Commons Sitting of 21 December 1988

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

    Bus Companies (Takeover)
    Dr. Reid: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what safeguards he intends to introduce to protect Scottish Bus Group companies against predatory takeover.
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Lord James Douglas-Hamilton): The best way of promoting local control is to have strong, viable companies in which there is a significant stake by the employees or established locally based companies.
    Dr. Reid: Is the Minister not ashamed of that vacuous answer? Does he not realise that the real dangers of predatory takeovers are monopolisation and, perhaps, bus firms being run by cowboy outfits? What steps does the Minister propose to ensure that there are some safeguards for the travelling public and for the workers in the industry? In the absence of any safeguards, what kind of competition policy is it that allows even the possibility of a vital public service being transformed into a private monopoly, perhaps controlled by people who are resident thousands of miles away from the customers whom they serve?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: It will be open to any company to put in a bid. I make it clear that, while no guarantees as to future ownership can be given, we want as much as possible to encourage management-employee buy-outs. The price offered will not be the only factor in assessing bids. Competition and the extent of employee participation will also be important. Preference will be given to management-employee buy-out schemes, but the scale of the preference has yet to be determined.
    Mrs. Ray Michie: Does the Minister have any plans to consider putting in the remit of the Scottish Transport Users Consultative Committee a provision to include buses, in view of the imminent privatisation proposals?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: It is a Department of Trade and Industry Committee, but I shall certainly pass on the hon. Lady's comment concerning the remit.
    Mr. Roger King: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is only right and proper commercially that businesses with a common interest should work together in providing the services that the community needs, either in partnership or in a form of ownership of the companies?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Most certainly. I believe that our thinking has developed considerably since the National Bus Company privatisation. At that time there were a large number of management buyouts, but I believe there were only two management-employee buyouts. We are anxious to encourage management-employee buyouts. A recent poll of people working in the industry in Scotland shows that more than 70 per cent. are in favour of them.
    Mr. Wilson: The Minister has again paid lip-service to the encouragement of management-employee buyouts, without announcing any initiatives which would give them a reasonble prospect of success. Will the Minister show his sincerity by guaranteeing that those involved in buy-out initiatives will have the opportunity to acquire those companies before bids are invited from the open market? Does he acknowledge that that is what has happened in Grampian? Will he admit that, without the legislation being thus weighted towards employee buyouts, they will be involved in an unequal struggle with the giants of the bus industry?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman referred to Grampian. My right hon. and learned Friend has made it clear in a letter to Grampian that that approval has been given. He will be glad to hear that Strathclyde has come out in favour of management-employee buyouts. Councillor Malcolm Waugh said:
    "I am quite confident we will go ahead."
    While there is no guarantee, we are anxious to encourage management-employee buyouts. We shall give financial assistance that amounts to an indemnity of 75 per cent. of fees, up to a maximum of £60.,000, which means maximum assistance of £48,750. Hon. Members have heard, too that we shall be arranging video presentations and seminars.

    "A Claim of Right for Scotland"
    Mr. Galloway: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has received a copy of the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly document, "Claim of Right for Scotland"; and if he will make a statement on his policy towards the matters raised in the document.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind): I have received a copy of the document. The Government are deeply committed to the unity of the United Kingdom, and we do not believe that Scotland would benefit from an additional layer of government. The purpose of the meeting proposed by the campaign is simply to discuss how to carry forward certain conclusions which have already been reached by the organisers. Since it is not intended as a genuine debate on the merits and demerits of the constitutional changes which they have in mind I consider that it would not be appropriate for the Government to be represented.
    Mr. Galloway: Is the Secretary of State aware of the dismay and disappointment with which his reply will be met in Scotland? In the light of last evening's events and his undoubted scrutiny of the media this morning, is the Secretary of State aware of just how isolated he and his Government are becoming on this question? With all the respect to which his great office is entitled, I ask him whether he will begin to put his country before his party?
    Mr. Rifkind: If the hon. Gentleman believes that the Conservative party is isolated, it appears that he also believes that his Front Bench is isolated because on 12 November this year he was quoted as saying:
    "It is the leadership that chose the Front Bench. They dictate the key policies and the strategy. We tried it their way —and it has gone devastatingly wrong."
    Mr. Bill Walker: The question refers to rights, but it makes no mention of duties, responsibilities or accountability. It is important that any measure that any Government in this Chamber thinks that they can get through Parliament takes into acount the fact that more than nine of 10 of the people living in the United Kingdom live outside of Scotland. Ministers on every Front Bench who are responsible to this unitary Parliament must take that into account before they bring forward measures to change the unitary system.
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is certainly correct. I believe that any constitutional reform within the United Kingdom must be of a type that would strengthen the United Kingdom as a whole. The proposals for unilateral devolution are unlikely to achieve that result.
    Mr. Sillars: May I refer the Governor-General to his earlier reply—
    An Hon. Member: You should regard him as a friend.
    Mr. Sillars: On a personal level, but not politically.
    He said that the reason the Tory party will not be represented at the potential convention organised by the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly is that the Government believe that the outcome is pre-determined. Why will he not give an affirmative answer to the request for the Government to support an elected constitutional convention that would be open to every point of view and would not have a pre-determined outcome? Why are the Government afraid to give the Scottish people the opportunity to decide their own future?
    Mr. Rifkind: We have a continuing debate on these matters and there is no need for pressure groups to organise meetings to which they give grandiose titles. It is possible for such debates to take place in this Chamber and in Scotland as they have for many years. The idea that some new meeting is required to achieve a purpose that has already been identified by the organisers of the meeting shows how bogus the exercise is.
    Mr. Barry Field: My right hon. and learned Friend should answer the sterile arguments that we are hearing from the Opposition about English Members being involved in Scottish Questions by pointing out that only two offshore islands are administered by the English Civil Service—I represent one and my hon. Friend the Member for St. Ives (Mr. Harris) represents the other. We want to know why it is that the Scottish Highlands and Islands Development Board has such a main line into the pockets of the British taxpayer and why it does so well through the generosity of the Government?
    Mr. Rifkind: The Highlands and Islands Development Board—
    Mr. Sillars: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Does the point of order arise out of the question?
    Mr. Sillars: Yes. If you, Mr. Speaker, are to call English Members of Parliament, could we have an interpreter because, quite frequently, I cannot understand them.
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman's question was in order.
    Mr. Buchan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I have been in this House for more than 20 years and I have attempted, on occasions, to raise a point of order during Question Time. This is the first time that I have known you to allow a point of order at this time. Is this now the custom of the House.
    Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Gentleman had been hear earlier this week he would have heard my ruling when I said that matters needing immediate attention should always be raised at once.
    Mr. Buchan rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. That has always been the position and, as the House well knows, that is the position in debates as well.
    Mr. Buchan rose—
    Mr. Rifkind rose—
    Mr. Speaker: Order.
    Mr. Rifkind: If I may respond to the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Field), the Highlands and Islands Development Board has received generous treatment from the Government because we have always recognised that the needs of the north of Scotland are specific to that area and that the area has a fragile economy. It is a matter of great pleasure that over the past 20 years the population of the Highlands and Islands has for the first time for a century begun to increase.
    Mr. Dewar: May I say to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I thought that his initial response was a series of rather arrogant assumptions about the motives of those involved in the constitutional convention. That response did him little credit. Is it not the duty of responsible politicians in Scotland to examine the possibilities and argue their corner in the very lively and important debate on the future Government of this country? While I recognise that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has a personal difficulty in that he is trapped by the policies of his party, does he accept that it is time that he broke out of the trap and recognised the very strong wish of Scots to have a greater say in their own affairs and in the framework of the United Kingdom? Can I take it from his earlier reply—and I would be sorry if this were so —that he has departed from the position that he has outlined in the past, that his main objection to some form of devolution of power is simply that he is unconvinced that the majority of the people of Scotland want it?
    Mr. Rifkind: The duty of hon. Members in this House is to take part in the debates of this House and not, like the grand old Duke of York, lead their hon. Friends out and then lead them back in again—
    Mr. Canavan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. No. We are in the middle of the answer.
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman supports the so-called convention organised by the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly and the document which it produced. As a Unionist is he not occasionally uncomfortable associating himself with the campaign document which refers to the Union in the following terms:
    "The United Kingdom has been an anomaly from its inception and is a glaring anomaly now."
    I can understand why Nationalist hon. Members support that analysis. However, the hon. Member for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) is playing with fire if he associates with that kind of analysis.

    Council House Sales
    Mr. Devlin: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland how many public sector houses have been sold under the right to buy; what is the current level of applications; and if he will make a statement.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Between April 1979 and September 1988, about 133,000 public sector houses in Scotland have been sold to sitting tenants under the right-to-buy legislation and voluntary sales. Some 4,500 applications per month have been received on average during 1988. This sustained high level of applications is clear evidence of the continuing success of the Government's right-to-buy policy.
    Mr. Devlin: Given that in England about 62 per cent. of the population own their own homes as against a measly 42 per cent. in Scotland, does my hon. Friend agree that it is a most welcome development to see recent house sales under the right-to-buy policy and so many Scottish people following the example of the hon. Member for Stockton, North (Mr. Cook) and buying their houses under the right-to-buy scheme?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: Many Scots now believe that the best landlord that they can have is themselves. However, while 18 per cent. of the stock has been sold south of the border, 13·6 per cent. has been sold in Scotland. If sales continue at that rate, we will reach the 150,000 mark around May 1989.
    Mr. Michael J. Martin: The Minister will be aware that in communities such as mine where people exercised the right-to-buy three or four years ago, "for sale" signs are now up in the council house windows and many of those houses are going to the highest bidder—[Interruption.] It is all very well for Conservative Members to claim that they are trading up. There are 8,000 people unemployed in my constituency who cannot trade up. Is it not time that the Government built houses and decent homes for those people to live in?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I was glad to be in the hon. Gentleman's constituency a few days ago, when I learnt that the Housing Corporation is building a number of shared-ownership houses, which is proving very successful. Research has shown that once tenants have purchased their houses, most remain living there. In fact, they wish to remain whether or not they purchase them.

    Nurses (Regrading)
    Mr. David Marshall: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what instructions he gave to the Greater Glasgow health board regarding regrading of nurses
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    following the recent meeting of his junior Minister with the Royal College of Nurses and the Royal College of Midwives.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Forsyth): Officials of the board were informed of concerns which had been expressed by the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives.
    Mr. Marshall: Does the Minister realise that he and the Greater Glasgow health board are making an absolute mess of nurses' regrading? Will he ensure that Greater Glasgow health board comes into line with all the others in Scotland and gives Glasgow nurses the regrading that they deserve?
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman has his facts wrong, and he will find that the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Midwives disagree with him. Following discussions with the board, the problems associated with grading in wards where there is only one nursing sister on duty was resolved. I understand that after restructuring is implemented, Glasgow's grading profile will be in line with the rest of Scotland.
    Mr. McKelvey: Does the Minister realise that this morning the alternative select committee on Scottish affairs was launched, and that its first subject for investigation is the Health Service in Scotland? In the interests of the Scottish people, will he give an undertaking that he will gladly appear before that committee if required, and will allow his civil servants and health boards to give the evidence that, obviously, they so desperately want to give to that committee?
    Mr. Forsyth: In view of the question that was asked a few minutes ago, I welcome any attempts by Opposition Members to make themselves better informed on what is happening within the National Health Service. I am only too delighted to meet any right hon. or hon. Member wishing to raise Health Service issues.
    Mr. John Marshall: Will my hon. Friend remind the House of the average percentage increase paid to nurses in Scotland? Will he remind the House also how their pay compares in real terms with that prevailing in 1979? Does he agree that it is irresponsible of COHSE and NUPE members to indulge in industrial action, which merely prevents patients from undergoing the operations that they need?
    Mr. Forsyth: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. COHSE and NUPE signed up for the regrading proposals and were party to them. They did not inform their members of the consequences of the agreement that they reached, and when the going got rough they ratted on the agreement to which they were a party. The majority of nurses have benefited considerably, not only in terms of increased pay, which was recommended by the independent review body, but from the new structure enabling nurses continuing to be involved in clinical work to be rewarded. My hon. Friend is right to point to the irresponsible behaviour of COHSE and NUPE. Fortunately, the Royal College of Nursing behaved responsibly and delivered the best possible deal for its members.
    Under the last Labour Government, nurses' pay was cut by 21 per cent., but under the present Government it has increased by 45 per cent.
    Mr. Galbraith: I will not let the Minister get away with that. He ought to be condemning those responsible for the shambles in the Greater Glasgow health board, not the trade unions. I shall assist the Minister to be better informed. Greater Glasgow health board was totally out of line with every other health board in the country, and it backed down only because of pressure brought by my hon. Friends. That was the reason.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Question, please.
    Mr. Galbraith: Does the Minister admit that he knew Greater Glasgow health board would be totally out of line and that he should have done something earlier? Is he not culpable for the shambles in Greater Glasgow health board?
    Mr. Forsyth: The Greater Glasgow health board has more multi-sister wards than others in Scotland but has particular difficulties. As I have said already, its profile, following restructuring, will be similar to that of other boards in Scotland. As a Front Bench spokesman, the hon. Gentleman would do well to take a little care in some of his accusations against the Greater Glasgow health board, which will subsequently turn out to be unsubstantiated. In the circumstances it will have to wait a long time for an apology from the hon. Gentleman.

    Fisheries Ministers
    Mr. Wallace: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last personally attended a meeting of the European Council of Fisheries Ministers.
    Mr. Rifkind: My noble Friend the Minister of State has attended meetings of the Council of Fisheries Ministers as a member of the United Kingdom delegation and was present at the most recent one on 9–11 December.
    Mr. Wallace: The Secretary of State, significantly did not answer the question. Many of our European partners must have questioned how seriously the Government took the threat to the Scottish fishing industry at the last round. Unlike his predecessor during the negotiations for the common fisheries policy, he was conspicuous by his absence. Will he do something to mitigate that dereliction of duty by convening a meeting of EEC and non-EEC fishery Ministers to consider a package of conservation measures—other than using total allowable catches as a means of enforcing conservation? That would give some hope to the Scottish fishing industry.
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman seems totally unaware of the great success of my noble Friend the Minister of State and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in these negotiations. They have led to the United Kingdom's quota going up from 78 per cent. to 87 per cent. of the total and have involved serious sacrifices by other member states. It was a splendid result for them and I noted that the Scottish Fishermen's Federation were quoted as saying that given the scientific evidence, it was the best possible result that the United Kingdom and Scottish fishermen could have hoped to achieve.
    Mr. Foulkes: Why are the Government able to fork out £17 million to compensate egg producers, whereas they give nothing to help the fishermen who will lose substantial amounts of money because of a Government decision?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that quotas for fishermen change each year and that scientific evidence on the basis of the conservation of stocks is an important consideration. He will also be aware that—
    Mr. Foulkes: Answer the question.
    Mr. Rifkind: If the hon. Gentleman will be silent for a moment, I might be able to answer his question. He will also be aware that, for several years, Scottish fishermen have had a healthy share of quotas and have experienced a substantial improvement in their share of stocks and in their standard of living. The fact that it has been necessary to reduce stocks to preserve the species in one year is not in itself an argument for compensation—indeed, the Scottish Fishermen's Federation has not argued that.
    Sir Hector Monro: In view of the decimation of herring stocks in the 1970s through overfishing, was it not right, in terms of conservation, too look after haddock fishing this time? Was it not a triumph for the government to obtain 87 per cent. of the catch in those circumstances?
    Mr. Rifkind: My hon. Friend is right. The Scottish Fishermen's Federation and the Scottish fish processors congratulated the Government on their achievement. They showed more perspicacity than certain Opposition Members about the long-term interests of the Scottish fishing industry.

    Education Bill
    Dr. Moonie: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has received any representations from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, teaching unions or parents' organisations regarding the opting-out provisions in the forthcoming Education Bill.
    Mr. Michael Forsyth: A paper describing the expected basis for legislation on self-governing schools was issued to a wide range of interested bodies on 7 December. I look forward to receiving constructive comment.
    Dr. Moonie: The Minister is well aware that he, his colleagues, his party and his policies are as popular in Scotland now as a raw egg. Will he, therefore, undertake to listen to the results of the consultation and the views of the Scottish people? Will he act on those, rather than on his own political prejudices, or is his sense of honour and decency as deficient as his sense of rhyme?
    Mr. Forsyth: We have heard the Opposition saying that our policy on school boards was not supported by the majority of people in Scotland, yet a System 3 poll showed a 2:1 majority in favour of our school board proposals. I note that the Opposition have now changed their position to one of supporting the school boards. On the proposals for self-governing schools, a recent MORI poll in The Scotsman showed that one third of the Scottish people thought that parents should have that right. Once again, it is this Government who are extending the rights of parents and the Opposition who are seeking to undermine the rights of parents.
    Mr. Allan Stewart: Is my hon. Friend aware that I have received a huge number of letters over a considerable period from constituents who wish the Government to give parents the opportunity to opt out? May I congratulate my

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    hon. Friend on his television appearance when he rightly mentioned that many parents at Neilston primary school are considering opting out because of dissatisfaction with Strathclyde region's refusal to give them a much-needed extension instead of bussing the pupils to Barrhead? Is my hon. Friend aware that shortly after his television appearance mentioning opting out, Strathclyde regional council promptly did a complete U-turn? Is not that the first victory for opting out?
    Mr. Forsyth: I am delighted to hear that Strathclyde has changed its position on Neilston primary school. It could be said that that is due less to the power of the media and more to the power of the idea of self-governing schools. Opposition Front Bench spokesmen may laugh, but they should consider what councillor Malcolm Green, the convener of Strathclyde education committee, said about our proposals for allowing schools to opt out. He is on the record as saying that the impact of opting out will be that local authorities will have to look at their provision of education and try to be more responsive to parents' needs. It seems that Neilston is the first positive fruit and that even the threat of opting out will benefit parents throughout Scotland.
    Mrs. Margaret Ewing: As the Minister claims that there is such widespread interest in Scotland in opting out, why has this centrepiece of legislation from the Scottish Office not yet been published? Is it that the Minister has opened his mouth and the parliamentary draftsmen are desperately trying to catch up?
    Mr. Forsyth: No, on the contrary, we have stated the basis on which we expect self-governing schools to operate and have invited constructive comments. The Bill has not been published because it is being drafted and we mean to take account of the comments that we receive. I know that that position will appear odd to the hon. Lady who is content to carp on the sidelines and make no constructive contribution towards increasing choice for parents in Scotland.
    Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is difficult to understand the views of Opposition Members who oppose parental opting out, because if parents' views are as Opposition Members say, no schools will opt out? Perhaps Opposition Members take that view because they do not speak for parents and because they know that parents will vote for opting out.
    Mr. Forsyth: My hon. Friend points to the paradox of the Opposition's position. On the one hand, Opposition Members say that no schools in Scotland are interested in self-governing status but on the other hand they argue that opting out will have a profound impact on the Scottish education system, which implies that they believe that many parents in Scotland will wish to take the opportunity with which we are presenting them. Once again, the Labour party seeks to remove opportunities for choice and to concentrate power in the hands of local authorities and bureaucracy.
    Mr. McLeish: Is the Minister aware that people who take a serious interest in education in Scotland believe opting out to be profoundly damaging, divisive, potentially inefficient and irrelevant and, more important, that we believe that it is a betrayal of the real needs of pupils, parents, and teachers in Scotland?
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    Does the Minister recall his comments in the Scottish Grand Committee on 21 March when he said that evidence of real and substantial demand for opting out would be necessary before he would consider it? Why was that not mentioned in the Conservative manifesto or in the proper consultative document? Why has there been no requests from parents, teaching organisations or from the Confederation of Scottish Local Authorities— [Interruption] Will the Minister tell us whether this form of nationalisation of education is based on real and substantial demand or is merely the political ideology upon which much of Scottish education seems to be based?
    Mr. Forsyth: Thirty-three per cent. of the Scottish people seems to me to be fairly substantial demand. I contrast the hon. Gentleman's stance with that of the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) who, I believe, speaks for the Opposition on education matters. He was quoted in The Daily Telegraph last month announcing the new consumerist approach to education. He said that the Labour party wanted the creation of flagship schools which would be "paradigms of excellence". He said that they would be measured by objective standards of examination results, truancy rates and the quality of teaching.
    Mr. McLeish: This is Scotland.
    Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman argues that that does not apply to Scottish education. Why does the Labour party in Scotland wish to prevent parents in Scotland from having access to schools which are "paradigms of excellence"?

    Scottish Special Housing Association
    Mr. McAvoy: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last met the chairman of the Scottish Special Housing Association, to discuss its housing disposal policy.
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: I am in regular contact with the chairman about the association's activities and saw him on 18 November.
    Mr. McAvoy: Will the Minister acknowledge that the Government's housing policies have created great insecurity among SSHA tenants in my constituency? Will he give a commitment that disposals will be subject to majority voting of those who actually vote in a ballot?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: If the hon. Member was referring indirectly to Torbay, I can say that that matter is with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment, who is considering it but has not made a decision. I can give a guarantee that, before there is any voluntary disposal of SSHA property, tenants will be consulted. The statutory rights that we have given local authority tenants will also apply to SSHA tenants. No proposals will be put before them before 1 April. The top priority now is setting up Scottish Homes and the re-employment of staff.
    Mr. Harry Ewing: In regard to the disposal of public assets such as SSHA housing, will the Minister and the Secretary of State take advice from my good friend, Wallace Mercer, who has just been added to the brains department of the Tory party in Scotland? He sold one of his best assets for £600,000 and had to get a banana seller

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    to help him buy it back for £150,000 more than he sold it for. Is that a sign of the future for the Tory party and housing in Scotland?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The hon. Member can be assured that, if a majority of tenants oppose the proposal, it will certainly not go ahead. I note what he said about Wallace Mercer.
    Mr. Maxton: In view of the considerable alarm and disquiet that have been caused to SSHA tenants by recent bids made by various groups for large quantities of housing, will the Minister concede to the tenants' demand that there should be a three-year moratorium from 1 April on all such sales? Will he give an absolute guarantee that consultation means a ballot of tenants and that, even then, no tenants will be forced to leave Scottish Homes unless they wish to do so? Will he give SSHA tenants the real option of joining the local authority if they so wish?
    Lord James Douglas-Hamilton: The answer to the hon. Gentleman's question about a moratorium is no, as we believe that one would be damaging to tenants' interests as they would lose out on considering properly formulated proposals which are in the interests of tenants, consistent with proposals to improve choice and quality in tenanted housing. Tenants will be consulted as soon as possible.
    The hon. Gentleman asked whether there will be a ballot. With ownership co-operatives there have, to the best of my knowledge, been no ballots, so there are certain forms of disposal where it is not necessarily ideal to have a ballot. At Castlemilk in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, I understand that there was a show of hands. There may well be a ballot, but that is a matter for Scottish Homes to work out. It must work out the details thoroughly. That is still some way ahead—and after 1 April.

    Electricity Industry Privatisation
    Mr. Harris: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what estimate he has made of the volume of electricity likely to be sold by the Scottish electricity industry to England following privatisation.
    Mr. Strang: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what estimates he has made of the amount of electricity which could be supplied to England from Scotland over the next 10 years; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of State, Scottish Office (Mr. Ian Lang): The level of electricity exports from Scotland after privatisation will be a matter for commercial negotiation between the companies. Active consideration is being given to upgrading the capacity of the interconnector so that opportunities for trading can be maximised to the limits justified commercially and economically.
    Mr. Harris: Does my hon. Friend agree that the proposals in the Electricity Bill, coupled with the moves to upgrade the interconnector between Scotland and England, offer exciting prospects for the generating industry in Scotland? Would he find it a refreshing change if the ragbag of an Opposition thought positively about the matter rather than negatively?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. These provisions enable the prospect of a competitive and
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    commercially oriented environment to be introduced in the electricity industry, and that is bound to have a downward effect on prices for the consumer.
    Mr. Strang: Does the Minister of State accept that it is enormously important that Scotland sells electricity to England on a substantial scale in the coming years? Are the Government prepared to pay for the investment in the increased capacity of the interconnector? Above all, will he give an assurance that he and his right hon. and learned Friend will not stand idly by and allow the South of Scotland electricity board to write off hundresds of millions of pounds of investment and thousands of jobs in the Scottish deep mining industry?
    Mr. Lang: The decision on whether to proceed with the upgrading of the interconnector is a matter for the commercial judgment of the companies involved. The industry has reached agreement in principle to increase the capacity of the interconnector to 1600 MW. The cost, which may be as high as £200 million, is a matter for negotiation.
    Mr. Home Robertson: What prospects are there for the future of electricity generation at the highly efficient coal-burning power stations at Cockenzie and Longannet if the SSEB persists with its policy of burning loss-lead, imported coal rather than honouring its contract to burn Scottish coal at those power stations? Is it not absurd that two nationalised industries should be taking each other to court in a dispute about a perfectly clear contract that was intended to protect investment and employment not only in the power stations but in the pits? Will the sponsoring Minister for the SSEB—the Secretary of State for Scotland —intervene now to stop the dispute to ensure that the contract is honoured and the jobs protected?
    Mr. Lang: The upgrading of the interconnector will increase the possibility of coal-generated electricity being exported to England, but the competitiveness of coal is a matter for British Coal to negotiate with the SSEB.
    Mr. Gregory: Does my hon. Friend agreed that the privatisation of Scottish electricity would bring a welcome move from Whitehall to Scotland and provide opportunities for employees, as well as members of the public, to share in the future of that great industry?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right. The privatisation of the electricity industry in Scotland will create two substantial free-standing private enterprise companies and enhance the enterprise economy in Scotland.
    Mr. Kennedy: Will the Minister give Scotland a guarantee that following privatisation, the ownership of the successor companies to the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board and the SSEB will remain in Scottish hands?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the industries are not in Scottish hands at the moment. However, privatisation will provide for an opportunity for consumers in Scotland and employees of the boards to buy shares in the electricity industries in Scotland. In addition, there is provision for a special share that will enable my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State to control the shareholding of any one individual.

    Rating Reform
    Mr. Douglas: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the level of poll tax which will be levied in Scotland for 1989–90.
    Mr. Lang: Our generous revenue support grant settlement for 1989–90 means that if authorities do not increase the volume of their spending, the average community charge should be £267. Indications so far from Strathclyde regional council confirm that our estimates are well-founded.
    Mr. Douglas: Will the Minister reflect a little on an answer given by the Secretary of State earlier about the Union being an anomaly? Does he consider that the poll tax is an illustration of the Government making the Union an anomaly when it suits them, by imposing this unwanted and unwarranted tax on the people of Scotland first, and making Scotland a guinea pig for a method of taxation that nobody wants? Will he say clearly that a major anomaly in that tax is the treatment of the disabled? There will be rebates for the disabled, but a substantial burden will be placed on other sections of the population. What advice is he giving to local authorities that find people unable to pay after three instalments, after which the whole year, plus a surcharge, becomes payable? The Minister is the greatest anomaly.
    Mr. Lang: The major anomaly that has hitherto existed in local government finance is that only 40 per cent. of the adult population in Scotland contribute to the local government financial burden. The justice that we are bringing to Scotland, a year ahead of England, is the removal of the unfair burden of domestic rates that falls so unevenly on such a small proportion of that adult population.
    Sir Hector Monro: Does my hon. Friend agree that some regional authorities are pushing up the volume of expenditure far above the level of inflation so that, even allowing for the very high increased grant from the Government, they can push up the community charge? Before those authorities have the opportunity to set their community charges, will my hon. Friend remonstrate with them and persuade them to move in the world of good housekeeping rather than of increased expenditure?
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to that problem. Dumfries and Galloway regional council, in whose area both my hon. Friend and I have our constituencies, will have an increased revenue support grant for next year of 12·8 per cent., just about double the rate of inflation. There is every opportunity for that regional council, as for every other regional council in Scotland, to keep down spending and to keep the burden on the community charge payers within reasonable limits.
    Mr. Steel: Does the Minister accept the figures produced by the Borders regional council that show that a poll tax as low as the £126 that the hon. Gentleman forecast would mean its budget having to be 8 per cent. below the level of assessed expenditure need, which is the measure that the Government themselves use? Will the hon. Gentleman explain why my constituents in Ettrick and Lauderdale have to pay £45 more and in Tweeddale £50 more to subsidise the safety net procedure for Strathclyde?
    Mr. Lang: The revenue support grant for the Borders regional council is being increased by 13·5 per cent. next year. There is every opportunity for it to keep its spending and the burden on the community charge payers at a low level.
    I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the safety net and I welcome his conversion to the policy of accountability in local authorities. That is why we are removing the safety net. If full safety nets had remained in place, his constituents in Berwickshire would have been £29 a head worse off.

    Inward Investment
    Mr. Patrick Thompson: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the level of inward investment secured in 1988.
    Mr. Allan Stewart: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has any plans to meet the ambassador of the United States of America to discuss inward investment into Scotland.
    Mr. Rifkind: The estimated value of planned inward investment to Scotland from April 1988 to date is £306·6 million with the prospect of the creation or safeguarding of 4,451 jobs. At present I have no plans to meet the ambassador of the United States of America for this purpose.
    Mr. Thompson: Can my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that since 1981 inward investment in Scotland has created or safeguarded 50,000 jobs? Is not that a tribute to the skill and talent of the Scottish work force as well as a justification for the Government's policies?
    Mr. Rifkind: It is also a tribute to Locate in Scotland, which was created by this Government and has been remarkably successful in attracting inward investment to Scotland.
    Mr. Allan Stewart: Can my right hon. and learned Friend confirm that at a time of rising protectionism in the United States, it is the Government's policy to give unequivocal support to the success of responsible American investment in Scotland and the United Kingdom generally? Can he further confirm that we expect reciprocal treatment from the United States Congress?
    Mr. Rifkind: That is a desirable objective. The United Kingdom has substantially benefited from being attractive to overseas investment, and Scotland has shown herself remarkably able to attract that investment.
    Mr. Norman Hogg: Does the Secretary of State agree that the best record of achievement in inward investment to Scotland in the post-war period is that of the five Scottish new towns? Will he give an undertaking now to leave in place those mechanisms designed to achieve inward investment in the new towns, notwithstanding what else may happen as a consequence of the review of new towns' functions?
    Mr. Rifkind: The hon. Gentleman is right to pay tribute to the success of new towns in attracting inward investment. I agree also that., in considering the future of new towns and their possible winding up, we must explore ways of ensuring that they can continue to be attractive

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    locations for inward investment. The consultative document that we published recently invites contributions designed to achieve that effect.
    Mr. Andy Stewart: Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that, apart from the qualities of the Scottish people, the reason for increased inward investment is that Scotland is part of the United Kingdom?
    Mr. Rifkind: It is certainly an asset for Scotland that it has benefited from low taxation, improved industrial relations, and increased competitiveness, which are a direct result of the Government's policies.

    Scottish Enterprise (White Paper)
    Mr. Tom Clarke: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects to meet the Scottish Trades Union Congress to discuss Her Majesty's Government's White Paper on Scottish Enterprise.
    Mr. Lang: The STUC has not sought a meeting about Scottish Enterprise, but I shall be happy to consider any such request.
    Mr. Clarke: Is not it unacceptable that the Secretary of State, who might have been expected to answer my question, has not formally met the STUC for over 15 months, even though it was anxious to meet him to discuss NEL, Scott Lithgow, Bishopton and other matters? Is the attempt to marginalise active trade unionists in Scotland reflected in the White Paper proposals for local structures that will give far more weight to local employers than to local authorities and trade unionists, who are just as committed as anybody else to training and employment? Does the Minister accept that, since the election, the Secretary of State has not attempted to achieve consensus in Scotland and that the only voices to which he is prepared to listen are those of the discredited, minority far right in his own party?
    Mr. Lang: Any request by the STUC for a meeting would always be carefully considered. In recent months, my right hon. and learned Friend has had several meetings with the general secretary of the STUC, and I shall meet representatives of the STUC on 27 January to discuss the economy.
    It is our intention that there should be no automatic right of membership of Scottish Enterprise. We want to get the right people as individuals who can best help Scottish Enterprise achieve good results for Scotland.
    Mr. Salmond: What procedures will be undertaken for the appointment of people to the new area enterprise boards. Has there been any correspondence, apart from the letter from Sir Hector Laing looking for recruits to such boards? What assurances can the Minister give that the proposal is about enterprise in Scotland, as opposed to the extension of Tory patronage throughout Scotland?
    Mr. Lang: That is an offensive and irrelevant question. On the establishment of enterprise agencies, it is for local individuals and local organisations to put forward proposals to Scottish Enterprise to bid for the contract in their own areas. Proposals will be assessed on their merits. Contracts will be awarded accordingly and monitored by Scottish Enterprise.
    Mr. Bill Walker: Does my hon. Friend agree that Scottish Enterprise recognises employers' key role in training the people whom they employ? It should acknowledge also the existence of the STUC, though the STUC has failed to come forward with positive and constructive proposals, and has been girning. One can only assume that it will not contribute in a positive way.
    Mr. Lang: My hon. Friend is right. When the STUC comes forward with positive proposals they are always carefully considered, as was the general secretary's suggestion that my right hon. and learned Friend should set up a committee to consider the implications for Scotland of the single European market.
    It is our intention that about two thirds of the membership of the board of Scottish Enterprise should be from the business and industrial community. Business men and industrialists are more likely to be the most effective at assessing the need for training in their areas and throughout Scotland.
    Mr. Eadie: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that some hon. Members are reaching the conclusion that the Secretary of State is reluctant to meet anybody to discuss enterprise and industry in Scotland? Is he aware also that, over three weeks ago, I wrote to the Secretary of State and listed my parliamentary colleagues who would attend a meeting to discuss the Scottish mining industry? Why does the Secretary of State show such discourtesy to his parliamentary colleagues and to the House?
    Mr. Lang: The hon. Gentleman's question is wholly unwarranted. As I have already said, my right hon. and learned Friend would give consideration to any organisation asking for a meeting and so would I. I am meeting the STUC next month.
    Mr. Dickens: Will my hon. Friend ensure when he next meets—[Interruption.]
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Please get on with it.
    Mr. Dickens: I am trying. Control them. When my hon. Friend next meets the STUC will he be sure to remind it both of how well we are doing with inward investment in Scotland through various enterprise schemes and of the stupidity of the trade unions in Scotland which cost Dundee the Ford plant?
    Mr. Lang: I shall certainly remind the STUC of those points if by then it has not already read my hon. Friend's comments. I shall also urge it to withdraw its opposition to the Government's implementation of employment training. The attitude of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and the STUC in refusing to co-operate with that important training scheme has done considerable damage to the employment prospects of young unemployed Scots.

    Local Authorities (Economic Development)
    Mr. Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what representations he has received from local authorities regarding their role in economic development.
    Mr. Rifkind: Representations have been made by Monklands district council and by the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities concerning what action is to be

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    taken in Scotland in response to the Widdicombe committee's recommendations on local authorities' role in economic development. These representations will be considered carefully.
    Mr. Bruce: Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that there is some concern about the role of the public sector and local authorities in the Government's proposals for Enterprise Scotland? Does he acknowledge that initiatives, such as the Grampian initiative and the economic development committee of Gordon district council and other councils, are a useful form of partnership which should be developed and encouraged? Can he give an assurance that when the proposals are introduced in detail they will ensure that we have a proper spirit of partnership between private and public agencies, with leadership from local authorities, and that he will ensure that Enterprise Scotland is not simply a gimmick which damages the promotion of enterprise in Scotland?
    Mr. Rifkind: I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman. If he has read the White Paper he will have noted that it specifically refers to the fact that local authorities are employers and are perfectly free to come forward with others with proposals for the establishment of local agencies.

    Single Market
    Mr. Ian Taylor: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland what assessment he has made of the level of business awareness there is in Scotland of the opportunities presented by 1992 and the completion of the single market in Europe.
    Mr. Rifkind: There is widespread awareness of the implications of the single market among the Scottish business community, but we propose to continue and intensify our efforts to ensure that businesses in Scotland are the best prepared in Europe.
    Mr. Taylor: I thank my right hon. and learned Friend for that answer. Bearing in mind that over 50 per cent. of exports from Scotland go to the European Community, will he constantly remind Scottish firms that they are benefiting from the low-taxation, high-growth economy which is the result of the policies of this Conservative Government?
    Mr. Rifkind: That is the case. I do not think that Scottish industry needs to be reminded of it, because spokesmen for Scottish industry have themselves made that point and welcomed the Government's economic strategy.
    Mr. Worthington: Is the Secretary of State aware that there cannot be a single economic market until there is a uniform business rate for the whole of the United Kingdom and that the impact—[interruption.] This is absolutely true. Is it correct that there will not be a uniform business rate until after a second revaluation in 1995, and, therefore, not until about 1996–97?
    Mr. Rifkind: I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his ingenuity in managing to get away with asking a question about the uniform business rate on a question about the single European market. Unlike all previous Labour Governments who tolerated higher rates poundages in Scotland compared with other parts in the United Kingdom, this Government are the first to say that we intend to work towards a common rates poundage.

    South of Scotland Electricity Board
    Mr. Hood: To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland when he last met Mr. Donald Miller, chairman of South of Scotland Electricity Board; and whether he discussed the future of the Scottish coal industry.
    Mr. Lang: My right hon. and learned Friend last met the chairman of the South of Scotland electricity board on 4 July when, with the chairman of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board, a range of issues was discussed. While coal was not the main subject of the discussions, we see no reason why a satisfactory outcome to the present negotiations between SSEB and British Coal cannot be achieved by the two parties concerned. This remains our view irrespective of the court action now being pursued by British Coal.
    Mr. Hood: Will the Minister ask the Secretary of State for Scotland to consider intervening in the dispute between the SSEB and British Coal to try to prevent expensive legal action? Does he agree that political action is far better than legal action? Will he accept that it is his responsibility to consider the consequences of failure? The cost of failure to arrive at a settlement in the dispute between the SSEB and British Coal will be the elimination of the Scottish deep mining industry. Is that to be the Secretary of State's Christmas present to Scottish miners?
    Mr. Lang: My right hon. and learned Friend and I are anxious to see a strong and viable Scottish coal industry. Matters of pricing and contract between the SSEB and British Coal are for commercial negotiation between the two parties. British Coal can have a successful future only if it remains competitive.

Points of Order
Mr. Speaker: Private notice question—Mr. Matthew Taylor.
Mr. Tony Favell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: No. If the point of order needed to be raised at the time and if it had been raised, I would have heard it then.
Mr. Favell rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. If the point of order needed to be raised— [interruption] May I deal with this matter? If the point of order needed to be raised at the time, that is when it should have been raised.
Mr. Favell: It is important that the matter be raised now, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: On which question does the point of order arise?
Mr. Favell: The point of order arises—
Mr. Speaker: On which question does it arise?
Mr. Fayell: Question No. 2.
Mr. Speaker: In that case I shall take the point of order after the private notice question.

