyfe, Maria

Battle, John

Galbraith, Sam

Beggs, Roy

George, Bruce

Beith, A. J.

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Bell, Stuart

Golding, Mrs Llin

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Gordon, Mildred

Bermingham, Gerald

Graham, Thomas

Bidwell, Sydney

Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

Blair, Tony

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Boateng, Paul

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Boyes, Roland

Harman, Ms Harriet

Bradley, Keith

Henderson, Doug

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Hinchliffe, David

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

Hogg, N. (C'nauid & Kilsyth)

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Holland, Stuart

Buchan, Norman

Home Robertson, John

Caborn, Richard

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Callaghan, Jim

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

Canavan, Dennis

Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Illsley, Eric

Clay, Bob

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Clelland, David

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Kirkwood, Archy

Cohen, Harry

Lambie, David

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Leadbitter, Ted

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Lewis, Terry

Corbyn, Jeremy

Livsey, Richard

Cousins, Jim

Lofthouse, Geoffrey

Crowther, Stan

McAllion, John

Cryer, Bob

McAvoy, Thomas

Cummings, John

McCartney, Ian

Cunningham, Dr John

Macdonald, Calum A.

Dalyell, Tam

McFall, John

Darling, Alistair

McKay, Allen (Barnsley West)

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

McKelvey, William

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

McLeish, Henry

Dixon, Don

McTaggart, Bob

Doran, Frank

McWilliam, John

Douglas, Dick

Madden, Max

Duffy, A. E. P.

Mahon, Mrs Alice

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Marek, Dr John

Eadie, Alexander

Marshall, David (Shettleston)

Eastham, Ken

Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Martin, Michael J. (Springburn)

Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

Martlew, Eric

Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

Maxton, John

Fatchett, Derek

Michael, Alun

803

Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

Skinner, Dennis

Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'I & Bute)

Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

Millan, Rt Hon Bruce

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

Moonie, Dr Lewis

Soley, Clive

Morgan, Rhodri

Spearing, Nigel

Morley, Elliott

Steinberg, Gerry

Mowlam, Marjorie

Stott, Roger

Mullin, Chris

Strang, Gavin

Murphy, Paul

Straw, Jack

O'Brien, William

Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

O'Neill, Martin

Taylor, Rt Hon J. D. (S'ford)

Parry, Robert

Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

Patchett, Terry

Turner, Dennis

Pike, Peter L.

Wall, Pat

Primarolo, Dawn

Wallace, James

Quin, Ms Joyce

Walley, Joan

Redmond, Martin

Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

Reid, Dr John

Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

Roberts, Allan (Bootle)

Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

Robertson, George

Wilson, Brian

Robinson, Geoffrey

Winnick, David

Rogers, Allan

Wise, Mrs Audrey

Rooker, Jeff

Worthington, Tony

Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

Rowlands, Ted

Tellers for the Ayes:

Ruddock, Joan

Mr. Frank Haynes and

Salmond, Alex

Mr. Robert N. Wareing.

Short, Clare

NOES

Alexander, Richard

Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

Alison, Rt Hon Michael

Colvin, Michael

Allason, Rupert

Conway, Derek

Amess, David

Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

Amos, Alan

Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

Arbuthnot, James

Cope, John

Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

Cran, James

Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

Currie, Mrs Edwina

Ashby, David

Curry, David

Aspinwall, Jack

Davies, Q. (Stamf'd &350 Spald'g)

Atkins, Robert

Davis, David (Boothferry)

Atkinson, David

Day, Stephen

Baker, Nicholas (Dorset N)

Devlin, Tim

Baldry, Tony

Dickens, Geoffrey

Batiste, Spencer

Dicks, Terry

Bellingham, Henry

Dorrell, Stephen

Bennett, Nicholas (Pembroke)

Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

Bevan, David Gilroy

Dover, Den

Blackburn, Dr John G.