Meat Imports
3.31 pm
Mr. Matthew Taylor(by private notice): To ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he has taken any steps to ensure that meat entering the United Kingdom from the Republic of Ireland is fit for human consumption.
The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John MacGregor): There are standard arrangements for port health authorities to carry out checks on meat imported into the United Kingdom from the Republic of Ireland. Environmental health officers from Carrick district council have, over a period, been monitoring regularly meat coming into Mid-Cornwall Meat Packers, and on a number of occasions meat has been surrendered. Last week the company refused to surrender part of a consignment which the EHO considered unfit. It was taken before a magistrate, who condemned it. We have asked the authorities of the Republic of Ireland to investigate the origin of the consignment of meat sent.
Mr. Taylor: Is the Minister convinced that standards in Ireland are equivalent to our own? If he is, will he explain why consignments of this sort have been entering the United Kingdom in this way? We are aware of the problem in Cornwall, but does the problem extend further? To what extent have such consignments been entering the country?
What reassurance can the right hon. Gentleman give consumers that the meat that is on their plates is clean, pure and wholesome, unlike that which has been imported into my constituency? Can the Minister explain how it is that, on "The World at One" today, the Irish Minister of Agriculture said that he had not been contacted by the Ministry and that it was not conducting an investigation?
Mr. MacGregor: My officials have been in touch with the Ministry and I hope later today to talk to the Minister myself.
Under the EC rules, all meat that is imported from other EC states—[Interruption.]—has to be accompanied by health certificates. The incident demonstrates that the effective action taken by Carrick district council should have ensured that no unfit meat enters the human food chain. Several consignments that have come to the company have been surrendered. The checks to ensure that unfit meat does not get into the human food chain—I agree that they are extremely important—are, first, a check by the environmental health officers of Carrick district council.
It is clear that that procedure has worked, and I pay tribute to the work that has been carried out by the district council's EHOs. Since September, they have been monitoring rigorously the meat coming into the company. Secondly, there are checks by EHOs in manufacturing plants to which the meat has gone. Thirdly, there are checks by the companies, which are most anxious that their products are safe.
Also, because of the concern felt by Carrick district council EHOs, they alerted EHOs in all other parts of the country though their electronic mail line. We have checked with the Institution of Environmental Health Officers and I am assured that there is no particular concern as a result of the information that has been provided to all other EHOs. In other words, the EHOs in Carrick have picked

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up this problem and, by the other action I have outlined, should have ensure that none of this meat has entered the food chain. That shows that the system works well, and has done so on this occasion.
Mr. Robert Hicks: Does my right hon. Friend agree that this incident causes concern as the imports come from the Republic of Ireland, a fellow Community country?
Secondly, will my right hon. Friend confirm that there is no evidence that the meat in question got into the human food chain on this occasion?
Mr. MacGregor: Obviously, we shall follow up this consignment, like others, with the Irish Government. I am sure that they will be equally concerned because they do not want any negative attributes to attach to their exports. I am sure that both countries will follow up this matter.
The most important point is that the system has worked. The meat has been found and taken out of the system and all the checks worked. I can assure my hon. Friend hat there is no evidence that the meat has entered the food chain; we have made sure, through the checks, that it has not.
Mr. James Molyneaux: Contrary to what has been said, is it not a fact that animal health standards in various EEC countries are not up to British ones?
Secondly, the Minister mentioned monitoring, but is it not true that spot checks can be carried out in as few as 5 per cent. of cases at some points of entry into the United Kingdom? Should not that proportion be increased?
Mr. MacGregor: We are keen to ensure that our standards are enforced to the highest level, as I am sure exporting countries are. This instance has shown that we are ensuring that. I have forgotten the right hon. Gentleman's second point—
Mr. Molyneaux: The 5 per cent. spot checks.
Mr. MacGregor: Obviously, it is not possible to check every consignment, but there are careful checks. In all cases there are two checks—that is the important point. The first is carried out by the port health authorities and the second by the EHOs, who are responsible, as members of the local authorities, for the plants in their district council areas. Because they were concerned about the meat in this plant, the EHOs have enforced rigorous monitoring for some time now. That has ensured that any meat thought to be unfit in any way has been surrendered or, as I said, condemned by a magistrate in this case.
Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: Can my right hon. Friend clear up one point? Does the check at the port of entry merely consist of ensuring that there is a valid certificate, or does it look behind the certificate and check that it has been issued to a consignment that complies with it? Clearly, false certificates were issued in these cases. That is an important point. It shows that we cannot rely on the certificates.
Mr. MacGregor: The check is done on the certificates. One of the problems is for EHOs, who carry out the main check to determine wether meat is unfit for consumption, to be certain whether it became unfit after or before it entered the country. That point has been checked on some of the meat consignments that came into this plant.
Mr. Frank Doran: The Minister will be aware that many meat producers in this country will be very concerned about the possible spead of the effect of the news about this incident—particularly those in my area, the Grampian region, which is one of the largest meat production areas in the country. What assurance can he give the British public that the meat which they expect to be wholesome actually is?
Mr. MacGregor: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is on exactly the right point. The checks that worked in this case are clear evidence that the system works. Effective action taken by the district council should have ensured that no unfit meat has entered the food chain from this source. We all know about the excellent standards of Scottish meat. The real lesson of this episode is that the system works: that is the best guarantee for consumers.
Sir David Price: Did the meat in question, coming from Ireland, come from EEC-approved abattoirs or from abattoirs of the lower standard accepted by the Irish? As we approach 1992, it is very important that all abattoirs in the Community should be up to the higher EEC standards, and it is insufficient to accept the lower domestic standards.
Mr. MacGregor: If it was exported from another Community country, it would have had to be from an abattoir that was export-approved. My hon. Friend is right on the wider question of 1992: it is important that all abattoirs are brought up to the same standard. That is part of the discussion that is taking place on all matters relating to 1992.
Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones (Yns Môn): The Minister referred to the way in which checks were carried out effectively in Cornwall. Will he also bear in mind the fact that checks are made at points of entry, such as Holyhead in my constituency, by very efficient and hard-working environmental health officers? Will he recognise that last year they carried out extensive checks at the port and found no contaminated meat? That should be a reasonable assurance for our meat consumers.
Mr. MacGregor: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and I hope that the points that he has made will get wide circulation. I should like to pay tribute to all those who are involved in ensuring that our food is safe. That includes EHOs, people at the ports and many others who work extremely hard to ensure that that is so. In an isolated case of this kind, it is doubly reassuring to be able to say what I said earlier, that there is no evidence that the meat has entered the food chain. Enormous imports and exports and food processing are taking place all the time, and the hon. Gentleman is right to pay tribute to the work of all those people and to the fact that there are so few incidents of this kind.
Mr. David Curry: Is it not true that environmental health officers have been present in this plant since September monitoring all the consignments coming into it? Does that not show that no contaminated consignments have got through into the food chain? Has my right hon. Friend received any suggestion from other parts of the country that there have been complaints about contaminated meat?
Mr. MacGregor: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The answer to his last question is that the EHOs did an

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exemplary job in warning all other EHOs of what they were finding in this case. The fact that we have not been able to find any other similar evidence shows that the system was working extremely well. The lesson from this case is that the EHOs in Carrick district council were doing a splendid job. The fact that they were monitoring the meat so carefully since September should be another reassurance.
Mr. Tom Cox: While the Minister repeatedly says that the system is working—given this discovery, one obviously would say it is—whose laws are we under? Are we under the laws of the EEC or the laws of this Parliament? I remind the Secretary of State that a distinguished Member of this House, Norman Atkinson, who sadly is no longer here, introduced a Bill some years ago specifically on the issue of the quality and kind of meat that could be sold to the general public. That became the law of this country.
If we are operating under our own laws, the general public would know that they were safeguarded and would have total confidence in them. However, if they are laws imposed by the EEC, then, in view of comments made by Conservative Members, surely it is time that we made clearly known that our safeguards will be stringently imposed irrespective of the origin of our meat imports.
Mr. MacGregor: Yes, our safeguards are stringently imposed. We apply the highest possible practices. It is equally desirable that the same levels and standards should apply throughout the Community. When one is dealing with intra-Community trade, one obviously operates within EC rules. As I say, we are endeavouring to ensure that the EC rules apply the highest standards. That is happening in the case of exporting abattoirs. They now have to meet the EC rules.
Mr. Christopher Gill: I am sure that the whole House and the general public will be reassured by my right hon. Friend's statement. He will be aware that, as we move towards 1992, we will become more and more dependent upon the inspection that is carried out in the exporting countries. Will he take this opportunity to remind our brothers in Europe that they must get their act together if they are to retain the confidence of the British public in the products that they consume from other Community countries?
Mr. MacGregor: I know that my hon. Friend has extensive knowledge of the meat industry. I can give him the assurance that, between now and 1992, I shall do precisely as he wishes in all the discussions which I have on these matters. I shall make the same point in my discussion with my fellow Minister in the Republic of Ireland. I am sure that he will be as concerned as I am to ensure that Irish exports are of a high standard, because that is obviously of great importance to him in terms of Irish exports.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a private notice question and I must have regard to the important debate to follow, in which many right hon. and hon. Members wish to take part. I shall take two more questions from each side of the House.
Ms. Marjorie Mowlam: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In view of the answer which the Minister just gave, can he explain why he said earlier that he had not yet talked to the Irish Minister of Agriculture? In view of the communication difficulties which we have had with the Republic over the Ryan case, and in view of the incompetence which the Minister has shown over the egg fiasco, would it not have been common decency, let alone common sense, to talk to the Irish Minister first?
Mr. MacGregor: I think that that is a rather pointless question. My Ministry has been in touch and I shall be in touch later this afternoon. Last week, I had a good series of discussions with my Irish colleague on an issue which is important to many plants in this country in relation to the Scotch whisky industry. Those discussions led to his seeing our point of view and removing an objection he had. That was of great importance to the Scotch whisky industry. I have been in pretty constant communication with him during the past week. The moment that I can get hold of him, I shall talk to him about this incident.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The private notice question is about meat, even though it is Christmas.
Mr. Roger Knapman: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, if the meat was contaminated when it entered this country, it is 99·9 per cent. certain that it was contaminated when it was in Ireland?
Mr. MacGregor: The EHOs and my Ministry are investigating to establish exactly when the contamination occurred. That is obviously one of the difficulties. it is certainly one of the points that we are pursuing.
Mr. Ken Eastham: I note the Minister's fulsome praise for the environmental health officers. Can he assure the House that there are enough such officers to carry out a 100 per cent. inspection of meat? Are there not dotted across the country small abattoirs which are difficult to control? Is it not about time that we had a look at this problem?
Mr. MacGregor: That is obviously not a direct matter for me. The example of this case shows that those officers are doing a good job.
Mr. Neil Thorne: In view of the alarming reports circulating about animal and poultry feed, can my right hon. Friend assure the House that the source of the beef feed was not in any way contaminated? What action has he taken to ensure that animal and poultry feed is properly processed and is not likely to cause this kind of problem?
Mr. MacGregor: Animal feed in this country is certainly properly controlled. I have announced the further steps that we intend to take. I do not at this stage know the source of the feed that was given to these animals.
Mr. John Home Robertson: May I gently remind the Minister that the second "F" in "MAFF" is supposed to stand for "Food". How can it be possible for contaminated meat to be diverted towards the public food supply? Will the right hon. Gentleman take immediate action to make the local, national, and, most important, international system of inspection and control work

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properly now and after 1992? We are grateful for the categorical assurance that none of the contaminated meat has got into the public food supply. I should be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman would assure us that anyone who may have attempted to commit that offence will be brought to book by the relevant authorities.
Events over the past two weeks demonstrate a disturbing failure by Ministers to maintain proper health standards in the nation's food. The proof of that is in the eating, with a doubling of salmonella food poisoning cases over the past three years, up to 39,000. We are grateful to Carrick district council for doing its work properly. I wish we had the same confidence in Ministers.
Mr. MacGregor: I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would recognise that this was a case of the system working properly, as it does very often in this country. My Department, too, acted immediately it received the information. We followed up the matter straight away. That is evidence of not only the local authority working properly, but also my Department.
I assure the hon. Gentleman that the amount of effort and resources that we have put into the food side of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has increased during recent years, and will continue to increase. I assure the hon. Gentleman, too, that during the past 18 months, I have been spending a great deal of my time—both in this country and in the European Community—on food matters, food legislation, food hygiene and food safety.

Points of Order
3.50 pm
Mr. Teddy Taylor: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I seek your help and guidance, Mr. Speaker, on the question of the Court of Auditors report, which was published last Tuesday, 13 December, not being available in the Vote Office. That is one of the most important EEC documents published in the year, and, according to press reports, it contains widespread reports of fraud, of inadequate cover of expenditure and of illegal expenditure of money passed and approved by the House.
You will know, Mr. Speaker, that "Erskine May" makes it abundantly clear that we should treat such documents as parliamentary documents, and in fact the same guidance is given in the House of Commons guidance.
You will be aware, Sir, that I raised this point at business questions last Thursday. I appealed to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to ensure that this document was made available. There has been report after report in the newspapers, and yesterday in The Daily Telegraph there was a detailed leader article making specific reference to the report. It is a shameful insult to the Court of Auditors that this document should be issued to the press but not to Members of Parliament, and that this document, which is vital to public expenditure, is treated in such a way that Members of Parliament cannot obtain it, although I and other hon. Members have asked for it every day.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Can I raise a point of order, Mr. Speaker?
Mr. Speaker: Yes.
Mr. Skinner: This matter is exceptionally important. We have just been discussing a matter which in many ways is connected with fraud in the Common Market. You will be aware that the Court of Auditors report last time, which went before the Public Accounts Committee, stated that there was a Common Market fraud—referred to in this document, too—called the "roundabout scheme". That scheme enables meat to be transferred backwards and forwards over national boundaries—into the fridge, out of the fridge and back into the fridge—with the result that massive amounts of money are made every time that meat crosses a national boundary. It is significant that on this day, when we are complaining about fraud and the Court of Auditors report not being available, we should also be discussing the question of rotten meat. I believe that those two matters go well together.
It is important that the Ministry of Agriculture—as well as yourself, Mr. Speaker—investigates this matter and the way in which this meat is being transferred time and time again—
Mr. MacGregor indicated assent.
Mr. Skinner: —and look into the fraud while the right hon. Gentleman is at it.
Mr. Speaker: May I first of all congratulate the hon. Gentleman on getting his point of order absolutely in order.
Mr. Jonathan Aitken: On a Point of Order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Order. No.
The hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) gave me notice of his point of order, for which I am grateful, because it has given me the opportunity to look into it. I am always concerned when hon. Members are unable to obtain papers which they need for a debate, and I have looked into the matter. I understand that the Vote Office copies of the Court of Auditors report are in transit by air freight. The Library's two copies arrived by post. The Vote Office is making inquiries about its consignment. I trust that the hon. Gentleman will soon receive his copy. I cannot explain why the post was quicker than the air.
Mr. Bob Cryer: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder if you have had notice of an intention of the Department of Education and Science to make a statement. If not, my information is that the DES has planted a parliamentary answer which gives notification of the amounts of money on capital expenditure in education. I know, Mr. Speaker, that you have no direct control over Ministers, but I believe that it is important on these issues that the Government should not arrange planted PQs on the last day before a recess, because that gives no opportunity for consideration, especially by hon. Members such as myself, with important constituency interests—we have 500 temporary classrooms in Bradford. I understand that the PQ will announce that the trend in decline in capital expenditure will continue.
It will be impossible for Bradford to replace some of the much-needed temporary classrooms, whose replacement has been desperately needed for many years. Therefore, I hope that you, Mr. Speaker, will use your influence to stop not only the DES, but the Department of Health, which has also put down a planted answer, from carrying out this nefarious practice, which avoids parliamentary accountability and scrutiny and robs hon. Members on both sides of the House of the right to ask questions of Ministers to discover what they are about.
Mr. Speaker: Again, I have sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman says. We are coming towards the Christmas recess, and I am sure that what he has said will have been heard by those on the Front Bench. I will now take the point of order from Mr. Favell.
Mr. Tony Favell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I tried to raise a point of order at the end of the second question during Scottish Questions because you had taken two points of order from Opposition parties —one from the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars), who represents the Scottish National party, and the other from the hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan) who represents the Scottish Labour party. Is there a special practice during Scottish Questions, or do you intend to return to your usual practice of not taking points of order during questions?
Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, would you make it perfectly clear to the Opposition parties that hon. Members representing other parts of the United Kingdom have the right to be heard during Scottish questions without being shouted down? Those hon. Members who are deeply committed to the Union have a special right to be heard, particularly as the Union is coming under increasing threat from many Opposition Members who seem dedicated to achieving a Socialist state at any cost.
Mr. Speaker: I do not know whether the hon. Member for Stockport (Mr. Favell) was here earlier in the week —I hope that he was—when this matter was dealt with. I will deal with it yet again.
If a matter needs the immediate attention of the Chair, it should be raised immediately as a point of order even during Question Time. If it is a point of order arising out of questions later on, which the hon. Gentleman sought to raise, he knows perfectly well that, as I explained last year, points of order arising out of Question Time are always taken at their proper time, which is now, after private notice questions or after a statement. I am sorry that I did not see the hon. Gentleman, and I apologise to him.
Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Norman Buchan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I will take Mr. Dalyell first.
Mr. Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It has been brought to your attention that the Hansard published today records that, yesterday morning, at 5.45 am, I suggested that the new vice-president of the European Community had rendered the supreme service of silence to the Prime Minister. The House was then suspended by the Chairman of Ways and Means.
You will know, Mr. Speaker, that the Clerk of the Journals has written a letter to say that there is no direct precedent for that action. I wonder if you would care to make a statement on this?
Mr. Speaker: I am not aware that the Clerk of the Journals has written a letter, but there are plenty of precedents; the hon. Gentleman need only look at page 314 of "Erskine May". There are frequently occasions when the Chair considers that an informal suspension would be for the convenience of the House and many examples have been given.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, it is not the practice for the Speaker to comment on what has taken place when not in the chair. The incident to which he referred was dealt with well by the Chairman of Ways and Means.
Mr. Skinner: On that matter—
Hon. Members: No, no.
Mr. Aitken: Further to the important point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor), Mr. Speaker. I respectfully urge you to look behind the explanation given to the Vote Office, or whatever source, about the Christmas mail and the air freight schedules. I ask you to concentrate upon the real gut issue, the increasing contempt shown by certain European institutions towards this House and this Parliament.
This important Court of Auditors report has somehow been passed to all the media, yet it has not been possible to pass it to the House of Commons. This issue deserves a protest to be recorded, and I hope that, at the appropriate time, you will make it known, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: I will certainly look behind the explanation given. Copies are in the Library and hon. Members may see them, but I shall consider the explanation given to me.

BALLOT FOR NOTICES OF MOTIONS FOR FRIDAY 20 JANUARY
Members successful in the ballot were:
Miss Ann Widdecombe
Mr. Irvine Patnick
Mr. Barry Field

BILLS PRESENTED
  PROTECTION OF PRIVACY
  Mr. John Browne, supported by Sir Bernard Braine, Mr. Merlyn Rees, Mr. William Cash, Sir Marcus Fox, Mr. Denis Healey. Mr. Ivan Lawrence, Mr. Alex Carlile, Mr. John Hannam, Mr. John Cartwright, Mr. Peter Temple-Morris and Mr. Frank Cook, presented a Bill to establish a right of privacy against the unauthorised use or disclosure of private information; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 27 January and to be printed [Bill 14].
  RIGHT OF REPLY
  Mr. Tony Worthington, supported by Mr. Michael Foot, Mr. Norman Buchan, Mr. Joseph Ashton, Mr. David Steel, Mr. Jonathan Aitken, Mr. Merlyn Rees, Mrs. Ann Clwyd, Mr. Austin Mitchell, Mrs. Margaret Ewing, Mr. Peter Temple-Morris and Mr. Robin Squire, presented a Bill to give members of the public the right of reply to correct inaccuracies which affect them in the press or in broadcasts; to establish a Press Commission; to extend legal aid to actions for defamation; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 3 February and to be printed [Bill 15].
  NATIONAL IDENTITY CARD
  Mr. Ralph Howell, supported by Sir William Clark, Sir Eldon Griffiths, Mr. Ted Garrett, Sir Rhodes Boyson, Sir Marcus Fox, Mr. Jim Lester, Dr. Keith Hampson, Mr. Tony Faye11, Mr. John Greenway, Mr. Tim Smith and Mr. Allan Stewart, presented a Bill to provide for a national identity card system for all residents of the United Kingdom: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 10 February and to be printed [Bill 16].
  SUNDAY SPORTS
  Mr. Andrew Mackay, supported by Mr. John Carlisle, Mr. David Davis, Mr. George Gardiner, Sir Eldon Griffiths, Mr. Denis Howell, Mr. Archy Kirkwood, Mr. Patrick McLoughlin, Mr. Andrew Mitchell, Sir Charles Morrison, Mr. George Robertson and Mr. Nicholas Soames, presented a Bill to exempt races, athletics sports and other sporting events from the entertainments and amusements to which the Sunday Observance Act 1780 applies and to allow betting to take place on all or some Sunday afternoons on tracks and on a number of Sunday afternoons in licensed betting offices and to make provision as to the rights of established employees concerning Sunday working: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 17 February and to be printed [Bill 17].

  CONTROL OF POLLUTION (AMENDMENT)
  Ms. Joan Ruddock, supported by Ms. Jean Walley, Ms. Harriet Harman, Mr. Frank Cook, Mr. Tony Banks, Mr. Simon Hughes, Mr. Dafydd Wigley, Sir George Young,
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  Sir Hugh Rossi, Mr. Robin Squire and Mr. Gerald Bowden, presented a Bill to provide for the registration of carriers of controlled waste and to make further provision with respect to stopping, detaining and retaining vehicles for waste disposal as it relates to the deposit of controlled waste onto unlicensed sites: and the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 24 February and to be printed [Bill 18].

  CITIZENS' COMPENSATION
  Mr. Lawrence Cunliffe, supported by Mr. Alfred Morris, Mr. Jack Ashley, Mr. John Hannam, Mr. Charles Irving, Mr. Jonathan Aitken. Mr. Archy Kirkwood, Mr. Jim Lester, Miss Janet Fookes, Mr. Dafydd Wigley, Mr. George Howarth and Mr. Sean Hughes, presented a Bill to establish a Board to make recommendations for the levels of compensation awarded to injured persons; to place a duty on the courts to have regard to such recommendations and to actuarial evidence in awarding compensation; to increase the amount of damages paid in the event of bereavement and to extend the categories of persons entitled to receive such damages: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 3 March and to be printed [Bill 19].
  ABORTION (AMENDMENT)
  Miss Ann Widdecombe, supported by Sir Bernard Braine, Mr. David Alton, Mr. Seamus Mallon, Rev. Martin Smyth, Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours, Mrs. Elizabeth Peacock, Mrs. Marion Roe, Dame Peggy Fenner, Mrs. Ann Winterton, Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman and Dame Jill Knight, presented a Bill to limit the period within pregnancy during which an abortion may be performed, subject to certain exceptions: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 3 March and to be printed [Bill 20].
  ROAD TRAFFIC (BREATH TESTS)
  Mr. John Home Robertson, supported by Sir Anthony Grant, Mr. Roland Boyes, Mr. David Knox, Mr. Ronnie Fearn, Sir Philip Goodhart, Mr. David Marshall, Mr. Stephen Day, Mr. Barry Sheerman, Mrs. Rosie Barnes, Mr. leuan Wyn Jones and Mr. Tony Lloyd, presented a Bill to amend the Road Traffic Act 1988 to redefine the powers of the police to administer breath tests; to make further provision for the deterrence and detection of driving under the influence of alcohol; and for connected purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 24 February and to be printed [Bill 21].
  HEARING AID COUNCIL (AMENDMENT)
  Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones, supported by Mr. Jack Ashley, Miss Emma Nicholson, Mr. Malcolm Bruce, Mrs. Rosie Barnes, Mr. Alfred Morris, Mr. Allen Mckay, Mr. Roger Sims, Mr. Dafydd Wigley, Mr. Andrew Welsh, Mr. Peter Thurnham and Mr. John Hannam, presented a Bill to amend the Hearing Aid Council Act 1968, in order to make further provision for the regulation, conduct and discipline of persons engaged in dispensing haring aids; to amend the composition and procedures of the Hearing Aid Council; and for purposes connected with those matters: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 10 February and to be printed [Bill 32].
  INDECENT DISPLAYS (NEWSPAPERS AND WORKPLACES)
  Ms. Clare Short, supported by Ms. Jo Richardson, Ms. Dawn Primarolo, Mrs. Margaret Beckett, Mrs. Alice Mahon, Ms. Joyce Quin, Mrs. Maria Fyfe, Ms. Joan Ruddock, Ms. Diane Abbott, Mrs. Audrey Wise, Ms. Marjorie Mowlam and Mrs. Ann Taylor, presented a Bill to remove pornography from the press and the workplace: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 3 February and to be printed [Bill 30].
  DISABLED PERSONS (NORTHERN IRELAND)
  Rev. Martin Smyth, supported by Dame Jill Knight, Mr. Tom Clark, Mr. Jack Ashley, Mr. William Ross, Mrs. Margaret Ewing, Mr. John Hannam, Mr. Paddy Ashdown, Mr. Eddie McGrady, Rev. William McCrea, Mr. Dafydd Wigley and Mr. Ken Maginnis, presented a Bill to make provision equivalent to the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986 for Northern Ireland: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 17 February and to be printed [Bill 26].
  FIRE SAFETY INFORMATION
  Mr. Andrew Smith, supported by Mr. John Battle, Mr. Paul Boateng, Mr. Frank Field, Mr. Simon Hughes, Mr. David Knox, Mr. Steve Norris, Sir David Price, Mr. Chris Smith, Mr. Robin Squire, Mr. Nicholas Winterton and Mrs. Audrey Wise, presented a Bill to provide for certain information concerning fire safety to be available to specified persons; to provide for public inspection of such information; to require local housing authorities to keep a register of certain information; and for related purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 24 February and to be printed [Bill 31].
  HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS (ACCESS TO INFORMATION)
  Mr. Andrew Welsh, supported by Mrs. Margaret Ewing, Mr. Dafydd Wigley, Mr. Charles Irving, Miss Janet Fookes, Mr. Clive Soley, Dr. Lewis Moonie, Mr. Simon Hughes, Mr. Archy Kirkwood, Mr. Alex Salmond, Mr. Jim Sillars and Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones, presented a Bill to provide for access to meetings, reports and documents, subject to certain confidentiality provisions, of housing associations by the tenants of those associations; to give housing associations a duty to publish certain information; and for related purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time on Friday 17 February and to be printed [Bill 33].
  ALCOHOL ABUSE (SCOTLAND)
  Mr. Jimmy Hood, supported by Sir Hector Monro, Mr. Jimmy Wray, Mr. Calum Macdonald, Mr. William McKelvey, Mr. John McAllion, Mr. George Galloway, Mr. Tom Clarke, Mr. Harry Ewing, Mr. Nigel Griffiths, Mr. David Marshall and Mr. Malcolm Bruce, presented a Bill to make it an offence for persons under the age of 18 years to consume alcohol in public places and to impose fines of £1,000 maximum on persons selling, or being agents for the sale of, alcohol to persons under the age of 18 years: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 10 February and to be printed. [Bill 22].
  DATA PROTECTION (AMENDMENT)
  Mr. Eddie Loyden, supported by Mr. Eric S. Heller, Mr. Robert Parry, Mr. Terry Fields, Mr. Dennis Canavan, Mr. Harry Cohen, Mr. Dennis Skinner, Mr. Andrew F. Bennett, Mrs. Alice Mahon, Ms. Mildred Gordon, Mr. Martin Flannery and Mr. Sydney Bidwell, presented a Bill to amend the Data Protection Act 1984 to include data held in any form whatsoever for use by a personal information bureau: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 3 March and to be printed. [Bill 28].
  CONTROL OF SMOKE POLLUTION
  Mr. Andrew Hunter, supported by Mr. Nicholas Bennett, Mr. William Cash, Mr. Sydney Chapman, Mr. Simon Coombs, Mr. Conal Gregory, Mr. Humfrey Malins, Mr. Andrew Mitchell, Mr. David Nicholson, Mr. Lewis Stevens and Mr. Timothy Wood, presented a Bill to repeal section 16(1)(a) of the Clean Air Act 1956 and to amend section 1 of the Clean Air Act 1968: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 24 February and to be printed. [Bill 23].
  PUBLIC SAFETY INFORMATION
  Ms. Joyce Quin, supported by Mr. Chris Smith, Mr. John Bowis, Mr. Archy Kirkwood, Mr. Allan Roberts, Mr. Robin Squire, Mr. Simon Hughes, Ms. Joan Ruddock, Mr. Steve Norris, Mr. Andrew Welsh, Mr. Win Griffiths and Mr. Andrew Smith, presented a Bill to give certain bodies duties regarding information concerning public safety; to require the designation of a public safety officer by such bodies; to provide for the keeping of registers of such information; to provide for public access to that information; and for related purposes: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 24 February and to be printed [Bill 29].
  ROAD TRAFFIC REGULATION (PARKING)
  Mr. Timothy Kirkhope, supported by Mr. Ted Garrett, Mr. Roger Knapman, Mr. John Battle, Mr. David Curry, Mr. James Cran, Mr. Irvine Patnick, Mr. Robert G. Hughes, Mr. Keith Bradley, Mr. Christopher Gill and Mr. Archy Kirkwood, presented a Bill to amend the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 in relation to parking: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 27 January and to be printed. [Bill 24.]
  INTERNATIONAL PARLIAMENTARY ORGANISATIONS (REGISTRATION)
  Mr. Michael Marshall, supported by Mr. Donald Anderson, Mr. Tom Cox and Mr. Neil Thorne, presented a Bill to set up a register of publicly-financed international parliamentary organisations which fund both British and international secretariats and which draw their membership from both Houses of Parliament: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 27 January and to be printed. [Bill 25].

  DEFINITIVE MAP MODIFICATION
  Sir Geoffrey Johnson Smith, supported by Mr. Tim Boswell, Mr. Alastair Goodlad and Mr. David Harris, presented a Bill to amend section 53(3)(c)(ii) and (iii) and section 56(1) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981:

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  And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday 27 January and to be printed. [Bill 27].

Orders of the Day

  Official Secrets Bill
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Mr. Speaker: Before we start this important debate, I remind the House that a very large number of right hon. and hon. Members wish to speak. I do not think that this is a day on which it would be appropriate for me to impose a 10-minute limit on speeches. However, I hope that hon. Members will bear in mind the fact that many right hon. and hon. Members want to take part and that they will tailor their contributions accordingly.
  4.4 pm
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second Time.
  We ask the House today to agree in principle that the criminal law should be prised away from the great bulk of official information. We propose that it should be used to protect unauthorised disclosure of six limited areas and we shall be asking the House to agree on the scope and definition of those areas. Within the areas to be protected we introduce a number of tests of harm which the prosecution will have to prove. We mean that the criminal law should protect, and protect effectively, information whose disclosure is likely to cause serious harm to the public interest, and no other.
  This is a coherent and ambitious reform. It is bolder and more open than anything attempted by any Government in this area since the war. Beside it the Labour proposals in the 1978 White Paper look pale, timid and restrictive. The present law is both too wide and too weak. After 16 years of dickering and dispute since the Franks report, I believe the time has come to settle on the successor to section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911.
  We published a White Paper in June this year which set out the Government's proposals. It was debated by the House in July. We promised then to listen carefully to the points made in the debate and to take account of them as we prepared the Bill, and we have done so. Before returning to the general theme, I should like to analyse briefly the changes that have taken place between the White Paper and the Bill.
  First, the Bill has introduced a harm test for the disclosure of information received in confidence from a foreign Government or international organisation. In the White Paper this was an absolute offence. I listened carefully to the powerful arguments of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan) and my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler). I hope that we have met their main concerns. This change has not escaped the obfuscation in which some critics have tried to shroud the Bill. The Bill makes it clear in clause 3(3) that the prosecution may argue that the fact that a confidence has been broken may jeopardise our interests abroad as much as the content of the information which has been disclosed. But, of course, there is no obligation on the jury to accept that argument and it does not allow the harm test to be bypassed. There is no absolute offence here—there is a harm test. The prosecution has to prove that the disclosure jeopardised

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  United Kingdom interests abroad. The fact that a confidence was disclosed would not by itself be enough if our interests had not been put at risk.
  It seems to me reasonable that the criminal law should operate against those who deliberately breach the confidence of another country or international organisation when they have good reason to know that this is likely to harm our interests abroad. Those confidences are not entered into capriciously. The test in the Bill relates to our national interests abroad, not to the interests of another country or any international organisation—and the decision is for the jury.
  We have looked carefully, too, at the harm test as it will now govern the whole of the foreign affairs field. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks suggested that this test was too vague and too easily met. It is not easy to provide language which draws the line in the right place, but on reflection we thought that there was a way of reflecting the proper concerns of the criminal law without undermining the effective conduct of our foreign policy. We have not introduced in the Bill the White Paper's reference to a disclosure which might prejudice dealings with another Government or international organisation. The test now much more accurately catches its purpose. It is not about maintaining good relations with other countries. Here, too, it is whether a disclosure jeopardises the interests of the United Kingdom abroad.
  The White Paper mentioned penalising disclosure of information likely to be useful in the commission of offences. That language has a long pedigree—it goes back to the Franks report, the Labour Government's White Paper, and the Protection of Official Information Bill in 1979. However, it was suggested—for example, by the Guild of British Newspaper Editors—that those words were too vague and too wide. It was never our intention to cover all kinds of information of a general nature that might conceivably be useful in committing an offence, where the chain of circumstance is too long and too uncertain to justify involving the criminal law. The Bill provides a narrower and more precise definition of such disclosure. The prosecution will have to prove that the disclosure resulted in the commission of an offence or was likely to do so.
  Fourthly, the Bill makes it clear what information is to be protected in the area of interception. We tie that category specifically and only to the unauthorised disclosure of information about, or arising from, a special investigation. Such an investigation must be undertaken under the authority of a warrant issued by the Secretary of State under the Interception of Communications Act 1985 or, if Parliament agrees to our proposals, under the Security Service Bill.
  At one time, the obfuscators whom I mentioned suggested that the press would no longer be able to report a citizen's belief that his telephone was being tapped. The Bill shows that to be nonsense.
  Changes have been made between publication of the White Paper and the Bill. In the light of comments and constructive criticisms, we now have a Bill that is tighter in its drafting, narrower in its scope, and more specific in its meaning
  I return to the main purpose of the Bill.
  Mr. Jeff Rooker: I refer to the right hon. Gentleman's comment about "obfuscators". Is it still the case that clause 3(3) as drafted will make it an offence to publish a leak of any document from another country or international body, regardless of its subject matter?
  Mr. Hurd: Regardless of its subject matter, but there is a test of harm. The prosecution must show that the disclosure jeopardised United Kingdom interests abroad. That is the difference between the White Paper and the Bill.
  Mr. Roy Hattersley: It is the word "belief" that worries me. The Home Secretary, referring to people whom he does not name but whom he calls "the obfuscators", remarked that it was wrong to say that a citizen having the "belief" that his telephone is being tapped will be prosecuted and convicted if he reveals that belief. However, if an individual is told by a security service officer that his phone is being tapped under the Interception of Communications Act 1985, will he not commit an offence if he discloses that?
  Mr. Hurd: Yes, it will be an offence, because we believe in the duty of confidentiality. If a man believes, as often happens on these occasions, rightly or wrongly, that something is amiss, there is no reason why he should not go to a newspaper, and no reason why the newspaper should not publish. That point is the one that the obfuscators have constantly failed to grasp.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell rose—
  Mr. Hurd: I think that I had better get on. I shall give way to the hon. Gentleman later. I have already given way twice.
  Many people fail to grasp our proposals, or attempt to trivialise them. Those people include the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley). They suggest—this is the main thrust of the right hon. Gentleman's criticisms—that we are withdrawing from the protection of the criminal law only frivolous and unimportant information. The example given by the right hon. Gentleman was the canteen menu, the colour of the carpets and the brand of tea bags used. In fact, the Bill will remove the protection of the criminal law from the great bulk of sensitive and important information—including policy documents, Cabinet discussions on education, on health and on social security, and economic information and budget preparations. None of them will any longer have the protection of the criminal law. Nor will material within the Bill's protected areas which fails to meet the relevant harm test.
  The obfuscators said, "Ah! The Government may do that, but they compensate by legislating to strengthen the civil law on the duty of confidence—the Government will impose through the civil law what they are withdrawing from the criminal law." I do not see that clause. I do not know where it has been smuggled in. In fact, it never existed. We have studied the "Spycatcher" judgment and have considered its implications and the present state of the law most carefully. I can tell the House that we have no plans to introduce legislation to amend the civil law of confidence.
  Then the obfuscators said, "You may not do it that way, but you will do it by discipline; you are getting out the thumb screws—the inquisition is being prepared."
  Mr. Norman Buchan: Who are "the obfuscators"?
  Mr. Hurd: I am dealing with points made by obfuscators both in the House and outside. I have already named the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook and I shall give other examples as I proceed.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Speaker: Order.
  Mr. Buchan: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. You, Mr. Speaker, will guide me on this matter, because you know better than I what are the rules of the House. The Home Secretary seems to be making allegations under a cloud of secrecy. As the House is debating the Official Secrets Bill, which the Home Secretary claims will make matters more open, will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House who he means by "the obfuscators"?
  Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman was in the middle of explaining that complicated matter.
  Mr. HurdThe hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan) is both literary and literate. Does he really feel that "obfuscators" is an unparliamentary expression? I have given one example and I will give others.
  The obfuscators argue that the Government will seek to achieve through tighter discipline the effects that we are renouncing by withdrawing the protection of the criminal law. Even the most chaotic newspaper or any kind of private company seeks to provide for the protection of loyalty and discipline by rules of discipline. Now that the criminal law is to be withdrawn from a great mass of information, the Civil Service code needs to take account of that in its ground rules, but there will be no tightening of disciplinary arrangements and the necessary rewriting will be discussed with the trade unions. All kinds of tricks and traps have been suggested, but the obfuscators have failed to prove the existence of any of them.
  Mr. Robert Sheldon: I find it difficult to understand what is going on. If by "obfuscators" the right hon. Gentleman means opponents, will he say so? I do not know what he means by "obfuscators".
  Mr. Hurd: It is quite clear and the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well what the word means. It is one thing to criticise the merits of the proposals but another to obscure their description. I suggest that both processes have been at work.
  It is not safe to remove the protection of the criminal law from all official information. Those who disclose official information without authority may cause such a degree of harm to the country's interests that it is right that they should face criminal proceedings. The criminal law is as necessary to protect the public interest in this area as in any other.
  If we are to provide protection in those limited areas, the law must be effective. We need make no apology about that. There can be no credit to Parliament in passing legislation that it knows to be flawed or fudged, and it is against that yardstick that I analyse briefly the arguments of those who wish to overlay the specific definitions and tests in the Bill with blanket defences claiming prior publication and disclosure in the public interest.
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  The defence of prior publication, if accepted, would mean that anyone who can show that his disclosure had been previously published at any time, or in any form, or anywhere, could in no circumstances commit an offence by his disclosure. That is an offer of immunity from prosecution that the House should not accept. Under our proposals, prior publication can be relevant to a prosecution and, for the first time ever, that fact is recognised by the Bill. With the very narrow exception of special investigations, the jury will always have to consider whether a journalist who publishes information which has already appeared elsewhere in fact caused the specific harm provided in law and had good reason to know that publication would cause that harm. It will be for the prosecution to prove both the harm and the knowledge of harm, and to do so beyond reasonable doubt.
  If such cases are ever brought, in many instances they will fail at that point if there had been prior publication. The defence will successfully argue that prior publication means that the disclosure which is the subject of the prosecution has done no further harm—but not always, as there may be circumstances in which the timing and placing of a fresh publication is bound to cause harm which earlier publication had not. A front-page spread in a daily newspaper, for example, on an item previously carried in a technical journal in another country might cause serious further harm. There cannot be any certainty about such matters, and a sensible provision should not suggest that there can. That is why we propose to leave the matter with the jury to decide rather than admitting an overarching defence.
  Mr. Jonathan Aitken: On the last point, is my right hon. Friend ignoring completely the historic judgment of the Hon. Mr. Justice Caulfield in the Sunday Telegraph case, in which he said that there is not a limited circle in which it is right to publish and avoid prosecution but a wider circle in which one can publish and be prosecuted—in other words, there is not one standard for publication for a tiny audience and a different standard for a wider headline or enlarged circle?
  Mr. Hurd: It is a question of the harm done to the public interest. I should argue, on the ground of common sense, that it is perfectly possible to have partial, incomplete publication in a distant publication with no particular circulation and then to argue that to pick up that information, put it in a different form and splash it across the news, so causing major circulation, would provide a further harm. We cannot assume in advance that it would not and it would be foolish to admit an overarching defence of prior publication. That is why we propose to leave the matter to the jury.
  Mr. Dalyell: Does the Home Secretary recollect that in the Zircon affair important details were published in a technical journal? One of the subscribers to that technical journal was the relevant technical office in Moscow. Which does the greater harm—the technical journal which gives the details, or a front page imprecise spread? In the name of common sense, let us think about that.
  Mr. Hurd: That is the speech which a defence lawyer would make in that case and which might prevail. All I am saying is that it is wrong to have an overarching defence of prior publication regardless of the circumstances.

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  Our decision to sweep away the proposal for a ministerial certificate and to replace it with clear and objective criteria for the jury has also changed the whole context of the debate about the so-called public interest defence. So, indeed, have the proposals in the Security Service Bill.
  There are those who have sought to bolster their case for a public interest defence by suggesting that there is, at present, a public interest defence in section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911. I have studied the arguments as carefully as possible, but they do not stand up. On the basis of the judgments that have been cited as relevant here, we cannot find one that suggests that there is such a defence in the present law. Many have sought to argue such an interest, but the judgments have never given cause to accept that argument. We are talking about the proposition that there should be a defence, rather than that we should retain an existing defence. We do not believe that a blanket defence of public interest should have a place in the proposals.
  It is for Parliament to make clear to the courts what it believes to be in the public interest for the protection of official information. We are asking Parliament to say that it is not in the public interest knowingly to damage the work of the security and intelligence services, knowingly to prejudice the capability of the armed forces, knowingly to jeopardise our country's interests abroad, knowingly to put our citizens' lives at risk, knowingly to add to the crime rate or knowingly to disclose details relating to special investigations under authorised warrants. The House will realise that I have run through the specific harm tests.
  The Bill provides that the jury shall consider whether such public interest tests have been met in respect of an individual case. The public interest will be at the heart of the case. The defendant will be able to argue that his disclosure either did not satisfy any relevant harm test or that he had no reason to know that it did. For someone who was not a Crown servant or Government contractor —a journalist, for example—it would be for the prosecution to prove that beyond all reasonable doubt.
  Many supporters of a public interest defence have argued that a person may make a disclosure which does good and not harm, or that any harm done may be so modest as not to merit a criminal sanction. The Bill invites Parliament to establish the few areas and the few cases in which a disclosure always causes harm and, in all the other areas, provides a harm test which allows the defendant to make precisely these points. That is what a harm test is all about and that is why we have included it in the Bill. The Bill does not allow someone to say, "Yes, I know my disclosure did the damage set out in the legislation, and what's more I knew that it would, but I divined a different public interest which, in my view, justified my otherwise criminal action".
  This is the heart of the real argument. If people think that such arguments should be allowed, that the court should be left to balance some sort of competing interest, that it is all right that lives should be lost, or the national interest endangered, so long as one public servant's perception of maladministration, wrongdoing or misconduct can be aired in the press, we are close to saying that these are not matters which can be regulated by the criminal law. We would be close to saying that it is more properly a matter of dispute between the Government and
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  one of their employees whether a disclosure is in the public interest and that it is a matter that should be settled by a civil court on the balance of probabilities.
  I do not think that the House should banish the criminal law from these matters. The House will wish to discuss whether we have identified accurately the matters to be protected by the criminal law and whether we have got the harm test right, but I do not believe that we should accept a general public interest get-out, which has no place in the operation of this law.
  Let us consider a practical example. In the area of defence, because of the harm test, the prosecution would have to prove that the disclosure was likely to prejudice the capability of the armed forces and that the defendant knew that that was likely. That might be a hard thing to prove. It would be in order for the defendant to argue, if he could, that so far from prejudicing the capability of the armed forces, his disclosure had enhanced it or had, at least, not prejudiced it. I believe that no responsible person should argue that, while he knew that his disclosure would prejudice the capabilities of the armed services to defend us, it was justified on other grounds—that he believed, for example, that it was in the public interest that the misconduct of a Minister should be exposed or that the Government's defence policy should be reversed. That is the nature of the overarching public interest defence which some people propose.
  Mr. Tony Benn: I wonder whether the Home Secretary can help the House on the test of international relations. Since the Official Secrets Act 1911 was passed, this country has entered into wholly new relationships with other Governments—notably through the Common Market. Eighty per cent. of the legislation that we used to pass is now to be dealt with by the Commission. All negotiations up to the passage of those directives or regulations will be international in character and any Minister going to Brussels to attend the Council of Ministers for matters which may affect meat distribution or matters of great concern will be covered by international relations. Is it not the case that with the growth of an international impact on our national life and by protecting all international contact the Home Secretary has enormously extended the area of secrecy protected by statute into the area of legislation applying to the citizens of this country?
  Mr. Hurd: No, because those disclosures are already included. The right hon. Gentleman is making the point that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks made in July. It is partly because we accept that there is some validity in that argument that we have introduced the harm test. The test will be a stiff one on whether the disclosures of information received from abroad or from international organisations in confidence jeopardise the United Kingdom's interests abroad. The point raised by the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) has been met in the Bill.
  I recognise that there are some Members of the House who find the argument about public interest hardest in the context of our proposals that members of the security and intelligence services, and some who work with them, must continue to be subject to the criminal law if they make any unauthorised disclosure about their work. The very fact

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  that we argue, as we have consistently argued, that such people cannot talk about their work creates a secret garden which journalists and others naturally want to enter.
  It is right that there should be safeguards and controls in this area. That is why we have introduced the Security Service Bill which proposes clearer controls and safeguards. However, I do not believe that further safeguards should be provided by giving members of the services open access to the front pages of the national newspapers.
  The Security Service is there to protect the nation as a whole. The services can protect us effectively—for example, against terrorism—only to the extent that their operations stay secret. That is the difficulty with which the House wrestled when discussing and approving the Security Service Bill last week. If members or former members of the services make unauthorised disclosures, they may be putting at risk the lives not only of their colleagues but of all of us. They are aware of that when they volunteer and take on the work initially. Many operations depend on the use of techniques, the details of which are not known and for which there are no other means of averting the threat. Many operations depend also on people who help the services knowing that their help will never be made public. That is why a disclosure by a person claiming to be a member of the services can shake that trust and cause deep damage. I hope that the House will understand the reason behind the special offence that we propose for those people.
  In recent years we have moved forward in that area. We now have the independent staff counsellor for the security and intelligence services. He is there to ensure that anxieties of members of the services about their work, if they exist, can be considered at the highest levels. We have introduced the Security Service Bill, to which the House gave a Second Reading last week, which will make clear for the first time in statute the extent of the Security Service's remit and the authority and control for its activities. Those members of the public or organisations who feel aggrieved by the Service's activities will be able, once the Bill is enacted, to take their complaint to an independent tribunal, as they can already take a complaint about the interception of their communications to an independent tribunal.
  Mr. Graham Allen: Would that really be the appropriate venue for an individual to go to with such a complaint if, for example, a serving officer in the security services finds a plot involving potential assassinations or the destabilisation of a Government? Would that really be the appropriate place for an effective remedy in such circumstances?
  Mr. Hurd: In such a case an officer would use the staff counsellor. That would enable him to bypass his superiors. That is new since November last year. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will take it into account.
  The point that I am making is that there are now effective and reasonable ways for members of the security services and others affected to ensure that anxieties are not smothered and that concern about wrongdoing is not overlooked. The aggrieved insider, about whom the hon. Gentleman is concerned, and the aggrieved citizen outside are now both catered for. Those who suggest that members of the services should be free to make unauthorised disclosures about their work to members of the public or
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  to journalists have failed to recognise that there are now better avenues for considering such matters. These are all matters of balance and judgment. However, in making that judgment, they are making a judgment that could leave our security dangerously exposed.
  I have tried to deal with some of the real anxieties and with some of the obfuscation to which the White Paper and the Bill have given rise. It does sometimes happen—right hon. and hon. Members will have their own examples—that critics of a measure create a caricature in which they genuinely come to believe. I remember that that was the case with the first big Bill that I helped to take through, which became the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. There was a great deal of tumult and many distortions and heated meetings going far beyond anything which Mr. Des Wilson has so far been able to contrive. In the end, the Bill was passed, the tumult subsided, the interest groups turned to something else, and the Act struck the balance that Ministers had described when defending it. I think that it will be so with this Bill also.
  The Bill is not, and does not pretend to be, a freedom of information Bill—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] But it comes—perhaps hon. Members will not accept this either—from a Government who have freed more information, especially as regards the security services, than any of their recent predecessors. The Bill lifts from journalists much of the tension inherent in the present law. I do not feel a great deal of sympathy with those to whom I have listened for decades as they lament the tyranny of section 2 but who complain today with equal melancholy now that they are to be relieved of it, especially when they have not studied carefully the nature of the relief.
  I should like to take the House back 11 months, to the aftermath of the unhappy debate on the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). I agree entirely that it was an unhappy moment. It was widely supposed that the Government were doing just a little perfunctory work as an excuse for voting against the Bill but that that work would trickle away and come to nothing. Even if we did venture on a proposal, it was supposed, even by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills, that in that proposal ministerial certificates would reign supreme. There was no suggestion that we were planning to put the Security Service on a statutory basis or provide a remedy for the aggrieved citizen. It was assumed, by and large—I would say overwhelmingly—that we would stay stuck in the trenches that had been dug deep and manned devotedly by the Labour Government in the days of the right hon. Members for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) and for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen).
  However, there is a little bit of a change, is there not? Surely fair-minded hon. Members will accept that there is a little change. We are now exactly in the position which in January I hoped that we would be in by this time. I am proud to be the sponsor and mover of the Security Service Bill and of the Official Secrets Bill. As these clouds of obfuscation—I say that for the last time—roll away, this Bill will be seen for what it is and, indeed, these two measures will be seen for what they are. They are certainly conservative measures in that they have at their heart the effective protection of the citizen from specific and grave dangers. However, they are also radical reforms because they open windows that have remained closed and

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  cobwebbed, because they define clearly what has been confused for a long time, and because they strike in 1988 a balance that is designed for today.
  The Bill will greatly reduce the scope of the criminal law. It will provide a modern, fair and effective way of protecting this country's necessary secrets. I commend it to the House.
  4.36 pm
  Mr. Roy Hattersley: Since the White Paper on this subject was published, and perhaps before—during the debate on the private Member's Bill introduced by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd)—the Home Secretary has chosen to defend his proposals in an extraordinary way. I do not mean simply the obfuscation that characterised as well as dominated the beginning of his speech; I mean some of the techniques that the right hon. Gentleman has used to defend what he proposes to do. We have seen two examples in his speech today.
  One of the bad habits that I hope he will get out of before Committee is defending clauses by adding to them in his speeches words that they do not contain. He asked in his more reasonable manner who would want to complain of the limitation on the publication of information which prejudices the capabilities of the armed forces to defend us? That is not what the Bill says. There is no concept of defence in the clause. Information prejudicing the prospects of the work of the armed forces being carried out successfully are all covered by the Bill, for example, when the armed forces are helping at the Smith lawn polo field, or officiating in some way at the Royal tournament at Earl's Court. The idea that that is a harm test is fatuous and the fact that the Home Secretary wheels in such wholly bogus arguments shows that he doubts his own proposals.
  The second bogus argument was the one about the obfuscator, whom the Home Secretary said had been misinforming the public about telephone intercepts. The Home Secretary is quite right. If I go into Whitehall this evening and say that I suspect that my telephone is being tapped, I shall not be prosecuted. It should not be thought terribly generous that the Home Secretary allows me to make such an allegation without being sent to prison. If on the other hand—this is the charge that was made against him, not the one that he invented—I go into Whitehall and say that I know that my telephone is being tapped because I was told so by the man who tapped it, I am automatically guilty of an offence. If the Home Secretary believes that that is an extension of liberty and a liberalising measure, we can understand some of the mistakes that he has made in the Bill.
  One mistake and one of the Home Secretary's extraordinary habits when defending his proposals is that he uses the most extravagant language to describe what he proposes. I have no idea why he has chosen to use that language, but I think that we can be certain of one thing—that the terms that the right hon. Gentleman has used have, in almost all particulars, been misleading. He has variously described the Bill as
  "an essay in openness," as "a substantial and unprecedented thrust in the direction of greater openness",
  as "a charter for liberty" and as "an earthquake in Whitehall".
  Mr. Hurd rose—
  Mr. Hattersley: I shall certainly give way to the Home Secretary in the hope that we may have another bit of flamboyant nonsense from him.
  Mr. Hurd: In the interests of historical accuracy, perhaps I should say that one of the phrases that the right hon. Gentleman used—that about "a charter for liberty"—was used, I think, in a speech made to the Royal Television Society. I said that it was a charter for liberty in comparison with the Labour Government's 1978 proposals.
  Mr. Hattersley: I shall withdraw, and say that there are mitigating circumstances because the right hon. Gentleman was making a speech to the Royal Television Society—why that should be mitigation I am not quite sure—and because of the other qualification that the right hon. Gentleman put on the description, but there are still the other three descriptions to which the right hon. Gentleman pleads guilty. All are clearly and absolutely misleading. If that flamboyant language has any meaning at all, it is a description of a Bill which is designed positively to increase the amount of official information that is available to the public. This Bill does not have that purpose and, if it is passed into law, it will not have that effect.
  In his calmer moments—we had a few of them today—the Home Secretary has made it clear that he has no wish to introduce or intention of introducing a Bill which would be appropriate to the description that I have just quoted. He said
  "This is not a freedom of information White Paper and we do not propose to introduce a freedom of information Bill."—[Official Report, 22 July 1988; Vol. 137, c. 1419.]
  He said it again today. Only the Bill which the Home Secretary explicitly rejected would justify the language which he has used to describe the very different Bill which we are debating today. A Bill which justifies the title, "essay in openness" or, "earthquake in Whitehall" would set out positively to promote the free availability of all official information which could be published without damage to the national interest. That Bill would stipulate in positive language the public's right of access to official information. It would enshrine the right to know in law, making that right the presumption on which publication of information depended. It would then, inevitably and necessarily, stipulate categories of information which might, after due process, be taken as exceptions to the general rule of publication and the way in which information which must be kept secret.
  This Bill works from the opposite end of the equation. It is concerned solely with secrecy. It does not increase the amount of information available to the public by one iota, and nor does it purport to do so. It must be examined not on the basis of the Home Secretary's extravagant language outside the House, but on the basis of the real principles on which it is constructed. The Bill is not intended to facilitate a free flow of official information—it is intended to provide a new method by which the availability of information can be reduced and obstructed. It is also intended—I think that this accounts, in part at least, for the Home Secretary's strange and inappropriate language

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  —to help the Home Secretary sound liberal to one audience but appear authoritarian when he finds that convenient.
  Without a freedom of information Bill, the cocoon of unnecessary and debilitating secrecy by which Whitehall is surrounded will continue to deny the British people information about the actions of Government which is freely available in other democracies. That is the background against which the Bill must be debated. The best that we can say about it—at least about its purpose—is that it has the object of replacing the discredited and absurd section 2 of the present Act with something more reasonable and less risible. Even then, it fails to make the improvements that are possible within the limited terms of that aspiration. Section 2 of the present Act is so indefensible that it seems almost impossible that the Government could not find something substantially better to put in its place. In some particulars, however, the effects of this Bill will be substantially worse, not least because section 2, being so discredited, has lost much of its force. It is being replaced by a Bill which will more easily give effect to the Government's authoritarian instincts.
  In his description of the Bill today, the Home Secretary made much of two points: first, official information—which will no longer be covered by official secrets legislation—and, secondly, the employment of the courts to make judgments about what is and is not publishable within the terms of the new prohibition. In both cases, the right hon. Gentleman exaggerated the changes proposed by the Bill to such an extent that we can assume only that the exaggerations were intentional.
  Some material covered by the Official Secrets Act 1911 will not be included in the Bill and, therefore, will not be covered. That is hardly surprising as the present Act covers every item of information, no matter how trivial, unimportant or small it is. Saying that everything is no longer covered is not the same as doing what the Home Secretary implies he is doing, which is encouraging the publication of information which it is not necessary to keep secret. Democracy requires the publication of more information, and the Home Secretary is not making even a gesture in the direction of that principle. Nor is it right to say that the final arbiter of what can and cannot be published will no longer be the Government alone.
  In some categories of information, the courts will be required to make judgments about intention and damage, but, as I hope to show, the Government will still possess arbitrary powers over far too large an area of official information, and even when the courts are required to judge the effect of disclosure, the nature of the judgments that they are required by the Bill to make will make conviction certain when conviction is not reasonable.
  If the Bill becomes law, the Government will still possess far too much power over the crucial decision about what should and should not be secret. In too many clauses, the Bill makes the Government, and the Government alone, the arbiter of the national interest. It is inevitable that, when the Government possess powers that enable them to describe and determine where the national interest lies, they do not distinguish between the true national interest and the sectional interests that they represent. That is why Clive Ponting was prosecuted for telling the truth. His real crime was correcting the deception that had been perpetrated by the Government.
  It goes without saying that there is agreement on both sides of the House that official information which, were it
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  to become public, would damage the security of the state must remain secret. I believe that there is also agreement that that principle requires sanctions to deter publication of material which would benefit enemies and potential enemies. It also requires penalties to be imposed upon those who are guilty of doing the damage which publication brings about, but I believe that there are three essential questions which divide us. I was about to say "divide the House" but I think that, as the Committee stage goes on, it will become clear that the divisions are not on the traditional and hackneyed lines that we have come to expect in this place.
  I believe that the three questions are these: how are we to define the categories of information which, were they made public, would so damage the state that their publication must be an offence, who should be the arbiter of whether information comes into that category, and what procedures shall be followed to prosecute and convict those who are suspected of publishing information which it is necessary to keep secret?
  For many of us, the essential requirement that links each of the answers to those questions is that there should be a test of damage to the national interest which is not applied by the Government alone. If we examine the Bill in detail, we see how comprehensively the Government fail to meet that need.
  First, there are those categories in which the Government alone are the arbiter of what may be published. Clause 1 is comprehensive and arbitrary. Disclosure about their work by members of the security and intelligence services, and similar disclosures by those designated as being associated with those services, is an automatic offence. In this area, there is no need to demonstrate damage to the national interest. The fact of disclosure is the evidence on which conviction is made certain, no matter how trivial or inconsequential the information received may be. It cannot be necessary or right to make every item connected with security, no matter how loosely, subject to automatic restriction. It is intolerable that the Government alone should be able to define and designate the individuals who are covered by the blanket ban, and the categories of work which are to be shrouded in secrecy.
  There was much justifiable complaint at the idea that the Government should certificate individual items of information as being damaging breaches of a secrets Act. Clause 1 allows the Government to designate activities, categories of individuals and swathes of information that oblige people to observe complete secrecy about what they do and what they have discovered from their jobs, even if that discovery involves fraud or felony. In those cases, the court makes no judgment about harm—revelation in itself is an offence.
  Mr. Tony Baldry: How does the right hon. Gentleman reconcile what he is saying now with the fact that the 1978 Labour proposals contained no defence of public interest or prior publication? However, they referred to an intention to introduce a system of binding ministerial certificates.
  Mr. Hattersley: I can easily explain that. We have an improved system. The hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) must not despair of political parties improving. If he has any doubts about that, the Home Secretary exists to prove my point. He is the last Minister to say that

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  politicians have to remain immobilised in the position they adopted 10 years ago. Ten years ago the Home Secretary was the apotheosis of Heathism. He was the Heath man to end all Heath men. He was the great follower of the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), and worked and spoke for him throughout the country. I doubt that he often says in Cabinet today the complimentary things that he said about his right hon. Friend 10 years ago. We can all change and improve. I do not propose for one minute to pretend that we should not have gone further on official secrets 10 years ago. Of course we should have done so. Some of us thought so at the time—I shall not mention any names but we certainly existed—and I propose to continue arguing that we should go further than the Bill provides.
  Government spokesmen have gone out of their way to suggest that the power to prosecute and convict without demonstrating harm to the national interest is limited in the Bill to public servants. That is certainly not the case. Under clause 4(3)(a) it is an offence—which does not require the proof of damage—to publish information related to a warrant under the Interception of Communications Act 1985 or under the Security Service Bill. If my telephone is tapped in mistake for my neighbour's, I would commit an offence by making public that fact and any newspaper that published the story would also have broken the criminal law.
  If the Security Service broke into my house in mistake for my neighbour's house and injured my family or damaged my property, it would be a criminal offence to reveal that. It is only necessary to describe the provisions relating the the Interception of Communications Act and the Security Service Bill to realise that they are wholly unacceptable. The Security Service and its activities, as designated by the Minister and as covered by this legislation and the Security Service Bill, are shrouded in complete secrecy. That is unhealthy for the public and for the service itself.
  In the recent past, particularly since the publication of the Bill, the Government have gone out of their way to suggest that they have relaxed some of its provisions, especially as they affect journalists as distinct from public servants. An examination of the liberalisation claim shows how slight it is and how careful the Government have been to obtain powers to enable them to take action against journalists if and when they choose to do so.
  We have been blandly told, time after time—the Home Secretary did it again today—that on almost every occasion the prosecution of a journalist as distinct from the prosecution of an intelligence officer would succeed only if there was proof that harm had been done. That is not true. An editor who publishes the diaries or biography of a retired intelligence officer could be prosecuted as an accessory to the offence committed by the officer. The offence is not limited by the need to demonstrate harm. An editor who discussed publication with the author of intelligence service memoirs would be guilty of collusion, even before they were published. Does anyone doubt that the Government, who so obsessively pursued Peter Wright at the taxpayers' expense and who attempted to gag The Guardian and the Sunday Times, would not choose to proceed against an editor under the accessory provisions and prevent him from arguing that no harm had been done
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  by his actions? There are other areas where, although in theory the test of harm is necessary, in practice convictions will almost always be automatic.
  The obvious example is information supplied in confidence by other Governments. Such information is protected by two subsections. Clause 3(2) specifies comparatively objective tests against which the damage caused by disclosure must be measured. The most definite and—I concede at once—the most justifiable is the test that disclosure would endanger the safety of British citizens abroad. But clause 3(3) allows for conviction if disclosure is likely to have any of the effects stipulated in the previous clause. The word "likely" injects a terrifyingly objective analysis into the entire legal process.
  Worse is to follow. Clause 3(3) allows conviction on the basis that damage might have been caused simply by the disclosure of the information, whether or not the information itself was damaging. It will be possible to argue that the publication of a confidential story so unnerves our allies that it is a breach of the Bill. It will unnerve our allies because any breach makes them uncertain about the competence of our security services.
  As I said to the House last week, that was the case made to me by the Foreign Secretary about Zircon. When I suggested that the Soviet Union probably knew as much about Zircon as did the editor of the New Statesman, he said that the revelation of the facts was not as damaging as the discovery by our allies abroad that we allowed such facts to be revealed. If that is the criterion on which the Government operate, this clause does not require actual harm of any sort. It simply requires the Government to say that, in their judgment, harm was likely. Does the Home Secretary believe that the defence "has not done harm", when the Government are saying that the very fact of publication will cause harm, would succeed? If he believes that, he will believe anything. I am sure that he does not hold that view.
  In some categories, a demonstration of harm is necessary, but even there the harm is defined in such a way as to diminish the protection that the qualification is claimed to provide. The Home Office press release—another example of the Home Secretary's recently acquired and deplorable technique—promised that the Bill would require juries to make
  "specific tests of harm to the public interest".
  That is simply not true. Unfortunately, neither the concept of public interest nor the words "public interest" appear anywhere in the Bill.
  Different tests of justification are applied to different categories of information. Information about crime must not be revealed if the revelation results in the commission of an offence, or is likely to do so. Information relating to the offence must not be revealed if revelation prejudices the capabilities of the armed forces, in part or in whole, or is likely to do so. The words "likely to do so" add an area of unacceptable subjectivity to the process. More importantly, each of the tests against which the damage is judged is much less specific and, in terms of making a real assessment of the national interest, far weaker than should be tolerated by the House.
  In its submission to the Government on the criterion "jeopardises the interests of the United Kingdom abroad", the BBC observed wryly that "jeopardy" is not a
  "useful guide to journalists or juries."

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  I am sure that that is true, but the concept of jeopardy is a useful catch-all for Governments interested more in conviction than in objective analysis of possible harm.
  In 1972. the Franks committee proposed a much more rigorous definition of the harm test: that disclosure would result in
  "serious injury to the interests of the nation."
  Mr. Hurd: And ministerial certificates.
  Mr. Hattersley: If the Home Secretary wishes to tell me now why those two things must go together and why we cannot reject one and accept the other, I shall give way to him immediately.
  Mr. Hurd: Under the Franks arrangements, the Minister will decide in his certificate whether the test has been met. For the past five minutes the right hon. Gentleman has neglected the existence of the jury members, who are crucial people in the process.
  Mr. Hattersley: On the contrary, for the past five minutes I have been drawing the attention of the House to something that the Home Secretary neglected to mention—the criteria on which a jury is asked to make a judgment. I contend that the criteria are inadequate and damaging. I asked why the Franks criteria could not be used instead of the fatuous—or perhaps I should say vacuous—criteria laid down by the Home Secretary. He might think that he has explained why he rejected the more rigorous, tight and precise concept of serious injury to the interest of the nation, but I assure him that the faces behind him do not suggest that his hon. Friends are convinced by what he purported to call an answer.
  The Franks definition is that which successive Governments have regarded as suitable for classification of information as secret. The Franks report recommended that information classified below that level, and therefore not appropriate for that test, should not be covered by official secrets legislation or criminal sanction. We support that wise judgment. Under the Bill, anything remotely related to security, no matter how trivial, will be covered. "Confidential"—which anyone who has been in Government knows means nothing at all—"Restricted"—which anyone who has been in Government knows means very little—"Secret" and "Top Secret" are all lumped together. In the categories where a test of harm applies, the definition of "harm" is so wide and so weak that it is difficult to imagine any revelation, which is followed by a prosecution, not resulting in conviction. Eight years ago the Bill that the Government abandoned included a far better test of harm—the notion of serious injury. We have heard no justification for going back on that more rigorous definition; the only possible explanation is the Government's desire to construct a Bill that will convict more easily than was thought necessary in 1979.
  The Bill is and will remain authoritarian until a public interest defence is included within its provisions. During the White Paper debate I suggested that the Bill, far from being a liberalising measure, would have secured the conviction of, for example, Mr. Clive Ponting, who was acquitted on what amounted to a public interest defence. I vividly remember the cheers with which that contention was greeted by Conservative Members.
  The Home Secretary has done much to confuse both the House and the country about the application of a public interest criterion, sometimes arguing that such a
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  defence is possible under the Bill by equating it with the harm test—that is quite wrong—and sometimes insisting that acquittal on such a defence would be perverse, even under the present Act. Indeed, he made that point today. I shall remind the right hon. Gentleman of what happened in the Clive Ponting case. The jury concluded that it was in the public interest that the truth should be told. Although, under the Bill, that jury might still decide that the balance of interest supported publication, the terms of the Bill would make it impossible for Mr. Ponting to be acquitted in the way that he was acquitted four years ago. There is no doubt that what Mr. Ponting revealed would, in the words of the Bill,
  "prejudice the capability of … the armed forces of the Crown to carry out their tasks."
  That having been demonstrated, nothing else would matter. Mr. Ponting would be found guilty.
  Mr. Dalyell: According to Mr. Ponting today—and I understand from legal authorities that this is likely—Mr. Bruce Laughlan could not have called for testimony from my right hon. Friend the Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees), nor from the Master of Caius, the Rouse-Ball Professor of Law, Professor Wade.
  Mr. Hattersley: I propose to develop exactly that point, but without those examples, in a moment. Before doing so, I wish to ask a general question. Is impairing the work of the armed forces really a proper criterion by which a criminal offence is to be measured —a criminal offence that is an automatic offence convictable in all circumstances? No other western democracy would make it so. If that were, in itself, enough to convict, we would be arguing, like some South American dictatorship, that the work of the armed forces was an object in itself that must be protected from all outside interests in all circumstances. We believe that when such matters are judged, we should decide whether, on balance, the outcome was good or bad for the public interest.
  In the Ponting case it was decided that impairing in one particular the work of the armed forces was in the public interest. Any official secrets legislation that does not include at least that possibility is intolerable. Let us consider the possibilities. Public servants who discover a crime or a misdemeanour within their service, and find the internal method of complaint and appeal provides no redress, will be prevented from exposing that wrongdoing. That public servant will be sure that, whether or not the perpetrator of the wrongdoing is prosecuted and convicted, exposing the crime or the misdemeanour will, of itself, lead to certain prosecution and inevitable conviction.
  Under the present law—absurd and inadequate though it is—a public interest defence is possible. A defendant can argue in litigation that he or she made the classified information available only to those—and I quote from the Act—
  "to whom it is, in the interest of the state, his duty to communicate it."
  That becomes a public interest defence, as it was in the case of Clive Ponting. He argued that, numbered among the people for whom it was in the interests of the state for him to communicate previously suppressed facts about the Ministry of Defence, were the people of Great Britain. The jury representing the people of Great Britain agreed with him.
  Mr. Ray Whitney: On the question of a public interest defence, the right hon. Gentleman will recall that the Cabinet of which he was a member authorised the production of the Cheveline as the upgrading for the Polaris nuclear weapon. That information was kept from other members of the Cabinet, from hon. Members and from the public. Had some of those civil servants—who must have been aware of that—leaked that information in the public interest, would the right hon. Gentleman have approved of their action?
  Mr. Hattersley: Of course I would not have approved, and I believe that a jury would have convicted them of behaving in a manner against the national interest. However, if the hon. Gentleman wants to know whether I would be prepared to allow that to be tested, the answer is that, of course, I would. The hon. Gentleman misunderstands the entire case of those who believe in openness. We are prepared to test our judgment against the judgment of an English court. What divides the authoritarians and the libertarians is the view, which the hon. Gentleman clearly holds, that if the Government say it, it must be right and it must be true. I do not accept that principle. If it is any consolation to the hon. Gentleman, I do not believe in it any more for a Labour Government than I do for a Conservative Government. We need to be protected against Governments of all sorts and of all persuasions.
  Mr. John Maples: In reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry), who asked why a public interest defence was not included in the Labour Government's proposals in 1978, the right hon. Gentleman said that his Government had changed their mind. I hope that he will forgive us for wondering why it is such a fundamental principle of liberty now when it was not such 10 years ago.
  Mr. Hattersley: It is important to consider the Bill and the alternative proposals on their merits. I shall argue for the merits of the sort of freedom of information legislation that I want. I believe that to be right now as I believed it to be right in 1978. I do not want to be over sententious, but I hope that when we try—as I hope that we will—to discuss the merits of the alternative systems, the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that the argument about motivation 10 years ago is pretty small beer and trivial.
  I shall put the point about a public interest defence in a way that will explain and justify it to the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Whitney). Let us assume that a Labour Government are in power and that they tap the telephones and break into the houses of hon. Members who have close but wholly legal connections with South Africa. Let us further assume that an intelligence officer reports that abuse to The Times and The Daily Telegraph. He has explained that he made a complaint within the official machinery, but the abuse continued. When that unlawful interception and burglary are reported, would the hon. Gentleman really want the intelligence officer who exposed the scandal and the newspapers that reported it to be automatically and inevitably convicted of a criminal offence? Or would they wish, as I wish, that those who expose wrongdoing to be given the right to argue the defence that they did what they did in the public interest? Under this Bill, such a defence would be impossible, for part of the intention of the Bill is to withhold information not from the enemies of society but from the members of
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  society. If I had doubted it for a moment, one of the more extraordinary points that were made by the Home Secretary almost an hour ago would have convinced me of that conviction.
  The Home Secretary told us that damage may be done if a previously secret story were published on the front page of a newspaper, even though the secrecy had previously been breached on the inside pages of a technical journal. That contention can be justified in two ways. The first is that intelligence agents of foreign powers do not read technical journals. The second is that we wish to keep information not from foreign powers but from the British public. It is that which is most offensive about the Bill.
  Mr. Hurd indicated dissent.
  Mr. Hattersley: Although the Home Secretary shakes his head now, there is no possible explanation of the extraordinary point that he made in the exact terms that I described.
  Let us pursue the matter a little further and examine clause 6(3). No offence is committed if confidential information in this country is published when that information has already been published lawfully in another country. Why is it an offence to repeat information that has been published unlawfully in another country? I make the same point. It is reasonable to conclude that Russian agents examine the Washington Post, Le Monde and La Stampa. They will not confine their interest simply to matters that have been published with the authority of the American, French and Italian Governments. If a secret is published in an allied country, it is not unreasonable to assume that it is known in Moscow and Peking. Prohibiting its republication in London can have only one intention—that it should be kept not from the enemies of Great Britain but from the people of Great Britain.
  The history of official secrets legislation, as manipulated by the Government, is concerned with the convenience of Government as much as it is concerned with the security of the realm. The Wright fiasco was prolonged and pursued to avoid the Government in general and the Prime Minister in particular losing face. Clive Ponting was prosecuted because he told the truth and, in consequence, exposed official lies. This Bill, if it is passed into law, will confirm the Government's power to perpetrate all those excesses.
  It is a bad Bill. Its application is likely to be worse because, during its early years, the Government will manage and manipulate it. We shall vote against it tonight.
  5.12 pm
  Mr. Edward Heath: I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on having carried out his undertaking to bring the White Paper to the House before the end of the last Session and on bringing the Bill before the House at the beginning of the present Session. He faced a formidable task; nobody recognises that better than I do. The Government over which I presided set up the Franks committee, and, in 1973, we accepted all its recommendations. My right hon. Friend's predecessor, Mr. Robert Carr—now Lord Carr —made that statement in the House. We were not in power long enough to implement the committee's recommendations in the next Session. The Franks committee urged that the House should pass an official information Act. It shows the difference of approach that the emphasis was on

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  an "official information" Act. That is one of the causes of anxiety among many hon. Members and the press about the real attitude behind the Bill.
  My right hon. Friend has considered many of the points that were raised. This debate can only be an introduction to consideration in Committee. I appreciate that. Mr. Speaker has asked hon. Members to make brief contributions. I should like to make a brief contribution, but many points in the Bill need to be discussed in detail. Therefore, my right hon. Friend and the Whip will urge the Leader of the House to allow proper time for discussion in Committee.
  One cannot rush the passage of a Bill of this kind. The implications are far too great. There is the implication for the safety of the realm. That is of great importance, but of equal importance is the right of the individual citizen, and certainly of the House, to the utmost information available, compatible with the safety of the realm. That requires striking a balance, but, in my experience over many years, all too often Governments are likely to put the balance on the side of Government keeping information secret rather than giving information to the citizen and the House of Commons.
  I can recall, in my time in politics, at least three major foreign policy matters, for example, when information should most certainly have been made available to the House of Commons and to the public, but it was not. I have no desire to see those instances repeated. I also have in mind the case of Sir Con O'Neill, who resigned over Suez, and did so quietly. He just wished to leave the Civil Service. He should not have left it at that. I quite agreed with the Chief Whip at the time—I said nothing. As a senior civil servant who knew the whole story, he had a responsibility to give the real and full reasons why he resigned. Under this Bill, he could not do so. There are several similar instances at major points in our history when it became necessary for a civil servant to do that. It is now said that he can go through the channels of the Civil Service.
  Again, in my experience, the attitudes of heads of the Civil Service vary. Sir William Armstrong was strongly in favour of an open Civil Service and always gave permission for civil servants to appear on the BBC or ITN to give their views. Other heads of the Civil Service have not taken that view. If the head of the Civil Service says, "You have your complaint, you have expressed it to me, but that is the end of the matter," should it be the end of the matter? It is a matter of ethics and professional service, which must he taken into account in a Bill of this kind.
  The Official Secrets Act 1911 has been open to a great deal of criticism. However, it has continued because, on the whole, it has been dormant. It has been used by Governments only in cases of obvious espionage. For sound reasons, cases were often heard in private. Nobody doubted that the court had dealt with a case of deliberate, organised espionage. The Ponting case was dismissed. In another case, the girl, not the Government who brought the case, got the sympathy of the public. That is why the Official Secrets Act has continued in its present form. It was used only in the most extreme cases.
  The question is whether the Bill will continue in that tradition. The cause of anxiety is the belief that it will not. I ask my right hon. Friend not to get upset about it. Any Government who pursue the Wright case to the ultimate ends of the world, as this Government did, are bound to face suspicion about the degree to which they will use the
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  great powers that they have in the Bill. The Wright case was pursued to the ultimate. My right hon. Friend must accept that, if the Government were successful in the Wright case here, the British people would not have had the right to read the book, whereas the rest of the world would have. Surely that is not tolerable.
  After a press conference in Hong Kong, I was presented by the press with a paperback copy of Mr. Wright's book. I expressed only limited gratitude to them, because, when I opened it, I saw that it was in Chinese. That did not make Mr. Wright's allegations available to me, but it made them available to 1·05 billion Chinese readers. We cannot continue that sort of thing with this Bill. That is what gives cause for such anxiety.
  That brings me to prior publication. My right hon. Friend spoke of technical journals. Technical journals in the United States produce a mass of information about the American forces, the like of which is never seen in this country, never published and never revealed by Ministers. It is for the super-powers that it is made available. The United States, too, has its Freedom of Information Act. This legislation will close the doors on anything of that kind. It is not justifiable that, if information appears in an American technical journal, the British are the only people not to be allowed to know about it. The Russians, Chinese and Americans can know. All our allies know. The only people who cannot know are the British people. That cannot be allowed to continue. That is why I emphasise to my right hon. Friend the need for time in Committee to discuss this in detail, and to give him the chance to examine some criticisms.
  Our objective should be to produce a Bill acceptable to both sides of the House and, as far as possible, to the press. The latter will be more difficult. When we discussed the Franks report I invited all the editors of the British papers to come to No. 10 and give me their views about it. They had only one view: ignore it, and sweep away the Official Secrets Act. That is not possible. The degree of support from the British press will always by limited, but what is said in the House should be taken into account.
  I cannot see any way of dealing with these problems other than by having a public interest. I recognise my right hon. Friend's emphasis on the jury, but if public interest is to be taken into account, fewer cases are likely to be brought under the Act. Why should one open the whole arena to cases being brought when one expects that juries will dismiss them?
  Mr. Nicholas Budgen: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is difficult for any judge to prevent a jury hearing arguments which will amount to a public interest argument? [HON. MEMBERS: "Quite right."] My hon. Friends properly say, "Quite right." But when a case is being argued before a jury, it is necessarily argued much more widely than before a judge sitting alone.
  Mr. Heath: The terms of the legislation must be taken into account. If it is clear in the Bill that public interest must be taken into account, it clarifies the whole position, as it should do.
  There are many confusions in the Bill and I resist the temptation to call my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for obfuscation. He has hidden some parts, and when we reach Committee stage these must be produced. For example, what happens if, as may happen under a future

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  Government, our defence forces are in a particular way inadequate? If such public knowledge is produced, one may say that it is damaging to the country. This takes us back to the famous Duncan Sandys case before the second world war. He was absolutely right and was finally shown to be right. If we rely on the terms of the Bill, that would not happen. It would be said that, by revealing our weakness, he has done immense harm to the good of the country. That would hold good under this Bill.
  Again, if there are better reasons than I have found for this, we can discuss them in Committee. That emphasises the need for a thorough discussion in Committee.
  Mr. Dalyell: Is it not also true that Major Sir Desmond Morton, who advised Churchill and told him about air weaknesses, would certainly be in prison under this Bill?
  Mr. Heath: There may be other cases and it is open to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to explain them all later.
  We can argue about the past, what we were about to do in 1972 and what a Labour Government did or did not do in 1978. In the past 20 years we have seen a complete transformation of information in the world. It is due entirely to technology, satellites and everything which goes with them. Whatever happens at any moment we hear a second later on the radio and see on the first news broadcast on television. That has transformed the whole approach to public information, which includes the secrecy of essential services. It means that the public not only expect more information, but are led to expect it by the media and are entitled to it. It may be said that I have changed since 1972–73. Yes, I recognise that what goes on in the world is of prime importance to citizens and Parliaments. That is being recognised elsewhere, but we have been slow to recognise it.
  If the Bill is passed, will Irangate be possible? The answer is no. For 30 years, nothing would come out. Yet Irangate exposed the incompetence and hypocrisy of the President of the United States. Real damage was done to the United States because the matter was seen worldwide. I shall not attempt to describe the actions of his subordinates, but they were all publicly discussed because the basic information was made available in the first instance which led to the Congressional hearing in which everything was brought out. That is a test of this Bill. Could such an example happen in this country under the Bill? I do not believe that it could.
  Mr. Buchan: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that America was a great deal healthier as a result?
  Mr. Heath: I agree with that. I know that opinions vary. I know from an answer that she gave at Question Time that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister thinks that it was not right that everything should have come out. There is a difference of view; I accept that. There is not a difference of view in the United States, which expects information to be made available for people to make their judgments, although other powers may draw their deductions from what was revealed. When we have a Bill in which that is possible—we have information and can form our judgments about it—it will be a satisfactory Bill
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  for information. The other side of the coin is that we must ensure that vital questions of security can be protected, as they are under the Official Secrets Act.
  I thank my right hon. Friend for introducing the Bill. In the past, he has listened to criticisms. I hope that he will pay attention to what is said in this House and outside, and that in Committee we can have longer, more detailed discussions of important matters which remain.
  5.27 pm
  Mr. Peter Archer: The right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) must have given the Home Secretary the clue to why the dancing in the streets at the introduction of this Bill was somewhat restrained. We are discussing the circumstances in which we prosecute people for revealing information. Any question of an obligation on the Government to make information available is not even part of the debate, because it is not part of the Home Secretary's proposals.
  In my usual conciliatory way I should like at least to start by advancing some propositions which may meet with the approval of the whole House. Since it is Christmas, I suggest a party game. Who said:
  "Publicity is the … most effective check against any arbitrary action."?—[Official Report, 5 February 1960; Vol. 616, c. 1351.]
  Was it John Milton, Duncan Campbell, Esther Rantzen, Clive Ponting or Peter Wright? The answer is that it was not any of them. It was said originally by Franks, but it was quoted with approval by an honourable Member of this House on 5 February 1972 when introducing a private Member's Bill. She was then simply the hon. Member for Finchley (Mrs. Thatcher).
  Mr. Buchan: I think I would have guessed the right answer.
  Mr. Archer: I think that some of my hon. Friends might have guessed. Admittedly, that hon. Lady was dealing with local councils and she was no more enamoured of them then than now, but I suspect that she might have said the same about the state, because at that time, like Louis XIV, she had not become the state.
  Mr. Jonathan Sayeed: The right hon. and learned Gentleman said 1972, but I think he means 1960.
  Mr. Archer: I meant 1960. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for correcting me. The lady in question was then the hon. Member for Finchley, not the right hon. Lady.
  I never expected to hear myself say, "I agree with the right hon. Lady." Honesty compels me to declare, however, that in this instance I do agree with her, even though she no longer agrees with herself.
  Perhaps there are propositions that will gain general acceptance in the House. For example, information is the key to high standards in public administration; there is no more effective inducement to high standards than the knowledge that achievements and failures will become known; information is the key to representative democracy; there can be a choice only for those who know what the options are; the electorate can pass judgments on Governments only if it knows what Governments are doing. I would think that those propositions would be met with general agreement.
  Equally, I think that there is general agreement that there must be some restrictions on the right of the public

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  to have information. For example, there are the interests of security, crime prevention and other matters that are set out in the Bill, as well as subjects which do not relate to the Bill. There is the right of individuals to a deserved reputation. There are matters of copyright and of obscenity. The European convention on human rights lists some of the instances where restrictions are necesary in the interests of a democratic society. I fear, however, that those are not the only considerations that induce administrations to attempt to conceal information.
  We cannot gauge the state of public information in the United Kingdom by reading section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 or even the statute book as a whole. One would expect the Prime Minister's assertion to gain general acceptance in a country where, until this century, those who were persecuted in their own countries came to settle and to find refuge, because it was within the United Kingdom that they were free to say and to write what they chose. Yet to discover the hygiene conditions within meat factories, it was necessary for the investigator to go to the United States, to which the factories exported, to invoke the Freedom of Information Act in that country and to read the reports which inspectors in the United States had prepared on the British meat factories. This is a country where only a series of private Members' Bills over the past two or three years have brought us to a position which is somewhere near that which prevails in other countries, not one that is in advance of them.
  As I have said, we cannot gauge the state of information in this country by reading the only legislation in the statute book. Perhaps we suffer from the fact that British bureaucracy is one of the oldest and most established bureaucracies in the world. Its culture is one of the most deeply entrenched, with all the advantages and disadvantages which that entails. One of the disadvantages is the collegiate sense of identity and of superiority which comes from sharing secrets. It is the binding mechanism of a priesthood or of a freemasonry. It is the source of that sense of loyalty to the machine which extends beyond loyalty to the community, which has elevated the ability to keep secrets to the greatest of all virtues.
  The evidence given to the Franks committee included a quotation from a permanent secretary to the Treasury of 1873, which read:
  "The unauthorised use of official information is the worstfault that a civil servant can commit. It is on the same footing as cowardice by a soldier."
  It is against that background that we debate the Bill. Section 2 of the 1911 Act has stood for years as a symbol of excessive, all-embracing secrecy for the sake of secrecy. It sprang from the paranoia of 1911, and it has subsequently been protected by the mentality that is portrayed so perceptively in "Yes, Prime Minister".
  Opposition Members should welcome the final dispatch of section 2. We should commend the Government for taking such action. We have few enough opportunities to commend the Government, and we must not be ungenerous when they occur. But if we are to disturb the sleeping dog to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup referred—the sleeping dog that does not wake very often, and only in a restricted way—we are surely entitled to examine what the Home Secretary proposes to put in its place. If the Bill, when enacted, remains on the statute book for as long as its predecessor, it had better be an improvement. The
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  Home Secretary must not be surprised that the Bill has been hailed as a substitute for a freedom of information Act.
  It is in the interests of time that I shall concern myself only with the absence from the Bill of a public interest defence, on the lines of that included in the Bill presented by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd). The Home Secretary does not provide a substitute for that defence when he introduces the damaging disclosure test. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook said—this was taken up by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup—the prosecution is entitled to succeed on the damaging disclosure test if it can show any damage that follows from the disclosure. The public interest test introduces a balancing of the advantages and disadvantages that flow from the disclosure.
  I am bound to ask what our reaction should be when a normally loyal and discreet official says that the arguments of security and confidentiality are being used, or abused, to conceal something that should be challenged, something about which the public should know and something on which they are entitled to pass judgment. What is the position if the official says, "My conscience tells me that I can no longer be party to the deception"? If any Conservative Member tells us that he can envisage no circumstances in which he would feel that dilemma, he would be more at home in some Orwellian nightmare than in a free society.
  How far should a political community recognise the dilemma? I do not seek to argue that we can afford absolute licence for the individual conscience. I accept that, if any of us were permitted to do whatever our consciences dictated, it would be impossible for us all to remain on one planet. That is not what we are being asked to consider. I imagine that it will be said that decisions of the sort that I have postulated should cost something. As Nye Bevan once said, one cannot be a martyr without being prepared to wear a martyr's crown.
  But understanding and tolerance are political virtues. A healthy political community should be able to accommodate a genuine dilemma in which even a decent and loyal individual—indeed, especially a decent and loyal individual—may find himself. I make a suggestion, in the hope that as a result we may find some common ground. I have no authority to speak on behalf of any of my right hon. and hon. Friends, and I do not know whether they will agree with me—I make it clear that I am not trying to draft a provision—but could we not say that a jury should be empowered to acquit if it found the following three factors: first, that the accused was motivated by a genuine conscientious conviction; secondly, that he tried so far as possible to rectify the position within the system; thirdly, that on balance the public interest was better served by disclosure than by silent acquiesence?
  Mr. Greg Knight: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman tell us in what other area of criminal law motive is a defence?
  Mr. Archer: I could list at least 20 offences where motive is a defence. Motive is one of the matters frequently considered by the courts in the context of intention. Juries have no difficulty in considering it. The philosophy underlying our criminal law is that there should be no guilt

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  without a guilty mind. I am prepared to argue about this in Committee with the hon. Gentleman. It is not a novel concept.
  I should have thought the hon. Gentleman would go along with me in erecting two hurdles—one subjective and the other objective. I can well imagine that some of my friends in the NCCL might not thank me for doing that. They might say that it places the individual conscience in mercy to popular opinion. I have no doubt that some Conservative Members will say it is the thin edge of an anarchist wedge, but I should have thought that the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Knight) and the Minister would have agreed that this was an attempt to find some middle ground.
  It may be said that such a matter should not be left to a jury; as I understood it, the Secretary of State said something like that. That surprises me, because every day of the week juries decide on concepts that are broadly of this type. As the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup pointed out, juries have been deciding matters similar to this in the context of section 2. On the whole, juries have a better record of recognising the occasional conflict between liberty and order than politicians.
  This is not the only problem raised by the Bill, but time, as always in this Chamber, imposes its own restrictions on free speech—
  Mr. Kenneth Hind: Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that one major problem with the public interest defence is that a defendant can agree that he has caused positive harm to the national interest, but claim that he has done so in the public interest? He may argue that the harm he has done should be considered in the light of the good that he has achieved. However, if positive harm is done to the public interest, the public interest is not being served.
  Mr. Archer: The difference between the two tests is that, with the public interest test, it is possible to balance whether, on the whole, the public has benefited from a disclosure. The positive harm test does not permit a jury to take that into account—
  Mr. Ivan Lawrence rose—
  Mr. Archer: I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman will make his own speech later.
  We all know of cases in which juries have been directed that they cannot take such a judgment into account. Occasionally, they break loose and do not follow the judge's direction, but it is unsatisfactory for a jury to have to disregard a judge's direction in order to effect justice—
  Mr. Lawrence rose—
  Mr. Archer: I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman will forgive me; I have spoken for long enough.
  I urge the Minister to reflect that, if secrecy is sometimes necessary to protect our way of life, it is the cure that may well be worse than the disease—it may provide a greater threat to the way of life it is intended to protect.
  5.43 pm
  Mr. Ray Whitney: The right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer) underestimates the difficulty in his proposition about the public interest defence. Even by his second criterion—he is a lawyer, I am not—Clive Ponting would have been vulnerable to being found guilty, as he did not exercise all the options available to him through the normal channels to express his concerns.
  I add my congratulations to my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on bringing to the House a Bill for which the House and country have waited for so long. We all know how unusable and dangerous the Official Secrets Act 1911 has been, but we all are aware of the difficulties that Government's of both complexions have encountered. Finally, the nettle has been grasped. Hon. Members on both sides of the House should congratulate the Government on doing that.
  Of course, the Bill upsets some people—I shall avoid calling them the obfuscatory: let us say, the perpetrators—who take advantage of the sheer unusability of the 1911 Act. The prospect of having an Act that will be usable causes anxiety in some quarters, but the majority of people in the country very much welcome it.
  It is important to understand the world in which we live and the sort of information that needs to be kept secret. Lip service is paid to this, and then we move quickly on to the mass of information for which the people are allegedly hungry and thirsty and without which they will not be satisfied. This hunger and thirst may exist more in the minds of politicians and journalists than among our constituents. However, let us accept that it exists and that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) pointed out, there is now a vast mass of information that was not available before. When it is enacted, this Bill will release huge amounts of information into the public domain which now exist in a grey area. But there remains a crucial area that must be protected, and I think that the Bill does that.
  My interest in the public interest defence arises from my experience as a member of Her Majesty's diplomatic service. I recall with wry amusement the sanctification of Mr. Clive Ponting. He has now been enrolled as a member of the Social Democratic party. It is unfortunate that the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen) is not with us today. He was Foreign Secretary when I was the head of the Foreign Office Department. On many occasions items of information became available to me which I could have done a Ponting with. I could perfectly well have put them in plain brown envelopes and sent them to people who are now my hon. Friends. It would not have occurred to me to do so. Had I done so, the right hon. Member for Devonport, who now welcomes Mr. Ponting with acclamation into his party, would have been rightly outraged and would have launched proceedings under the 1911 Act.
  It is important to recognise that Mr. Ponting did not take the opportunities that he had to pursue his concerns through the channels that then existed which, as a result of this legislation, will be greatly enhanced. When challenged with disclosure, he denied it. He took every chance to conceal the origin of the documents and, in the end, passed them not to his Member of Parliament, or to a Privy Councillor, or to the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, but to the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell),