Dunn, Bob

Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

Durant, Tony

Boswell, Tim

Emery, Sir Peter

Bottomley, Peter

Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

Evennett, David

Bowden, Gerald (Dulwich)

Fallon, Michael

Bowis, John

Farr, Sir John

Brandon-Bravo, Martin

Favell, Tony

Brazier, Julian

Fenner, Dame Peggy

Bright, Graham

Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

Brittan, Rt Hon Leon

Fookes, Miss Janet

Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

Forman, Nigel

Brown, Michael (Brigg & CI't's)

Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

Forth, Eric

Buchanan-Smith, Rt Hon Alick

Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

Buck, Sir Antony

Fox, Sir Marcus

Budgen, Nicholas

Franks, Cecil

Burns, Simon

Freeman, Roger

Burt, Alistair

French, Douglas

Butcher, John

Fry, Peter

Butler, Chris

Gale, Roger

Butterfill, John

Garel-Jones, Tristan

Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

Goodlad, Alastair

Carlisle, Kenneth (Lincoln)

Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

Carrington, Matthew

Gorman, Mrs Teresa

Carttiss, Michael

Gow, Ian

Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

Gower, Sir Raymond

Channon, Rt Hon Paul

Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

Chapman, Sydney

Greenway, John (Ryedale)

Chope, Christopher

Gregory, Conal

Clark, Hon Alan (Plym'th S'n)

Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

Clark Dr Michael (Rochford)

Grist, Ian

804

Ground, Patrick

Montgomery, Sir Fergus

Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

Moore, Rt Hon John

Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

Morris, M (N'hampton S)

Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

Morrison, Hon P (Chester)

Hampson, Dr Keith

Moss, Malcolm

Hanley, Jeremy

Moynihan, Hon Colin

Hannam, John

Neale, Gerrard

Hargreaves, A. (B'ham H'll Gr')

Needham, Richard

Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

Nelson, Anthony

Harris, David

Neubert, Michael

Hawkins, Christopher

Newton, Rt Hon Tony

Hayes, Jerry

Nicholls, Patrick

Heathcoat-Amory, David

Nicholson, David (Taunton)

Heddle, John

Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

Oppenheim, Phillip

Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

Page, Richard

Hind, Kenneth

Paice, James

Holt, Richard

Patnick, Irvine

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

Patten, Chris (Bath)

Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

Patten, John (Oxford W)

Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

Pawsey, James

Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

Hunt, David (Wirral W)

Porter, David (Waveney)

Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

Portillo, Michael

Hunter, Andrew

Powell, William (Corby)

Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

Price, Sir David

Irvine, Michael

Raffan, Keith

Irving, Charles

Raison, Rt Hon Timothy

Jack, Michael

Rathbone, Tim

Jackson, Robert

Redwood, John

Janman, Tim

Renton, Tim

Jessel, Toby

Riddick, Graham

Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

Ridsdale, Sir Julian

Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

Jopling, Rt Hon Michael

Roe, Mrs Marion

Key, Robert

Rost, Peter

King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

Rowe, Andrew

Kirkhope, Timothy

Rumbold, Mrs Angela

Knapman, Roger

Ryder, Richard

Knight, Greg (Derby North)

Sackville, Hon Tom

Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

Sayeed, Jonathan

Knowles, Michael

Shaw, David (Dover)

Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

Lang, Ian

Shelton, William (Streatham)

Latham, Michael

Shephard, Mrs G. (Norfolk SW)

Lawrence, Ivan

Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

Lee, John (Pendle)

Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

Shersby, Michael

Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

Skeet, Sir Trevor

Lightbown, David

Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

Lilley, Peter

Soames, Hon Nicholas

Lloyd, Sir Ian (Havant)

Speed, Keith

Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

Speller, Tony

Lord, Michael

Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

Luce, Rt Hon Richard

Stanbrook, Ivor

Lyell, Sir Nicholas

Stanley, Rt Hon John

Macfarlane, Sir Neil

Stern, Michael

MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

McLoughlin, Patrick

Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

McNair-Wilson, M. (Newbury)

Stokes, John

McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

Stradling Thomas, Sir John

Mans, Keith

Summerson, Hugo

Maples, John

Tapsell, Sir Peter

Marland, Paul

Taylor, Ian (Esher)

Marshall, John (Hendon S)

Taylor, John M (Solihull)

Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

Thorne, Neil

Mates, Michael

Thurnham, Peter

Maude, Hon Francis

Townend, John (Bridlington)

Mawhinney, Dr Brian

Tracey, Richard

Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

Tredinnick, David

Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

Trippier, David

Mellor, David

Trotter, Neville

Miller, Hal

Twinn, Dr Ian

Mills, Iain

Waddington, Rt Hon David

Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

Wakeham, Rt Hon John

Mitchell, David (Hants NW)