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  whose rather special—one might even say idiosyncratic—interest in the affair was well known. That was clearly a politically motivated act. So any defence of the public interest concept mounted on the basis of the Ponting story immediately shows the weakness of the proposition—
  Mr. Robin Corbett: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will reflect on the bitter personal attack that he has made on Mr. Ponting in circumstances in which the latter has no right of reply. The hon. Gentleman should also put the saga in context. Mr. Ponting was charged under the 1911 Act and acquitted by his peers.
  Mr. Whitney: I am well aware of that, and everything that I have said about Ponting I have said in writing before. It is not subject to challenge; it is absolute fact. He was acquitted by his peers, and that shows the inefficacy of the 1911 Act. We need a new one. That is not to say that there is not a propensity for excessive secrecy in the Civil Service. It is a challenge to all Ministers to ensure that that propensity is not pursued to dangerous lengths. That cannot be achieved by legislation on secrecy. The freedom of information legislation in the United States is greatly open to challenge as an effective means of achieving that.
  Mr. Aitken: My hon. Friend has hit rather hard and successfully the Ponting long hop bowled by the Opposition on the public interest defence. However, he completely ignored and failed to play the much more devastating ball bowled by, among others, my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) on the public interest defence as it applied in the non-prosecution of cases such as that of Mr. Duncan Sandys and the civil servants who briefed Sir Winston Churchill before the second world war about the lack of preparedness of our anti-aircraft defences. My hon. Friend ignores the fact that the public interest defence has helped the free flow of responsible information. It should not be narrowed down to the debatable case of Mr. Ponting.
  Mr. Whitney: My hon. Friend takes us to a much more profitable area. However, we have to draw a line somewhere and, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup says, we must look at this area in Committee. In general, the Government proposals have the right balance and the structures that are about to be put in place will take account of that. I say at the risk of appearing immodest that if a civil servant feels strongly about an issue he may as well do what I did and leave the Civil Service and enter politics. That option is open to a civil servant.
  Some Opposition Members have shown wry amusement about prior publication. They take the view that if people in Moscow know about something why should we not know about it. That fails to understand the nature of the attack on free societies and how that attack has developed in recent years. Let us be clear: the attack continues. While we continue to wish Mr. Gorbachev well about the words that he expresses and hope that they will be translated into reality in terms of improving conditions in the Soviet Union and reducing the pressures of the arms race, the reality is that free societies are still under attack.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken) quoted from a United States' statement about that the other day and a Home Office Minister also emphasised that there is no evidence at all that the attack on Western
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  societies has let up in any way. We must understand the nature of that attack. One element of it is the degree of political warfare that relies precisely on the mechanism of prior publication. It is not a question of people in Moscow or anywhere else knowing something before we do and using it to, at the very least, discomfort Western societies.
  I shall give the House one example. A foreign magazine published in 1973 the name of the then head of the Security Service, a service which of course did not exist, and neither did the man. Not only was that man's name published in the foreign magazine, but a large photograph of him was published in the British press on the basis of prior publication. The publication of that information endangered the life of the head of the intelligence service and increased the vulnerability of servants of the Crown. The danger was not from the Russians but from a terrorist or some nutter. We all knew where the officer lived and where he dined, and the publication of such information exposes the members of the security services to risk.
  Mr. Buchan: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us the name and address and describe the behaviour of the director of the CIA in America?
  Mr. Aitken: That can be found on the front cover of Newsweek.
  Mr. Whitney: The hon. Member for Paisley, South (Mr. Buchan) will know that the presence in this country of Mr. Philip Agee was rightly terminated by the Home Secretary in a Labour Government. Mr. Agee was expelled from Britain. His disclosures resulted in the assassination of some CIA officers. Therefore, the danger exists and it arises because of the threat of prior publication. These two areas cause concern to the House, so I hope that hon. Members will take full account of the problems of public interest and the dangers of prior publication.
  Mr. Heath: Is my hon. Friend aware that the head of the CIA and the head of the FBI have both taken part in television broadcasts with me in the United States? Everybody knows their names and their faces and knows their views. We have had discussions, we were cheered by the audience and seen by millions who came to watch me.
  Mr. Whitney: My right hon. Friend will not be surprised to know that I am well aware of that. I, too, have participated in similar discussions. My right hon. Friend must not have heard me when I said that it was the names of CIA officers in the field who were revealed and those officers were exposed. I know about the practice in the United States, but it was not the practice in this country in 1973 to expose the names of the heads of the security and intelligence services. A small obscure magazine published, I think, in Hull and called, would hon. Members believe, Lobster makes a practice of publishing names of gentlemen who are alleged to be members of the security services. That creates danger and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup shares my deep apprehension about that sort of practice being allowed to continue.
  I strongly urge the House to take account of the points that I have made and to understand that as well as living in a world of information we live in a world of dangers and threats. I draw to the attention of the House a statement by the right hon. Member for Leeds, East (Mr. Healey)

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  who was well known last week for playing Father Christmas in Epping and who was the Foreign Secretary in a Labour Government. He said:
  "I get no letters whatever about the Official Secrets Act or any of these issues. I think the level of public interest is pretty low. …"
  Mr. Corbett: Times have changed.
  Mr. Whitney: The hon. Gentleman says that times have changed, but the right hon. Member for Leeds, East said that a few months ago and that remains the position.
  5.57 pm
  Mr. Robert Maclennan: No one in the House—or, indeed, in the country at large—doubts that the Official Secrets Act 1911 required amendment, but the circumstances in which the Government are bringing forward the Bill after nine years of deliberation are causing many observers to view its purpose and provisions with the greatest suspicion. The Bill is not brought forward in the context of careful deliberation by the Government on how best to strengthen and secure the democratic right of the citizen to receive as well as to impart information. We have extremely few laws which positively encourage information flows. Secrecy is the curse of British democracy. However, it is upon the availability of official information that a democracy depends, because it enables the citizen to participate effectively in the making and administration of laws and policy.
  Although Britain has subscribed to article 10 of the European convention on human rights, which guarantees freedom of expression as a fundamental right, we cannot rely upon any specific legislation which ensures that that right is powerfully protected by the judicial system. We need legislation to provide a firm basis of principle to safeguard the conflicting interests of confidentiality, privacy and accessibility of information. The legislation should ensure that in the last resort the right to obtain information is not left to the discretion of a Minister, a civil servant or a judge, but depends upon the law as determined by Parliament, which can be enforced by the courts.
  That is why the Democrats strongly advocate a freedom of information Act, not merely to limit the scope of the protection of information by the criminal law but to encourage a pluralistic and participatory democracy. That, after all, has been the approach pursued in many other countries with common law systems like our own—in Canada, Australia and the United States. In the absence of such a measure which could curb the uncontrolled disćretion of the public authorities to withhold information, the public are bound to look with a jaundiced eye on a Bill which seems designed more to tighten control over certain categories of information than to advance openness of government.
  It seems that the Government have finally decided to legislate primarily because of the Ponting and "Spycatcher" cases. The Ponting case demonstrated that at least a British jury was not prepared to accept that it could not decide whether publication of official information was in the public interest. The Ponting jury appeared to have followed closely the reasoning of the civil
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  law of confidence which recognises that, exceptionally, the public interest can justify a disclosure, even of highly confidential information.
  Years after section 2 of the 1911 Act was condemned by the Franks committee, the Government have been forced to recognise that it is no longer a useful instrument to protect information. "Spycatcher", after an expensive and humiliating tour of the courts of the world, ultimately determined that the reportage of what was already in the public domain could not be injuncted. The Bill appears to have been prompted by those two judicial defeats for the Government more than by any regard for the modernisation of the law and the freeing of information.
  It must be made clear that, despite what the Home Secretary has said, the Bill does nothing to increase public access to information. It does nothing to reverse the prevailing assumption that information collected on behalf of the public—by public servants and at public expense—should be kept secret. It does nothing to place on the authorities the responsibility for justifying that secrecy. Instead, it continues to charge the public with responsibility to justify access. It perpetuates an undesirable inconsistency between the criminal and civil law of confidentiality, making the obligations to maintain confidentiality more strictly enforceable by criminal penalty than they are by civil remedies, as the civil law of confidence provides that it is a defence of an action of breach that that breach was justified in the public interest.
  The scope of section 2 of the 1911 Act is ludicrously wide. It was certainly time to confine tightly the ambit of the criminal law to those matters where disclosure would cause
  "serious injury to the interests of the nation",
  as the Franks committee put it. It is to be noted that, in abandoning the criminal law in wide areas of official information, the Government propose to tighten the sanctions of the Civil Service discipline code. The Home Secretary did not deny that point when he alluded to these procedures. Although it may be true that the Government are not seeking new powers of injunction, as the Home Secretary said, there is no sign that they wish to abandon their considerable powers to seek injunctions under the civil law to prevent unauthorised information from being published or broadcast. Furthermore, we have heard nothing from the Home Secretary today or in earlier debates about the many statutes—about 100 of them—which make it a specific offence to reveal specific types of information. There is much still to be done to rationalise the law, even within the terms used by the Home Secretary.
  I do not argue that there are not certain limited classes of information on which it is appropriate to invoke the sanction of the criminal law, but I fear that by drawing too widely the categories of protected information—those categories in which disclosure constitutes an absolute offence and those in which disclosure is an offence if it is likely to cause harm—the Government risk perpetuating uncertainty in the operation of the law. If there is obfuscation on this, it flows from the language of the Bill, which has already been subjected to considerable scrutiny by the press and those most likely to feel its impact, who undoubtedly find its provisions extremely obscure.
  A further matter which has not been raised in the debate is that the Bill appears to invite the further attention of the European Court of Human Rights. The careful and persuasive arguments advanced in the unanimous report of Lord Deedes' committee, set up by

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  Justice to consider the Bill, strongly show that the Bill is defective in that the limitations that it imposes on freedom of expression are not those that would be regarded as "necessary", as defined in the Handyside and Sunday Times cases. In particular, the Deedes committee argued that the requirement only of "damage"—and not of "serious damage", as the Franks committee recommended—cannot constitute such a "pressing need" as to justify criminal sanctions in respect of so fundamental a right as freedom of information.
  The Deedes committee further argued that it would be even more difficult to justify limiting that freedom in categories which, under the Bill, would give rise to criminal liability, even though no damage had been proved—the categories relating to security and intelligence, interception of communications pursuant to a warrant, and action authorised by warrant under the Security Service Bill 1988. I hope that the Minister, who has just returned, will answer the case made so powerfully by that unanimous report—that the Bill will offend against article 10 of the European convention on human rights. Will the hon. Gentleman answer the arguments which that report so cogently expressed?
  It is highly imprudent of the Government, who hitherto have tried to square their legislation with our international obligations under the European convention, to embark upon a Bill of such doubtful conformity with international law. The "Spycatcher" case brought the Government into ridicule, principally because they did not take proper account of the effect of prior publication. The Government have not tackled that problem effectively in the Bill. It appears that, where the offences are absolute under the Bill, the repetition of previously published information will be a further new offence. The position is less clear where there is a requirement that disclosure is likely to cause harm. In those cases it is apparently intended that matters should be left to the determination of the jury, but I am not entirely clear that that is so.
  The provision that in certain cases any disclosure would be an offence, regardless of harm, is far too widely drawn. In particular, clause 3(3), which makes it an offence to publish a leak of any document from another country or international body regardless of the subject matter, is a patent absurdity. I do not see how the Government can begin to defend a proposal that it should be a crime to publish leaks of European Community documents which emanate from Whitehall about, say, pollution, tax reforms or information received from the Food and Agriculture Organisation on nutritional standards. I do not think that the Home Secretary answered that point by talking about the additional requirement of harm.
  A further major criticism of the absolute offences is that they depart from the Franks committee's recommendation, particularly in respect of the interception of communications and security and intelligence matters, that they should be offences only if they cause
  "serious injury to the interests of the nation".
  The same objection may be made to those categories of disclosure where the Bill requires some test of damage. The result of the weak tests of "prejudicing" and of "putting in jeopardy" the national interest is greatly to extend the categories of protected information beyond what the Government proposed in the Protection of Official Information Bill in 1979.
  Those are all matters to which the House must return in detail in Committee. I certainly support the call of the
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  right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) for a long and careful Committee stage. We are dealing with matters of national security and how best to safeguard them. This is possibly a matter of constitutional importance and it is certainly a matter of high security importance. It would be inappropriate for the debate to be in any way truncated when the Bill is of such great significance.
  The overwhelming reason why we shall vote against the Bill is that the Government are adamantly opposed to incorporating in the Bill any form of public interest defence. That defence has long been accepted under the civil law of confidence. In the "Spycatcher" case, the House of Lords described the justification of that defence with great clarity. Lord Goff of Chieveley put it in this way:
  "It is incumbent upon the Crown in order to restrain disclosure of Government secrets, not only to show that the information is confidential, but also to show that it is in the public interest that it should not be published … although in the case of private citizens there is a public interest that confidential information should as such be protected, in the case of Government secrets, the mere fact of confidentiality does not alone support such a conclusion, because in a free society there is a continuing public interest that the workings of Government should be open to scrutiny and criticism."
  Although Lord Goff was speaking of the civil law, I see no reason why similar considerations should not operate in criminal law.
  At an earlier stage of that case, Sir John Donaldson, the Master of the Rolls, said:
  "The press has a legitimate role in disclosing scandals in government. An open democratic society requires that that be so … the ability of the press freely to report allegations of scandal in government is one of the bulwarks of our democratic society."
  The public interest defence is what will enable crime, abuse of power and scandal to be exposed. Without it, important areas of public administration will remain beyond the purview of Parliament and the press. To accept the public interest defence is not—as the Government wish to imply—to permit leakers, as a matter of subjective judgment, to determine where the public interest lies. That is for the jury.
  The Bill promoted by the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) showed how the procedural rquirements of the defence could ensure that reasonable steps must first be taken to draw misconduct to the attention of the appropriate authorities before the defence could be invoked. Without such a defence, the Bill will simply ensure that in this country the net of secrecy is cast over wide areas of public administration only to be pulled aside when Ministers, in their discretion, decide that it is right to do so. It is not hard to understand that some Ministers seek to preserve that prerogative. It would be harder to understand the House of Commons being their accomplice. I hope, therefore, that the House will resolve to reject the Bill.
  6.13 pm
  Mr. Julian Amery: I am in some doubt as to whether I can support my right hon. Friends in the Lobby this evening. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister will listen to what I have to say. I am no crusader for open government when it comes to the secret services. By their nature, some of their operations, both abroad and at home, must be conducted by means which would be regarded as illegal abroad and at home, unless

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  covered by warrant. I am clear about the fact that one cannot put the decisions about such work into commission.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) appeared to come down in favour of the American system. I believe that anyone who has read Mr. Woodward's book, "The Veil" will see that the conduct of American intelligence and covert operations has been completely paralysed by Congress attempting to exercise an overview of those measures. I do not believe either that there is anything to be said for a retrospective supervision by Privy Councillors or judges. I yield to no one in my respect for Privy Councillors, but I consider that only one or two of them would be competent in the matter. Of course, it would be quite wrong of me to put myself forward in such a context!
  The failures of the secret services are broadcast, but, of course, their successes are unsung, which is as it should be. Supervision would not have altered the balance except that it might have restrained initiatives and led to omission. I believe that my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench share that general approach. My anxiety is that their recent rigid interpretation of the obligation of lifelong confidentiality may lead to exactly the opposite result to what they want. I shall not go into detail, but my experience is that it has already damaged morale in the services concerned. It has certainly injured the reputation of those services. If that is persisted in, it may lead to the demand for extra-Executive control, which has happened already in the Security Service in the shape of the Bill that was before the House last week. I am concerned that that will not happen for the secret intelligence service.
  The obligation of lifelong confidentiality is, of course, right. Those who join the service must take a Trappist vow, but it must be interpreted with some flexibility. There is a human aspect to it. A man—or, in these modern times, a woman—who joins the service has, perhaps, a lifelong career, but must never explain to his friends, his wife, or his children what he is doing. Nobody knows when he goes to the office in the morning what it is about. He can never talk about it when he comes home. Nobody knows whether he has been a success or whether he has been promoted in rank.
  Therefore, it is not unreasonable that, when he retires after a lifelong career—he may only have been in part-time service or loosely connected with it, as I have been—he would want to write something about it. So long as what he writes is not prejudicial to the safety of other members of the service, the reputation of the service or the national interest, he should be allowed to do so.
  The same is true of the service itself. The British secret services have been held in high esteem all over the world by those who are interested in such matters. How do we maintain that esteem? Of course, partly by secrecy, but partly by allowing the different successes to be known after an appropriate time.
  New recruits to the service must also be considered. As a young member of one of those services, I profited a great deal from the memoirs of Paul Dukes and Compton Mackenzie and others, who had been through the mill. What they had to say taught me a lot and in a sense was an inspiration.
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  I believe that all those matters used to be recognised by the secret services. There was a perfectly good convention that, if one wanted to write, one submitted one's text to the proper authorities and they discussed it with one. If they thought that there was a paragraph or a sentence or, perhaps, names mentioned that would be better omitted, one was told, and most of those who submitted their texts would have agreed. I submitted my books twice and very little censorship was exercised upon them.
  I raised this issue when my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) had a debate on this matter earlier in the year. I have also raised it since in correspondence with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, who wrote to me to say:
  "I am happy to confirm, … that it is and will remain possible for members and former members of those services to publish with authority, without contravening the criminal law. Applications for authority will continue to be received and carefully considered."
  I thought that that was reassuring and, as my daughter was getting married on the day of the debate on the Security Service White Paper, I did not join in it nor did I raise any further questions. On reflection, however, I must ask whether my right hon. Friend's statement is reassuring enough. What will be the criterion of reasonable authorisation?
  The precedents are not encouraging. I wish to refer to two books that have been commissioned by the Cabinet Office—I am sure that the Minister will know all about them. One is the "History of Deception Strategy in World War II" by Sir Michael Howard, until recently the Regius professor of history at Oxford. That book was commissioned and has been paid for, but, although Sir Michael was assured of its publication, it has been vetoed. However, I understand that the services concerned were happy about the book.
  The other similar book is by Mr. Anthony Simpkins, who has written about some of the wartime operations of the Special Operations Executive and M15. Unless I am mistaken, that book was also commissioned by the Cabinet Office. It had been vetted, and no objections had been raised. The publication of those books has been stopped on a narrow interpretation of the lifelong obligation to confidentiality.
  I now come to the Wright case. It is painful for any Government supporter to discuss this. In my experience, it is an example of unparalleled ineptitude in the conduct of administrative affairs by any Administration of which I have known, or indeed read. Had Graham Greene or Evelyn Waugh written a satire about it, it would have been panned by the reviewers as far-fetched.
  There was never a chance of success even if the Australian courts had found in our favour, which was extremely unlikely. Publication would have taken place in the United States or elsewhere. Besides, there was no serious reason to deny publication or to deny its import into this country. Looking back, I can see that there was a logic in stopping "Lady Chatterley's Lover" being imported into this country. It might have put the wrong ideas into the heads of wives of landowners or into the heads of their gamekeepers.
  Who could have been subverted or who could have suffered from the import of "Spycatcher"? Most of the information had already been made available by Harry Chapman Pincher and, as Mr. Wright has subsequently admitted, a good deal of the book was invented.

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  I do not want to rub the Government's nose in this more than I can help, but my argument is based on the convention that I have described. The normal course of events is to submit one's book and then have it discussed. My understanding is that Mr. Turnbull, Mr. Wright's lawyer, and Heinemann, the publishers, submitted the text in April 1986 to the authorities. It was rejected and any question of negotiation was rejected by the Treasury Solicitor—I think it was Sir John Bailey—on the ground that the Government were concerned not with what was in the text, but simply with the principle of lifelong confidentiality. The Government refused to discuss it and simply said "No, you cannot do it". Is that true? That is what Mr. Turnbull has told me and what he has published—I cannot vouch for that information, but I hope that the Minister will when he replies.
  If what Mr. Turnbull said is true, I think that we have done something of a wrong to Mr. Wright. Precedent would have entitled him to expect that he could have sumitted his text and argued about it. His reputation has been blackened. I believe that one of the Law Lords compared him to Philby, although there is nothing in the book that is, in any sense, treasonable. Of course, he has ben enriched beyond measure. He would have never made
  £25,000 out of the book if the Government had let it go. If they had paid him £50,000 to stop its publication, he would have done well. But we have blackened his reputation, and we may have done him a considerable wrong.
  Then there is the case of Mr. Cavendish. He and his publishers have told me that he submitted his text and that it was rejected on the same grounds. I do not want to press my hon. Friend about this case because I believe that it is still sub judice. I will only note that two thirds of the book can be freely published in England, but none of it in Scotland. That is a rather curious state of affairs.
  In the light of those cases and referring back to my right hon. Friend's assurance in his letter to me, I must ask the Minister to spell out the terms under which publication would be reasonably authorised. I hope the Minister would say that authorisation would not be withheld, subject to the excision of anything that endangered personnel, endangered existing or potential operations, endangered technology, or could cause grave embarrassment to the department or service concerned. My hon. Friend should also add that, in event of disagreement with the author, there would be some provision for appeal. I am not suggesting a public or judicial appeal, but appeal to an ombudsman. If I understand the matter correctly, that person is now intended to deal with questions of conscience.
  If the Minister cannot give me such information tonight, I will find it hard to support my right hon. Friend in the Lobby, and I suppose that some of us would have to consider drafting an amendment expressing the conditions that I have outlined. I hope that we will not have to do that, because that would be a great bore for the Government and a great bore for those of us who are concerned about this.
  This important matter cannot be ducked because a number of books are in the pipeline at the moment. Some I know about, some I do not. Given that the recess is coming, before the Bill reaches the Committee, it would be nice to know that clearance had been given or not unreasonably withheld to those books that are now "on hold" until this debate has taken place.
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  This is not the only issue in the debate. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) raised a broader scheme of issues to which the House must give attention.
  Mr. Aitken: Before my right hon. Friend leaves the crucial argument that he has just made, is he aware that he has put the Government on a devastating spot? An answer is vital. In addition to the cases that he has cited, the entire American system, which works extremely effectively, follows the blueprint that my right hon. Friend has mentioned, but with one important addition. Under the American system, anyone who does break the rule of not getting proper clearance can be hit far harder and far more effectively than we were ever able to begin to hit Mr. Wright.
  Mr. Amery: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I had not thought that I had put a devastating bomb under the Government Front Bench, but if I have, so much the better, and I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench will have interpreted that in the way that my hon. Friend has expressed.
  I apologise if I have detained the House too long on this one aspect. However, I have been involved with these services personally in war and afterwards. I was also responsible at the old Colonial Office and at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for some supervision of those services. Britain has been held to be pre-eminent in those services in the past. As hon. Members realise, the services depend on individuals, often with idiosyncratic temperaments. To put it in a coarse way, spies are not civil servants in the ordinary sense, and they must be handled with sensitivity. They are not run of the mill. Failure to recognise that will call down on the services the very thing that I—and I think the Government—want to avoid, namely extra-Executive control of their operations, whether that be through Privy Councillors or judges. If that happened the Government would have put at risk two vital arms of our national safety.
  6.31 pm
  Mr. Norman Buchan: It is unusual for me to participate in a debate on official secrecy. For a good deal of my life I have been concerned with secrecy which comes from censorship of printed matter, in broadcasting or newspapers. I have been less concerned with the Official Secrets Act 1911. However, over the past few years I have taken an interest in what has happened in this country and the crucial changes that have taken place arising from the "Spycatcher" case.
  The right hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) referred to the harm which might or might not be done through the importation of "Spycatcher" and compared it with "Lady Chatterley's Lover", which was also banned from entering this country. I remember that a friend of mine discovered a copy of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" carefully hidden away in his young son's wardrobe. Unfortunately, his young son had hidden the expurgated edition. My friend was not sure whether he should give his son the unexpurgated edition. The point is interesting because it shows that the apparatus and attitude of secrecy and censorship begins not only in order to prevent punishment but to prevent things from happening. The

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  function of censorship is not to punish—it is to prevent. That poor young soul hiding the expurgated edition is a typical example of that.
  If we applied the test of public interest to the decision to pursue "Spycatcher" over two years and asked whether it benefited or harmed our nation, we all know what the answer would be. It is absurd that the Government were not even fearful of that final fear of Governments which is to appear ridiculous because they went ahead with that case.
  I had a telephone call from my brother-in-law in Toronto a couple of years ago. He said that he was going to arrive in Prestwick the following Tuesday week because he had a music engagement in England. He asked me if I could meet him at Prestwick. I said, "Certainly. Oh, by the way, can you get me something?" He asked what and I told him I wanted a book. When he asked me which one, I said "Spycatcher". He said, "Of course—I want to get a copy myself and it's on sale in the centre of Toronto." He arrived with a copy of "Spycatcher". He had no problem entering the country and walked in without interference, carrying the book under his arm. The same week, I tried to get an immigrant into this country from India without a copy of "Spycatcher". His face was brown and he was not allowed in—yet my brother-in-law walked in with a banned book. That nonsense is spreading, has increased and ought to be diminished.
  One of the most worrying aspects about all this is that the Home Secretary, whom we had previously regarded as a liberal, described the White Paper in the following terms:
  "This is not a freedom of information White Paper"—
  just in case we thought that it was—
  "and we do not propose to introduce a freedom of information Bill."—[Official Report, 22 July 1988; Vol. 137, c. 1419.]
  He was trying to take credit for not introducing a White Paper or a Bill with freedom of information aspects. In fact, he was taking credit for not introducing a freedom of information Bill. That is an extraordinary position for an old liberal to take.
  We have seen an extension of censorship this year, although I thought that last year was bad enough in that respect. For most hon. Members today, the main concern is Government secrecy. I am interested in a much wider area, of which secrecy is a part and which is helping to create the atmosphere for the other part. Over the past month, we have seen the introduction of a ban in broadcasting of six named organisations. The effect of that will not be to bring people to trial but to inhibit the directors, writers, producers and actors in much the same way as section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 was designed not to punish, but to prevent and to inhibit.
  Also this month a Bill was introduced to make the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1984 permanent. A Bill was also introduced to make councillors take the oath. The Security Service Bill was introduced and will make legal what was hitherto illegal—that is, burgling and bugging. Now we have the Official Secrets Bill. We hoped that the Bill would improve things, but it has not. Under the Bill, offences that were previously not absolute will become absolute. If Ponting were to be tried under these provisions, the argument of the public interest could not stand up and Ponting would be found guilty.
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  Most of us find that shift worrying. As a result of the Lords' judgment on "Spycatcher", the British news media were finally allowed to report and comment on the contents of the book. Many people believe that the judgment was reached partly because the horse had already bolted. To be fair, the Lords' judgment was more extensive than that. The judgment stated that the Government would have to show that publication of information would be harmful to the public interest before the courts would order an injunction.
  Lord Goff said that English common law recognises that:
  "In a free society, there is a continuing public interest that the working of Government should be open to scrutiny and criticism."
  Intrinsic to their judgment in freeing "Spycatcher" was the public interest in opening Government to scrutiny and criticism.
  Des Wilson wanted to know whether there was any single aspect of information that the public ought to receive and are entitled to receive, and which would be secured for us as a result of the Bill. He wanted to know whether the Bill had brought in any fresh information which would be made known to the public. We must consider the absence of any move forward in that respect in this liberalising Bill.
  This country is becoming the most secretive of all Western nations. The Government have inverted requirements. In any democratic country information should be known unless evidence is given why it should not. The assumption behind the Government's thinking is that things should not be known unless the Government exempt them and allow them to be known.
  There is an obligation on every United States Government agency to make public information available including opinions and orders, records and proceedings. That obligation was extended to all information, not specifically excluded. The assumption of the right to know is there.
  The same thing happens in Canada. The Canadian Access to Information Act states:
  "The purpose of this Act is to extend the present laws of Canada to provide a right of access to information in records under the control of a government institution in accordance with the principles that government information should be available to the public."
  It goes on to refer to exemptions. No such assumption exists in our law, and the Government boast about specifically rejecting such an assumption.
  A good deal of all that is due to the Prime Minister's lack of intelligence and imagination. I cannot imagine any person, other than someone under the domination of a second-rate and unimaginative mind, accepting such a state of affairs after all that has happened. We face the problem of an inversion of the right to freedom of information and access.
  Both the Security Service Bill and the Bill now before us should be considered together, one in relation to the other. We had every right to expect from them increased democratic supervision of MI5. The "Spycatcher" case is important not in itself but because it drew attention to MI5's behaviour. We expected democratic supervision as a result. We are told that a former Prime Minister was the subject of attempted subversion. That is a serious allegation, yet it has never been properly investigated, not even through a private inquiry being undertaken.

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  For the first time, we are framing MI5 in a statutory form without there being public examination of its role or of the demands that we should be making of it. Oversight and supervision of MI5 remains entirely in the hands of Ministers, but they are themselves bound to secrecy.
  Mr. Rupert Allason: It is intriguing to hear the hon. Gentleman say that oversight of the security services will be limited strictly to Ministers. If the hon. Gentleman reads the Security Service Bill he will find that it provides for the introduction of a commissioner for precisely that purpose.
  Mr. Buchan: The Security Service Bill makes provision for the appointment of a commissioner but not for a Select Committee or even for a committee of Privy Councillors to supervise the service. The commissioner will report to the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister. No provision is made for the publication annually of matters such as those covered, for example, by the Irangate hearings, because MI5's operational circumstances are not included and are to be ignored.
  Mr. Allason: The commissioner will publish an annual report, and there will be a complaints tribunal. What more does the hon. Gentleman want?
  Mr. Buchan: A great deal more than that. I have said what I want. The hon. Gentleman confirms my claim that any aspects of MI5's organisational operations will be ignored. In America, we saw a crucial investigation into the Executive's very recent behaviour before a Congressional committee and under the gaze of television cameras. In Britain, we cannot even have an investigation into the so-called subversion of the Wilson Government. The American Congress undertakes such investigations within weeks or months, and America is the healthier for that.
  The secrecy that obsesses the present British Government results in the population of this country knowing nothing, rather than having a right to know. The Government have made legal that which was illegal, without extending control.
  That aspect of both Bills includes a provision for dealing with subversion arising from political or industrial action. That stems from a Prime Minister who has described the miners as enemies of the state. In this Official Secrets Bill, which could have liberated information and removed the atmosphere of secrecy, we see an absence of any improvement. Its real purpose is not to punish, but to create an atmosphere of secrecy—a level of confidentiality beyond all reason. We see that happening in Northern Ireland. Quite apart from the Prime Minister's deficiencies, the events of Northern Ireland are creating an atmosphere in which here, too, things can be done which ought not to be permitted.
  There are parallels in the private sector. One of the most appalling cases was that of the man who blew the whistle on de la Roche drugs. He was a private individual who thought to himself, "What is happening is iniquitous", but when his revelations were published he suffered as a result. That was persecution by private interests. It is intolerable that there should be the same kind of persecution of the honest whistleblower in public affairs, though we have taken some steps to deal with that situation.
  Throughout history, the honest whistleblower has played a very noble role. He has been forced into doing so.
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  He should be given the chance to legitimise his revelations so that there can be a public trial in which the public interest is considered. Some Conservative Members have been so affected by the Government's attitude to secrecy that they cannot even understand the concept that sometimes a person may have access to confidential material which should not be confidential.
  Another worrying aspect has been the Government's tendency, until now, to avoid a case coming to trial by using the Official Secrets Act 1911, fearing that honest juries would respect the honest whistleblower and find in his favour. That is what happened in the Ponting case. In my view, the judge clearly directed the jury to find him guilty, saying that there was no defence of public interest, but the jury said, "This judge is talking rubbish—it is right that we should know such things." The jury went against the law to find Ponting innocent because common sense and decency told them that he should be found not guilty. Now that the Government are failing to make prosecutions stick, and now that the public have largely rumbled the Government, the Government are changing the statute and turning to the law of confidentiality so that a law which was intended to deal with commercial situations can be used in public matters.
  Allied to my arguments about the public dissemination of information is the Lobby, which is another instrument in the Government's creation of secrecy, enabling the Government to manipulate news. I hope that the blow that the Lobby has received in respect of the Queen and the Russian invitation and other matters will have an effect.
  I shall not review the entire Bill, but I agree entirely with the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) that the place for detailed examination is in Committee. However, I make again the point that the Bill has not brought the emancipation that we expected, and the opportunity has not been taken to secure control over secrecy. On the contrary, the Bill makes absolute that which was not absolute before. It comes at a time when the press has even less opportunity to investigate matters of public interest.
  The United States has its Congressional apparatus for investigation, and we used to be able to claim that in this country at least we had a diffuse press and public service broadcasting which perhaps could remedy certain deficiencies, but that is no longer true. The press is now in the hands of three men—a "tripoly" or triple monopoly. It is dedicated to stories about pop stars, royalty, and so on. It is no longer the investigative press of 20 years ago when we had the iconoclastic Daily Record on the one hand and the views of Lord Beaverbrook in the Daily Express on the other. Still, they printed far more important news on their front pages than they do today.
  The modern press is totally ineffective. My concern is that as the Government's apparatus of secrecy is developed, so the apparatus to cope with it by our mass communications will deteriorate. Our public service broadcasting structure is also being destroyed. It is passing into commercial hands—the same hands of Maxwell and Murdoch—who control the mass media and none of whom find it necessary to protect the public interest by disseminating certain information.
  Anyone reading Margaret Drabble's article in The Guardian today will understand the depth of feeling among civilised people about what is happening to our country. Recently I spoke to an unlikely informant. He is a Communist, and a journalist who has represented the

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  Italian newspaper Unita in Paris for many years. When he was in Britain recently, he said to me, "Norman I have always regarded Britain as the bourgeois country in excelcis—respectable, orderly, neat and clean. I see dirt, filth and squalor around and I see that your papers have degenerated—we used to send for them." That is the voice of a Communist who sees that we are now incapable of expressing our best liberal position. I am talking about a man who understood something about our civilisation in Britain and who honoured it. We are becoming a sleazy, second-rate country. We have had liberals in Government who now boast that they are not bringing in a Bill on freedom of information. We are facing a major crisis in the combination of inadequate media and a secretive press. Censorship, directly or indirectly, has increased and is increasing—and by God, it ought to be diminished.
  6.51 pm
  Mr. Jonathan Sayeed: On 5 February 1960, in a maiden speech on the Public Bodies (Admission of the Press to Meetings) Bill, an hon. Member stated:
  "the paramount function of this distinguished House is to safeguard civil liberties rather than to think that administrative convenience should take first place in law."—[Official Report, 5 February 1960; Vol. 616, c. 1357-8.]
  The Bill before us seeks to replace an Act that makes it illegal to reveal trivia or what is embarrassing to Government with a law that is confined to official information when its unauthorised disclosure would cause unacceptable harm to the public interest. By supporting it, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has re-emphasised a conviction that she first stated in her maiden speech.
  No one can deny that the Official Secrets Act is a geriatric absurdity which is incapable of functioning correctly. No one can ignore the fact that the Bill removes from criminal jurisdiction a wide range of offences, whole classes of people and a mass of trivia. However, all should accept that, for the security and safety of us all, there are some secrets that need to be kept and some people who need to keep them.
  If one unquestioningly accepted some of the comments culled from the press and quoted by the Opposition, especially in the debate on the White Paper, one might be tempted to believe that the Bill had no friends at all. However, I have scanned the pages as well, and I have come up with some rather different reactions from some rather odd sources. In the comment column of The Guardian of 30 June, there is the sentence:
  "Mr. Hurd tries some welcome things."
  Hugo Young, in the same newspaper on 5 July, talks of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary
  "importing some sanity to the criminal law".
  The Times of 30 June states:
  "Mr. Douglas Hurd deserves to win a wide measure of praise for the reform of the Official Secrets Act."
  Mr. Corbett: What about The Independent?
  Mr. Sayeed: I shall come to The Independent in a moment. The Financial Times of 30 June, in an article entitled "A Limited Reform", begins one paragraph with the sentence:
  "Some of it is very good",
  and goes on to call the measure
  "A tidying up exercise with a slightly liberal bent".
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  The Independent of 30 June states:
  "Mr. Hurd has produced ideas which are more liberal than had been anticipated".
  The Economist of 2 July gave the Bill "two cheers". If one considers the origin of those statements and the media's wish for unrestricted access to almost everything, those guarded endorsements can be construed as grudging praise.
  I want to deal with two aspects of the Bill that have particularly exercised hon. Members—that there should be a public interest defence, and that there should be a defence of prior publication. As we know, under current law there is no public interest defence. Under the Bill, the blanket provision will be circumscribed. However, it would be absurd for anyone and everyone to be able to pray in aid a public interest defence on all occasions. We need to understand that the moment when the decision is made about whether a disclosure is in the public interest is not when the court decides on the matter, but when the original disclosure is made. The court merely confirms or rejects that assessment—the harm will have been done.
  Hon. Members have, by necessity, to develop a breadth—if not a depth—of vision. Yet we have all come across people who suffer from tunnel vision and who so concentrate on the particular that they fail to develop the span of understanding that is essential to see clearly. I am not prepared to believe, despite what has been said, that if the editors of our great newspapers believed that a great public mischief had been perpetrated, they would be unwilling to hazard themselves to expose it. Under the harm test, they could argue that their disclosures had caused good, not harm, to the public, and a British jury would decide on that.
  A Crown servant is a different case. Crown servants are elevated to a position of trust and are duty-bound to respect the confidence placed in them. Yet should they discover what they believe to be corruption or malpractice, they have not only the facility but the duty to report their concern to the permanent secretary, to the staff counsellor for the security and intelligence services, to the Minister or even to the head of the Civil Service. Does anyone, apart from the conspiracy theorist, believe that such safeguards will not be sufficient in a democracy in which trial by jury is enshrined? If some people are still unconvinced, are they not willing to accept that a person would be prepared to hazard his or her livelihood and liberty to expose gross misconduct, especially when Parliament with its privileges, and the courts with their juries, are there to protect the individual against the abuse of power by the Executive?
  I would argue against the suggestion that there should be a defence of prior publication. It has been suggested that, once a piece of information is in the public domain anywhere in the world, and of whatever origin or status, people should be free to publish it. By publishing it, they will promote it and add to its status. Although I in no way question the motives of those who hold such a view, it is the product of muddled thinking. Cannot they see that such a defence would encourage the disclosure of unauthorised and, possibly, damaging information? Cannot they see that there are only a finite number of solutions to a given problem, so such a defence would encourage irresponsible journalists to embark on fishing expeditions? Do they not understand that to permit the uncontrolled repetition of stories emanating from the

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  foreign media whose aims, interests and standards of accuracy and probity are different from our own would do nothing to enhance the safety and security of our people?
  For very good reasons, successive Governments have refused to confirm or deny a story, even when it was in their short-term interests to do so. Sometimes the consequence is that confidence is needlessly undermined and fear is unnecesarily caused. The defence of prior publication would increase that likelihood. It would be a recipe for mischief-making and would be in no one's interest.
  I know that many other hon. Members wish to speak in the debate, so I have confined myself to dealing with the suggestions that there should be a blanket defence of prior publication and an automatic defence of public interest. I shall conclude with the observation that, as my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said, the Bill is not a freedom of information Bill—nor should it be. It is a Bill that seeks to inhibit the disclosure of information that, if divulged, could threaten us all. I am satisfied, as the House should be, that there are secrets that need to be kept and people who need to keep them. The Bill clarifies which they are and who they are, and it is to be commended.
  6.59 pm
  Mr. Tony Benn: The Bill has little to do with safeguarding national security, because there are very few real secrets, and they are certainly not permanent secrets. Details of military equipment become outdated. The secrets of negotiating positions, which are prepared for Ministers when they go to international conferences, become public knowledge when they are disclosed in the negotiations. Economic particulars that may be exchanged between Governments expire with the passage of time.
  I remember vividly one occasion when I was the Minister in charge of atomic energy. I had in front of me the most secure documents, headed "TOP SECRET: ATOMIC UK eyes only". However, I read the newspapers, and the same information appeared in the New Scientist. What was secret was that my paper stated what we knew we could do, whereas the New Scientist was saying what it thought could be done in respect of the centrifuge. Therefore, it is absurd to speak as though the Bill is necessary to protect such information.
  The Bill was devised, drafted and presented deliberately to conceal from the electors information that they need to exercise their democratic functions. Discussion about the Bill has skirted the real question. What we are discussing is a constitutional Bill because today we are discussing not just the details of individual disclosures but the relationship of power between Government and governed. Nothing is more relevant to the power relationship than how much knowledge is available to the two parties.
  To read a Bill that is alleged to defend democracy when there is no reference in it to the rights of the electors, or the rights of the people, is a revelation of what the Bill is about. It does not have to be a freedom of information Bill to suggest that the people of this country have some rights. Although I am sure that it is not necessary, I remind the House that we only borrow the power of the electors on polling day. That power is entrusted to the Government by the electors on loan, and the electors then decide whether to renew their confidence at the subsequent general election. If, in the period of office of any Government, the public are denied knowledge of what the Government or
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  the state are doing, they cannot exercise that right. It is important to recognise that we are discussing matters that may not be known even to Ministers.
  I was somewhat amused by the Home Secretary's attempt to present himself as a great reformer. I looked up the Witchcraft Act 1735 because I had a distant memory that I was in the House when it was repealed. I was right: it was repealed in 1951 by the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951. Some poor woman who was a fraudulent medium had been prosecuted by an anxious policeman under the Witchcraft Act because he could not think of anything else to get her for.
  I sat in Parliament when the Witchcraft Act—or a part of it—was still on the statute book. However, I do not remember the Law Officer who presented the later Act saying, "This is an earthquake of reform." Indeed, he was a bit embarrassed that the Witchcraft Act was still on the statute book, as Ministers should be about the Official Secrets Act 1911. The Act is being changed not because of a wave of liberalism from the Home Secretary, but because it is absurd, unworkable, unpopular and unenforceable, so let us hear a little less about the reforming achievements of the Home Secretary.
  When one considers constitutional questions, many issues arise that are not often discussed. The one that most interests me is the lifelong obligation of confidentiality to the Crown. Crown servants are identified. However, we must ask, what is the Crown? Who is the Crown? Where do we find the Crown giving orders to anybody? "The Crown" is a code for that concreted area, the state within a state, which the Government believe needs to be more forcibly protected.
  I am a Crown servant, as I have been a Minister. I looked in the Bill to see whether I too am obliged to have lifelong confidentiality to the Crown, and I am. It is absolutely clear. Back-Bench Members of Parliament who have never held ministerial office are not. However, as I look around the Chamber, I see other Crown servants who would be covered by the Bill.
  When we consider "the Crown" in respect of secret matters, we must ask where it fits in. I shall take the Peter Wright case. Did the Queen say to Peter Wright, "Get rid of Harold Wilson"? No. Well then, who was the Queen's first Minister? It was Harold Wilson. Did he say to Peter Wright, "Get rid of me"? No. Did the Cabinet say to Peter Wright, "Get rid of Harold Wilson"? No—the Cabinet never knew. Did Parliament say it? No. The truth is that for the purpose of the Bill, "the Crown" is the language used to protect the activities of people who are no friends of democracy, the secret services which believed that in trying to get rid of Harold Wilson they were answering the wishes of the Crown. We are discussing a major constitutional Bill.
  Let us consider the way in which the secrets are supposed to appear and must be protected. I can think of some examples, including Martin Gilbert's biography of Winston Churchill—this was touched on earlier—which reveals that, before the war, civil servants gave masses of secret documents to Winston Churchill because they thought that Neville Chamberlain was betraying the national interest by failing to re-arm. The first time that I came to the House—in 1937—I heard Churchill speaking on the Naval Estimates. I did not know, seeing him surrounded with his Blue Books and White Papers, that he

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  was also getting a steady drip of information from civil servants who thought that Neville Chamberlain was a traitor. But that is a fact.
  I could take more recent cases. The Sandys case has been referred to. Duncan Sandys was a captain in the Territorial Army. One of his mates in the Territorial Army told him that the anti-aircraft defence of London was defective. Sandys tabled a question. The officer who told him was prosecuted under the Official Secrets Act. It became a famous parliamentary case. Would such a case be stopped by the Bill?
  Let us consider the Zircon case, when Mr. Speaker—I sympathise with him—was lectured on the absolutely vital necessity that nobody should see the film. Mr. Speaker, not knowing how to respond to an appeal from Ministers, banned the Zircon film. Was that film so secret and so damaging? What was secret about the Zircon film? I can tell the House that it was the fact that Sir Frank Cooper, the former permanent secretary to the Ministry of Defence, said in the film that we did not have an independent deterrent. That was very embarrassing, since the Government had been pretending for years that we did have one.
  We could consider also the Belgrano case, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) is always referring. It would have been damaging to let it be known that the Conqueror was pursuing the Belgrano while it was happening, but it is in the public interest to know whether the Government knew that the Belgrano was going home, and the relevance of the Peruvian peace objective. We cannot justify this legislation by example.
  I turn now to international examples which are even more relevant although rather less pregnant with security considerations. I was the President of the Council of Ministers for Energy in the EEC eleven years ago. While there, I was a legislator. I do not know how many people realise that Ministers in the EEC are legislators, not executives. The Executive is the Commission. When one goes to the Council of Ministers—my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) has attended the Council—one makes regulations. Before the regulations are made, there is a mass of negotiation between one's Department, other Departments, Departments in other countries and the Committee of Permanent Representatives—all negotiate the package which the Commission will consider and the Ministers then endorse. All that is now to be covered by the new restrictions in the Bill.
  As President Jacques Delors has said, 80 per cent. of the legislation enacted by national Parliaments will soon be enacted by the Commission. Eighty per cent. of the legislation that we now discuss in Parliament which is reported in Hansard for all to see and which will soon be televised will be covered by the new Official Secrets Bill because of its international implications. The Bill will cover not only the EEC but our international military arrangements or our discussions with the International Monetary Fund, in which other countries negotiate.
  The Bill would reduce public discussion of public affairs to municipal matters. We would be allowed to discuss only things that are purely municipal—things that are about England or the United Kingdom alone. We will not be allowed to enter a discussion of issues that touch on
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  international negotiations. That is a major restriction. It is, however, a product of the internationalisation of the world, not a product of this Government.
  The danger of abuse is the greatest in regard to intelligence. I shall speak in a measured way because I am sure that there are fine public servants in the security services who are trying to do their best. Nevertheless, the danger of abuse is very great. Ted Short, formerly Lord President of the Council, was told by Chapman Pincher that he, Pincher, had access to a Swiss bank account which Ted Short was supposed to have had. It was a forged bank account. There is no question about it being forged by the security services.
  Mr. Allason: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Benn: I am not giving way for the moment, because I want to finish this point.
  In his book, Peter Wright said—he was, after all, the deputy director—that the fabrication of evidence against Labour Ministers was part of the strategy. Even if it is only Wright confessing, at least we got an explanation later of one of the most revolting episodes that I recall—involving the use of civil servants loyal to the Crown to destroy a Government elected by the people to be the Crown's Administration. I hope that the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr. Allason) wants, to raise a serious point, because I am on one.
  Mr. Allason: The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned the famous Ted Short letter. All the research that has been done to determine the origin of that forged letter has come down to a group of Socialist Workers in Leicester. As for the Peter Wright plot against Harold Wilson, I do not know how many times we must repeat that Peter Wright went on television in the "Panorama" programme of 15 October when he said that the plot was down to him and that he was the only person in it.
  Mr. Benn: I believe that the hon. Gentleman was in the Security Service or writes about it—I do not know much about it. All I can say is that the evidence on Nasser is Anthony Nutting, who said on television that Eden had told him to get rid of Nasser. There is a lot of other evidence. If the hon. Gentleman really has served in the Security Service—I do not know whether he has or whether he just writes about it—he will know that assassination is one of the instruments of security.
  Mr. Allason: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Benn: I am not giving way again, because I was not on the Nasser point.
  Mr. Allason: But he was not assassinated.
  Mr. Benn: When the hon. Gentleman intervened, I was talking about the fabrication of Ted Short's bank account. I am afraid that, if any structure of power is surrounded by secrecy, there is a danger of abuse.
  I remember when, as a Minister, I was approached by a Conservative Member of Parliament who complained on behalf of a constituent that that constituent could not get into the Civil Service. As I am a libertarian, I took the case up. I discovered that the constituent's father read the Morning Star. Nobody should think that the Security Service does not want to veto anybody who is to the left of the Prime Minister. It tried to veto Jack Jones and Hugh Scanlon, who were pillars of the Government.

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  Conservative Members may not like them, but the Security Service regarded them as security risks. The only guarantee against that is bringing these matters into the open.
  Mr. Frank Cook: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, on 28 October, during a seminar for opinion leaders at the NATO defence college in Rome, the Pentagon-sponsored tutor in one of the tutorials—Dr. Robert McGeehan—said that we have come to the time when we must deprive our politicians of our best intelligence because of the way in which they have chosen to distort and misrepresent it in the defence of democracy?
  Mr. Benn: The enemy within may be somewhere other than where the Prime Minister thinks it is.
  I shall tell the House another story, lest it be thought that I am trying merely to protect the Left. In the 1974 general election campaign, somebody brought to me, and tried to persuade me to use, a highly scurrilous and scandalous pamphlet about the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), who was then Prime Minister. It was an extremely libellous document. I would not touch it. I realised later, when I read what I read, that the idea was to discredit me by getting me to smear the right hon. Gentleman and to discredit the right hon. Gentleman by getting that smear spread. I do not think that only Harold Wilson was toppled. I think that two Prime Ministers were toppled.
  It would be a great mistake for Conservative Members to think that this is a Left versus Right issue. I ask Conservative Members to contemplate what they would think about a Labour Government with the powers that they are proposing to entrust to a Conservative Government. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook said, I can envisage circumstances in which it might he thought highly desirable to bug and burgle the homes of people engaged in exporting capital to South Africa. It is the Conservative party which proposes to entrust such powers to the Government. There are some issues in the House—not many—when the legislature has an interest that is separate from the Executive.
  The last Labour Government have been mentioned. Jim Callaghan was bitterly opposed to open government. Everybody knew that. Everybody knew it at the time. It was only because it looked as though Clement Freud's Bill would be accepted that he, then the Prime Minister, put me on the relevant Cabinet Committee. He thought that he had better have somebody on the Cabinet Committee who agreed with Clement Freud and might interpret his Bill.
  This is an argument between the legislature and the Executive. We are not talking about the great supporters of private enterprise versus the revolutionaries from the Fabian Society.
  The House is being asked to give Ministers the power to designate what is secret and to determine when to prosecute. That is a power which no Parliament should give to any Government. I hope that the House will reject the Bill or amend it, or that the Government will withdraw it. If it is enacted, there will be only one safeguard for democracy. I refer to the oldest and most reliable safeguard—that people with conscience will not obey the law. Parliament never likes being told what it needs to be reminded of each generation, but the rights to free speech
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  and to free religious worship were won by people who broke unjust laws. I believe that juries will refuse to convict.
  The Bill is really aimed against Ponting, Massiter and Tisdall. Only the last was sentenced. If people of conscience in the security services—those who favour the security services must want people of conscience in them—come across skulduggery, blackmail or criminal fabrication of information, and make it public on conscientious grounds, that is the safeguard of democracy in Britain, not this shabby little Bill.
  When this debate comes to be studied, it may turn out that, by opening up on questions that we do not normally discuss, we will find ourselves tracing our way back to the roots of democracy. Honest, decent people will not put up with injustice, even if it becomes entrenched in a statute passed by both Houses of Parliament.
  7.18 pm
  Mr. Tony Baldry: The longer I listened to the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), the more I wondered whether he had been studying the same Bill. He and a number of other Opposition Members need to have a conspiracy theory in order to exist. Without such a theory, the right hon. Gentleman would find it difficult to have a role in contemporary politics.
  Spies spying and leaks leaking always make good copy for journalists. The area is too often treated sensationally and with too much drama. We, by contrast, must act rationally and logically, remembering at all times that we are putting criminal law on the statute book. We must consider the public mischief that we seek to defeat and the public good that we wish to protect and promote. We must test the provisions of the Bill against those objectives. We must ensure, at all times, that the possible offences and defences strike a proper balance between the rights of the community and the position of the defendant. The public good that we seek to protect is straightforward. It is to protect information vital to the national interest, not information that might simply embarrass the Government of the day or any Minister.
  This is not a catch-all Bill and it does not contain any catch-all provisions. It is a clearly drafted and narrowly defined measure which sets out with clarity a limited number of specific offences. The Bill is comparatively short. Its 16 clauses contain a number of defined and specific offences intended to protect the public good. Such is the care to strike exactly the right balance that invariably, to prove an offence, the prosecution will have to clear a number of specific hurdles, and to the jury's satisfaction, fulfil specific tests—of, for example, harm to the public interest—before a conviction can succeed.
  For example, to secure a conviction when a journalist discloses information relating to security or intelligence, the prosecution must clear a steeplechase of hurdles. We should never forget that the burden of proof is always on the prosecution, and the standard of proof is that the jury must be satisfied that each hurdle has been cleared. If the prosecution fails at any of the hurdles, the entire prosecution case fails.
  To secure a conviction against a journalist for disclosing information on intelligence, the prosecution must prove, first, that the information has been in the possession of a Crown servant or Government contractor in his official capacity. Secondly, the journalist must know

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  or have reasonable cause to believe that it has. Thirdly, it must relate to security or intelligence as defined in the Bill. Fourthly, the journalist must know or have reasonable cause to believe that it does. Fifthly, the information must come into the journalist's possession in a number of ways, such as being disclosed without authority by a Crown servant or Government contractor. Sixthly, the journalist must know or have reasonable cause to believe that the information has reached him by one of those three routes. Seventhly—the canal turn—the journalist must make his disclosure without authority. Eighthly, the journalisit's disclosure must cause damage to the work of the security and intelligence services. Ninthly, the journalist must have known or had reasonable cause to believe when he made his disclosure that it would, or was likely to, cause damage, or that the information fell into a class or description of information likely, if disclosed, to cause damage—Becher's brook. That is a veritable steeplechase of hurdles, all of which the prosecution must clear before it can secure a conviction.
  I suspect that it is because editors and journalists appreciate the hurdles that the prosecution must clear that there has been little press criticism of the Bill.
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. John Patten): My hon. Friend has accurately set out the hurdles that the prosecution has to clear.
  Mr. Corbett: The Minister wrote them for him.
  Mr. Patten: The hon. Gentleman seems rather overexcited this evening. I cannot imagine why.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) has accurately described the hurdles that the prosecution must successfully pass to secure a conviction. Does he accept that a conviction can be found against a journalist only if the prosecution can prove that the journalist knew, or had good cause to know, that he was deliberately causing harm?
  Mr. Baldry: Yes—[Laughter.] I do not know why the Opposition are laughing. They complain that this is a catch-all Bill, but when we take them step by step through a single clause showing them all the hurdles that the prosecution must clear before it can secure a conviction they will not acknowledge the facts.
  Mr. Allason: That was an interesting exchange. I draw my hon. Friend's attention to clause 4(3)(b), under which the disclosure of information is an absolute offence. This is one area in which the burden of proof would be not on the prosecution but on the defence. The defence would have to show that it did not know or had no reasonable cause to believe that the information disclosed was of the type described in the Bill.
  Mr. Baldry: In criminal statutes the burden of proof never moves to the defendant. The defendant is entitled to raise a defence and it is then for the prosecution to negate that defence.
  I opened The Times and other newspapers today expecting ringing declarations against the Bill, but there was none. The press appreciates, even if the Opposition do not, the great care that has been taken to get the balance right.
  Mr. John Patten: Does my hon. Friend agree that the frivolous attitude displayed on the Labour Front Bench shows that the Opposition have not read or understood the Bill, whereas the journalists and editors of our great national newspapers have read the Bill and understand the considerable protections that are offered to them? That is why they no longer criticise the Bill on those points.
  Mr. Baldry: As I listened to the speeches of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and subsequent speeches from the Opposition, I came to believe that they could not have studied the same Bill as we did. I hope that my hon. Friend will ensure that they are all provided with another copy.
  Mr. Hattersley: The hon. Gentleman is entitled to know the cause of the outbreak of laughter in the middle of his speech. I was just telling my hon. Friends about a letter sent by the Minister of State to a newspaper setting out eight hurdles which journalists had to overcome. We were enjoying hearing the hon. Gentleman read it during his speech.
  Mr. Baldry: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman acknowledges that those hurdles exist because nowhere in his substantive speech today did he recognise that the Bill has been tightly defined and narrowly drafted to ensure that a proper balance was struck. If one listened only to the right hon. Gentleman, one would think that the Bill had many catch-all provisions, which it clearly has not.
  It is clear that Ministers and draftsmen have taken great care to get the balance right in the Bill and to define more clearly than was possible in the White Paper the areas that should remain in the criminal law and the harm test that should apply. Under clause 3(1)(b) information received in confidence from overseas Governments or international organisations will not be the subject of an absolute offence. It will be subject to the same harm test as information on international relations. The harm test is narrowed by replacing the general reference to prejudicing dealings between the Government and that of another state or an international organisation with the more specific test of jeopardising the interests of the United Kingdom abroad. No hon. Member could object to the clarity with which that is now defined.
  The definition of information likely to be useful to criminals, which was criticised as being too wide, has been narrowed to information that
  "results in the commission of an offence … facilitates an escape from legal custody … impedes the prevention or detection of offences or the apprehension or prosecution of suspected offenders".
  A jury would have to be convinced that unauthorised disclosure had, or was likely to have, that effect. What possible objection could there be to any one of those elements in that clause?
  Since the publication of the White Paper, my right hon. and hon. Friends have sought to take on board the views expressed to them and to ensure that the Bill strikes exactly the right balance. It is a well defined Bill. Much of the opposition to it stems from the claim that it contains no defence of public interest and no defence of prior publication. That shows a complete misunderstanding of the Bill. On the question of public interest where there is a harm test under which a defendant could argue that the disclosure caused good, not harm, to the public interest. It would be for the jury to decide. Opposition Members appear to have forgotten the existence of those 12 men and

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  women. However, a defendant could not argue that, although his disclosure did cause a degree of harm, because it also did some good the harm did not matter. That has never been a principle of English criminal law, so the Bill is consistent with legal history.
  On the question of prior publication, under the harm test a defendant could argue that he had caused no harm beyond that created by the earlier publication. It would be for the prosecution to prove otherwise, and the standard of proof would have to be such that a jury was certain that an offence had been committed. The prosecution must overcome those hurdles.
  It does not lie in the mouths of Opposition Members to criticise the Bill's lack of public interest and prior publication defences. They should not forget that in 1978 the then Labour Government proposed no defence based on public interest or on prior publication. Indeed, they did not go anywhere near so far as this Government in providing a test of harm. The Labour Government provided for the binding use of ministerial certificates so that at the end of the day it was the Minister and not the jury who decided the case there, there has been a veritable bonfire of ministerial certificates. We must study the reality of what the Bill proposes. My right hon. Friend referred to it as obfuscation, but I do not think that Opposition Members have read the Bill.
  The Bill is a sensible, balanced measure that will do much to restore a sense of proportion to this whole area of law, and the sooner it reaches the statute book the better. I hope that as the Bill goes through its Committee stage we can debate the reality of what it does and what it contains, and the actuality of what it says, rather than having a debate based on the conspiracy theories invented by some Opposition Members.
  7.34 pm
  Mr. Jeff Rooker: There is not a piece of Government legislation about which the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) could not make the same favourable speech, with only slight changes in the odd sentence. It was a lapdog speech. The hon. Gentleman made no attempt to answer any of the legitimate points made by hon. Members from both sides of the House. It has not been a one-sided debate.
  Had the Home Secretary felt able to include a public interest defence somewhere in the Bill, that would have gone a long way towards lessening some of the natural suspicions that were bound to arise. It is no good Ministers lecturing the House and saying that there will be an opportunity to put that defence to a jury—one which, in any case, would be vetted. The fact is that the words "public interest" do not appear in the Bill. The first hurdle put up in a court against the use of a public interest defence would be the fact that it was not specifically mentioned in the legislation.
  It is not as though "public interest" as a phrase is not important. Paragraph 65 of the White Paper, under the heading "Other Offences, Enforcement and Extent", states:
  "The central mischief at which the Government's proposals are aimed is the unauthorised disclosure of information the publication of which is harmful to the public interest."
  According to that White Paper, that is what the Bill is all about. There has been no change between the publication
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  of the White Paper and the publication of the Bill that takes away the significance of the first sentence of paragraph 65 of the White Paper.
  Two Conservative Members have quoted extensively from the many newspapers and magazines that they obviously read daily. The hon. Member for Banbury made the specific allegation that not a single newspaper today carried any criticism of the Bill. That is palpable nonsense. The hon. Gentleman clearly has not read today's newspapers; he has read only the information in the briefing given to him by the Conservative party. He should look at today's The Independent, whose leader title is "Hurd's undemocratic society". The last sentence of the leader states:
  "If Mr. Hurd would trust the people, he would reduce the temptation for public servants to stray. Unfortunately he cannot bring himself to do so."
  The Independent is not a Labour-supporting newspaper; thank heavens it is not, by and large, a Tory supporting newspaper either. It is a newspaper of record which does not agree with the Bill. Conservative Members come to the Chamber and trot out their briefs, for all the world as though the press carried no opposition to the Bill. That is not the case.
  In Committee we can discuss in greater detail the defence of public interest. We must separate public interest, Government interest, state interest and, in the Britain of the 1980s, party interest. The problem is that the words "public interest" do not appear in the Bill. Judges —not all, but some—have said that state interest and Government interest are one and the same. It is just a short step from there to perceiving damage to the interests of a Government as damage to the interests of the Government's party. We must keep a distinction in mind.
  Judging from the Home Secretary's speech and Home Office press releases—the one that was released on the date of publication of the Bill and the one that was put out by the Minister on 14 December—the Government are concerned to float the idea that, if the Bill is passed, key areas of security intelligence and defence, international relations and criminal investigations are to be dealt with, tied up and codified. There is the idea that it naturally follows that any journalists, investigators or Members of Parliment who claim that Britain is still a secret society will be brushed aside as a group of misguided individuals—the obfuscators to whom the Home Secretary referred. There is the idea also that lots of information will be released. We know that it is not a freedom of information Bill, but because the Official Secrets Bill covers matters of supreme importance, such as security, intelligence and defence, anyone who says that there are still secrets in other aspects of life is misguided and a troublemaker, and does not know what he is talking about. That is the idea that is supposed to get abroad.
  I shall refer to only one part of the Bill—clause 3, which is entitled "International relations". International relations are defined in subsection (5). However, international relations go much wider that that. One would suppose that the clause covered only intergovernmental communications of various kinds. Naturally it does that. However, it covers information, documents or other articles relating to international relations and any confidential information, documents or articles which do not relate to international relations but which were obtained outside the United Kingdom. International relations may not be covered, but,

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  because the information was obtained from states or international organisations outside the United Kingdom, they are covered by clause 3.
  The disclosure in clause 3(2) is a major drafting error. Paragraphs (a) and (b) are linked by the word "or", yet one cannot read (b) without reading (a). It does not make sense. The term "those effects" has no meaning in paragraph (b) unless it is read in conjunction with (a). Paragraph (b) is supposed to stand quite separately.
  The disclosure of confidential information that is obtained from abroad is an offence only because the information is confidential. It is irrespective of the contents of the documents or articles. I warn the Government that that point will be considered in great detail in Committee. They will do themselves and the House a service if they tidy it up or even withdraw it from the Bill by way of a Government amendment. How can one defend the idea that people can obtain information from states, international organisations abroad, Crown servants—that global expression for those who are part of the state apparatus abroad—on matters that do not affect industrial relations can affect anything under the sun?
  If an offence is committed, it does not matter whether an issue is harmful, but only whether it concerns a document marked "confidential". That cannot be sustained. The briefing document that was issued to hon. Members by the Campaign for Freedom of Information on that point is valuable, and I have not heard it being refuted. If the Ministers attempt to do so, I shall be pleased to listen to and argue with them.
  Mr. Aitken: Far from refuting the hon. Gentleman's case, I may be able to confirm it. Anyone who shares my experience of The Sunday Telegraph case will note that the clause is drafted with that experience in mind. The Foreign Office cannot distinguish between embarrassment and security. Because Ministers fear that some embarrassment may be incurred that is already used, in a press briefing, as the Scott report was, but causes embarrassment to our diplomatic relations, they slap it in as a criminal offence. That is wrong. The hon. Gentleman was right to zero in on it.
  Mr. Rooker: That is the only point on which I wish to zero in. An extra test is applied to that information. It applies only to information from overseas sources. If I may paraphrase clause 3(3), it states that information may be regarded as likely to have any of the effects mentioned in the paragraph,
  "either by reason of the fact that it is confidential or by reason of its contents and nature."
  It does not state "and by reason of its contents and nature"; it states "or by reason of its contents and nature". How it can be an offence simply because the information is confidential is beyond the pale, especially given the Home Secretary's description of the Bill as coherent, bolder and more open than anything before. It is quite ludicrous.
  I understand why the clause is in the Bill, but I do not support why it is there. The scale of international trade and relations in the modern world is such that much information—not that relating to the matters that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) raised—turns out to be economic information. Classes of economic information are ruled out in paragraph 33 of the
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  White Paper, and will no longer be subject to the criminal law. We shall see an enormous number of contradictions. We shall see contradictions in relation to information that comes to Britain or is used or disclosed in Britain by journalists, the media, or Members of Parliament. It is sourced overseas. It may have been originally sourced in this country by our supplying information to overseas organisations, such as the OECD.
  We shall ask why it is an offence to publish and disclose information in EEC documents that emanated from Whitehall about pollution control. A document may or may not be about hazardous waste or a danger to public health, but it may set out the amount of industrial and other waste that this country imports. There are court cases in the midlands because the economic livelihood of one large company is thought to be at stake. The bottom line is economics.
  It will be argued that disclosure should be an offence. The Government are arguing that that is the case. I do not accept that case. We may get information on industrial safety or vocational training from the International Labour Organisation. It will be an offence to disclose it. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) mentioned Food and Agriculture Organisation nutritional standards. What about draft documents on the development of World Health Organisation teaching standards, papers about efforts to cut child mortality and papers on the control of oil pollution from the International Maritime Organisation? The disclosure of information from those sources which could or could not have an economic or public health content in no way affects security, intelligence or defence. Surely it cannot be defended by Ministers that people who disclose such information should be hauled before a jury.
  We have heard from Ministers and Conservative Members, sounding for all the world as though they had been before a jury: "Well, of course, being hauled before a jury is nothing. If one is innocent, the jury will find one innocent. It is nothing to be worried about." That has not happened to me, but I know what it is like to come before the full jury of the House of Commons, having had the experience of making one personal statement to the House. That can be nothing compared with appearing either in the box at the Old Bailey or at the Bar of the House, as my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) did long before I came to the House. It should not be shrugged off with the aside, "With a jury you will be all right."
  I wish to give two further examples before I resume my seat. The first concerns product defects. Whenever Ministers or the media ask what I am going on about and what information is being held back that we want, I would like to say, "Give me a list of what you have and I shall choose." They say, "Well that's not an effective argument." So virtually every time I say, "Let's take something simple. Let's take something that affects the man and woman in the street." This certainly affects the streets of London because they are congested with motor cars.
  This Government and foreign Governments have in their charge information about accident rates of motor cars according to models and years. That information is never disclosed. It is not seen to be in the interests of the motor industry to have a league table of car models which have certain types of accidents, whether those cars are imported or made here. If that information were obtained

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  by British journalists from overseas sources, for example from the person in a foreign Government department who collated the information, which was then kept secret for the public good, and published the accident rates of foreign motor cars on British roads—we should bear in mind that we import 58 per cent. of our cars—it would be a criminal offence under this Bill.
  Such journalists would be hauled before the courts with little defence. They would not be able to say that the Bill provides that such information should be released in the public interest. They cannot point to any part of the Bill that gives them that defence. I shall leave aside my example about hygiene regulations in food canning factories. That type of information would be caught under virtually every limb of clause 3. The British public have a right to know that information, but it will remain secret.
  My final example, funnily enough, relates to a matter which I raised with the Attorney-General at Question Time a couple of weeks ago. The ownership of House of Fraser and Harrods is a matter of international relations. There is no question about that whatever. From whichever side one looks at the saga of House of Fraser, international relations are involved, as in clause 3. I should like the Minister to explain how information will be treated that has been published, mainly by one side of the argument—Lonrho and The Observer—on the takeover, involving, as it does, information from a state other than the United Kingdom.
  Several states are involved, including both Haiti and Brunei. The Sultan of Brunei can certainly be satisfied that that information affects his international relations with the United Kingdom and consequently might jeopardise United Kingdom interests under clause 3(2)(a). It is clear that much of that information has been disclosed from overseas official sources.
  Allegations have been made as a result of this case which concern international relations and the conduct of Conservative Ministers, particularly the former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the right hon. Member for Chingford (Mr. Tebbit). There is a prima facie case that his conduct as Secretary of State fell well below what is acceptable in the conduct of public administration on merger policy. I should like to get to the bottom of this, and it is clear that one party to the merger takeover would also like to get to the bottom of it. By legitimately pursuing its interests, it will disclose all sorts of information from overseas state sources.
  At present, no one has talked about a prosecution, but under this Bill that would be open to prosecution. More than that, it is more likely that many politicians more partisan than I may see that Conservative Ministers in a Conservative Government want to keep the lid on a scandal affecting members of the Conservative party, by using the draconian measures in this Bill. That will certainly be put to the House and the country.
  The buying and selling of major British companies where overseas interests are involved will be affected. One cannot simply say that everything is commercially confidential, and we are not allowed to know anything about it. In this particular case, there are good grounds for believing that Conservative Ministers allowed House of Fraser to be purchased by a known crook. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh"] I am not saying anything that I have not said before. The silence and acquiescence of the former Secretary of State enabled House of Fraser to be purchased by a known crook.
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  Clearly, clause 3 deals admirably with public, state, Government and party interests. As such, it should not be included in the Bill, and that is a good enough reason to vote against the Bill. We are a joke, a laughing stock, in most of the civilised world for the way we run such a secret Government.
  Examples were given of America, Canada and New Zealand and, although no one mentioned Sweden, it is fair to add it to the list. They are all more open on more aspects of government than we are. On the issues which really count, the measures that they operate and the penalties for those who fall foul of the system are much more severe than anything that we operate. There is a message there: genuinely to target what counts and to hit offenders hard. That enables a democracy to operate much more trustingly between Government, Parliament and our masters, the people. This Bill mitigates against that, and as such should not receive a Second Reading.
  Several Hon. Members rose—
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker): Order. Unless speeches are more restrained and shorter, some hon. Members will be disappointed by being unable to participate in the debate.
  8 pm
  Mr. John Wheeler: I welcome your observations, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Those who were present at the beginning of the debate will recall that M r. Speaker suggested that we might consider 10-minute speeches. I hope that my remarks will fit within that specification.
  First, I give an unreserved welcome to the Bill. It is high time that section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911—a 77-year-old measure—was repealed. It is discredited. It is wrong that the brand of tea served in the Home Office canteen should be treated in the same way as Britain's defence secrets, with disclosure being a criminal offence. It is wrong in principle that the criminal law should he used to protect trivial secrets or information that merely happens to embarrass the Government. It is counterproductive. Section 2 is a catch-all provision, and it has fallen into disrepute.
  I support the contention of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary that the Bill will advance liberty. It is right that we should consider tightly defined legislation, and the Bill will cover only six areas of information that it is in the interests of all the British people to keep secret. These are defence, security and intelligence, diplomacy, information given in confidence by other Governments, official information helpful to criminals and the interception of telecommunications. All these matters will continue to have legal protection.
  The issue of information that is supplied by other Governments has been raised, and it is important that we should dwell upon it for a moment. It has been suggested that the test of harm following the disclosure of information received in confidence from overseas Governments, on foreign organisations, would not be subject to the same criteria of consideration before the courts as other disclosures. That is wrong. The Bill will require the prosecution to argue that harm was likely to arise in a particular instance either because of the breach of the confidence which the disclosure involved or the nature of the information or its contents.

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  There will be no obligation upon the jury to accept the prosecution's argument and the defence will be free to argue that the disclosure was not likely to lead to harm. The onus will remain on the prosecution to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. That is a formidable obligation, and it is right that it should be imposed upon the prosecution. It is one that the prosecution carries in all cases in this country. The prosecution will have to prove its case before a jury, and that, too, is right.
  Currently, there is no public interest defence, and I do not wish to see such a proposition introduced into our law. It would generate confusion rather than certainty. It has been the position from time immemorial, generally speaking, that the criminal law defines an offence in terms of an individual's actions, not his motives for carrying them out. Motive may be taken into account by a judge when passing sentence, but it does not affect the determination of guilt or innocence. This principle should apply to the Bill.
  The special duty of lifelong confidentiality will continue to apply to members of the security and intelligence services. Those who join these services do so voluntarily. There are arrangements for former officers to obtain permission to talk or write about their work, and that procedure is well understood. There are arrangements for an officer who is discontented with part of his work, or who has a problem within his department, to consult the new staff counsellor. Every officer knows from the outset, however, that there is an overriding obligation to keep silent about the work that he performs on behalf of the British people. The law provides that any disclosure by special service people is a criminal offence. That is not changed by the Bill, but the removal of so much Government information from the scope of the criminal law is bound to highlight the special position of those in the security services.
  Apart from the categories which I have mentioned, no official information will be protected by the criminal law. That is the extent of the proposed liberalisation. It applies to the trivia which I have mentioned, such as the canteen menu and laundry lists, and to more important and sensitive information. It will no longer be a criminal offence to disclose Cabinet papers on controversial subjects such as health and education. The same applies to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget speech. To that extent, the Bill extends freedom of information, and that is most welcome.
  There has been talk of prior publication and the position of newspapers, with much comment externally by those in the media. No one could be convicted of repeating information on security, intelligence, defence or international relations unless the prosecution could prove that the disclosure was likely to cause specified harm to the public interest and that the defendant knew it. It is a formidable test that the prosecution has to overcome.
  Similarly, no one could be convicted for disclosing information that would be useful to criminals unless the prosecution could show that the information was still likely—this is important—to be useful despite its prior publication. The defence of prior publication is therefore subsumed within the test of harm. The arguments about
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  prior publication and the public interest defence are answered by what I have said and by the proposals that are set out in the Bill.
  8.9 pm
  Ms. Diane Abbott: The Secretary of State described the Bill as coherent and ambitious and, of course, it is neither. It is a cornerstone, however, of the Government's wider strategy, which is coherent and ambitious.
  We have been told by Conservative Members, and especially by the Home Secretary, that the Bill is a fantastic leap forward in reform. Let me remind them that section 2 of the Official Secrets Act 1911 has been a dead letter for over 20 years. Far from boasting about the removal from the statute book of legislation which was thoroughly discredited and almost entirely unenforceable, Ministers should be embarrassed that they have not even begun to take advantage of the opportunity with which they were presented to engage in real reform. If Ministers had cleared their minds of any thoughts of reform and of any notions of leaps forward, and had merely written on a small piece of paper the names of those who have embarrassed them in recent years—for example, Mr. Wright, Mr. Ponting and those involved in The Daily Telegraph case—and if the Government had sent civil servants scuttling off to cobble together a Bill that would ensure that all the people who had embarrassed the Government in the past would be caught by it and would serve time behind bars, this is the Bill that they would have come up with. Perish the thought that that was the motivation behind the Bill, but it is curious that all the people involved in the most embarrassing official secrets cases of recent years would have to do time as a result of this Bill. I am sure, however, that that is mere coincidence.
  The point about the public interest defence is that the Government, their Ministers and almost all their loyal rank and file have shown themselves in recent years wholly unable to see that there might be a concept of public interest separate from the interest of the Government of the day. For the Government, the public interest is one and the same as the Government interest—the interest of the party in power and, particularly, of the leader of that party and her immediate circle.
  In the closing years of this decade public interest has been reduced by the Government to the narrowest partisan version conceivable. These are the politics and political theories of the one-party state and I can well imagine how Conservative Members would point the finger if they emerged in the politics of other countries. Yet Ministers and seekers after office on the Conservative Back Benches parrot the political theories that underpin the one-party state.
  We have heard much from Conservative Members about what can be expected from members of the security services—about how they join of their own free will, how they are not conscripts and how security and secrecy must be provided for. I remind them of what Mr. Justice Scott said, among other things, about the "Spycatcher" case. He had heard the Government's evidence and reflected on what Sir Robert Armstrong had said and on what poor Sir Robert had had to do in Australia. He had taken in at tremendous length—greater than Ministers had been able to explain this evening—the Government's thinking about

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  the desirability of protecting the security services. Mr. Justice Scott, who is not a member of the Socialist Workers party, said:
  "I find myself unable to escape the reflection that the absolute protection of the security services that Sir Robert was contending for could not be achieved this side of the Iron Curtain."
  It is precisely that absolute protection that this Bill proposes to enshrine in law.
  It will not do for the Home Secretary to come before the House in his familiar garb of the great reformer. The Bill tries to enshrine thoroughly illiberal and anti-democratic ideas in law—
  Mr. Allason rose—
  Ms. Abbott: I do not have the hon. Gentleman's expertise in these matters, but I do have a few thoughts of my own that I want to expand.
  Last week we debated the Security Services Bill. In the course of the debate, the problems that the security services have had in the past were made clear—the recurrent history of KGB infiltration at the highest levels, the lack of any notion of real accountability to the Government of the day in some parts of the service, and even the propensity on the part of some members of the security services to go mad in as little as four or five years, according to some past heads of MI5. So the House knows the institutional and structural problems of the security services. It knows that the Government have no proposals, now or ever, to make the security services the subject of genuine parliamentary oversight. So how can we go on this week to enshrine in legislation terms and conditions which remove one of the only possible guarantors against an over-mighty Security Service acting against the public interest?
  Of course, if members of the security services want to do a Peter Wright they should be subject to administration and management procedures and to the law. But the procedures in the Bill are more reminiscent of those governing iron curtain security services. That does no credit to Ministers, the Government and, above all, to the Secretary of State, with all his pretensions of being a liberal reformer—
  Mr. Allason: May we scotch the myth involved in these continual references to Peter Wright? They are completely out of context. Peter Wright is in Australia, out of the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom; and it would be open, even under this Bill, to any member of the Security Service to go abroad and escape jurisdiction and repeat the exercise. The Wright case is wholly irrelevant.
  Ms. Abbott: Funnily enough, I agree that too many references to the Peter Wright case, which was an irresistibly humorous and comic case, tend to obscure the issues around the Bill and around that discussed last week. The hon. Gentleman has not answered my point—that the absolute protection for the security services for which the Government called in the Wright case was described by a member of the judiciary as unachievable this side of the iron curtain. I repeat that and challenge Ministers to counter what lay behind that statement.
  The Secretary of State has boasted again that part of the reason why the Bill is such an amazing reforming measure is that vast areas of information will be freed from the criminal law. We are all supposed to gasp and thank him for his munificence. Of course, those areas of
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  information have never been the subject of prosecution in living memory anyway. What is the point of the Secretary of State boasting when, in practice, section 2 has not been used?
  I said earlier that the Bill was neither coherent nor ambitious. It shows every sign of having been drafted to cure past embarrassments and to ensure that they never happen again. The Government loathe giving out information as much as vampires abhor garlic. The Government have missed this opportunity to give any right to information to the citizen. But the Bill should be taken in the context of the increasingly cowed and restricted press and media. They have been cowed by the buying off of press barons and lordships, and by the constant denigration of public service broadcasting by ill informed Conservative Members. The press and media are increasingly hemmed in.
  Alone among English-speaking democracies, we have a Security Service over which there is no parliamentary oversight. The Government and Prime Minister are increasingly authoritarian and intolerant of opposition, even from within their own ranks. That is the Bill's context, and it shows that the Bill is part of a coherent and ambitious design. It is a grand design which reduces the information available to the subject, thereby reducing the liberties of the subject and increasing the over-arching power of the Government and of the leaders of that Government. We believe, but we may be wrong and may be the innocent victims of conspiracy theories, that the Bill is part of an overall design. We reject that design and the Bill. The Bill is illiberal and by no means a reform. I shall be glad when the Home Secretary stops coming before the House in his gleaming white robes posing as a reformer, because in reality he is wearing the emperor's clothes.
  8.20 pm
  Mr. John Greenway: If the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott) would read the Franks report of 1971, she would discover that much of the basis of the Bill harks back to its recommendations. However, I shall not dwell on that.
  I appreciate that there are many experts on official secrets and I do not claim in any way to be one of them, but having listened to some hon. Members I am not sure that the expertise is all that it is cracked up to be. I can, however, claim one unique feature. I have signed the declaration that I will keep confidentiality—in 1965 when I became a Metropolitan police officer.
  We make many promises in life, but, sadly, some of them are broken. The promise of confidentiality is not to be broken lightly. If I say nothing else in the debate, I shall say that Peter Wright was despicable beyond description and that I have nothing but utter contempt for his dishonourable acts. It would be wrong to conclude that the Wright case has prompted this reform. Successive Governments have tried to address the question of reforming the catch-all provisions of the 77-year-old Official Secrets Act. The Government are right to claim that they are taking a liberal view. I shall shortly come to my reasons for saying that.
  There is a genuinely held view that disclosure in the public interest is a valid argument and that the Bill falls short of a public interest defence. I do not agree. There are two important matters to be considered on the question of the public interest defence. The first is where the greater

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  public interest lies and the second is the burden of proof when cases are brought to court. The greater public interest is best served by discouraging through criminal sanctions a disclosure that may be damaging or is likely to be damaging. The Bill puts the onus of proof the right way round, so that Crown servants are discouraged from disclosing information for fear that damage or harm may occur, rather than encouraged to disclose it by a public interest defence.
  As far as I am aware, only the Bill presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) contained a public interest defence. If I understand correctly what my hon. Friend had in mind, a Crown servant who leaks or discloses information would not have to prove conclusively that misconduct had occurred. Equally, suspicion would not be enough. Nevertheless conclusive proof of misconduct was not necessary. There may be other information of which the discloser does not know. The burden of proof in such a public interest defence would be on the prosecution which would have to establish, first, that no crime, fraud, abuse of authority, neglect of official duty or other misconduct had occurred and, secondly, that the discloser had acted unreasonably.
  It might well be impossible to prove that misconduct had not taken place without releasing other important, confidential information which the public interest might require to be kept secret. The prosecution or the Crown would be on the horns of a dilemma. A Crown servant may have made an allegation of misconduct which on the face of it looks convincing. Public opinion, perhaps reacting to a front-page headline in one of the daily newspapers, would demand that the record be put straight. But to do that, the Crown might have to reveal information which ought to be kept secret. That is the real reason why it would not be valid to include in the Bill a public interest defence.
  The alternative approach is the one in the Bill. The discloser can reveal information provided that he does not cause harm and there is no reasonable likelihood of damage. The burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove harm. Equally, the discloser knows that, however altruistic his motives, if he causes damage he will be guilty of an offence. Therefore, there is a general discouragement. The right balance must be to err on the side of caution. A public interest defence runs the risk of causing more damage to the national interest than the discloser may be seeking to protect. He may be acting only on a narrow appreciation or knowledge of the matters about which he makes his disclosures. An actual harm requirement, such as that in the Bill, reduces the risk of accidental disclosure. At the end of the day, it cannot be said to be in the public or national interest to disclose information which damages the national interest or is reckless as to whether such damage might occur.
  The Opposition have asked whether the Government are right to claim this as a liberalising measure. The Opposition feel that the Bill does not go far enough. There is another point of view—to question whether some of these reforms go too far. The important point here is that under section 2 everything is caught. There are no definitions—they are not needed. The Bill specifies only those offences for which there can be a prosecution. Surely
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  it must be right to ask whether we have included in the Bill all the offences that we ought to include. I am not about to suggest a long list of offences that we should have in the Bill, but it is right to adopt a questioning approach from the other point of view.
  I should like to touch briefly on law and order. It would be reasonable in today's world to claim that the maintenance of law and order is as important a function of Government as defence. There is international terrorism and crime and mobility of criminals and terrorists, and threats are being posed to our normal civilised way of life. We see this almost every day. Is the Minister satisfied that all the evetualities required for the public interest are in the Bill? I should like his assurance that as the Bill progresses in Committee the Government will not be reluctant to introduce amendments.
  Part of the answer to my question may lie in reference to other measures because we have to look at the Bill not just in relation to the Official Secrets Act but in relation to other statutes. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) referred to a written question put down in 1976 by his hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) about the list of offences under other statutes. I was interested to find, for example, the Marketing of Eggs Act (Northern Ireland) 1957 on that list. There appears to be no reference to the marketing of eggs in England, Wales or Scotland, but no doubt that is covered by some other statute.
  We need to consider how disclosure of historical information which might affect the reputation of an individual rather than future events is covered. What about unauthorised disclosure of criminal records or police files? Over the years, there have been a number of prosecutions of police officers and journalists—some successful and some not—when information had been leaked about police records. We need to ask whether the Bill covers the leaking of such information.
  When the Government published the White Paper, they gave a general definition of criminal activity. The Bill is a considerable improvement because it specifies events. It is not difficult to imagine circumstances in which the specific offences could occur. A number of past prosecutions provide clear examples. In 1966, a police officer who passed on information about a proposed police search was fined after a magistrates court hearing. It seems as though such an occurrence would be covered by the Bill under the provisions applying to disclosure which impedes
  "the apprehension or prosecution of suspected offenders".
  In 1968, a police officer passed on information about a mail van run, with a view to robbery—clearly an action likely to result in the commission of an offence. I could give many other such examples, but other hon. Members wish to speak.
  There has been criticism of the Bill from one side. I hope that a Committee of the whole House will consider these important issues. Of course, we are unlikely in the foreseeable future to see a repeal of the legislation that we are about to enact. This is not a matter on which Parliament would wish to legislate too often. It is important that we get it right and ensure that those offences that should be covered by the Bill are indeed covered.
  Mr. Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Sillars) has told us that there has been an appalling jumbo plane crash