Walden, George

Moate, Roger

Walker, Bill (T'side North)

Monro, Sir Hector

Waller, Gary

805

Ward, John

Winterton, Mrs Ann

Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

Winterton, Nicholas

Warren, Kenneth

Wolfson, Mark

Watts, John

Wood, Timothy

Wells, Bowen

Woodcock, Mike

Wheeler, John

Yeo, Tim

Whitney, Ray

Younger, Rt Hon George

Widdecombe, Ann

Wiggin, Jerry

Tellers for the Noes:

Wilkinson, John

Mr. Robert Boscawen and

Wilshire, David

Mr. David Maclean.

Question accordingly negatived.
Mr. John Home Robertson: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have just been watching the Division, and I was interested to see that at least 13 Tory Members who voted against the principle of an unfair poll tax for England and Wales yesterday were cheerfully voting in favour of the same principle for Scotland. That number included the hon. Member for Hampshire, East (Mr. Mates). Where does that leave the principle of fairness in the United Kingdom?
Madam Deputy Speaker: That is not a point of order, and no breach of order has been committed, and the hon. Gentleman knows that.

PETITION

  Rating Reform
  11.42 pm
  Dr. John Marek: I beg leave to present a petition from many of my constituents. It shows that if the poll tax Bill is enacted it will impose unfair financial burdens on many households, penalise those providing a home for adult children or elderly relatives, and necessitate excessive intrusion into the lives of ordinary citizens in connection with the compilation of the register.
  The proposed tax is grossly unfair, favours the rich, and is unrelated to the ability to pay. The Tory party will reap a bitter harvest when it calls the next general election.
  The petitioners pray that the House will vote against this iniquitous and immoral measure.
  To lie upon the Table.

North-East Lancashire Enterprise Zone
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Peter Lloyd.]
11.43 pm
Mr. Ken Hargreaves: I am grateful for this opportunity to raise the subject of the future of the north-east Lancashire enterprise zone. I am pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Lee) and the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike). I welcome the support for the application to extend the zone that was given by my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle who, from the outset, has been an enthusiastic supporter of the concept of enterprise zones, and who has taken a deep and continuing interest in the north-east Lancashire zone. I also welcome the support of the hon. Member for Burnley, who has worked extremely hard in pressing for the zone to be extended.
The north-east Lancashire enterprise zone is one of the second round enterprise zones and was designated in December 1983. It consists of a total of seven sites in the boroughs of Hyndburn, Rossendale, Pendle and Burnley, with a total of 282 acres.
When the idea of enterprise zones was first suggested by the Government, there was much unfavourable comment nationally from the Labour and Liberal parties. They were a gimmick, we were told, and not a serious attempt to deal with unemployment. What was true nationally was true locally and the Labour party on Hyndburn council was certainly less than enthusiastic about our application for an enterprise zone.
How wrong Opposition parties have proved to be. I now welcome the all-party support for the north-east Lancashire enterprise zone. It has that support because of the obvious success that it has had in attracting new investment to the area. The enterprise zone's financial incentives have triggered off a new, substantial burst of development activity.
A survey of firms in Hyndburn's enterprise zone in 1987 revealed that the majority of firms regarded the financial incentives and the available capital taxation allowances as being important to their location decision. The high level of investment has created a large number of new jobs—almost 500 in Hyndburn alone. These are permanent new jobs. A high proportion of these jobs has been taken up by local people. There has also been direct employment in the various development projects in the zone.
All of this has played an important part in reducing unemployment in the borough and in the area. I welcome the reduction of unemployment in Hyndburn, and in north-east Lancashire generally, over the past 18 months. I acknowledge the part that the enterprise zone has played in that. I congratulate the Government on introducing the concept of enterprise zones. They were right, and their critics were wrong. My request to the Government is that they will now listen to local opinion, despite the decision in December that a general extension of the enterprise zone experiment is not desirable.
That the Government do listen can be seen clearly from yesterday's announcement that the Blackburn southern bypass will be designed as a dual lane motorway, even though it will cost £9 million more than the scheme for a trunk road. The Government listened to our pleas on that
808
issue and they gave us what we asked for. I hope that they will listen tonight and react equally sympathetically to the local views on our enterprise zone.
We believe that the enterprise zone is one of the best and most effective ways of tackling the economic problems of the area. We face in north-east Lancashire a particularly localised set of economic problems. Despite improvements made in the 1980s, there is still a lack of modern industrial floor space. The older industrial stock is strongly associated with textiles and consists of multi-storey spinning mills and single-storey northlight weaving sheds.
As the cotton industry has declined, many mills have been sub-divided. They are often in poor condition and unsuited to modern industrial methods, and situated on cramped and inadequate sites. Difficulties with internal layout, as well as access and loading, all serve to restrict efficient functioning and growth potential.
In Hyndburn, 72 per cent. of industrial premises were not purpose-built; some 64 per cent. of them were built before 1914. The extension of the enterprise zone will continue to provide modern and purpose-built premises and help to alleviate the problem of inadequate accommodation. That is still faced by a large sector of industry in north-east Lancashire.
There is a continuing need for a steady flow of investment into north-east Lancashire if we are to tackle our economic difficulties. There is an inadequate amount of suitable industrial land for potential users, but development depends ultimately on the initiative and energies of the private sector.
The rate of new development depends to a large extent on the financial returns generated. In north-east Lancashire, returns on investment are not as substantial as in the south-east, and the enterprise zone has been a major factor in persuading firms to set up in north-east Lancashire.
Most of the land in the zone has now been developed. That development has so far involved a substantial private sector capital investment and resulted in the creation of 1,501 new jobs, the third highest level of total employment amongst the second generation zones, and the second highest in the proportion of manufacturing jobs involved. Of the 115 companies in the enterprise zone, 38 are completely new start-ups and 20 have plans for future expansion.
The zone has been extremely cost-effective in the creation of new jobs. In Hyndburn, for example, the overall public sector cost of the enterprise zone, in terms of rate allowances and capital investment, has been in the region of £1·4 million, or £3,200 per job, and in terms of expenditure on infrastructure, £813,000, or £1,860 per job.
Those figures suggest that an extension of the enterprise zone would represent good value for money given that the estimated national cost per additional job created on designated zones is £8,500. Almost 40 per cent. of the land identified for inclusion in the proposed extension is immediately available for development. Designation as an enterprise zone would lead to a considerable amount of new development, thus making full use of the infrastructure provided in the past years. That would maximise the return on existing public investment, surely something that the Government support.
For all the reasons that I have outlined, I hope that the Government will look again at the decision not to create further enterprise zones. An extension of the enterprise zone really is the best way to help the economic recovery