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  in Scotland. I wondered whether I could formally ask the Government to consider making a statement, even a preliminary one, at 10.15 pm.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I am sure that Ministers who are present have heard the hon. Member's comments. It would not be in order to interrupt this important debate.
  8.32 pm
  Mr. Tony Worthington: The depressing aspect of the argument is that Labour Members and some Conservative Members have been consistently winning the argument for a reform of the secrecy law. That happened in the Ponting, Tisdall, Massiter and Wright cases—all instances when the Government have been severely embarrassed. Flaws in the secrecy law have been pointed out.
  We won the argument over ministerial certificates. They were seen to be an inappropriate way of dealing with the arguments. We won the argument and there was a modest step forward in the statutory basis for the Security Service, but it did not go far. The argument has been won also in relation to the problems of hierarchical organisations, the people trapped in them and the need for a counsellor within the service. Last year, in one of the high spots of my short career here, the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) effectively highlighted the need for reform. Unfortunately, the Government have not taken the right message from that. They believe that the way to approach official secrets is to shoot the messengers who tell them that things are going wrong and to ensure that there will be no more messengers. In the end, that will fail, just as every attempt to suppress the truth must eventually fail.
  It is depressing that one of the surest tests of a maturing and growing democracy is whether the public are entrusted with more and more information while the Government go in the opposite direction. Who can say after looking at the collective outcome of Ponting, Tisdall, Zircon, Wright and Massiter that it was wrong for us to have heard about those events? No one could seriously argue that we were damaged by hearing about them. Our public life was enhanced by that knowledge, but the Government's central motive is to ensure that in future we shall not know about such events.
  One aspect of the Bill disturbs me. Sworn to life-long confidentiality will affect not only full-time members of the security services but those temporarily associated with the world of secrets. I take the instance of John Stalker, a person to whom peculiar things were happening. I cannot judge the rights and wrongs of the Stalker case, because I do not know, just as no other hon. Member does, about the full events. In the end, Stalker left the police service and decided to write a book. What else would a man in such circumstances do but say, "That is what was happening to me in terms of my relationships with my police authority, the Home Office, the RUC, the Northern Ireland Office and the secret services"? John Stalker's book contains references to MI5. I shall take some virtually at random.
  He said:
  "I had authority from MI5, and the expressed support of the Home Office and the Director of Public Prosecutions."
  He also said:
  "Present at the meeting were Sir John Hermon, the very senior MI5 legal officer and the MI5 Belfast representative. The meeting was opened by the senior MI5 man. He made it
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  absolutely clear, as he had six months earlier, that his department was not standing in the way of a murder investigation. He said that MI5 was prepared to release all information to me."
  That is an example of a person who, at that stage in his career, was involved with secrets and the work of the secret services and who seemed to be stitched up in terms of his investigation—having been given a job to do but then been prevented from doing it. Are we to remove from that person, who seems to have suffered an injustice, the right ever to tell his side of the story?
  Mr. Allason: Is it not a fact that, if that gentleman believes that there has been an injustice, he will have an opportunity through the Security Service Bill to lay a complaint before the tribunal?
  Mr. Worthington: A conspiracy seemed to surround Stalker everywhere. Something strange was going on that enveloped the entire Government service and the secret service, too. At the end of the day there is for some people no escape from that. They are trapped within that world and sometimes they must break free—not in any circumstances—from that entrapment.
  The idea of life-long confidentiality is disturbing. As a general principle, I accept that people must exercise confidentiality in their jobs, but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) demonstrated earlier, secrets come and go. What is secret at one time becomes very commonplace the next minute. There must always be some kind of filtering of what can be said by previous members of the secret service, or those people temporarily associated with it. However, to deny people the chance to put their side of history is profoundly illiberal.
  One wonders whether this embargo on temporary members of the secret service will apply to Government Ministers. I do not consider that it can be right for history to be denied 20 or 30 years later the actuality of what occurred at a particular time. Many Prime Ministers and Ministers—even junior Ministers—at some stage later have found it important to tell the world their version of events. In many cases their positions have brought them into contact with what were state secrets. That they should for ever have an embargo on them speaking about that is profoundly wrong. Something should be done to ensure that they do not release current secrets, but to have life-long confidentiality as the over-arching theme is fundamentally wrong, and should be reconsidered.
  I am worried about the world of investigative journalists. Certainly there are times when journalists reveal information that is extremely important. This year one of the most startling articles that I read was in The Observer, and it was about telephone tapping. The allegation was that 30,000 individual telephones were currently being tapped. The number of operatives involved in telephone tapping has doubled. In addition to the 60 tapping operatives, another team of 80 higher grade engineers maintain and service tapped lines. Mr. David Norman, who represents the telephone tappers as treasurer of the National Communications Union, said:
  "I can say with absolute certainty that I have been the victim of state surveillance in the form of telephone tapping for the best part of the last year."
  That is the kind of information which should surface occasionally.
  Mr. Allason: Why should it?
  Mr. Worthington: It should surface because of the power given to the secret service to do fundamentally what they like. I am open to correction, but, as I understand the Bill, an article giving that kind of information would in future not be published, which is fundamentally wrong.
  The police argue that the public interest defence is easy, but it is not. Hon. Members spoke earlier about the barriers to be overcome to establish that public interest defence. Have we learnt nothing from the events of recent years about what happens in various hierarchical institutions? One can take it from the world of psychology, and the work of Professor Milgram years ago on authority. He determined that people could be induced to do the most frightening things in the presence of authority. In cases of abuse within hospitals, child sex scandals and in every tragedy—whether it be Clapham Junction, or Kings Cross—where there is human error, there is information that would have stopped that horror occurring if it could have been released from that hierarchical organisation. One must face up to the fact that the secret services and the world of secrets must be the most hierarchical organisation of all. It is not enough to appoint councillors and to have good internal supervision of those services. Ultimately, there must be a public interest defence for people to escape from that.
  It is not easy to establish a public interest defence, because it would have been necessary for the person to have gone to the councillor, to have real knowledge that an outrage was going on and to have explored every other avenue in that organisation before that public interest defence could be accepted.
  It is crucial—a kind of bedrock of our kind of democracy—that there should be some escape from a hierarchical organisation that has control over one's career, one's family and over everything in one life. One should be able to escape from that situation and have some root of satisfaction in being able to plead a public interest defence, and that is taken away in this legislation.
  8.46 pm
  Mr. Greg Knight: One thing that the entire House has agreed upon is that section 2 of the 1911 Act needs reforming. The present law is a mess and is drawn too widely. As the Franks committee observed on section 2:
  "A catch-all provision is saved from absurdity in operation only by the sparing exercise of the Attorney-General's discretion to prosecute."
  The Government are to be congratulated on grasping this problem and bringing legislation before the House, but it is right that we should examine the substance of the Government's proposals. The only matter about which I agreed with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) was when he said that we should consider the Bill on its merits, but he did his case no service when he then quoted a number of misleading examples. Referring to the special investigation powers, the right hon. Gentleman said that if those carrying out powers under a warrant were to blunder into his own house, which was next door to the house that should have been searched, if he were to pass on that information an offence would be committed. I must disagree with him because clearly, as I read the Bill, any action carried out that is not authorised by the warrant would not be covered.
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  The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook then criticised the Government for the test of harm. He and other Opposition Members, including the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott)—who referred to the Bill as bringing about the creation of a one-party state—said that the Government were actually setting down what amounted to harm, and that that was a dangerous precedent. Hon. Members who put that argument forward should read the Bill, because in five out of the six cases the Government may have a view as to what is harm, but it is for the jury to decide after considering the evidence in the case. It is poppycock to talk of a one-party state being created by the provisions.
  The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook referred to the Civil Service, and, having listened to all the debate, I have failed to understand why it should be necessary for someone in the Civil Service who feels that something is amiss to run off to a newspaper. A procedure has been set up whereby a person can invoke the Civil Service procedure if he has a valid complaint. To argue that civil servants should have a licence to reveal to newspapers something that they consider to be underhand is a bogus point.
  The right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn) denounced the Bill in a robust speech. His speech, as always, was good value. I am sorry he is not in his place because I believe that his remarks on this Bill carry no credibility. He was a member of the previous Labour Government who, in 1978, published a White Paper—it was debated in July of that year—which did not address the question of freedom of information about which he was so concerned today. The Labour Government White Paper also stated that information relating to security and intelligence was to receive absolute protection. It appears that the right hon. Gentleman, who supported that White Paper, has gyrated through 180 deg. now that he has been relieved of the burdens of office. His remarks did not carry any weight tonight.
  Contrary to some of the remarks that have been made, the Bill does contain a number of substantial changes that narrow further the scope of the present law as compared with the proposals published earlier this year in the Government's White Paper. I am especially pleased to note that it will not be an offence under the Bill simply to disclose information received in confidence from other Governments or from international organisations. The White Paper suggested that that would be an absolute offence, but I am delighted that the Bill makes it clear that harm would have to be proved. That is a welcome change.
  The current proposals mean that the prosecution must satisfy specific tests of harm to the public interest in cases involving disclosure by most people, including journalists, in five of the six areas still covered by criminal law. It is only for members of and others closely connected with the security and intelligence services that any unauthorised disclosure would always be treated as harmful. The Government have got the Bill exactly right.
  There is some controversy about whether there should be a statutory defence. A number of Opposition Members and some of my hon. Friends have said that they want absolute defences of prior publication and of disclosure in the public interest. When the House last debated this matter I had some sympathy for that view. If I read the Bill correctly, however, the existence of a harm test will mean that it will be open to a defendant in court to argue that he

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  had caused no harm beyond that created by the earlier publication. In those circumstances, it would be for the jury to decide. That is reasonable.
  It is also fair to say that there is no statutory defence of public interest in the Bill. The harm test, however, will still apply. Surely a defendant will be able to argue in court that his disclosure was not harmful and that it was for the public good. If that is accepted by the jury he will, quite properly, be acquitted.
  I have a couple of questions that I wish to put to the Minister about the Bill as it affects matters concerned with crime. What about the discloser of information as opposed to the publisher? In some cases the person who discloses information will clearly be an accessory to the offence. Could that person be prosecuted as such? I hope that, in appropriate cases, he could. Also, will the Minister confirm that military offences—for example, desertion and other such offences—will not be covered by the Bill? I trust that they will still be dealt with under separate law.
  Having read the criticisms of the Bill that have appeared in the press, I am led to the conclusion that journalists have obviously not read or fully digested the Government's proposals. I believe that when seeking to take a journalist to court, the prosecution—the Crown—would have a near Herculean task persuading the jury that the journalist had committed an offence. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) has already touched on that.
  The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook referred to my hon. Friend the Minister's letter, which I understand was published in a newspaper, but I am afraid that I have not seen that letter.
  Mr. Corbett: It was not published.
  Mr. Knight: Well, whatever happened to the letter, the right hon. Gentleman referred to eight hurdles that the prosecution must clear. From my understanding of the Bill, I believe that there are nine hurdles to be cleared to ensure the prosecution of a journalist. It is not right for some members of the press to say that this is a repressive measure.
  Mr. John Patten: Let me clear up the matter of the letter. Is my hon. Friend aware that I did not write a letter to the press, as suggested by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook? Rather, I gave an interview to The Times in which I set out the hurdles that the prosecution would have to clear to prosecute a journalist successfully. That was the source and it was entirely accurate. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury was spot-on when he directed the attention of the House to it.
  Mr. Knight: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that clarification and I am glad that he has confirmed that nine points have to be proved by the Crown to pursue a journalist for a breach of the provisions. If that is the case, members of the press should be praising my right hon. Friend as the most liberal Home Secretary since 1911.
  This is an excellent Bill. It is a well-balanced measure and I hope that the whole House will support it today.
  8.56 pm
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: I believe that the question asked by the hon. Member for Derby, North (Mr. Knight) about the position of the discloser is extremely important to all of us in the House.
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  I shall speak quietly to the Home Secretary and Minister in the hope that the questions that I put will he answered, possibly by a letter—not to me, but placed in the Library before we start discussing this Bill in Committee. Frankly, having spent 11 days at the Old Bailey during the trial of Mr. Clive Ponting, I realise that this is a very difficult, delicate, grey area.
  One: is it unfair to say that this Bill could be subtitled the "Anti-Ponting Jury Bill"? It looks to me as though Ministers dislike the 1911 Act because it does not guarantee that those who reveal information can be prosecuted when convenient and found guilty. If that is unfair, may I be told by letter why?
  Two: I have a personal request of the Home Secretary. It ill becomes him to use terms of abuse. That is not his style. Who were the obfuscators? I genuinely do not know. We may be wrong, but we should not be treated with that kind of abuse if we are to have a sensible Committee stage. Such abuse is not in the Home Secretary's nature. If I am a melancholic obfuscator, I want to be told why.
  Three: is it fair to say that the Bill is designed to prevent the newspapers, radio and television from putting over stories and facts which the Government do not want made public, to make certain beyond peradventure that those prosecuted are found guilty in future? We must know whether this is a measure to deal with perverse juries in trials like Ponting's. That is how it looks to a number of serious people. I note that the Home Secretary is knitting his brow in a pained way. I simply want to know why the Home Secretary thinks I am wrong about that.
  Four: having read the Bill, it seems to some of us that it is constructed for one purpose above all others—to put a stopper in the loopholes revealed by recent cases which have been awkward for the Government. My hon. Friends the Members for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington) and for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms. Abbott) have already outlined the cases and to save time I need not repeat their excellent speeches. However, my point must be answered in a letter to all of us who have taken part in this debate.
  Five: I realise that it may be difficult to refer to previous. cases, as there may be retrospective hypothetical situations, but it is fair to ask the following question. Under this Bill, I am sure that Sarah Tisdall would still be found guilty, but are we right to think that The Guardian would be found guilty as well? Could The Guardian have been prosecuted for printing the documents? From our reading of the Bill, it seems that it could. I would like that confirmed.
  Six: under the Bill, are we right to assume that Cathy Massiter could be prosecuted with a greater chance of success? Not only would it be illegal to report her allegations. If a newspaper or the BBC reported Massiter-like allegations, Ministers would presumably be cocking a proverbial snook at their critics, for would they not say then that illegal actions undertaken by MI5 are legalised under the new security legislation? If I do the Government an injustice, let us be told.
  Seven: I asked a former Prime Minister, the right hon.. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), a question about someone acting as Desmond Morton acted for Churchill. The former Prime Minister said that the Home Secretary would have to answer. The Home Secretary shook his head, and I believed that he thought that anyone in Desmond Morton's position would not be

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  prosecuted. May we have some reflections on that? I believe that some people think that someone like Desmond Morton would find himself in prison.
  Eight—in all these points I hope that Ministers will correct me in a letter if I am wrong—could Ms. Massiter be prosecuted under one of the new-fangled provisions in the new legislation for putting out "false information" about MI5?
  Nine: under the Bill, if another Peter Wright were to publish in Australia, would it be illegal to report anything Wright wrote for the benefit of the public in the United Kingdom, even though the rest of the world could read about it as they pleased? That question was implied by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington. It would be useful to have the Government's reflections about that before the Committee stage.
  Ten: under this Bill, would it be illegal for Duncan Campbell and the BBC to make a Zircon film or for the New Statesman or any other journal to write an article about Zircon? If so, we could cut out the need for highly publicised and damaging special branch raids on the BBC at Queen Margaret drive in search of Campbell's sources. If I have got it wrong, let us be told.
  Mr. Michael Foot: My hon. Friend is right.
  Mr. Dalyell: I think that I have got it right, because I have taken legal advice about it.
  Eleven: as to national and sectional interests, will the Home Secretary explain what he was trying to say on that subject in his opening speech? His remarks were a little obscure. It may be that I was being thick about it, but I do not think that that can be said of all my right hon. and hon. Friends. It was not clear what distinction the right hon. Gentleman was drawing.
  Twelve: are we being unfair in suggesting that the Home Secretary's distinction between the front pages of national newspapers and articles in technical journals borders on the absurd? The Russians will take into account—but the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Whitney) shakes his head.
  Mr. Whitney: The point is not necessarily whether the Russians know a fact, but whether it suits the Russians or some other party to surface a fact and have it more widely distributed for other reasons. If I may say so, with respect to the hon. Gentleman, he thinks in simplistic, Len Deighton-type terms. The world has moved on and is a more subtle place. Prior publication is a more dangerous area than the hon. Gentleman seems to understand.
  Mr. Dalyell: So that I may understand before Committee stage, let there be a letter on the matter, not just for myself but placed in the Library, so that all right hon. and hon. Members interested in the Committee stage will know the Government's reflections on the hon. Gentleman's point.
  Thirteen: having spent 11 days at the Old Bailey during Clive Ponting's trial, I cannot understand how, under this Bill, Bruce Laughland or anyone else could mount a defence at the trial. Would the evidence of a Government cover-up introduced at that trial be allowed under the provisions of the Bill? I think not. I understand also that, under clause 3 of the Bill, my right hon. Friend the
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  Member for Morley and Leeds, South (Mr. Rees) and Professor Wade, Master of Caius, would not be permitted to testify. That is what Ponting himself has written in today's press, and I know that he has grounds for doing so. If that belief is wrong, let the House be told.
  Fourteen: at first sight, the Bill has been devised to stop leaks. Do the Government imagine that they will in any way be successful in that attempt? It seems that, in practice, the Bill will make leakers rather more sophisticated, as they have been recently. People are becoming better at it. In this context, I hope that I shall not be ruled out of order if I say that people such as Mr. Mogg put their accounts of delicate events and other matters in bank vaults, as has Colette Bowe. Heaven knows why civil servants should put their accounts of events in bank vaults if they tally with those of Ministers.
  Fifteen: there is also the question of leaks to Members of Parliament. What will be the position if a right hon. or hon. Member, or anybody else, discloses information? The hon. Member for Wycombe made certain remarks. I shall not argue the point, but I do not see what else I should have done in the case in question other than go to the Chairman of the Select Committee. I did not go to the press. I believe that I behaved perfectly responsibly in keeping within parliamentary procedure. We can return to that point in Committee. I will only say that part of the trouble was misbehaviour by others.
  On the third day of the Ponting trial, what did we hear other than the clever Richard Mottram, private secretary to the Secretary of State for Defence, reveal that the report of the commander-in-chief, Sir John Fieldhouse, was altered behind his back. That seems a good example of misbehaviour—altering the commander-in-chief's report behind his back.
  If the Government bring a case under the new legislation, they had better pick their first case carefully because it could easily end in a fiasco.
  Finally, I shall quote the words of Bruce Laughland from the end of his submission at the Ponting trial, which are very moving:
  "If what he"—
  that is, Clive Ponting—
  "did was a crime for which he renders himself liable to punishment, you know it could be a licence for Ministers to withhold from Parliament information with the tame acquiescence of their Civil Servants and so infringe our liberties. And if what he did was a crime in English law, you say so. But if it is, God help us, because no government will."
  9.11 pm
  Mr. Richard Shepherd: I detect a curious feature in the way in which the Government are approaching legislation. It seems that we are almost legislating to appear before the European Court on a whole range of issues, of which this is one. The Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1984 has brought us before the Court. The letter that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary sent to the BBC governors and to the IBA will bring us there, and last week we introduced the Security Service Bill. I have no doubt that that will ultimately lead us there as well. As a party, we should be cautious in legislation that ensures that we are reviewed directly in front of the European Court. It seems that we no longer attest to the common rules and principles of our democracy that have informed it for the past 200 years. The Government should be mindful of that.

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  Why do I say that this Bill will bring us in front of the European Court? The most obvious reason is the absolute offence that the Bill establishes. An absolute offence means that a man or woman in public service, who has been or is at present in the narrow area of the security services, may never say anything. If they do say something, they will have committed an offence and all that the prosecution will have to demonstrate is that they have said something in contravention of an onerous law that insists, by virtue of the fact that they have said something relating to their former or present service, that they have committed an offence.
  Mr. Allason rose—
  Mr. Shepherd: One should consider crime, fraud and high iniquity, which have been tested and weighed in the courts—the High Court, the Court of Appeal or the House of Lords. All those courts have said that one cannot enjoin on a citizen an absolute duty of confidence in the face of iniquity. Yet the Government throw that out of the window, knowing that they will ultimately come in front of the European Court on this issue if they persist with the Bill. They do not see a way to remedy that or to give justice to the citizens of this country.
  The public interest defence is one way to remedy that, and it is not as it has been caricatured by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary in the White Paper. It can be narrowly defined—that a civil servant has to adduce evidence of crime or fraud and it can be brought into play only after the Civil Service has exhausted all internal remedies. If civil servants go directly to the public, they will deny themselves that defence.
  Mr. Allason rose—
  Mr. Shepherd: I regret that I shall not give way. I am already running into ministerial time.
  The other point that causes me concern is clause 3 and its definition of international relations and organisations. I have exchanged correspondence with the Home Secretary on that, and we have been going round in circles. The hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) made an important speech on a range of issues, which I am unable to cover because of lack of time.
  The qualifying basis on which a prosecution may be secured is that little phrase that has been slipped in, which states that damage may have taken place
  "by reason of the fact that it is confidential".
  That is the test that we now must meet. I know of almost no public document that does not have confidentiality in it.
  Let me refer to the example given by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan), a former Home Secretary. He thought that the clause referring to international organisations should be dropped. The Government now seem to be legislating by Home Office press release. The extraordinary extravagance of the language of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on this matter has confused the issue.
  Let us take two international organisations as examples —OPEC and the International Tin Council. They are producers or cartels against the public interest as we would define it. They are trying to maintain the price of their commodities against all our interests. They will be regarded as "international organisations" and information
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  revealed about them will give rise to a crime under the Bill. At present, there is no crime in that area in our statute book. It is an inhibiting factor.
  My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary may yet again nod his head, but the fact is that the Foreign Office is quite incapable of identifying what constitutes an international organisation. We have been around this before. The Foreign Office cannot even tell us the international organisations with which it has done business this year. On the basis of the fact that clause 3 defines international relations as follows:
  "'international relations' means the relations between States, between international organisations",
  OPEC is an international organisation, as is the International Tin Council.
  My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said that he wanted the Bill to be effective, enforceable and reasonable. I do not think that, as drafted, the Bill is reasonable. It does not meet that criterion. Because I have doubts about my right hon. Friend's arguments, I wonder whether the meaning of "confidential" should be clarified by amendment. If "international organisations" covers the Ghana Cocoa Marketing Company (UK) Ltd., the International Tin Council, OPEC and all the Common Market subsidiary organisations, it is an onerous and wrong principle.
  I am nervous about saying that the difficulty that I have in voting for the Bill and my reason for therefore voting against it is that, all the way through the process from January to the White Paper and to this debate, the Government have consistently yielded very little on the principles. The underlying principle is the citizen's right to be able to hold Government accountable. We lose sight of that so often.
  The Executive's perception of the way in which the world ought to be is, "If we can close unto ourselves and hold unto ourselves the information, all the inconveniences of having to manage this House of Commons go out of the way." It is not in the interests of the House of Commons to pass the Bill as drafted.
  9.16 pm
  Mr. Robin Corbett: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd), and it is a shame that the Government did not allow two days for this debate. I hope that the Home Secretary and others heard the remarks by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath) about ensuring adequate time when we come to Committee.
  I should like first to congratulate the Minister on his reply. I expect that we shall have the usual knockabout accusing the Opposition for opposing the Bill. Perhaps, given the time of the year, it will be in pantomime costume. I hope that the Minister enjoys himself. I make no apology for the Opposition, who are guilty only of thinking about the Bill and that has led us to the conclusion that we should oppose it.
  It was the Prime Minister who, in 1960 as a newly elected Member, set the proper background against which we should judge the Bill. When introducing a private Member's Bill to expand the right of the public to attend council meetings, she said:
  "the paramount function of this distinguished House is to safeguard civil liberties rather than to think that administrative convenience should take first place."—[Official Report, 5 February 1960; Vol. 616, c. 1357-58.]

  533
  Those were wise words, but not for the first time they have been long since forgotten by the right hon. Lady and her Government.
  At heart this Bill is all about the convenience of the Government, and has nothing to do with civil liberties or freedom of information. That is why it is an unwelcome and unwanted Christmas present. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley), my hon. Friends and some Conservative Members have shown, the Bill fails on every major count. It will not increase public access to information. It will provide tighter controls over information which the Government decide they want to keep secret, and over people, not just inside Government but outside Government service, who have access to such information —even unto the grave. Even if information comes to a journalist or anyone else, second, third or even tenth hand, if its disclosure was unauthorised, it will be an offence to receive it or to pass it on.
  In many areas of the Bill, there is no test of specific harm. People can and will be convicted and imprisoned without there being any evidence that actual harm has been done to the national interest. Newspapers will have to decide, when they pick up a story about the intelligence or security services, whether all the potential harm attached to that report has already been done. There is no way in which they can know. Any newspaper's lawyers will advise, "Do not publish." In a free society, we take the view that the motto should be, "Publish and be damned" when there is no evidence of harm to our security.
  In our debate in July, the Home Secretary said:
  "Our central objective is to narrow the law so that it applies only to disclosure without authority of official information which"—
  these are the words that matter most
  "is likely to give rise to an unacceptable degree of harm to the public interest."—[Official Report, 22 July 1988; Vol. 137, c. 1413.]
  If that is what the Bill set out to do, we would support it, but it does not. Those words are another example of the Government's doublespeak. The Home Secretary used the expression, "unacceptable degree of harm". Why is there no proper test of actual harm in most of the Bill? The Home Secretary mentioned the public interest. Why do the words "public interest" appear nowhere in the Bill? His words were designed to mislead. Yet again today he said one thing while the Bill says another.
  When the Home Secretary spoke of unacceptable harm, he was near to the Franks report definition of a serious injury to the security of the nation or the safety of the people. The concept of unacceptable harm to the public interest is something with which we agree. It presupposes that there are different degrees of harm—that at one end disclosure is acceptable because no real damage is done, and that at the other it is unacceptable because damage is done to the nation's security. If the Home Secretary believes that—the words are his—why has he not put them in the Bill? Has he changed his mind since July, or has he had it changed for him?
  On 22 July, the Home Secretary boasted:
  "No Government have made so much official information available to the public or Parliament"— [Official Report, 22 July 1988; Vol. 137, c. 1418.]
  He cited the prison system, press visits to Scottish prisons, reports made by the schools inspectors and even press
  534
  visits to parts of Porton Down and Aldermaston. That is the trouble: his very boasting misses the point. The real question for the House is why these matters were ever made secret in the first place. The Home Secretary's boasting reveals an attitude—that freedom of information is based on the Government's claim to decide on and know what the people they are supposed to serve are able to know. That is to turn the argument on its head. In a democracy, there should be a general right to know everything except that which touches on the safety and security of a nation.
  Still boasting, the Home Secretary described what was happening as, "an earthquake in Whitehall". He must know that it did not even rattle a teacup, let alone shake the doors to rooms full of information which should never have been locked away. One of the most wicked aspects of what is proposed is that entirely innocent people can, as in the past, have their lives ruined by the wrongdoings of the intelligence services. There is nothing that they can do about it. An M15 officer, M14 officer or other Government officials—
  Mr. John Patten: That was last week's Bill.
  Mr. Corbett: If the Minister will listen, he will see that they are related. Those people will commit a criminal offence if they reveal misbehaviour on the part of the intelligence or security services. It will be a crime for any newspaper, television programme, book or magazine—or indeed anyone uttering such statements—to disclose misbehaviour or wrongdoing. There are four cases of such behaviour on record. Under the Bill, they would never see the light of day.
  Case one involves a former distinguished Labour Minister—Niall MacDermot—who was denied high office because of a false allegation, made by the security services, that he had married a Soviet agent. False allegations were leaked to colleagues here and to selected journalists. Details of that malpractice came to light only through the publication of a book by David Leigh called "The Wilson Plot" which, under the Bill, would be banned.
  The second case involved Jack Jones, a distinguished former general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union who was falsely and ridiculously accused of being a Soviet agent—[Laughter.] It is remarkable that anybody can find this funny. Misleading MI5 files were used to advise Ministers to prevent him from being brought into Government between 1965 and 1968. We know that only through "The Wilson Plot" book, publication of which—I remind the House—would be banned under the Bill.
  The third case involves Miss Isabel Hilton who was falsely accused of being subversive after reading Chinese at university and joining the Scotland-China Association. Against that background she was denied a job at the BBC. Miss Hilton found out about that only after a report in The Observer—[laughter.] I repeat to Conservative Members, who find that funny, that under the Bill that report could not be published in The Observer.
  The fourth case involves my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Ms. Ruddock), on whom a file was opened because of her work with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. That is a proper, legal organisation, as the former Home Secretary, the right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Brittan), reminded us. The pretext was that she was a contact for

  535
  Soviet journalists. That came to light only because Miss Cathy Massiter, a former MI5 officer, spoke out on the "20/20 Vision" television programme. Under the Bill she would have committed a criminal offence and the programme makers would be similarly treated.
  Clause 15 makes it an offence for any British citizen or Crown servant to disclose information about the security or intelligence services when abroad. It follows logically from other provisions and will doubtless afford successive Cabinet Secretaries expensive trips to the far corners of the globe where ex-spies seem to settle.
  What about satellite television? What happens if Mr. Rupert Murdoch's channel broadcasts out of Luxembourg a news item that involves security or intelligence in the United Kingdom? Mr. Murdoch is an American citizen and. I assume, outside the scope of the Bill—or is he? Are the Government contemplating starting extradition proceedings in the New York courts to bring him back here to be tried for unauthorised disclosure in the United Kingdom? What about the thousands, perhaps millions, who see such news via a satellite broadcast? Under the Bill, they will be caught, not for watching it but for telling their neighbour or someone at work about what they have seen and heard. The same would be true if they videod such a transmission. [HON. MEMBERS: "Ridiculous."] It is not ridiculous. Read the Bill. If a British citizen is not involved in such a satellite broadcast nothing can be done, except to British citizens who see and hear the broadcast because they have received unauthorised information and mentioned it to a relation, friend or neighbour. The world can know of a deed that did not even cause harm to the interests of the nation, but we who live here are not, under the Bill, allowed to know it. How is that for open Government? The lawyers will thank the Government from the bottom of their bank balances for such a gift.
  How does the Bill stand in relation to article 10 of the European convention on human rights which, as the Minister knows, guarantees
  "freedom to … receive and impart information … without interference by public authority."
  Has the Minister examined the Bill in light of that convention or will the Bill be yet another case—there have been more than 30 so far—where Britain has to be dragged before the European Court before our liberties can be safeguarded? Even the right hon. and learned Member for Richmond, Yorks protested, when we discussed the White Paper, at the wider catch-all scope of proposals relating to defence. He said:
  "It would be easier to prove that the material that is disclosed prejudices something than that it does serious harm … I do not see any justification for what amounts to a tightening up of proposals that were originally put forward in 1979."—[Official Report, 22 July 1988; Vol. 137, c. 1430.]
  On the use of criminal law in that area, the Franks report said in paragraph 118:
  "This means that the criminal law would not apply to information the unauthorised disclosure of which would cause some injury to the interests of the nation, but short of serious injury."
  I made that point earlier.
  Paragraph 119 sets out what the Franks committee said should be
  "a proper basis for the employment of criminal sanctions the unauthorised disclosure of official information which would be likely to cause serious injury to the security of the nation or the safety of the people. If criminal sanctions are justified at all, they are justified for this purpose. If they are to be reserved for what is most important, they should not go any wider."
  536
  The Bill ignores those important words and stretches the criminal law more widely. It replaces the large net with the large mesh, which was provided by the 1911 Act, with a smaller net with a smaller mesh, the better to catch and silence those who, at the end of the day, mainly cause this Government embarrassment.
  There is a supreme irony about having this debate today. It is 21 December, the darkest day of the year. The Government have chosen darkness and rejected the chance to let the light into vast areas of Government, which could only benefit from that. Proper steps to protect our national interests from espionage and subversion are one thing, and would find universal support; casting a wide net over information outside those areas is another and it shows that, at basic level, this is simply a Government who do not trust the people. They cry freedom and they act like tyrants.
  I tell the Government that there is a consensus on the Bill—something for which the Prime Minister has repeatedly asked—but that that consensus does not belong to the Government; it belongs to the Opposition and to some distinguished right hon. and hon. Members on the Conservative Benches. Ours is a consensus for freedom, openness, honesty and accountability because—[Interruption.] I am sorry that the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) jests about these matters when they lie at the heart of our democracy. Ours is a consensus for freedom, openness, honesty and accountability, which are all precious ingredients, precious parts of our democracy. Part of our anger about this Bill is that it is precisely those things that the Government reject. This Bill demeans even the Government in the eyes of all those who truly care about our safety, security and democracy. That is why we shall vote against it tonight.
  9.33 pm
  The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. John Patten): I congratulate the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Corbett) on his speech. He was poetic, almost Shakespearian, as befits one coming from middle England. We shall see how many divisions there are in his consensus when we vote tonight. That will be the test.
  We have had a long and thorough debate. When I replied to the debate on the White Paper in the summer, I said that we would listen to what hon. Members said. My right hon. Friend's Bill demonstrates that we have listened to the points made and have made changes that are reflected in the Bill. That is why I am convinced that so many of my right hon. and hon. Friends support the Bill.
  An impressive list of six thoughtful and independent-minded hon. Members have spoken strongly in support of the Bill. I refer to my hon. Friends the Members for Wycombe (Mr. Whitney), for Bristol, East (Mr. Sayeed), for Banbury (Mr. Baldry)—[Interruption.] The frivolous mood that so captured Opposition Front Bench Members during the tea period seems to have continued during the after-dinner period. I refer also to my hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler), who made a remarkable speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway), who criticised us for perhaps going too far—clearly we shall have to mark his points carefully in Committee—and my hon. Friend the Member for Derby, North (Mr. Knight), who made a notable contribution.

  537
  I am sorry that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Burton (Mr. Lawrence) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mr. Coombs) were not able to catch your eye, Mr. Speaker, because of the limited time. I was glad to be in the Chamber to listen to the speech of the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie (Mr. Worthington)—he is not present at the moment—if only to demonstrate my expertise in pronouncing his unpronounceable constituency. Also, I do not see in the Chamber the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), who asked my right hon. Friend 15 specific questions and asked for a letter to be placed in the Library. We shall look at the record of what the hon. Member for Linlithgow had to say.
  Three right hon. and hon. Conservative Members have doubts or have expressed outright opposition to the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Mr. Shepherd) is the only Conservative Member who has spoken in outright opposition to the Bill. We respect his views, although we disagree. My right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath), who for a proper reason cannot be present tonight—he has written to say why he cannot be here—asked a specific question about the parliamentary handling of the Bill. As the provisions of the Bill go to the heart of government, we take the view that the Bill should be considered by a Committee of the whole House. Therefore, after Second Reading we shall move that the Bill be committed to a Committee of the whole House. I shall certainly draw to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Government Chief Whip the important points that were raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup about proper consideration of the Bill.
  I do not know which way my right hon. Friend the Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup would have voted if he were here tonight, but I know that the vote of my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) is in the balance and, to a certain extent, hangs on whether I am able to satisfy him by giving the reassurances that he specifically sought from me. I shall attempt to answer his questions and, I hope, reassure him.
  My right hon. Friend is particularly concerned about the position of a serving member or former member of the security and intelligence services who wishes to publish his or her memoirs or reflections on his or her life and times in the security services. I should like to give my right hon. Friend and the House a little more detail of the authorisation procedures involved, some of which may be new and novel to the House of Commons. I can give my right hon. Friend the necessary reassurances that he sought. I listened carefully, as he enjoined me to do, to everything that he said.
  All members of the services know that they should not write about their experiences in any way that might harm the work of the services or damage the national interest. I am sure that no hon. Member would dispute that. However, if a member or former member of the services wished to write material relating to his or her work, he would first talk to a senior officer about his plans for publication. All serving officers know to whom they should turn to talk about such matters, and all retired staff also have a point of contact with the relevant service. So if a member or former member prepares material which
  538
  may have some connection with his or her work he or she will be required to send the book or article to the relevant service. That is made clear to all members of the services on appointment.
  No member of the services is unclear where he or she should turn if he or she wishes to seek clearance. The draft of the book or article will then be considered carefully by the service to identify points of sensitivity. As my right hon. Friend, with his distinguished record, will appreciate all too well, that can be done only by staff who have a detailed knowledge of the consequences of the publication of material affecting particular areas. They will then submit their reasoned analysis to the senior members of the services. So the sole criterion for authorising publication is whether publication of a particular piece of information will jeopardise national security directly or indirectly. It is a judgment about considerations which are relevant today, not about past history or former embarrassments.
  If a point of difficulty were to be identified it might still be possible through discussion to agree with the author a change in the text to overcome the problem. My right hon. Friend has gone through this procedure when publishing his own works.
  Mr. Allason: Will my hon. Friend give way?
  Mr. Patten: If I could continue to explain in full the points that I want to make to my right hon. Friend the Member for Pavilion, I will then give way. I want to set out the procedure so that the House can understand each step. If the problem is larger than just a few minor textual changes or if agreement cannot be reached, sometimes authorisation will not be given. My right hon. Friend will understand that authorisation cannot be given on every occasion, but I can assure him that this decision would never be taken by one person alone, but by senior members.
  My right hon. Friend then asked where a member of the service would turn if he still felt dissatisfied. He will turn to the staff counsellor. At present our distinguished staff counsellor is Sir Philip Woodfield. That is a matter of public knowledge. This applies not just to present members but to former members of the services. If a member or former member is seeking to use publication to report anxieties that he or she may have about his or her work or former work, or if he or she is concerned about the reasons for a refusal of publication, he or she can go to the staff counsellor who can, if necessary, put him or her in touch with the relevant Secretary of State or my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Following those reassurances, I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Pavilion will be persuaded to join us in the Division Lobby tonight.
  Mr. Allason: This is a serious area of difficulty and one that is recognised by hon. Members on both sides. We accept that there is some sort of mechanism for authorising publication, but should the sole arbiter of these matters be the former Department of a particular employee? Would it not be better to have a publication review board similar to the one that works so well in America?
  Mr. Patten: It would be extremely difficult sometimes for a publication review board to go into areas which were still of operational importance to the security of the nation, its economy or the welfare of its citizens. The

  539
  system that I have outlined, parts of which have been outlined to the House for the first time tonight, gives the sort of cast-iron assurances that someone who wishes to publish has redress —[Laughter.] As usual, there is raucous laughter from the Labour Front Bench. That is about all that has characterised their behaviour in today's debate.
  I listened carefully to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley)—
  Mr. Maclennan: Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Patten: I ask the hon. Gentleman to forgive me for not giving way to him. I am anxious to answer the specific question that was included in his speech before I reach the end of my remarks.
  As I have said, I listened carefully to the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook, as I always do. He composes his speeches extremely well and, therefore, I listened intently when he said that he felt that the object of replacing the discredited and absurd section 2—I think that that is how he described it, but his words will appear in Hansard tomorrow—was to make an improvement. I welcome the fact that he feels that the result will be an improvement. I think that that sentiment was expressed also by the right hon. and learned Member for Warley, West (Mr. Archer). Having said that, however, both the right hon. Gentleman and the right hon. and learned Gentleman proceeded strongly to criticise the Bill.
  It is to be welcomed also that the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook recognised—some of us had doubts whether he did—that it is necessary to have sanctions for harmful disclosure. That, at least, is an advance. The need for sanctions was recognised also by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan).
  The debate rolled on and then we began to understand what Labour Members really thought about the Bill. The veil was lifted as the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook continued to speak. Their thinking was beautifully summed up in a remark made a few moments ago by the hon. Member for Erdington, who spoke of his attitude to official secrets in a free society as "publish and be damned".
  Mr. Corbett: I did not say that. Will the Minister give way?
  Mr. Patten: Of course.
  Mr. Corbett: Let us get this right. Will the Minister accept that I said, "The motto should be 'publish and be damned' where there is no evidence of harm to real security"?
  Mr. Patten: That is the entire message of the Bill. That is exactly what the Bill sets out to do. It has tests of harm throughout each of the clauses.
  Mr. Barry Sheerman: Withdraw.
  Mr. Patten: I see no need to withdraw and I do not intend to do so.
  The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook got into a terrible muddle over harmful disclosures of foreign confidences. I shall give a couple of examples in an attempt to clear up the muddle in which he so obviously found himself. First, we take extremely seriously our international obligations to organisations such as NATO. If, for example, we receive from NATO confidential information
  540
  about defence strategy, and we fail to protect it, the confidence of our NATO partners would be damaged and our standing in that organisation would be reduced. As a consequence, our ability to pursue the defence interests of the United Kingdom within NATO would be jeopardised. I will give the right hon. Gentleman a second example. I hope that he is supportive of the work of Trevi, as I think that all members of political parties in western Europe are. If a state that co-operates with us within the Trevi arrangements provided information about the activities of international terrorist organisations, for example, operating in that country and in the United Kingdom and we failed to protect that information, which would he an extremely serious matter, we could not expect that state again to supply us with information. That would obviously jeopardise this country's interests by impairing the effectiveness of the Trevi arrangements through which we combat international terrorism with considerable success. I look to the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook to give the support of the Labour party on these critical issues.
  The two central issues of principle in the debate have been whether there should be a public interest defence and a defence of prior publication. Those who have spoken in support of a public interest defence have served only to illustrate what my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said in his splendid opening speech. Those who advocate such a defence are seeking to remedy not the criminal law but the resort of the civil law. Clearly, there is confusion in the minds of the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook and his right hon. and hon. Friends.
  The Government do not accept that the criminal law is the right place to balance one Crown servant's perception of the public interest against the specific and serious damage that his disclosure has caused. Incidentally, the definition of a Crown servant, which deeply interested the right hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr. Benn), is set out in full in clause 12. If that perception and damage were balanced under the criminal law, that would alter the role of Crown servants in this country and their relationship with the Government of the day. A Crown servant or civil servant would become a free agent, responsible for his independent decisions only to the court. That is not the way to maintain an effective and impartial Civil Service, which I still believe is one of the great glories of the British constitution. An effective criminal law must be clear and predictable in its operation and that is its basis in this country.
  If the House believes that this cannot or should not be done because it wants to leave a gaping loophole through which a Crown servant can leak information to a journalist or anyone else, it will be deciding one of two things—either that this is an area into which the criminal law should not enter and which should be left entirely to the civil law, or that it wants such a muddle and fuzz that the criminal law will be a dead letter the day the Bill is enacted.
  The Government recognise, as does my right hon. Friend, who has done so much to promote openness in Government since he became Home Secretary—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Sparkbrook is envious because he does not get compliments like that. The Government recognise that there is a place for a Crown servant with a worried conscience to go, but that place is not the front page of a newspaper or a surreptitious dispatch in a brown envelope. That is why we have a clear

  541
  system of access to the head of the Civil Service and, in the case of members of the intelligence and security services, to the staff counsellor.
  Some hon. Members have discussed the public interest and the damage done to it as though there were an agreed and precise formulation which a jury had only to balance, but that is not so. We are discussing the criminal law, not the civil law. We cannot agree that the criminal law should admit a defence which claims that only a little harm was done to salve someone's conscience. That is like arguing that only a small murder had been committed to rid the globe of a scoundrel. Such an argument is incompatible with the criminal law.
  The prior publication defence is another central point of principle for which we have heard some eloquent pleas, but we have heard no coherent argument why people who disclose information knowing that it will do serious harm to the public interest should not be prosecuted like other people. Yet that is what the prior publication defence, as it has been presented today, amounts to. It is puzzling that those who support our decision to leave it to a jury to decide whether a particular disclosure is harmful also press us to take away such a decision from a jury when there has been prior publication. That sounds suspiciously like special pleading on behalf of the media—
  Mr. Dalyell rose—
  Mr. Patten: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I referred to his speech earlier when he was not in the Chamber.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe was spot-on in dealing with this issue, as was my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, East in the course of his notable contribution.
  I want now to fulfil my pledge to respond to the question asked by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland about the Justice report. This also allows me to answer the point about the European convention made by the hon. Member for Erdington. I say unequivocally to both hon. Members that there is no evidence and no reason to believe that the Bill as drafted will in any way contravene the European convention on human rights. If we had thought that it would do that, we should not have brought it to the House in its present form.
  The European convention on human rights specifically recognises that the protection of official secrets is a legitimate concern for any Government. The Bill has been carefully restricted only to those areas that require the protection of the criminal law. Where disclosure of such information may not always be harmful, specific harm tests have been introduced. All six of my right hon. and hon. Friends who spoke in support of the Bill mentioned those tests. The tests have been ignored by the Opposition and in Committee we shall have to take them through the Bill line by line.
  In his marvellous speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury summed up all the protections that are available to the media. The House should recognise that we have constructed the Bill in such a way that no media defendant will be convicted except on the clearest evidence that he knew or had good reason to know the harm that
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  he was doing. [Interruption.] It was not my article in The Guardian. I am not allowed to accept payment from The Guardian. I write for it gratis.
  The Bill deserves the support of all my right hon. and hon. Friends. The Security Service Bill deserved support because it put the Security Service on a statutory footing and provided avenues of redress via a tribunal and commissioner, as my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay
  (Mr. Allason) said in an intervention, and because it gives all the protection of the European convention on human rights.
  The present Bill deserves the support of the House because it will remove from the criminal law unnecessary restrictions on freedom of speech and the freedom to publish. It will ensure that secrets which must continue to be protected by the criminal law will be effectively protected. It will place on the statute book clear, reasonable and enforceable legislation. For the first time it will define in most circumstances the harm arising from the unauthorised disclosure of official information. It will leave it to the jury to decide whether or what harm has been done. The Bill will provide a fair and effective law on official secrets. That is surely what the House seeks and the choice before the House is clear.
  Opposition speeches, and especially the speech by the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook, were wholly appropriate to this festive, melodramatic and pantomime season. In recent weeks the Opposition have denigrated our security services. They have belittled the importance of national security and forgotten their own record in Government. The Government of which the right hon. Member for Sparkbrook was a member made no attempt to introduce anything remotely approaching the Bill. The Labour party has been so long out of Government that it has forgotten that ministerial responsibility for the safety of the nation is right, and it has so little hope or expectation of office in the future that it no longer shrinks from playing party politics with security matters.
  The Opposition's recent record on the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Bill, the Security Service Bill and now on the Official Secrets Bill is shameful. The Labour party's comments are wholly inaccurate and ill conceived, compared with the Government's proposals which are the sensible way to reform the law. I commend the Bill to the House.
  Question put, That the Bill be now read a Second time:—
  The House divided: Ayes 298, Noes 221.

  Division No. 27]

  [10.00 pm

  AYES

  Alexander, Richard

  Brooke, Rt Hon Peter

  Allason, Rupert

  Browne, John (Winchester)

  Amery, Rt Hon Julian

  Bruce, Ian (Dorset South)

  Amess, David

  Buck, Sir Antony

  Arnold, Jacques (Gravesham)

  Budgen, Nicholas

  Arnold, Tom (Hazel Grove)

  Burns, Simon

  Ashby, David

  Burt, Alistair

  Atkins, Robert

  Butcher, John

  Baldry, Tony

  Butler, Chris

  Bellingham, Henry

  Butterfill, John

  Benyon, W.