809
in north-east Lancashire to continue. It is the one measure that helps Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle and Rossendale. All other measures do not.
Assisted area status benefits only Hyndburn and Rossendale, as does the derelict land grant rolling programme, not Burnley or Pendle. The urban programme and the inner-city programme benefit only Burnley, not Hyndburn, Pendle or Rossendale. We have all benefited from the enterprise zone, not least Pendle, which has made worthwhile progress as a result.
Like the Under-Secretary of State for Employment, my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle, who has worked so hard to deal with and help alleviate unemployment in Pendle, I believe that much of the momentum resulting from the enterprise zone will be lost unless we are allowed to extend it or further Government support is available in one form or another.
I urge the Minister to take account of the representations made to him, not least by Hyndburn, and I give him a friendly warning. Because of the massive 18 per cent. rate rise imposed by Lancashire county council, the Conservative party expects to gain control of Hyndburn in the local elections. That being so, I warn my hon. Friend that the new leader of the council, councillor Mrs. Betty Court, who is as determined, single-minded and persuasive as Mother Theresa and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister put together, will be on her way to see him, before the returning officer has recovered from announcing the result, to support the request that I have made, and it may on balance be wise to reconsider the matter tonight.
11.52 pm
Mr. Peter L. Pike: First, I want to thank the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Hargreaves) for allowing me to take part in the debate. This is an important matter to the people of north-east Lancashire. Like him, I appreciate the presence of the Under-Secretary of State for Employment, the hon. Member for Pendle (Mr. Lee), who has responsibility for tourism. I know that he has actively supported the case that we are debating. Indeed, I was fortunate to have three minutes at the end of the Consolidated Fund debate when I said that the case that I was making briefly at that time had the support of those two hon. Members.
It is also significant that the four authorities are united in the belief that one of the most important things for the economic recovery and regeneration of north-east Lancashire would be for the Government to agree an extension of the enterprise zone.
As the hon. Member for Hyndburn has said, we welcome yesterday's announcement that the M65 is to be linked by a road of motorway standard to the main national motorway network. The Minister could make it an extremely good week for north-east Lancashire tonight if he were able to say that the Government and his Department were prepared to reconsider this enterprise zone extension bid. Crowned with the Burnley football team reaching Wembley tonight, that would make it an extremely good week for the area.
Another factor should commend itself to the Government. The Government often talk of problems being tackled by local and national Government and the public sector working together. Conservative Members say that that is the way to solve many of the problems that
810
face the country. Those three sectors have worked exceptionally well within the enterprise zone to make it a success. Its success should commend itself to the Government.
In The Daily Telegraph on 30 March of this year there was an article by Trevor Bates on Burnley and Pendle. It refers to three industrial estates in those boroughs that face similar problems, as do Hyndburn and Rossendale. It says:
"The designation of three industrial estates as having enterprise zone status has been another significant factor in winning manufacturing and high-tech companies to the area, including a number from abroad."
In addition, Texas Eastern has set up a factory in Burnley that was recently opened by the chairman of the Conservative party. At the opening ceremony, the company made it very clear that one of the reasons for going to Burnley was the enterprise zone. Archie Thompson, the executive vice-president of Texas Eastern, has stressed the importance of communications in moving into the area.
Another company, Vekaplast, has also moved into the enterprise zone. Its managing director, Peter Abbott, has said that the existence of the enterprise zone and the available pool of good quality workers attracted the company to the area.
I refer also to a company in the Pendle constituency, Bodycare Toiletries, that recently moved to the Lomeshaye industrial estate. A letter I have received from Pamela Bishop of the Burnley and Pendle development association says:
"The company conducted an exhaustive search for industrial premises stretching from North Wales to Carlisle. However, the Development Association managed to persuade them that Pendle and Lomeshaye Industrial Estate would be an ideal place for them."
That is in the enterprise zone, but that zone is nearly full. If we are to overcome the problems to which the hon. Member for Hyndburn referred and about which we could speak at great length, an extension of the enterprise zone is vital. It would represent good value for money. Therefore, the Government should accept the case that we are making.
11.57 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Colin Moynihan): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Mr. Hargreaves) on his success in the ballot and on the assiduous and effective way in which he presented his case. I am pleased to see that his hard work is supported by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Pike) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle (Mr. Lee). They will understand why I am replying to the debate, in view of the ministerial responsibilities of my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Mr. Trippier) whose constituency also embraces the north-east Lancashire enterprise zone. It is of course not the first time that I have responded to a debate on this subject, as it was raised by the hon. Member for Burnley in the Consolidated Fund debate on 10 March, to which he has referred.
The enterprise zone experiment was one of the first steps the Government took in 1979 towards lifting burdens on business and enterprise. They have led the way along the path of deregulation that has stimulated the entrepreneurship that has characterised our economic recovery. I am cheered by the evidence that enterprise