  Carlisle, John, (Luton N)

  Biffen, Rt Hon John

  Carrington, Matthew

  Blaker, Rt Hon Sir Peter

  Carttiss, Michael

  Bottomley, Peter

  Cash, William

  Bottomley, Mrs Virginia

  Chalker, Rt Hon Mrs Lynda

  Bowis, John

  Channon, Rt Hon Paul

  Brandon-Bravo, Martin

  Chapman, Sydney

  Brazier, Julian

  Chope, Christopher

  543

  Churchill, Mr

  Hogg, Hon Douglas (Gr'th'm)

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

  Holt, Richard

  Clark, Sir W. (Croydon S)

  Hordern, Sir Peter

  Clarke, Rt Hon K. (Rushcliffe)

  Howard, Michael

  Conway, Derek

  Howarth, G. (Cannock & B'wd)

  Coombs, Anthony (Wyre F'rest)

  Howe, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Coombs, Simon (Swindon)

  Howell, Rt Hon David (G'dford)

  Cope, Rt Hon John

  Howell, Ralph (North Norfolk)

  Cormack, Patrick

  Hughes, Robert G. (Harrow W)

  Couchman, James

  Hunt, David (Wirral W)

  Cran, James

  Hunt, John (Ravensbourne)

  Critchley, Julian

  Hurd, Rt Hon Douglas

  Curry, David

  Irvine, Michael

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

  Jack, Michael

  Davis, David (Boothferry)

  Jackson, Robert

  Day, Stephen

  Janman, Tim

  Devlin, Tim

  Jessel, Toby

  Dickens, Geoffrey

  Johnson Smith, Sir Geoffrey

  Dorrell, Stephen

  Jones, Gwilym (Cardiff N)

  Douglas-Hamilton, Lord James

  Jones, Robert B (Herts W)

  Dunn, Bob

  Key, Robert

  Durant, Tony

  Kilfedder, James

  Dykes, Hugh

  King, Roger (B'ham N'thfield)

  Eggar, Tim

  King, Rt Hon Tom (Bridgwater)

  Emery, Sir Peter

  Kirkhope, Timothy

  Evans, David (Welwyn Hatf'd)

  Knapman, Roger

  Evennett, David

  Knight, Greg (Derby North)

  Fallon, Michael

  Knight, Dame Jill (Edgbaston)

  Favell, Tony

  Knowles, Michael

  Fenner, Dame Peggy

  Knox, David

  Field, Barry (Isle of Wight)

  Lamont, Rt Hon Norman

  Fishburn, John Dudley

  Lang, Ian

  Fookes, Miss Janet

  Latham, Michael

  Forman, Nigel

  Lawrence, Ivan

  Forsyth, Michael (Stirling)

  Lawson, Rt Hon Nigel

  Forth, Eric

  Lee, John (Pendle)

  Fowler, Rt Hon Norman

  Leigh, Edward (Gainsbor'gh)

  Fox, Sir Marcus

  Lennox-Boyd, Hon Mark

  Franks, Cecil

  Lightbown, David

  Freeman, Roger

  Lilley, Peter

  French, Douglas

  Lloyd, Peter (Fareham)

  Fry, Peter

  Lord, Michael

  Gale, Roger

  Luce, Rt Hon Richard

  Gardiner, George

  Lyell, Sir Nicholas

  Garel-Jones, Tristan

  Macfarlane, Sir Neil

  Gill, Christopher

  MacGregor, Rt Hon John

  Glyn, Dr Alan

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Goodhart, Sir Philip

  Maclean, David

  Goodlad, Alastair

  McLoughlin, Patrick

  Goodson-Wickes, Dr Charles

  McNair-Wilson, Sir Michael

  Gow, Ian

  McNair-Wilson, P. (New Forest)

  Gower, Sir Raymond

  Madel, David

  Grant, Sir Anthony (CambsSW)

  Major, Rt Hon John

  Greenway, Harry (Ealing N)

  Malins, Humfrey

  Greenway, John (Ryedale)

  Mans, Keith

  Gregory, Conal

  Maples, John

  Griffiths, Peter (Portsmouth N)

  Marlow, Tony

  Grist, Ian

  Marshall, John (Hendon S)

  Ground, Patrick

  Marshall, Michael (Arundel)

  Grylls, Michael

  Martin, David (Portsmouth S)

  Gummer, Rt Hon John Selwyn

  Maude, Hon Francis

  Hamilton, Hon Archie (Epsom)

  Mawhinney, Dr Brian

  Hamilton, Neil (Tatton)

  Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin

  Hampson, Dr Keith

  Mayhew, Rt Hon Sir Patrick

  Hanley, Jeremy

  Mellor, David

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

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Hargreaves, Ken (Hyndburn)

  Miller, Sir Hal

  Harris, David

  Mills, Iain

  Haselhurst, Alan

  Mitchell, Andrew (Gedling)

  Hawkins, Christopher

  Mitchell, Sir David

  Hayes, Jerry

  Moate, Roger

  Hayhoe, Rt Hon Sir Barney

  Monro, Sir Hector

  Hayward, Robert

  Montgomery, Sir Fergus

  Heathcoat-Amory, David

  Moore, Rt Hon John

  Heddle, John

  Morris, M (N'hampton S)

  Heseltine, Rt Hon Michael

  Morrison, Sir Charles

  Hicks, Mrs Maureen (Wolv' NE)

  Morrison, Rt Hon P (Chester)

  Hicks, Robert (Cornwall SE)

  Moss, Malcolm

  Higgins, Rt Hon Terence L.

  Moynihan, Hon Colin

  Hind, Kenneth

  Mudd, David

  544

  Neale, Gerrard

  Steen, Anthony

  Needham, Richard

  Stern, Michael

  Neubert, Michael

  Stevens, Lewis

  Newton, Rt Hon Tony

  Stewart, Allan (Eastwood)

  Nicholson, David (Taunton)

  Stewart, Andy (Sherwood)

  Nicholson, Emma (Devon West)

  Stewart, Ian (Hertfordshire N)

  Norris, Steve

  Stokes, Sir John

  Onslow, Rt Hon Cranley

  Stradling Thomas, Sir John

  Oppenheim, Phillip

  Sumberg, David

  Page, Richard

  Summerson, Hugo

  Paice, James

  Tapsell, Sir Peter

  Parkinson, Rt Hon Cecil

  Taylor, Ian (Esher)

  Patnick, Irvine

  Taylor, John M (Solihull)

  Patten, Chris (Bath)

  Tebbit, Rt Hon Norman

  Patten, John (Oxford W)

  Temple-Morris, Peter

  Pattie, Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey

  Thatcher, Rt Hon Margaret

  Pawsey, James

  Thompson, D. (Calder Valley)

  Peacock, Mrs Elizabeth

  Thompson, Patrick (Norwich N)

  Porter, Barry (Wirral S)

  Thorne, Neil

  Porter, David (Waveney)

  Townend, John (Bridlington)

  Portillo, Michael

  Townsend, Cyril D. (B'heath)

  Powell, William (Corby)

  Tracey, Richard

  Price, Sir David

  Tredinnick, David

  Rathbone, Tim

  Trippier, David

  Redwood, John

  Trotter, Neville

  Renton, Tim

  Twinn, Dr Ian

  Rhodes James, Robert

  Vaughan, Sir Gerard

  Ridley, Rt Hon Nicholas

  Viggers, Peter

  Ridsdale, Sir Julian

  Waddington, Rt Hon David

  Rifkind, Rt Hon Malcolm

  Wakeham, Rt Hon John

  Roberts, Wyn (Conwy)

  Waldegrave, Hon William

  Rossi, Sir Hugh

  Walden, George

  Rost, Peter

  Walker, Bill (T'side North)

  Rowe, Andrew

  Waller, Gary

  Sackville, Hon Tom

  Ward, John

  Sainsbury, Hon Tim

  Wardle, Charles (Bexhill)

  Sayeed, Jonathan

  Watts, John

  Shaw, David (Dover)

  Wells, Bowen

  Shaw, Sir Giles (Pudsey)

  Wheeler, John

  Shaw, Sir Michael (Scarb')

  Whitney, Ray

  Shelton, William (Streatham)

  Widdecombe, Ann

  Shepherd, Colin (Hereford)

  Wiggin, Jerry

  Shersby, Michael

  Wilshire, David

  Sims, Roger

  Wolfson, Mark

  Skeet, Sir Trevor

  Wood, Timothy

  Smith, Tim (Beaconsfield)

  Woodcock, Mike

  Soames, Hon Nicholas

  Yeo, Tim

  Speller, Tony

  Young, Sir George (Acton)

  Spicer, Sir Jim (Dorset W)

  Younger, Rt Hon George

  Spicer, Michael (S Worcs)

  Squire, Robin

  Tellers for the Ayes:

  Stanbrook, Ivor

  Mr. Alan Howarth and

  Stanley, Rt Hon Sir John

  Mr. Kenneth Carlisle.

  NOES

  Abbott, Ms Diane

  Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

  Allen, Graham

  Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

  Alton, David

  Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

  Archer, Rt Hon Peter

  Buchan, Norman

  Armstrong, Hilary

  Buckley, George J.

  Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

  Caborn, Richard

  Ashton, Joe

  Callaghan, Jim

  Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

  Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

  Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

  Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

  Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

  Campbell-Savours, D. N.

  Barron, Kevin

  Canavan, Dennis

  Battle, John

  Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

  Beckett, Margaret

  Cartwright, John

  Beith, A. J.

  Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

  Benn, Rt Hon Tony

  Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

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

  Clay, Bob

  Bermingham, Gerald

  Clelland, David

  Bidwell, Sydney

  Clwyd, Mrs Ann

  Blair, Tony

  Cohen, Harry

  Blunkett, David

  Coleman, Donald

  Boateng, Paul

  Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

  Boyes, Roland

  Cook, Robin (Livingston)

  Bradley, Keith

  Corbett, Robin

  Bray, Dr Jeremy

  Corbyn, Jeremy

  Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

  Cousins, Jim

  545

  Cox, Tom

  Hattersley, Rt Hon Roy

  Crowther, Stan

  Haynes, Frank

  Cryer, Bob

  Henderson, Doug

  Cummings, John

  Hinchliffe, David

  Cunningham, Dr John

  Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Holland, Stuart

  Darling, Alistair

  Home Robertson, John

  Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

  Hood, Jimmy

  Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

  Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

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

  Howell, Rt Hon D. (S'heath)

  Dewar, Donald

  Hoyle, Doug

  Dixon, Don

  Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

  Dobson, Frank

  Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N)

  Doran, Frank

  Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

  Douglas, Dick

  Hughes, Sean (Knowsley S)

  Duffy, A. E. P.

  Hughes, Simon (Southwark)

  Dunnachie, Jimmy

  Illsley, Eric

  Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

  Ingram, Adam

  Eadie, Alexander

  Janner, Greville

  Evans, John (St Helens N)

  Jones, Barry (Alyn & Deeside)

  Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

  Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

  Fatchett, Derek

  Kennedy, Charles

  Faulds, Andrew

  Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

  Fearn, Ronald

  Kirkwood, Archy

  Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

  Lambie, David

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

  Lamond, James

  Fisher, Mark

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Flannery, Martin

  Leighton, Ron

  Flynn, Paul

  Litherland, Robert

  Foot, Rt Hon Michael

  Livingstone, Ken

  Foster, Derek

  Livsey, Richard

  Foulkes, George

  Lloyd, Tony (Stretford)

  Fraser, John

  Lofthouse, Geoffrey

  Fyfe, Maria

  Loyden, Eddie

  Galbraith, Sam

  McAllion, John

  Garrett, John (Norwich South)

  McAvoy, Thomas

  Garrett, Ted (Wallsend)

  McFall, John

  George, Bruce

  MacKay, Andrew (E Berkshire)

  Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

  McKelvey, William

  Godman, Dr Norman A.

  McLeish, Henry

  Gordon, Mildred

  Maclennan, Robert

  Gould, Bryan

  McNamara, Kevin

  Graham, Thomas

  McTaggart, Bob

  Grant, Bernie (Tottenham)

  McWilliam, John

  Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

  Mahon, Mrs Alice

  Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

  Marek, Dr John

  Grocott, Bruce

  Marshall, David (Shettleston)

  546

  Marshall, Jim (Leicester S)

  Shepherd, Richard (Aldridge)

  Martin, Michael J.(Springburn)

  Shore, Rt Hon Peter

  Martlew, Eric

  Short, Clare

  Maxton, John

  Sillars, Jim

  Meacher, Michael

  Skinner, Dennis

  Meale, Alan

  Smith, Andrew (Oxford E)

  Michael, Alun

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

  Michie, Bill (Sheffield Heeley)

  Snape, Peter

  Michie, Mrs Ray (Arg'l & Bute)

  Soley, Clive

  Moonie, Dr Lewis

  Spearing, Nigel

  Morgan, Rhodri

  Steel, Rt Hon David

  Morley, Elliott

  Steinberg, Gerry

  Morris, Rt Hon A. (W'shawe)

  Stott, Roger

  Morris, Rt Hon J. (Aberavon)

  Strang, Gavin

  Mowlam, Marjorie

  Straw, Jack

  Mullin, Chris

  Taylor, Mrs Ann (Dewsbury)

  Murphy, Paul

  Taylor, Matthew (Truro)

  Nellist, Dave

  Taylor, Teddy (S'end E)

  O'Brien, William

  Thompson, Jack (Wansbeck)

  O'Neill, Martin

  Turner, Dennis

  Patchett, Terry

  Vaz, Keith

  Pendry, Tom

  Wall, Pat

  Pike, Peter L.

  Wallace, James

  Powell, Ray (Ogmore)

  Wardell, Gareth (Gower)

  Prescott, John

  Wareing, Robert N.

  Primarolo, Dawn

  Welsh, Andrew (Angus E)

  Quin, Ms Joyce

  Welsh, Michael (Doncaster N)

  Radice, Giles

  Wigley, Dafydd

  Randall, Stuart

  Williams, Rt Hon Alan

  Redmond, Martin

  Williams, Alan W. (Carm'then)

  Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn

  Wilson, Brian

  Reid, Dr John

  Winnick, David

  Richardson, Jo

  Wise, Mrs Audrey

  Robertson, George

  Worthington, Tony

  Robinson, Geoffrey

  Wray, Jimmy

  Rooker, Jeff

  Young, David (Bolton SE)

  Ross, Ernie (Dundee W)

  Salmond, Alex

  Tellers for the Noes:

  Sedgemore, Brian

  Mr. Allen Adams and

  Sheerman, Barry

  Mr. Ken Eastham.

  Sheldon, Rt Hon Robert

  Question accordingly agreed to.
  Bill read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. Sackville.]
  Committee tomorrow.

  Air Crash (Scotland)
  10.12 pm
  The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Wakeham): With permission, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to make a short business statement.
  As the House may be aware, there has been a major air crash at Lockerbie, Dumfriesshire, involving a Pan Am Boeing 747 on route from London Heathrow to New York, reported to have more than 250 people on board.
  The House will appreciate that, at the present time, there are very few facts available. My right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is flying to the scene tonight. The emergency telephone numbers have been given on television. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport will make a full statement to the House tomorrow.
  Mr. Frank Dobson: I thank the Leader of the House for his courtesy in making this statement. I am sure that everyone in the House recognises that there is nothing that can be said by the Secretary of State for Transport at this time.
  I am sure that the whole House joins in offering sympathy to those who have suffered and who are grieving. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] We also offer our best wishes to the emergency services who are currently carrying out their desperately difficult tasks. I am sure that the whole House is confident that they will be doing so with the dedication and professionalism that we have come to expect.
  Hon. Members: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Wakeham: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the words that he has spoken.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I hope that the House will agree that we cannot carry this matter further, but I will call the hon. Member for Dumfries (Sir H. Monro) in whose constituency this accident happened.
  Sir Hector Monro: This terrible disaster occurred in the centre of my constituency, and the hearts of all hon. Members will be with those who have lost their lives, with the relatives and with the seriously injured—many of whom may be my constituents—as well as those who have been killed in the aircraft. I am fully confident that tonight the rescue services, the Health Service, the police, hospitals and the fire service will do magnificent work to help those who are still alive. I will be going north to the site with my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland, and I apologise for the fact that I shall not be present in the Chamber tomorrow for the statement.
  Mr. Wakeham: I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. I know that he spoke for the whole House and I hope that he will reach Scotland as soon as possible to do what he can there.
  Mr. Deputy Speaker: After these very solemn matters, we return to the business of the House and the debate on structural funds.

  European Community Structural Funds
  [Relevant document: Framework Regulation on the Structural Funds described in the unnumbered Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Department of Trade and Industry on 7th June 1988.]
  10.15 pm
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Robert Atkins): I beg to move,
  That this House takes note of European Community Documents Nos. 7397/1/88 and the Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on 21st November 1988 on reform of the Structural Funds, 10025/86 on the activities of the European Regional Development Fund in 1985, 10308/87 on the activities of the Fund in 1986, 6969/87 on the application of the European Regional Development Fund Regulation, 7002/87 on the social and economic situation of the regions of the Community and COM(88)501 on the future of rural society; supports the Government's aim of maximising receipts from the Funds while ensuring that they are concentrated on the regions and areas of greatest need and disbursed with due financial discipline; and endorses the Government's aim of supporting comprehensive Community consideration of rural issues.
  In introducing this short debate I think it would be sensible for me to make a relatively brief contribution in explaining the documents with which we are concerned and then, if I am able and with the permission of the House, to direct my comments to the points that may be raised during the debate.
  During 1988 the European Community has been conducting a major reform of its three structural funds —the European regional development fund, the European social fund and the guidance section of the European agricultural fund. The reform is due to come into force on 1 January 1989.
  I regret that we have not before now been able to find time to debate the issue in the House. The main part of the negotiation on the four most recent regulations took place during the summer recess. The Community issued its proposals in French on 29 July and by 17 October they were being discussed in the Foreign Affairs Council. That timetable caused particular difficulties for our scrutiny procedure. The present position is that this week's Foreign Affairs Council agreed on the terms of the regulations, but of course subject, in the United Kingdom's case, to a parliamentary scrutiny reservation.
  The principal documents then are the new framework regulation adopted on 24 June—
  Mr. Tony Marlow: My hon. Friend is no doubt more aware than the rest of us of the vast amount of money involved and the vast import of the issue that he is discussing with the House tonight. Could he tell the House—I think it is the case—why it was that the House was not enabled to debate this issue before a common position was agreed with our Community partners? It is very difficult to influence a matter of this importance and magnitude if the Government have already agreed a common position with other Community members. What can the House then do about it?
  Mr. Atkins: I appreciate my hon. Friend's concern, which he represents fairly frequently in the House. In my opening remarks, I endeavoured to explain that much of
  550
  the activity occurred between 29 July and 17 October, when the House was not sitting. That is a particular problem of the scrutiny process. It may be that the authorities of the House will have to consider whether there are easier ways. Clearly, we cannot discuss matters when the House is in recess. That is a fact of life that we have to face.
  Mr. Marlow: This is a vast amount of public money. Was there any rush to get this thing agreed? Would it not have been possible to delay coming to a common position? Do the Government want to steamroller all this stuff through the House? My hon. Friend will be aware of the fact that there is a complaint about a democratic deficit. There is a very significant democratic deficit when it comes to regional policies—policies which the Government in this country have thrown out now being thrust upon us by the European Community, involving vast sums of public money. Why could not the Government delay and bring it to the House before they agreed the common position?
  Mr. Atkins: I am aware, as are many right hon. and hon. Members from all parts of the House, of my hon. Friend's position on European matters. That does not mean that his comment is invalid. I understand his point, but in essence we are asking the House to agree tonight to something that will be to the United Kingdom's benefit. I hope that my hon. Friend understands that it was in the interests of both my Department and those associated with us in arguing the case in Europe to press the case as strongly as we could.
  That does not negate the fact that the scrutiny procedure, to which my hon. Friend and I have both made reference, took place at a time when the House was in recess. That is a fact of life. It may be that my hon. Friend will decide that, in future, he ought not to observe the long parliamentary recess from July to October so that such matters can be discussed. I have tried to make crystal clear the situation. I cannot gainsay the facts, however hard my hon. Friend presses me.
  Mr. Frank Haynes: The Minister is not kidding me. I shall tell him straight. He could have arranged for Parliament to be recalled. He can take the grin off his face. It is very nice for the Government to be doing things during the recess, so that we cannot get at them. Bearing in mind the amount of money involved for the people of this country, the Government should have taken the opportunity to recall Parliament so that the matter could be discussed before any decision was taken.
  Mr. Atkins: The hon. Gentleman flatters me with a power that I did not think I had. It does not fall to me to recall Parliament. If Parliament had been recalled, the hon. Gentleman, like me, would not have found it easy to return, as we would probably have been on our annual holidays. Recalling Parliament to debate such a measure is not as easy as the hon. Gentleman would have us believe. As the debate progresses, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand, as will other right hon. and hon. Members, that much of the concern being expressed is from hon. Members who, quite legitimately and honourably, are opposed to our membership of the European Community.
  Mr. Marlow rose—
  Mr. Atkins: No, I must make progress. A number of right hon. and hon. Gentleman wish to contribute. My hon. Friend has made two pressing interventions, and if he is able to catch Madam Deputy Speaker's eye, I feel sure that he will be able to persuade—
  Mr. Marlow rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. The Minister has made it clear that he will not give way again at this stage.
  Mr. Dennis Skinner: This is taking Father Christmas too far—how much money?
  Mr. Atkins: The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) must wait. He will find out how much money is involved in due course.
  I have indicated the reasons for the problems surrounding the scrutiny procedure. I turn to the documents involved. The principal documents are the new framework regulation adopted on 24 June and the four further regulations that I have mentioned. They comprise one each for the three funds and a horizontal regulation applying to all three.
  Two of the documents before the House, No. 7937/1/88 and the unnumbered one, are the Commission's proposals for these four regulations. These two documents are identical apart from an extra cover sheet on one of them. A third document, COM(88)501, is a Commission paper on the future of rural society. The other three documents before the House are more for background or reference and they are regular Commission reports, all of them now a year or more out of date. One of them, No. 7002/87, was controversial at the time it came out, in June 1987, because of a so-called synthetic index, which attempted to measure the relative severity of different regions' problems and gave some odd results. I can assure the House that that index has had no influence on the subsequent reform of the funds.
  The funds are to be devoted to five objectives set out in the framework regulations. The first objective is promoting the development and structural adjustment of the regions whose development is lagging behind.
  Mr. Skinner: Like Sunderland.
  Mr. Atkins: The second objective is converting the regions seriously affected by industrial decline.
  Mr. Skinner: Like Sunderland.
  Mr. Atkins: The third objective is combating long-term unemployment.
  Mr. Skinner: Sunderland again.
  Mr. Atkins: The fourth objective is combating youth unemployment.
  Mr. Skinner: Sunderland again.
  Mr. Atkins: The fifth objective, with a view to reform of the common agricultural policy, is speeding up the adjustment of agricultural structures and promoting the development of rural areas.
  The administration of the funds will lie in the hands of a former colleague of ours, Mr. Bruce Millan, and his new colleagues in the European Commission. In important cases, we have ensured that the regulations provide that the Commission is to act in agreement with the member
  552
  states or after consulting the three new committees on which member states are to be represented. My right hon. Friends and hon. Friends, Secretaries of State and Ministers, and I will be in constant touch with the Commission throughout the five years the regulations are to run before the next review. I know that hon. Members will not hesitate to get in touch with me, as in the past, if they wish to take up particular points in Brussels. I invite the House to support me in accepting these regulations.
  10.28 pm
  Mr. Richard Caborn: First, I shall express our concern about the lack of consultation that has taken place on this extremely important batch of regulations. For the record, on 19 October the Select Committee on European Legislation strongly recommended that these regulations be brought before the House at the earliest opportunity. The manner in which the Select Committee and, therefore, the House have been treated is nothing less than contemptuous. The work done by the Select Committee in scrutinising European legislation on a weekly basis should, at least, have a little more priority given to it by the Secretary of State. The Opposition, like many others, wish to ensure that Members are consulted, either through the Select Committee or through the House itself.
  Mr. Bowen Wells: On the question of the House having these discussions at an earlier time, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) said that the Committee recommended a debate on 19 October. The Select Committee took up the matter again on 25 November. It was not purely a matter of timing and the House being in recess made it impossible to have the debate. Does the hon. Gentleman agree? Does he also agree that Ministers are in considerable difficulty in bringing these matters before the House, given the current regulations governing the Select Committee? This requires consideration by the House as a whole.
  Mr. Caborn: It is clear from the minutes of 19 October that provision could have been made for this debate to take place in the House before this late hour. This is just about the last opportunity to debate these regulations before they come into operation on 1 January 1989. Provision could have been made earlier. I was a member of the Select Committee and there was always a battle between Ministers about provision for debates on the Floor of the House.
  Before I deal with the main documents—
  Mr. Marlow: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Caborn: No, because many hon. Members with genuine constituency concerns wish to take part in the debate. The hon. Gentleman may want to discuss the constitutional position, but he has plenty of opportunity to do that.
  Before I deal with the regulations, it is only fair that I should put on the record the great fear that is felt around the country, especially in the less developed regions, about 1992 and the Government's attitude to the regions and to what is happening in member states.
  I refer to a document that has been before the Commission, which was commissioned by Cambridge Economic Consultants, suggesting that the effects on individual regions will vary according to location and

  553
  economic characteristics. There is therefore a danger that the already disadvantaged regions will become weaker with "overheating" occurring in those that are already well favoured. That analysis has subsequently been confirmed by the regional policy directorate of the EC in a paper calling for improved infrastructure, increased local development—including the small business sector—and the targeted allocation of the increased EC structural funds. Unlike France, Belgium and many other member states, the United Kingdom Government have published little further research on the parameters for individual region's economic attractiveness and projected sector activity. However, it can be assumed that the direct economic benefits will further accrue to those regions with effective road and rail links to the south-east and the Channel tunnel, thereby widening that discrepancy. That concern is real.
  One conclusion reached by the report of the department of applied economics at the university of Cambridge, entitled "The Regional Impact of Policies Implemented in the Context of Completing the Community's Internal Market by 1992", was:
  "Another important conclusion of this paper is that the regional effects of completing the internal market are likely to intensify the polarisation between regions enjoying cumulative growth and cumulative decline. In addition, market liberalisation could well precipitate certain vulnerable regions into cumulative decline. The implied scale of the problems indicates that regional policy needs to be significantly strengthened. Self-correcting market mechanisms"—
  this is an important point as far as this Government are concerned—
  "have been shown, in the past, to work either inadequately or not at all".
  That view has been put forward by the Commission in the documents that we are considering. Unless the Government take note of those points, there could well be further devastation in many of the northern regions.
  We should consider the lack of regional input over the past five or six years—during which there has been the abolition of the regional grant regime—in the light of yesterday's press conference by the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, the hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Mr. Trippier). Yesterday's edition of The Guardian contained the headline,
  "Minister puts brake on urban aid".
  The article states:
  "In a gentle retreat from the central strand of Mrs. Thatcher's Action for Cities programme, launched six months ago, Mr. Trippier said yesterday it was more important to ensure the existing 10 urban development corporations 'are already up and running and established' than to designate any new UDC areas.
  He was speaking at a Department of Environment press conference, where he launched an annual report on the department's inner cities programmes, which cost more than £500 million a year."
  I ask the Government to consider the fact that about £22 billion has been removed from local government in reductions in the rate support grant since 1979, and that a further £700 million has been taken from the regions with the abolition of regional support grant. Those two factors alone clearly show that in the removal of resources the opportunity to try to effect some type of regeneration, rebuilding and restructuring in those areas has been missed by the Government.
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  The 12th annual report—one of the documents that we are discussing—has tried to develop the integrated operations programme. Page 37 outlines the effects of the integrated regional development operation. There has been co-operation with local authorities. Indeed, there was an announcement today in The Guardian—I gather that it will be in the rest of the press tomorrow—of a £600 million grant to Strathclyde and to Yorkshire and Humberside. That has come about because of the co-operation of the local authorities.
  The same document also refers to the development of the region's endogenous potential. That was dealt with in articles 15, 16 and 27—the only parts of the grant regime that go direct to local authorities. Local authorities got together a package, but there was a delay because the Department of Trade and Industry would not submit to Brussels as there was to be a direct payment to local authorities under article 15.
  There was a crisis meeting in November because the Commission was not prepared to concede that local authorities should be treated differently from national Government. There was a compromise—the three-year package for the whole of the integrated operations development programme would go ahead, but local authorities would be allowed only year one funding.
  That has meant that the business initiative centre that Lord Young opened just a few weeks ago is now in jeopardy for financial reasons. Areas for small and medium-sized businesses that have been established are in jeopardy unless year two and three funding is available. Is the Minister prepared to give a commitment that year two and three funding under article 15 for the integrated operations development programme will be forthcoming?
  It would be wrong of us to encourage small and medium-sized businesses to start using establishments created for them if we know that we shall have to shut them down for lack of funds in years two and three. The Commission has tried to press the Government to accept three-year funding, but because of their dogmatic approach the Government would accept funding only for year one.
  We broadly welcome the more effective and coordinated approach to grant regimes, but there are several areas about which there is anxiety. We also welcome the increase in the structural fund's allocation. Many of us have argued for that for many years.
  Mr. William Cash: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Caborn: No, we have only one and a half hours and several of my hon. Friends want to raise issues that concern their constituencies.
  The package would have been considerably better if the Government had accepted what was proposed in the initial round of discussions, when it was proposed that all the money for structural fund development should be additional. The result would have been about £9 billion for the regions. I suppose that it was in splendid isolation that they fought the battle. We believe that they have now got that figure down to an extra £1 billion.
  There is a consultation document out at the moment on local government in England and Wales entitled "Capital Expenditure and Finance: a Consultation Paper". Page 26, which deals with European regional development fund grants, says:

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  "The Departments have an open mind on the treatment of European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) grants. Local authority expenditure financed by ERDF grants is public expenditure (and such grants are paid for by the UK taxpayer). So at present an authority obtaining ERDF grant do not thereby obtain additional spending power. The present treatment could be mirrored under the new system by treating ERDF grants received as a form of credit, which would require use of a corresponding amount of credit approval. An alternative treatment, however, would be to allow ERDF grants to be a source of both finance and spending power for local authorities receiving them. But the implication of this is that there would be a reduction in the national total available for credit approvals."
  If the first proposition contained in section A.31 of the consultation document were agreed, it would break the agreement that has been reached, under the structural fund arrangement, that additional finances would be additional to the capital spend that has already been determined. If the second proposition were agreed, we could top-slice and the poorer regions would benefit. But a penalty would be paid by the better off regions. The fairer proposition is the second one, but all the advice that I have received is that if the first proposition—to mirror what is happening now—is achieved, the additionality will not be there and the agreement will be broken.
  There is anxiety about the tighter criteria. If the £600 million announced today for Strathclyde and South Yorkshire had been evaluated under the new regime, not so much money would have been available. My hon. Friends the Members for Mansfield (Mr. Meale), for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) and for other south Yorkshire constituencies will be trying to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so that they can talk about the implementation problems that they perceive in their areas. Today I received a document from Yorkshire which, although welcoming the new regime, said that there would be problems in the area.
  Will the Minister confirm a quotation from European Information Service bulletin No. 92? It states:
  "Departments will liaise with the Commission in the selection of areas and they hope that all present Assisted Areas and Urban Programme Areas will qualify."
  We should like to know whether those are the criteria. If they are, it will create difficulties because selective assistance was last revamped in 1984, since when there has been an increase in unemployment and a decline in industrial activity in several places which are neither assisted areas nor urban development areas.
  I hope that the Government will change their attitude to local authorities to one of more co-operation. The changes in the criteria and the more flexible approach to the structural fund make it important to have more co-operation between the localities and central Government. If that does not exist, we shall not gain the advantages that the structural fund could mean, especially for less well off regions.
  Unless the Government take seriously the fair body of opinion about the implementation of the Single European Act and promote some regional policy, instead of leaving the matter simply to market forces, there will inevitably be a further deterioration in the regions. During the next two or three years we have an opportunity to put right some of the problems in the regions so that we can take advantage of the fund, but unless the Government make available the finance, and unless there is confidence that at least a dialogue can begin so that we can remove the
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  Government's dogmatic approach to local government, the northern regions will be unable to take advantage of the new structural fund.
  10.44 pm
  Mr. Bowen Wells: The Minister said that these matters were discussed in Europe during the summer recess and that, therefore, he was unable to bring them before the House. In our correspondence with the Minister's Department, members of the Select Committee on European Legislation stated as early as 19 October that these matters would require debate. The Minister's reply was that he could not recommend a debate, because no common position had been arrived at in European Community Ministers' meetings.
  That brings me to the point of which the House should take note. Ministers believe that they cannot bring to the attention of the House serious matters that are being discussed in Europe and the various arguments and debates that are going on before a common position is reached. That common position must then be referred to the European Parliament for comment and amendment. It is referred back to the Council of Ministers, who adopt it, and it is then presented to the House. The Minister and his Department have found themselves in that difficulty tonight. The Greek president wanted the matter to be adopted on 1 January this year. According to advice from the Department of Trade and Industry, it would be to the advantage of the country if it were so adopted. The programme was accelerated at the last minute. The result is that hon. Members are here tonight, within 24 hours of the House rising for Christmas, discussing this extremely important matter.
  The House, let alone the country, has not been able to absorb what these matters involve. Hon. Members must read a large number of documents available from the Vote Office to enable them to understand what is being proposed. We must co-operate with Ministers and understand their difficulties in bringing these matters before the House before Ministers agree them in the European Community. That is an important matter.
  Sir Hal Miller (Bromsgrove): It is a most important point. Not only are these matters before the House this evening—unlike some of my colleagues, I speak from a pro-European stance—but we are at a real disadvantage. We do not officially know what is proposed by the Commission in Brussels. A matter goes to the Council of Ministers, there is a political exchange, and positions are set as a result of negotiations. It is then too late for us effectively to influence it. Apart from our influence tonight, that has serious implications for businesses and firms that have new regulations and standards. Back Bench hon. Members have no means of being able to alert our constituents to what is going on or to bring pressure to bear on Ministers before they take a decision.
  Mr. Wells: My hon. Friend is entirely right. That is the point that I have been trying to make. The House must take it seriously and help Ministers to bring such matters before it before decisions are made. We are discussing a regulation that has been agreed. There is nothing that the Minister can do to alter it.
  I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) on apparently doing a great deal of

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  homework to understand some of the implications of the measure. The guidance from the clerks to the Select Committee on European Legislation states:
  "It is very difficult to assess the full implications of this proposal in the absence of the complete text."
  That is our position. It is not good for Europe or the House, and it is certainly not good for our constituents.
  It seems that we are getting co-ordination on a series of structural adjustment measures.
  Mr. Marlow: There is just one other point I would like to put to my hon. Friend. The letter from the Department states:
  "In view of the extent of the implementing powers that the Commission proposes for itself and in the absence of the supplementary proposals … it is not yet possible to assess fully all the policy implications."
  Here we are stuck with the wretched thing. There is nothing we can do to influence it. We do not even know what it is. The Government do not know what it is.
  Mr. Wells: I endorse what my hon. Friend said. It is a matter of genuine regret for the Minister as well as the House.
  This appears to be a co-ordination measure which will target areas of deprivation which need help from the European fund. That is to be welcomed. The Minister said that it would be to the advantage of the United Kingdom. When he replies, will he tell us how it will advantage us? What sort of sums of money can we expect? Why was he anxious to agree the measure and why did he agree it? He has not had time to tell us even that and I am sure that both the House and the country want to hear about that.
  How will these matters be administered? Who makes the applications? How is it determined in Britain and how is it determined in Brussels? How can we tell people who stand to gain from this measure how they are to find out the details which clearly the House lacks tonight?
  10.50 pm
  Mr. Joe Ashton: make no apology for highlighting the unique position of my constituency—the only Labour constituency which does not receive any rate support grant. Of 18 councils which do not receive rate support grant, 17 are Conservative in the rolling hills of Surrey, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire or where the wealth is, and the other one is Bassetlaw.
  Bassetlaw does not have assisted area status. It used to, but it was taken away. Yet we have massive unemployment. That is peculiar. We used to get £3·8 million in rate support grant in 1977, but now we get nothing. Yet we have few new industries. Because we have three pits and three power stations, the Government say that we have sufficient rates from industry.
  The industries provide us with pollution, slag heaps, heavy lorries, acid rain and everything else associated with them. Nottingham county council takes 85 per cent. of industrial rates, leaving Bassetlaw district council, which is 45 miles from Nottingham and has all the aggravation of the industry, with 15 per cent. That stops us getting rate support grant.
  Out of 633 constituencies, 606 have a better employment rate than we have in Bassetlaw. We are at the bottom of the fourth division for new jobs. Our council is not loony Left of even Labour-controlled—it is a hung
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  council. [Interruption.] It is a Labour-controlled council, but Labour does not have a majority. There is no silly spending. We are not being punished for daft spending. We do not throw money away on daft items. The committees meet in the evening. It is a solid, responsible council which went to Brussels to get extra cash and which has been lobbying the Minister and doing its best to rectify the position. Yet everywhere we turn, help is removed. In 1980, assisted area status was removed and rate support grant has dwindled to nothing. Yet we have one of the highest rates of unemployment in Britain.
  Mr. Alan Meale: Does my hon. Friend accept that part of his constituency comes under Mansfield district council, which is a solid Labour council? [HON. MEMBERS: "Loony Left."] It is certainly not loony Left. It does not waste money either. It, too, has been involved in trips to Brussels. It is losing businesses because of its lack of assisted area status. Large firms are leaving to go to areas with assisted area status.
  Mr. Ashton: My hon. Friend is right.
  Only 10 constituencies in England have a worse unemployment rate than Bassetlaw. Three are in the same county as Bassetlaw—Nottinghamshire—and one is next door in Derbyshire. Unemployment is dire. In the largest town in the constituency there is 14·7 per cent. male unemployment. There is nearly 8 per cent. female unemployment. The percentage has fallen slightly because of part-time jobs in retail shops which have recently been constructed—there is a large Co-op and a large Tesco—and in parts of the food industry. About 20 per cent. of all the workers in the area are employed in the declining industries of coal and textiles. A third of the unemployed are under 25 years of age, despite the Government's training schemes, for which there is no lack of applications. Half the unemployed have been in that position for 12 months or longer.
  The Minister read out the criteria set by the EEC and drew attention to the five clauses to be satisfied. The House should understand that Bassetlaw has the third highest unemployment rate in the east midlands, although I accept that the rate in Mansfield is slightly higher. The rate in Skegness is also higher, but that is seasonal. It is higher in the winter and lower in the summer. If we exclude the Northern Ireland constituencies, Bassetlaw and Mansfield have some of the worst rates of unemployment among the remaining 633 constituencies. There are few constituencies with worse rates.
  Unemployment has fallen nationally by 15 per cent. in the past year, but by only 5 per cent. in my constituency. With the declining coal and textile industries, there are real fears for the long term. Over the past few years the east midlands, the area within which Bassetlaw falls, has received only 0·6 per cent. of the development grants paid by the Common Market. Mansfield and Bassetlaw are on the fringes of the south Yorkshire steel and coal belt, but as the constituencies are within Nottinghamshire and the east midlands they lose practically everything that is available.
  The anomalies stemming from assisted area status are well known to the Minister. Many of the areas that enjoy that status have far lower rates of unemployment than Mansfield and Bassetlaw. The Minister has stated—he may have had valid reasons for so doing—that he will not engage in a redistribution of assisted area status until after

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  the next general election. Those who live in Bassetlaw and Mansfield receive nothing from the Government and will be left to struggle because of the anomalies within the present system.
  That means that we have a good claim for Common Market cash. Indeed, the Minister has put Bassetlaw on the list of areas that he recommends should receive the cash. The Common Market will say, however, "If your own Government do not give you any money, why should we?" That is what it will throw at us. Bassetlaw will be competing with Greece, Portugal, Ireland, the bottom half of Italy and the French islands in the Caribbean for Common Market cash.
  We have heard about the second objective of the new rules and the list to be formulated, but nothing has been said about how the list, or league table, will be drawn. Will the assisted areas be at the top of the list? Will areas such as Bassetlaw be at the top? What sort of ranking will there be?
  My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn), speaking from the Opposition Front Bench, talked about additionality. The Common Market has made it clear that there must be additional money, not substitution money, and I have the feeling that if the Government are giving nothing the Common Market will also give nothing. In effect, there will be a pound for a pound. I accept that rate support grant is Government support, but if the Common Market determines that it will provide cash only for areas receiving Government support poor old Bassetlaw will fall between two stools—it does not have assisted area status and it does not receive RSG. Yet 90 per cent. of other constituencies enjoy a better employment rate and better employment prospects. There is a massive anomaly.
  I hope that the Minister will tell us what additionality is. The EEC document says:
  "The money must be genuinely concentrated on geographical areas most seriously affected."
  On any geographical or statistical basis, on any criterion of youth unemployment or long-term unemployment that the Minister lays down, my constituency must be counted as such an area—unless there is an additionality factor. Will the Minister explain the principle behind the idea of "additional to", as opposed to "not a substitution for"? How will that apply to constituencies such as mine, and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale)? This is a glaring loophole, and it means a great deal to us. I hope that the Minister will meet a deputation from my constituency to explain the issue.
  11.2 pm
  Mr. Christopher Gill: Before discussing the structural funds, I want to comment on the presentation and accuracy of the documents before us tonight. In my copies, some pages are duplicated, others are missing and the reference numbers do not tally. Earlier this afternoon, the House heard my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) draw Mr. Speaker's attention to the fact that an important document from the Community Court of Auditors was not available. That gives us great cause for concern.
  This nation is now in Europe and destined to stay there. It is high time we got one or two things straight—not only the paperwork, but the importance that the Government attach to European matters in the parliamentary timetable, the importance generally attached to European
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  matters and our general relationship with European institutions, including the European Parliament and its Members.
  For 15 years, I have had only one reservation about Britain in Europe: whether we shall go into the Community with a will and determination to succeed. I can see no benefit in entering the Community unless we play to win. We are all well aware that the stakes are high, so it is important to play to win. My reservation—my fear—is in no way allayed by some of the antics of the House or some of the utterances of hon. Members.
  The United Kingdom must play a full part in Europe by taking the lead in its counsels, by making it the sort of community we want to live in and, not least, by getting the best deal from it that we can for the people of these islands. The alternatives do not bear contemplation: isolationism and the worst of all worlds, socially and commercially.
  Some hon. Members will have heard me say before that I think the structural funds are a lottery. They are cash-limited; it follows that not all projects will be treated even-handedly. I have also referred to the funds as a roundabout. Money is taken from us, the taxpayers, and ultimately remitted to Brussels. Then the big shuffle starts, and we all get involved in trying to get the money back again.
  Another aspect about the funds that worries me is that they are wide open to abuse—or rather, corruption. They lead to the sort of headlines that we have seen in the press in the last seven days, such as, "Traders print money" and "A crop of fraud". The hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who left his accustomed place a moment ago, spoke about the scandal, of which we are becoming increasingly aware, of the trade in beef in the Community. Sadly, we do not know enough about that because it was dealt with in the document that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East was unable to obtain in the Vote Office.
  Mr. Roger Knapman: Is my hon. Friend aware that, this year and for many years past, tens of thousands of tonnes of corn come across from France, are unloaded in the south Devon ports, stored and taken within a few days to Southampton and re-exported to France? Who benefits from all this activity?
  Mr. Gill: My hon. Friend asks a good question. The British farmer does not benefit; nor does the producer on the other side of the Channel. The consumer does not benefit either. In such cases. the actions of middlemen or traders do the trade in the products a great disservice and bring the trade and the bona fide traders into disrepute. As my hon. Friend knows, we currently spend no less than £12·5 billion per annum on the storage and disposal of surplus crops and agricultural produce. None of that benefits the producer.
  Quite apart from the structural funds being open to abuse, a sheer administrative nightmare is created. The Public Accounts Committee recently heard evidence from the Intervention Board for Agricultural Produce about refunds to British exporters which are up to 12 months in arrears. The board gave computer problems as a reason or explanation for the delay. That is a lame excuse and perhaps it warrants further inspection.
  My next point is allied to the structural funds. We are 10 days from the end of the year and our beef farmers have just learned that the scheme that they expected to end on

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  31 December will continue until 5 March. Hon. Members cannot dispute the fact that, administratively, there is much to be desired in the workings of the European Community. On a positive note, we can help to build a much better future in Europe. That is important, and our people need to understand it. We are in Europe, and we have to get the best terms.
  Mr. Meale: The hon. Gentleman talks about understanding. Perhaps he would reflect on what he has said so far to see whether it had anything to do with the structural funds. Will he get to the point and deal with structural funds? He has already used up much time, so perhaps he will now let us have his thoughts on the subject under debate so that we can hear other hon. Members.
  Mr. Gill: I am pleased to reply to the hon. Gentleman and give him my views on the structural funds. They have a low priority in terms of achieving what we expect and need to achieve in the European Community. The top priority is a market in which there are no fiscal, technical or practical barriers. That is the goal. From that, all else flows. The structural funds do not form part of these priorities. I suggest that they work against them.
  We must not put our trust in the ideologues and Eurocrats. We must have faith and confidence in the individual, who will unfailingly adjust to changing circumstances and new opportunities and meet the challenges of tomorrow rather than those of yesterday. The sum of individual human endeavour will give us a better, more permanent and useful result than anything devised by Governments or bureaucracies. Our job as politicians is to create a climate in which the legitimate aspirations of individual citizens can flourish, to the benefit of themselves, their families and their countries.
  I support the Government's pragmatic approach. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to heed my warnings about the structural funds, not least because I for one am sceptical that when the Government talk about ensuring that the funds are concentrated on the regions in greatest need, that means the United Kingdom. On that point, I have the gravest doubts.
  11.11 pm
  Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse: The House would do well to accept that we are in Europe. Whether we lump it or like it, the documents show some of the results. We must get the best possible deals. It is no good arguing that we have paid our money and then go begging it back.
  I should like to refer to regional funds. On 29 November, in an Adjournment debate, I put the case for Wakefield metropolitan district council. I am worried about those hard-hit areas which are not included in the travel-to-work areas which attract assisted area status. I shall not put Wakefield's case at length because it has been well documented in the House. But Wakefield district is a prime example of traditional industry in decline. Until recently, the major industry was coal mining. Only five pits are left, employing 4,000 miners. Only four years ago there were 16 pits, employing 15,000 miners. Few jobs have replaced them, so the district's two travel-to-work areas have the highest unemployment in west Yorkshire. Unemployment is higher than in many assisted areas. A
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  written answer on 25 November revealed that there are 17 intermediate areas with lower unemployment than the Wakefield and Dewsbury travel-to-work area and 35 intermediate areas with lower unemployment than the Castleford and Pontefract travel-to-work area.
  In the Adjournment debate on 29 November, the Minister was good enough to confirm that west Yorkshire met the criteria for objective 2. But will the European Commission select the most severely affected parts of west Yorkshire? My main worry is that the Commission will decide that only assisted areas will be eligible. If the Commission decides that only areas that have qualified for assisted status will be acknowledged as eligible for aid from the regional development fund, areas with unemployment and industrial decline levels that are not nearly as bad as the areas to which I have referred may attract grants. If that is so, the regional fund will not work fairly. I am aware that the Government have included Wakefield on the list which they have presented to the Commission. However, we are not aware at this stage whether that full list will attract regional development funds. If it does not, the areas to which I have referred will fare badly.
  After the Adjournment debate, the Minister kindly wrote to me suggesting that the Commission may stick to its original decision, and will consider areas outside those that attract assisted area status. One hopes that at the end of the day that will be so. I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying that issue.
  The Government have proposed Wakefield as an objective 2 area. I understand that the Government first sent their proposed list of objective 2 areas to the European Commission in a letter of 19 July. Would the Minister be willing to place a copy of that letter in the Library? I hope that he will be able to tell us in his reply.
  The Minister's letter referred to a meeting in Leeds between one of his officials and officers of the five west Yorkshire district councils. At that meeting, it was suggested that in January the Commission would once again ask Member states to nominate the most seriously affected parts of eligible counties. If the Government resubmit their list, will Wakefield still be included?
  The regulations set a timetable for the next stage. The Government must submit regional plans to the European Commission by the end of March. If the objective 2 list is not finalised until the end of January, there will be only two months in which to submit the regional plans.
  The European Commission has allowed itself a little longer in which to respond to the regional plans. It will have six months in which to draft a community support framework. That framework will determine what measures can be financed by the European funds and how much will be set aside for each operation. It is only when the community support framework has been completed that decisions on measures can be taken, which is not until the end of September 1989.
  Little time is available to draw up the regional plans, but the plans will be the key to obtaining European funds over the next three years. It is vital to an area such as Wakefield that the regional plan takes account of the programme drawn up by the local council and local industry. Will the regional plan for Yorkshire and Humberside take the Wakefield programme into account? I hope that the Minister will give a commitment that all interested local authorities will be consulted on the drafting of regional plans.

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  The regulations refer to a partnership between local authorities, the Government and the European Commission. If that partnership is to be effective, local authorities must be involved in drawing up the plans.
  I have previously drawn the Minister's attention to the programme for the regeneration of the Wakefield district. The district council, together with the chamber of commerce and other local business people, have drawn up an £88 million programme of public investment, designed to stimulate private sector investment in the district. It is summarised in the "Ideas for Action" brochure of which the Minister is aware.
  Is the Minister aware that the regulations allow programmes to be submitted before the community support framework is drawn up? They can even be submitted at the same time as the regional plan. That document was first presented to the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment in May. Discussions have continued between officers of the council and officials of that Department and the Department of Trade and Industry.
  I hope that the Government will back the "Ideas for Action" programme submission to the EC at the earliest opportunity.
  The Wakefield district has suffered greatly as a result of the decline in the coal industry and there is a cast iron case for recognition under objective 2. I do not believe that that claim can be refuted and I am glad that the Minister has not sought to do so.
  The people of Wakefield are ready to help themselves to revive their area. The district council and business community have joined in partnership to devise the "Ideas for Action" programme. They have approached the Commission for funds to implement it. That partnership must include the Government as well as the Commission and that is why, once again, I ask the Minister to back Wakefield.
  11.20 pm
  Mr. John Redwood: I am concerned that the proposal places great stress on giving moneys for objective 1. As I understand the documents, objective 1 would debar England, Scotland and Wales from making successful applications. I would have preferred to see much more stress placed on objective 2 for which we would have some chance of qualifying.
  I am also worried that, in the projected figures, the United Kingdom's recovery from the funds rises from £750 million to £1 billion by 1992. That seems to represent a diminishing proportion of the growing fund and it will make our rebate position more difficult.
  To give the House an idea of the imbalances that the funds will create in moneys distributed around the Community, we can compare Portugal with the EC average. On the basis of the last year for which we have proper figures, Portugal will receive 1·3 per cent. of its gross domestic product in the form of cash from the funds whereas the Community average will be 0·1 per cent. We are talking about a massive transfer of moneys from British taxpayers, and for that matter German and French taxpayers, to Portuguese, Greek and Spanish taxpayers.
  We are also talking about the development of Communitywide programmes such as Star and Valorem, which are of dubious value anyway. It would be far better to liberalise the telecommunications industries than to
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  have the Star programme. Those programmes also exclude England, Scotland and Wales. I would rather that we promoted objective 2, tried to cap the total growth of the funds and asked some fairly tough questions about the use to which those moneys are put.
  I notice, for example, that Spain and Portugal have been receiving, and will continue to receive, subsidy moneys to build up the industries designed to compete against our own. British taxpayers are helping to finance the growth of the furniture, food and engineering industries in Galicia, which will doubtless then compete on a more favourable cost basis against our domestic production. That is against the spirit of the Treaty of Rome, which I welcomed. I welcome the Common Market, I welcome the free open market, I welcome the strongly enforced competition policy, but I do not welcome English or Scottish taxpayers' money being routed to Galicia to compete against us.
  How many of the investments that have been backed by such moneys get into trouble or even go bankrupt? Our experience of that type of force-fed industrial winner picking from Whitehall has been bitter. I wonder whether that experience will be any better if it is directed from Brussels or whether we shall see a lot of money going down the drain in ropey organisations.
  I notice that the Court of Auditors report, which was available in the Library, but not elsewhere, backs those of us who have fears about the way in which some of the moneys have been used. It has said of the structural measures of the regional fund:
  "the Community, for lack of overall accounting documents and implementation reports, does not carry out any follow-up examinations and does not assess the results achieved."
  That is bad enough, but it did some follow-up checks of its own on projects to which regional fund moneys had been applied. It reported:
  "In two thirds of the cases studied, the net utilisation rate of the projects was found to be less than 50 per cent.".
  There is good evidence from the Court of Auditors report that a lot of the money is going into projects that do not work, are unnecessary or are scarcely necessary in the context in which they are established.
  The report considers further examples, but there are too many to cite. One did catch my eye, however, when I read it. The report says:
  "In some cases the work has no related economic development objective."
  Yet that was the criterion for awarding the moneys in the first place and it quoted the example of the Termoli sewage plant in Italy which had received money, but, according to the European Court of Auditors, did not meet the prime criterion.
  As we learn to live with the structural and social funds, I hope that we will learn to ask the tough questions to ensure that the moneys are wisely spent, that not too much money is spent, that no money is wasted and that we edge the criteria away from objective 1 to objective 2. If we do not do that, I do not think that this country will get a fair deal from the funds.
  11.24 pm
  Mrs. Alice Mahon: For once I agree with the hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood): I too would promote objective 2, because I want some of the Halifax ratepayers' money back into my area. We might be

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  in Europe, but it seems to me that some of us are more equal than others when it comes to the Mickey Mouse lottery that Europe appears to be.
  I want to jog the Minister's memory about the fact that I have been in correspondence with him, because the Department of Trade and Industry has not recommended my area for objective 2. When assisted area status was taken from us, we found ourselves—I will not use the over-played term, the "hole in the doughnut"—the hole in the middle of the Polo mint. We are surrounded by areas which have assisted area status, and that has been very damaging to the local economy.
  The Minister very kindly wrote to me to explain why we had not been put forward in negotiations as eligible for objective 2. He wrote:
  "We had to take a wide range of considerations into account. Calderdale is not alone in the country in having to be omitted and it will not be entirely surrounded by eligible areas even if the Commission agrees to all our recommendations, because Pendle in Lancashire is in a similar position."
  We feel slightly betrayed by the Department as a result of
  that explanation. The Minister continued:
  "the average Calderdale unemployment rate over the 3 months April 1985, April 1986 and April 1987, comes just below the EC average when the United Kingdom figures have been harmonised."
  I wrote to the Minister stating:
  "It would be most helpful if you could let me know the basis for this calculation, and most particularly how an allowance for self-employment has been made, when no figures are available below County levels"—
  especially when the figures that are available are notoriously unreliable. I am sure that the Minister will appreciate the importance that we attach to achieving objective 2 status.
  The Minister replied:
  "Calderdale will not be entirely surrounded by eligible areas".
  I replied in my turn:
  "Calderdale has a boundary of around 50 miles, 47·5 miles of this is adjoined by areas that the United Kingdom is putting forward as most seriously affected parts under objective 2. The Calderdale-Pendle boundary"—
  to which the Minister had referred in his letter—
  "is only 2·5 miles long and lies in a remote moorland area."
  In fact, Calderdale will be surrounded by 95 per cent. of areas that qualify under objective 2. We will have to go through the process of relocation again, and our industry will be sucked out.
  Some of us are suffering under the peculiar logic upon which the funding is based. Will the Minister consider my specific points, because we are seriously disadvantaged? We believe that we will suffer in future, in particular in the textile industry, because things may happen over which we have no control. We desperately need the money, and we want some of our money back.
  11.29 pm
  Mr. William Cash: About one year ago, I served on the Committee considering the Bill that led to the abolition of regional grants. Having spent many days in Committee on the Regional Development Grants (Termination) Bill, I find myself late at night considering a remarkable change in direction. To put that, and the social engineering that I believe lies at the heart of this measure, in perspective, the House may like to know that the amount involved will be £8,500 million in 1992. I have
  566
  the 1986 Community budget figure, and if one calculates from the documents what percentage that £8,500 million will represent of the Community budget in 1992, converted into ecu, the figure is 13,000 million ecu from a total Community budget of about 35,000 million ecu.
  That is an indication of the increased amount of money being made available. My hon. Friends have made the point about scrutiny that I have made repeatedly over the past few years. It is difficult to understand why we find ourselves dealing with matters of such dramatic importance to the United Kingdom so late at night.
  The report reveals that, effectively, the money will go to Greece, the mezzogiorno, Portugal, large parts of Spain, and so on—along with the French overseas departments. Those are the areas regarded as most requiring the money. Against the background of the Court of Auditors' report, to which reference has also been made, that matter needs to be carefully examined, and it is one over which a much greater degree of not only scrutiny but control is required.
  Recently, members of the Select Committee on European Legislation visited Naples, to whose sewage plant reference has been made. We saw it—it was absolutely chaotic. It did not work, and money was being wasted like the sewage the plant is supposed to treat. It is scandalous that large amounts of British taxpayers' money is being spent on such projects.
  I say, not as any kind of anti-European gesture, that it is in the interests of the Community as a whole, and of the United Kingdom as an integral part of it, that we sort out the way in which funds are being spent, that we maintain proper control, and that we ensure that the British taxpayer receives good value for money. As I wish to be brief, that is all I shall say tonight—but much more could be said.
  11.32 pm
  Mr. Tony Marlow: I am very happy to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Cash), and I agree with every word that he said.
  My hon. Friend the Minister said something about my attitude to Europe. I put it to my hon. Friend that he does not really know what my attitude to Europe is. The reason why I made the intervention that I did was that I have quite a strong attitude towards democracy. The way that this matter is being handled is shameful in democratic terms. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford has just said—and I am not blaming the Government or my hon. Friend for this—that this concerns in 1992, in today's money, 13,000 million ecu. That is knocking on for 40 per cent. of Community expenditure. And here we are, nine days, or whatever it is, before 1 January, when it comes into effect, and the die has been cast and the decisions have been taken. Here we are, for one and one half hours late at night, before we disappear for Christmas, almost on the nod, looking at this highly complex and highly important issue.
  It really is a massive democratic deficit. What are we talking about? As my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) has said, we are talking about regional policy. Big chance in regional policy? We would have a massive statement, followed by a full-day debate. Our view of regional policy in the Conservative party is totally different from the obscure, Socialist view of the Community. And yet up with it we are having to put at this time of night.

  567
  It is talking about urban policy. We have a totally different view on urban policy from the rest of the European Community. It is talking about combating long-term unemployment. Our views as a Conservative Government in this country are very different from those of the other European Community countries.
  Let us look at it. Supposing that by stupid economic policies in other European Community countries there is a vast increase in long-term unemployment, that means that those Community countries would get a bigger slice of the cake. So the less efficient their Government, the more disasters they have within their own economies, the more we have to fork out as a result of these policies we are discussing tonight. Reinforcing failure—that is what it is about.
  Fourthly,
  "facilitating the occupational integration of young people".
  I am not quite sure what that gobbledegook means. Obviously, if you have failures in the education system of Greece and Italy, they are going to require more of this bunce that is going around at the moment—again, reinforcing failure. Other people fail, we cough up the money.
  My hon. Friend the Minister has said that we have got to take all this on the nod and accept it because it is good for Britain. Who says it is good for Britain? The Government say it is good for Britain. That is not what democracy is about. Democracy is about Parliament deciding what is good for Britain—and Parliament, Madam Deputy Speaker, has not got an earthly. We have not had a chance.
  When should we debate it? Well, is it good for Britain? My hon. Friend the Minister has said it is good for Britain. Although, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham has said, today we get 15 per cent. of the European regional and social funds, in 1992 we shall get less than 12 per cent. I suppose that is good for Britain, but I cannot work it out, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I dare say you cannot. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister will explain to us later on how a reduction of 3 per cent. in our share is actually of benefit to Britain. I look forward to hearing that.
  So when are we going to debate these vital and important issues? I ask my hon. Friend, can we debate it before a common position is agreed—because if we do not debate it before a common position is agreed, what chance have we got of influencing it? If a common position is agreed, then it goes before the European Parliament. If the European Parliament does not change that common position, it does not come back to this House again. If the European Parliament does change the common position and it then comes back to the House and we debate it—it having been changed by the European Parliament—at that late stage, what chance have we got of changing these massive, significant and important issues that we are debating tonight?
  If I ask my hon. Friend one question this evening, what I want to do is to enlist his support—he has my right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary sitting alongside him—as he, I know, is desperately concerned about the democratic deficit and desperately concerned about democracy. Will he, having spoken to my right hon. Friend, give the House an undertaking that in future with important, significant issues like this the House will have an opportunity to debate them before the common position has been taken up?
  11.38 pm
  Mr. Atkins: With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker. One point that I have learnt since I have been involved with these regional funds is that every hon. Member—or almost every hon. Member—does as I would do, were I still on the Back Benches, and put the case strongly for their constituency or borough in wanting more money, whether from the Government or Europe. That is entirely fair and we would all uphold it. But the problem is that, as a Department, we must consider those requests across the board and make our choice of priorities.
  One reason that we took so long originally in plotting the map of assisted areas and development areas, leading up to 1984—as hon. Members who were here at the time will recall—was the vast number of representations. One reason that we do not want to change the map too easily is the amount of effort that would be needed and problems that it would cause, especially in terms of stability and continuity for businesses, local authorities and—dare I say it—hon. Members, as well as their constituents. So we hold to the decision not to change the map before a general election, although that inevitably poses some difficulties.
  Opposition Members—and some Conservative Members—have raised their concerns. The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) made the case for Bassetlaw in his inimitable way—a case with which I have considerable sympathy. He would not expect me to say this evening that I can wave a magic wand, but I hear what he says. I should be delighted to receive a delegation. We do it all the time. I shall be happy to hear what the hon. Gentleman has to say, because people take a lot of trouble over such matters, normally across the party divide. I shall be happy to do that, and we can make the necessary arrangements in the new year if he would like that.
  Mr. Ashton: Would it be possible for my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) to be included?
  Mr. Atkins: Of course—whoever is appropriate in the circumstances. Provided that we can fit them all into a room at the Department of Trade and Industry, I shall be more than happy to see them.
  The hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs. Mahon) will not be surprised to learn that, in addition to her representations, my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Mr. Thompson) has made his case in his own inimitable way—not only for his own area but, as the hon. Lady will be pleased to know, for hers as well—because he recognises the problems. The hon. Lady has written to me again, but because of the post we may' be a little behind. I shall certainly make every effort to reply to her and to answer some of the questions that she has raised.
  That applies to several of the questions that have been asked. The hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) and I had a delightful Adjournment debate the other evening when he waved booklets at me, and I did the same back at him. I have told him that I will do all I can. However, as I said at the beginning, it is not up to me to pick priorities like that. Wakefield has a case, and it will be pressed as strongly as we can within the context. That is as I suggested to him in that debate.
  Mr. Caborn: To clarify the position, I referred to European bulletin No. 92, which said that the criteria to be used by the Minister's Department were based on assisted

  569
  area status and the urban grant areas. Is the Minister now saying that there will be a criterion outside those two areas that will be considered for submission for the new grant regimes from the Community?
  Mr. Atkins: The hon. Gentleman should be aware that, as I told his hon. Friend the Member for Pontefract and Castleford in our recent Adjournment debate, we are putting in one or two areas over and above the assisted areas—let us call them non-assisted areas—for consideration. Several hon. Members of all parties have pressed cases for individual constituencies or boroughs. From that point of view, yes, the report was grossly exaggerated.
  Several technical questions arose. I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) who made, as I would have expected, a speech that raised several important questions, as did one or two of my other hon. Friends, who spoke about the difficulties of dealing with such matters late at night and near to Christmas. These matters are important to the country and I understand the views of my hon. Friends, whatever their position on membership of the European Community. My right hon. Friend the Patronage Secretary has heard those views, as have other colleagues. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has stated that the matter concerns him also. We shall devote some thought to how best we at the Department of Trade and Industry can help.
  Mr. Nigel Spearing: I am grateful that the Minister has mentioned his Department. Will he not reconsider what he said at the beginning of the debate? Although there were difficulties over the summer recess, the Minister can look to the Official Report and see that last Thursday the Leader of the House said that he would have to take action in order for this debate to take place. Will the Minister give an undertaking that his Department will try to secure debates, or let the House authorities know that they should take place, before the common position is decided?
  Mr. Atkins: Whenever the hon. Gentleman writes to me or to anyone else about European legislation, we always take him seriously. We would not wish to be at odds with him or his Committee, which plays such a valuable part in such matters. I promise the hon. Gentleman that we shall endeavour to ensure that the difficulties that we have experienced over these regulations do not arise again, if it is within our power to do so. I understand the hon. Gentleman's concerns. He will know from our letters and from the comments that I made earlier that this is not a situation that we enjoy, and that we shall try to make sure that it does not happen again.
  570
  The hon. Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) asked a question about additionality. As he said, the Government are considering the future treatment of local government capital receipts. I note his preference for the second alternative in the Green Paper. My colleagues at the Department of the Environment and the Welsh Office will make a statement in due course—I cannot say when, but it will sooner rather than later.
  The hon. Gentleman raised another point about article 15. He has asked the same question before, and he will receive the same answer, which is that we shall consider possible further applications in the light of the progress that we make with the schemes and with the regulations. We do not have a closed mind on the issue. I understand his point, and it is sensible, but I cannot be drawn on how we will proceed. I ask him to believe that we do not have a closed mind on the matter. We recognise the strength of some of the schemes and hope that we will be able to proceed with them.
  This has been a wide-ranging debate, in which key questions have been asked. It would be invidious for me to try to answer all of them now. If, as is certainly the case, I have not dealt with all of them, I shall endeavour to write to hon. Members, just as I did to the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford after his recent Adjournment debate. I ask the House to join me in support of the motion.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That this House takes note of European Community Documents Nos. 7397/1/88 and the Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on 21st November 1988 on reform of the Structural Funds, 10025/86 on the activities of the European Regional Development Fund in 1985, 10308/87 on the activities of the Fund in 1986, 6969/87 on the application of the European Regional Development Fund Regulation, 7002/87 on the social and economic situation of the regions of the Community and COM(88)501 on the future of rural society; supports the Government's aim of maximising receipts from the Funds while ensuring that they are concentrated on the regions and areas of greatest need and disbursed with due financial discipline; and endorses the Government's aim of supporting comprehensive Community consideration of rural issues.

  STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c
  Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &c.).

  Housing
  That the draft Grants by Local Housing Authorities (Appropriate Percentage and Exchequer Contributions) Order 1989, which was laid before this House on 8th December, be approved.—[Mr. Dorrell]
  Question agreed to.

  PETITION

    Stansted Airport (Aircraft Movements)
    11.45 pm
    Mr. Bowen Wells: I have the honour to present a petition on behalf of my constituents. Its main purpose is to pray the Secretary of State for Transport to alter the routes of aircraft leaving and arriving at Stansted airport, so that built-up areas such as Little Hadham and other villages are avoided as far as possible.
    The matter is causing grave disturbance to my constituents. I should like to add to their petition that, at present, no mechanism is installed at Stansted airport to monitor the departure and arrival routes of aircraft to ensure that they follow the laid-down routes. That is a grave omission by the Civil Aviation Authority and the British Airports Authority, and I ask the Department of Transport to take measures immediately to put it right, so that the annoyances are reduced to the absolute minimum.
    The petition ends in the customary way with the words:
    Your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
    It is signed by John Merrillian Smith of Camlet, Albury road, Little Hadham, and 160 or so others.

  Nurse Grading (Greater Glasgow)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Dorrell.]
  11.47 pm
  Mr. Sam Galbraith: I welcome the fact that all concerned in the dispute in the Greater Glasgow health board are now getting round the negotiating table. We should not, however, let that distract us from examining why the dispute arose and who was responsible for it.
  We are not here to debate definitions of "continuing responsibility" or "supervision". Like the Minister, I accept that there is a national dispute in which health boards, quite properly, cannot be involved. I also accept that there always were going to be nurses who would be unhappy with their grading. I also accept that there are many who have benefited considerably. If the Minister's brief deals with those issues, I suggest that he puts it aside as there is no dispute between us on these matters.
  What we want to debate is not the national dispute but the regrading "shambles" at Greater Glasgow health board, which everyone now accepts was totally out of line with the results of every other health board in the country. While, for example, most health boards put 60 per cent. to 70 per cent. of their ward sisters on a G grade, Greater Glasgow health board had half that number—30 per cent. I accept that absolute comparisons cannot be made, but whatever the differences—there are reasons for differences between boards; they will not all be the same—I am sure that the Minister agrees that the difficulties should not be as big as 30 per cent.
  Why was there such a huge discrepancy, which has continued the downward spiral of morale and despair in the health board area? I believe that it is due to a combination of incompetence and indifference, fuelled by a drive for cheapness that pervades the health board from top to bottom. No one can escape the blame, and I am surprised that the Minister—who is normally free with his condemnation—has been so remarkably silent on this case.
  Before considering the events in detail, may I tell the Minister that I was forewarned of what was likely to happen. Several senior members of the Health Service in Scotland, centrally involved with the implementation of the gradings, told me that what Greater Glasgow health board was doing was a disgrace. Those people are closer to the Minister than they are to me, so he must have been aware of the problem. Why did he not step in sooner to rectify the position? Why did he wait until the shambles had broken? The Minister bears some responsibility, too.
  The gradings were announced on 11 November, one day after the Govan by-election. Paid-up members of the conspiracy theory would make great play of that, but I shall pass over it for the moment. I was prepared for some dissatisfaction, but not for the overwhelming anger that followed the gradings. Rather than going round stirring up trouble, the trade unions were trying to keep it as low as possible. I attended many meetings where union representatives, especially those from the Royal College of Nursing, were taken to task by their members and told that they had better adopt a more positive and militant approach.

  573
  Instead of responding to what was clearly a shambolic injustice, Greater Glasgow health board compounded its error when it said in a press release on Monday 14 November:
  "We are completely satisfied that the gradings have been awarded fairly and that the decisions were taken by professionals. Any apparent anomalies can be accounted for quite simply."
  That is a sign of the board's utter incompetence on this matter. Not only did the board get it wrong in the first place, but it then refused to admit it. The phrase "any apparent anomalies" means no sister in a theatre suite getting a G grade, no maternity sister in a labour suite getting a G grade and some single ward sisters being given an F grade. They were not apparent anomalies; they were anomalies. We are here tonight to try to discover why they occurred.
  On 14 November, the general manager said that he was happy that a "professional and fair" clinical grading exercise had been carried out. Clearly, the Minister was not, because on 16 November he met representatives of the RCN and the Royal College of Midwives and, in what for him was a fairly reticent interview, he hung out the Greater Glasgow health board to dry. I imagine that the telephones were buzzing, because by the following morning, without any appeals, suddenly the apparent anomaly that had resulted in all sisters in operating suites being given F grades was rectified. Suddenly this "fair" clinical grading exercise was crumbling.
  Perhaps the sudden turnround was also because I and my colleagues were due to meet representatives of the health board that day. At that meeting, we were amazed by their ignorance of the regrading, although the complacency and contempt that they usually display and that got them into trouble in the first place was missing.
  At that meeting we raised with the board what the Minister will agree was the crux of the dispute—the Nick Gurney letter from the Department of Health on 18 August 1988, especially the last paragraph on the second page, which concerns the grading of sisters who work in accident and emergency departments, theatres, delivery suites and intensive care units, including neonatal units. It states:
  "We would expect a significant proportion of such sisters to be graded at G or above."
  When we asked health board representatives about the letter, their initial response was that they knew nothing of it. Then they admitted that they knew something about it, but it did not apply to Scotland. But when we pushed them a dispute arose among the members present as to whether it applied to Scotland. I know for a fact that health boards were instructed on this matter by the Department, yet the Greater Glasgow health board chose to ignore those instructions. Perhaps the Minister will let us know why.
  Evasions and half truths from the Greater Glasgow health board are unacceptable. The general manager then stepped in to tell us that the letter was to trade unions and not to health boards. I disabused him of that, and I am sure that the Minister has done likewise. I am sure also that he will agree that his ignorance and incompetence in this matter are breathtaking.
  The Greater Glasgow health board officials then met representatives of the Royal College of Nursing and the midwives in London on 22 November, following which,
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  without recourse to normal appeals procedures, major concessions were made, mostly relating to the G2 classification contained in the Gurney letter. The apparent anomalies that were originally talked about, which could be accounted for quite simply, were reversed.
  Although the issue over the Gurney letter was clearly incompetence by the Greater Glasgow health board, there is a more sinister element in this dispute, which brings me back to what I was told by those close to the Minister—that what Greater Glasgow health board was trying to do was a disgrace, because it was trying to make the exercise as cheap as possible. In other words, it was finance-led.
  The Minister will have been apprised of the minute from the health board of 28 June 1988, item 73, headed "Clinical Grading Review", which states:
  "… the General Manager explained that until such time as the Scottish Home and Health Department advise of the financial parameters within which the Board should carry out the review, no substantive progress could be made with the Review."
  Why could no progress be made? I can interpret that passage in no other way than that the whole exercise was to be finance-led. If not, why wait to see how much money the health board was being given? Incidentally, it also seems that Greater Glasgow health board did not believe the Minister's assurances on funding. As the Minister will remember, on three separate occasions beginning in May, he reassured me that the award would be fully funded. Clearly Mr. Laurence Peterken did not believe him.
  The cynical delay, waiting for the "financial parameters", then led to a rushed exercise which has further contributed to the shambles and once again confirms my charge of incompetence.
  I am sure that the Minister will agree—he has implicitly accepted it by his actions of 16 November, when he met the royal colleges—that Greater Glasgow health board has managed this whole affair badly. It has been a mixture of meanness, incompetence, evasion, with a not inconsiderable ingredient of spite.
  It is symptomatic of the working of the board. It is a board in which management does not ignore advice, it simply never asks for it. It has a management totally isolated from its staff, closeted in distant offices, paralysed and unable to make decisions other than those related to financial cuts. In Glasgow we do not ask what the decision will be; we ask when, if ever, it will be made. It has produced a health board of low morale and accumulated despair which lacks any sense of direction. I fear the solutions to it will have to be drastic, and I shall return to them in the new year.
  Meanwhile, I ask the Minister to set up a full inquiry into the running of Greater Glasgow health board that will take as its starting point the nurses' regrading.
  We are entitled to know who was responsible for ignoring Government advice contained in the Nick Gurney letter of 18 August, why it was ignored, and what action should be taken to prevent such an event occurring again.
  That inquiry should go right to the top, because the whole ethos and practice of a health board is determined by its general manager. If he says that money comes first, to ingratiate themselves, those under him will naturally be keen to follow his philosophy. When that happens, cash always comes before care and money before medicine. It is

  575
  a practice that we have to stop, and I can think of nowhere better for initiating the process than in the Greater Glasgow health board.
  11.58 pm
  Mr. Thomas McAvoy rose—
  Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): Order. Do I understand that the Minister has agreed that there should be an intervention at this time?
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Forsyth): Yes, I have, Madam Deputy Speaker.
  Mr. McAvoy: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith) for allowing me some of his valuable time in this Adjournment debate. I also acknowledge and appreciate the Minister's co-operation.
  I associate myself with my hon. Friend's remarks about Greater Glasgow health board. I was one of the party of hon. Members at the meeting with the board and I confirm my hon. Friend's account. Along with everyone else, I welcome a relaxation of the board's intransigent attitude, but it is not negative to examine why this situation arose in the first place. I accept that it was always going to be a difficult exercise, but Greater Glasgow health board exacerbated a sensitive issue by inept handling.
  Rutherglen maternity hospital is situated in my constituency and many of my constituents are employed there in various capacities. All who work there are dedicated to their jobs and I can testify to the standard of service there as I am an expectant father. My first two sons, Thomas and Michael, were born in Bellshill maternity hospital, my third son in Calderbank and my fourth son, Brian, in Rutherglen. He is a true Ruglonian, having been born within the boundaries of the royal burgh of Rutherglen. So I am not speaking in the abstract about the hospital.
  When the regradings were issued, many of the midwifery sisters were graded F—despite the Gurney letter which specifically stated of sisters who work in delivery suites:
  "we would expect a significant proportion of such sisters to be graded G or above."
  The position has been largely rectified, with many midwifery sisters now graded G.
  I will never forget the distress of those sisters and their feeling of outrage. They felt that their whole worth was being questioned. No employer, never mind a health board employer. should drive employees to such a state of mind. It was disgraceful.
  There was also potential for division between people who take great pride in working harmoniously. Most of us believe that harmony and co-operation in a hospital staff is an essential ingredient in the standard of care provided. Without being vindictive, I suggest that any individual or organisation causing potential damage to the morale of such a key work force as nurses deserves the severest public stricture.
  I certainly have no desire to intervene in negotiations between work force and management, but I must alert the Minister to the position of those working at staff midwife grade at Rutherglen maternity hospital. Too many staff midwives have been graded E, despite the fact that they do the same sort of tasks as some sisters. That has not been
  576
  recognised and there is a need for more staff midwives at that hospital to be graded F. That will merely reflect the experience of those extremely valuable people.
  I strongly support my hon. Friend's call for a full inquiry into the running of Greater Glasgow health hoard with particular emphasis on its handling of the nurses.' regrading exercise. It is a public body, subject to public scrutiny, and it should be fully accountable to the public.
  12.2 am
  The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Forsyth): I am grateful that the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Mr. Galbraith) has given me this opportunity to put on record the substantial improvements in nurses' pay and conditions which have been introduced under this Government. This year's pay settlement is the highest the nursing profession has ever had. It is in marked contrast to the treatment nurses received under the policies of the Labour Government, when in the 1970s nurses' pay fell in real terms. In the five years between 1974 and 1979, Labour cut nurses' pay in four of them; in the financial year 1976–77, a real terms cut of over 10 per cent. was imposed, and over the period as a whole, nurses' pay fell in real terms by 21 per cent.
  Contrast those figures with what has happened since 1979. In this period, nurses' pay has gone up by 45 per cent. in real terms. In recognition of the special position of nurses, their dedication to patients and their stand against strike action, the Government set up an independent review body to determine their pay fairly and to ensure that their loyalty was not traded on or taken advantage of. The Government have accepted all five of the review body's awards and have funded over 90 per cent. of the cost of those awards. The current award—the biggest of all —has been funded in full, with an extra £1 billion of public money. That is an achievement matched by no previous Government and reflects the underlying strength of an economy which permits such massive investment in service to the public.
  Despite all the claims to the contrary, substantial pay increases have been awarded at every grade of nursing. For nursing auxiliaries going to the basic scale of the new structure, increases in the range of 7·6 to 9·5 per cent. have been awarded. These are substantial increases in real terms. Those auxiliaries whose jobs have merited the higher B grade will receive increases between 19·1 and 33·1 per cent., which in cash terms is between £1,120 and £1,510.
  Enrolled nurses have seen their pay and prospects improve out of all recognition. Those on scale C have received increases of 7·1 per cent. to 11·6 per cent., but almost half have gone to the higher grade of D, with increases of £1,450 to £1,775, taking them to a scale ranging from £8,025 to £9,200. A number have even attained grade E—
  Mr. Brian Wilson: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether the Minister was misinformed about the title of the Adjournment debate. He has been talking for about five minutes, and he has not mentioned the Greater Glasgow health board.
  Madam Deputy Speaker: That is a matter for debate.
  Mr. Forsyth: I shall be coming to the position of the health board. If the hon. Gentleman is representative of the courtesy that is shown by his party, I shall know in future not to be accommodating when his hon. Friends wish to contribute to Adjournment debates. I have given some of my time, and I am trying to cover the ground.
  The regrading exercise has not been confined to pay increases, important though those are. The new structure is the greatest change in the nursing profession since the National Health Service began. This change is something which the Royal College of Nursing acknowledges as having been needed these past 20 years. The previous structure had become archaic and no longer provided the career structure necessary to motivate nurses to remain on clinical work looking after patients. Nor did the old grades reward those with the most onerous duties and responsibilities.
  Mr. Galbraith: Did not the Minister listen to the debate?
  Mr. Forsyth: The hon. Gentleman asks whether I listened to the debate. I had the opportunity to read his speech earlier today, because he released it, with gross discourtesy to the House, without embargo to the press. It was covered in the newspapers in Scotland today. I have had every opportunity to study the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
  The new structure was born out of two and a half years of negotiations between unions and management, and painstaking analysis of job contents right across the clinical spectrum. In view of the many misleading comments of late in the media, I think that it is right to re-emphasise that the structure has been agreed nationally not only by the Royal Colleges of Nursing and Midwifery and by the Health Visitors' Association but by the trade unions, including COHSE and NUPE. However, COHSE and NUPE would appear to have failed to inform their members of what they had agreed to and to have used the disappointment and uncertainty among some to create an atmosphere of unhappiness and unrest.
  It is disappointing that the hon. Member and his party have not condemned the actions of COHSE and NUPE. We are dealing with a national agreement to which they were full parties, a pay structure recommended by an independent review body, and a regrading exercise for which there are established grievance procedures.
  Against that background, I turn to the grading outcome under the Greater Glasgow health board, to which the hon. Member for Strathkelvin and Bearsden has drawn attention. Throughout the regrading exercise, I have made it clear that individual nurse regradings are within the framework of the national agreement for health boards to decide and are not matters in which I would wish to intervene. I have kept to that policy. At no time, contrary to what the hon. Gentleman has asserted, have either I or the Scottish Home and Health Department issued directives to boards about the grading of particular posts; nor have any quotas been imposed. That extends also to finance. There has been no attempt to cap the award by limiting cash allocations. Managers were advised that money was not to be a determinant of grade. The fact that additional allocations had to be made to cover the cost of grades awarded proves that managers took this message to heart.
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  Greater Glasgow health board is the largest single employer of nurses in Great Britain. It had to regrade over 12,000 posts, in terms of whole-time equivalent, on a consistent basis, in its area while recognising that the grading outcome should reflect differences in working practices between hospitals and specialties. No mechanistic approach could be adopted, and, in common with every other health board in Scotland, Greater Glasgow assessed the posts of its nursing staff and evaluated their job contents against the grading criteria. The gradings which resulted, while producing a structure similar to those in other parts of the country, of necessity reflected local working practices.
  In the case of Greater Glasgow these included two significant factors influencing the grading of hospital sisters. The first of these was the fact that the board employed a greater than average number of senior nurses. This meant that the degree to which responsibility for ward management was delegated to sister level was probably less than in other parts of the country.
  Secondly, and more important, Glasgow had a significantly higher proportion of two-sister wards than any other board in Scotland. In these, the board felt unable genuinely to identify at 1 April which post was designated to be in charge, carry continuing responsibility and so merit the higher grade of G. I understand that 70 per cent. of Greater Glasgow's wards are staffed by two or more sisters.
  Not surprisingly, these factors resulted in Glasgow assimilating a higher proportion of its hospital sisters to grade F than other Scottish boards. As a result, its grading profile for assimilation of staff, while almost identical to that for Scotland as a whole in terms of the proportion of staff on grades A to E and H to I, showed a higher proportion of staff on grade F and a lower proportion on G than Scotland as a whole. In Scotland the percentage on F was expected to be 7 per cent., but for the Greater Glasgow health board it was 10 per cent., and for G, the proportion for Scotland was 13 per cent. and for the Greater Glasgow health board it was 9 per cent. These differences could, as I have already explained, be attributed to previous staffing practices. The hon. Member makes much of Greater Glasgow's apparent failure to apply management guidance on the use of the G2 classification. In fact, unfortunately for him, the majority of ward sisters assimilated to the G grade related to the use of G2.
  In turn, this meant that Greater Glasgow had to consider restructuring more posts than other boards so as to create a G post in each ward. I would emphasise that, by proceeding in this way, the board was sticking strictly to the terms of the national agreement to which COHSE and NUPE were parties. There was no question of the board attempting to restrict regradings artificially as at 1 April, and, by promoting people at a later date, to make savings from its allocation through not having to pay backdated arrears of salary.
  On 16 November, I met representatives, as the hon. Gentleman said, of the Royal Colleges of Nursing and of Midwives. They expressed three main areas of concern about Greater Glasgow's handling of the regrading exercise. They were not convinced that an award of grade F had been appropriate in a number of single-sister wards. They were concerned that large-scale restructuring of sister posts should not commence in advance of appeals being resolved. They felt that the initial review of cases in

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  which staff had notified an intention to appeal could be a hindrance to the swift processing of appeals unless general managers were involved and powers of decision delegated.
  These concerns were transmitted to officials of the Greater Glasgow health board by the Scottish Home and Health Department. As a consequence, board officials came to London so as to have the earliest possible meeting with the royal colleges. Following negotiations, the board made public its intention to review its policies on sister regrading and to award the grade of G as from 1 April to day sisters in single-sister wards. This has resulted in the proportion of staff on grade F reducing to 7 per cent. and those on grade G increasing to 12 per cent. These are almost identical to the Scottish proportions in these grades. So the hon. Gentleman's assertion that Greater Glasgow's result is out of line with the rest of Scotland is quite incorrect.
  Once restructuring is carried out, these proportions will become 5 per cent. and 14 per cent. respectively. While I recognise the crucial role of sisters, the fact is that the change which has brought Greater Glasgow's profile almost exactly into line with the national average affects about 200 posts out of the 12,000 or so regraded by Greater Glasgow. Less than half of these, agreed with the RCN and RCM, are additional G2 posts, of which the hon. Member has made so much.
  The board has also taken steps to ensure that its initial review of intentions to appeal can be conducted swiftly and that decisions can be taken at unit level through the involvement of general managers.
  The hon. Member for Glasgow, Rutherglen (Mr. McAvoy) asked me about midwives. They have done extremely well from regrading in Greater Glasgow and in the rest of Scotland. All staff midwives have, in both cases, gone immediately to the higher grades, with increases of 23 per cent. or more. In Greater Glasgow, I understand that about 140 midwives—78 per cent.—will have moved immediately to the higher grades with increases of 16 per cent. or more. In Scotland as a whole, the proportion going to the higher grades is again around three quarters.
  The nursing staff of Greater Glasgow health board has been treated equitably. Inevitably in an exercise of this scope and complexity, some mistakes are bound to have been made, but adequate appeals machinery is available to correct them. Throughout this exercise, Greater Glasgow has acted with care and has also demonstrated its
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  willingness to listen to responsible representations which, regretfully, have not come from the hon. Gentleman, and to react to them where appropriate. Equally, it has quite properly declined to deal with trade unions that have used industrial action as an instrument for putting pressure on management.
  Already, the Royal Colleges of Nursing and of Midwives and the board have agreed changes as a result of calm and objective discussion. The so-called dispute has been largely manufactured by COHSE and NUPE which have even put patients into the front line in their attempts to disrupt the board's management of its affairs. Had they behaved sensibly and not sought confrontation, their members' interests would have been much better served. The hon. Gentleman is therefore raking over old coals. I do not believe that he has the interests of the nursing profession in mind in doing so. Indeed, given the record of the Labour party in government and the 21 per cent. cut in pay which nurses suffered between 1974 and 1979, I can only assume that his motives are to stir up unrest deliberately at the very time when agreement is being reached in order to bury the past.
  The Government have, however, kept faith with the profession and have honoured their commitments to it. As I said at the beginning of my speech, the result is that pay has risen by 45 per cent. in real terms since 1979 and nurses have a career structure negotiated with the professional bodies and trade unions which represent them, which should serve them and the Health Service well in the future.
  Mr. Galbraith: The Minister failed to answer a number of points, and was his usual ideological and spiteful self. Can he tell us why the Greater Glasgow health board graded the sisters in operating suites on the F grade which is contrary to the Nick Gurney letter of 18 August? That was centrally discussed by the implementation group in the Minister's Department, yet Greater Glasgow health board ignored it. I asked about the number of double-sister wards in the health hoards, and he said that the information was not available centrally. It is nice that he has suddenly found the information for the Greater Glasgow health board. Can he tell us what it is for the rest of the country?
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes past Twelve o'clock.