811
zones have helped the regeneration of many localities which were widely believed to be beyond the point of no return in their economic fortunes. We know the commonly quoted examples—the Isle of Dogs, Corby, Hartlepool and Telford.
But, as the hon. Member for Hyndburn has reminded us, the north-east Lancashire zone has also been a success story. It was designated in December 1983 with a total area of 114 hectares spread over seven sites in the towns of Burnley, Accrington, Rossendale and Nelson. The sites were little developed. To those sites were given freedom from rates, 100 per cent. capital allowances to be set against tax, and a much simplified planning regime.
Today, those sites are no longer vacant. At the end of 1986—the latest date for which we have information—the Department's annual monitoring report, published last December, revealed 87 business establishments—a 135 per cent. increase since designation—occupying 106,000 sq m of floor space—a 158 per cent. increase—and offering 2,400 jobs, a staggering 224 per cent. increase.
All that has not happened without considerable effort. Hon. Members representing that area have been fully involved. My hon. Friend the Member for Pendle played a major role in ensuring the establishment of the enterprise zone. The fruits of his hard work are well known. As we all know, he is an assiduous Member, dedicated to the regeneration of north-east Lancashire and to the interests of his constituents.
The hon. Member for Burnley has brought me to the Dispatch Box before. While I may not always live up to the aspirations that he has for his constituents, it will not be for want of recognising his commitment. In passing, I congratulate Burnley on reaching Wembley this evening.
The substantial contribution of my hon. Friend for Rossendale and Darwen also cannot go unmentioned. His ministerial position, similar to that of my hon. Friend the Member for Pendle, constrains him from addressing the House this evening. However, there are few hon. Members of whom it could be equally appropriately said that his actions on behalf of his constituents speak louder than words. He deserves the congratulations of this House for his commitment to economic growth and progress in north-east Lancashire.
In addition to those hon. Members and my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn, the local business community and the local authorities have also been united in their active support for the zone. The local authorities—both as planning authorities and sometimes as landowners—have been positive in their promotion and management of the zone. The success of the zone—in terms of new private investment, new work space to diversify what is locally available, new jobs of which many have been taken by local people—is largely to their credit.
However, such success means that the zone will soon be fully developed. And, as my hon. Friend has said, notwithstanding the growth within the zone and the impact that it has made on the area, it has not, and indeed never could, in itself overcome entirely north-east Lancashire's economic problems. Therefore, it was natural that the question of an extension to the zone should be raised. The success of so many of the enterprise zones has led other localities to exactly the same point of wanting to
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extend existing zones or establish new ones. At the end of 1987, some 26 such applications were to hand for England alone.
As I explained at the start, enterprise zones were established as an experiment in deregulation. In 1986, we decided that it was timely to review their progress and decide whether, and on what terms, to continue the experiment. To assist us in that task, we commissioned an evaluation by consultants of the performance, having regard both to costs and effectiveness, of the existing zones. Their work explored fully such questions as whether investment, construction and employment on the zones was additional to what might have happened in the locality in the absence of the zone, what effects—both positive and negative—the zones were having on their surrounding areas, and what level of public cost was attached to the new jobs. With the benefit of their analysis, we reviewed the zone experiment and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made a statement of policy to this House on 17 December last. We published the report by the consultants.
The essence of my right hon. Friend's statement was that there would be no general extension of the enterprise zone experiment. The zones had been successful in varying degrees in regenerating areas which had hitherto been in steady decline. However, those achievements must be set against the cost to the public purse, which totalled just under £300 million up to the end of 1986. There was now a variety of measures to stimulate development in areas adversely affected by changes in the local economy, which will often be more cost effective than an enterprise zone. Nevertheless, there will still be exceptional circumstances that could justify a new enterprise zone or the extension of an existing zone, including the nature and severity of the local economic problem, the likely cost-effectiveness of an enterprise zone in contributing to its solution, in particular in comparison with other measures available, and the capacity of the authorities and agencies concerned to ensure a zone's success.
Against those new, severer tests, we examined all the outstanding bids for new zones and extensions and found them wanting. All were therefore rejected at the time of the policy statement. There were also the tests applied to the proposal from north-east Lancashire which was submitted in February, subsequent to the new policy statement. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State concluded that that proposal should likewise be rejected.
Given the experience of the first five years of the existing zone, there could be no doubt about the capacity and competence of the zone authorities to make the zone a success. The evidence on that was quite clear. The decision turned more on the nature and severity of the economic problems of north-east Lancashire and the comparative cost-effectiveness of an enterprise zone extension in tackling them.
We must agree that the problems of north-east Lancashire are not as bad as those prevailing in many other areas which have faced industrial restructuring over the last decade. The economic circumstances of north-east Lancashire are just not exceptional enough to justify—in the terms of our stated policy—being answered by a further enterprise zone.
In assessing cost-effectiveness, we must consider both sides of the equation. The success and effectiveness of the existing north-east Lancashire zone is evident in what has been said tonight. However, although the zone may be

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nearly full, the total cost of the measures will continue to grow. For example, the cost of the rates exemption for the zone was £400,000 in 1985–86, the figure that was taken into account by the consultants; in 1986–87, it had risen to £700,000 and last year exceeded £900,000. These payments have nearly five more years to run.
There is other assistance on offer to north-east Lancashire that is making a steady, and more cost-effective, contribution to economic recovery—measures which, I think, are too lightly dismissed by the north-east Lancashire enterprise zone authorities in their submission to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for an extension to the enterprise zone.
In 1986, Burnley became an urban authority invited to submit inner area programmes to my Department. The council had an allocation of £1 million for urban programme projects in 1987–88. That has been substantially increased this year to £1·8 million—an 80 per cent. increase and the largest in the country. Those resources enable the council to carry out a range of economic, environmental, social and housing projects to tackle its inner-city area problems.
Moreover, Burnley, as one of the 57 target areas, will have a chance to benefit from many of the dozen new initiatives announced in the "Action for Cities" paper launched by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on 7 March. There is extensive spending on training, enterprise and o employment schemes by the Department of Employment and the Manpower Services Commission, and local firms will be eligible for higher rates of grant under the Department of Trade and Industry's new enterprise initiative. Private developers in Burnley can apply to my Department for the new city grant which comes into operation on 2 May. The city grant will provide support to private sector capital projects for industrial, commercial and housing schemes which benefit rundown areas and which cannot proceed without grant aid.
The Department of Trade and Industry's new enterprise initiative, launched in January, brought together new and existing measures of support. Industry and commerce throughout north-east Lancashire may benefit from the marketing, design, quality, manufacturing, business planning and financial information systems initiatives. They provide a comprehensive range of consulting assistance in the key management functions.
Regional selective assistance is available to assist with the costs of investment projects undertaken by firms in the assisted areas, which include the Accrington and Rossendale travel-to-work areas.
The British Overseas Trade Board provides a wide range of help and guidance to assist firms and businesses with their exporting and overseas market activities.
The business education initiative seeks to promote clearer working links between industry and education at all levels—from schools to colleges, and universities. For example, the north-west's Regional Technology Centre, hosted by NIMTECH at St. Helens, will facilitate the exchange of technical expertise between industrial and academic centres of expertise within the region.
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The research and technology initiative provides financial assistance, guidance and expertise to assist the development of new technologies, new processes and new services.
Simplified planning zones—SPZs—are another new Government initiative designed to quicken the pace of development in areas where it is most needed. They are modelled on the planning arrangements which have been successful in enterprise zones and offer the same scope for stimulating investment and regeneration by simple and positive planning. Those zones are particularly well-suited to the older urban areas where they can be used to bring rundown industrial land back into productive use. I hope that the local planning authorities in north-east Lancashire will be designating some SPZs.
The EEC also addresses the problems of this area. All four enterprise zone authorities are eligible to receive non-quota European regional development fund assistance. This aims to develop new economic activities in areas adversely affected by the restructuring of the textile and clothing industries.
Projects estimated to cost some £2·25 million are being considered for grant aid. A decision is expected in early June. In addition, Hyndburn and Rossendale are also eligible for ERDF quota assistance. Grant is generally 50 per cent. of the eligible costs of schemes which provide basic services or communications for existing and future industry and commerce. Again I would urge the authorities to take full advantage of these facilities.
The hon. Member and my hon. Friends will know that much has already been achieved in north-east Lancashire through the derelict land grant rolling programme in which Lancashire county council, Hyndburn borough council, and Rossendale borough council jointly participate. This programme has enabled the local authorities not only to restore derelict land to beneficial use, but to foster commercial and industrial development. A further £1 million of grant is promised for the area in 1988–89 on top of the £3 million spent in 1986–87 and 1987–88. In addition, a new DLG rolling programme covering the whole of the Leeds-Liverpool canal corridor has just been announced with a project spend of £750,000 in its first year.
All these measures and the substantial resources being provided by the Government present clear opportunities for both the public and private sectors to grasp to bring about growth and prosperity in this part of Lancashire.
There is a fundamental point here. Enterprise zones were, as I have reminded hon. Members, always intended as an experiment. Their benefits are also time limited to 10 years from designation. The hope was that a zone, if successful, would provide a stimulus to the local economy, not a continuing prop. There are now signs, in north-east Lancashire and elsewhere, of this effect. We must build on and exploit what the enterprise zone has done for the local economy to sustain its recovery.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at thirteen minutes past Twelve o'clock.